Robert Ouimet and Pierre Gagnon

Todd L. Burns

This is the most excited I've been for a lecture from Montréal, because these two men, and a couple of other people who are actually in the audience, are the architects, the pioneers of the sound of Montréal disco. Please help me welcome Robert Ouimet, Pierre Gagnon. (applause)

Robert Ouimet

Bonjour.

Pierre Gagnon

Hello.

Todd L. Burns

Pierre, I wanted to start with you. There's this club, it's called the Lime Light, and you were going to it.

Pierre Gagnon

Yes.

Todd L. Burns

Robert was DJing there.

Pierre Gagnon

Exactly.

Todd L. Burns

He was in the DJ booth.

Pierre Gagnon

Mm-hmm.

Todd L. Burns

Tell me what it was like on the dance floor at the Lime Light.

Pierre Gagnon

I'm going to tell you a little story. First time I went to the Lime Light, Sunday night, June 7th, 1976. I remember it because it was the birthday of my friend Jean Barbeau, who is right there. We're going to the Lime Light, at the Lime Light there was three floor. First floor was Le Jardin, on the street. Second floor and third floor, people call or le super Lime Light, or the sky. There was Germain. Germain was the doorman. You had to please Germain to go upstairs. We come, it's Sunday night, so we said to ourselves, we're going to have a chance to go upstairs because it's Sunday night. We talk with Germain, he said, “OK now, you cannot go up there right now, so go for an hour at the second floor and come back.” We go for this hour and we come back and he said, “OK, you can go up.”

We go up, and I remember, the song that was playing, it was, "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" by Lou Rawls, and Robert mix it with “Lowdown” from Boz Scaggs. Going to the Lime Light was like going to the sky. It was in the point of view of the person going, the renown was so great, and when you had the chance to go upstairs it was really good. We had the good strategy, because once you went up once, you always go up after that. You go, you say hi to Germain, make a nice smile, and Germain lets you go up, because the guy knew every face. He knew that he let you go up, so you can go up. It was big, 1,200 person can go dance upstairs at that time.

Todd L. Burns

What was the reputation of the Lime Light in the city at that time in 1976? It had been open for a number of years already.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah, the reputation, it's open, I think in '72?

Robert Ouimet

Around '72.

Pierre Gagnon

Yes, so that's it. In '76 I was 19 years old, I start going out to clubs, I start DJing on the youth dance, not dancefloor, but an evening for young people. We used to do some DJing. The Lime Light was really known, you heard of the Lime Light, you can read it in the newspaper, you hear of it on radio, you see it on television because the reputation was that there was two places in the world to go to have a disco night, and it was, or New York, Studio 54, started in '78 I think, but before that there was another club, or Montréal with the Lime Light. It was the place to be. When you had the chance to go there, you were very, very happy.

Todd L. Burns

I think the thing that's kind of underrated was that Montreal was one of the biggest cities for disco, right after New York.

Pierre Gagnon

Absolutely.

Todd L. Burns

I guess Robert's kind of the reason.

Pierre Gagnon

Yes, for sure, because Robert was the first to make some tempo. We used to do some DJing, but the song was finishing and we pick up the other. Robert was the first one to mix on tempo. We go there, we want to listen to it and try to do the same after.

Robert Ouimet

That wasn't easy.

Pierre Gagnon

No, that was not easy, because the disco beat were going like that [makes hand movement], there was no machine.

It was feeling. When the song, when Thelma Houston start to sing in, she's singing, at the end, she's singing, the band, follow, follow, follow, and the speed goes up, up, up, and you try to mix on it, wooo! Robert, he was the best always, there was never a “fa-flack” like we said.

Todd L. Burns

Now that we've set the scene, we've complimented you quite a bit. How do we get here? How do we get to the Lime Light? Can you tell us a little bit about what you were doing in Montréal before you started working at this club?

Robert Ouimet

I was going to school from Saint-Jerome.

Todd L. Burns

Which is about 45 minutes away from Montréal?

Robert Ouimet

It's around 45 minutes away from Montréal. I was into music, I was reading Cashbox, there was a woman who had a record store in Saint-Jerome and she kept me all the Cashboxes that I wanted, about two, three weeks after she had finished with it. I was always knowing what was happening with music, I was into rhythm & blues. What I wanted to do is come to Montréal. I used to hitch-hike to Montréal to buy 45s at a record store and go back to Saint-Jerome again, by hitch-hiking. That's how I started.

Todd L. Burns

I guess this is another era, hitch-hiking was a little bit safer back then. We're talking about the late ’60s?

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, maybe around ’71, ’70. Just before I came to live in Montréal.

Todd L. Burns

You started DJing in Montréal at this club called Love, is it?

Robert Ouimet

Yes, Love on Guy Street.

Todd L. Burns

What was Love like?

Robert Ouimet

Love was a small club. It was kind of a mini-Lime Light before Lime Light. The same kind of people, the mixture of gay people, straight people. Music was very R&B-oriented, a bit of pop but not too much, but mostly R&B-oriented.

Todd L. Burns

Were the clubs back then in Montréal very mixed, or was this something that was quite interesting and new?

Robert Ouimet

It was kind of a new thing. It was the beginning of some different.

Todd L. Burns

I guess, also in Montréal, you have to think about the English and the French. Was the audience...

Robert Ouimet

That place was more English than French, but the people used to come there, used to go at the beginning of the Lime Light, and that's how they talked to the owner about me.

Todd L. Burns

Can we talk about, the owner came and saw you play?

Robert Ouimet

Yeah. I think they came, there were some people, he brought some people with him, he had heard about me, and he was in a process, wanted another person to work at his club. He like what he heard, and I started slowly working during weekdays. That's how I started.

Todd L. Burns

Did you like the club, when you immediately saw, were you like, “This is home. I can do something here.”

Robert Ouimet

I loved the first Lime Light, the first floor was [an] amazing place. It was a big, big floor, with kind of estrade [platform] where people could sit, and a lot of sofas, surrounded by a big sound system. That was amazing.

Todd L. Burns

You mentioned it was three floors, right? You were DJing on the first floor?

Robert Ouimet

I started on the first floor.

