Early bird special This week, Double "A" & Twist both went to the toilet! Fred Everything ate lunch! Seven times! The Ninja people made phone calls! Tiga went to a concert! And DJ Nav is thinking hard about stuff! Welcome to a hyper-un-newsworthy August. But please enjoy the tranquility of the dearth, because from what I gather, there'll be heaps of politics/events to go around as fall closes in. I wrote last week that Shock are planning a large-scale "festival" at Jarry Park for August 31. As this weekend unfolded, it became clear that this event is none other than Sona promoters 514's annual megaparty Cream. Shock has schlepped Groove Society into plugging Cream too. Which is funny because, firstly, Groove is attached to Storm, Sona's competition. And, secondly, 514 and Shock have not been exactly known to be friends. So from this collaboration, one could thus deduce that: A) The superclub monopoly is more of a monopoly than any of us imagined; B) Storm's slow start has forced Groove to tighten ties elsewhere' C) Everyone wanted one of those spiffy Cream T-shirts; and D) Promoters have decided to break the old bloodthirsty mould and become one big, happy family. The plot will no doubt thicken. In the meantime, Daft Punk have been confirmed. One will notice that Channel aren't in the Cream dish. The promoters are whittling wood until fall, when they will bring in Prodigy (confirmed for September) and also move into weekly competition by setting up their long-planned NIGHTCLUB. And they're not the only ones opening new digs. As mentioned before, a crew of familiar club employees are planning a big-name DJ haunt for autumn. Plus another team are screwing it in for a "downtowny" afterhours in Laval. Perhaps in symmetry to the dubious fact that suburban glitzgreig Fuzzy are erecting a branch on St-Laurent. And this week's big haul in is... Josh Wink! At Solid, Friday. Here's to the man who once told me that he likes nothing better than "the experience of hearing a beautiful classical orchestra outside, sitting on the grass, with good friends, lemon candles and wine." Oh, so that's what he meant by "down-to-earth." 1298 Amherst, $10 before 1:30am, $15 after. Send a tape, win a paragraph! Mixed cassettes wanted for reviews! DJs, send your glorious art to 3 a.m. c/o Mirror, 400 McGill, H2Y 2G1.