Props, Pop stops, sloppy stumbling and blogging

By JACK OATMON

The witching hour is upon us, not to mention the whiskey sour, the frisky lover, the bitchy neighbour and the twitchy hangover. Montreal’s undisputed champion of cartoon-stoned, shitfaced and lippy, all-out floorboard-trembling music festivals is underway. The Pop program is, as usual, largely free of huge commercial names and packed to the gunwales with niche favourites, off-the-radar oddities, unsung legends and pleasant surprises.

In keeping with my usual merrymaking-centric content spectrum, this week’s column is a rundown of shows at which the rugs are being cut, the shoes are a-shufflin’ and the boozes are a-sousin’. So whenever you need to get your groove on during the week, dig this.

Tonight, Thursday, Oct. 2, will be well allotted to an evening jam with frequent visitor the Bug, who will be decimating the full-frequency spectrum via bottom-heavy psychedelic dubs along with fellow Londoner, ragga MC Warrior Queen, at the Portuguese Association. Then you can kick it over to Coda for a midnight appearance of Hollywood’s heat-packing, rappin’ rustlers the Knux, whose pieces are just as likely six-shooters as nines. After that, catch a late show with Providence, RI’s attitude merchants the Chinese Stars, whose live shows are teeming with wild energy and groovy rock.

NOT AT PORN POP, ODDLY: Pink Skull’s Julian S. Process

Friday, the elephant (trunk) in the room is Porn Pop, local favourite Socalled’s live gay porno soundtrack jam at Cinema l’Amour, which will be a multi-talented, presumably very funky evening of sweet sounds and sweaty loins. It’s worth mentioning that Socalled will also be performing at the Kids Pop showcase. Let’s hope no confused parents make any unfortunate scheduling errors as a result. Also that night, San Francisco’s garbled, jerky, quirky IDM expansionists Pigeon Funk will be discombobulating brains at the SAT.

Saturday should be spent between two things. First, you’ve got the live electro throwdown at Academy with dope dance-punkers Bocce and Philly’s arty farty, bombastic synth rockers Pink Skull. Then there’s the Turbocrunk showcase at Coda, featuring the usual suspects as well as a contingent of fabulous envoys from Scotland’s LuckyMe crew, whose eclectic approach to glitchy, catchy computer music will perk the ears of any lover of synth subtlety. Feast your synapses on Hudson Mohawke, Rustie and Mike Slott’s thuggin’ Autechre-emulation, pixel-fucking, epic synth lines and 1,000-edits-per-minute slow-and-low techno.

On Sunday, before you drop dead, make sure to drop by 2000 Atwater for Berlin sound sculptor T. Raumschmiere’s noise workshop and the Baltimore Round Robin mega-jam at l’Église de l’Immaculée Conception, featuring names like Dan Deacon, Death Set and Future Islands, and likely one of the most interesting shows of the entire festival.

As a special bit of added content this year, I’ll be providing up-to-the-minute video, photo, audio and literary coverage of my dopey, drunken, staggering mission to pack in as many shows as I possibly can. So to catch the catharsis and stupidity as it happens and hear artist interviews, see candid barfing shots, get afterparty rumours and secret show hints as they come to me, check me out at http://jackoatmon.tumblr.com for blotto bloggery and subscribe to http://twitter.com/jackoatmon for text updates. By the time you read this, there should already be some foolishness from Wednesday night on there. Gimme a shout!

KID IN A FRIGGIN’ CANDY STORE! jack.oatmon@gmail.com