Tech-NO! by MIREILLE SILCOTT When I first became a "raver," around 1991, when I first declared "house is dead," I was doing it in the name of the most exciting music I had ever heard, techno. I was sewing bloody Texas insignias (then a badge of the "I-like-techno-not-house") on friends' jackets. For the love of techno. Now, eight (aaah!) years later, I would tar and feather myself before calling myself a raver, but I still CARE about techno. I just wonder what's happened to the music I used to, er, sew for. You see, it's this term "techouse" that's driving me crazy. Techouse! Every DJ loves it, everybody's swinging it around. "Techouse," what is it? Well, it's kinda like unexciting minimal techno, but not because, well, it's made by house producers and it's cool. Techno ain't. Techno's become the property of guys who make music for other guys, the Dungeons and Dragons of dance music cultures. The stuff of boring radio shows where presenters talk about "textures." Sound like drum & bass? Yes, you're right it does. Only with drum & bass, radio presenters talk about textures even more. Right. So what are we to do? Techno's gone geek, but not before attaching its most refrigerated bits to the two other dominant genres: Leaving us with techouse and techstep, the latest in you-can't-dance-to-it-but-it took-me-two-months-to-make-this-drum-pattern D&B style. If you wanna dance, you've got to do it very far from the cutting edge: Old school "preshahhh," Saturday night Tenaglia-isms or MAW disco remakes. Or speed garage, which has very quickly proven itself to be fun, but a bit stuck in the new idea department. If it were up to me, I'd have the whole of Montreal dancing to UK hardcore and jump-up jungle and bouncy Scottish 4-beat and rinky-dink Fatboy Slim remixes, but given this city's history of arty pretentions and my unbelievably crapolla taste in at-home listening, we should be relieved that it's NOT up to me. So I don't have any solutions for this too-smart (the Session, Silver Fridays ) or too-dumb (everywhere, Saturdays) thing that's happened. I just know that with the amount of music currently being produced, a middle ground does exist. Now it's just up to some crafty DJ to get off his arse, or take his head out of it, and find the tunes to make our summer a memorable one. News you need! Disregarding what I just wrote about techstep, a big bye-bye-we-will-miss-you-so-much going out to original Mtl junglist DJ Twist. Twist is moving to Washington D.C. to continue his climb to the top of the North American D&B heap. His partner Double "A" joins him next month. * Mega Party Touch is this Saturday, featuring Relief's Mark Grant, Soma's Gene Farris and many others. Tickets are $25 advance/ "more at the door," call 376-9825. * That new club Stereo, featuring Angel Moraes' "famous" sound system and residents Mark Anthony and Alain Vinet opens in about a month on Ste-Catherine E. The people behind it, who want to be known as only "The Management" (oh gawd!), are being needlessly mysterioso about it. I did manage to pull out that the space's capacity is 800, the Saturdays will be gay, and that they're not sure what they want to do for Fridays yet, "but we really love techouse and want to push that." Oh yay.