Return policies, return
flight and Royal Rumble

By JACK OATMON

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way back to Montreal after a two-week journey to the East Coast, which I sheepishly admit to be the longest I’ve managed to get out of Montreal since I moved here. My home town being the bizarre demographic anomaly that it is, hosted a huge outdoor festival called Evolve while I was there—featuring !!!, Man Man, Battles, That 1 Guy and a whole slew of other dope acts—even though only 4,500 people live in the town. Having left the big city to avoid such indulgent frivolity, I skipped out on the three-day party in favour of lonely treks on the endless kilometers of pristine sandy beach that encompass my idyllic birthplace. I did, however, have a laugh remembering the first edition of the festival 10 years ago being the first, and pretty much only, certifiable rave I attended as a teenager, being a longtime hater of ’90s rave trance. At that time, it was run by different people and was basically an elaborate scheme for local drug dealers to push ecstasy and magic mushrooms, so it was nice to see that it had changed hands and blossomed into a respectable jam.

BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN: Royal Rumble

Before leaving Montreal, and knowing that I had long days ahead with no real sound systems in sight, I loaded up the iPod and got a new pair of headphones for the trip. After experimenting with numerous models, thanks to Future Shop’s forgiving return policy, I decided that sound cancellation is a horrendous load of caca serving only to decrease sound quality and add hideous-looking bulk to already large headsets. I eventually settled on the WESC Oboes, available at Moog Audio, the guts of which are made by Sennheiser and the exterior shell is designed by the fashion label. Though I’m not normally one for product endorsement, I gotta say that in terms of sound quality, size and appearance versus price (about $65), they’re the best pair of mid-range ear goggles I’ve ever owned. The shoelace cover for the wire, though a neat touch, took about four hours to tear out after I bought them, and the detachable section of the cord is too long, leaving the remaining section on the phones too short to really be useful, so it’s more of a gimmick than anything. They also uncomfortably squish your ears for the first few days till the steel wiring in the headband bends a bit. Other than that, they look fine, come in a half-dozen colour schemes and sound super dope, with a huge dynamic range and crisp tones, though they do naturally crackle a tiny bit on heavy distortion, but that’s any mid-size set. Check ’em out. Good shit for picky ears.

Now that I’m coming back, I reckon I gotta wild out a bit upon return, having pretty much completely avoided clubs and bars while there. I figure the best bet for that this weekend is going to be Coda on Friday night when L.A. laptop trio Royal Rumble return to town and hit Coda for some glitchy hipster house remix foolishness. See you there.

ENDLESS VACATION! jack.oatmon@gmail.com