City of Montreal backroom hush hush

The next city election is still over two years off, but there's already plenty of backroom groovin' and maneuvering going on.

Here's the latest 'butt. Mayor Gerald Tremblay will not run again, nor will his brother, NDG councillor Marcel Tremblay. Also waving goodbye will be NDG councillor since 1982 Marvin Rotrand, who has been somewhat more complacent now as a member of the Ex.Com. $100 k + club. He's got a 37 year old friend in mind to replace him, but there's some doubt whether Marv will follow through and retire.

One name considered to replace Mayor Tremblay is former MNA and MP and TV host Liza Frulla, she's synonymous with big scarves and turtlenecks and was also an anti-separatist leader in 1995, which is a good thing. She recently came out with a hot-blooded page turner co-written with hardcore sep Louise Beaudoin, detailing their healthy friendship, which appears to be platonic. So one might imagine that book aims at removing the edge from Frulla's potential anti-sep stigma. Not sure what she's going to do to get rid of her addiction to scarves. Had the island still been a one-island one-city - as it really should have remained - the chances of getting a good federalist as mayor of Montreal would be even greater.

Frank Zampino won't run for Mayor of Montreal after all. Tremblay's newly-slimmed down right hand number crunchin' man cringes in the spotlight and feels awkward at public functions where he has trouble gladhanding with the masses.

The looney Projet Montreal will unite with the moribund Vision Montreal to battle against the post-Tremblay party. The only real name of note in that gang is Park Ex councillor Mary Deros, who's active and able, but has also been trying to graduate to federal politics for quite a while. Her attempt to grab the Papineau district were recently thwarted by Justin Trudeau who really looks like he'd be an animal in bed. Not sure if he's a sloth or a gazelle. Let me think it over.

French school board elected rep Maria Mastromonaco is being groomed to take over from Marcel Tremblay in NDG. She could be popular name-wise with the politically unsophisticated but heavy-voting Italian segment of the area but she's also known as the person who removed the traffic guard from St. Raymond's and isn't involved much in the area.

Um, that's all that I got.

Miss Ginger's granpa served meat on the Main

The fabulous and inimitable Miss Ginger who does a great gossip segment twice a week on the Picard show on Team 990, sent this 1910 photo of an old-thyme relative named Isaac Giroux who had a shop on the Main and Pine. Old man Giroux peddled all sorts of cuts of beef and chicken and cell phone batteries and sometimes Sly Stallone would come in an whump the meat a bit.

Foto doo jh---oo-r Belgo Building on St. Crath in Olden Thymes

This is a photo of the Belgo building on St. Catherine Street. It's from Ye Olden Dayes. Remember those? These days this building is used as the place for such unusual events as battles between polar bears and grizzly bears and Thai speed-cartwheeling matches over fire. Well.... I wish they had that kind of stuff. It's a fairly standard artsy place these days, doubtlessly jammed with pontificating ponderous ponces, can't find a piece of chocolate there nowadays for the life of youze.

Habitat 67 gets city protection

Hear ye! Hear ye! Habitat is one of a bunch of buildings and one site that's just been granted city heritage protection. Heritage designation means you can't mess with the surrounding landscape, public art or structures on the site. It also means that Superman will be keeping an eye on the place. Habitat was one of scores of buildings slapped together for Expo 67. You're going to be hearing a lot about Expo over the next few days -- it was held 40 years ago this year. A lot of the people involved in its realization won't be around in ten years. That's not to say Habitat architect and one-time Montreal resident Moshe Safdie won't be there for the 50th -- mazl tov, dude, and knock on wood. Anyway, who knew that Habitat was supposed to be ready for Expo but wasn't. A stressed-out Mayor Jean Drapeau supposedly came up with the idea to say it was unfinished on purpose as a way to educate fairgoers in its construction.

Photo du jour: Fire on Dorchester

The above photo of a fire scene on Dorchester Blvd. appeared in print 50 years ago today. Modern Motor Sales stood at the south side of Dorchester, on a site just below the present-day Crescent St. nightclub district. To be precise, the car dealership was at the corner of Aqueduct (now Lucien l'Allier), across from the old CBC headquarters in the former Ford Hotel. The smaller brown building in the background is the old Ogilvy's Department Store warehouse, which is still standing and now owned by Concordia. Nowadays, like so much of Montreal, this area is part of the city's exciting parking-lot district.
Meanwhile, most of the surrounding Overdale neighbourhood -- with its many low-cost apartments -- was pulled down by godsent developers in the early '90s, in spite of protests by residents and with the sniffy blessings of city councillor Nick Auf Der Maur, to make way for a luxury high-rise condominium tower that was never even built. The smaller picture shows a rare view of Kinkora Street, which the developer-councillor alliance wiped clean off the map.

