I guess I wasn’t really an opponent of the actual core of Torontopian values… I certainly don’t oppose communitarianism, especially for larger cities. I guess I just think if it leads to insularity and irritating cliquey-ness… If one micro-community becomes the face of Torontopianism that’s when I think it’s an issue.

Myspace doesn’t really have that. It’s too broad. I don’t really think of things as being Myspace bands. I think of bands that I like on Myspace, and then the stuff I don’t.

That’s one of the great things about it is that what label your on is becoming increasingly less relevant. It’s more about the music (in my opinion)

It can also serve, for bands as almost like a business card. It’s concise, compact and easy to navigate. At times I think they’re almost more useful than having a website.

Carl, I agree that playing live can teach writers and players about how their stuff is working, but recording-making and playing live are separate arts.

I don’t think the parallel is entirely wrong, in that Hajdu was talking about the same *kind* of in-group within MySpace that those people are talking about within Toronto. He didn’t seem to be looking at the whole spectrum.

But you’re right, MySpace is more diverse, as a function of its size and the fact that it takes no interaction to join it. Its whole range is probably more like a city than a scene. But I’d guess (though I haven’t researched it) that MySpace is equally self-segregating, divided into “friends” groupings that do not meet across styles, cultures, sensibilities very often. Even where they do meet, again, it’s far easier to click your way to integration than to live it.

hajdu ham-handedly implies that bands like fallout boy are popular because kids on myspace are more interested in interacting with them and their fans than listening to them, which is a laughable assertion — if blink 182 became huge, why not fallout boy? besides, socializing is a factor in the popularity of all bands, not just the ones who’ve gotten label deals through myspace. but where the comparison to torontopia (i’m going to keep using the word because i can’t think of a substitute) falls down is that myspace is incredibly diverse, while torontopia is a very narrow slice of the things going on in this city.

like Hajdu with MySpace, the temptation for torontopia-haters is to assume that because they don’t like the bands falling under that banner, the scene around those bands must be propping them up, when in truth the scene is based around bands of a certain style that not everybody is going to like.

my critique of torontopia (gonna call it that because i can’t think of anything else) is that it isn’t nearly as open as you’d allege, because if you don’t like the kind of bands who play at those venues, it’s tough to be a part of the scene. really, you’re never going to see rappers or latin bands or whatever at those shows. The Boat and The Bagel and Wavelength are great, and so is DIY-ness. but it’s frustrating that those initiatives have the power to draw tons of people, possibly because of their narrowness of focus, yet someone who can’t stand most of the music feels utterly isolated by it.

same with torontopia’s non-musical aspects. i am loath to criticize something that brings people together in activism or intellectual pursuits, but again, it’s tough when other causes that are equally worthy struggle to find a constituency because they’re not connected to the right cultural currents, musical or otherwise.

a person in this city can, and i suspect many of them do, spend their entire cultural life within the confines of torontopia-affiliated projects, but because it’s so focused around a specific taste usually kin to people of similar cultural backgrounds, i’d say that cultural life would be a pretty narrow and limited one. not that torontopia was ever intended to form a complete cultural diet — my point is that although it’s great that these things are being done, and done with a sense of pride, no less (a feat in itself), many many people in this city are being left out. and it could be made more diverse, but the people putting on these events generally throw up their hands and say that it’s not their responsibility. ok, it’s not, but then you have to suffer the slings and arrows of those who rightly accuse you of being insular.