Strippers! Strippers Everywhere! by MIREILLE SILCOTT I might be the first to write it, but I sure ain't the first to say it: There is a STAGGERING number of strippers evident in Montreal's trendier nightclubs lately. It's gotten to the point where it's shocking to meet a woman at Sona and find she doesn't bounce her booty for bucks. Not that there is anything patently wrong with strippers or bouncing body parts. My parts bounce for free. Which is worse, in a way. But just where are all these droves of hot patooties coming from all of a sudden? "Oh, that's easy," says, er, "Xena" (not her real name), a just-retired peeler. "There are now certain promoters in Montreal that are always hanging around the [strip] clubs, giving out passes, telling us to come to their afterhours and stuff. They'd practically pay us to come." A woman's work is never done, eh? "It's play! We like to have somewhere to go after a long night, and we love the music. Like, I know lots of girls who have started using Armand [Van] Helden songs in their routines. You know, Sona songs! The club vibe's crossing over into a different part of nightlife. These are girls who not long ago would have used heavy rock music." As they say, dance music's busting through in '98. As far as the bum-bum breakthrough's concerned, though, we must go back a bit further. The first time I ever spotted a truly large conglomeration of strippers frequenting an "underground" house club in Montreal was at Playground. Then it was a novel thing. I remember one club kid named Eliana, who's now living in the plastic surgery mecca of New York, being very proud and very public about graduating from warehouse speaker-tops to club Super Sexe (she even asked for an article in the Mirror. And we, er, complied). But attitudes changed quickly, and by the time Playground closed, word on the circuit was that the club's crowd had degenerated to "strippers and suburbanites." And you can't get lower than suburbanites. >>> That's why it's curious--not bad, just new--that promoters from clubs like, for example, Sona, would make such a special effort. "There is a fresh interest," says Xena, who'll be starting her MA in English this fall at Waterloo. "But the girls are--it's going to sound mean--they're not as cheesy as before. They've lost the white pumps." But are there really MORE strippers in house clubs? "There are so many strippers going to afterhours now, that other girls are starting to copy the strippers' looks." So what, oh Xena, does it all mean? "Well, every club needs beautiful women, and fancy supermodels can't stay up as late as we can. Sign of the times, I guess." >>> Clubspotting! The old Big Bang space is turning into a gay superclub. Pierre Vien, formerly of every gay club in the history of humanity, is involved. * Area, the Friday/Saturday club in the new Box Office venue (1204 Ste-Catherine E.) has snagged Nicholas from Channel and ravey-daveys Millennium to promote. The club is supposedly courting DJs like Mark Anthony, Wig, Maüs and Alain Vinet. Watch this space.