Thursday, July 13

The Villainness opens FantAsia

About two hours outside Montreal, the annual festival of music, burlesque, circus performance and extreme sports displays known as ShazamFest will be going down for four days, today through Sunday. This year’s music bill features Montreal pop vets Men Without Hats as well as legends in the making Duchess Says, We Are Wolves and roots masters Notre Dame de Grass. A free shuttle from Montreal is available. 2722 de Way’s Mills (Barnston Ouest, QC), $95 weekend/$85 teens, $175 family pass, $40/$45/$50 day tickets

The 21st edition of Montreal’s genre film festival — Fantasia, running today through Aug. 2 — promises to be a doozy, with special guests, premieres and the usual diverse spread of cinematic offerings. Keep an eye on our site for our highlights and exhaustive preview/review coverage. Most screening at Concordia’s Hall building and De Sève cinemas (1455 and 1400 de Maisonneuve W.)

Check out the grand opening of a new Mont-Royal Avenue record shop, Vinyl Chope. A 5à7 gets things started, followed by live music from Bottleneck Jay at 9 p.m. plus DJs Toast Dawg, Ephiks, Neaj and Manzo, who’ll keep the party going late. Note thay there will be giveaways of records provided by Universal and Sony and record sales end at midnight. 1562 Mont-Royal E., 5 p.m.-3 a.m., free

A number of notable vernissages are happening today, including Modern, Parisian Laundry’s mid-century-style exhibition of photorealistic paintings by Brian Rideout (3550 St-Antoine W., 6–9 p.m., free), Station 16’s launch of dystopian and hyperreal paintings by American artist Scott Listfield (3523 St-Laurent, 6–9 p.m., free) and Never Apart’s Summer Exhibitions featuring six new shows featuring 16 local and international artists, including the group show Femme Realness: A Celebration of The Effeminate Gay Male and plenty more (7049 St-Urbain, 6–10 p.m., free).

Head to Outremont’s new urban garden and public outdoor cultural space Mont Réel for an under-the-stars film screening of the 2015 documentary B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin, which takes a look at the divided city’s post-punk milieu of the 1980’s arts and music scene, with remembrances from Nick Cave, Nena, Tilda Swinton and more. 6574 Durocher, 9 p.m., free

Do the five-band shuffle at la Vitrola, where New Jersey’s class-A instrumental indie rock band Vasudeva tops a bill that also features Tennessee’s Adjy and Bas Relief (also from Jersey). 4602 St-Laurent, 9 p.m., $7/$10

For more concert recommendations, see this week’s edition of Hammer of the Mods.

For more music events, see our Event Listings. Art Listings can be found here.