Bully Magazine - TECHNOSEXUAL

Syana Barbara and Mossy Mugler are the gen-z DJs, organizers and all-around Dolls at the forefront of Montreal nightlife. I approached Syana about doing an interview for BULLY after her first gig at Montreal’s iconic Stereo nightclub. She accepted the invitation on the condition that Mossy could join to discuss their parallel career paths, the future of the scene and their forthcoming single, Leave You On Read.

At just 21 and 24, Syana and Mossy have produced numerous events and fundraisers since pre-pandemic while cultivating a scene of predominantly young Trans people. “We don’t care about who you are here. Montreal is not the city to flaunt your expensive clothes, lifestyle or connections,” Syana tells me, “we are party people, and we are here for the party. If you have the right attitude, you will fit in and get along with us. It’s not about who you are or how many followers you have. It’s about do you like to party.” Despite their successes and packed schedules, Syana and Mossy are notably warm and easy to talk to. “Right, like, are you a good time,” Mossy adds, “personality is what’s most important here. Or not personality, but kindness. That’s the beauty of Montreal.”

I first saw Syana at a Fierté (Montréal pride) Ball in 2018. I had just moved from Toronto and was looking to take the temperature of Montreal’s Queer underground. Of all the contestants, Syana stuck in my memory for the magnetic energy and force she brought to her runway. At maybe 17, she commanded the room with unbreakable confidence and vicious vogue style.

SAMUEL: Syana, do you remember that night?

SYANA: Yes, I do remember! It’s so long ago it feels weird because I'm not the same person I was back then. But I do remember.

SAMUEL: It was a special night because I felt secure in my decision to move. Through your performance, I felt something new, fresh and needed. My curiosity was piqued, and I wanted to know - who’s that girl!

SYANA: Awh, thank you so much. It means a lot to me because I was young and new in the scene myself.

MOSSY: Running shit from the jump!

Samuel: Well, as a newcomer, it was a memorable first impression. I think it aligned with my idea of Montreal as a distinct culture that never looks to bigger cultural capitals for validation. When out-of-towners come through, we pay them dust! We have our own thing that is self-sustaining.

Syana: We do, yeah! I think there is a lot of “trying to be accepted by other cities” in Toronto and elsewhere. But in Montreal, we like what we have here.

Mossy: We pride ourselves on being a good scene.

Samuel: How did you two meet? What was your experience getting into nightlife together?

MOSSY: Well, it’s a bit of a story. My sister Tarek started dating this crazy person who we don’t really fuck with anymore, but they used to live at this artist's co-op on Esplanade and Bernard. When Tarek and I would come to Montreal (from Ottawa) every weekend, we would stay with them. Syana knew this person too.

SYANA: Yeah, we had friends in common and met at this house called Alo House - a party, art, sex work kind of weird house that had been around for like 10 years prior. This place was really run down and scary. Before it was called Scat House *laughs*.

Mossy: But honestly, at its peak, it was really beautiful …

SYANA: It was beautiful, but it was chaotic. There was a lot of drama, a lot of fucked up shit, and a lot of drugs. A lot of older people influencing young people.

MOSSY: Yes, so through my sister's ex, Syana and I met. As fucked up as this person was, they did bring us together in terms of the DIY scene.

SYANA: So I started going to raves downtown around 14-15. That would be my first introduction to nightlife, and it was like EDM trash, bro festivals .. but we just wanted to get drunk and dance. So from there, I just started going out to bars like Blue Dog that didn’t card. Back then, that was the place where lots of queers went for a drink, so I started meeting the community there. I’m lucky to be from the generation where queer people were connecting with each other on Instagram. So when I was in high school, I already started networking with older queer people from the city. & that brought me to Alo House, where I met Mossy.

MOSSY: We kind of stuck by each other ever since then. After meeting, we travelled to New York to stay at this Frat House at Columbia University for gays and girls. They were throwing a party, and Syana played her first DJ set - which started everything.

