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Read by A.J. Cordeiro 

Produced by Melissa Mulligan and Dominique Daoust 

Stories by A.J. Cordeiro Jessica MacDonald and Erica Fisher

Concordia Student Union is taking the Canadian Federation of Students to court. A motion will be filed Thursday asking the CFS to recognize the CSU as no longer a member.

Students overwhelmingly voted to leave in a referendum last year. However, the CFS refused to recognize the vote due to unpaid fees. 

Previous CSU president Keyana Kashfi signed an acknowledgement agreement in 2009. She was agreeing to pay over a million dollars in fees. Thursday’s motion will also ask for that to be declared null and void because she signed without consulting the council.

The CSU is also asking for punitive damages of one-hundred-thousand dollars due to a violation of its right to disassociate. 

Thirteen schools have held referendums to defederate in the past two years. Only three of those have had their referendums recognized by the CFS. Those three also happened to be the only schools that voted to stay in the CFS. 

As the student representative signed on to the case, Hassan Abdullahi says he doesn’t expect the fight to be easy. Simon Fraser University in BC filed a similar case in 2008. They have yet to have their day in court.

Photo courtesy of Adam Scotti

Tuesday's march against police brutality began peacefully downtown when 500 marchers started at Jeanne Mance Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard and walked towards Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

The march soon grew violent as protesters hurled projectiles and snowballs and cops, and police stopped the march at 6:40 p.m. by using stun grenades on St. Denis Street, between Marie-Anne Street and Mon-Royal Ave.

Organizers are calling for a public inquiry into the way the police handled the situation.

258 people were arrested, but all have since been released. Only six people were charged under the Criminal Code, and the large majority, over 200 people, have been charged with road safety violations. This is the second-highest number of arrests since the annual march began in 1997. Last year, 100 people were arrested.

It should be no surprise to anyone that I sometimes like things that are a bit on the absurd side. I'll break out albums by Mindless Self Indulgence or even reach back and pull out a classic like Weird Al, but one of my staples in what I like to call “Records of the Absurd” has to be Electric Six's Fire. Not only are all of the lyrics ridiculous, to say the least, but the album just has a dancey feel good quality that is undeniably catchy.

I have followed Electric Six for a long time; I even did an interview with the band before Switzerland came out. I saw them twice as they toured on that album; each time I was thoroughly happy, and left the show with the biggest smile I could muster, which was quite a feat as I was in Philadelphia and Baltimore on those occasions - two cities that don't make me feel like smiling. If anything, they make me feel like I’m trapped in a terrible cesspool the likes of which I cannot escape. But I digress…

Alas, soon a dark cloud would roll over the band. Their albums became more serious, and took on a more somber tone. Most of the fun, dancey songs that were present on the first two albums began to slowly fade, and were replaced by less upbeat, standard songs. And even though glimpses of it were to be seen again by their fifth album, Flashy, the band that I had been enthusiastically listening to had all but been replaced by what is almost a caricature of themselves. But surely this recorded band wouldn't be the same group that had brought me such joy at two live shows. I had to believe that I was just missing something and that once I saw the band perform I would understand this sudden twist of attitude. When I saw that the band would be in Montreal, bringing their unique brand of inanity to the stage, I willingly signed up to be in attendance. Also, I was hoping that I could wash away some of the disappointment brought on by the first live show of the year, Finger Eleven. Incidentally, if you care to read what I thought about that show in more depth, you can read it here.

I'd like to take a small break here to point out that Electric Six has now put out seven albums, including their latest release from 2010, Zodiac. I'll let that sink in for a moment. This band, who most people might (and I stress might) know as "that band that did that 'High Voltage' song," has released six other albums of inane, ludicrous songs, all of which have little to no commercial airplay. In this respect, I began to understand why they may have gotten darker and less vibrant over time. A simple lack of notice can do that to anyone, much less a group that just wants to see people have a good time... and of course readily accept their money for this aforementioned good time.

The show started off with a band called Johnny Headband, who I managed to see all of like 15 minutes since parking around Le Cabaret Mile End was sort of nightmarish. As I walked in and found a seat at the strangely laid out club, I thought to myself, "Ima Robot? Is that you playing onstage?" They certainly had the same ridiculous, dancey, funky synthesizer rock that I would expect from Ima Robot. Even the vocalist sounded similar. Turns out they have nothing to do with one another... except for their nearly identical sound. Regardless, they were perfect as an opener for Electric Six, and being from Detroit, I can see why they would be asked to open for them on this tour. I found the last part of their set, which consisted of everyone removing their shirts and the guitarist participating in an extended dance sequence, to be a bit longer than I would have liked, but in the end, I can't fault them for it.

After a brief break, a group came onstage who called themselves Half Baked. Now my French isn't very good, but I believe what I understood is that they won a contest to open for Electric Six. If that's true, that's pretty awesome, but since I can't verify that info, I have to believe that perhaps I heard it wrong. They were pretty rockin', and had a certain punk sensibility that I really enjoyed. The songs were simple, both lyrically and in their structure, but I found myself thoroughly entertained by the afro sporting frontman in his suspenders, jumping around and trying to get the crowd as involved as possible; at one point he did a run around the room encouraging people to clap along with the song. They did throw in a slightly of out of place synthy dance song, but even though it did stick out, I really enjoyed it. Perhaps the best thing was that, about halfway through the set, it suddenly dawned on me that this was all being done by a three piece. I'm not sure why, but I somehow thought the band had more people in it. They just sounded fuller than a three piece, and the fact that three guys could produce what I was hearing amazed me to no end.

Then came the moment of truth. Out came the band, dressed in their suits, with lead singer Dick Valentine holding a bottle of wine, which he then drank directly from and addressed the crowd, informing all of us that we were the reason that they kept doing this over and over again. He then told us that the synthesizer player was absent, which I'm guessing was due to some border crossing issue, so in his honor they played the song "Synthesizer". As the songs from albums old and new began to pile up, I felt the glee that met me whenever I had seen them in the past slowly returning. I got to see "Danger (High Voltage)", and "Gay Bar", and a bunch of other classic and not so classic songs; and as they played, my grin just kept getting bigger and bigger. By the end of their sixteen song set, I heard what they decreed their ultimate songs ("I Buy the Drugs", "Down at Mcdonnelzzz", and “Dance Commander”) and I left feeling satisfied and happy beyond words.

After the show, I felt confident that the Electric Six I knew from Fire still exists at their live shows, and maybe, just maybe, elsewhere as well. After I got home I listened to Zodiac via online streaming sources, and it seems like they may be heading back towards being the upbeat purveyors of fun that I previously had come to accept as a given. Who knows if they'll ever be able to get fully back to the simple irreverence that they used to have, but any step towards it is okay in my book. All I can say is, "keep it up boys."

So in conclusion, and in the words of Dick Valentine from the song "Germans in Mexico", "Deutsche! Deutsche! Vaya con dios, amigos!"

-Andrew Wixq hosts Grade A Explosives on Thursdays from 3-5pm