BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - October 2016

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october 2016 

BIGGER - LOUDER - FASTER 

Bon Iver • Purity Ring • Sum 41 • Ziggy Marley • Tokyo Police Club • New Forms Festival • Ghost • Hannibal Buress • Gimme Danger 

October 2016 1

2 

October 2016

october ‘16 

Publisher 

BeatRoute Magazine 

Graphic Designer 

& production manager 

Syd Danger 

syddanger.com 

Web Producer 

Shane Flug 

Copy editor 

Thomas Coles 

Front Cover illustration 

Carole Mathys 

Distribution 

Gold Distribution 

Contributing Writers 

Glenn Alderson ∙ Sadie Barker ∙ Spencer Brown 

David Cutting ∙ Dalton Dubetz ∙ Mike Dunn 

Heath Fenton ∙ Max Foley ∙ Jamie Goyman 

Carlotta Gurl ∙ Michelle Hanely ∙ Safiya Hopfe 

Chris Jimenez ∙ Prachi Kamble ∙ Karolina Kapusta 

Luke Kokoszka ∙ Ana Krunic ∙ Matt Laundrie 

Christine Leonard ∙ Axel Matfin ∙ Paul Mcaleer 

Kathleen Mcgee ∙ Hollie Mcgowan ∙Jamie 

Mcnamara ∙ Andrew R. Mott ∙ Jennie Orton 

Cole Parker ∙ Andrew Pitchko ∙ Liam Prost 

Molly Randhawa ∙ Colleen Rennison ∙ Paul Rodgers 

Yasmine Shemesh ∙ Maya-Roisin Slater 

Paris Spence-Lang ∙ Vanessa Tam ∙ Alec Warkenti 

Alec Warkentin ∙ Trent Warner ∙ Wendy13 

Graeme Wiggins ∙ Kendell Yan ∙ Ziicka 

Contributing 

Photographers & 

Illustrators 

Greg Doble 

Galen Exo 

Jules lemasson Fletcher 

Ethan Murley 

Advertising Inquiries 

Glenn Alderson 

glenn@beatroute.ca 

778-888-1120 

Distribution 

Editor-in-Chief 


glenn@beatroute.ca 

MANAGING EDITOR 

Joshua Erickson 

josh@beatroute.ca 

ELECTRONICS DEPT. 

Vanessa Tam 

vanessa@beatroute.ca 

QUEER 

David Cutting 

david@beatroute.ca 

MANAGING EDITOR 

Jennie Orton 

jennie@beatroute.ca 

local music/ 

the skinny 

Erin Jardine 

erin@beatroute.ca 

City 

Yasmine Shemesh 

yasmine@beatroute.ca 

comedy 

Graeme Wiggins 

graeme@beatroute.ca 

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15 

Working for the 

Weekend 

∙ with Tracy Stefanucci of the Vancouver 

Art and Book Fair 

Purity Ring 

Phantogram 

IMUR 

Sex With Strangers 

prOphecy sun 

Then And Now! 

∙ Local music Halloween costumes 

Daniel Terrence 

Robertson 

Psych Fest 

jock tears 

12 Ziggy Marley 

Benjamin Stevie 

Glass Animal 

Tokyo Police Club 

Sum 41 

THE SKINNY 

∙ Ghost ∙ Prints Of Darkness 

∙ Devin Townsend Project 

17 

19 

cover: anciients 

∙ Vancouver metalheads enter the void with 

their sophomore offering 

ELECTRONICS DEPT 

∙ Kero Kero Bonito ∙ Gallant 

∙ New Forms Festival ∙ So Loki 

23 comedy 

∙ Hannibal Buress 

∙ Vancouver International Improv Festival 

24 queer 

∙ Queerview Mirror ∙ Ethan Barry 

∙ Carlotta Says ∙ Queen Of The Month 

26 city 

∙ Red Cat Records ∙ Landyachtz 

∙ Fluffy Kittens ∙ Mensch Jewish Deli 

∙ Vancouver in the ’70s 

30 film 

∙ Gimme Danger 

31 

ALBUM REVIEWS 

∙ Bon Iver ∙ D.D Dumbo ∙ Green Day ∙ Jimmy Eat 

World ∙ Joyce Manor ∙ Merchandise ∙ M.I.A. 

37 

LIVE REVIEWS 

∙ Blink 182 ∙ Anderson .Paak 

38 vanpooper 

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send an e-mail to editor@beatroute.ca 

film 

Paris Spence-Lang 

paris@beatroute.ca 

live 

Galen Robinson-Exo 

galen@beatroute.ca 

BeatRoute Magazine 

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Vancouver BC Canada 

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editor@beatroute.ca • beatroute.ca 

©BEATROUTE Magazine 2016. All rights reserved. 

Reproduction of the contents is strictly prohibited. 


With Tracy Stefanucci of the vancouver art and book fair 


The Vancouver Art Book Fair is back again, 

returning this year to celebrate the written 

word in all its glory. Although the event itself 

is just an annual affair, the VABF operates 

year round as an organization that curates 

music and art happenings at various venues 

throughout the city. Originally starting as an 

art and literary magazine by the name of one 

cool word, the publication embedded itself in 

the Vancouver music scene by releasing a full 

length compilation CD featuring local bands 

with each issue. The project eventually steered 

more toward visual arts, relaunching as the 

artists’ publication OCW Magazine in 2010, 

the team behind it eventually went on to open 

a bookshop/gallery in 2011. “Our experience 

with the shop was demonstrating the need for 

an art book fair in Vancouver, so in 2012 we 

started VABF,” says artistic director and project 

manager Tracy Stefanucci. “From its inception, 

the idea was well received, and every year their 

audience and programs have doubled. In 2013 we 

closed our storefront, as VABF was demanding so 

much attention, year round. Now our focus is the fair, 

as well as Monthly Open Studio events and ancillary 

publishing and curatorial projects and collaborations.” 

We sat down with Stefanucci to find out what 

her and her hardworking team of art and literary 

aficionados have in store for this year’s big event. 

BeatRoute: How did you get involved? 

Tracy Stefanucci: I was an original co-founder of one cool 

word magazine back in 2006 and am the founder of VABF. 

A decade ago, I was a creative writing student at UBC that 

was obsessed with the local music scene—so the obvious 

outlet was to create a publication that could showcase and 

disseminate the creative work that I was so fired up about. 

I had absolutely no idea that I—or the project—would end 

up where it is today. 

BR: Can you tell me a bit about your job and 

responsibilities with the organization? 

TS: As the Director of the organization and the Artistic 

Director/Project Manager of the fair itself, it’s my job to 

maintain a “big-picture” view of the many moving parts 

that make up such a multifaceted event. This means 

everything from visioning and strategizing to grant 

writing and accounting, as well as the more fun things like 

programming, logistics and managing the staff and volunteer 

teams that are necessary for undertaking such a project. 

Mostly I type at a computer, but I’m also schlepping things 

around and running up and down the stairs of the Vancouver 

Art Gallery’s Annex when it’s go-time for our events. 

BR: What kind of music do you listen to at work? 

TS: I’ve been in Sweden so I’ve joined the cult of Spotify… 

Photo by Sarah Whitlam 

which for me means leeching off of other 

peoples’ playlists (namely my boyfriend’s mix 

of sixties R&B, soul, jazz and rock n roll). I’ve 

also gotten really into Frazey Ford after 

obsessing over her video for “Done,” which 

was filmed in my neighbourhood, and then 

seeing her perform live at a little theatre in 

Stockholm. Oh, and Swedish rap has gotten 

to me, particularly Yung Lean and Silvana 

Imam, who also puts on a badass live show. 

BR: What can people expect from the 

2016 Vancouver Art and Book Fair? 

TS: This year is the most ambitious 

version of the free public event yet. From 

the moment you enter the lobby of the 

Vancouver Art Gallery you will be greeted 

with Artists’ Projects (an exhibition 

of 1960s print media and ephemera 

created in Vancouver by Portland-based 

Monograph Bookwerks, as well as the 

VAG’s Library Book Sale), and you will 

continue to encounter additional Artists’ 

Projects as you tour through the Gallery 

Annex, browsing in the three Exhibitor rooms 

and stopping by for hourly talks in the Library. 

The hourly talks in the Library are 

by publishers from across Canada, the 

United States, Japan, the UK and Australia, 

and feature discussions, readings, musical 

performances and film screenings, all of 

which correspond to art publishing practices. 

The VAG’s Art Rental & Sales has also 

partnered with SAD Mag to present an Art 

& Literary Lounge, offering literary readings, 

discussions and workshops throughout the 

weekend, while also serving up complimentary 

organic and fair trade coffee from our Official 

Coffee Sponsor Ethical Bean. 

BR: Why does print media matter? 

