If you’ve ever stepped foot inside Distortion for Musique Non Stop, you know it’s an infectious experience. The music, the people, the dance floor, it’s all unlike anything else you’ll find on George Street.

Tonight Musique Non Stop is bidding its countless fans a fond, albeit temporary farewell. Benjy and co. are taking a break for a while, and deservedly so. This will be the 23rd instalment of the electrically eclectic, always free dance party at Distortion.

Perhaps in a bid to try and hide the tears in everyone’s eyes, the theme for tonight’s Musique Non Stop is sunglasses at night. Best glasses win a prize!

Featuring Dee Jay Benjy and Little Dan, Musique Non Stop 23, the last for some time, gets underway at 11pm and goes late.

I wonder how long before Living Planet starts carrying these?

I know I’d have one at my next party. Stuffed with seal oil capsules, of course.

Photo via keithbcg's flickr stream.

Via @shelleypardy, via Laughing Squid.

One of the great things about the Internet is that they will literally let anyone set up a blog.

One year ago today, Signal got the blog ball rolling with it’s first post (note my uncle’s family update in the comments), saying hi, or something. It got marginally less narcissistic from there, and one year later, here we are: our third post of the day about ourselves.

Full circle.

On the bright side, there’s this sick party happening tonight and we don’t even have to crash it since

a) it’s free

and

b) well, see here, here, and here. You get the idea.

Hope to see you at The Rockhouse tonight!

[photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/plushoff/ / CC BY-NC 2.0]

The results of The Scope‘s fourth annual Best of St. John’s Readers’ Survey are in and the official word is that Signal has won for Best Blog in St. John’s!

We here at Signal are as humbled as we are thrilled to have this award bestowed upon us by the people of St. John’s.

It’s been an interesting year since Signal first started up one quiet night last December. There have been ups and downs, side to sides, and even the occasional shuffle of controversy for good measure.

My personal feelings on the matter are that I’ve enjoyed every last second of it. I love that I get to be a part of this blog, I love that people read it, I love that people comment on it, I love that people contribute to it — people who volunteer their time and their talent and without whom this blog wouldn’t exist.

Alright, lucky for you that’s about all the speech I’ve got in me. Come to the awards show on December 17th (which just so happens to be Signal’s official one year anniversary) at The Rockhouse and I promise I’ll say even less when presented with the award.

The 9th anual Nickel Independent Film Festival capped things off Saturday with a big day and night of films followed by a boisterous party and awards show at The Gypsy. Patrons, producers, organizers and volunteers rubbed elbows and raised glasses to another successful festival gone by.

While we all look forward to what Nickel #10 will have in store for us next year, here’s a look back at Saturday and the final hours of Nickel #9.

The day got underway with a special children’s matinee, replete with balloon animals!

Saturday night’s final screening was followed by a quick dismantling of the festival gear, then off to the awards show and party at The Gypsy.

The awards went as follows:

Best Drama: Desert Trains

Best Animation: Elephants

Best Music Video: Throw Me To The Rats

Emerging NL Filmmaker: Christian Sparkes (Ten Days)

Audience Choice: Jordan Canning (Countdown)

Best Performance: Lead Actor in Land Gewinnen

Special Jury Award for The Spirit of Independent Filmmaking: Magritte Moment

Best NL Film: Heartless Disappearance Into Labrador Seas

Congratulations to all the award winners, and to everyone who screened at this year’s Nickel.

Special thanks goes to Jamie Lewis for continually providing us with an insiders look at the festival with his fantastic photography, and to the organizers of the Nickel for granting Signal an all access pass to all the screenings and events. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m already looking forward to doing it again next year.

The Nickel Independent Film Festival is hosting their official launch party this Thursday, June 11th at Folly on Bates Hill.

They’ll be screening a selection of shorts from last year’s festival along with a special screening of The Hall by local filmmaker Stephen Dunn, which recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

Add to this some very fine finger foods and door prizes, and you’ve got yourself one heck of a bang for your five bucks cover.

The party gets underway at 8:30pm and the screenings start 3o minutes thereafter.

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.

At 7:00 p.m, Signal officially went live. The launch was greeted by a warm reception from the growing crowd here at A1C.

Signal founder Darcy Fitzpatrick issued sincere thanks to all those who made the journey from the beta backwaters to live web 2.0 action possible.

There’s still plenty more to the evening. At 9:00 p.m, the first installment of Signal’s new video initiative, SignalTV, will be premiered. If that weren’t incentive enough, in the words of an elated Kerri Breen, there’s a whole new tray of springrolls.

Come on down and check out the rest of the launch party.

A1C has been transformed. You should see the place.

No, you really have to see the place. Get down here. The party’s already started and you’re missing all the fun!!