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>> Speed garage DJs Buster and Big Bob want to crack Montreal's house lethargy by MIREILLE SILCOTT "When are people going to wake up and realize that Roger Sanchez and all of those American producers, so high on their horses, have not made anything even close to new-sounding house music in years?" asks DJ Big Bob. "Montreal is so stuck in this serious, deep house thing, people have become so lazy in it, that they can't even hear anymore! They can't see that the music they are listening to now is the same fucking music they were listening to three years ago, only with a different colour label on it." Hello, what's this? A wee bit of rebellion in the immovable rungs of Montreal's house scene? A rebellion that goes past the old "I'm going to play really underground stuff and I don't care if people dance or not" sort? Yes, my selectors. DJ Big Bob and DJ Buster, Montreal's only strict purveyors of speed garage, are going quite the other way with their musical revolt. "We are sick of undergroundism," says Buster. "Sick of DJs mixing for themselves, making dance music hard to dance to. The fact is, when you are playing speed garage, you've kind of got no choice but to get up and dance. Sweat. Smile your ass off. You've really got no choice."
"Some people have told us, 'It's a British thing, it's not for here.' That's ridiculous," says Big Bob, who you'd recognize as one of Montreal's better-known and better-respected DJs when he's spinning under his proper name (he wants to remain anonymous--a task impossible in this city--so here are three hints: initials R.O.; brought disco to Montreal; now spins house at Red Light). "We've been trying to start a club night. Like, we spoke to Playground Bar, but everyone is too afraid." "But we'll do it," says Buster, "because--it sounds cheese--but we're so ridiculously nutso for this music, that all we want to do is go around all day telling people about it and playing them records. That's the type of passion that rubs off, you know?"
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Caught speeding
He's right. And you've heard about this speed garage thing, you've read about all of London's clubland is going ga-ga over it. But what in the world is it? Well, by me, it's the most fun kind of house-derived dancestuff made in a while. Really exciting, mindless, hedonistic groovies. Gives you the same feeling as early rave music. To Ameri-centric DJs--like most in our fair city--it's a pile of barbaric British tracks based on ideas pilfered from jungle/Armand Van Helden/Todd Edwards and is destined to become the next handbag house. To most others, it's this: huge, bowel-shaking sub-basslines (the thing to listen for to know if you're hearing speed garage or not), tweety vocal samples on top, often good dollops of ragga chanting and shout outs and a jump-up vibe that is more bawdy than soul.