Dial O for outrageous
Montreal makes a call on lipstick rockers One 976

by LORRAINE CARPENTER
Between the punk rawk glam attack that is One 976 and its flashy frontperson and perennial personality Plastik Patrik, these folks have Best of Montreal in the bag. The band ranked high in the Best, Most Pretentious and Most Outrageous Band categories, while Patrik is among the top Drag Queens, Scenesters, Weirdos, Most Desirable Males and Tackiest Personalities, which can only mean one thing: three years of building up the band and wearing their hearts on their sleeves, spandex and thongs have paid off. Patrik and One 976 are names and faces to be reckoned with, and the impending release of their proper, eponymous debut disc will only brighten the spotlight. The Mirror popped over to the loft shared by Patrik and One 976 guitarist and co-founder Jet Phil to record their reactions.

Mirror: Number two most pretentious band?

Plastik Patrik: Really?! Why? I don’t feel pretentious at all! To me, a pretentious act is someone who insults the crowd or refuses to address the crowd, and I hate those shows, that’s a million miles away from us. I’m all, “Hey gang!” But if it’s either “they love you” or “they hate you,” then you’re really going somewhere. I’ll take all the categories!

M: Okay, how about fourth tackiest personality?

Jet Phil: Whoa!

PP: With Mitsou and Jojo Savard?! Oh well, I never wanted to be a true rock ’n’ roll singer anyway, I just wanna do what we do.

JP: There is a kitsch effect in One 976, big time, but it’s not in bad taste.

M: What do you consider tacky?

JP: Hip hop sportswear, gel-in-the-hair, from the suburbs, t’sais—it’s hurting me physically.

PP: Basically not being yourself and trying to copy a trend but doing it badly. And yeah, dressing like Eminem.

M: And again, most outrageous band. Is Montreal low on outrageous or what?

PP: There’s les Georges Leningrad, most definitely, and Da Bloody Gashes and Caféine had their share.

JP: Vaginal Croutons and Suck la Marde just for the name. And Jonathan Cummins’ beard is pretty outrageous. Beard Master Flash. But last year we were in first place and second was Moist so, if David Usher is outrageous, we should be in jail right now. I mean who says, “I went to see Moist man, whoa!!”

PP: There’s not a lot of outrageous juice out there. We just wanna give people a show they’ll remember, and yes, you need the hot songs and you need a tight band, and we’ve actually been working really hard on that, but we’re not gonna go on stage looking like we’ve just woken up. It’s a show, you have to respect the stage!

JP: And I think Plastik is outrageously beautiful, no one has seen this before—that’s my opinion, and I’m always right—and Patrik fronts something really solid right now.

M: How would you describe your current sound?

PP: Uninhibited, theatrical, multi-sensual rock. l

She’s number one!
But DJ Maüs remains humble in the face of public adulation

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT
DJ Maüs knows that being voted number one DJ in the city doesn’t necessarily place her miles ahead of her local vinyl-slinging colleagues. Au contraire, Maüs, in all her modest glory, points out that hype can get your name out there and talent can keep you in the spotlight, but there are scores of capable DJs who toil in anonymity.

“Most people who vote will think of DJs who play a lot, so maybe they’ve seen my name,” she ventures. “Unfortunately, there are a lot of really good DJs who don’t get any hype—but it’s still fun and flattering to be voted number one!”

Of course, kudos of this kind are nothing new to Mademoiselle Maüs, who was counted among URB magazine’s “Next 100” list of most promising DJs and producers last year (which apparently came as a complete surprise to her). With two mix CDs (’99’s Intersections on Haute Couture Records and last summer’s Cream CD3 on Yul), and a growing reputation both in North America and Europe, Maüs has evolved from being called “Montreal’s Ambassador of drum & bass” (thanks in part to her three-year stint of Massive Saturdays at Blizzarts) to now playing “techno, tech-house, electro—anything that’s between 120 and 140 bpm.”

As for the imminent future, it seems she will be taking the next logical step—into that knob-twiddling isolation tank, the studio. “I’m not the type of person who loves to fool around with gear all the time,” she giggles fiendishly, “but I’m doing it every day now!” l

DJ Maüs spins every Thursday at Laïka and will tag-team with Soundshaper in Sona’s main room, May 17.

Ronnic, isn’t it?
The multifaceted iRonnee doesn’t stop with hip hop

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
It’s ironic that iRonnee is our most popular hip hop artist, because he doesn’t really see himself as a hip hop MC in the strict sense. “It’s funny because I’ve been involved in hip hop and dancehall reggae for 21 years—I started DJing and MCing at 11—but I’ve never been partial. I’ve never quite fitted in, and thank God, because I’m not gonna rock Fubu or Platinum, that’s just not me. I’ll play with anybody. If I like you and your music, let’s make it happen.”