TS: Why does anything matter? I would say 

that the thousands of people that come to 

the Vancouver Art Gallery each year for 

VABF indicates that to these people, print 

matters. Print is a technology like all 

others before and after it, and it is still a 

useful, nuanced and interesting method 

for creating certain experiences. Whether 

one is interested in the conceptual ideas 

behind “publication” (which may not 

even necessitate print) or the more formrelated 

aspects (such as inks, papers, printing 

methods), the tangible and ephemeral medium 

of print still resonates. 

The Vancouver Art And Book Fair takes place Oct. 

14 to 16 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. For more 

information, visit 2016.vancouverartbookfair.com 

4 


PURITY RING 

astral wizards revisit the Vancouver plane 

music 

Karolina Kapusta 

Watching Purity Ring perform live is 

like a delightful intergalactic dream. 

The last time they played in Vancouver, 

singer Megan James stood on stage in 

a snowy long-sleeved ensemble with 

pointy mesh-accented shoulder pads, 

resembling a visiting celestial siren. Her 

voice, the sound of your favourite sweet 

liquid, hypnotically lilted, “You be the 

moon, I’ll be the earth, and when we 

burst - start over.” Meanwhile across the 

stage, producer Corin Roddick sat in a 

matching stark-white sleeveless top as he 

pounded away on electronic drum pads, 

setting off individual floating lanterns like 

pastel stars lighting up the sky. 

Originally band mates on a 

different project based in Edmonton, 

James and Roddick decided one day to 

collaborate on some music during their 

down time, unintentionally creating 

Purity Ring’s earliest track “Ungirthed.” 

Featuring Roddick’s budding electronic 

music production and James’ grave 

vocal melodies, the combination was 

serendipitous: a sound that was both 

low-key and festival-ready. After blowing 

up the internet on music blogs, Purity 

Ring signed to UK record label 4AD in 

2012 and soon announced their debut 

album, Shrines. Followed up by their 

sophomore album another eternity 

in 2015, the duo demonstrated their 

innate ability to develop their sound 

while still retaining their signature 

nightmare/hyper-pop dynamic. 

All good things come to those who 

wait. James hints that while a third Purity 

Ring album will happen, they’re in no hurry. 

“I’m excited by where Purity Ring can still go 

in terms of evolving and its sound,” James 

says softly in her signature delicate 

voice. “Everything we have so far are 

just ideas and starting points. I would 

love to make another record that is a 

single mood or emotion, [like Shrines and 

another eternity].” 

For now, Purity Ring’s latest work, 

a remix of Katy Perry’s song “Rise,” will 

have to momentarily mollify super-fans. 

“[Roddick] has a large focus on vocals and 

rebuilding entire songs around them,” says 

James, and it’s totally apparent in the 

remix that’s filled with oscillating synths 

Hints of a third Purity Ring album keep fans of the ethereal band on the edge of their seats. 

and light hardware clangor. “Katy’s voice 

is so inspiring and there aren’t a lot of 

songs of hers that have a minimal beat; it’s 

nice to have something that’s like a halo 

around her vocals.” 

Shrines will forever stay an ode to 

the sounds of 2012 and James mentions 

that they avoid thinking about the 

pressure of making similar music or 

comparing their sound. “That was an 

era [that] will probably never happen 

again, and if it does it will probably look 

very different,” she laments. “If that hadn’t 

happened to us and if we had started now 

we wouldn’t be where we are today, or 

even close to it. It’s like everything’s 

PHANTOGRAM 

following the eerie slithering tail of unified creative adventure 

kind of a fluke but it creates this 

landscape for us. If [we] were trying to 

make Shrines again I think it would be 

really sad and [we’d] get lost in some 

kind of world of desire.” 

Purity Ring plays in Vancouver at the 

Vogue Theatre on October 18. 

Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel stands tall and ready to “tour forever” with Three 

Safiya Hopfe 

In the world of tasty treats from 

the vice bowl that is New York City, 

psychedelically charged dream-pop 

duo Phantogram sits in a well-earned 

perch. In the span of ten years, they’ve 

established an unshakeable presence, 

staying consistently and absolutely 

true to the eeriness that makes them 

so distinct. In 2010, AbsolutePunk 

called their debut album Eyelid Movies 

suitable for “in-the-dark listening.” The 

same can be said of everything Sarah 

Barthel and Josh Carter have created as 

a unit. However, their fresh new record 

Three proves a stand-alone paragon 

of accessibility, variety, and total 

danceability within the melancholy 

style they have mastered. 

Barthel herself deems the album an 

achievement, not only professionally 

but personally. “It’s my favourite ‘cause 

every song on there is well thought out... 

a new way of challenging ourselves was 

to make a little more of a pop aesthetic. 

Not just like bubblegum pop because 

that’s not what we sound like, we’re an 

extremely dark, heavy-ass band, but I 

guess honing in on the choruses and 

thinking a little more about the wording 

and just like compiling everything.” She 

identifies The Beatles as inspiration, 

in how they manage to throw things 

together and make every minute 

count. “We’ve always been extremely 

influenced by them. We just love 

the way that they knew how to just 

compile, how to bring everything in 

like three minutes and it would feel 

like longer, it would feel so right, and 

each song is just different but there’s 

a specific concept in general with 

their records. I think we’re proud of it 

because we stepped it up in a lot of 

different ways.” 

Every creative force evolves 

differently. For Phantogram, the 

give-and-take that takes place when 

they’re on stage has moulded who 

they are today. According to Barthel 

they only managed to untap their core 

sound once they’d gotten their feet 

wet performing. “I think the more and 

more you tour and the more experiences 

you have from being in a band your music 

naturally kind of evolves. We just kind of 

took it from there, where playing a lot 

of shows and kind of honing in on your 

sound live is a really huge thing for us 

because it’s always turned our sound into 

more boom-bostic and more loud on 

our records...if you compare it to our first 

record Eyelid Movies which was written 

before we even toured on it.” 

Now that they’ve grown into 

themselves, these two are everywhere. 

A full-length MTV Video Awards 

performance this year proves them a 

presence to be reckoned with. Put simply, 

the reputation they have earned is fuelled 

by respect. “I mean, we thought we were 

successful when we sold out our first show 

I guess even if it was just a two hundred 

capacity venue. And we decided to take 

it serious and go fuckin’ be in a band and 

play shows and go on tour and sleep on 

peoples couches and random people’s 

floors because we were doing exactly 

what we wanted to be doing, there was 

nothing getting in the way. And we have 

respectful artists, other artists that love 

our music, that fan out to us, Vince Staples 

or the Flaming Lips or whoever we’ve always 

looked up to in our own way coming up to 

us and telling us that they love this? That’s 

success to me, is being respected… being 

well respected in the music industry and 

in the art industry and the art world.” 

They grew up together, and they’re 

sticking around. In Barthel’s words, “Tour 

forever, that’s what’s next. And then tour 

forever again.” 

Phantogram perform at the Commodore 

Ballroom on October 9. 

October 2016 MUSIC 

5

prOphecy sun 

blurring the lines of consciousness 

SEX WITH STRANGERS 

a wham, bam, thank you ma’am of well established new wave debauchery 

Jamie Goyman 

Vancouver’s own prOphecy sun’s new 

album instantly grabs the attention of 

listeners and invites them into what 

comes across as a very intimate and 

personal body of work. With each track 

of Shelter over Shelter (Panospria) 

recorded in a single take, the undressed 

emotion and energy brought to the 

foreground is showcased in its purest 

recorded form. 

“I’m intrigued about time, how 

time passes, how dreams invade waking 

moments, what gathers and unfolds in 

moment-to-moment sequences, what 

exists in the in-between, in the crevices 

and fissures of memory, and how my 

perception and experience of these 

unconscious/conscious moments are 

blurred,” prophecy explains. “I record 

snippets of my life, daily activities, 

rituals, conversations, performance, 

using an iPhone. Shelter over Shelter is 

a patch quilt of my experiences of daily 

life as both an artist and new mother.” 

When you first hear the 

soundscapes designed and explored 

there is an almost patterned weaving 

of paralleled worlds we live in that can 

be seen/felt. Listeners are immediately 

met with the overall atmosphere 

prOphecy sun is known for creating. 

The introduction to the album with 

“Birthing Owl” transports the audience 

into the very first steps of one lifelong 

journey. The album disperses these raw 

and upfront memories of labour and 

pregnancy between the cathartic like 

ambient landscapes in “Pop Up” and 

“Thors Palace” that soothe the body 

and mind in almost hypnotic ways, 

and the ominous, fluidity of “Destroy 

Vancouver,” a hauntingly beautiful 

song with overlapping vocal whaling 

that comes across as duelling emotions 

giving an overlaying feeling of a euphoric 

emotional eruption. 

“My creative process begins by 

dreaming,” she says. “Listening to my 

environments, grasping at unknowns 

and whispers of daily rhythmus.” 

Shelter over Shelter is an album 

that reflects and explores the life of 

motherhood she has experienced; 

prOphecy sun is definitely an artist 

whose work is easy to lose yourself in. 

