Well, all the Ts have been crossed and the Is have been dotted. I’ve been working as a publicist for NXNE since March and I just sent out my last press release today. What a cool experience it has been.

It started out kind of slowly, just compiling contact lists of media from around the world but it ended with me hanging out with Tom Verlaine and Stewart Copeland. Also got to meet Steve Diggle from Buzzcocks.

The ball really got rolling on Wednesday, June 7, when I met with Toronto Mayor David Miller and brought him out for our Nathan Phillips Square event. We had a couple of bands play a free noon-hour concert at city hall, and the mayor came out to say a few words about the festival. He’s a pretty nice guy and very sharp.

Later that evening, I went to the NXNE opening party at the Palais Royale. The old Toronto landmark has just been re-opened and it was really beautiful. It was a great night, with over 1,000 people in attendance, including several rock bands and other celebrities. Just sat on the patio outside, which is on the water, and soaked it all in.

On Thursday, I had to head over to the Holiday Inn for media registration. There were a few headaches with people saying they had been approved for media accreditation but we didn’t have a record of them. Anyway it all worked out and other than that everything was cool. I just spent the day setting up interviews for various media and hanging out with people.

On Friday, Television came into town to perform at the Phoenix, and Tom Verlaine was slated for a celebrity interview. He and I hung out back of the Holiday Inn for a bit and had a smoke together. He’s nice, but kind of quiet and shy. But I had seen Television in Tokyo a few years back so we talked about that show, and how he likes playing in Japan because the audiences are very respectful. He also talked about experiences that The Beatles and David Bowie had while playing there.

On Friday night, I went to the Phoenix and shot photos of the performance for the festival. After Television, went and caught a couple of other bands, including El Dog from Glasgow; they got a mediocre review in some local media, but I thought they were pretty good.

On Saturday my job was to handle all the media that were slated for interviews with Stewart Copeland, which was cool cause I got to hang out a lot with Stewart. He’s a down-to-earth guy, very bright and funny. We talked about all the places he’d been in the world but how he hadn’t really gotten to see much of them because he was always on tour. He said he had been to Toronto before but had only experienced it from hotel rooms. We also shared a smoke and shot the shit. Apparently he’s a fan of Big Love; it’s a show on HBO. Do you know it?

On Saturday night it was off to the Buzzcocks to shoot them, and then afterwards whisked Stewart over to the Royal Cinema for the Canadian debut of his documentary about the Police, “Everybody Stares: The Police Inside Out.” People were lined up outside, it was very cool and everyone was really excited that he was there in the flesh. After that, I hooked up with some friends and we caught a couple of shows.

If you haven’t been to NXNE, you really have to go next year. It’s a great event. Well, see ya!






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