Tuesdays at Celebrities

Van City can be a depressing place in the winter. Daylight retreats in the late afternoon, heavy sheets of rain flood the streets day after day, and our spectacular mountain vistas are lost in a heavy blanket of fog. Given the foul weather, it's often difficult to decide what to do with one's evenings. Do you go to the trouble of getting all tarted up and heading out to a nightclub only to get drenched and miserable? Or do you throw on your PJs and make it a movie night-again?

Club 686

Saturdays at Plush

Sundays at the Plaza Nightclub

At 50 Bourbon Street

At the Ice Bar, 395 Kingsway

Wednesdays at the Lamplighter

When I rounded the corner of Smithe Street at Granville a few Sundays ago to find the Commodore deserted, it wasn't a huge surprise to learn that Young Buck had cancelled his show due to illness. If you like hip-hop, you learn to accept such treachery as routine. All gussied-up with nowhere to go, me and my mate scanned the street up and down, trying to figure out where the rest of Buck's jilted lovers had gone to drink away their sorrows.

Just try telling the few hundred people who pack the Red Room (formerly the Drink) every Saturday that house music is dead. Go on, try it. Chances are they'll drag you down to the dance floor this weekend, slip you a handful of pills, and watch as your dismissive smirk turns into an ear-to-ear grin.

Sundays at the Marine Club

Successfully chronicling the Vancouver club scene is nearly impossible, a task made all the more difficult by the high turnover rate of events and related personnel. Take, for example, the case of Transmit, a night born as Void just over a year ago. During its original run at Atlantis, the event billed itself as the city's only weekly devoted to intelligent dance music.

Montreal might no longer be the disco haven it was in the 1970s, but JoJo Flores is doing his best to uphold the city's reputation as Canada's capital of classic 4/4 grooves. As the head of Gotsoul Recordings, the Montrealer is promoting his love of organic dance music to a largely European audience, releasing singles and remixes by famed worldbeat artists like Geoffrey Oryeme and Osunlade.

For better or worse, Main Street has become one of the trendiest neighbourhoods in the city, centrally located and home to a diverse collection of students, blue- and white-collar families, and longtime residents in their retirement years. There's no telling how long this unique mix will hold up-gentrification has swept swiftly down the street since last decade's end-but for now, it's still a wonderful place.

Saturdays at the Marble Arch Ever since the city started herding clubbers onto Granville Street around the turn of the century, the strip has turned into one of those crazy nightlife districts common to large North American cities. Nowadays, strolling down Granville on a Saturday night is like going to the zoo: you're likely to witness either random acts of violence or drugged mammals in the throes of erotic embrace.