Contradance

Contradance were a Windsor, Ontario trio: Ken Montague on guitar and vocals, Dave McDonald on bass and Arif Qureshi on drums. They came out of the University of Windsor scene in the early 1980s, mixing reggae, ska, punk, new wave and pop at a time when campus radio, the Detroit border and British bands such as the Clash, Madness, the English Beat and the Specials were changing what young musicians in the city listened to.

Montague grew up in Windsor in a Jamaican immigrant family. Bob Marley and reggae played at home, while his own listening ran through Neil Young, Patti Smith and the Cars. He was studying science and music at the University of Windsor between 1981 and 1983 when Contradance came together. He later called the group a reggae/pop/punk band, and the place where he first began working through ideas about Black identity.

He wrote 'Black Preppies' on the back of a chemistry experiment. The song spoofed The Official Preppy Handbook, with Montague, a young Black Canadian, sizing up the Lacoste shirts, social types and campus fashion of affluent white preppy culture. The note printed under the song on the insert reads: "Jocks & Lowlifes? Look at me... a walking, talking Black Preppy."

Contradance recorded the four-song EP Black Preppies: Look Buffy, four songs just for us! on August 3, 1982, at Aldon Sound 4, Don Lazurek's eight-track studio on Redwood Avenue in Windsor. Richard Janik engineered and mixed the session and the band produced. Montague wrote all four songs: 'Black Preppies', 'Trouble in the Darkness', 'She's Got an Eyepiece' and 'Professional Dads'. On 'Trouble in the Darkness', Montague, Qureshi and Dale D'Amore, billed as "The 3 Stooges," added what the insert calls "Genuine Jamaican Percussion."

The record came out on Dancing Note Records as dn-001, with World Record Corp. number WRC5-2315. It was dedicated to "Black Preppies all over the world." The insert's thank-you list maps the band's world: CJAM, The Lance, Detroit's WDET, University of Michigan radio, the Delta Chi fraternity, Records on Wheels, Sam the Record Man, Attic Records and "the entire city of Ann Arbor."

The Lance, the University of Windsor student paper, reviewed the band while they were active. The reviewer saw Windsor as a city in need of a scene and credited Contradance with trying to build one, calling 'Black Preppies' the group's hook-filled anthem and hearing 'Trouble in the Darkness' as smooth North American reggae. The piece grouped them with Windsor punk bands the Dry Heaves and the Spys.

Contradance played the University of Windsor student centre pub, Faces on College, The Radio, Delta Chi parties and rooms at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. CJAM, then working toward its FM licence, played the record steadily, and Montague later credited the station and the university with much of the band's success. In 2011 a CJAM reggae show still called Black Preppies "kind of iconic round these parts," noting that Windsor listeners caught local references in the lyrics that would mean little anywhere else.

Contradance were offered a record contract. At the same time, Montague was accepted into music at McGill University and into dental school at the University of Toronto. He chose dentistry, and the band's recording career ended with the one EP. He kept playing in rock and jazz groups and, after earning his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree, toured with the ska band ONE.

In 1997 Montague founded what became Wedge Curatorial Projects, building the Wedge Collection of photography and contemporary art centred on African diasporic culture and Black life. Looking back on 'Black Preppies', he said he had been exploring Black identity through music while still a teenager.

In 2013 CJAM brought Montague, McDonald and Qureshi back to mark the station's 30th year on FM and the University of Windsor's 50th anniversary. The original trio played the FM Lounge on September 21. Montague said he was surprised to learn that CJAM was still playing the record more than 30 years after he made it.

-Robert Williston

Lineup:
Dave McDonald: bass
Ken Montague: guitar, vocals
Arif Qureshi: drums