Recently DJ Mag released their yearly list of the top 100 clubs worldwide.  Slowly dropping from 8th spot several years ago to nearly 20th last year, The Guvernment in Toronto Ontario Canada landed itself on the 27th spot. As any fan of edm can say, there’s loads of huge venues and clubs across the world that we all hear about.  Party hotspots in major american cities, and wild european clubs with have massive events come to mind. Clearly Canada isn’t exactly the most happening spot in dance music, but in all honesty I think the club that many of us call home deserves much more credit.  I was going to do a spotlight on The Guvernment as part of my upcoming concert venue series of profiled reviews, but this moment seems to be a perfect chance to talk about it.  I’ll get down to the basics critiquing the profile for the club based on DJ Mag’s journalism.

     I can’t compare the club to the 26 venues that proceed it in the rankings, but I can articulate my own experiences and make some remarks based on that.  I’ve certainly had some great times at the venue, seeing many acts from big name DJ’s like Afrojack and Tiesto to some of the club mainstays such as Manzone and Strong and Mark Oliver.  Looking at the lineups over the past couple years I’ve seen a rapid advancement in having big shows and some of the greatest DJ’s in the world hosting parties in the nearly 10,000 capacity complex. Sure some of the DJ’s with loyal fan bases such as Benassi and Carl Cox can be guaranteed to make a stop each year, but other fresh artists who perform a variety of music are also being found within the club walls nearly every other weekend.  Looking at the lineups over the next few months at clubs in other major cities such as New York or LA I find myself preferring the exciting multiple headliner nights that The Guvernment hosts.  At the peak of some great renovations and new lights I feel like the club is literally at it’s best that I’ve seen it.  Hell Tiesto played the main room and I never expected him to even set foot in the Koolhaus let alone the Guvernment itself ever.  The club has a huge trance following, and a great dubstep crowd too, although the venue hasn’t narrowed itself onto a certain genre, unlike The Hoxton on Bathurst catering to electro or Cobra Nightclub showcasing deep house.  The place is great, I can’t wait to see what is in store this summer, especially for the yearly Canada Day celebrations. Oh and DJ Mag, get a better photo of the venue up there, and write an article that tells a little more about the place      Maybe the clubbing atmosphere is shifting and just like the Top 100 DJ’s list brought out by DJ Mag, the crowd and clubbing community is younger and looking for something different then The Guvernment.  I know where I stand, and thats in the middle of a packed crowd in the main room on a weekend with beat pulsating through the air.

The link to the ranking is; 
http://www.djmag.com/top100clubs/?op=detail&&page=3&year=2012&id=427

Dada Life @ The Hoxton, Deadmau5 @ The Rogers Center, Tiesto @ The Guvernment, Harvard Bass @ Ricoh Coliseum

One of the best live experiences I've had at The Guvernment so far was last summer finally seeing Norman Cook perform.

Some great sets so far that I've found professionally recorded at Ultra Music Festival this past weekend.  The Fatboy Slim set is honestly amazing. Listen to the whole thing and hear how well he works with samples.  I've seen him live once before and honestly any edm fan should make a point of seeing Norman Cook at least once in their lifetime.

Not usually an Afrojack fan, in fact i saw him close a show at The Guvernment in Toronto and didn't even sit around for 5 minutes.  He's just not my cup of tea, but had one helluva light show going on at UMF.

If you have any idea what remix of Insomnia Hardwell plays about 17 minutes in then please let me know. I've been a big Faithless fan for a while, but their tracks never exactly fit right into my mixes.

     I was at The Guvernment in Toronto Canada last night and couldn't help but notice the amount of drunk university students climbing the DJ booth. Now I'll be honest they were probably only a couple years younger then me, but in all honesty I've never had an experience as annoying as this.  Sure Wolfgang Gartner is my favorite electro/house DJ of all time (sure judge me now) and i would love to shake hands with Mr Youngman, but I have the composure to not climb up and try to fist bump the guy.  
     I'm not going to blame the security for letting the kids get away with these interruptions (yes I'm saying kids because it's childish to goof off like that). The one thing that stinks is that there's these saturday nights where a huge megastar DJ isn't charging a 80 dollar gate to get in, so the usual college rabble of club goers comes in who couldn't care less about the show, but rather which girl they will go home with at the end of the night. Sure you could raise ticket prices to filter out the kiddies, and keep the dedicated music lovers who will pay an arm and a leg to see talented people like Wolfgang Gartner, or his supporting DJ Pierce Fulton, take the stage. Raising ticket prices would sadly burry a deeper hole in my pocket, and the last thing anyone wants to do is spend more money, because we will if the artist is worth it.  After that i'm just disappointed, I brought my crappy point and shoot camera, because anything larger would get pummeled on the dance floor, and nearly half of the photos are filled with yet another drunk goof with his glow in the dark sunglasses and his white button up shirt that he spilled a broken glow stick all over.

