What now? Predictions for '98 by MIREILLE SILCOTT This is an ice-free zone. No references to Sona-as-shelter or pseudo-funny references to club Storm and the storm. No way. But it has been a, ehm, lightish week for clubs, so this instalment of 3 a.m. will be dedicated to things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the here and now, but rather the future. Predictions for '98. Some I'm rather sure of, and some I'm just hunching about. Some that are probably dead wrong. Cut this out and have a nice grab-bag of ammo to slag me with by the dawn of '99, then! --More ragga-oriented speed garage derivatives will find the playlists of local late-night dance party jocks. The genre as a whole will revert back to plain old garage, because producers like Tuff Jam are all saying that (groan) they want to work with "live instruments and live vocalists." They say this is a really new concept. It's not (er, it's house). Anyway, the turn may get DJs like Tony Humphries making nicey with producers they damned in '97. --European progressive house will come back with a vengeance. --Shock Productions will start doing more and more profitable Toronto shows. Some other group will pick up the local promotional slack. --GHB will fall out of favour. Cocaine will not. --At least one old school rave theme party will occur. --Drum & bass will continue arsing toward the Second Cup on the jazzy side and, hopefully, kids will realize that the music is stuff their parents kinda like too. Harder Johnny L-ish stuff will keep the clubs, and the music, heated. --New York will rise again. --Montreal's drum & bass scene will still not grow. --More and more St-Laurent clubs will take up R&B, at the expense of house. --An old school fluffy cloud ambient revival may be in the wings, as a reaction to the drill & bass sound taken up by the head music scene. --Someone on this continent will put out a decent, well-written dance music magazine. --Many local DJs will move. --Kid Koala's Ninja Tune album will come in with a bullet and get tons of international press. Coldcut will continue moving in a tree-hugging direction. --No one will care about trance but the French. --Noel Gallagher will make a solo big beat track. Fatboy Slim will hit North American charts. The rock backlash will not go down in '98. Maybe '99. --Alain Vinet and Lafleche will be the two busiest house DJs in Montreal. --Industry types will stop using the word electronica and will go back to calling jungle "techno," and techno "house" and big beat "drum & bass," etc, etc. --Sona will last through '97 as suburbia's club-of-choice. Downtowners may be less loyal. --Montreal's one-off rave scene will get ugly from speed consumption. --The scratch scene will become hip hop's recognized antithesis to R&B Puffy stuff. --Techno proper will continue its trajectory toward becoming an increasingly niche genre. --Eurodance will be rife with post-Aqua novelty songs and post-Sash! "nightmare" tunes. --DJ A-Trak will once again win the DMC. :