The Twelve Inch #221 - The B-Side : How Montreal Became North America’s Second Disco Capital
The Twelve Inch 221 : The Can-Con series Part 1
Welcome to the B-side.
🇨🇦 It’s CanCon Month!
And we’re going to do things a little differently this week and over the coming weeks.
Instead of zooming in exclusively on the song from this week’s A-Side, the B-Sides will tell the bigger story of Disco and Canada, but also Canada and Disco. Two different, but closely connected and equally fascinating stories.
The A-Sides will provide the records that guide us through that history. Each week’s featured song illustrates something happening in the bigger story we’re exploring here.
So if you’ve read this week’s A-Side about Patsy Gallant and From New York To L.A., you’ll recognise quite a few themes. Quebec’s unique cultural identity, the divide between Francophone and Anglophone Canada, Montreal’s nightlife and its connections with Europe all come into much sharper focus here.
In other words, the A-Side gives us the record.
The B-Side takes us down the rabbit hole. 😁
But before we continue, and in case you wonder why I deactivate the AI scanning tool. 👇
How Montreal Was Almost Built for Disco
So here we are.
This is a story I’ve wanted to write almost since I started The Twelve Inch. And before we go any further, let me get something out of the way.
I love Canada.
Apart from my honeymoon, our trip through western Canada was probably the best holiday I’ve ever had. But I’m not going to turn into a sycophantic toad and spend the next few weeks telling you how wonderful everything Canadian is. 😁
When I feel particularly at home somewhere, I usually start wondering why. And while researching this series I realised that Canada sometimes feels like a gigantic version of my own little country.
In other words...
It’s complicated. 🙃
Different languages, different cultural zones, different identities living alongside each other, sometimes connecting beautifully and sometimes barely understanding what is happening on the other side. As a Belgian, none of this feels particularly exotic.
I also have a weakness for dialects and accents, and Québécois is definitely in my Top 5. The French may laugh their heads off when they hear undiluted Québécois, but I love it.
If you love Québécois you’ll love the video’s of Denyzee 😁
We have something comparable here with Walloon, sadly disappearing, but still spoken by some of my in-laws when they forget I’m around. It isn’t simply French with a funny accent, it’s recognised as a separate language with its own vocabulary.
These things fascinate me.
And in Quebec, language takes us straight back to disco.
Because Québécois famously contains a whole arsenal of religious words that became swear words.
Tabarnak!
Calisse!
Ostie!
Why? Because religion once controlled an enormous part of Quebec society. And the collapse of that control would change Montreal completely.
Before Disco Came the Quiet Revolution
