How Mile-Ex launched (and lost) Montreal's warehouse pop explosion

From 2006 to 2016, Mile-Ex's DIY spaces launched Grimes, Mac DeMarco, TOPS, and one of Montreal's most productive music scenes. Then it was all killed off.

Max Honigmann

October 30, 2025- Read time: 11 min

Makeout Videotape at Zoobizarre, with Grimes, Sean Nicholas Savage, Cadence Weapon, and members of Braids, TOPS, and Blue Hawaii in the crowd.

Back in 2012, two very different things were top of mind for young Montrealers.

Student groups across the province had voted to strike, setting into motion a “Maple Spring” of mass demonstrations with oceans of defiant students flooding downtown streets.

At the same time, a McGill dropout named Claire Boucher—better known as Grimes—competed for their attention. Her third studio album, Visions, had dropped just two weeks before to rave reviews from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and the like.

While the politics of the province were being reshaped by the carrés rouges, a creative golden age was dawning in Montreal. Grimes had been catapulted into stardom, and the Mile-Ex sound was about to storm the world.

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