Modball (Montreal)

1. Overview

Modball first appears in the sources at the turn of 1968, when the Montreal Star publishes a large advertisement announcing the opening of an “international fun and dance scene” at 2112 Clark, near Place des Arts. The club presents itself as an alcohol-free teen club that offers a “free style dance-concert” with the band THE BU-BUBBLES, a psychedelic light show and a “mod” clientele.²

A few weeks later, a long feature in the youth section of the Montreal Star, written by Carole Clifford, describes Modball as one of the most ambitious projects of the new, redeveloped Clark Street. Its creator, restaurateur Ozy Paulik, combines a European-inspired architecture (half-timbered facade, large sign, Bavarian references) with an environment expressly designed for teenagers: rock and rhythm-and-blues music, dance floor, “artistic” lighting, art gallery, reading corner, library of international magazines and spaces for conversation.³

The Lovell’s Montreal Directory for 1968–1969 confirms the club’s presence, listing at 2112 Clarke (English spelling) a “Modball International Dance Club”. From the early 1970s onward the address changes function, but for a brief period the club stands out as a prototype of a dance and sociability centre for teenagers, conceived as an alternative to alcohol-serving nightclubs.¹

Youth-page columns portray Modball as a place where young people “can dance and develop their individuality” in an alcohol-free setting, surrounded by loud music, light shows, exhibitions and debates — right in the heart of a Clark Street about to become a new nightlife hub near Place des Arts.

2. The site — 2112 Clark(e) and the “new Clark Street”

Located in the Faubourg Saint-Laurent, Clark Street runs through an area long associated with small brick houses, neighborhood shops, taverns and cafés, at the junction of the enlarged Red Light district and downtown. In the mid–20^th century, the street was seen as somewhat run-down but strategically located between De Maisonneuve Boulevard and the future Place des Arts.

2112 Clark is a narrow ground-floor commercial space, reached by a small flight of steps from the sidewalk. In the 1950s and early 1960s it housed Café El Cortijo, an initially Spanish restaurant which soon became a beatnik hangout — described in the French-language press as a true bohemian cave with painted walls, graffiti and collages.¹ After a short vacant period (1966–1967), the premises were taken over and completely reconfigured to accommodate Modball.

Late-1960s newspaper reports indicate that the street was then the object of a small-scale urban renewal project: developers envisioned a corridor of clubs, restaurants and entertainment venues that could benefit from proximity to Place des Arts. Within this environment, Modball stood out through its half-timbered facade and “old European inn” look, contrasting with the teenage clientele, mini-skirts and psychedelic music advertised in the papers.³

A decade later, in 1979, a feature by Pierre Beaulieu in La Presse about Le Pretzel enchaîné recalls that a new performance venue had been built “at great expense” in “the former El Cortijo” on Clark Street, which by then had become various German-themed clubs. This testimony confirms the spatial continuity between Modball and the venues that succeeded it.⁸

3. Concept — teen club, coffee house and “fun and dance scene”

In the opening advertisement published on 19 January 1968, Modball defined itself as an “international fun and dance scene” and “teen club” where “no alcohol [is] served”. The ad promised a “free style dance-concert” with THE BU-BUBBLES, a psychedelic light show, mod fashion and an environment in which teenagers could dance and meet in a supervised setting.²

The feature by Carole Clifford in the Montreal Star youth pages elaborates on this concept: Modball combined a dance floor and stage for rock and rhythm-and-blues bands, an art gallery with works hung on the walls, a library of international magazines and lounge areas for talking. The lighting — sometimes described as “psychedelic” in advertisements — is presented by Paulik as “artistic” lighting, more controlled than in some hippie clubs.^3,4

Architecturally, Ozy Paulik opted for a European-inn decor: half-timbered facade, woodwork, exposed beams, Bavarian motifs. This aesthetic in some ways foreshadowed the later transformations of the premises (Oberlander Bavarian Club, Oberlander German Austrian House, Tannhauser Old German Club), even though the music and clientele at Modball were centred on the anglophone and francophone youth of the late 1960s.

