Unlucky is the new black

By JACK OATMON

Is the sky falling out there or what? The collective media paranoia has officially gotten so pervasive and acceptable that newsmakers can’t run a story on Michael Jackson doing a wash-up tour to fund legal disputes with Bahraini royalty without investigating its relevance to global credit markets. The gloom and dread must be reiterated at every available interval these days and there’s only one way to deal with it. It’s gotta be full-throttle acceptance—like rock ’n’ roll making the poor and unkempt desirable, hip hop glorifying the tribulations of street life, grunge making suicide sexy and indie making dweebs feel like they can sorta pretend to be cool, so long as it’s in a strictly ironic capacity and in a manner that has been established as kosher by a respected member of a not-too-famous band.

Yep, we’ve gotta dive right in there and make apocalyptic catastrophe the new cool! Unlucky is officially the next big thing and it’s starting this weekend. Tonight, after you’re done staring in dismay at the hazy, ominous full moon, you can look forward to 2009’s second Friday the 13th in a row and then start planning for the Ides of March, later on in the weekend.

JUST LISTEN: Jacques Renault

But don’t hunker down in your room with a stack of canned chick peas and a baseball bat! You have to get out there and get in a car accident, drop your cell phone in a toilet or get humiliated by everyone you flirt with! To start out, nothing tempts the merciless wrath of God like going to a church-themed rave on Friday the 13th. Confessions is an all-nighter that will deliver the devout biblical amounts of tech- and electro-house until 10 a.m., with music provided by Mightykat, Bender, Michel Lloyd and Tone Depth. That’s at 133 King in Old Montreal.

In other fate-tempting forays Friday night, DFA guys Jacques Renault (of Runaway) and Lee Douglas bring the new disco and leftfield house with Loose Joints at Zoobizarre. Also, Beni, formerly of Riot in Belgium, brings the new-school electro to Foufounes Électriques.

On Saturday night, get your rump-shakin’, bass-heavy dancehall jams at Zoobizarre with Khiasma, Slipmat and the inimitable Bonjay for the latest edition of Boomboxx. And keep your ears peeled for German funky house guy Nick Curly’s first Montreal visit at Salon Daomé on Tuesday.

Also, I’ll just point out here that, as interesting and endearing as Charles Spearin’s (of both DMST and BSS) Happiness

Project is, which will appear at Il Motore on Friday, I’m going to have to caution you that it’s just not desperate and gloomy enough for the general atmosphere right now. I mean, why bother trying to light up people’s days with musical accompaniments to conversations about happiness, of all things? This is a crisis, godamnit, and I don’t want to hear anything that is not in some way related to why we’re all doomed and there’s no point in trying. Hope is so 2008, man. Unlucky is the new jam.

KEEPIN’ IT CATACLYSMIC... jack.oatmon@gmail.com