Peterborough has long been building its reputation as an art and music scene. Now two Trent students and local musicians, Laura Klinduch and Natalie Resimes (members of local band ‘Watershed Hour’), along with Jake Ryan, are helping to celebrate that with a four-day, multi-venue music festival downtown running from March 26 to March 29.
The festival, called Not Quite, will feature approximately 18 acts with about two thirds of them being local.
“We wanted to connect the Trent community with the downtown community and in particular the local arts scene.” Resimes then follows “For me it was about connecting the Peterborough scene with all the other Ontario music scenes,” says Klinduch.
The festival starts on Thursday, March 26 at Sadleir House with Catriona Sturton of the influential East-Coast indie band Plumtree. Sturton will also be hosting a harmonica workshop as part of the festival’s events.
After the opening night, the fest will continue with shows at The Spill, The Garnet, The Red Dog, and Pig’s Ear Tavern before winding down to a Sunday evening vegan chilli cookout at Curated, an art gallery on Simcoe St, which will feature local solo performer Nick Ferrio.
The line-up of visitors from outside of Peterborough includes Nihilism Spasm Band (the oldest still active noise rock band, who came to prominence by opening for bands like Sonic Youth), Moonking, Soupcans, Badminton Racquet, and Catriona Sturton.
Local acts include Watershed Hour, The Lonely Parade, Slowly, Slowly, The Beef Boys, Musgrave Ritual, The White Crowleys and Nick Ferrio. More bands are going to be announced throughout March.
Klinduch and Resimes, who often book shows for their own band locally, describe their booking strategy as such: “They’re bands that have their own followings and are a bit bigger than we would normally book and the festival provided us with the opportunity to do that.”
Resimes adds, “We felt that Peterborough gets played a lot when a band first starts, but once they start getting bigger, it gets passed over for places like Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Guelph and other bigger cities.”
The name ‘Not Quite’, is itself a reference to Peterborough often being relegated to the status of being ‘Not Quite Toronto, Not Quite Ottawa’.
The festival will also be a ‘safe-space’ environment, says Resimes. “We were partly inspired by the ‘Not Enough’ festival, which is a safe space festival. That festival is a bit more Queer and Feminist-oriented and we’re not doing that exactly, but we want to support the spirit of that festival,” adding, “We want our mandate to be anti-oppressive, as we believe that all fests should be anti-oppressive, and that’s something we wanted to maintain.”
Each separate event is going to be priced separately, however festival goers can save up to half the cost of attending each one with a $20 dollar festival pass, $15 for underagers.
Says Klinduch, “We want to make sure that each night has at least one show open for people under the drinking age because there aren’t often a lot of opportunities for people under 19 to see really cool bands.”
“I will also be offering 30 minute drum lessons to everyone who buys a pass,” Klinduch adds, “I’m looking for ways to give the pass some added value.
For more info and tickets to the Not Quite music festival email notquiteptbo@gmail.com or check out the Facebook event.