Her creative expression through music 

over the last few years has only seen her 

expand on where she is willing to take 

herself and the audience. 

“I am actively engaged with 

motion capturing and documenting 

my children’s developmental patterns, 

sounds and my relationship with 

them. I am attempting to synthesize these 

representations of myself, the subjective 

experiences and dimensions of motherhood 

into a single sense of place; creating a large 

scale, intimate performance.” 

prOphecy sun will release of Shelter over 

Shelter on October 15. She is also leading 

an experimental workshop for Big Draw 

Vancouver Oct. 8 at Pandora Park 

Fieldhouse then performing live with the 

Vancouver Electronic Ensemble at the 

VCC campus at 7 p.m. 

Colleen Rennison 

The new album Discourse from 

Vancouver’s new-wave post-punk-ish 

electro-pop band Sex with Strangers is 

a lot like their band name: bold, sexy, 

and dangerous. One learns the latter 

the hard way if one merely Googles the 

band and clicks video. But after six 

albums and nearly ten years since their 

inception they are, “Slowly moving 

[their] way to the top of Google, just 

followed very quickly by actual sex 

with strangers. The family loves it... 

they’re super pleased.” 

Started by three friends—Hatch 

Benedict on vocals, Cory Price on guitar, 

and Mike Gentile on bass—who spent 

the 1990s playing together in bands 

that Benedict describes as “wretched”, 

SWS was a step into a more refined 

sound, with a focus on incorporating 

electronic music with more band-based 

songwriting. The name however, was 

just an afterthought; “We recorded this 

stupid little single and started putting 

it on MySpace, and it was getting good 

reactions so we thought ‘Let’s turn this 

into a project, we need a name!’” says 

Benedict. One of them threw “Sex with 

Strangers” out there off-handedly and 

after a Google search, to their surprise, it 

wasn’t taken and their fate on the NSFW 

I M U R 

dark electronic catharsis with soul 

Myspace is dead but Sex With Strangers are still bumpin’ and grindin’ with Discourse. 

list was sealed. 

The fact that they got their start 

on the virtually extinct MySpace is 

not lost on them; “You go through all 

the Vancouver bands we were friends 

with at the time and there’s really 

nobody left.” It is a testament to the 

friendship and creative dynamic the 

key members have had together since 

they started playing nearly two decades 

ago. “It’s the only way we’re still doing 

it, I mean even just being friends for 20 

years is something,” Benedict says. 

Joined this time by Shevaughn 

Ruley, who manages to fill the shoes of 

amicably departed Alexis Young (now 

of Youngblood) with her own distinct 

sound that is pop perfection. Her voice 

lends itself perfectly to Benedict’s 

brooding new-wave delivery. Discourse 

is a serious dance record that pulls at 

your hips and your head without being 

pretentious; which is largely in part to 

the fact that the band (along with their 

drummer Dan Walker) share a vision 

and all contribute to the process. 

“I don’t think it would be nearly as 

exciting if it was like ‘Here are my ten 

ideas. Do this, this and this.’ It’s the 

writing and recording aspect, just to 

prove it to each other and keep the 

fires burning.” 

Discourse is available now. Sex With Strangers 

are performing Nov. 26 at the Cobalt. 

Prachi Kamble 

Photo by Amanda Arcuri 

Atmosphere is a key ingredient in prOphecy sun’s latest creation, Shelter over Shelter. 

I M U R (I Am You Are) had a successful 

summer on the festival circuit. From 

grassroots stages such as Revival, 

Hiatus, Chapel Sound Electronic Music 

Festival to larger ones like Centre of 

Gravity, After Harvest and Rifflandia, 

the Vancouver based trio has been 

working hard to get their music out 

there. “We love performing live. We 

get to take our pieces and deconstruct 

them,” says vocalist Jenny Lea. “Mikey (J 

Blige) does live beat composition with 

electric guitar. Amine (Bouzaher), our 

new addition, plays bass and violin, and 

I do keys, looping and vocals. It’s fair to 

say that until you’ve heard us play live 

you won’t fully understand the music.” 

I M U R’s music is a sexy concoction 

of electronic, jazz, hip hop and neo 

soul. Mikey’s hip hop and production 

background paired with Jenny’s soulinspired 

vocals and deeply personal 

lyrics, blend seamlessly on their 2015 

debut, Slow Dive. 

The album covers themes related 

to being young and hopeful in a ruthless 

city — sexuality, drugs, alcohol, self- 

I M U R invite you to see them live to truly understand their vibes. 

doubt and self-discovery. 

“It was written about a dark period 

in my life during which I went through 

some pretty big changes. But everything 

that came out of it was positive,” she 

explains. “To express myself and tell 

those stories was a cathartic experience. 

Every time I get to perform those songs I 

get to feel the same emotions again but 

from a different perspective.” 

I M U R are products of the vibrant 

East Van electronic music scene. 

The band has found support in the 

community’s crews and collectives, 

including the Chapel Sound Crew and 

Ground Work Collective. The group 

already have tracks lined up for their 

next album and bagged a host of cool 

shows around town for the remainder 

of the year. “The newer sound is a lot 

bouncier. Maybe because lyrically we’ve 

been able to be more positive!” confesses 

Jenny, “But we want to keep it as unique 

and true to ourselves as possible.” 

I M U R perform at the Biltmore Cabaret 

on October 14 and the Sunshine Coast 

Festival on Oct. 22. 

6 MUSIC 


Mangchi with Kid Koala 


8 



9

Daniel Terrence Robertson 

finding salvation in the unknown 


Daniel Terrence Robertson is sitting at 

the end of an empty communal dining 

table in the house where he lives in 

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The 

house neighbors Oppenheimer Park and 

is part of a cluster of co-op community 

living houses tied to the St. James Music 

Academy. Every Sunday this table is full 

of various characters; some members of 

the Academy’s founding families, some 

members of the church they belong 

to, and some strange yet familiar faces 

from the surrounding community who 

are hungry and in need of a warm meal. 

At the end of every week, without fail, 

the house is bustling, full of energy 

and, undoubtedly, the grace of God. 

This grace is the root of pretty much 

everything here in this collection of 

brightly coloured antique houses, 

brought together by a belief in Christian 

values. At this particular moment 

the room is silent, void of dinner talk 

and scraping of forks on plates, the 

only voice heard is that of the deep, low 

and incredibly soft-spoken Robertson. 

The 22 year old is releasing a somewhat 

surprising debut album this month, titled 

Death, via Vancouver-based experimental 

label Heavy Lark. It’s a collection of eight 

beautifully heart wrenching and haunting 

piano driven electronic influenced songs. 

Imagine Sufjan Stevens on Xanax playing 

stark arrangements on a keyboard. The 

album has some interesting undertones, 

most notably derived from Robertson’s 

Christian upbringing. The first single 

off the record, “God I’m Sorry,” isn’t so 

much of a “Gaaawd, I’m sorry!” but rather 

Robertson’s genuine apology to God, the 

higher power of whom he is still wrestling 

to understand and find a place for in his 

adult life. 

“I want to be a loving person and 

I see so much, be it in my friends and 

the pain they’re going through or even 

people in this neighbourhood—and every 

neighbourhood. I just feel like I’m not 

enough or not sufficient,” Robertson says 

coyly as he fidgets with the spider plant 

on the table in front of him. “I sometimes 

end up retreating from the world at times 

and that can be hurtful to people. When I 

wrote that song I was going through a lot 

of change and I didn’t know what I wanted 

or what good was.” 

Good is Daniel Terrence Robertson. 

He’s a good, honest Christian boy, even 

if he is wrestling with his ideas of faith 

and what to do with them. And while 

his songs may be sad and stark, in 

conversation he’s actually really sweet 

and happy. Standing at about six-feettall, 

with a big Supercuts mop of hair on 

his head, cheeks rosy, he picks his words 

carefully as he talks about the creation 

of his debut and its dangerously 

vulnerable lyrical content. 

“I did not intend to show anyone 

these songs,” he says. “Eventually 

though, I found myself in a really bad 

place and, just out of resignation, I 

decided to put them on Bandcamp 

and share them with my friends on 

Facebook. At that moment I didn’t 

care what anyone thought. I just 

have to keep reminding myself of that 

or just let them be. Let them be those 

moments that maybe don’t represent 

me currently, but the wholeness of my 

being is all of those periods and now and 

what’s to come.” 

The idea of death and dying 

is a morose concept that humans 

generally try not to let ruin our already 

limited days, but it doesn’t have to always 

be so dark. Robertson, like everyone, doesn’t 

have an answer for where we go when we 

take our last breath, but you get the sense 

that he almost enjoys being perplexed and 

tortured by the unknown. 

“I’ve thought different things at 

different times of my life but, more than 

ever now, I’m completely confronted with 

the mystery of it and I don’t know if I’m 

afraid of it. Maybe sometimes, but other 

times I don’t think it could be anything 

bad or worse than life.” 