Todd L. Burns

When did you make your way up to the top? (laughs)

Robert Ouimet

They opened up, I was there during that time, I was beginning to be the main DJ, the other DJ left or was going to leave. They open up the third floor and I went up after that. The music was from the top to the bottom at the same time.

Todd L. Burns

How long were these DJ sets that we're talking about?

Robert Ouimet

I was working two days a week, from 9 until 6 in the morning. Two days from 9 'til 3.

Todd L. Burns

It's 6 AM, actually, for Montréal, that's an interesting timing, because as far as I know, clubs tend to close at 3, most of them. The Lime Light was ...

Robert Ouimet

We had a special permit so we could stay open 'til 6 in the morning. The booze started to close, the booze was stopping at 3 in the morning, they were opening up the lights everywhere, so they were taking the booze away, and starting selling soft drinks and stuff like that afterwards, until 6 in the morning.

Todd L. Burns

How does that work at a club? Do you just stop the music?

Robert Ouimet

No, the music was continuing, but there was light everywhere. We would see people everywhere for 15, 20 minutes. After that the light would come down and we would continue the music. It never stopped.

Todd L. Burns

It feels like that's a really important 15 minutes to get right, because if everyone can see everyone in the light, after hours...

Robert Ouimet

I know, it's a bit freaky for some people to see themselves at that time (laughs) But you know, I think I chose my songs for around that time, to make sure that everybody stay there. The same time, the people who are coming from the other clubs, because that was around that time that the other clubs were emptying. A lot of people were coming in also at the same time, around 3 o'clock.

Pierre Gagnon

Their second shift.

Robert Ouimet

That's it. Another shift of people.

Todd L. Burns

Why don't we play a song to kind of get a sense of the club in general. I wanted to play the “Chicago Bus Stop.”

(music: Salsoul Orchestra – “Chicago Bus Stop (Ooh, I Love It)” / applause)

That was "Chicago Bus Stop" by the Salsoul Orchestra. Lots of strings in that.

Robert Ouimet

A big reflection of the place. The place was a classy place. The music fit exactly the place and the people. At the same time, when that sound plays a lot of people are kind of line-dancing at the time.

Todd L. Burns

What do you mean line-dancing?

Robert Ouimet

They were dancing in line, all together. It was crazy because at the time the floor, the Lime Light was going like this [makes hand movement up and down]. I was in my booth because I was a bit upper, and I would see the heads of people going like this on the floor line dancing. It was crazy.

Todd L. Burns

Could you only see out at a certain level?

Robert Ouimet

I could see the entire people inside the place. I was in the back like the way I am right now but just a little bit upper. But I could see everyone coming in.

Todd L. Burns

Tell me about a guy a named Richard Joly. Jolay?

Robert Ouimet

Joly.

Todd L. Burns

Joly.

Robert Ouimet

He was my light man. Boy. Without... Sorry, emotions, towards him. I wouldn't be where I am right now because he knew exactly what to do and when to do it and we did that without talking. He was there doing his job. He liked everything I was doing. He loved the music. He was completely... He was completing me completely. Without him, I wouldn't be here.

Todd L. Burns

You rarely hear someone say that about the light guy in dance music. It's kind of amazing that you had this relationship with him.

Robert Ouimet

He was punching in when it was time. I never said anything to him. He was always on beat, on time. I couldn't do nothing. Nothing bad to say about him. He was perfect.

Todd L. Burns

You couldn't surprise him, either.

Robert Ouimet

No. I mean, sometimes I was hiding what I was playing just to see how he would do, and he was always blowing me away with light. He was one of the first.

Pierre Gagnon

He was like a VJ with light.

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, for sure. He was one of the first light DJ I ever saw.

Todd L. Burns

Do you remember the light guy?

Robert Ouimet

He's a tough guy too. You couldn't enter my booth without him saying so. I'm telling you.

Todd L. Burns

He was the bouncer of the DJ booth.

Robert Ouimet

He was.

Pierre Gagnon

You have to be friends with him to go. I and Jean went very, very often to the DJ booth.

Robert Ouimet

It's a hard place to get in.

Pierre Gagnon

It was hard.

Robert Ouimet

Not many people entered.

Pierre Gagnon

At the beginning, it was like a flying saucer. You have to come in…

Robert Ouimet

You have to come in underneath.

Pierre Gagnon

Underneath. Your face and just "Hello!" (laughs) “What do you want?” “Well to talk with the… speak with Robert.” “Well… OK.” It was nice.

Todd L. Burns

When did you first get in? When did you first get past the lighting guy slash DJ booth bouncer?

Pierre Gagnon

Things go very fast starting in June ‘76. At that time, with Jean and Allen, we already had a little group called PAJ Disco Mix. We used to do remixes and we used to go to the Lover's disco club in Laval. Because the Lover's disco club was playing on the radio, one hour on the radio, FM radio, every week. We went there and we speak with the owner and tell to him, "So we do a remix." I said, "Yes." We said, "Can we do one for you?" He said, "OK." Let’s do… there was André Gagnon who just came out with his famous “Wow” song and “Surprise,” there was two songs. He said, "Can you do me a remix with those two songs?" So we did it. It started playing every time the show was playing on CKOI FM in Montréal. They always play the song because we were the only ones who have this version. At the fall Ritchie Family came to the Lover's disco club so they ask us to do a remix. We did a 30 minutes remix of music of them…

Todd L. Burns

Can we just go back for a second? You're doing remixes in the ’70s. Where does this inspiration come from to do this in the first place?

Pierre Gagnon

OK. In ’74 I bought... Always I've been in music or surrounded by music. I bring Sony 1962 here [points to Sony tape machine]. My father buy it, I was seven years old, and said... five years old, I'm sorry. He said to myself, "You can play with it." We used to have 500 LPs in the beginning of the '60s at my house. I was the younger boy of five children. Let's go rapidly. ’74 I buy a new cassette tape, tape cassette deck. Sony. I use to buy 45s. Little 45s. There was instrumental, vocal, or there was part one, part two. I said to myself, "I'm going to mix them to have the full length of the song." That's how it start. In January ’75. In one year, we were... Jean joined me and Allen joined me and we were able to... In one year, we were able to do triolets [triplets] with pause of a cassette deck.

