Inside Double Lunch's 'band hotel' for touring musicians

Emily Bachynski spent a decade touring with her band Bad Buddy, and she remembers the exhaustion.

"Sometimes the only time alone you get on tour is in the bathroom," she told Taproot Edmonton. "To have this space that I've wanted to be a hub for artists for my entire career — I just value it so highly."

So she opened her huge house near the University of Alberta in Windsor Park as a "band hotel." It's part of a broader ecosystem of music industry resources that Double Lunch, the live-music company she works with, has been quietly building across Canada.

When Vancouver band Concrete Vehicles performed at the Purple City Music Festival announcement party on May 22, Bachynski hosted them. They got private space, basic groceries, the dignity of a closed door and a bed — luxuries that touring musicians chronically lack.

"There is agency," Bachynski said of the setup. "You don't have to all be doing something as a group, because you only have this one method of transportation. You're trapped together so often."

The house also functions as a recording studio, video space, and jam room. It's a tangible example of what Double Lunch co-founder Craig Martell describes as the company's new direction: moving beyond just promoting shows.

"We don't want to grow as a show promoter," Martell said. "We want to be doing only the things we think are very cool, only things that we do well. And beyond that, we all have so much expertise in varying sides of the music industry. How do we make something happen?"

Martell joined forces with Bachynski, Mike Wilson, Raine Radtke, and Zach Hofer this year. Since then, they've launched an Edmonton music listings page, a Canada-wide directory of music festivals, and comprehensive guides to grant funding for both artists and industry members.

They also amplify Trickle Down Music, a directory of practical knowledge covering everything from campus radio submission to SOCAN registration — the unglamorous but essential infrastructure that aspiring musicians need.

"When you start to take your music seriously and build a band, it very quickly becomes a small business," Bachynski said. "Learning how to keep track of accounting, how to book a tour, how to pay people — a lot of people feel like if they share these trade secrets it's going to become too..."

But the opposite is true in Edmonton right now. The city's music community is choosing collaboration over gatekeeping, and Double Lunch is building the scaffolding to make it work.