There's a cafe on the corner of Duluth and Hotel de Ville,
called Chez Jose, which is pretty much ground zero for what most anglophones in the city call the Plateau. (Convention says that the Plateau starts East of St. Denis, if you really want to know; Chez Jose is in what is generally known as the Portugese neighbourhood.) It's a nice, low-key place to go for a simple meal and coffee and they make killer fruity drinks. But they've got this 80s thing going. Hard. I don't think there has been one time I've gone, in the last year, when I haven't heard Video Killed the Radio Star played, often two or three times. I'm willing to cede enough ground to say that Tainted Love maybe proves that the 80s weren't all bad but I tend to think of that as the exception that proves the rule. Some things just shouldn't come back. People wearing sneakers that are fastened with velco straps, for instance. Please please please, just trust me when I say : you're not missing anything. Speaking of the 80s, I made the liner notes for the new Grim Skunk album.
