by RAF KATIGBAK

There's often a lull in clubland the week before Halloween (most often due to intense concentration on questions like, "Is it lame to wrap myself in toilet paper and call myself a mummy for a fourth year in a row?"). But with the Montreal Electronic Groove festival and all sorts of fun happening, it's gonna be tough to stay indoors.

Blizzarts continues to prove that Mondays ain't so bad after all. After destroying a packed house last month, Poontz is back with another installment of Mashup Monday on Oct. 27. You know the drill - every month guests are invited to showcase some live or prepared mash-ups, mix-ups, bootlegs and bastard pop, combining instrumental tracks (usually their own) with familiar a cappellas for strange and often well-wicked musical hybrids. Postmodernism never sounded so good! This month's guests will be minimal techno artists the Mole and Chris Hreno and, as always Poontz will be mixing it up throughout the night.

If robots could shed tears then now would be the time, as DJ Luv has announced the recent unplugging of the Robot Rock nights at Saphir. Too bad, 'cause now there's one less eclectic, informed and altogether rockin' dance night (replaced by yet another '80s revival soirée). Let's all have our digits crossed in the hopes that these robots return (but not in a vengeful, evil-robots-with-laser-beam-eyes kind of way).

Speaking of vengeful robot rock, you need to go see Captured by Robots! on Sunday, Oct. 26 at la Sala Rosa. At the first CBR! gig last year, this one-man band (well, one man and his robo-bandmates) blew away the crowd at Casa del Popolo (yours truly included) with his insane heavy metal (in all senses of the term) and drum, guitar and tom-bots. This shit has to be seen to be believed, so be there!

Fold up yer laptops and bubble wrap up those ultra-rare Squarepusher seven-inches, one of Montreal's only leftfield electronic music nights, Plateau Flexout, is moving. After a year of repping all sounds strange and bleeding edge, the regular Wednesday-night Saphir thing will become the regular Tuesday-night Blizzarts thing. This of course means two things - better sound and washrooms that are so clean, you can actually use 'em! The whole transmogrification goes down Nov. 4 (just in time for their first anniversary) and will feature a triple-deck tag team with residents RamDac, Crispian and DJ Mana.

Together in electric dreams… Diskoakimbo@sympatico.ca

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