Todd L. Burns

You were just pausing this cassette deck?

Pierre Gagnon

You play the song, you stop where you want it to stop. You redo the LP and when the song you want, the beat you want, comes, boom, boom, boom, boom and boom. And you start. We can do three times in one time. Ta da, da. We were able to do with the pause of a cassette deck mix like, “Ta da da.” So it went on and all that... André Gagnon and the Ritchie Family, we were invited at that night because Ritchie Family was there. We sit with Ritchie Family. I was not speaking very well in English but at that time I was not speaking at all. We passed one night, complete night, with Ritchie Family without being able to speak with them. It’s in the fall… Right after that, we said, “OK, we have to go to the Lime Light.” Then we have made a couple of other mixes and one Saturday night of maybe October or November, go to the Lime Light at nine o’clock. So Germain says, “What are you doing at that time?” “We want to talk to the DJ.” We went in the booth and speak with Robert and say, "Hey! Look, those cassettes, we have a remix." Robert was playing, I have to say that, “Nightcrawler” of Salsoul Orchestra when we arrive. I remember all those things. Robert takes the cassette, makes it play right away. Said, "Oh, the song is a bit weird." And he said, "Why don't you bring it to me on tapes?" That's when we come back, buy the tape recorder that is right there, the AKAI 4000DS, and started make copy of the cassette, and bring back to him. Just after that, a month after, we're starting splicing. That's how it start. Was very, very fast.

Todd L. Burns

What did you think of Pierre and his two friends, when they come into the DJ booth with this stuff?

Robert Ouimet

Crazy! But you know, what they brought, to me at the time, was kind of an extended… Songs were short sometimes, what they brought me was making them kind of longer. It was fun. People could groove more on those things, that's why I used to like them and play them. I had one, from Denise LaSalle, as soon as I got their mix, I stopped playing the original. I only played their mix instead. It was a lot better for my crowd. The people loved it because that's mostly one of the only places they could hear it, also.

Todd L. Burns

Why don't we take a listen to one of these edits, to get a sense of what this was, and I guess the beginnings of the PAJ Disco thing. This is “Express Yourself.”

Robert Ouimet

“Freedom to Express Yourself.”

(music: Denise La Salle – “Freedom To Express Yourself” / applause)

Everything makes sense on those splices. Everything. It works.

Todd L. Burns

I can totally understand why you would stop playing the original. After hearing that. It just…

Robert Ouimet

There's life in it.

Todd L. Burns

When you were building these edits, did you have this imagined dance floor in your mind? Were you like, "We're going to hold it back, and then..." Were you thinking about how it works? In this context?

Pierre Gagnon

Yes. That's for sure, we were thinking about it. We started doing a lot of experimentation, doing really fast, I remember when I work on this one, I was sick (laughs). I didn't work because I was sick, so I made this one. Because sometimes I made one, sometimes, Jean made one, sometimes Allen made one. But very often we were making one together. It was really, because we could not do that much, because in six months or eight months, we did like 50. We were working. We were thinking, yeah. We were thinking what's going to happen, and the effect. The thing was always, we want to replay the music. We want to make another song with the song. That was the beginning of that. In our mind. We were looking for an effect, OK sometimes, it was just, “Bing, bang, boom,” OK. We were always looking for an effect that add to the music of the song. So when she said, "And dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance!" In the real song, "Dance! Freedom!" It had, we were always thinking of this.

Todd L. Burns

How many, if you had to estimate, how many splices, how many edits, are in that particular one?

Pierre Gagnon

It was always, 200, something like that. For a five or six minute. Like 150 to 300, for that, yeah.

Todd L. Burns

How long would something like that take to do?

Pierre Gagnon

Three or four, days, but, eight hours a day. Yeah.

Robert Ouimet

It's a long process.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah. We were working and splicing. This was splicing, yeah. Working and splicing.

Todd L. Burns

Later on, kind of as an experiment, in a way, you ended up doing one track that had 1000 splices.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah.

Todd L. Burns

Then you had one that had 2000.

Pierre Gagnon

Two thousand. Yeah. A lot of things goes before that, but in the very, very short time because Robert start playing remixes, I think it was "Peter Gunn"…

Robert Ouimet

Yeah.

Pierre Gagnon

You play in like, November. Then we had all that story that we supposed to do, “Flip.” The version of “Flip” in Canada, and the owner – I used to work in a record store, and Jean also – and the owner of the record store owned the rights of Jesse Green in Canada, so he knew that we were playing at the Lime Light already, and asked to do that, and it didn't work. We came with the mix to Robert, and we had like, a down, so we didn't go to the Lime Light, for let's say three weeks, something like that. When we came back, he just said, at one moment he said, "Just watch." He start playing “Flip,” and everybody start screaming. He said this was a hit too. He write it that he preferred this one, than the other one that they come with.

To continue, so we made at least 40 until the month of August. In August, we take a long walk and think of something really special, and that's when we decide to do the PAJ Mille. The PAJ One Thousand. So 1000 splice in 18 minutes. So we give it to Robert. He play it. I remember dance on it on the Lime Light. He was not playing it as often because it was kind of weird, because it was experimentation. Not quite satisfied we decide, “No, no, that's not enough. Let's do a remix that every beat is a splice.” So 22 minutes, every beat is a splice. More than that, because very often we did triolets, triplets? But some of the time, we make five times in one times. So that makes [makes sound]… the splice. We did that. This was very experimental, but we experiment to reverse a part of a song. Not in playing it, like, “Zup, zup, zup.” We take the times number 64, we place at one, 63, and like that. That then gives another sense to the melody. You recognize the song, but the melody changed a bit. We did some other experimentation, like decided like we do a 32 cymbal, special cymbal. When you listen to that, you recognize the song, if you know, the person were recognizing the songs, but it changes every time. Or we takes eight songs, that's going to play for 64 times. The song one plays time one, time two is the time one of the second sound, time three is time and on and on. That's kind of the experimentation that we did with that.

Todd L. Burns

How did you keep all of this straight? (laughs) Like, I feel like if you're having something that's 2000 splices you must have to have a flow chart on the wall or something like this to keep all of this straight in your mind.