Facial hair du jour: Yves Bérubé

Ah, the good old days, circa 1977.

Whatever happened to those uncompromising men with the bravado it takes to wear beards like this 'stache-less model sported by the late PQ minister of forests and lands?

Face it, the facial hair of this MIT-educated mining engineer and professor was centuries ahead of its time. Still, he wasn't content to be just a fashionista: this Montreal-born journalist's son was occasionally seen doffing a fold-over (unknotted) tie that marked him as a true fashion rebel. Here's lookin' at you, Yves, wherever you are.

Happy 100th to Roslyn School!

The construction of Roslyn School was announced 100 years ago today. That's a picture of the elementary school on Westmount Ave. approaching completion in the fall of 1907. The construction budget was $125,000 for the fireproof, 16-classroom school with a capacity of 600 students.

But today, the building has been embarrassingly defaced. At some point after Bill 101 happened, some fools cemented over the proud name of the school, just because it was in a language that dared not show its typeface. The original, proud lettering that said "Roslyn School" above the front entrance is still sadly and sloppily obscured with shovelled-in grout, as if in memory of those dark days gone by. As Shirley and Company would say, "Shame, shame, shame."

It's time to restore this historic building and put a fool's cap on the overcompliant pencil-pusher who was responsible for this preposterous desecration. Anybody got a picture of the vandalism? We'd ask our phototographer, but it's budget time and he's out buying shoes.

Our Jenn hits the stands

Three months after her phone-text story broke on Coolopolis, Jennifer Kruidbos's indelible image and eye-opening story were splashed across the break page of the Montreal Gazette's Arts and Life section today. At last, the rest of the world is catching up with just one of our favourite correspondent's incredible adventures, this one involving a misused cell phone, the RCMP and a terrified university coed. Curious? Go ahead and check out the Gazette's copy or go back to our original. Either way, Jenn's tale is a lesson in modern living. And a superb scoop at that.

We miss the Cherrier arches

Cherrier is a beautiful east-west street jutting east from St. Denis to Lafontaine Park. That's where legendary mob lawyer Frank Shoofey was killed in his office in May 1991 (good guy, Shoofey, helped recover Brother Andre's Heart and managed the fighting Hiltons. His son Dom is also a lawyer. My buddy Dan Burke was on the phone with Shoofey just minutes before he was killed).
So anyway, there are several pictures dated 1910 on the provincial library site of an elaborate pair of arches that once stood at the corner of St. Hubie. In the mob photo the arches look quite different, so I'm not convinced that's even Cherrier. The arches were apparently just a temporary thing put up for a religious conference, the Congres Eucharistique of 1910. But they're sexy as all hell and Coolopolis strongly believes that these archies should be brought back.

Fern does the perp walk

Big TV had their kimchee and ate it too, this past week. All of them -- especially NBC -- cashed in on sky-high ratings after some fool shot up a bunch of people somewhere. And then the mediocracy started wringing their hands about how wrong it was to give a dead guy some kind of prime-time payoff. As if he could care less now.

These shooters are starting to become commonplace; boring, even -- provided they don't hurt someone close to you. But while lots of tubeheads were glued to their sets when this schmuck went to town, Coolopolis didn't just stand by.

Not a chance: we sent crack copyboy Elliott Loyer to find out whether Montrealers really cared. And of course, the most reliable measurement of concern in such cases is to determine whether the lone DVD copy of Gus Van Sant's high-school-shoot-'em-up, Elephant, had been rented from Boite Noir on McGill Street.

It hadn't.

Funny, Elephant practically jumped off the shelf after what's-his-name did all that shooting at Dawson last fall. Could it be that people finally have school-shooting burnout? You can say that again. (Could it be that people finally have school-shooting burnout?)

Here's to hoping that fad's going out of fashion. (Especially since Coolopolis has about nine disgruntled employees.)

Anyway, all this preambling is just another way to to get to the heart of this post, so that we can get back to opening the fifths of gin "by appointment to Her Majesty" that Elliott was actually sent out for.

