by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Like Cher, Magas is a one-name, one-man megaforce in the sprawling landscape of modern music. Occupying the Chicago chapter of the electronic underground, James Marlon Magas is also linked to Detroit through Ersatz Audio label mates Adult., whose Adam Lee Miller produced Magas' debut album Friends Forever. Having served in arch rock bands like Couch and Lake of Dracula, Magas is more no wave than new wave, more synth punk than electro, a solo artiste and fearless loner who grew up in the woods. These days, he makes music by night and sells music by day at Weekend Records & Soap, the store he runs with his wife and Sparx soap inventor Bridgette Wilson. The Mirror spoke to the man about the store, the suds and the 'clash camp.

Mirror: So your store is named after the Godard movie?

Magas: Yeah, Bridgette and I are both film nuts. We considered calling it either Angel Dust or Five Minutes to Live, but we though those names might offend drug addicts or the terminally ill. Weekend, for us, embodied something avant-garde with feel-good connotations. You think of "weekend" and you think of good times. Somebody once asked me, "Is it named after the Godard film or the Loverboy song?" I said, "Yes." And, as for the soap, Sparks is Bridgette's favourite band.

M: Do you have a secret stash of Ivory to use when she's not around?

JMM: No. I love the soap.

M: Okay. So is Weekend like a High Fidelity scene?

JMM: Sometimes. We have regular customers and heated discussions and lots of gossip. It's also sorta like show and tell. Someone will finish a recording and bring it in, hot off the press, and we'll critique each others' work. I wouldn't say it's as smarmy and elitist as the High Fidelity store but there is a bit of that vibe. Actually, it's funny, the sex scene in the movie, where he imagines his girlfriend having sex with Tim Robbins, that was shot in our storefront before we moved in, so the parallel is on the money.

M: Weird. But back to music now, I've read that you're as down on electroclash as any hard-working electronic musician. Where would you like to see that trend go?

JMM: Well, most of the acts from the New York camp seem amateurish and jokey, more into their style and irony than their music. It's an interesting slant, but now that Larry Tee's brought that to the table, I'd like to see him or somebody else improve on the formula. You know, when the Monkees started out they got a lot of criticism for lip-synching, so Michael Nesmith said, "Okay, enough of this shit, let's learn how to play our instruments." I'd like to see WIT playing keyboards, even if it was terrible, even if they're the most awful, wretched band you'd ever heard, it would be more fun than watching them up there lip-synching. In any case, it seems likes the media wants to tear electroclash down now, which is fine by me. I'll pull out a brick or two.

With Adult. and Solvent vs Lowfish at la Sala Rossa on Wednesday, April 23, 9pm, $15

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