Modball thus functioned both as a coffee house — selling non-alcoholic drinks, juices and coffee — and as a community centre, hosting events that went beyond dancing: forums, radio recordings, meetings of songwriters, family brunches and thematic happenings.^3,6

4. Programming, youth culture and community life

“Places” and “Teen Beat” columns in the English-language press, along with display ads, make it possible to partially reconstruct Modball’s programming and operations. From its opening, the club relied on a mix of local bands and Toronto groups passing through on their way to New York or other circuits, positioning Modball within the broader network of North American rock venues.

A column by Dave Bist in the Gazette’s “The Teen Beat” section, in spring 1968, describes the “Mod-Ball, 2112 Clarke St.” as “our newest and most psychedelic coffee house”, and notes the presence of Toronto band The Churls, on their way to recording sessions in New York. The piece emphasizes the psychedelic atmosphere, light shows and the newness of the venue within Montreal’s teen-club landscape.⁴

Another “Places” column points to an “Easter love-in” held at Modball during Easter weekend 1968. Decorated in full flower-power style, the event featured Toronto band Olivus. It fit within the broader vogue for happenings and love-ins in the late 1960s, adapted here to a teen and young-adult clientele in an alcohol-free setting.⁵

Columns also mention themed weekends with jokey promotions for “real grass and bananas” (a wink at counterculture references), go-go dancers, dance sessions for teens and adults, and family brunches that opened the venue to a broader public.^3,5

Beyond dancing, Modball aimed to become a meeting point for folk singers and coffee-house owners. Carole Clifford reports that Ozy Paulik invited them to meet there with a view to creating a bilingual songwriters’ guild and organizing a summer festival on the mountain. Even if the concrete outcome of this initiative remains hard to document, the testimony underscores Modball’s role as a cultural networking hub.³

Several sources also stress the club’s more explicitly community-oriented activities. In May 1968, the Gazette announces a “talk-in” for parents and teenagers at Modball House, 2112 Clark St., where parents are invited to discuss their difficulties with social workers and church representatives. A few days later, a radio column in the Montreal Star reports on the recording of a CJAD radio program at Modball, during which young people spoke freely for several hours about their everyday reality. In these events, the venue clearly functioned as a space for intergenerational dialogue and an extension of the social concerns of the period.⁶

Taken together, these traces show that, for a segment of Montreal youth in 1968, Modball provided both a musical playground, a sociability space and an experimental forum where rock, folk, art, media and social intervention could intersect in a single environment.

5. Afterlives and transformations of 2112 Clark

The Lovell’s directory makes it possible to situate Modball precisely within the chronology of businesses at 2112 Clark(e). After the Café El Cortijo period (1958–1966), the premises are listed as vacant for 1966–1967, then as Modball International Dance Club in 1968–1969. From 1969–1970, the directory lists an Oberlander Bavarian Club at this address, followed by the Oberlander German Austrian House (1970–1972), a period during which the address sometimes disappears from the listings, before reappearing in 1978–1979 as Tannhauser Old German Club and, from 1979 to 1982, as Pretzel Enchainé.^1,9

This succession highlights a thematic continuity between the “old European” decor introduced by Ozy Paulik and the later Bavarian / German–Austrian clubs. Even if the clientele and programming changed, the site remained, throughout the 1970s, associated with entertainment spaces that blended music, dancing, food and imported atmospheres.

Within this longer trajectory, Modball appears as an important transitional moment between the beatnik bohemia of Café El Cortijo and the rock / jazz / chanson scene of Le Pretzel enchaîné. It introduced, in the heart of Clark Street, a model of alcohol-free youth centre where rock music, counterculture, happenings and social debates could coexist under one roof.

Although the name Modball disappears rather quickly from newspapers and directories after 1969, its memory survives in press archives, advertising clippings and witness accounts from concert-goers for whom the club represented a first contact with psychedelic culture, love-ins and intergenerational forums in a Montreal setting. In the curatorial perspective of the Montreal Concert Poster Archive, Modball thus forms a key link in understanding the evolution of 2112 Clark as an experimental nightlife site, from the Beat Generation of the 1950s to the rock venues of the late 1970s.