SHOWCASE FOR LOCAL MUSIC
Showbox concert series kicks off
Matías Muñoz moved to Ottawa almost 10 years ago, planning to work for the federal government. Instead, he was lured away from his cubicle by the city’s live music scene, and is now one of its biggest champions, with a thriving website, Ottawa Showbox, and a new concert series launching on Saturday to showcase homegrown talent.
The first concert is a triple bill at St. Alban’s Church featuring the sweet-voiced Ottawa singersongwriter Claude Munson with his band, along with Ottawa native John Aaron Cockburn and Little Suns, who are celebrating the release of a digital EP, Zero. The program also features an opening set by mal/aimé, an experimental chamber group formed as a side project by members of Ottawa’s Pony Girl.
“The vision is to capitalize on the music activity that’s happening in Ottawa,” Muñoz says of the new quarterly series. “A lot of the emerging underground artists making music in town need a bigger stage to be heard, and we want to celebrate the established artists. We also want to give concertgoers a new experience.”
The new experience includes visuals such as video projections, as well as extras such as a pop-up vintage store.
“I’ve always enjoyed live music, not just as a one-dimensional thing,” Muñoz says. “I find it’s better when it’s experienced as a total package of a lot of different things, so it’s going to be everything that I love about Ottawa music, and beyond.”
One of his favourite local artists is Munson. The son of Sen. Jim Munson, a former journalist, the 29-year-old Munson was born in Beijing and spent part of his childhood in Halifax before moving to Ottawa, where he took up guitar in sixth grade and songwriting by ninth grade.
“I started singing in front of people and playing campfire songs, and realized I wasn’t very good at playing other people’s music,” says the endearingly tousled musician, who showed up to a video shoot this week with mismatched socks and messy hair. “So I started writing my own stuff.”
He’s planning to release his second studio album, a followup to 2012’s Claude Munson and the Storm Outside, next spring. A gifted singer who bears the influence of classic artists like Paul Simon and Van Morrison, Munson says songwriting is like therapy for him.
“I think I’m trying to better myself through my music,” Munson says. “Every time I feel sh—, I pick up my guitar and sing about it, and I feel really good. My songs are mostly stories of my life, but I have a big imagination and I mix stories together to say something. And yeah, relationships are definitely part of that.”
Muñoz, on the other hand, grew up in London, Ont., where he kept himself busy with his studies and never really explored that city’s music scene. Armed with a master’s in political science, he made his way to Ottawa after university.
To his surprise, he found the nation’s capital teeming with festivals and, if you knew where to look, live music.
“So many festivals; it was a shock to the system a little bit,” Muñoz recalls. “I remember seeing Attack in Black at Maverick’s and going to Bluesfest and seeing the Acorn. There’s the punk scene, and all these little venues with pockets of people doing shows. I realized there’s so much happening here. It was something I had to get involved with.”
After a year spent travelling, he returned to Ottawa and founded Showbox in 2012.
“My whole goal was to start a music website to connect the public with the music scene,” he says. “I think we’ve fulfilled that goal and we continue to write about music, do interviews with bands and expose new albums that come out.”
Showbox, now a not-for-profit organization, has a dedicated readership and has booked plenty of shows in recent years, but the new series aims to expand the circle of concertgoers in the city.
“We want to expand that sphere of people who are engaged and actually come out and participate,” Muñoz says.
With Ottawa strategizing on how to transform itself into a music city in the coming years, he believes the timing is right for Showbox to make a difference.
“As a grassroots connection to the music scene, we see ourselves being a huge part of that. We’re well-placed to help increase participation in the music scene, and give people a reason to come out,” he says. “I genuinely believe that if people hear Claude or see him perform, they will become fans. I’ve always taken that approach to the music we promote and write about: It really does speak for itself.”