by RAF KATIGBAK

One of life's elusive mysteries - beyond the whereabouts of Atlantis or the secret of the Bermuda Triangle - is the age-old question: What's up with little girls and horses? One female friend of mine posits, "Every girl wants to be a princess and every princess has a horse," while one of my gay friends believes that, "Horses are the closest things to unicorns, and you know what that means…"

Growing up, horses were the bane of my existence. Four of my six elder siblings were girly-girls, so my horsy-hand-me-down-horror stories are plenty. From posters and pencil cases to stationery and stuffed Clydesdales, being surrounded by all things equestrian made my awkward tweens a pony-permeated-purgatory - try rocking your sisters' My Little Pony thermos 'cause you broke your Transformers one and just see if you don't get picked last in gym class every time. This stallion-scorn spread even to my games of make-believe and sessions of cowboys and Indians would be avoided like the plague, "C'mon guys, couldn't we just play WWII again? I'll even be the Japanese POW and you can torture me by putting paperclips on my nip…" never mind.

But horses never really had it easy. While many Republican politicians and high-powered businessmen may secretly enjoy being saddled up and ridden around while getting jabbed in the side with spiky boots and whipped with a riding crop, (try Google-ing "pony play") most of us probably don't really go for that. Ukrainian-born techno producer Vitalic knows the pony pain. In fact, his breakthrough Poney EP (International Deejay Gigolo) was not only one of the toughest late-night electro-tech anthems of 2001, it was also a homage "to the pain of ponies in funfairs." Catch him live at the massive three-day Evolution Radar One festival starting this Friday, July 23. Call (450) 625-7000 for details, or visit www.rayjunior.com.

DJ Philgood (who will also be performing at the ERO festival) got a pleasant surprise last weekend, as over 2,000 people packed the Circus Afterhours. While Philgood cheekily maintains that it's due to his classic tracks, which even had the bouncers getting down, it was most likely because it was the only afterparty in town - Stereo was closed for renovations, Gravity was also mysteriously closed and Aria had a power failure. This Friday, they'll try to draw some people back with a killer line-up of locals including Mike Shannon, Akufen (who also launches his new Fabric Mix at Salon Daomé on Tuesday) and Vincent Lemieux. But this week's competition is stiff as the newly remodelled Stereo reopens with a fourth anniversary party featuring its longest running in-house resident, Big Al.

One of my fave freaky-deaky electro theatre acts, 3.5 Megabytes, will be hitting Korova this Saturday, July 24. Imagine Kraftwerk freebasing with GWAR at a Salvation Army and you're pretty much there. Only two bucks! And for a bumpin' good time, on Thursday nights in the basement of the Parking, Dr. Love's new Sidestep weekly will feature funky house, U.K. garage and 2-Step. Can't beat that with a bat!

To all my Pony Playaz and all my Nay sayaz! Diskoakimbo@sympatico.ca

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