Pierre Gagnon

OK, for the PAJ 2000 we had a board and we glue some kind of strips and after that we assemble it after. It was very specific, we choose songs because to do the PAJ 2000 I would say there's 30, 40 songs in that, there's a lot of songs, so choose the song and after that, “OK, I'll do those, those, and those,” and Jean will do those, those, those and those, and then Allen too. After that we just mix it and the idea was there but we were talking, taking a walk at night, really late at night, and speaking of what we were going to do. That's how we work.

Todd L. Burns

Can we hear some of that?

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah, yeah.

Todd L. Burns

This is all...

Pierre Gagnon

The PAJ 2000 is right there, so it's going to play, but I cannot rewind it after because it's going to all collapse, but that's okay.

Todd L. Burns

Later on we'll do a little bit of splicing, I think, but that will be a different thing, so we'll just hear the song right now. This is the 2000…

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah, PAJ 2000.

(music: PAJ 2000 - "Artistes variés 1977" / applause)

Todd L. Burns

So, obviously you were thankful that they would extend songs, make them ready for the dance floor. When you heard that, what did you think?

Robert Ouimet

That was a bit harder to play for me. That's for sure.

Todd L. Burns

I wanted to go back to the Lime Light a little bit. One of the things I was really intrigued by in doing some research about what you were doing is, you were going to New York almost every single week that you were working as a DJ in Montréal.

Robert Ouimet

Yes, for a few years I used to go there, I'd take a plane on Monday and come back on Wednesday. It was all the promo man; try to get all the advance promo from all the major labels, small labels. I went often to see David Todd from RCA. He always gave me the latest stuff and I used to go Sunshine Sounds, the place for the acetate. There I would get records like a month ahead of release, or maybe two months, or special edits for a song, only available there. I would hit the records stores, and also I was going out. It was fun to go during the week in New York in those days, because the clubs were kind of also packed during the week. I used to go to listen to Tony Smith at the Barefoot Boy and I heard Walter Gibbons a few times too, stuff like that.

Todd L. Burns

What were you getting from them as DJs? Like, Tony and Walter, were you hearing things, and you were thinking, “Ah, I can take that back to Montréal?”

Robert Ouimet

Walter Gibbons was a crazy DJ. He was using crossovers and at the Lime Light I had one also, crossover for the highs. I would cut down the bass, the only thing you could hear was, “Tshhh”, all the highs everywhere with the Piezo, the ceiling was filled with Piezo. I was playing, there was a lot of highs in those days compared to subs and bass. I was cutting down and doing mixes only with the highs and since the floor was filled with that, you would hear it all over the place on top of your head, because they were on the ceiling. Walter Gibbons was doing that kind of stuff too. He was playing with crossovers all the time.

Todd L. Burns

So you were going to New York, you were grabbing these records, and obviously this is a time before the Internet, so you were one of the only people in Montréal who had these records?

Pierre Ouimet

Yeah, what I used to do was as soon as I was getting something rare I did what every good DJ was doing at the time, I was hiding my stuff. (laughs) I was either scratching the top of it or putting something on top of it so nobody would know what I was playing, to keep the music for that place. That's what made the reputation of the Lime Light, it's because when you went there, that's the only thing you're going to hear there, you will not hear anywhere else. It was very important for me.

Todd L. Burns

Then of course, you had this secret weapon, over here.

Robert Ouimet

On top of that I had him also, and PAJ, it was amazing. I had some friends too, who were thinking of me, that were traveling to Europe or bringing me a 45 from France and Germany and stuff like that, and sometimes, like the “Spring Rain,” at the time I played it like a year and a half before Salsoul picked it up. All kinds of stuff like that.

Todd L. Burns

Tell me a little bit more about the club and the context of Montréal, I mean who was playing there and who would come through the Lime Light back then? Who did you see?

Robert Ouimet

You mean, talking about important people?

Todd L. Burns

Yes. (laughs)

Robert Ouimet

Sorry, I'm thick. I saw, what's his name, Vincent Price. I saw Rick James. I saw Mr. [inaudible], from Quebec, you know, on a Sunday night with his bouncers. Freddie Mercury and his clique came also.

Todd L. Burns

You once brought some people to see Gloria Gaynor?

Robert Ouimet

Yes, I went to a show, I went to see Iggy Pop and on the piano at that time Bowie was kind of performing with him live, was playing piano, and the promo man brought us at the Lime Light after. David Bowie and Iggy Pop to see Gloria Gaynor. Gloria Gaynor didn't know who Iggy Pop was, she was freaking out, she was wondering who he was, but she knew about Bowie, but naturally.

Todd L. Burns

There were also some amazing performers. I don't know if we can show a couple of those pictures, there's James Brown.

Robert Ouimet

James Brown played there.

Todd L. Burns

What was it like when James Brown was playing at the Lime Light?

Robert Ouimet

It was quite good, it was fun to see him in a small space.

Todd L. Burns

Yeah, it's quite small. You can see how low the ceiling is there.

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, the Trammps also played there. Gloria Gaynor, like I said, played there also. Grace Jones.

Todd L. Burns

You were good friends with Grace Jones? I mean we have a picture of you.

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, I mean, she used to come once in a while, without performing, only as a regular person. She used to come to Montréal and...

Todd L. Burns

I don't think Grace Jones was ever a regular person.

Robert Ouimet

No, I think she was.

Todd L. Burns

There was also Kraftwerk came through at some point?

Robert Ouimet

Kraftwerk didn't play, but I met them at a special thing. The promo man for Capitol at the time did something special and I got to meet them also.

Todd L. Burns

I want to put up a couple pictures of just the club in general, like, I guess, a "normal night", can you kind of walk us through some of these pictures and kind of tell us what... Maybe, Pierre, if you see something...

[images on screen]

Robert Ouimet

This is a special...

Pierre Gagnon

A special event.

Robert Ouimet

Once a year we had a white party.

Pierre Gagnon

This is a picture of one.

Robert Ouimet

That was kind of the thing to be, where to be at that time.

Pierre Gagnon

Oh my God.

Robert Ouimet

It was crazy. We had a guy once having a transparent plastic birdcage on his head and naked underneath, parading in a club.