Daniel Terrence Robertson is not a 

depressive person. He’s got a huge heart 

and feels a lot, and in large doses empathy 

can be painful. Living and working in the 

downtown eastside, being surrounded 

by poverty and addiction on a daily basis 

has certainly had an effect on the way he 

Photo by Jules Lemasson Fletcher 

Daniel Terrence Robertson wrestles with faith and believing on his debut album, Death. 

perceives the world, but he uses his music 

as an outlet to express the feelings he 

picks up along the way. 

“I am drawn to this area,” he says 

looking out the window into the park. 

“The vulnerability of people. I feel like 

people’s walls are less present. It’s in a 

sense more honest living and I find myself 

wanting to be like that, however that is. 

I think that comes through in my songs 

too; very honest and without too much 

concern of how people will perceive it.” 

Daniel Terrence Robertson performs 

November 3 at Red Gate. 

10 MUSIC 


PSYCH FEST 

the horizon rumbles as the third coming approaches 

Not for the faint of heart, Psych Fest is a relentless onslaught of an experience 

Andrew Pitchko 

Mitch Ray and Taya Fraser of Art 

Signified are two very busy people. 

Together they are orchestrating what 

is to be third installment of Vancouver 

Psych Fest. If you had the chance to visit 

this event over the course of the last few 

years, then you need no explanation as 

to the madness that unfolds. With over 

15 bands packed into multiple rooms, 

the noise never ends as each band 

begins the very second the last one 

finishes. The show features wall to wall 

projections, live dancing, and a myriad 

of party favors and illusions. 

This year the ever more popular 

Vancouver Psych Fest is manifesting 

itself once again. Ray and Fraser are 

beating the drum to attract the fringe 

elements of Vancouver to assemble 

what Ray calls, “The best bang for your 

buck for a live show in Vancouver 

this year.” The lineup will feature 

touring bands such as L.A. Witch (LA), 

Destruction Unit (AZ), Crosss (Toronto), 

Archaics (Edmonton), and local talents 

such as Eric Campbell & The Dirt, The 

Wandering Halls, and Dopey’s Robe, 

with more surprise contributors to be 

added closer to the date. 

Since day one of planning and 

organizing this event the Art Signified 

team has allowed themselves total 

freedom in terms of planning and 

arranging the show. The attitude 

being that nothing is impossible. It is 

their belief that the yearly show has 

now sprung wings of its own, with 

people approaching them after the 

announcements of each year’s event 

offering to provide services ranging 

from poetry breaks, interpretive 

dancing, stripteases, and most recently 

weed sponsorships for the bands. As fun 

as it would be to have the whole event 

brought to you by Juicy Fruit Brand 

Chronic, Ray says the whole event will 

remain sponsor free as long as it can, 

as he hopes to make it a festival by the 

people for the people. 

Psych fest is October 8th from 2pm until 

3 am at Fortune Sound Club (147 E. 

Pender St) 

Advance tickets available on September 

12 at Neptoon Records, Bully’s Studios & 

Studio Vostok. 

jock tears 

Vancouver punks give you something to cry about 

Luke Kokoszka 

With a name like Jock Tears there comes 

a certain expectation of sarcasm and 

playfulness that is executed with meticulous 

intent on their recently released debut EP, 

Sassy Attitude. The cover image features 

vocalist, Lauren Ray, with a smiling, bloody 

face, and colours that evoke something 

more akin to bubblegum than punk. The 

cover image stretches its teal fingers into the 

songwriting and lyrics, which with one look 

at the titles, ignites a little nostalgia, a little 

accessibility, and a little satire. 

In addition to vocalist Lauren Ray, 

the band consists of Lauren Smith on bass, 

Spencer Hargreaves on guitar, and Dustin 

Bromley on drums. Each member contributes 

to the collective introspective punk sound 

that embodies Sassy Attitude. With 

tracks that average around a minute, fifty 

seconds, there is not much space to grow 

the songs. However, the band seemingly 

makes this work through familiar punk 

formulas and lyrics that stun you with 

vivacious curiosity. When asked about song 

writing, Bromley explains, “I think L-Smith 

came to our first jam and exclaimed ‘I wanna 

play Ramones tunes,’ right before ripping 

into a bass-line strikingly similar to something 

you’d find on their eponymous debut.” The 

reference and similarities are apparent and 

Smith clarifies that furthermore, saying, 

“I love the vulnerability, accessibility, and 

sweetness of Dee Dee Ramone. They way he 

played the bass changed my life. Something 

that I think comes across in our music is the 

kindness and accessibility that is in the same 

vein as Dee Dee.” 

The band emits an awareness of 

cultural progressivity in a sound that can 

easily be dated if done without merit. 

Hargreaves says, ”I love the social change that 

a lot of punk demands, but I don’t necessarily 

think the angry narrative does much good 

to the causes.” In addition to the inclusive 

nature of their sound, Ray’s lyrics bring the 

music full circle with satirical and honest 

lyrics. Ray says of her writing, “My song 

writing is nothing fancy or too serious. 

They are simply observations or real-life 

things that I have experienced and am 

trying to approach them with a sense of 

humour. ‘Homeless Kelly Kapowski’ is what 

someone told me I looked like. ‘rude dude” 

is clearly about people who have nothing 

better to do than be mean or judgmental 

and simplifying that. Like the name, jock’s 

have a certain connotation with being a bit 

tough (like punk music often is) and tears 

are what happens with one is feeling blue or 

sappy. I like to have bits of both in our music.” 

Jock Tears will be releasing Sassy Attitude on 

tape October 7 at the Matador with locals The 

Jins and touring Winnipeg act, Basic Nature. 


11

Ziggy Marley 

spreading the gospel of love, truth and hemp 

Matt Laundrie 

Ziggy Marley is a man of honor with a 

true mission; and that mission appears 

to be a quest to be as prolific in as many 

directions as possible. In 2012, Marley 

started Ziggy Marley Organics, a GMOfree 

product line including flavored 

coconut oils and hemp seed snacks. 

Recently, Marley has introduced his new 

“Conscious Party” dry leaf vaporizer, 

and before that his own cookbook 

Ziggy Marley and Family Cookbook: 

Delicious Meals Made with Whole, 

Organic Ingredients from the Marley 

Kitchen. In the spare minutes between 

those projects, Marley found the time 

to release his first children’s book, I 

Love You Too; fruit from the passion 

he has for having children involved 

in music, the passion that led to him 

being a spokesperson for the non-profit 

organization, Little Kids Rock, which 

provides free musical instruments and 

free lessons to children in public schools. 

“This book is close to my heart 

because it was a spontaneous exchange 

between me and my then 3 year 

old daughter Judah,” says Marley. “It 

expresses something so true; it should 

be repeated as often as possible.” 

From his hotel room in Montreal, 

Marley delved into many topics, 

including the Cannabis industry, 

meeting President Barack Obama, his 

views on Donald Trump and Hillary 

Clinton, and his business endeavours. 

Marley’s stance on the legalization of 

Cannabis in Canada is well established. 

“It’s a positive step towards bringing 

out the truth and stop demonizing 

people for the use of the plant, a real 

positive step,” he says. With regards to 

corporations taking over the industry 

he believes, “with nature you should be 

able to plant our own food, plant our 

own herb, it’s up to the people to figure 

it out how to take care of the plant.” 

He believes Canada is doing just that 

with the August 24th changes to the 

Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes 

Regulations granting allowances for the 

growing of cannabis for medical use by 

licensed users (upon proper registration). 

In 2009, Marley accepted the invite 

to perform for President Obama at the 

White House for the annual “Easter Egg 

Roll.” “His whole family was cool and 

From writing books to marijuana activism, it’s safe to say Ziggy Marley has more than “One Love.” 

generally happy to meet us, and respect 

for love and the message in the music... 

he’s connected to the whole message.” 

In regards with the current presidential 

campaign Marley remarked that the 

campaign is opening up more of “what 

people reiterate in terms of how sick the 

American society feels.” 

“It’s better to know the truth than 

keep living a lie.” 

Ziggy is blazing into Vancouver on October 

16 to light up the Vogue Theatre. Doors at 7 

p.m. and show time is at 8 p.m. Tickets are 

$59.50 - $65.50 and can bought at www. 

ticketfly.com 

Benjamin Stevie 

channelling future soul sounds for a better tomorrow 

Ben Stevenson re-emerges with a nod to future ’70s soul music on Cara Cara. 

Spencer Brown 

“When you work on something long 

enough,” says Ben Stevenson, over 

the phone from a temporarily quiet 

Edmonton band house, “you will find 

you have an endless pool of discovery to 

draw from. You’ll be able to appreciate 

awesomeness when you come upon 

it, and in doing so trust your own 

instincts.” While he may only be 35, 

Stevenson has been playing in bands 

for over a third of his life. He fronted 

his pop-punk band, Misdemeanour, 

at 14 while his parent’s drove the 

band to shows in and out of town 

as his bandmates had just turned 

12. From there, Ben went on to form 

post-punks Our Mercury followed by 

the blue-eyed rock and soul of The 

Wondertones and finally, a move 

to the Big Smoke. After arrival, he 

explored both hip hop and electronic 

music and methods. The accumulation 

of these experiences has led to his 

newest record, Cara Cara. 