SYANA: Yeah, the Queer frat house! That was insane. It was like this huge townhouse mansion with 50 bedrooms and like six floors. It was ancient, so all the furniture was dusty, but you could tell it was really majestic in its prime.

MOSSY: So we went to New York and started being friends. I feel like our experiences traveling really solidified our bond.

Samuel: I think that’s the best way for creative relationships to form! Just like friends coming together organically and sharing skills. So what was the point when you guys started to plan parties yourselves? What was that process?

Mossy: For me, it was after I graduated from school in Ottawa and moved to New York for like 6 months. I had friends out there organizing parties and learned a lot from them. They were some of the first people I saw who used organizing to do direct action for their community. For example, using raves as fundraisers and to gather as a community. I was inspired to take what I learned there and bring it to Montreal. I had the first official Hauterageous in New York.

Syana: For me, I started DJ’ing and learned the skills to organize from that - so I organized for other people before doing my events. I did that for maybe 5 or 6 parties.

Then eventually, I started putting on bigger events for myself, like my birthday Masquerave last year. It was really successful, and now I'm planning to start my own party series called Technosexual.

MOSSY: I feel like both our processes consistently involve each other. Regardless of whether we do something separately. Whenever I throw something, Syana is always involved. Syana is like a consultant for a lot of my things and vice-versa. We can rely on each other for direction on booking lineups, business deals with venues and just consulting in general.

Syana: Packing up the rave when it was outside. *laughs*

Mossy: We do things separately, but we always have each other's back regardless of who is involved.

Syana: For sure, exactly. I wouldn’t do a party without consulting Mossy...

Mossy: We have a familiarity that we depend on for comfort and guidance. It’s a sisterhood.

Syana: It’s hard to manage the nightlife sometimes. A lot of people are going to try to scam you, and people will try to use you. So building that business sense and pushing each other to do good business deals has been so important.

Mossy: We push each other often to stand strong in front of owners and bookers, for example, who want to cut us a cheap deal. We give each other the strength to stand up for what’s right in the nightlife world, which is fierce.

Syana: Period!

Samuel: How has the pandemic affected the relationship between Montréal police and the community?

SYANA: The pandemic gave the police a reason to brutalize us. For one, organizing became stressful because we had to deal with the cops at every event. Even if you were just DJ’ing someone else's party, you could be held accountable for breaking COVID restrictions - like just trying to do your job. So it was stressful, and I dealt with cops on a personal level during the pandemic, which affected my career negatively. It’s not just the pandemic; I have dealt with the Montreal Police for much of my life. It’s not just me. It’s not just my generation - they have a history of targeting vulnerable communities.

Samuel: It seems like the relationship with police hasn’t changed since the Sex Garage raids of 1990 (a popular Queer warehouse party which turned violent when attendees resisted arrest). I’ve read that historically the Queer community has felt safer dealing with organized crime than the Montreal police, which is maddening.

Mossy: I think for Queer and Trans people, regardless of whether it’s the cops, the mafia, or venue owners, we’re always going to run into some kind of violent misunderstanding or miscommunication that can lead to harm. There is just a lot that most owners and most people who run spaces don’t understand about the community, and as a result, we’re affected by their unwillingness to understand us. A lot of people with power and access have made no effort to try to understand how to create a safer space for the girls

Syana: The cops in the city have tried to get key people in our community arrested. So I don’t think it’s getting better. With the pandemic, they had an easy excuse to arrest you. It sucked because I had to stop travelling for a bit, and I lost gigs in the U.S. that would have been good for me. Not to mention the trauma of all these interactions … that’s a whole other story.

Mossy: We, as organizers, are the only people who know how to take care of the scene. We have to put ourselves in the front to deal with all these people who don’t understand us but hold the keys to spaces. So you have to be well versed in norm-ie talk and have some business and negotiation skills.

Syana: There is so much that you need to be able to do when it’s your party.

Mossy: It’s your responsibility, and there is no help.

