August is supposed to be when everyone pretends/does enjoy getting all up in some non-city nature, but the bipolar elephant in this summer’s room is, of course, the weather. Unless you’re going far away, your beautiful trip to the country should either be short or feature a roof and/or low expectations.
So, what do we have that is still undeniably "summer"? First: bikes, biking and bike rides (but fuck a Bixi, they’re the new fanny packs). Also: DJs outside, as Bridge Burner 2009 – more fun than all of Jazz Fest combined – proved once again. Finally, an embrace of music that is as stupid as it is awesome.
Pop Montreal, in its infinite pulse-fingering wisdom, has managed to combine all of this and more into the Ring My Bell: Italodisco Bike-In. After a screening of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 modsterpiece, Blow-Up, the turntables will be taken over by Why Alex, Why?, Jay Watts III, David Shaw and N.Y.’s Bethany Benzur, who’ll be playing Italo disco, the electronically oriented synth-loving strain of disco that has been living in its Italian mother’s house since the early 80s.
It all starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 15, at the Terrasse McAuslan, which is right off the bike path. There’s also a fix-your-bike workshop offered by Vélogik, which is presumably for your own simple erudition, not because your bike broke on the way down.
But stop not there, pretty peasants, this weekend’s musical bosom is lustily a-heaving. On Thursday, Aug. 13, which has a 1/7 chance of being tonight, Sala Rossa welcomes Passion Pit, the Massachussettian electro pop phenoms. Though I’m not fully converted, their song Moth’s Wings is pretty fanteltastik and I’ll take them over MGMT any day. Australia’s The Grates and Ontaria’s Ruby Coast open things up (and rumour/Facebook has it that the headliners will be DJing at Blue Dog later that night). On Saturday, Il Motore showcases great local soul’n'psych upstarts Golden Isles alongside Jain Vain & The Dark Matter, while Divan Orange has Lake Of Stew and Zéphyr Artillerie. Monastriki (5478 St-Laurent) has a send-off party, starting at 6 p.m., for DJ/producer Andy Williams as he prepares to take his musical show on a world tour.
If you somehow made it through the weekend with tons of cash intact, on Monday John Legend headlines Métropolis with India Arie and Vaughn Anthony opening. Last time I checked, tickets were approximately $40,000. Then on Wednesday, Modest Mouse, whose new album sounds promising, plays Métropolis for slightly less. After all, it’s right there in the group name. (Frugal Fawns and Humble Horse were taken already.)
From the Department of See Someone’s Dad Rap comes a couple big-ticket hip-hop shows from dudes you probably should have seen spit last decade, but should still see before you or they die. Up first is Busta Rhymes, at Métropolis on Aug. 20, then De La Soul at Théâtre L’Olympia on Aug. 22.
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