It’s not a bad thing to be a nerd — everyone is one. Call them interests, call them passions, but at the end of the day, we all know way too much about one specific thing that everyone around us thinks is weird. Maybe you know every word of every Seinfeld episode. Maybe you’ve memorized the members of every good metalcore group between 1961 and 1967. My friends are getting tired of me telling them about how Vetements is derivative because Maison Margiela and Rei Kawakubo all did the same thing 25 years ago. See? It’s boring when two people aren't the same kind of nerd.
What UBC has in spades is clubs for nerds — The UBC Fashion Club, UBC MIA (Magicians Illusionists Association), the list goes on. But music clubs? How much can you really talk about music when you convene with other fans? I love hip hop more than most people that I know, but I don't want to sit around and talk about Kanye with people. When my editor told me about the UBC EDM club, I was more than a little bit confused. What do they do all day? How many posters of Avicii do they have? They’re in a tiny room in the Nest — how much room could there possibly be to fist-bump?
The head of the EDM club, the fantastically moustachioed Luc Briede-Cooper, told me that the club is “on the technical side of production and DJing, the creative side ... and people coming together through the mutual enjoyment of electronic music.”
I met him on the bus with six other members, where we began a 45-minute journey to Monstercat. Two of the guys spent those same 45 minutes talking about their future bass remixes and snares. I didn't have anything to add to the conversation, unless they wanted to talk about Cam’ron songs, so I kept notes:
5:55 p.m.: I am on the bus.
5:57 p.m.: The laptop’s out and they're showing each other remixes.
5:59 p.m.: One guy won't stop talking about future bass.
6:28 p.m.: We’ve been talking about snares for a full five minutes.
6:41 p.m.: They’re talking about 808s.
6:42 p.m.: NOT 808s and Heartbreak.
7:00 p.m.: We made it to the studio. The night Briedie-Cooper planned was a studio tour of Monstercat — an EDM and Trap (not Migos trap) label founded in Vancouver. He hates the Avicii, backwards-hat-wearing, bro-image that EDM has gotten from the media. Instead, he aims to provide “the resources or educational opportunities to get from that very first interest, to being connected in the industry.”
We met with the A&R head of Monstercat and he took us into his office. I started to realize there wouldn't be any fist-bumping tonight. A few guys played their demos for the A&R guy — an insane opportunity for a university student. After pizza arrived, I ate a few slices, played with monstercat’s VR machine and disappeared into the night.