Here we go: Exactly 50 third-Saturdays-in-April ago, Montrealers were enjoying a voyeuristic read about our own homegrown shooter. Here's what happened: some guy with a gun leaned out a window at St. Catherine and St. Lawrence and started picking off passers-by. And just like the Virginia Tech guy, this sniper also blamed everybody but himself. "I wasn't a maniac before," the Montreal gunman wrote. "You have to believe that the world made me this way."

Nobody died, but four pedestrains spilled blood, and papers spilled lots of ink.

But what's even more memorable is that gin cost $3.50 a bottle back in those days.

(Shooter links: ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR. If you need a translation, ask for it in comments.)

Montreal pharmacy again

Here's another view of the Montreal Pharmacy, which Coolopolis wrote in painstaking detail about here.

French Fries on wheels

Is your mouth watering yet?

Sweet gov't auction Sat morn

I could see myself behind the wheel of this sweet pimpmobile and I could also see the look on the face of the guy I just carjacked it from staring back at me from the rearview mirror as I speed off... however..this ride could be legally yours if you show up Saturday morning.

Montreal's best sign

Beautiful memorial at the Protestant Cemetery

What does this remind you of?

Quiz du jour...where was this?

Drapeau gets elected 1954

Colourful statuary

Many are unaware that the oft-venerated white statues of ancient times were actually painted to look lifelike. So the shiny white, oft-armless likenesses we see in Euro museums isn't anything like what they saw. Rarely does one see a colourful statue but this Coolopolis supporter tosses his arms wide with the glee of someone who has been painted properly. Surely you know where this is....

Train track land

There's a newly built neighbourhood at the east end of the old Port that you can see from the bridge just east of city hall. Supposedly Celine Dion owns a place down there. That's what they say and no I don't believe it either. Here's a view of the newly-constructed public space that goes along with it. It features decorative (ie: non-functional) train tracks. Presumably this is a wink to some historical fact, perhaps the old Duplessis-era Grande Noirceur trains carrying young franco virgins from the countryside for anglo sacrifice ended here. We called the venerable Coolopolis founder at the golden age home to ask if he could remember but a strange, husky-voiced woman replied and started asking us for "bling and smokes," it all sounded sordid and suspicious.

Here's the answer to this question from JD:

The "nod to some historical fact" would be in acknowledgment of Montreal's oldest standing (former) railway station, the defunct Dalhousie Station (built in 1884), which is the immediate neighbourhood described in this posting. In fact, Dalhousie Station was the point of departure for the Canadian Pacific's first trancontinental train to Vancouver in 1886. There's a plaque on the building attesting to this fact. Alas, the tracks are long gone. I think the building houses a circus school now.

Behind (to the north of) Dalhousie Station, on St. Antoine at Bleury, stands the old Viger Station and Hotel, now a city administration building. The chateau-style structure (circa 1898) conceals the smaller Dalhousie Station, which is not much to see, really, immediately to the south. Here's a link.

Montreal needs a hostess bar

In Japan and other civilized places, some bars hire nice chatty women to sit with men and chit chat with them. The male customers, I guess theoretically females as well, buy these women drinks and the bar is thrilled to be selling twice as much booze. Montreal had a place like this called the French Kiss, which was run by Wanda's strip club downstairs, it was at the top floor of this loverly building on Demaisonneuve. In my visit for a newspaper article I got saddled with a West Island blonde moaning about her phone bill or traffic or something. She was clad in a chiffon nightie, which seemed to doom any chances of discussing great literature. As soon as she sipped that last sip of her eight dollar drink she zoomed away back to solitude to a distant velvet-cushioned couch. Wasn't a great experience, nonetheless we need some alcoholic diversity if we want to be considered a big league burg, so somebody get it together to replace this lost treasure.

Quiz du jour - where is this?

Who will be the first to pinpoint this Montreal island location?

Time's up. The answer is Claremont and Sherbrooke. Somebody came close by suggesting Victoria and Sherbrooke but indeed Victoria is one-way south. One hint is the STOP (English only) sign in the background, a sure sign that it was shot in Westmount.