  As most EDM fans would be aware, Simon Cowell is reportedly creating a talent show based around DJ’s as opposed to X Factor and American Idol which highlight singing talent.  I try to think of one positive that can be materialized from this concept, but honestly there isn’t one. To analyze and rant about this subject I’m going to break this abysmal idea down into some categories and we will see where we end up.

Genre: I find it hard to judge a show with such a wide variety of styles and possibilities present. Of course with a show like American Idol one can easily judge a singer based on their vocal talents.  The merits of a singer can be measured and there isn’t a real way to dispute someone’s power to bring out their pipes and sing a beautiful moving melody. On the other hand a DJ competition would be home to several genres of music. Dubstep, trance, house and electro, these four (very broad) genres alone are so differing that for one to judge them as separate entities it would be impossible. A dubstep DJ dropping a rippling beat at the right moment is much different then a trance artist who can meld beautiful songs together seamlessly. A house artist plays big clubby tunes back to back to get a crowd riled whereas a hard core electro DJ spins together complex sounds and pummels the audience with a hard drum tone.  How would a celebrity judge who produces house music react to a dubstep artist competing on the show, or an electro host react to a deep trance DJ?

Structure: The DJ’s I go to see live are ones whom I already know of, and respect their taste in music sensibility, or the songs the produce themselves?  Will the show revolve around the talents of DJ’s who can mix on several decks and showcase amazing live coordination skills, or will it rather highlight artist who create their own material they produce themselves? I don’t think the mainstream audience (that this show will clearly target) cares about the talent of a DJ doing his live work, rather they care about big house tunes that all their friends listen to while at a party, or while hitting the local club on a friday night after school. And on that note, how in the hell is a deep trance, or a hardstyle artist going to connect with the audience who will watch this show? Why is a 15 year old girl going to pay attention to somebody mixing Paul Van Dyk music when her and her friends all listen to Afrojack and Skrillex?

Judges: There’s going to be 3 judges, that’s just the way all these shows go. And to clarify and give some hints to where the show is going, Wolfgang Gartner just so happily gave a little tid bit of information on who the judges could be.  Mr Youngman stated “i know who the judges are. one of them is very famous, speaks very poor english, and is a human cheese dispenser. one of them is probably just laughing his way all the way to the bank and not taking it seriously. the other pair is a total wild card.” The first judge is clearly David Guetta. It could have been a play on words and was referring to deadmau5, but later Wolfgang went on to clarify Joel is not involved in the show. It’s typical that Guetta would be involved in something like this anyways (I’m not going to start a rant about him, so lets just all resent the guy in our minds). The DJ “laughing his way all the way to the bank”  could be a big name classic DJ like Carl Cox, Norman Cook or Tiesto.  These guys have been mainstays in the industry for years and can’t possibly tarnish their reputation in any way at this point. Plus none of them would take it seriously as they are all way above and beyond a prime-time TV show such as this. Lastly Wolfgang Gartner speaks of a DJ duo who are a wild card. My only guess could be LMFAO as they have gone mainstream, they bring more popularity to the show by being teen friendly, and hell they aren’t real DJ’s anyways so of course they would be involved in this shit. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if the lineup is actually Nervo to add females to the judging panel, Carl Cox to fill in for Randy Jackson, and David Guetta because he has mainstream appeal. I wouldn’t be surprised if Benny Benassi and Martin Solveig get involved at one point or another as well.
 
     I was going to do a demographic category too, but we all know who this shows target audience is.  All I can say is that I hate how our little underground world of dance music is being thrown into the spotlight and turned into a spectacle for the masses. It’s a fun genre of music to pay attention to, listen to and move to. It’s just sad that the industry is taking it this way when it certainly was fine without the press and focus.