If you’re into dance music here in Montreal, you’ve probably been to countless events at the Society of Arts and Technology, everybody’s favourite rave dungeon. Unfortunately, it looks like that venue might no longer be able to host these kind of jams anymore. On the first day of ILoveNeon’s festival at the SAT, the Montreal police forced the party organizers to turn the volume all the way down and kill the sub for Flying Lotus’s set (you can imagine how much of a buzzkill that was). Apparently if the venue gets any more noise complaints, their event permit will be revoked. As a result, Neon had to move the rest of their festival to the Just for Laughs Theatre. In the past year or so, similar things have gone down at Main Hall and Zoobizarre (both of which are now closed). Bottom line is, the venues where we’ve had our best parties and gigs are getting shut down. I’ve only lived in Montreal for a year, but I can say without hesitation that my favourite thing about the city is its diverse and amazing music scene. That scene and its international rep are going to suffer if the city starts shutting down staple venues, though. What we can do is put pressure on elected officials to make sure places like the SAT stay open. Today, producer Ghislain Poirier released a letter he sent to the mayor on his blog. I’m going to do something similar, and I encourage everyone else to do so too.
The Mayor’s Info:
Gerald Tremlay
City Hall
275 Rue Notre-Dame Est
Montréal, QC H2Y 1C6
You can tread on my rights, you can tread on my freedoms…
DON’T TREAD ON MY MUSIC
I agree, if the S.A.T closes the consequences are severe…an infestation of hipsters towards the ghetto. Garbage cans will be rattling at 5 am as grungy disoriented hipsters look for bare minimal rations of food to sustain their ever so thin drug bombarded bodies. Shrieks and groans will be heard all over the ghetto, disgruntled hipsters searching for afterparites during cold weekday nights when the rest of the world is supporting families and resting to get to work. Maybe the closing of the S.A.T will force hipsters to reconsider their lives and maybe get day jobs and take showers….could montreal survive such a revolution? Could the consequence lead to the end of the great depression which is montreals pitiful contribution to Canada’s overall economy. Could stores finally stop closing down by the hundreds a year as hipsters finally come to work on time to support the public demand? This is a hot topic!
LOLLLLL that was jokes… but seriously The SAT is dope, it would be a damn shame if it closed down. It’s funny that either venues are shit and close on their own, or if they are successful the govt finds some way of shutting them down. Seeing as how nightlife is one of the last things keeping the local economy alive in our beautiful city, its kind of fucked the govt keeps finding ways cockblock. But then again im not surprised
Damn, this is the same kind of crap that partly ruined the Paris nightlife…
Now another great party central of the world is heading down that path?