Curtains for the Dome Theatre

Apparently the play currently on at the Dome Theatre on Notre Dame, acted and produced by Dawson College's theatre students, will be the last ever. Coolopolis Theatre reporter Isabella "The Drunk" Laframboise has been out of contact since losing her Blackberry in a poker game, so we don't know the name of the play or the other details, any info would be appreciated. Plays at the Dome are always a hoot, there's a great ambiance, and it's usually a pay-what-you can, so a fiver will get you a great little time.

Prediction - big road redo to be announced Thurs nite

This is the corner of Prudhomme and Upper Lachine Road. It's an area adjacent to the superhospital site, just to the West. On Thursday it will likely be announced that this spot will be entirely redone to funnel traffic where the green grass now grows. Cars will drive up here and then go along a small east-west street named Crowley to Decarie. Crowley is currently home to an auto body shop, a BMW repair joint, a couple of houses and an office building housing a daycare, which is presently moving to another location (the old MOSD school). Crowley (in bottom photo) is narrow. Widening Crowley would require demolition of one or two homes on Prudhomme. The anticipated announcement will take place on Thursday at the Brodie Farm Community Center at Girouard and Upper Lachine, an evening the MUHC and city councillors will announce details of their traffic plan. At no stage did the MUHC, the province or the city solicit community feedback concerning their road re-do project, which led to a major grassroots backlash in the area. So these powerful forces will now declare that all eastbound traffic that currently goes through the busy Decarie /Demaisonneuve intersection will pass down Crowley. This should provide at least a partially-acceptable solution to MUHC's ill-conceived proposal to ban eastbound traffic from the Demaisonneuve/Decarie intersection.

Ice cream self-poisoning ponces rejoice

There's nothing good about the ice cream. It'll kill you but make you all blubbery first. However if you want to go down that route, we won't stop youze. Today (Tuesday) ice cream is free at Ben and Jerry's. Don't tell 'em Coolopolis sent you. We want no part of this.

Quinz du jour - where was this?

The top photo is, fairly obviously, that joint on Pine Avenue The lower photo is... at 5637 Park Avenue (not sure if those addresses from the 1930s are still good on Park Avenue) but it's north of St. Viateur. No idea if the building still stands.


Christopher Dewolf took a more recent photo of that building, which has since been ruined by renovation.

FIRE!!!!!!!

Back when Coolopolis had its own office tower this was the brains of the fire detection network in Montreal. A rare glimpse as far as rare glimpses go.

Coolopolis sets the time machine for tasty hot dog era

Last weekend at the annual business meeting of the Past Chairmen of the Coolopolis Pension Fund, one of them brought this photo of a hot dog truck at Masson and Pie IX. The tastiest dogs are always served with a nice sody pop and Texaco leaded gas fumes. It was the ultimate local culinary experience from what these old timers say.

Coolopolis Quiz du jour - what landmark is being built here in 1950? No cheating allowed

We have a winner. Yes it is indeed the McTavish reservoir.

Now playing in the Great Beyond

Nordheimers' Hall. -- Herrmann, the Great Herrmann, king of magic -- the man who demonstrated his marvellous ability before all the crowned heads of Europe, will be in Montreal this week. He will give five performances at Nordheimer's Hall starting Friday night. Herrmann has gone around the world and astounded everyone who has seen him with his sleight of hand and, above all, with the astonishing feats he appears to accomplish by magic. Herrmann currently speaks seven languages: French, Spanish, German, English, Russian, Italian and Portuguese. He also has a familiarity with the spoken Indian languages of Asia. One of his most remarkable tricks consists of cutting off the head, arms or legs of a man, right in front of spectators. This trick alone is worth the price of admission. Herrmann is accompanied by a celebrated ventriloquist and three other artists. -- La Patrie, April 14, 1883.

You're getting colder, you're getting warmer, you're getting colder

Thank goodness for quacks. Our weather clerk would be on some kinda waiting list if it wasn't for Dr. X, who's been all but unemployed since they legalized abortion. After all, you get a pretty sore neck watching two-week weather graphs like we've been doing these past couple of unpredictable weeks. It cost us $40 cash and a case of two-four to have the doc treat our clerk for Vertical Tennis Match Syndrome, but Dr. X got rid of his nasty crick. All this to say that you can bet Dr. X is pretty happy that we don't have Professor E. Stone Wiggins to kick around anymore. Ol' Wiggins, a renowned weather prophet, put all those book-larned weather people out of a job in his day, and the clipping below from exactly 124 years ago is proof of the esteem in which he was justifiably held. O professor, where were you when our weather clerk needed you most?