Todd L. Burns

Is this a normal night, or is this like the craziest stuff we have on the screen here? Obviously this is the white party.

Robert Ouimet

People used to dressed up, especially at the beginning.

Pierre Gagnon

When you go to the Lime Light, you're sure that you see people dressed like you never see on the street at day. It was really... Peopled dressed.

Robert Ouimet

People were very fashionable at the beginning.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah.

Robert Ouimet

A lot of people dressed up, and they had kind of their special outfit for the weekend.

Pierre Gagnon

They're not going to wear it on the street, so that you have your clothes just to go to the Lime Light.

Todd L. Burns

I remember, I spoke to Richard earlier, the light guy, and he said that he would almost focus the light on people as they came in, because that was like the moment they had to show off the thing that they had dressed up as. Is that the case? Was that what he was doing?

Robert Ouimet

I couldn't say everything he was doing, but I know that his thing was to make sure that everybody was seen and it was very important to those people, because at the same time, they were also the star of the place, not only the music, not only me, the sound system, but the people were also the star of that place.

Todd L. Burns

That's very rare for a DJ to say something like that, to put it on the crowd. How important was the crowd to making that place what it was?

Robert Ouimet

They were... It was really important for me to have a kind of relationship with them, because they trusted me and I trusted them. It was kind of a nice exchange.

Todd L. Burns

How do you feel about that, Pierre?

Pierre Gagnon

I just can agree. Everything was superlative in that place. We talk about the sound system. The sound system and they change practically every year. My favorite was when the first time I went, in '76, before it was... There was no place, nowhere that you had a kind of sound like that.

Todd L. Burns

Can we show the sound system picture, actually?

Pierre Gagnon

OK.

Todd L. Burns

What is the... It's a white speaker system, which I don't think I've seen quite often. I guess it was, how important was the décor and the way that the club looked as well?

Robert Ouimet

I think it’s white because of the light, the reflection and everything, it's easier to make patterns on stuff like that, but that sound system was the best thing we ever had. It was cornered on each four corner. There was no sub in those days. It was bass, a bass, not sub bass but mid-bass, highs, Piezo on top, mid-high, but it was perfect. You could hear everything, without being too loud.

Todd L. Burns

Why don't we listen to another track, by an artist from Montréal. I want to talk about I guess the scene and how producers emerged from this scene. This is Gino Soccio with “Dancer.”

(music: Gino Soccio – “Dancer” / applause)

Who is Gino Soccio?

Robert Ouimet

He's a guy from Montréal who writes music, plays instruments, and composes, and also produces his own stuff. He's a real, a full-time musician.

Todd L. Burns

Was he coming to the Lime Light? Was he hanging out with you?

Robert Ouimet

He was not really hanging out with me. What happened was that he got signed to Quality Records at the time, “Celebration,” and he was doing some... He was already doing some stuff also before, before solo stuff. He played on The Bombers, and he played on Kebekelektrik. He knew about dance music before his album. What happened was that he did a few demos on acetate, and he used to bring [them] into my booth for me to try it, to see the reaction and check out the sound at the same time. That's how it happened.

Todd L. Burns

Could we see the picture of Gino? He's looking pretty cool. He's got a nice moustache. Was that a... Gino being in the booth, testing things out and you testing things out, was that a rare thing? Was that something that was happening with a lot of artists in Montréal?

Robert Ouimet

It happens once in a while. Usually I don't really like to play stuff that I never played before. I was quite hard on some people for that, but usually if I would listen to something, it would fit my set, I would play it. Him, I knew it was going to be good.

Todd L. Burns

You worked with him on a couple of albums.

Robert Ouimet

I worked with him on his first three albums.

Todd L. Burns

When we say work, what does that mean exactly?

Robert Ouimet

It means that I went to the studio a few times. What happened is that I was listening to tracks at the same time as him and kind of guiding him in what he was doing to make sure everything was towards the dancefloor, making sure that everything was done the right way, using the right tempo and stuff like that. I was also working for Quality Records at the same time, doing that kind of the same stuff with them, trying to pick up singles with different artists. What Gino did is that he was listening to what I was saying, and he did adjustment to what he was doing and came back with an acetate, and we played it.

Todd L. Burns

I think Gino's a little bit of a mystery to people nowadays. What is he like? What is Gino like as a person?

Robert Ouimet

He's a very shy person, but he's a great person. He's got a big musical knowledge, and he loves music, that's for sure.

Todd L. Burns

What did you make of Gino? Do you have any contact with him? Or was it just hearing those songs, like in the…

Pierre Gagnon

We were amazed. When it came out, we were all amazed because it was... We had a couple of disco songs from Quebec, but he sounds really international. You cannot say, "That's from Quebec." It was kind of the first of doing it. Later on, Lime, when they came out, it was a really international sound, but he was the first. Great record, I used to play a lot his records.

Robert Ouimet

He did that stuff, also, with Karen Silver in Toronto, and I came down to Toronto for all that stuff too.

Todd L. Burns

When you say he's one of the first people to sound international, what was it sounding like before? Was it just not the quality of what you would hear from a Gloria Gaynor, or something like this?

Pierre Gagnon

In Quebec, when they do a disco sound at that time, you have to think that it's real musicians. So you have the band that in Philadelphia, they are 40 musicians, 20 violins and all that stuff. You hear there’s three violins and two brass instead of 15 brass. For sure the production cannot sound as complete with what was made in Philadelphia. But when Gino Soccio comes, so it was a new sound after. It came after "I Feel Love" from Donna Summer, it's really electronic. That's a change. The sound was sounding like the other. That's what I mean. It was really [inaudible], you can recognize him very easily, he had his sound, but the sound was for being everywhere in the world. That's what I mean.

Robert Ouimet

He had potential. Everything was there sound-wise, song-wise, lyric-wise. Everything came perfectly. That's why he hit it so big.

Todd L. Burns

Another group that you mentioned that kind of came out of Montréal is Lime. I guess they started a little bit after you left the Lime Light.

Robert Ouimet

Yes, that's beginning of the ’80s. I was into something else in those days.

Todd L. Burns

Why do you think Lime was such a success as well? Internationally speaking.

