This Friday, local show promoter Fuckpop, run by sisters Sara and Emma Bortolon-Vettor, presents Anamai, Brigitte Bardon’t, and Natural Thirst. Long-running experimental music festival Electric Eclectics co-presents the show — this is FPOP and EE’s first shared bill. We spoke to Sara Bortolon-Vettor about her relationship with Electric Eclectics and why she puts on the shows she does.
Brady Patterson: How did Fuckpop meet Electric Eclectics?
Sara Bortolon-Vettor: My sister and I, we’re FPOP and Chris Worden runs the EE festival. Natural Thirst is Chris Worden’s project primarily and Emma and I support him. It’s kind of a switch around for Bonnie Trash [which] is Emma and I’s project, with Chris playing bass. So yeah, we’re sort of this group of friends coming together and playing music and supporting each other. We are all kind of weird and into the same things — horror films, good music, and food (laughter) and cats. Yeah, so that’s how we came together!
BP: Is this the first show that you have worked together to promote?
SBV: So this is the first show for FPOP and EE coming together. Of course, FPOP has been around for about two years doing shows in Guelph and EE has been around for 10 plus years. This upcoming year is the 13th year for the EE festival. The reason why we mesh well together is the fact that we like to put on shows featuring artists that wouldn’t necessarily be booked or aren’t necessarily highlighted in other festivals or venues
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BP: How much of that was intentional and built into the vision of the groups and how much of that just came from your own oddball natures?
SBV: Yeah so … we both, I think, are doing the same thing, but EE is legendary, like that festival is absolutely fantastic. We got inspiration from EE to do something like their [festival], but in a smaller show format in Guelph. The reason why we are showcasing Anamai and Brigitte Bardon’t in comparison to the next pop rock or noise rock or like punk group is that they’re both very experimental artists. I think [they’re] important for people to see because it’s not only, you know, music-oriented, but also a feeling…. You get a feeling from Kristel [Jax, who performs as Brigitte Bardon’t] when she performs, and there’s a visual element as well.
BP: What drove your transformation from artist to promoter?
SBV: It comes kind of hand-in-hand, right? As a musician in Guelph, my sister and I felt some sort of duty to put on shows that were just a little bit different than the average show. For instance, last winter we actually booked Silence and we ran a two-night run of a one-act play by a drag artist. That was produced by FPOP, and it was a play! We put on a theatrical performance, we completely produced that for the drag artist Pearle Harbour — she’s absolutely fantastic, she just won a bunch of awards in NOW Magazine for her latest one-act play that just showcased at Summerworks.
At one of [our] other shows, about a year ago or so, Emma actually — I don’t even know if you can do this — who cares, whatever, fuck it: she ordered a couple pizzas to the Jazz and was like: “You know what, this is going to be a pizza party. You’re going to see a fucking band and you’re also going to eat pizza — everyone is hungry, probably poor and broke, so screw it. This is a free venue, let’s feed everyone, let’s make people happy. So that’s one approach, and the other approach is creating a sort of variety night where you could have a drag artist and a band performing on the same bill, and we’ve done that in the past as well.
I know the root question you asked was “why did you go from artist to promoter?” Honestly, the simple answer is that a bunch of our friends are also artists and we wanted to make sure that they could also play in Guelph. (Laughter.) That’s about it: friends helping each other out and getting these weirdo experimental musicians and performing artists some sort of platform to showcase their art.
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BP: What can you tell us about the upcoming show?
SBV: This upcoming show is a bit more … conventional in the way that we are booking musical acts. But they’re different in the sense that they are really showcasing performance art. You have to be there in order to actually fully experience the theses and the feelings that are expressed [in] these performances.
It’s one thing to put on your headphones and listen to a record in your room, and that’s great, but what can artists bring or what can we see visually that is going to be different than just us closing our eyes and listening to a record? I think that’s becoming more and more prominent now than ever, but also we could just talk about pop music throughout the decades and this would be like a three-hour conversation about performance art. I think to differentiate and really stand out nowadays in art and music you have to have some sort of performative element. Anamai is a dancer and the set that I saw at EE incorporated dancers with her music, and that was spectacular.
Photo by Alora Griffiths/The Ontarion.