Anyways, here's what the clipping says: A prophet in Montreal. -- Professor E. Stone Wiggins of Ottawa, whose predictions caused such a sensation this winter, will soon give a conference in Montreal about the formation of worlds and the origins of storms.

Coolopolis confession - yes we torched City Hall

These photos were taken a mere 85 years ago, following the blaze late on a Friday night, on March 1922. It was eight years into the 10 year reign of that rat faced paranoiac Mayor Mederic Martin. City Hall, which originally opened in 1878 was totally gutted by flames that started in the basement, in the licenses and privileges department. It took the whole place down so easily because the beams were made of wood rather than steel. During the blaze Mederic sent his bodyguard, Sgt. Ferdinand Lafleur into his third floor office to fetch the Mayor's ceremonial chain of office, whatever that is. By midnight thousands watched the floors give in. It was rebuilt and reopened February 15, 1926.

Montreal's first city hall was a shed at Pointe a Calliere when Chomedey got here in 1642. That place was replaced by something called Chateau Maisonneuve, paid for by the Company of 100, the French mystics that footed much of the settlement start up costs. In 1698 city hall was moved to where the Bonsecours Market is today. In 1760 the Brits moved it to Chateau Ramezay, which has been on Notre Dame since 1705. Before the Americans took over here brieflyin 1775, city hall was moved to the Maison Beaujeu which still stands at 320 Notre Dame East. City hall business was done at the old courthouse during the rebuilding between 1922 and 1926.

So if you wanna be a bore and show off all this knowledge, just remember that you got your higher learning at Coolopolis U.

Endgame by Beckett: Waiting to Go? Don't

Actors get an ambiguous frisson whenever Matt Radz walks into a local theatre. Radz, who reviews plays for the Gazette, is known for his tough, sometimes nitpicking and often scathing reviews. He doesn't mince words, but when he likes something, you know it's worth the price of admission.
In his Saturday review, Radz came off like the Fonz -- both thumbs waaaay up (but minus the "H-e-e-e-y!") -- for a little Beckett play going on at Mainline Theatre through Sunday. Here's what the Radzman had to say about this challenging and rewarding existential masterpiece.
"Gleams Theatre's attentive and smartly paced staging of Endgame delivers a perfect Beckett evening... ." Later, he writes, "There were no more than a dozen very lucky playgoers at a performance of Endgame earlier this week. Beckett would have relished that." Betcha all that's changed now.
So what's it all about? Here's Radz's plot summary: "In Endgame, the stasis of waiting for someone who will not be arriving (i.e., Godot, the unseen character in another Beckett play) has been replaced by the inertia of someone, Clov (Jonathan Marquis - second photo), who can't leave his master (Sam Hamm, played by Sam Croitoru - top photo) for the same mysterious reason Godot won't show his face. Nothing happens, again and again and again and so on and on and on. (Director Constantin) Sokolov paces the show, with all its halting non-sequiturs and verbal hiccups, so cunningly that the final 20 minutes become incrementally unbearable. The mind screams for mercy and for Clov tofinally make good on his opening lines : 'Finished, it's finished,nearly finished, it must be nearly finished ... '"
Patrick Gelinas (in whiteface above) as Nagg, and Darlene Lenden (below) as Nell, round out the cast.
Endgame by Samuel Beckett, a Gleams Theatre production directed by Constantin Sokolov, runs until April 15 at Mainline Theatre, 3997 the Main; (514) 934-0535. Endgame plays alternate against Central Park West by Woody Allen, so call ahead.

Montreal's first ringy-dingy

Wilberforce Berubé, technician in charge of the Coolopolis time machine that we commissioned as the sole means to find employees who know how to spell, has just returned from a trip back to 1879. Ol' Will brought with him this page 3 clipping from the daily La Patrie giving details of the city's first phone. Let's dial 1, shall we? Brring-brring-brring. Us: Hello? Is that the Fabrique office of the French church at 42 St. Sulpice? Them: Mais, cretons du diable! You're not Abelard at the cemetery. What have you done with him, monsieur? Us: Sorry, old chappie, it's the future. We're just ringing to find out why you'd want to link up your office with the boneyard. Them: Are you fou? We got it to double-check when our clerks call in dead. Got to make sure you know. Toodle-oo. Must dash. Have to screw in a red light bulb, vous savez.