Robert Ouimet

It was commercial. I mean, it was really catchy songs. Very easy to get into.

Todd L. Burns

Did you have much contact with the group at all?

Robert Ouimet

Not really.

Pierre Gagnon

Those are two names that they were ghosts. We never saw Gino Soccio on television, have we? Couple of times, but really rare. Lime, they never go on TV. It was a studio group.

Robert Ouimet

Mostly it was studio stuff. But Gino was more upfront.

Pierre Gagnon

Okay. But I don't remember seeing him very, very often.

Robert Ouimet

But Denis LePage did a lot of stuff in the ’60s also. He played a lot with different, a lot of stuff. Also in the disco era.

Todd L. Burns

This is one of the members of Lime that you're talking about.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah they had a group called Le Pouls in '74, and it was more rhythm & blues, jazz. After that, I have this record.

Robert Ouimet

He was present in the disco scene at the time a lot.

Todd L. Burns

I want to maybe do a little demonstration in a minute. Why don't we just play a tune while you maybe set some things up? Or do you need any time to set anything up?

Pierre Gagnon

Yes, I can take a minute or two.

Todd L. Burns

Okay, we'll play…

Pierre Gagnon

Because I'm going to try to rewind the PAJ 2000. Because it's 40 years old. 39 years old.

Todd L. Burns

We'll play a song called "Music." This is your version of "Music" and I can maybe talk a tiny bit after we listen to that, about what that song's all about as well.

(music: Montréal Sound – “Music” / applause)

That track is called "Music." It's by Montréal Sound. Tell me a little bit about the context of that song. Was it that song that you were saying is the type of thing that Robert would never play at the Lime Light?

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah.

Todd L. Burns

Why is that?

Pierre Gagnon

But we stay friends. It was really a catchy song for the radio, and at the Lime Light, what was playing was another thing. I remember Robert, at that time, when “YMCA” came out, he didn't play it. I don't remember having heard it.

Robert Ouimet

I played it.

Pierre Gagnon

A couple of times? The songs that were too popular, you were not playing.

Robert Ouimet

I used to play a popular song that the radio was playing, I usually cut it.

Todd L. Burns

You were playing these songs a year before they came out.

Robert Ouimet

I was ahead of my time with a lot of that stuff, so it was easier to go ahead and play something else, something I didn't have to play.

Todd L. Burns

We set up a reel-to-reel here. Why don't you walk us through what we're going to see and what you're going to show us.

Pierre Gagnon

Just maybe to say that “Music” was kind of a big hit around the world. We sold half a million copy of "Music."

Now I'm going to try to… [Robert holds mic] Oui, merci. Merci Robert. Now I'm going to show you how it was working to splice on a tape deck. There is the tape deck, there is a song on it. I'm going to play it just to hear what's on. (music plays) OK. We have heard the song. If you want to make a splice, you have to hear the beat. The way it works... OK, it's there. I'm sorry. It's a long time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1. There's one. (scratches tape) That's the beat. I'm going to mark it with a crayola. You make a mark, it works. You make a mark. It's supposed to work.

Robert Ouimet

This is the reading ahead. The first one is the reading, the second one is the erase.

Pierre Gagnon

Reading, erase. Erase is there. There's reading. There's recording and reading.

Todd L. Burns

So, you need to be careful of that second one.

Pierre Gagnon

When you have the line, let's say I want to do a splice for the next beat. So there's one beat. That's the other beat. Now I'm going to splice it. I put it on the splicing block. This is the splicing block, this little thing. There's two ways to splice. You can splice straight or splice with an angle. When we start splicing everybody was telling us, "OK, you splice with an angle," so we did that, but after that, we started splicing straight, because we find that the mix was more like...

Robert Ouimet

Snappy.

Pierre Gagnon

Snappy. There's a blade. I cut it. I take the tape and look for the other mark. Okay, I see it. That's good. Yesterday night, I was looking for the pen and it's more like wax. The other one, we used to call it crayon gras [pastel crayon], so that the mark appeared easier. Then, you have the tape. You cut the tape like this, and then you take the tape and you can go like this, and you place the tape, and scratch it.

Todd L. Burns

I'm just imagining you doing this 2000 times, right now.

Pierre Gagnon

There's one thing at that, we were much faster than I am now. We were machines. We used to be machines. Is it going to... OK, doesn't hold very well. OK, so that's... Because I stopped doing splicing in 1997 when I bought Cool Edit Pro. We start doing but, so... Let's play it.

(music plays)

Musically, it doesn't work, because we put a two on a one, but there's a splice. That's how it works. (applause) That wonderful song that you heard was called "Follow Me" by Jump In the Pool, I produce this song in 1988.

Todd L. Burns

What happens after the Lime Light for you, Robert? Where did you go? You ended up moving on from disco, basically, and started playing new wave.

Robert Ouimet

Yep.

Todd L. Burns

I guess this is an evolution, right?

Robert Ouimet

I needed a change. Everything was started to sound all the same, there was a lot of covers in those days, with violin and stuff like that. I needed to branch out, do something else. What happened is, I heard the B-52's, and I went crazy. I changed, I introduce all that stuff at the same time at the Lime Light. The first time I played the B-52's "Rock Lobster" there were 1000 people in the place, maybe more, there were nobody on the dancefloor.

Pierre Gagnon

I remember this one.

Robert Ouimet

People did not understand what I was doing. Two weeks after I did the same thing. 10 people on the dance floor. Within a month, it was packed. That kind of changed everything I was doing at the time. I went into another direction. I started playing new wave.

Todd L. Burns

What about you, Pierre? What happens after the Lime Light for PAJ Disco?

Pierre Gagnon

For PAJ Disco Mix? We did that music thing, after that, everybody had a lot of things that we did on hand, and it was okay. When Robert went to New York, he bring our tapes there, there was a couple of Sunshine acetate that has been made from our remix, but we had no manager. At that time, we are not DJing clubs, we just love to do splicing, and I repeat it, without managers, it just like fade away on that particular thing. We continued doing special events, we go to spin on other discotheques, from time to time. Not on a weekly base.

