Artful dodges

by JACK OATMON

As you know, here at Disco Volante, it’s all about combining destructive indulgence with art appreciation—and hookin’ it up on the cheap and cheerful. In keeping with that noble ideal, this week I’m going to let you in on a little something that will not only make you feel slightly better about your dilettante ways, but also give you a smashing excuse to ask someone out on a glamourous date. As we’ve seen in the aftermath of February’s Nuit Blanche, when a veritable throng of revelers packed the city’s avant-garde gallery hotspots, nothing affects a more alluring pretense than referring flippantly to your drunken adventures at the Musée d’Art Contemporain.

Though it’s almost a whole year till we get to go non-ambulatory till 5 a.m. in there again, they do provide us with a monthly, withdrawal-suppressing 5 à 9 called les Vendredis Nocturnes. On the first Friday of each month, you can grab a cocktail, dig the gallery’s exhibits and groove to the sounds of some of the city’s wickedest bands—recently featured names include Pas Chic Chic, Duchess Says, We Are Wolves and the National Parcs. They keep the programming secret until the day of, just to make things a bit more exciting, but between you and me, I happen to know that we’ll be hearing local outfit Bob this Friday, May 2.

The museum also recommends you bring a mobile video device for this edition to record the performance. A video will be produced based on the results and put on the museum’s Web site. So make sure to check this great series out, because it makes for an unbeatable launching pad for a weekend of creativity and craziness. Plus you get to hang out with all those foxy young art enthusiasts and ogle their thick, juicy dendrites.

Also, the wise would take note that yearly passes to the Museum only cost $10 now, which is like, totally bananas.

Should you need somewhere to direct your energy following that, consider that one of my personal favourites, the Taste Choco-Electro party is at the SAT on Saturday night, featuring a huge line-up and enough gourmet treats to make you have spontaneous cocoa orgasms on the dancefloor. If that’s not your flavour, then catch London’s biggest tastemaker, Erol Alkan, at Coda, also on Friday. This man has more control over your musical preferences than you’ll ever know, as innumerable amazing indie and electro acts from Europe and beyond cut their teeth at his now-defunct Camden Town, London club night, Trash. Don’t forget about Foals at Cabaret Juste Pour Rire on Saturday night with former Death From Above 1979 guy Sebastien Grainger. If you’re out and about tonight, Thursday, May 1, drop by Mary Hell’s Beat Me Up party at Saphir for the kitschy lo-fi hip hop and fashionista electro of Scream Club, straight out of Washington State. And do not miss, for any reason, Midnight Juggernauts and Shy Child at les Saints on Sunday night.

That’s it for this edition, but the fun doesn’t end when you stop reading this pretentious garble, no sir. Now you get to go out and have a ball at all that stuff, in either sincere or ironic capacity, and heck, maybe even meet that special spring-fling someone who shares your unending need to get trashed and discuss conceptual art.

WAY TOO MUCH CAFFEINE THIS MORNING… jack.oatmon@gmail.com