The shift from punk rock to hip hop 

was both necessary and “where I had to 

start from square one, artistically” recalls 

Stevenson. “I had grown disillusioned 

with the process in rock bands and was 

drifting so when an opportunity to step 

into hip hop world happened, I took 

it.” Meeting a major label producer, 

he was temporarily seduced by the 

idea of scoring an American deal and 

began pitching both writing and beats 

as “in the world where those guys live, 

a beat can make you $30,000,” while 

drawing on his love of old school 

reggae, dancehall and early hip hop. The 

beat deal and producer never came to 

fruition but he credits the experience 

with changing his idea of song writing 

from “putting a mic in front of my guitar 

amp” and the realization he had strayed 

from why he made music. 

Upon awakening he began on 

his current project, which features a 

combination of electronic beats alongside 

live instrumentation. Primarily recorded 

in the now-shuttered 6 Nassau Studio 

with engineer Steve Chahley (U.S. Girls, 

Slim Twig, Neko Case), a trip to a 

friend’s studio in Joshua Tree also 

aided with the record. “The concept I 

had was ‘Future ‘70s Sound’ as I have 

such a love and appreciation of ‘70s 

tones and textures but I didn’t want to 

limit myself to gear that only existed then. 

Joshua Tree was pretty wild in that it was 

dirt roads, hillbilly neighbours with hillbilly 

weed and old synths at my pal’s place 

whereas Steve has a deep record collection 

he listens to daily. He pushed me to up my 

game and the results were great.” Finally, 

California can take credit for the record’s 

title as a cara cara is a type of orange that is a 

state-specific speciality. 

The upcoming Western Canadian 

tour will feature backing band Altameda 

and Stevenson selected them based on 

“how musical they are. I knew they’d 

be capable of taking on the material. 

While someone may want to make the 

exact same sounds as the record I feel 

that would come at the expense of the 

live show. I don’t want us to be one of 

those bands that goes through the 

motions.” So, after swimming through 

the deep pool Ben Stevenson is ready 

to re-emerge. “I’ve spent the last couple 

years returning to what’s important to 

me artistically. That’s the record I just 

finished and it was no one’s job but mine 

to put it together.” 

Benjamin Stevenson performs October 14 

at the Biltmore Cabaret (Vancouver). 

12 MUSIC 


GLASS ANIMALS 

uncovering the strangeness of the human condition one weird story at a time 

Molly Randhawa 

How often does one take a step back to 

observe the strangeness that surrounds 

them each day? For most people it’s not 

often enough, but for UK-based Glass 

Animals, the strangeness of human 

beings is what inspired their sophomore 

album, How to be a Human Being. 

Front man Dave Bayley shares how 

he and his bandmates, friends from a 

young age, would go see bands play at 

a local music venue called the Zodiac, 

which no longer exists and has been 

rebranded as O2 Academy Oxford. 

“We used to just go there together 

and watch our favorite bands. Then, 

we went off to university separately to 

different places.” After returning to their 

hometown one Christmas, Bayley shared 

how he had written some songs while at 

university. “They told me to put them on 

the internet, and I said if I’m gonna put it 

on the internet, you guys have to be in the 

band with me and that’s it. That was the 

start [of Glass Animals].” 

With percussion driven beats, 

psychedelic-rainforest-ambience, and 

cheeky lyricism, Glass Animals have 

created their own unique way to tell a 

How to be a Human Being studies the human mammal in its natural habitat. 

story. Taking inspiration from people 

they have met while touring and in 

everyday life, the record aims to tell a 

story of these fictional characters. “I 

started recording all the time, things 

that people were telling me. I just started 

to think about how people tell stories, 

what they talk about and the things that 

they were bullshitting about and what 

that says about the world,” says Bayley. 

The album was created with characters 

in mind, garnering a cinematic process 

of each personal account of those who 

they had met along the way. 

Using filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch 

as their additional influences for 

the album, Bayley explains how his 

fascination with soundtracks from 

Lollywood and Pakistani Cinema 

inspired some of the sounds on the 

album. “A lot of the time it’s really 

hyperactive, crazy arrangement changes. 

All of the arrangement changes in Life 

Itself are pretty mad. It completely flips, it 

was taking a lot of those instruments and 

recreating those drum sounds.” Their song 

“Life Itself” is about a quirky character who 

lives in his mom’s basement and creates 

wacky inventions all day — he even 

has his own website (raygun123.com). 

Although the lyrics are quite melancholy, 

the up-tempo nature of the production 

adds a frantic and assertive dynamic to 

the song. “He’s such a strange guy — he’s 

got a chance but he’s just bizarre, slightly 

quirky, slightly manic. That’s where a lot of 

that hyperactivity and manic sound came 

from. I just thought that maybe that’s how 

his brain works.” 

While creating their sounds for 

each character, the band really taps into 

the life of the individual — using a form 

of method-acting to portray the realness 

and accuracy of their subjects through 

an auditory experience. From the dude 

that lives in his mom’s basement to the 

girl next door who smokes too much 

weed and watches too much Adventure 

Time, How to be a Human Being explores 

the realness of people that we all have 

encountered in our lives. 

Glass Animals perform at the Queen 

Elizabeth Theatre on October 12. 

Tokyo Police Club 

Toronto rockers gamble on the long game 

Jamie Goyman 

“I think to be a musician you have 

to have a reckless abandon and really 

believe in your pipedreams and ignore all 

of the nay-say,” muses Tokyo Police Club 

keyboardist/guitarist Graham Wright. 

Two EP releases and a ten year 

anniversary under their belt in 2016, 

Toronto four piece Tokyo Police Club 

have made sure listeners have kept 

up with April and September releases 

Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness: 

PT I and Melon Collie and the Infinite 

Radness: PT II, giving listeners a taste of 

where they’re at these days. Scattered 

between Toronto, LA, and New York, 

the band has shifted into what seems 

to be a more honed in yet sporadic 

dynamic. “We [didn’t record] the EPs the 

way we usually do. There might be two 

songs that were recorded in the same 

session, otherwise it was months apart,” 

explains Wright. With the majority 

of the recording done separately, the 

unchartered territory not only kept the 

creativity flowing overtime, it also gave 

the band the opportunity to ensure that 

each song really did its own thing. 

“With each new release, when we 

were working on a song we really were 

thinking about what specifically that 

song was going to do, how it came 

across, what it said for itself, how it 

behaved. I think each song could stand 

on its own as a single.” 

The new two part EP gives a 

refreshing new take on what makes 

Tokyo Police Club tracks so memorable. 

The bright, guitar driven first single “Not 

My Girl” reminds those who needed 

it just why they loved Tokyo Police 

Club. On “PCH,” vocalist/bassist David 

Monks’ pleading voice pulls the lyrics 

to the foreground. Both PT I and PT 

II are the resurgence fans have been 

waiting for since 2014’s Forcefield. Both 

EPs could be easily described as feel 

good rock ‘n’ roll records; or as Wright 

described it himself, “5 ‘100//’ emojis.” 

With a less polished and more 

gritty vibe coming off the Melon Collie 

and the Infinite Radness Pt I & PT II, 

the releases and trickles of singles inbetween 

have put the spotlight back on 

Tokyo Police Club, but it hasn’t all been 

realized as they imagined it would be. 

“The idea is that instead of making 

one record, one splash, and have 

everyone react with ‘that was great, 

what’s next?’ we thought it would make 

more of an impact for a longer period of 

time. Although, we didn’t really think of 

how things like Spotify put EPs passed 

Tokyo Police Club revel in the sunny glory of reckless abandon with new two part EP 

the albums with the singles, so our 

genius plan didn’t pan out exactly how 

we wanted,” says Wright. 

Essentially growing up with each 

other and their music, since the ages of 

19 & 21, the unity and rapport the four 

have is easily heard in their songs and 

witnessed live. 

“Every single tour we’ve ever done 

is a fairly straight line graph, I think 

we like it more and more and just get 

better at playing live … there’s a lot of 

beaming from the stage or whispering a 

joke in the other guy’s ear, trying to get 

him to fuck up when he’s trying to play. 

We have reached a level where it’s 

just muscle memory now and it always 

feels like we’ve reached a destination, 

I just hope the radiance we feel inside 

comes through … Honestly, if you see us on 

stage joking and laughing with each other you 

basically got the picture, we’re just dorky guys.” 

Tokyo Police Club perform at Alix 

Goolden Hall on October 4 (Victoria) 

and at the Commodore Ballroom on 

Oct 5 (Vancouver). 


