TraXide / Fattal

1. Overview

The history of TraXide is difficult to tell in the same way as that of a conventional concert venue. For years, its address was rarely published. There was no traditional box office, little signage and no particular effort to make the place easy for the general public to find.

Yet within underground punk, hardcore and metal networks, its name became widely known. Local bands played alongside groups from elsewhere in Canada, the United States and beyond. Montreal musicians, artists, punks and travellers passing through the city met there.

To understand TraXide, however, it is important to distinguish between two things that are often confused: Fattal was not simply the former name of TraXide. Fattal was the complex and community within which the venue developed. TraXide was one of the cultural spaces that emerged from that environment.

2. Fattal: A Community Before a Venue

In Saint-Henri, immediately beside the railway tracks, a former industrial complex associated with Jenkins Brothers Ltd. gradually became an environment of lofts, workshops and spaces occupied by an alternative community.

Known as Fattal, the complex brought together musicians, underground artists, graffiti artists, travellers and others. Residential spaces existed alongside workshops, rehearsal rooms and various community initiatives.

This informal organization encouraged a culture based on resourcefulness and self-management. In an environment where financial resources were often limited, residents created many of the services and spaces they needed themselves.

It was within this context that a small venue emerged for bands that had few places to play in Montreal: TraXide.

3. The Birth of TraXide

The venue emerged around 2010. Its name itself referred directly to its surroundings: TraXide evoked its location beside the railway tracks running alongside the complex.

At first, the venue answered a very simple need: allowing underground bands to rehearse, perform and organize their own concerts without having to go through the usual structures of the live-music industry.

Over time, TraXide became much more than a rehearsal room converted into a venue. Dozens of shows could take place each year, and its name began circulating far beyond Saint-Henri.

Its reputation was built precisely around what conventional venues generally try to eliminate: improvisation, proximity, imperfection and a certain lack of separation between performers, organizers and audience.

4. “Ask a Punk”

One of TraXide's most memorable characteristics was its address. For years, it was deliberately left off public concert announcements.

In its place appeared an instruction that became almost a motto: “Ask a punk.”

To attend a show, you had to know someone, contact the organizers or ask somebody already connected to the scene. Access to the venue therefore depended largely on the human networks that formed the community.

As late as 2024, concert announcements explicitly stated “ASK A PUNK FOR ADDRESS OR DM,” alongside mentions such as BYOB and a door admission price.

5. The TraXide Experience

TraXide never attempted to reproduce the experience of a professional concert venue. Small, compact and rudimentary, the space placed the audience almost directly alongside the musicians.

The venue was BYOB. Shows were loud, the room could become extremely hot and the atmosphere was deliberately informal. In a feature about Fattal, Jennifer Bobette described a small, familiar, compact and smoky room marked by the smell of sweat — characteristics she presented precisely as part of its charm.

There was little separation between the stage and the community. People in the room could simultaneously be musicians, spectators, organizers, technicians, artists or residents of the complex.

This proximity helped make TraXide an experience difficult to reproduce in a commercial venue.

6. Punk, Hardcore, Metal and Beyond

TraXide was primarily associated with punk, hardcore, crust, metal and anarcho-punk, although its programming regularly extended beyond those genres.

Montreal bands such as Ripcordz and Metalian played there, while the venue also welcomed groups from outside Quebec.

Documented international performers included the American band Days N' Daze and Scottish anarcho-punk group Oi Polloi.

Event archives also reveal a particularly active calendar. Beyond punk and metal shows, TraXide hosted poetry nights, benefit events, zine-related activities and evenings combining different musical cultures.

This openness reflected the logic of the venue: rather than defining itself through one specific genre, TraXide offered a stage to projects that often had difficulty finding a place elsewhere.

7. More Than a Concert Venue

TraXide's real importance cannot be measured solely by the number of concerts presented there.

The venue served as a meeting place, rehearsal space, mutual-aid network and stopping point for people connected to Montreal and North American underground scenes.

Visitors from Canada, the United States and Mexico passed through Fattal. Some were musicians; others were travellers or members of different punk communities.

For many emerging bands, TraXide represented something even more fundamental: a place to play. In a city where small venues constantly appear and disappear, that function alone gave the space particular importance.

8. A DIY Organization

TraXide's organization evolved over the years. An earlier, more centralized structure eventually gave way to a more collective model.

By the late 2010s, people involved with the venue described an organization operating increasingly according to a cooperative model, with team meetings and collective decision-making.