Syana: When fucked up shit happens, it falls on you. Like with the Durocher story. The owners definitely drugged some people at that party, and I had no idea. Obviously, if I had any idea, I would have shut it down, but there are always variables in nightlife that are out of your control.

Samuel: Could we get the short story of what happened that night?

Syana: Last year, I did my birthday at the infamous Durocher venue. It was a big party with an all-female lineup - you know, the girlies. The night of, I get to the venue and the owner is already fucked up out of his mind DJ’ing. He disrespected all of us who had rented his space, making transphobic and racist jokes. There was an open bar that night, and a lot of guests became sick.

I also know people who had a great night and didn’t experience anything shady. So overall, there were a lot of different isolated things that happened. After talking with the community, I heard other stories of this owner's inappropriate behaviour, so I called him out on IG. When I made the post, it went viral, which I wasn’t expecting. In 3 or 4 hours, there were like 5000 likes. So the owner started threatening me and dropping names like Hells Angels to intimidate us. This continued for weeks.

Then two months later, he sent a record to my gig at Stereobar, which was hand delivered by the staff right before I was about to play as some kind of fucked up message. He’s probably the worst case of someone I've encountered in nightlife. But there are a lot of times when owners have been fucked up and tried to rip us off.

Mossy: This life is a risk. Shady shit happens often.

Samuel: Syana, could you tell me a bit about your work with Project 10?

Syana: Yes, so I'm the Trans Activities Co-ordinator.

I run the Gender Gear program, which provides materials for people in our community experiencing gender dysphoria - whether it’s gafs for tucking, chest binders or breast forms. I’ve been doing community work since the pandemic started. I worked with another organization before, where I did more social media and graphic design. Now I have more of a coordinator position. I love it, but it can be a lot combined with DJ’ing and the business I'm opening

Samuel: For sure, you seem busy! Could you tell us about your business?

Syana: Yeah, so it’s called DJTAL. Basically, it's a DJ studio that you can rent by the hour. You can come to record mixes, practice and take workshops. It was inspired by Pirate Studios in New York. But I want to focus specifically on DJing. In the long run, I would love to profit from that and eventually open my own club.

Samuel: Wow! That’s so exciting and very needed in Montreal. I guess that leads us to your new music … tell us about that!

Syana: Yes, Leave You On Read. So last year, I released a small DIY EP called 19 Years of Rage. Since then, I've been experimenting with different genres, BPMs, instruments, etc. Now I'm at a place where I have a lot more songs. I’m not sure what I will do with them exactly. One of the first tracks I finished after my EP was Leave You On Read. I had just been in New York for 12 hours to play a gig. At the time, I was doing a performance art piece with Elle Barbara called Ayibobo. We had like 7 shows and rehearsed for a month before that. Between rehearsals, I went to New York for this gig. I was exhausted, but I felt really inspired at this time. It feels empowering to be busy doing art. It was probably the first time I was completely immersed in my artwork.

I was actually in the Detroit airport waiting for a connection, and I started producing Leave You On Read. In the birthplace of techno! Even though I was in the airport. So I did this song, Leave You On Read ... gotta get this bread!

Samuel: Booked boots! I get it.

SYANA: Yes, I worked on the song for a couple of months after that. But the core of the song was produced in the Detroit airport. I was booked and busy in general, and I felt like, “I’m doing my shit, and it’s empowering as fuck”. Then one thing I wanted to push was incorporating people in my life into my music. So I brought on Monib on the vocals.

Samuel: How do you see the future of Montreal nightlife?

Syana: So I see the future of Montreal nightlife going in two separate ways. Either the city listens to us, sees that nightlife is a commodity, and lets us run it. Like where it becomes more of a real business, where there is more investment. OR I see that gentrification could push out venues even more than it already has, and people have to work more in other spheres of life. As a result, the culture will go down. But I don’t think Montreal will ever get to a point where we aren’t partying. It’s in our core; it’s in our history as Montrealers. But if we’re not careful, we could lose a lot of the nightlife that’s happening now. Nothing is for certain.