13

SUM 41 

Deryck Whibley learns to live again 


About a year into Deryck Whibley’s recovery from 

kidney and liver failure—an alcohol-related collapse 

that put him in a medically induced coma and left 

him unable to walk—the Sum 41 frontman reached 

a tipping point. The process was at a halt — hours 

of daily physiotherapy didn’t seem to be working 

and he could barely stand without excruciating 

pain. Neither Whibley nor his doctors knew if he 

was ever going to get better. It was no way to live; 

death by drink was even a more appealing fate. Then, 

one night, at four in the morning, amidst swirling 

thoughts, a lyric suddenly surfaced. “What am I 

fighting for? Everything back and more.” He wrote it 

down. Then another. “Some days it just gets so hard.” 

The lines kept coming, flowing. He had a song — 

something to work towards: words to live up to. 

“And then that moment, it sort of gave me that 

realization of what it means to actually have faith in 

something,” Whibley reflects. “To believe that you 

will get better. You don’t know how, you don’t know 

why, you don’t know when; as long as you push and 

you fight harder — if you think you’ve been fighting 

hard already, you gotta fight even harder and you just 

gotta believe. And that’s what I told myself. And a 

year later, I was finally able to step out onstage and 

go out on tour, and now here I am.” 

Today, Whibley is happy and healthy — a state he 

credits to his journey to sobriety. “Even if I would 

have quit drinking before, it wouldn’t be what it is 

now,” he maintains. Booze had simply become part 

of his lifestyle, reaching its most excessive after Sum 

41 wrapped a three year long tour in support of 2011’s 

Screaming Bloody Murder. Whibley then decided to 

detach — no music, no responsibilities. And therein 

lay the problem. “I mean, obviously this band has 

always been heavy drinkers, heavy partiers, and, you 

know, I was probably an alcoholic a long time ago, 

but really functioning,” he continues. “It’s when I lost 

the function was when I had no more work to do.” 

The aforementioned lyrics would make up the 

song “War,” a hopeful track off Sum 41’s new album, 

13 Voices. The project, the pop punks’ first in five 

years, proved to be the key for Whibley to push 

forward as he determinedly re-learned how to play 

guitar, while slowly becoming comfortable in his own 

skin again. As a result, his songwriting is reflective of 

a man piecing his life back together. 

Musically, 13 Voices administers a tremendous 

punch, which partly comes from the reemergence 

of original guitarist Dave “Brownsound” Baksh. 

Baksh, who left the band a decade ago, reconnected 

with Whibley before his hospitalization and stayed 

with his old friend after he returned home. Baksh’s 

presence now adds three guitarists to the lineup, 

alongside Tom Thacker and Whibley. 

“You really notice it live,” Whibley says of the 

dynamic, which also includes bassist Cone McCaslin 

and drummer Frank Zummo. “I think that’s where 

we sound different than we’ve ever been able to 

sound before, because we can play a lot of stuff that is 

on the record that we couldn’t do before. It’s a much 

bigger sound…it’s just a really full sound. Just being a 

five piece, it’s so fun. I never thought I’d like being a five 

piece, but now I couldn’t imagine it any other way.” 

Indeed, it’s certainly scary, Whibley admits, to 

release music that was written from such a vulnerable 

place — but getting personal isn’t something new. 

He’s always written from his soul and 13 Voices is 

just, in many ways, a new chapter. The past may have 

been great — but now, Whibley says, “It’s time to 

take it into a whole other world.” 

Sum 41 performs at the Commodore Ballroom on 

October 28. 

14 MUSIC 


ghost 

they who cannot be named 

Christine Leonard 

““I have an assigned task and that’s to 

speak to you,” flatly iterates the Nameless 

Ghoul on the other end of the line. 

After all, as contradictory as it may 

seem, anonymity is at the aesthetic 

coeur of his band’s identity. Emanating 

from Linköping, Sweden in 2008, Ghost 

(known as Ghost B.C. in the United 

States) is a gothic-rock outfit that draws 

their dramatic and visually stimulating 

persona from dark religious imagery that 

is typically associated with the realms of 

heavy metal. 

Recipients of multiple Swedish 

Grammis Awards, for their albums 

Infestissumam in 2014 and Meliora in 2015, 

the six-member ensemble paraded down 

the aisle and into the international spotlight 

this past February when they accepted the 

Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance 

for the Meliora single “Cirice.” Led by their 

highly-decorated anti-papal overlord, 

Papa Emeritus III (two previous Papas have 

already been retired - to the South of France, 

one would presume), Ghost’s five Nameless 

Ghoul instrumentalists drew stares of Los 

Angelian disbelief as they mounted the dais 

in mouthless Minotaur masks. 

“Whether or not this is a comment 

or rock stardom, initially the whole image 

was just something that suited the music. 

We never counted on being popular,” the 

customarily mute minion explains. 

Proving that humour is never far 

removed from tragedy, Ghost has rendered 

the imposing genres of hard rock and metal 

more accessible to general audiences thanks 

to projects like their EP, If You Have Ghost, 

which included cover songs produced by 

Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters. The faithful 

masses have also responded favourably 

to Ghost’s most recent EP, the September 

released Popestar, which features covers 

of Eurythmics and Echo & the Bunnymen 

alongside the anthemic band’s “strongest 

concert-opener” to date, “Square Hammer.” 

“I don’t think that anything would have 

been successful had we not done the tours. 

We would never have been nominated for 

or received a Grammy. We would never have 

been signed to our American label. Had we 

not done the tours I don’t think Dave Grohl 

would have known who we are; so, I am a 

firm believer in touring. I think that that is 

the shit.” 

And now that they’ve rocked a million 

faces, Ghost has some very pragmatic 

reasons for not revealing their own. 

“It’s a hard one,” says he-who-cannot-benamed. 

“Some of us get recognized to a 

certain degree; there’s always someone 

in a record store or guitar shop coming 

up and whispering ‘I love your band. 

Thank you!’ Whereas for more normal 

Swedish goth rockers Ghost conjure the unholy spirit. 

bands they are not subjected to that level 

of respect. Because if you are an artist 

and you put yourself out there, and you 

have an Instagram account and you’re 

photographing everything you’re about to 

consume, I think people, more or less, will 

regard you as some sort of public domain. 

And, you are also sort of expected to be 

your onstage persona to a much further 

degree than we ever are. “Our thing has 

always been look bigger than you are and 

you will become bigger! If you’re going to 

take it to the arenas, you’d better look like 

an arena band. Otherwise why would they 

believe you?” 

He continues. “Now we’ve swum 

out way too far. That’s why we’re doing 

this tour with all of the new pyro and 

production and all of the staging stuff, 

because no one is going to applaud if we 

don’t show up with big things.” 

Ghost perform with Marissa Nadler at the 

Vogue Theatre on October 13. 

PRINTS OF DARKNESS 

one man’s quest to support community through merchandise 

Ian Demian-Pérez (AKA The Artist Formerly Known As Prints) is all about supporting 

community and local bands with his silk screening business. 

ziicka 

This local company is manned mainly 

by one person: owner/operator, Ian 

Demian-Pérez. Though Demian-Pérez 

notes, “I get a lot of help and support 

from my wife who comes every time 

I have a mountain of work [with] little 

time, but at this stage it’s essentially 

a one-man operation.” On the name 

of the company, he explains, “a friend 

suggested ‘The Artist Formerly Known 

as Prints’, which automatically spinned 

into its current state.” A sucker for puns, 

love came for the name, then quickly for 

the brand. 

There are countless orders from 

a handful of clients throughout the 

country, but generally they generate 

in Vancouver. “There’s enough work 

available within my own community to 

keep me busy.” 

Community is a running narrative 

with POD. Active in sponsorship and 

listing special discounts for bands, 

Demian-Pérez states, “I play in bands 

myself, so I understand all too well the 

struggles that come with the territory. 

A lot of the (little) money bands make 

comes from merch sales, so this is the 

way I can contribute to the growth 

of the community I’m a part of. If the 

community grows, I do as well.” 

“Burger Fest is the most 

recent event sponsored, but I’ve 

also [supported] the Terminal City 

Rollergirls and the Tattooed Talent 

Show by GlassCity Collective. As far as 

advertising goes, I prefer [sponsorship] 

over classic adds because it also helps 

the people I do it for; there is a lot 

more to be gained than if I just do it 

for myself.” 

When asked if printing merch 

introduced him to anything that 

he probably would not have found 

otherwise, he answers enthusiastically: 

“For sure! I was amazed to see how 

many people in this city bust their 

asses making things happen, and 

those involved with facilitating spaces 

for all this. I used to have a pretty cynical 

outlook on the local scene, but after 

getting more involved it didn’t take long 

to see there are some amazing people 

doing important work in this city.” 

When questioned about music he 

finds most often or motivating in the 

work space, he says, “I’m mostly into 

metal, it’s what I was raised on. But I have 

a pretty wide taste in music. I might start 

the day with something electronic & 

abstract like Autechre, then get into 

the heavy stuff once I’m rolling. I think 

thrash might be the best thing to play 

if I want to keep a steady pace, but if I 

have to finish a job quickly I’ll probably 

put on something with a bit more blast 

beats like black or death metal. Also a 

lot of Run The Jewels!” 

