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“Guys? I’m Pretty Sure Montreal Is Over That Way ...” | The City Streets are looking forward to starting over in Montreal ... assuming they can find it.

THE CITY STREETS
w/ Slate, Cocaine Eyes, Surgeons of the Night, Garret Craigs and Whiskey Face. The Pawn Shop (10551 Whyte Ave). Fri, July 31. Tickets: $10, available at Blackbyrd and Listen.

It looks like the end of the Edmonton road for The City Streets. One of the hardest-working, hardest-touring, and hardest-partying bands Edmonton has ever seen is looking to leave their Alberta locale for the diverse and culturally fecund fields of French Canada. In August, guitarist/vocalist Rick Reid and bassist/vocalist Matt Leddy will start the band’s exodus to Montreal, with drummer Mark Chmilar joining them in six months.

Now, anyone who has lived in Edmonton and has any sort of connection to the music scene knows that this is nothing out of the ordinary; bands move to Montreal/Vancouver/Toronto all the time. But rarely does a band that is so ensconced in Edmonton’s music scene, a band that seems to embrace and embody the best of all that Edmonton has to offer, leave for the seemingly more promising scenes of bigger cities.

The City Streets, even a week before their last show, were in Vancouver recording and mixing their third album, the full-length follow-up to the critically acclaimed and skilfully distilled Concentrated Living. Speaking to singer/guitarist Rick Reid about the move sheds some light on why such an Edmonton success story would want to pack up and move.

“Through all of our travels,” Reid says, “we discovered that we really love Montreal. Also, we tour a lot, so moving out there is going to be a lot easier to do those tours. Going through southern Ontario and even out east and New York will be a lot easier.

“Also, I’m married and I have a daughter, so I don’t like being away on the road for long stretches. I mean, it’s worked out so far, but it’s kind of a career choice and half a personal choice for all of us. I mean, we were all born and raised in Edmonton, so we figured why not give this a go? I love the city, I love the nightlife, I love the culture. I don’t know any French, so I’ll have to learn French, and that’ll be a good thing. It’s good to challenge yourself.”

The City Streets’ departure is sure to have an effect on the local scene. Their sound — a blend of the working-class rock of The Replacements and Bruce Springsteen, the thinking man’s punk of The Clash, with some countrified-folk influences thrown in for good measure — will be sorely missed, naturally. But The City Streets stood for more than just a sound. This is a band that’s shown it’s possible to create success from the bottom up; it’s possible to leave Edmonton for months out of every year and complete

successful, story-filled tours that you’ve booked yourself; it’s possible to be from Edmonton but work so hard that your name and reputation are known all over North America. So, aside from change, what does Montreal offer that can’t be had in Edmonton?

“Montreal’s kind of the heart of the music scene in Canada,” Reid replies. “For better or worse, it’s all happening in Montreal and Toronto. We don’t have a huge wealth of contacts in Montreal compared to Toronto, but that’s why we’re going to Montreal — it’s because we prefer the city, it’s not just for the band. It’s not like we’re going out there to make it, but the two go hand in hand. It’s a good music scene and we’re touring musicians and felt it was time to move — it’s a mixture of all of those things.”

For these hometown boys, there’s gotta be stuff they’re going to miss, things they’ve never encountered anywhere else in all their world travels. “Edmonton’s music scene has had its ups and downs, but people are all very friendly and always help each other out with shows, and friends’ bands play on each other’s bills. Everyone plays on each other’s records — that kind of brotherhood is very unique. In other cities, there’s a lot of competition and dividing into niche themes. And there is an arrogance to Toronto’s music scene — like, if you’re from the West, you’re already fighting an uphill battle out there. I mean, there’s a million of great bands from Toronto, but I’m not down with that kind of snobbery. What I won’t miss is the winters, but I guess Montreal’s aren’t much better.”

Reid describes the final City Streets show as their small, humble Edmonton version of The Last Waltz. Edmonton rock fans will certainly be lining up to pay their respects, but Reid hopes those goodbyes won’t be final. “When I think of the future,” he says, “nothing pops up. I’m not ruling out that I’ll never move back to Edmonton, but I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know if I’ll be in Montreal after our year lease is up, but I’m not ruling anything out.”