Also Cool Mag Turns Three!
Today marks our third solar return: Happy Birthday, Also Cool! Thank you for celebrating what has been our busiest and most gratifying year to-date; leading our team confidently into the next. We’re reflecting on all the opportunities and growth we’ve encountered this year, as a project and as people. We are immensely grateful for our supportive community, who remains at our side through it all. Though we’ve taken great strides in legitimizing our platform, our hearts will forever skip a beat when we meet you IRL and you express your admiration for what we do. Seriously, it means the world knowing that long video calls, the seemingly endless inbox overflow and missing our long-distance team while operating in two cities amounts to work that resonates.
Along with making Cult MTL’s Top 5 Magazines list for the third year in a row (thank you to everyone who voted for us, it’s an honour!), we’ve shared accomplishments and experiences that reinforce what comes of believing in ourselves and the creatives we strive to uplift.
Since this time last year, we’ve forged new relationships and, in turn, sparked exciting collaborations. We’ve expanded our hive, working alongside talented videographers, podcasters, photographers, as well as more writers and artists of various disciplines. Kicking-off with our holiday vendor market, we saw over 20 makers, DJs and 200+ visitors pile into a modest studio space and transform it into a buzzing hub. From there, Holly joined our core team and brought us down the rabbit hole of independent theatre production. We also launched the second season of our podcast, Also Cool Sounds Like, where hosts Aviva and Gwen intimately profile innovators in Montreal’s music scene.
On the editorial front, we introduced a seasonal Book Review Roundup column by author Alanna Why, explored the cultural significance of balaclavas with textile enthusiast Alison Margaret B. Moule, presented Michayla Grbich’s visual history of Fleetwood Mac, dove into the minds of comedian Cara Connors, designer, theatre-maker and director Sophie El Assaad and much, much more!
Though we’ve maintained this ambitious project as a labour of love, there are real operational costs that come with running a publication, event series, radio show, podcast and more. We decided to revamp our Patreon as one strategy to keep ourselves afloat while getting crafty with our content creation.
As usual, we found ourselves covering tons of music, which inspired our Playlist Refresh series. Speaking of music, we built our website’s Listen section to house our radio show archives from N10.AS and FSR, along with our podcast episodes.
With the return of live programming, we’ve jumped back into our favourite Montreal venues to host several shows, including: Oddysseys, Last Waltzon, Glambat & Laura Krieg at Bar le Ritz; a disco night at le Système with Sperdakos, Transpacific Express and oren.wav; Shadow Show, Debate Club and Lola 1:2 at Casa del Popolo with our friends from Analogue Addiction, and, most recently; a dance party with Mollygum, JU!CE and digitalpolyglot at Bar le Ritz.
To round off this year, we’ve been keeping ourselves busy with the bustling festival season, traveling to Rouyn-Noranda for FME and this year’s POP Montreal.
Looking ahead, what’s next for Also Cool? Well, we can’t get enough of programming live events, so expect more of that in both Montreal and Ottawa. Without spoiling too much… We can say another podcast season is underway (possibly with a multi-media addition!), our online presence is moving onto Discord and we’ve got a handful of essay ideas on the brain that we’re hoping to unveil in-between every newsletter, meme dump and TikTok video.
In closing, thank you all for making dreams come true. You rock, don’t ever change. Happy Birthday to everyone a part of the Also Cool universe!