For Jean and Allen continue his life, Allen in radio, Jean research in sound system speakers. I had the opportunity, in 1981, I met Dick Walsh who was an artist director of a big fashion show. I made all his fashion shows from 1981 'til the last one I did with him was in 2003. I made 30 years, more than 30 years doing soundtracks for fashion shows all around the world. In 1984, for one year, I did a special remix for CKOI, that was the biggest radio station in Montréal.

I finished the year with an invention that was, I said to the musical director, "Give me the name of all the number one hits of the year, and I will do a montage with that, a remix with that." That was the first that it was made, everybody does it right now, but at that time... 15 minutes and 40 songs in 15 minutes. I bring to them on December 21 and it plays every two hours for two weeks. Since that, every popular station do those kind of remix. That's about it. I'm doing artistic direction, shows and everything. I have made, at least, a couple of hundred thousands of splices in my life, yeah.

Todd L. Burns

Dick Walsh, you mentioned, I guess he’s someone we should bring up. He was doing artistic direction at the Lime Light as well. You can imagine some of the parties we saw in those pictures, he was a little bit of the creative mastermind in some of the ways that they were presented.

Pierre Gagnon

Yes. Robert knew him before me, tu le connais?

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, he used to work with [inaudible] at the same time. They were doing a lot of things like the white parties, make-up, all kinds of different things with the people, dressing them up, something like that.

Todd L. Burns

Then he went on to work with Area in New York and a bunch of other amazing clubs. He's kind of a nightclub legend, Dick Walsh. I wanted to open up to questions. Does anyone have anything that they'd like to ask? Yes?

Audience Member

Hello. I have one question for each of you. First, Robert. You were talking earlier about how you were mixing things when it wasn't such a common thing, so I wanted to ask you, how did you learn the technique, how to DJ with the vinyl and the disco tracks?

Robert Ouimet

It's practice, practice, practice. That's the only way to get that stuff. The more you work with it, the better you are because you know exactly when to put the pitch up, put the pitch down, exactly, because it's a question of seconds. Those records in those days were starting, maybe 118[BPM], and by the end they were 125. The intro, sometimes, I had only four beats. You had to be quick. You had to know also, when you are mixing longer, at that place the record goes down, so you up it a bit, or you make it down a bit. It's a lot of work. It's something you can only achieve by practice. You cannot come today and bring those records and play them and be able to mix them. You need to work it.

Audience Member

What are the tools that you had as a DJ, with the turntables and the mix?

Robert Ouimet

That's all I had.

Audience Member

Right, but you could change the pitch, you could do EQing...

Robert Ouimet

You could do the thing with your fingers, with those turntable at that time. Just a bit faster, bit slower.

Audience Member

OK, thanks. Pierre, did you have any reference for the kind of work that you were doing, because I was listening to the 2000 splice thing, I'm listening, I think, Beastie Boys and also like Stockhausen. The only reference that I have for that kind of thing is a bit later, the Patrick Cowley remix of “I Feel Love,” but it's very tame compared to what you were doing. Did you have any reference for that kind of thing, were you looking at European and experimental music, or other people who were doing same kind of thing with disco, or what?

Pierre Gagnon

OK, that's a big question. First, you have two thirds of the PAJ group just beside you. Those two guys are… It was together that we made it. I didn't make it alone, we were three guys doing it. At that time, we didn't think of elsewhere. We were not conscious of what's happened everywhere around the world. We didn't know Walter Gibbons. Maybe, but I saw 10%. I read his name, but I didn't know what he was doing. Our search was… The thing was that we're not DJs, so we want to do remixes and we were not having the multitrack tape access.

Todd L. Burns

I think that is very underrated about what you did. You didn't have access to multiple tracks.

Pierre Gagnon

We didn't have access to nothing! We just had the record! Those guys like Walter Gibbons and Tom Moulton, it was something else, it was more like big eyes on top of what's happening in the studio, but Walter Gibbons make splicing, but it was not his main thing the splicing. It was, he had access to the multitracks, so he did things with multitrack. That force us to be able to do something special, that forced us to be getting musical in our splice. To rewrite music, that's what we want to do is to rewrite music, to add music, like I said before. That was the thing, but we knew that some other people were doing things but we think that one of those would make the most of splicing, because before I came here there was another interview and I made my homework. I went on the web and listened to [inaudible] from Sunshine Sound and things like that of splicing, and that was good thing, but I don't think that those guy were doing that much in that less time. Practicing, practicing, practicing. That's what makes us doing the things we did, I think.

Todd L. Burns

Got to put those 10,000 hours in.

Pierre Gagnon

Yeah.

Audience Member

Hello. How are you? It's really a pleasure to hear you guys talk. I grew up in Montréal and disco's very important to me, so everybody… I see some people I recognize, too. Thank you for sharing it. I just had one thing to ask Robert. When I bought Karen Silver's first record, I noticed you're credited as a "disco consultant" and…

Robert Ouimet

What is that?

Audience Member

That's what I wanted to ask you! What is a disco consultant?

Robert Ouimet

I did that for many records on Quality Records at the time, and this is like telling them what to do with the record. Most of the time, I was in the studio. A lot of the times I was in the studio with them. The engineer, the producer, John Driscoll. I was telling him what to do, what to put at the beginning, the middle, the end, stuff like that. I was doing at the time… I did two remixes in the ’70s.

Audience Member

Are there other disco consultants you know of?

Robert Ouimet

No. Not a lot. I think that was my title for them.

Audience Member

Do you get royalties at all or anything?

Robert Ouimet

No, not really. I got credit, but not royalties.

Todd L. Burns

One thing I was curious about. Obviously, you were taking a lot of stuff from New York and those record pools and from your experiences there. Is there anything that you were bringing to New York and giving to them from Montréal as a disco consultant or otherwise?

Robert Ouimet

Not really, but the people were eager to get the record played in Montréal, mostly. That was very important for them, for me to bring their stuff here so I could play it, and a lot of those people in the States were also coming to the Lime Light. Ray Caviano, we signed. Gino, used to come often. D.C. LaRue used to come often also. Roy B. used to come also. There was a lot of people down there who knew what I was doing. The only thing I did at the time is that I did a few remixes. I did work on Gino Soccio “Les Visiteurs,” I did the remix. That's the first 12" from the album, the first album. I worked also with France and Maggie, Delerium, and [inaudible] from Toronto that Joey Negro released a few years ago.