Check out Prints of Darkness at 356 Powell. 

October 2016 The skinny 

15

subculture 

notes from the underground 

wendy13 

An unsettling and never-ending battle is raging 

on between promoters and bands. The finger 

pointing is real and the reason turnouts are 

fading is more complex and the result of an 

accumulation of variables. 

A recent Facebook rant directed towards 

promoters blamed poor turnout on lack 

of presale tickets for bands to hustle. In my 

experience, unless it’s a bigger show with a 

popular touring act, or you’re a promoter taking 

on one show at a time, this is just cost prohibitive. 

As someone who books 25+ 

local bands a month, I can’t 

imagine chasing around dozens 

of band members to hustle 

tickets if I can’t even get them to 

share a Facebook event or invite 

people to it. In the old days it was 

getting band members to pick 

up the gobs of handbills that I 

would print; the lack of hustle 

for some has always been real, 

regardless of the tools of the era 

that were produced. 

Then there’s the plea for 

band participation from people trying to put on 

shows. The line was “imagine being a cheerleader 

on a desert island.” Brilliant. That was coined 

by local promoter Johnny Matter and it is our 

experience these days as we do our best. The 

carnival barker is alive and well, and is generally 

left yammering on about a show alone. 

It was amazing reading all these comments, 

pros and cons. People commiserating. We can 

talk about living in an expensive rental city, the 

millenials with entertainment appetites leaving 

town, how bands who for over a decade had 

enjoyed bustling shows now losing fans to the 

changing of nappies and watching Sesame Street 

with toddlers. The generation gap is real. It’s a 

sad state of affairs when the new generation 

of potential live music fans is more interested 

in cooing about moustache wax at any generic 

craft beer joint than seeing a live band. It seems 

that a generation raised on technology need to 

be gripping their devices at all times. If there was 

a way to consistently offer live music through 

a phone screen, we might have a chance at 

survival. 

I have no answers. I tried the sponsored 

Facebook event; I might as well have just lit a 

50 dollar bill with a Bic. The event that had the 

most ‘engagements’ did the worst at the venues 

ticket wicket. The threat of venues giving up on 

live music is real. In Vancouver, there 

are too many rooms and promoters, 

all with their fingers in the same pie. 

There are only so many moneyed live 

music aficionados to go around. 

I feel like I’m beating a dead 

horse with this subject. I’ve been 

making commentary on it for a while 

now. Yet, every time my column 

deadline rolls around, there this 

subject is, marked in the hallowed 

annuls of the Facebook news feed. 

So hang in there; that’s about all I 

can say to both bands or promoters. 

Try to work together. Some of us may die in 

battle and others will be quick to take up arms in 

the perceived glory of being renowned; you need 

the constitution to fight through the dark times 

of which there are many, especially financially. 

Prepare for disappointment, no show is ever set 

in stone. and expect setbacks; like the drummer 

that severs his finger at his day job, or the tour 

van broke down. 

People that are drinking also have irrational 

reactions to the rules of a law abiding venue; 

they will hold a grudge against if they were 

tossed out or denied entry. It may morph into 

keyboard warrior internet trolls and gossip 

mongers smearing your reputation; the bullshit 

is real. 

Until the virtual venue rules the world, we 

are here. Try to enjoy! 

16 The skinny 


ANCIIENTS 

filling the void with a new kind of heavy 

Heath Fenton 

In 2013 Vancouver metal band Anciients 

seemingly came from out of nowhere to 

release their debut record, Heart Of Oak, 

on renowned Philadelphia-based label 

Season Of Mist to large fan fare. So large in 

fact that they were nominated for a Juno 

Award and also on the long list for the 

highly coveted Polaris Music Prize. Not to 

mention the spottings on many year end 

“best of” lists. All this after tours with so 

many bigger and more likeminded bands. 

Chief among them being opening slots for 

Death and Lamb Of God. It was simply an 

amazing feat for a tiny metal band coming 

out of the west coast of Canada. 

“It was a strange thing when it 

happened,” guitarist/lead vocalist Kenny 

Cook says. “We had no expectations of 

the record even getting out of Vancouver. 

It was quite an amazing feeling to get 

recognized at that level.” 

Fellow guitarist/vocalist Chris Dyck 

reiterates. “It was motivating. We must 

have struck a chord with somebody. It 

was pretty awesome to be all of a sudden 

thrown to the wolves as far as the touring 

that was involved with the record doing 

so good. We got to go out and play with 

some pretty crazy legendary metal bands 

and it all happened so quick.” 

It’s been a hurricane for Anciients, 

who are rounded out by bass player Aaron 

“Boon” Gustafson and drummer Mike 

Hannay. With the exception of young 

Hannay, they actually all weren’t rookies at 

the game. Gustafson, Dyck, and Cook have 

all been around Vancouver for many years 

and committed a fair share of their time 

to the local music scene. Mostly in death 

metal bands and hard rock party bands 

that had done nothing outside of Western 

Canadian mini tours. Nothing near the 

level that Anciients has achieved. For 

Hannay, when he joined the band he 

was a 19-year-old freshman. The “golden 

child” as Dyck puts it. Sometimes it 

just takes some time to get your shit 

together and find the proper outlet. 

W i t h 

Anciients, 

they have all 

found the 

proper outlet, 

covering so 

many realms 

of what 

metal’s vast 

soundscapes 

r e v o l v e 

around. The 

quartet can 

spiritually 

enhance your vibe with acoustic 

interludes, then lead you into the abyss 

with pummeling fists of furious mind 

bending riffs, all while having you nod 

approvingly in a haze of a hypnotic smoke 

and mirrors. It’s a combination of so many 

styles that somehow they take precious 

time to arrange in such a prog-rock type of 

way that molds perfectly. The songs soar, 

they are epic, and most of all, they can 

keep the interest of the most basic metal 

head as well as the nerdo aficionados. It’s 

sort of like Opeth on quaaludes teaching High 

On Fire in math class. 

After Heart Of Oak, for the four lads a 

turbulent year was to follow as Cook’s 

wife (also Dyk’s sister) dealt with life 

threatening postnatal complications. 

They would take a year off to 

decompress and compose. Eventually they 

would get back to work writing again and 

doing what they knew best. They figured 

it all out and returned to the studio with 

Jesse Gander at Rain City Recording. The 

results are a stride up to the highest most 

standards and their new album, Voice Of 

The Void, is gonna be a game changer. It’s 

a bit darker and a bit heavier, but every bit 

of what Anciients have become. The new 

album breaks out 

harshly from the 

opening menace 

“Following The 

Voice” and does 

not relent and 

hardly repents. It’s 

moody, violent, 

fierce, soulful. 

The sweetness 

still lingers on 

songs such as 

“Descending” and 

“Incantations”, but 

overall there seems to be more crushing 

aspects of the riffage than the previous 

album. 

“The first record was kind of finding 

out what we sound like,” Dyck explains. 

“We never really heard the music 

recorded. We played a lot of gigs locally 

that year, but other than watching them 

on someone’s phone we really didn’t 

know what we sounded like recorded.” It 

is safe to say that there is no sophomore 

slump for Anciients. They are just finding 

their groove. 

“I thought we could be a heavier 

band, a faster band. Because we knew 

with Hannay, he had way more speed and 

double-kick crazy shit he could do that 

he didn’t really get to throw down on the 

last record,” Dyck points out. “Kenny’s 

vocals are so crushing now. From touring 

all the time, everybody is better at what 

they do and in some aspects a whole lot 

better. When I played on the last record I 

was freaking out. On this one I felt more 

confident. I am a better musician now, 

which is awesome. There was a lot of 

pressure to kick ass because we all of a 

sudden were on such a professional level.” 

Cook conveys this, “the overall sound of 

the new record is amazing in comparison. 

The melodies are stronger, the vocals all 

turned out better. We did try to take it in a 

different direction, but still keep the same 

vein we established.” 

Voice Of The Void officially comes 

out on October 14, but it is getting mad 

streams right now from metal web sites 

like Blabbermouth to mainstream sites 

like Billboard and the feedback has been 

amazing. Anciients are ready to take the 

next step into the void with their new 

album. A humble bunch with a stellar 

prowess that will be realized by a whole 

whack of new fans when the new opus 

is upon us. They haven’t even touched 

the rim of what they are capable of 

slamming down. Their new music 

proves that point. It bleeds of growth 

and a maturity of what was already a 

sturdy existence. 

Anciients album release just 

happens to coincide with an opening 

local slot for Gorguts. More bucket 

list stuff for the boys. “If you told me 

five years ago that I would even meet 

Gorguts, then be playing with them, and 

actually becoming good personal friends?” 

Dyck says. “It’s crazy. I had Gorguts’ debut 

album brand new in 1991 on tape. It’s a 

huge deal.” 

