Born in tha clubs
YouTube vid documents the rise of electronic music in Winnipeg’s bars
Anthony Augustine


Housequake —tinyurl.com/2rqr6x — DJ Harry Chan held a longstanding residency at Club Happenings (1990-95), and DWS was at Wellington’s from 1996 to ’98 with Abi, Nysus and Morphcom.223, but it was Housequake DJs Dav, Dolemite, Cheney and Chan who spun at The Bank (1995-96) and set the tone for Winnipeg club culture during the embryonic stages of the city’s electronic music scene. This extended profile from the vaults of now-defunct TV station MTN documents the early days of club culture and is a fascinating (and pretty funny) look back at the first wave of DJs who infected the minds of club goers with their vinyl onslaughts. It’s especially interesting to note that of the original Housequake crew only Chan is still actively deejaying, and even he has cut back on gigs since moving to Vancouver last September.

Drug Mugs—83.231.168.148 — The U.S. is having major trouble in Iraq, but it’s also facing a widespread drug epidemic that’s beginning to put a stranglehold on many communities. While the number of crystal-meth and crack-cocaine addicts is increasing steadily, the amount of money being spent on treatment and prevention is going down. One effective campaign, called Faces of Meth, involves using before and after pictures of addicts to drive home the side effects of hard drugs. While it’s one thing to show people the effects of meth and crack abuse on strangers, it’s something totally different to show them what they might look like if they were to become a hardcore tweaker or crackhead. The Drug Mugs photo-generating program may be a bit extreme, but eventually maybe Bush and his buddies at the White House will begin to see they’re losing the war and need to look at alternative prevention methods such as this British campaign.

2007 March Madness On Demand— www.ncaasports.com — For the third straight year, the NCAA continues to be on the cutting edge of streaming video, offering nearly every game of the annual men’s basketball tournament for free on the web. By using the same online distribution system Major League Baseball developed, other sports could offer their fans exactly what they want — for free. Even though March Madness is huge in the U.S. — with over one-third of all office workers participating in some type of pool — the early rounds of the tournament involve games during the day. Instead of wasting your precious time off to channel-surf between games, the NCAA offers full streaming video. As a result, you can punch in at work and enjoy watching Duke slaughter some unlucky school before having your two-beer lunch and cheering on the University of Minnesota in its never-ending quest to get out of the opening rounds.

Anthony Augustine is a freelance music, technology and pop culture writer. He can be heard every Tuesday morning at 9:00am on Hot 103 discussing the web. Got a site you think he should see? E-mail him at anthony.alloneword@gmail.com.