Fluorescent ascent

>> As their ninth anniversary arrives, Montreal party kingpins Neon talk about surviving
the cycle of trends that spin the
world of dance music

NINE LIVES: Neon’s Hatz (L), Dallegret and Dillon

by JACK OATMON

You can’t swing a baseball bat without hitting some dead horse whinnying about the industry meltdown that the corporate element of the recording world is facing. But as those chickens come home to roost, the debate still bears great relevance back down here on planet Earth, where ground-level promoters and programmers, not just record execs and rock stars, are grappling with the challenges of the digital age.

The Neon party-production crew is Montreal’s electro darling, having risen up tooth and nail from a cozy little club night nine years ago to become the behemoth they currently are, booking only the most exciting upcoming names in dance music and consistently throwing some of the craziest parties in town. Not only that, but they’ve just completed a two-year contract organizing the programming at Société des Arts Technologiques.

They’ve seen the beast from one end to the other, so who better to grill about the booker’s experience of post-millennial promotional headaches and boons? Neon’s core team—John Hatz, Mark Dillon and Justin Dallegret—assembled in the basement bowels of the SAT to discuss the good, bad and ugly of events programming.

Mirror: What’s happening right now with venues and clubs?

John Hatz: The power has shifted from the club owners to the promoters. Being promoters, that gives us the opportunity to call some shots. And there aren’t really consistent nightclubs right now. Everything’s concert halls. But I think it’s cyclical and it goes from one to the other. Concert halls offer a unique perspective in being hubs that don’t have to be planted in a specific musical genre, so they can do a lot more than a nightclub can. They can throw a rap party on Friday and do a house party on Saturday without identifying with any style specifically, whereas a nightclub gets branded pretty quick.

Mark Dillon: I agree that everything goes in cycles. Years ago, the afterhours scene was huge, and supper clubs too for a while. People would just stay at the restaurant until the very end and then go to an afterhours. But now supper clubs and afterhours are taking a dive, so bars are making a big comeback. Bars are also taking on the nightclub feel.

Justin Dallegret: It feels like we’re at the end of the cycle. Everything is a reaction. Neon was a reaction to what was going on at the time, raves were a reaction to the music being played at house parties. People wanted things a little harder, so raves started. Then Neon started doing things in reaction to clubs. Like, let’s get out of the club and away from the boring music being played there.

JH: Every time that cycle repeats, there’s a new element added that makes it unpredictable. Like the Internet culture, which now puts a whole different spin on promotion. People discover things faster than they used to, so everything comes in and out a lot quicker.

Wrong places, right time

M: Perhaps that whole idea of a bar being treated like a nightclub speaks to the culture of young people now who want everything to happen in a way it’s not supposed to—everything’s a hybrid. They want to party like it was a nightclub at the bar, and they don’t want to just hear indie rock or techno, they want some other thing that’s in between.

MD: iPod culture. You’ve got hundreds of different styles on one machine. You just press play or random, and it’s more that house-party vibe where people are up for whatever.

JH: Eight, nine, 10 years ago, you were a drum & bass DJ or a rock DJ or a house DJ or a techno DJ or a minimal techno DJ. There were a lot of subdivisions. It was exciting for a while because the genres’ limitations went away. But now the hybrid has become the standard.

M: With things coming and going so quickly, how does that affect you on the booking end of things?

MD: It’s interesting. You fight for years through the ups and downs to build artists, take risks on artists that nobody has any idea about and you want to bring up a certain sound. And it’s a sound you believe in. Then all of a sudden you get there and it’s time for payback—now you have access to the bigger names. But now everybody’s getting assaulted with the names you take chances on. You get hip hop producers with the same exact booking opportunities we get because the agents are just spamming everything and anything. They’ve got a huge mailing list and they just press send without doing their homework. So I have guys calling me up going, “Hey, who’s this DJ Hell?”

JH: This is how Mylo ended up at Beach Club last year.

MD: Or M.A.N.D.Y. at Tribe. It just doesn’t make sense. Now you’re competing against the guy who does hip hop, or who two days ago used to do trance. Maybe yesterday he had Paul Van Dyk or Tiesto, and today he’s doing Boys Noize.

JH: Or a lot of the old-generation house promoters are running to the end of their road and have nothing left to do, so they’re like, “Yeah, I gotta get on this electro shit.” So now it’s a war to keep your artists in your venue, not only so you can work with them but so that they can be introduced to the right market and the right people—people who actually want to see them.

As an aside, on the subject of the weather-related Moby fiasco two weeks ago, I asked the Neon guys to respond to the inevitable complaints caused by Moby’s late arrival and shortened set during the gargantuan snowstorm. Happily, after three days of answering e-mails and responding to phone calls, as well as no small amount of bargaining with agents, Neon have bent over backwards to book another Moby event, which will be free of charge to everyone who bought tickets to the first show. Location and date are TBA, so keep your eyes peeled.

Neon’s ninth-anniversary events include
Chromeo and Let’s Go to War at le National tonight,
Thursday, March 20, 9 p.m., $18.50;
MSTRKRFT and Boys Noize at Metropolis on
Saturday, March 22, 9 p.m., $27; Crystal Castles
and Health at le Studio on Thursday, March 27,
9 p.m., $17. For more info, go to www.iloveneon.ca

Late-night luminaries

>> Late-night luminaries

As should be expected of a group that concocts celebrations for a living, Neon have got a stacked line-up in a variety of venues to commemorate their ninth year of operations, as well as some wicked jams planned for the spring.

Tonight, the synth-funk of beloved locals Chromeo will be complemented by a live appearance from Toronto’s hyper-digital hip hop trio Let’s Go to War. These cats get right to the centre of the drugged-out urban techno hip hop trend, smashing together filtered, chopped-up rap with buzzing, cranking, teeth-clenching electronic beats and bass lines.

For the actual anniversary party on Saturday, Metropolis will be thumping to the rocking disco madness of MSTRKRFT and Berlin’s well-known master of distorted indie rock remixes and bad-boy electro, Boys Noize. Next Thursday, the 8-bit nostalgia set will rejoice once more as Crystal Castles return for a gig at Studio Juste Pour Rire. They’ll be riding the wave of their new self-titled full-length, which is a welcome and truly fantastic refinement of their signature bedroom Nintendo Italo. They’re joined by L.A. foursome Health, who also make an appearance on the Crystal Castles album. Their crashing, cacophonic jams should make for an eerie accompaniment to Crystal Castles’ energetic angst.

Further down the road, the momentum is sustained on Saturday, April 12, when you can get a load of A-Trak, Sinden and Steve Aoki back at the SAT, an evening that promises more liquor-swilling house, hyped-up electro and badass Baltimore beats than any one mere mortal could ever soberly survive. And finally, get down to the legendary sounds of Erol Alkan on Friday, May 2, at a location to be announced. Alkan is the virtuosic producer behind innumerable killer remixes, re-edits and DJ mixes. He’s also the brains behind the recently concluded London club night Trash, which for a decade hosted shows by every single one of your favourite new bands at least one year before you ever knew they existed