Todd L. Burns

You also, I guess, Steve… I'm blanking on his last name right now. Steve, you gave him “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth.

Robert Ouimet

Yeah, Steve D’Aquisto. That was early. That's before the Lime Light. Steve D’Aquisto is the guy who started the record pool with David Mancuso in New York with Vince Aletti. He was replacing me during the week, I was working at Love at that time, and he was doing the weekdays, and he freaked out because I was playing a song called “The Mexican.” He brought the record to New York and he gave it to David Mancuso and they all freaked out and it became a big hit with that. They talk about it in the book Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. They talk about that.

Todd L. Burns

I think that record obviously is…

Robert Ouimet

"The Mexican." Babe Ruth.

Todd L. Burns

So influential, like in many, many different aspects. Are there any other questions? Someone up in the front row?

Audience Member

Hello.

Robert Ouimet

Hello.

Audience Member

Disco is so synonymous with LGBTQ culture and people, and it's such a celebration of being open to everyone. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about the different areas of music that have come about as a result of disco, and perhaps homophobic attitudes that permeate those cultures, or at least if not homophobic attitudes, then a closed-minded lack of celebration. I was wondering if you had any thoughts.

Robert Ouimet

I know that my crowd was half gay, half straight. I always worked with gay people, all my life, in all the clubs that I worked, and that thing continued with house. House was mostly gay people at the time. I don't see that right now. I don't see any prejudice against that music. I don't see it, really.

Pierre Gagnon

Me neither.

Todd L. Burns

One of the things you've always said about the Lime Light is there were no fights. Ever.

Robert Ouimet

No, it was… The bouncers were doing a great job at that place. Nobody would be harassed by anything, anybody. A gay guy getting harassed by a straight guy, out. The girls, the same thing. Any problem with straight guys with girls, out. It was not tolerated at the time. It was taken care of all the time. That's why the atmosphere was always good in that place. Everybody felt kind of secure. That's important.

Pierre Gagnon

As a dancer, you never thought that there could happen something bad. It was a place like you're in happiness, it was happiness, happiness. You feel like that, it was like…

Robert Ouimet

It was a great… People getting together all the time, and having fun at the same time at the same high, going higher and higher all the time. They were following me, and I was following them. I was seeing them from the first time they come in, because from where I was sitting, I was playing for them as soon as they coming in, so everybody was pleased, including me.

Pierre Gagnon

It was like ecstasy before ecstasy. No, but the feeling in the club was like what we saw in the end of the ’90s and the beginning of the 2000s, the feeling was there.

Robert Ouimet

It's very hard to imagine that you have kind of an energy that's going toward some people, and dancing in front of you, and that energy's coming back the same way. It's like it flows all the time. That's what I remember for those days.

Audience Member

That's a really amazing tale. I think I was really thinking more about club culture these days, which is…

Robert Ouimet

It's another thing. It's very separated nowadays. What's great about disco, it's because it was kind of from downtempo to uptempo. Latin stuff, African stuff, all things together. Not only one type of dance, like today you go in a club, you're going to hear soulful house, that's all you're going to hear. You go and hear techno, that's all you're going to hear. Disco was all over the spectrum. All kind of beats, all kind of sounds.

Todd L. Burns

All kinds of tempos.

Robert Ouimet

All kind of tempos. It would please everybody, too, at the same time. We'll please the girls, we'll please the guys, the gay guys. That's why that place worked.

Todd L. Burns

Front row?

Audience Member

Hi, I have two questions. I'm wondering if you have the 2000 splice song recorded on vinyl or CD or whatever, and the second question is, what do you feel about DJs and DJing over the years, up until now?

Pierre Gagnon

This week, we just uploaded a lot of PAJ Disco Mix on YouTube, so you go to YouTube and just type "PAJ Disco Week” P-A-G Disco Mix.

Todd L. Burns

J, for the Americans in the audience.

Pierre Gagnon

J! Sorry! P-A-J. "P-A-J Disco Mix," and that's 20. I upload 20 of those remix, and bonus, you see Allen, Jean and me, because we used to do films at that period and it’s on it also. We just a little younger on it.

Todd L. Burns

Only a little bit.

Pierre Gagnon

I will continue to upload more in the weeks to come, so that there will be a collection of 50 in couple of weeks...

Robert Ouimet

Talking about today's music and DJing today?

Audience Member

DJing over the years since you started DJing. From then until now.

Robert Ouimet

I've been playing for almost 40 years, and I'm still playing… I've got radio shows, and I still love playing, but today, the experience that I have, I find I'm getting better all the time, even for today. That's my opening for me. I'm not sure about what others think. I think it's still fun to play nowadays. I'm not really a nostalgic person. I don't want to relive the past, but I'm living the present with my experience of the past, and that's what's important. I have a disco show right now, I will rarely play the records the same way they were. There's so many people doing good stuff nowadays with edits, remixes, [inaudible], Tom Moulton does new mixes all the time, I'm in contact with those people.

So I'm playing new stuff that plays the old stuff, but adapted to today it’s very important for me. I'm always up to date with everything. I also love a bit of techno, I love all kind of stuff, and I have different shows, also. I have a disco show called Atomix, I got a soul show that reflects what's happening in England right now with the soul scene. It's only new stuff. I'm having a show called Different Angle that's all over the spectrum. Rock dance, reggae, funk, soul, and I have one in the States on Crib Radio with Jay Negron and all of that every Saturday, once a month, that I play soulful stuff, disco, the new remixes and stuff like that.

Todd L. Burns

You've been DJing for 40 years.

Robert Ouimet

Almost.

Todd L. Burns

How do you stay motivated? What keeps you going?

Robert Ouimet

My main thing is music. That's what gets me going. It's music, all the time. All kind of music. Not only one kind. Let me just…

Todd L. Burns

He has some notes just in case he forgets some dates and things. Please.

Robert Ouimet

[reads] Because of my love of music, being a DJ is simply an extension of that love. That's what being a DJ in music is for me. (applause)

Todd L. Burns

I think that's a great note to end on, actually. Thank you so much, Robert, thank you so much, Pierre.