Rating: NNNNN
Rec room blast
Clinton’s has been hosting a popular monthly open-format party called Rec Room , and for the Halloween edition Saturday night attracted a packed house of indie kids for a light-hearted mix of classic rock, angular indie disco, synth pop, 80s pop and slow jams for the lovers. Clinton’s is usually a live music venue, but the back room’s vintage rec room look suits this party’s vibe. It feels kinda like a pre-teen bash in someone’s basement that went out of control – except everyone’s over 18 and drinking booze instead of pop.
DJs Jared Colautti and mRoboto aren’t going to win any turntablist competitions, but at least they program their selections with some kind of logic, playing little mini-sets of each genre but not staying in any one style long enough to let people get bored.
As at most Halloween parties, there was a costume contest and a bunch of prizes for different categories. Wisely, the judging got done with quickly and didn’t hold up the party too much. Most people in the packed club didn’t see much of the low stage anyway.
Viva Vazaleen
Will Munro ‘s monthly queer rock party, Vazaleen , draws its share of costumed freaks to Lee’s Palace on regular nights, so you can imagine how far the crowd went the Friday before Halloween. We arrived during the costume contest portion, which was campy and fun but went on a little long. There were some truly elaborate outfits, and nudity was also popular. Montreal electro-punks Les Georges Leningrad took the stage post-contest wearing their trademark caveman costumes and masks. They’re an entertaining live band and don’t seem to have suffered from losing bass player Toundra La Louve . The simplicity of the jerky synth-and-drum rhythms sounds tight and thick over a loud system and doesn’t need any more embellishment.
For the rest of the night, DJs Will Munro and Miss Barbrafisch cranked out a mix of glam rock, rockabilly, metal and punk. Still no mixing going on, but you wouldn’t really expect that with these tunes.
Nice to see Vazaleen doing so well after so long. There’s still nothing else quite like it, and it can be counted on for some good sleazy fun each month.
Warehouse full
Late Saturday night, the guys behind Leisure and Fascination teamed up at a small warehouse party near the club district. DJs Mike Sitchon and Steve Yanko started the night after some live performances earlier on. In the past, they’ve been known more for deep house sounds, but tonight it sounded like they’ve been catching a bit of that electro bug as well. Both are still rooted in house, but the other influences are starting to come to the surface. The small studio space was getting pretty full and the Fascination guys were still wrapping up at Andy Poolhall . Their monthly party has been doing well and is one of the better spots to hear what’s new in that electro-rock-house sound, a style that will hopefully get a proper name soon, since the hyphens are getting tired. It was looking like they wouldn’t be able to let many more people in, and even with the time change it was getting late, so we split to make way for the next shift of partiers.
