DECEMBER 2019 • Vol. 8 No. 4 • CULTMTL.COM FREE * Please Thrill Me * Best music of 2019 * Alejandro Escovedo * Paloma Escovedo 2019 * Alejandro music of Thrill Me * Best * Please table of contents Contemporary art meets virtual reality at the Phi Centre Adam Byczkowski, Jane Penny and Sean Nicholas Cult Mtl Savage, collaborators on the upcoming musical production Please Thrill Me. Photo by is... Lorraine Carpenter to-do list Year-end music lists 16 editor-in-chief 4 :hammer of the mods 20 [email protected] city 6 Mattress reviews 6 film 22 Alex Rose film editor :rant line™ 8 Waves 2 2 [email protected] :inspectah dep 10 On Screen 24 Nora Rosenthal arts editor [email protected] food & drink 11 arts 26 Paloma 11 Please Thrill Me 26 Clayton Sandhu The Nutcracker 28 contributing editor (food) :play recent 30 music 12 Maky Lavender 12 Chris Tucker Alejandro Escovedo 14 art director Advertising [email protected] Contributors: Jacob Carey Johnson Cummins Ryan Diduck Amy German Rob Jennings Brandon Kaufman Darcy Macdonald Al South Paul Spence Mr. Wavvy up to 30% off General inquiries + feedback [email protected] on selected Until hours January 19, 2020 Curated by Cult MTL is a daily arts, film, music, food and city life site. Visit us at cultmtl.com Cult MTL is published by Cult MTL Media Inc. and printed by Imprimerie Mirabel. Entire contents are © Cult MTL Media Inc. VR Cinema: 4 shorts in virtual reality 50% off with purchase of Cadavre exquis ticket.* InnerFlood Partner Presented by *Certain conditions apply. Tickets: phi-centre.com DECEMBER 2019 • Vol. 8 No. 4 • WWW.CULTMTL.COM 3 Barr, Elizabeth Powell, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, Alexei Perry Cox, Jesse Mac Cormack and Rosie Valland. Jan. 22–26 ≥ The third annual Lux Magna festival of music, visual art, 3700 St-Dominique, 8 p.m. nightly spoken word, dance, workshops and all ages activities is to-do list happening at various venues, care of a team that includes Casa del Popolo cofounder Kiva Stimac and Elle Barbara. For the daily To-Do List, visit cultmtl.com Dec. 28 This year’s line-up includes Big Brave, Tranna Wintour, Before Katacombes closes its doors at the end of December, Montreal metal heroes Voivod will grace the venue with their Ylangylang, Backxwash, Big Sissy and many more. presence one last time, with openers Metalian, Reanimator To Dec. 29 and Painbow. ≥ 1635 St-Laurent, 8 p.m., $27 Jan. 30–Feb 1 Should we Peep some winter fashion and holiday rituals from the 19th Though the line-up had not yet been released at press time, century at the Champagne Charlotte and Crinoline event at the Taverne Tour is always a blast, with great local bands the Sir George Étienne Cartier National Historic Site every playing small venues on Mont-Royal Avenue and nearby on weekend (and on Dec. 26 and 27). There will be a costumed Jan. 10 St-Denis and St-Laurent. presentation, champagne-tasting, hot drinks, a card-making See some of the rising stars of Montreal’s music scene in the workshop, photo zone and more. Class of 2020 concert at Bar le Ritz PDB, care of Exclaim and ≥ 458 Notre-Dame E., 4 p.m. in French, 4:30 p.m. in English, Dan Burke/NeXT Shows. The line-up features Petra Glynt, Feb. 4–5 $7.80/$7.30 seniors/$3.90 Dish Pit, Hanorah, Sorry Girls and Sasha Cay. ≥ 179 Jean-Talon W., 9 p.m., $10.50 advance The Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow gives Kevin Smith fans the opportunity to watch his new movie with Dec. 6 the filmmaker in the room. This is happening over two Montreal Calling! marks the 40th anniversary of the Clash’s consecutive nights at two different Montreal venues. Jan. 16–Feb. 8 ≥ landmark album London Calling, featuring international Piknic Électronik goes into winter mode with Igloofest, Théâtre Corona (2490 Notre-Dame W.) and MTelus (59 Ste- talent Alejandro Escovedo (see our interview with him on a series of three-day-weekend parties that’ll pack their Catherine E.) p. 14), Tommy Stinson (the Replacements, Guns N Roses) outdoor Old Port space with dancing masses and a roster and the Asexuals along with a whack of local talent like Dan of local and international DJs including the Blaze, Anjuna Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Operators), Tim Kingsbury (Arcade Beats, Charlotte de Witte and Rufus du Söl as well as a Feb. 5 Fire), Paul Cargnello, Tommy Youngsteen and many more. special live set by local hip hop phenom Loud. Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Anna McGarrigle, Jane ≥ Corona Theatre (2490 Notre-Dame W.), 7:30 p.m., $72 ≥ Jacques Cartier Quay (Place Jacques Cartier & de la Commune McGarrigle, Sylvan and Lily Lanken and Vinnie Dow E.), 7:30–11 p.m. (till 12:30 a.m. Saturdays), $25/$89 VIP and Kathleen Weldon will share the stage for a special Wainwrights and McGarrigles concert at Place des Arts’s Dec. 6–15 Théâtre Maisonneuve. They’ll be performing Complainte The holiday edition of POP Montreal’s artisan fair Puces POP Jan. 21–25 pour Catherine: Songs of Kate McGarrigle (Rufus and features two different sets of vendors over two weekends Martha’s late mother). at Église St-Denis. Expect clothing, accessories, jewellery, One Kind Favor is a dance performance that promises to be a ≥ 175 Ste-Catherine W., 8 p.m., $82.15/$71.75/$54.65 housewares, food, art and more. trip, choreographed by George Stamos with collaboration from dancer Karla Etienne and musician Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. ≥ 5075 Rivard, 3–8 p.m. Fridays, 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Saturdays, 11 ≥ a.m.–5 p.m. Sundays, free entry MAI (3680 Jeanne Mance), 8 p.m., $28/$22/$16 Feb. 5–9 The Geordie Theatre Fest showcases works in Theatre for Young Audiences with staged readings in partnership with Dec. 11–14 Jan. 22–25 the National Theatre School of Canada and 2Play touring Titans of the local music scene will be performing unplugged Roger Sinha Dance presents D’écorce at Agora de la Danse. shows (The Water Chronicles and Fear of Missing Out) on a as part of la Chapelle’s Salons Acoustiques, namely Brad ≥ 1435 Bleury mainstage platform. Credit: Robert Burley. Implosions of Buildings 65 & 69, Kodak Park. Rochester, New York, 6 October 2007. ©Robert Burley worry? *This is one of the questions we continue to raise at the Canadian Centre for Architecture 40 years of since our founding in 1979. We persist with this questioning as the myriad of issues still to be addressed call for new ways to increase public awareness of the role of questioning. architecture in society. Every weekend, from November 30 to December 29, as well as on December 26 and 27. 458, Notre-Dame Street East (corner Berri) parkscanada.gc.ca/cartier Old Montréal Champs-de-Mars cca.qc.ca 4 DECEMBER 2019 • Vol. 8 No. 4 • WWW.CULTMTL.COM little spring-back. totally depends on what you do in the sack, right? If you’re only going to go for a few minutes and everybody is happy, Cult MTL was able to obtain four mattresses from different who gives a fuck? The extra workout will make for a good city Canadian retailers — Jump Bed, Endy, Silk and Snow and sleep afterwards. But if you want to go for a while or get into Hamuq — to test them out and judge whether or not they’re anything adventurous, while Endy does provide for good ideal for fucking. After months of careful research and stability, it also made every thrust more work. rigorous test-driving, here are our findings: Looking for an altogether different type of mattress in a Do box Made by Quebec’s own Matelas Bonheur, the Jump Bed is the box, we were able to obtain two foam/coil hybrids. The local mattress company’s entry into the mattress-in-a-box first we tried out was Silk and Snow. Silk and Snow is like field. What really stood out about it was the ooey-ghooey a traditional coil mattress but with a memory foam top, mattresses “Jump-Air” foam feeling. Jump uses their own type of foam similar to a pillow top but cushier. This mattress was very for these mattresses as a cooler alternative to memory foam, comfortable and had a certain amount of firmness to it but it and it absolutely does leave you feeling less sweaty. It also also featured a decent spring-back. My three-year-old snuck bounce? had a removable, washable top, which is handy. into my room and jumped on this one with absolute glee. But while the Jump Bed was really cozy and had absolutely More importantly, Silk and Snow’s combination of cushy and no motion transfer — for those of you who like the idea of springy made it absolutely perfect for really athletic sex. It BY AMY GERMAN keeping a wine glass on the mattress while you do other had all of the softness of the memory foam beds, but this things without it spilling — the sinking was a bit too much. one in particular was the firmest and bounciest. If you’re Box mattresses have become trendy Truthfully it felt like trying to fuck in one of those foam pits planning a party in your bed, this is the one to go with. because of their easy delivery and that kids jump into at trampoline parks: the more you weigh, promises of extended trial periods. While the harder you have to work to fight your way out.