When a teenage Peggy Hogan was growing up in Victoria, she admired Montreal bands like The Unicorns, The Dears and Stars. By moving to the city as a fresh-faced 17-year-old to study jazz at Concordia University in 2007, the young musician hoped to join the artistic community of her idols.
She has fond memories of that era of creative flourishing. “I kind of very quickly realized [that] this community is tight and thriving,” she remembers. “It was much easier to meet these [musicians] and start playing with them.”
During her early twenties, Hogan could make rent with a few $200 gigs and spend the rest of her time working on her craft as recording artist Hua Li 化力.
But those glory days are gone. With increasingly unaffordable rent and noise complaints shutting down beloved cultural institutions, it’s getting harder for Montreal’s iconic DIY music scene—defined by avant-garde, experimental sounds and indie venues where artists like Grimes got their start—to thrive.
“I think we need to start normalizing the idea that a lot of artists, and musicians especially, that we see as very successful in the indie world actually do work outside of music, and that's okay... It does not mean that you are a failure as an artist.”
How can Montreal’s music scene retain its edge?
Hogan worries that this state of affairs will precipitate a decline in the number of racialized artists like herself—who are from a non-affluent immigrant background—and contribute to even less representation.
“The only way that I was able to leave my lower middle class, immigrant family and come to Montreal and have a viable career in the arts was because things just were not that expensive,” she says.
The musician, now a label manager for Outside Music, also worries the DIY scene will lose its edge in an era where she feels musicians’ financial success heavily depends on making an impact with TikTok algorithms and streaming platform statistics. Hogan fears that those online metrics will push musicians to dilute their art to appeal to the mainstream instead of creating more transgressive offerings.
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