Southwest weirdos

>> The Pirates of the Lachine Canal
bring punk sounds to St-Henri

AHOY, MATEYS! Pirates of the Lachine Canal

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

The Time’s Up night at St-Henri’s no-frills Black Jack bar started innocently enough when friends Shaun Anderson, Lisa Ceccarelli, Larissa Hallis and Graeme Langdon grew weary of trekking out to the regular Plateau and Mile-End punk rock haunts. These St-Henri residents took inspiration from Casa del Popolo’s longstanding rock ’n’ roll Tuesday nights, dubbed themselves the Pirates of the Lachine Canal and started to spin records in their own postal code.

“I used to go to Black Jack to watch hockey on TV,” says Anderson. “We had the idea of having a night in St-Henri for awhile, but it took awhile to realize that the Black Jack would make just as good of a spot as any to start a weekly night.”

With the steady flow of students and other cash-strapped hipsters moving to the renter-friendly southwest district of the city, the time for Time’s Up was definitely ripe. In fact, their night has created such a buzz that Plateau and Mile-End residents routinely make the pilgrimage every Thursday night to escape the dreary “rock” nights of Plateau bars that cater to the quick buck of dancefloor claptrap and ironic ’80s tripe.

“I guess we were a little shocked to see so many people come to the night that weren’t living in the immediate area,” says Ceccarelli, “but we really worked hard to let people know about it, so I wasn’t that surprised to find out people were at least curious.”

A Time’s Up night will indeed satisfy the curious as it is set on an unassuming block of Notre-Dame near St-Henri metro, with regulars slumped against VLTs and spillovers from the neighbouring peeler joint slurping cheap drafts between lap dances as the makeshift sound system pours out “weird punk”—a term the Pirates coined for anything from the Wipers to Big Black to Halifax’s Be Bad. Guest DJs have included members of Born Dead Icons, Black Dice, AIDS Wolf, CPC Gangbangs, Hot Springs and many more.

With their night now a full-fledged success, the Pirates are ready to take it up a notch and start bringing shows to their bustling ’hood. “Ideally, it would be great if somebody opened their doors to a space where we could start doing shows, because the time is definitely right,” says Ceccarelli.

“There’s just a lot of people living in this area right now that really want to get something going,” adds Anderson. “I mean, why should the Plateau get all the fun?”