Before we begin, I want to make it clear this is not some headline grabbing exposé on drug culture. Drugs and electronic music share a well documented past, present, and no doubt future. One needn’t point a finger to point that out.

I’ve always despised the word underground when describing electronic music; the connotation is that it’s secretive, that there’s something to hide, which I don’t think does the scene here any favours. In other parts of the world, electronic music is as mainstream as hip hop, pop and rock, and the scenes in those regions flourish with exciting nightclubs and festivals dedicated solely to the harmonious enjoyment of the genre.

The dirt I’m referring to in the title of this post has to do with the conditions wherein the local electronic music scene has had to hang its collective party hat of late. The clubs that cater to electronic music lovers these days also cater to — there’s no other term for it — sketch bags. By the droves.

A sketchy person is a person you can’t trust, plain and simple. They’re no fun to be around, and they often cause harm to those around them for the sake of their own benefit.

These clubs, some of which started out with so much promise, have been demoted to dives through a combination of this tendency to attract sketch bags, and of club owners who don’t take the safety and comfort of their clientele seriously.

Filthy bathrooms, poorly stocked bars, and rampant thievery and violence prevail over the squeaks, beeps and bumps of whatever the DJ’s playing, no matter how fresh the track or loud the sound system.

I’ve stopped going out to regular Friday and Saturday night electronic music events because I just can’t stand to be around it anymore.

Which is why I was so excited to learn that JFK of MSTRKRFT is playing his upcoming show at The Majestic.

Even if the change in venue still attracts the same sketchy crowd, the change in atmosphere, with clean, well maintained fixtures and a likely more vigilant staff should help keep the problems to a minimum. Hopefully it will serve to discourage them from coming back, too, should more electronic music promoters decide to use this venue in the future.

A1C Gallery has hosted several successful dance parties in this vein, and Musique non stop at Distortion has been sketch-free for all the times I’ve graced its albeit pungent dance floor.

In the meantime, the club owners need to start addressing the problems that have become rampant in their establishments, or they’ll likely find themselves with fewer and fewer people on their dance floors as venues like The Majestic step in to fill the void.

After being buzzed by the provocative import “MY STICKER CANDY PUSSY LOVER“, only just previously having our old wounds exposed and hearts broken by the domestic “Salt Concentrates“, we can be excused for overlooking the fundamentals at our underdog / underground favourite: A1C Gallery.

The quality of the art and the awesome parties at A1C show the gallery’s drive, but the AGM as a function seems like dull necessity. A cold procedural gathering in contrast to the emotional speedball we all just went through down on Baird’s cove as a result of the last two exhibits.

Hardly!

Such a congregation will be a rare look into the minds that shape downtown visual art – a testament to the high-density creativity in this postal code that gives A1C its namesake. New and experienced artists’ vectors are revealed as you find yourself drawing connections between the people and their work.

The gallery’s annual general meeting will be held tonight (Saturday) at 7pm. Members of the public are welcome to attend and listen. Members of the gallery  will vote on issues facing the space. A reception will follow at 8. If you can’t make the meeting itself, you owe it to yourself to go grab a drink while getting Michael Flaherty‘s take on the Grey Islands, or Will Gill’s stories about his time in Vermont.

A photo that would certainly be worth a thousand words, and that’s roughly what Halifax-born artist Cliff Eyland gives us in his rundown on the current state of visual arts in our province in a post published today on the Akimbo blog.

Eyland is back on the island after a ten year hiatus, making art out of the Full Tilt Creative Centre in the wooded hills of the west coast.

Offering up an astute outsider’s perspective, Eyland starts with a musing on the outcome of a recent conference panel he chaired that discussed the issue of marginality and isolation artists in various regions of Canada might face — something, it seems, no one actually saw as an issue.

The panel included Shawna Dempsey, Graeme Patterson, Mario Villeneuve, Michael Massie and Mark Prier. None of these artists, not Villeneuve from the Yukon, nor Massie, nor Prier from rural Newfoundland, seemed at all distressed by “marginality” and nobody seemed anxious to move to Toronto or New York. (Dempsey, in fact, moved from Toronto to Winnipeg early in her career.)

Eyland names Kym Greeley as “THE shining hope for young Newfoundland art,” goes on to review Republic, an exhibtion currently on display at The Rooms (which I happened to take in last night and really enjoyed), and caps things off with a plug for the “scrappy new artist-run start-up,” A1C Gallery, and its Going Postal: Responding to Canada’s Most Artistic Postal Code exhibition and fundraiser project.

Now, in keeping with today’s Scope-inspired animal theme, here’s a still Eyland’s shown us from Graeme Patterson’s 2008 Taming the Wild series (Patterson was on the isolation issues panel Eyland chaired).

Yertle the Turtle would no doubt be jealous.

Cliff Eyland’s Mobile exhibition at the Full Tilt Creative Centre opens June 7th.

Going Postal: Responding to Canada’s Most Artistic Postal Code, the exhibition currently running at A1C Gallery, is gearing up towards it’s culminating event.

The exhibition displays work from local artists in a variety of mediums, each of which considers the uniqueness of the A1C postal district, the one and only downtown St John’s.

A reception and silent auction will take place this Saturday, June 6th, at A1C Gallery, which is your chance to take home some of this downtown infused and inspired artwork.

Check the poster for more details.

A1C Gallery (of Signal Launch Party fame, among other things) are hosting a Sketchy Doodlers Club on Thursday nights. Admission is free, there’s tea served and you can buy beer from their bar. All are welcome!

For more details, check out the poster:

While the launch party has come and gone, this only marks the beginning for Signal.

The spectacular space we put together last night has been dismantled, but our now brighter and shinier looking blog is here to stay.

Last night really was amazing. A very special and grateful thanks goes out to all the wonderful people who came, showing huge support and giving lots of great feedback, all the while partying their collective asterisks’ off.

Thanks to A1C for an amazing space, Janine Godwin for dolling it up Signal style, Leo van Ulden and Physical Patrick for surrounding us in sound, Quidi Vidi Brewing Company for hooking up the first people through the door with a frosty one, Ballistic (especially Jonathan Loder) for doing whatever it took to clad us in our stylin’ t-shirts just in time, Sois and Sloan for chukin’ up their art, Aaron Goulding for building our beautiful new site with his bare hands, Mark Bennett for freezing us in time, and Kerri Breen and Nathan Downey for their poetic justice.

And thank you for doing what you’re doing right now. Without you, last night never would have happened.

:::Darcy and Elsa:::

The first installment of SignalTV was launched at 9:00 tonight. Darcy’s and Elsa’s one-day efforts resulted in a hilarious take on St. John’s misconceptions.

Question to those readers who aren’t here with us and won’t see the video until latenight: Does George Street have the densest concentration of bars (per capita) in North America? Check out SignalTV; they attempt to probe this taken-for-granted issue.

Here at A1C, things are starting to get real. The DJs are breaking out their hottest tracks (sorry, no Chris Sheppard, but yes, this shit is off the chain for the Y2K).

Come down and check us out. We’ll be rocking out late-night style.