End Time good times

By JACK OATMON

Despite the Malthusian catastrophe which the news media confidently assure us is careening nearer on the heels of some wacked-out mathematical aggregation of asset risk on the shit end of the American property mortgage stick, things seem pretty normal so far this winter. The streets are packed with shoppers happily seeking gifts to dump on their Mastercards, Wal-Mart peons are being trampled to death at early-bird sales south of the border, Ste-Catherine is dotted with merry elf displays and that spoon-playing guy by Oglivy’s is wearing a red hat. So here we go into the holiday party season with the high hopes that this won’t be the final month of good times before the world crumbles into bedlam. But just in case, we’re all going to have that one extra snifter of cognac, that one extra puff of ganja, that one extra watusi this year. Aren’t we?

A great place to start with your merry lamentations for the profitable world is the Akarien Christmas jam at SAT this Saturday, December 6. A local trio and recent winners of the Roland Synthesizer Contest, FM Radio Gods will be performing a live set of groovy, psychedelic electro and progressive techno. They’ll be joined by Omni, who will also be performing live, Mini, Zed Aksis and Ihy for what looks like one of the most promising local electro line-up in recent weeks.

SPECIAL TACTICS: DJ Sw@t

Elsewhere, Il Motore’s official opening bash is tonight, Thursday, Dec. 4 with Mark Slutsky and the Goods providing the funky feet fuel. Forward Music, an eclectic night of rotating local DJs run by Rhys Taylor, beat connoisseur and host of the CKUT show Your Radio Is Broken, will feature Tom Tom Bypass and Basement Maxxx this week. That’s a good weekly bet to find new gems, every Thursday at Passeport on St-Denis. KO brings in Winnipeg’s DJ Sw@t for some ultra high-tempo dubstep and pitch-bent drum & bass. Swat spins along with Generic, Golgo13 and Rotor at Petit Campus on Friday. Otherwise, check out local bloggy remixers and masher-uppers Girl Problems along with Kid Legit and la Débauche at the Decembertron night at Blue Dog Motel on Friday. The stars have also aligned for a new weekly, Let the Music Play, devoted to new school disco, funk and soul grooves and hosted by usual suspects Bain Magique, Devon B and Jay Watts III. That’s every Tuesday night at everyone’s favourite milk bar, Korova.

I also caught wind of a fresh Ghislain Poirier video which you can find on YouTube, “Mangnen l’boulé,” a track from his LP No Ground Under. It’s a slow, hypnotic, throbbing dub jam reminiscent of Kode9’s work both sonically and visually, and featuring vocalist Nyk Mio.

So that’s plenty of chance for you to get down and festive before the end of the world as we know it, or alternately, just another great weekend out in Montreal, depending on whom you believe. Either way, make sure to remind everyone you see that we’re on the verge of meltdown. That way we can get some of that millennium hysteria drummed up again so that people go really berserk at the bar. And here I was waiting for this 2012 thing to come along for my next chance to pretend the sky was falling.

WILL THERE BE INTERNET AFTER THE APOCALYPSE? jack.oatmon@gmail.com