NXNE is my favourite time of the year. It's like a holiday full of celebration and free stuff. The NXNE mascot is a demented bunny so I guess the holiday is Easter.

Lo, as the Great Bunny died, he spake: "Rejoice, my followers for I will return, and you will all live forever in my kingdom of indie music." And his followers did. For 5 days and 5 nights they celebrated with over 450 bands, 25 films, and 30 conferences. On the fifth night, the Great Bunny returned as he predicted, and gathered his followers again, saying: "Go forth and tell what you have seen here." And the news of NXNE spread to the four corners of the earth.

It's kind of like that.

The editors of Squid & Ink used the same criteria we used last year for determining which artists we'd see: how much we liked the name. And it worked prettly well. We enjoyed the vast majority of the artists we saw. The few times we were disappointed with an awesomely named artist, we just went next door and discovered another great artist.

Our new thing was that we ambushed artists and fans with Squid & Ink stuffed squid. The first issue might not be ready until later this summer but at least we have a gimmick.

If you see a photo of yourself here, email us with your name, the name of your band, if any, and your mailing address and we'll send you a custom stuffed squid. If you think you belong here, feel free to stalk us until we photograph you. Evidently, we spend a lot of time ambushing artists in Lee's Palace so you could start there.


THURSDAY


The first artist we ambushed was Kathleen Edwards backstage of Lee's Palace. To get backstage we waved our press passes at, well, no one, which was fortunate because I don't think our passes would've done much good. But Kathleen Edwards was friendly and struck a great pose.


While leaving Lee's Palace we ran into Ryan Guldemond of Mother Mother in the crowd. He did agree to our photos but he seems to be holding Bowie Squid a little too hard.


The Ketch Harbour Wolves. I was captivated as soon as I heard the electric cello. But I'm a sucker for bands with unusual instruments, especially of the stringed variety.


Wasn't there a sixth member...?


There he is. The keyboardist had wandered off but he wandered back in time for the second photo.


ACROBAT's NXNE bio says: "They seem more concerned about writing good songs, rather than being all cool and shit, which is cool and shit". We found that to be true for Jay Hopkins, the guitarist, and Marek Michalski, the drummer. The singer and bassist, however, just gave us weird looks and walked away in what I could only describe as a pretentious huff. Since half the band is cool we suggest you pick up half their newest album.

Friday


Ok City Ok. I'm getting mixed messages here.


Fans at the Ok City Ok show. At least the Japanese like us.


NXNEr Erika likes S&I squid too.


The City Streets


The Kill Devil Hills. A six piece band of Australian cowboys who play a fiddle and a mandolin. Need I say more?






Martha, our friendly waitress who managed to understand us through our 4am slurred mumbling. You can see Sophocles the squid wearing my press pass.

SATURDAY




Beth in Battle Mode. On their website you'll see they've drawn robots in the same style as editor Beth Bennett draws her robots. This requires further investigation . . .


All NXNErs like squid. Or at least Lindsay and Sandra do too.


Christopher Rees. He played two shows at NXNE. At the second show he asked for requests from any audience members who saw him earlier, and he didn't even get annoyed when we kept requesting Mary Lee.




I think this is my favourite photo of the night. A NXNE photographer trying to take her own photo with Duncan the squid. I'd like to see how well that photo turned out.


Krista Loewen of You Say Party! We Say Die!


Duncan's a charmer.


Urge Overkill


We ran into Dave Foley in the Urge Overkill crowd. I love his expression as he realizes that when Lissa asked if she could take a photo with him, she meant him and Duncan the squid.


Backstage was crawling with one NXNE security guard, so we didn't try to sneak past. Fortunately, several band members were having a smoke in the alley behind Lee's Palace so we chatted with them there.


We didn't manage to get any shots of Urge Overkill with the squid, but Erin C is a huge fan of theirs and they kindly got their photos taken with her.



I wrote this entirely from memory so let me know if I misspelled your name — or worse, got it completely wrong.

I have lots of stories to tell but I'll do it in my preferred medium: comics. Check this space over the next few days because I'll be posting the comics as the artists draw them.