Venue Stories - Tricycle Media

This venue is unofficial, and buried deep in the bowels of the horror-movie perfect old building at 1180 St.Antoine, in the perpetual shadow of the Bell Amphitheater (or whoever the title sponsor is now).

It’s actually the studio of a small collective of painters / visual artists / artistsgenerally who call themselves and their space Tricycle Media. Tricycle have been throwing shows / art / dance / jam parties there with different groups throughout the past year. When we had our 2nd Monthly Mess there, they had a stripped down but effective technical set up for our acts - solo guitar, saxophone with samples, 9 piece acoustic waltz band. They definitely made sure they had what we needed, and took care of working it during the show and the sound was great, far as I remember.

The person from the Tricycle collective who contacted me about collaborating was Stefan Gingras, but over the coarse of the night we met the other collaborators, Dustin Wilson, Emily White, Gabriel Agbouko and Clare Elson, and really liked the friendly joyful arty energy of them all. I didn’t do the financial negotiating for this mess, Josh Hinck was in the lead on all the first 5 messes, but I got the impression they were flexible when I had to settle up with them in the end. I think, if I remember correctly, we had to pay for the free beers for the bands out of the Pay What You Can door, and Tricycle kept the bar. We didn’t make much off the show, but we had a great time, and Tricycle made a beautiful poster for it and didn’t charge us rent. If there had been more made at the bar, I think they said we would have split it, but since it was only our second mess no one knew how many people to expect and we all underestimated, so they hadn’t ordered enough beer to extend the party beyond the show, just enough to get us there… all you need, really.

We had a surprisingly great turn out for a kind of unconventional space, and I think that’s because Tricycle were able to bring a crowd of their own, in addition to our swelling ranks, which was great. I’d like to work with this group again for sure.

The Tricycle space has a capacity of about 100 or maybe a bit more, but the room is effectively divided in half (uneven halves, more like 1/3 and 2/3’s). In the front section, by the door, you have a nice exhibition area for a few paintings and photographs, and for chatting during acts you’re not so into without disrupting those who are. The bar gets set up along the wall on the way in to the second area, next to the desk with the soundboard. The soundboard setup is sideways-facing the performance area and the mismatched collection of cozy couches and chairs that are the audience. It’s not ideal for acoustics maybe, to have the board next to the players, but it is great for having the dj and the person doing the sound become part of the show with some witty repartee which I personally enjoy. All in all, a kind of magical environment.

Things that weren’t good for our purposes:

- ideally it’s great if the venue we’re in has a projector and screen, but in this case it wasn’t necessary, and I think they could have helped us borrow one if we’d really needed it.
- no stage, not really enough room for dance acts, limited space in general once the crowd cozies in.

Things this place is or would be good for:

- collaborations. It’s more then a space, it’s a collective remember.
- parties with a sense of escape and abandonment. The building creates this feeling of otherwordliness, it’s great for group bonding and uninhibited dancing.
- Vernissages. The light is warm and beautiful and art looks and feels great in there on the mix of white brick and raw paper walls.
- art making parties. You feel more creative when you’re in there.
- super cozy experimental or acoustic shows.

If you’d like to read more of what we thought about our time with Tricycle, I described it a bit in a late night blog post after the Monthly Mess show we did there in April 2007, and a few others blogged it as well - here’s Marilis’s with photos, and Franco’s with a performers passion, and Alanah’s with a bit of show review.

Tricycle Media Space
1180 St. Antoine, Suite 211B
tricyclemedia@ gmail.com