He’s made it happen with Grim Skunk and the Stomp All-Stars, with We Da People and with his Race, the rapmetal act from his hometown Hamilton. What iRonnee does is part MC in the hip hop tradition, part toaster in the Jamaican tradition and part cheerleader in the Monday Night Football tradition. “It kind of freaks me out because I’ve got some heavy opinions about the state of hip hop today. The whole bling-bling thing just ain’t working for me. How much tits, ass and champagne can I see? It’s the music I grew up on—old school, to me, was staying up till 3 a.m., in the early ’80s, listening to shortwave radio, keeping it up to my ear so I wouldn’t wake up my parents, listening to KISS FM coming in from New York City. Now it’s the mainstream pop, so to me, it’s a dead artform. It was an inner-city, urban artform that had its time, and now we’re waiting for what comes next.”
What’s next for iRonnee is a Race reunion, June 9 at Foufs, and a solo joint on Indica, promising squeezebox on your boombox. “I’m going in the studio with about 15 musicians, from a drum & bass programmer to flute and accordion. We’re pushin’ it. It’s next.” l

Amps over here, ramps over there
The daily grind of the Union/Stomp crew

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
The “best label” nod is just another feather in the ratty, safety-pinned baseball cap of the Union/Stomp music mega-conglomerate. This last year has seen numerous forward moves, according to “crazy project coordinator” Paget Williams. “The Planet Smashers have just come back from a very successful tour of Japan. There was the move of the Stomp store to St-Denis, turning it from a clubhouse into an actual, functioning store. Penelope are doing very well in Quebec, Subb are back on the label, Fifty Nutz have a new album out soon and this year’s Warped Tour presence will be bigger and better than ever, including two dates in the States.”

Coming up this week is another chance to Unionize the masses, Ramp Rage 2K2. “There are four of our bands on the bill, and we’re a sponsor,” says Williams, who set the Ramp Rage beast loose, “many, many moons ago.”

“It’s not a tour, it’s a World-Cup-of-skateboarding competition with a concert, a skateboard awareness event. Montreal’s a city that doesn’t really back skateboarding. I think it’s because one of the best skate spots in the city is the marble benches right outside City Hall. The administration’s idea of skating is a bunch of kids with spray cans hanging out, smoking pot and grinding their benches, all day, every day. They don’t see the other side of it, people like Max Dufour, who makes his living as a pro skater and started his own company. In 2002, pro skater is just as viable a profession as doctor, dentist or accountant.”

Further proof that “skateboarders aren’t a bunch of little fuckin’ idiots, wasted all the time, causing problems,” can be found at the Ramp Rage art expo (they’ll have a cinema tent, too). Proof that the Planet Smashers are not “a bunch of little fuckin’ idiots, wasted all the time, causing problems” has yet to be found. l

Ramp Rage 2K2, with Pennywise, Bigwig, Planet Smashers and more, is at CEPSUM on Saturday, May 11, noon, $25, all ages

Mondo Gallucio!
Playwright will light up Toronto with his coming-out play Mambo Italiano

by MATTHEW HAYS
Local playwright Steve Gallucio knows he’s onto a very, very good thing. “I can’t be humble and deny it,” he says. “This is amazing.”

Gallucio’s home-grown show, Mambo Italiano, ran to sold-out houses in its French-language version two years ago and then went on to break the box-office record at the Centaur last year (the previous record-holder at the Centaur was David Fennario’s Balconville).

Mambo Italiano, a part-comedy, part-family melodrama set in Montreal’s Italian community, concerns a young gay man’s decision to come out. Though it polarized the critics (the Mirror’s Amy Barrat is certainly not a big fan), the play’s success will almost certainly only grow in the coming year. Now, none other than über-successful theatre impresarios the Mirvishes are bringing Mambo Italiano to Toronto as part of their 2002-03 season. The folks who brought international shows like Cats, The Lion King and Mamma Mia might seem unlikely to champion a home grown show, but they were undoubtedly attracted to Mambo’s sensational box-office appeal. “When I learned they were coming to see the show in Montreal, I was like, ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ But the show is mainstream, and appeals to a very big public,” says Gallucio.

Though many have loved and praised the show, some critics have dismissed it as full of crude stereotypes and clichéd jokes about gays and Italians. For his part, Gallucio wears his mainstream label with pride, citing as major influences the sitcoms of Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The show will be remounted in Montreal this summer in its French version, followed by another staging of the English version at the Centaur in the fall. Then Toronto in January of 2002. And the film version is currently being planned. “I can’t explain this success,” says an incredulous Gallucio. “It’s like a fairy tale the way it all happened.” l