Montreal promoters continue to book popular local DJ Max “Genrefluid” Beaumont despite admitting there is only a fifty percent chance he will play the style of music requested. “You can book him for a techno party and get techno, or you can spend the night explaining to angry people why he’s playing happy hardcore,” says promoter Simon Deslauriers. “It’s basically a coin toss, except the coin has a SoundCloud account and arrives forty minutes late.”

Max insists promoters should treat musical genres as suggestions rather than legally binding obligations. “If someone asks me to play house, that tells me they’re emotionally prepared to hear music through speakers,” he says. “What kind of music comes out of those speakers depends on the room, the energy and whatever playlist I opened before leaving my apartment. Sometimes house energy requires drum and bass. Sometimes a psytrance crowd needs two hours of reggaeton. A real DJ gives people what they didn’t know they were trying to avoid.”

Several promoters have stopped putting genres on Max’s flyers because doing so creates unrealistic expectations. Last month, he was booked to close a dark industrial techno event but arrived carrying a USB containing ninety-three disco edits and one Eminem song. “I asked him where the techno was and he told me darkness comes in many forms,” says organizer Patrick Lemieux. “Then he played ABBA while a man in a gas mask stared at me like I had personally betrayed the underground.”

Despite these incidents, Max remains one of the city’s most frequently booked DJs because he brings dozens of friends, former roommates, casual acquaintances and women who believe they are on the guest list. “His music might empty half the dance floor, but his personality fills the entire venue,” says club owner Mélanie Fortin. “When Max is on the flyer, two hundred people show up before midnight. They spend money, take pictures and repeatedly ask when Max is playing. Once he starts playing, many of them leave, but by then we already have their coat-check money.”

Max’s supporters say musical consistency is less important than his ability to transform every booking into a social event centered around himself. “I don’t know what he plays,” says longtime friend Kevin Drouin. “I’ve seen him perform at least thirty times, but I’m usually outside smoking or telling the door person that I’m with the DJ. The important thing is that Max knows everyone. You don’t book him for the music. You book him because every person he has met since high school receives a Facebook invitation.”

Promoters estimate that Max plays the requested genre at approximately half of his bookings, although nobody has successfully predicted which half. He has already been hired for a warehouse party next weekend and instructed to play “whatever he wants” in an attempt to eliminate the problem. Max is furious. “I need direction so I can rebel against it,” he says. “If they genuinely want me to play anything, I have no artistic boundaries to ignore. Honestly, I might cancel.”