Photo du snowy jour - Dorch looking W from Berri

Coolopolis is proud of its massively influential urban planning editorial polices. For the last 72 years our board of elders has recommended that every building in Montreal over 17 years old be demolished and replaced by concrete over which vehicles can roll at ultra high speeds while operated by members of the hierarchical elite (of which Coolopolis staffers will be permanent designated members). As for the people who live in those buildings, we suggest they be locked in underground containers, so the machines will never be impeded by bipeds or other living creatures. We were delighted therefore when these buildings were knocked down for a six lane boulevard in the 50s.

*cheep* Get this paper offa me! *cheep*

St. Hank resident Jennifer Schulte has found a new use for $20 bills. She mushes them up with paste, paints them and turns them into mounted papier mache birds like Tweety up there. (Here's a bunch and here's her day-job site.) Well, O.K., she doesn't use money. They're made of old Publi-Sac flyers. But they're so priceless they might as well have the queen printed all over them. You know, it takes a lot of know-how and whimsy to make little songbirds like these, so it's a good thing that Jennifer has a master's in fine arts. Take it from Professor Chap Tastick, vice-president of Coolopolis Research and Development. These are even more lifelike than the live sparrows he plastered up this morning and they're still moving.

Our first human fly

Seventy-six years before human French fly Alain Robert scaled Montreal's Crown Plaza in 1999, more than 20,000 spectators witnessed American daredevil Jack-Leon Lamonte climb a downtown skyscraper bare-handed in temperatures that bottomed out at minus-14 degree Farenheit. Be he brave or crazy, most of the Coolopolis staff members who were informally polled this morning have agreed to salute this all-but-forgotten upscrambler.

Challenge: Where was the Honor League?

Ninety years ago, this mysterious item appeared in the middle pages of the Quebec City Chronicle. Pretty big place, but whatever happened to it? Any guesses?

The baseball stadium that never came to be...

We confess that 1956 was a cruel year for Coolopolis. Running an internet site devoted to the city of Montreal was really tough back then before the internet was invented. So revenues were down and we survived on old bread scraps while running the less expansive Coolopolis operations from a shack in a field behind an outhouse in St. Leonard. At least those were relaxing times. We surely would have had something to say about the great overlooked event of that year, when IATA and ICAO got together to enshrine the NATO (November, Alfa, Tango, err..Oliver..err..Ottawa...no, uh, it's Oscar) phonetic alphabet. But the other great overlooked local event of that year was the creation of a huge baseball stadium in Montreal, which would have been even better known had anybody ever actually taken this model drawing from that year and actually built the darn thing. PLAY BALL ! Go Expos!

NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAAAH-NAH-NAH!

Pity poor, unenlightened M-City which never had the guts or brains to realize that roundabouts are the coolest traffic contraption thing ever. These designs not only eliminate the need to stop and wear down your brakes and pollute the air at a red light while compulsively picking your nose, they also reduce accidents, mainly by eliminating that deadly left turnerooni dealio. So when Nun's Island started seeing the light a couple of years back by building some of these suckers, it was generally assumed to be a local first. NOT SO FAST! Here's photographic evidence that the roundabout was here at least in 1953, at the very eastern extremity of Marie-Anne. Coolopolis sent our staff photographer Duncan McPie to see if it's still there but his geographical restraining order prevents him from going east of St. Denis. The fledgling roundabout in the photo was surely doomed soon after. We're pretty sure the only roundabout currently on the island is deep in the technopark of St. Laurent. For those still apprehensive to embrace the roundabout, beyond the fact that the editorial board of Coolopolis has given the roundabout an unprecedented THREE THUMBS UP (see proof below), here's the gist of the roundabout, as articulated in poetry by prog-rock fops Yes:
Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagles dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand

Starting to see it baby?

MU Gala tips hat to hip-hop artists

It was a hot and sweaty night... . O.K., that may look like the first sentence of our next best-selling thriller (and come to think of it, it probably will be), but it's actually a description of the scene at Colours club back in 2005, for the first-ever Montreal Hip Hop Underground awards.

The awards are back again on April 28 as the MU Gala (as in Musique Urbaine) at a new venue, Saints. But nominations for this year's awards are about to be announced live online at 10 a.m. today (here's a peek behind the scenes). Check out www.galamu.com for all live show, nominee lists, video clips and highlights from past awards shows.