Several women became directly involved in managing the space. Inclusivity, community safety and accountability became explicitly stated concerns among those operating the venue.

Like many DIY spaces, however, TraXide remained a constantly evolving project, largely dependent on volunteer or community labour and on the people willing to take responsibility for keeping it running.

9. Fattal Fest

Perhaps the most spectacular expression of this community was Fattal Fest.

For eight years, the complex's parking area hosted a free music festival organized according to the same DIY principles as TraXide.

The event brought together bands associated with the community and reportedly attracted as many as 1,000 people during some editions.

The festival demonstrated that Fattal extended far beyond the existence of one small venue. For a few hours, an industrial enclave in Saint-Henri became a collective space devoted to underground music.

10. The 2024 Break

TraXide's history reached an important turning point in the summer of 2024.

On July 27, 2024, Le Canal Auditif reported that scheduled concerts at TraXide had been temporarily cancelled. People close to the organization explained that changes were being made in an effort to ensure the venue's future and maintain a safe environment for the community.

This period was accompanied by internal conflicts and allegations involving individuals associated with previous administrations. Because much of this information came from community statements and social-media posts, those claims should be distinguished from independently established facts.

What is clear is that TraXide, as it had operated until then, entered a period of profound reorganization.

11. La Biu: Starting Over

A new team eventually took over the space. On December 17, 2024, it published a statement outlining the principles intended to guide the venue's next incarnation.

The message emphasized integrity, inclusivity, collective responsibility and the desire to create a safe environment.

The new administration also wanted the project to extend beyond its role as a concert venue. The space was intended to host community activities, activism, workshops and days dedicated to local artisans.

The statement also acknowledged the lack of transparency surrounding the transition and explicitly stated that the new team was not affiliated with the previous management.

On December 31, 2024, during a show featuring Sale Gauloise, Doomsday Dementia, Motorwolf and Out of Order, the space officially adopted a new name: La Biu.

12. Thrash Can

The La Biu identity was short-lived.

On May 8, 2025, the space was renamed once again, becoming Thrash Can. Despite the changes in name and administration, several members of the community continued to refer to the place simply as TraXide.

That continuity is revealing: TraXide had become more than simply the name of a venue. For part of the scene, it referred to the place itself, its atmosphere and the memories accumulated there over more than a decade.

Events continued to be associated with the space after the name change, demonstrating the persistence of its DIY culture despite administrative transformations.

In May 2026, community reports described a police intervention and an interruption of activities at Thrash Can. In the absence, for now, of sufficiently precise official or journalistic documentation concerning the circumstances, this episode remains to be confirmed before being permanently incorporated into the venue's historical timeline.

13. The Legacy of TraXide

TraXide's history is a reminder that the cultural importance of a venue does not depend on its capacity, architecture or institutional recognition.

The venue never possessed the prestige of Montreal's major concert halls. Even its address could be difficult to obtain. Yet for more than a decade, hundreds of bands and thousands of spectators participated in a musical culture that would have been different without this space.

Its contribution lies precisely in its marginality. TraXide allowed emerging bands to perform, gave underground touring acts a place to stop in Montreal and provided a community with somewhere to gather without necessarily passing through traditional commercial structures.

The names changed — TraXide, La Biu, Thrash Can — but they belong to a larger history: that of Fattal and a community's ability to create for itself the cultural spaces it needs.

14. Timeline

Before TraXide — The former industrial complex associated with Jenkins Brothers Ltd. gradually becomes a collection of lofts, workshops and community spaces known as Fattal.

Circa 2010 — TraXide emerges within the Fattal complex.

2010s — Punk, hardcore and metal shows multiply. The venue becomes an important meeting point in Montreal's underground scene.

2010s — A more cooperative and community-based management model develops.

For eight years — Fattal Fest is organized in the complex's parking area.

2023–2024 — Particularly active period: DIY concerts, benefit events, poetry, zines and punk, hardcore and metal programming.

July 27, 2024 — Temporary suspension of concerts is announced amid an internal reorganization.

December 17, 2024 — The new administration publishes a statement outlining its values and community project.

December 31, 2024 — The space adopts the name La Biu.

May 8, 2025 — La Biu becomes Thrash Can.

2025–2026 — Concerts continue to be associated with the venue under its new identity.

May 2026 — Community reports describe a police intervention and an interruption of activities; the exact circumstances remain to be documented.