Anciients perform at the Rickshaw Theatre 

on October 14 with Brain Tentacles, 

Intronaut and Gorguts. 

Photo by Thuja Knox 


DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT 

an unstoppable force seemingly meeting no immovable objects 

Ana Krunic 

In a career spanning well over 20 years, 

one word that’s been used in nearly 

every interview and feature on BC bornand-raised 

prog-metal legend Devin 

Townsend is “prolific.” There’s certainly 

a reason for that; not counting other 

projects he’s been involved in, between 

Strapping Young Lad, and The Devin 

Townsend Project he has released 22 

studio albums (three of which came 

out in 2014 alone), four EPs, and four 

live albums. 

The newest album, Transcendence, 

shares the unmistakable Devin 

Townsend sound – massive, incredibly 

dynamic, and at times sonically 

overwhelming, but as is the case with 

each of his albums, distinct from 

the others. Transcendence can be 

described as uplifting, but not in the 

“let’s-hold-hands and everything-isbeautiful” 

sense that the word usually 

implies. Rather, it lies in the acceptance 

of not being in control, of “letting go.” 

This extends to the recording process 

of the album as well. “In the past,” 

Townsend explains, “I’ve been really 

specific with the guys in how it goes 

- this is how the drum fill goes, this is 

where the cymbal goes, this is what the 

bass does, and all that. But this time, 

after the music was written, the signs 

were pointing to letting the reins loosen 

up a bit in terms of how everybody 

participates in the process. It became 

collaborative in terms of how parts were 

interpreted, and in dissecting the songs 

we were able to really be comprehensive 

as a band.” 

“It was very difficult, it was 

very productive, and the outcome is 

something I’m really proud of.” 

Later this year will also bring us Only 

Half There – an autobiography that 

has been in the works for a while. 

“It was something that originally 

started because it could generate 

some income for us, but the more 

I started doing it, the more I 

recognized that by investing myself 

in it, it became a way for me to purge 

some of the things in my past and move 

forward creatively.” 

“The book is something that was 

very cathartic for me. It was a very 

difficult project because I’m not a 

writer, but it ended up being something 

With new studio album, Transcendence, Devin Townsend is learning to let go. 

that I think has some practical value for 

people that are interested in the creative 

process of being a musician - the pitfalls 

and the ups and downs, and a perspective on 

what it is and what it isn’t.” 

That makes two albums and a book this 

year, a trend that’s continued even after 20+ 

years of making – so fans of Devin Townsend 

can hopefully rest assured that he won’t run 

out of projects or things to say anytime soon. 

The Devin Townsend Project finishes 

off the North American run of their 

tour in Vancouver on October 15, at 

the Vogue Theater. 

18 ELECTRONICS DEPT. 


clubland 

october 2016 

electronics dept 

VANCOUVER — Trust us when we say 

that now is the perfect time to go to a 

show. The weather sucks outside, your 

family and friends are busy with stuff, 

and cuffing season is in full effect (just 

Google it). Treat yourself to a warm and 

toasty show with your cuff of choice at one 

of our top picks for the month of October. 

James Blake 

October 13 @ Orpheum Theatre 

Mercury Prize winning and Grammy 

nominated British singer, songwriter, 

and producer James Blake is a 

musical juggernaut. Influenced by a 

blend of UK dance and bass music, 

contemporary R&B, and 1990s hip 

hop, his self-produced soundscapes 

create the perfect canvas for his tortured 

vocals. Currently touring his third studio 

album, The Colour in Anything, around 

the world, be prepared to feel things you 

never thought possible in a theatre full of 

relative strangers. 

ScHoolboy Q 

October 22 @ PNE Forum 

Label mates with Top Dawg Entertainment 

signees Sza, Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul, Jay 

Rock, and Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q 

rolls forward with his soulful thug flow 

over bass heavy trap inspired beats. With 

his new Blank Face LP released earlier 

this year, his beats have taken a turn 

into new territory with influences from 

funk and soul, and feature verses from 

major artists including Kanye West, 

Jadakiss, and Miguel. 

Chance the Rapper 

October 25-26 @ 

Thunderbird Sports Centre 

Following the very successful release 

of his newest mixtape, Coloring Book, 

earlier this year, Chance the Rapper is 

travelling the globe on the Magnificent 

Coloring World Tour. Know to be a 

philanthropic rapper with a soft spot for 

his hometown of Chicago, his signature 

vocal and rap style layered over soul and 

jazz flecked instrumentals have helped 

him stand out in a very crowded genre. 

Majid Jordan 

October 30 @ The Commodore 

Ballroom 

Canadian R&B duo Majid Al Maskati 

and Jordan Ullman first met while going 

to school at the University of Toronto, 

immediately bonding over their common 

passion for music. With Ullman as the 

producer and Maskati singing vocals, the 

two have made major waves producing 

songs for artists like Drake and Beyonce, 

before releasing their well received debut self 

titled LP earlier this year. 

Chance The Rapper 

KKB uses sweet future-pop beats and catchy bilingual chants to bring you into their world. 

KERO KERO BONITO 

bilingual future-pop music is for everyone, no matter what language you speak 

Vanessa Tam 

The most universal of music genres, 

equally reaching men, women, and 

children with both uplifting and heart 

wrenching stories of love and life: pop 

music is for everyone. 

Expanding further beyond 

language and culture, self described 

bilingual future-pop group Kero Kero 

Bonito, often referred to as KKB, is one 

of the only bands in the world right 

now pushing the boundaries of their 

truly one of a kind genre. Comprised of 

producers Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled 

along with vocalist Sarah Midori Perry, 

the three UK based musicians actually 

came together was totally by chance. 

While Lobban and Bulled already knew 

each other from school, they met Perry 

through an ad they posted for someone 

who could speak Japanese on MixB, 

an online message board for Japanese 

expats. Perry was one of the first people 

to respond to the ad and the rest as they 

say, was history. 

Seamlessly rapping in both English 

and Japanese, Perry has carved out a 

substantial niche for herself in popular 

music. “I don’t see English and Japanese 

as separate languages because I grew 

up learning both; to me it’s [like] one 

language,” she explains. “[And with the 

growing popularity of] international 

marriages, I think that there’s going to 

be more [seamless bilingual language 

speakers around] and that’s great.” 

“That’s actually a great point,” 

Lobban chimes in. “I guess it really does 

reflect Sarah’s background. It’s funny 

because when we first asked her to [sing 

for us, we didn’t ask her to sing a specific 

way]. Sarah just kind of did it in both 

languages and we’re like, well this is dope.” 

Writing nearly all of KKB’s song 

lyrics herself, Perry naturally flows 

between her two languages when 

writing without even thinking. “I feel 

like I’m actually on an advantage; that I 

get to use twice as much material when 

I write lyrics. I just feel like I got more 

things to play with,” she says. 

“I think there’s definitely less than 

five pop stars you could name who kind 

of do it the way Sarah does,” figures 

Lobban. “It’s interesting to think that a 

lot of bands do just pick one [language 

to work with]. It’s a shame really because 

more linguistic colour is great.” 

“And there are things you can say in 

one language you can’t say in another,” 

Bulled adds. 

Obviously heavily inspired by 

Japanese culture and language, the band 

went on their first tour together in Japan 

around this time last year, Japan being their 

second biggest market after the United 

States. “We actually played in Shibuya on 

Halloween which was crazy,” recalls Lobban. 

“Someone dressed up as a spoon!” 

Perry exclaims, laughing. 

“Everything was absolutely 

incredible, like walking in a video game 

in some ways. [Japan] blew all my 

expectations away to be honest,” Bulled 

adds, reminiscing. “I felt like I was very 

far away from my world normally, [in] 

London, but at the same time I felt very 

much at home.” 

On the cusp of releasing their 

sophomore album in October, Bonito 

Generation, it’s already very apparent 

how much the band has grown since 

the release of their first album, Intro 

Bonito, in 2014. With five singles from 

the album currently making the rounds 

online — “Trampoline,” “Picture 

This,” “Break,” “Lip Slap,” and 

“Graduation” — a more complex 

and melody based sound has 

already emerged as a theme for the 

new album. “We added more chords 

basically,” Bulled states matter-offactly. 

“Yeah, more chords yeah,” chuckles 

Lobban. “It’s quite a natural thing I 

think, I mean ‘Picture This’ is on the new 

record and you know that was probably 

the first track we did that was like, ‘oh, this 

is a new thing.’ That song combined a lot 

of stuff that was already true of KKB but 

kind of super charged it, and we’ve taken 

that across the whole record this time.” 

Kero Kero Bonito perform at Fortune 

Sound Club October 12th. 

October 2016 ELECTRONICS DEPT. 

19

GALLANT 

intellect and self-awareness convert subconscious ideas into music and lyrics 

Prachi Kamble 

R&B prodigy Gallant is in the middle 

of enjoying three days of welldeserved 

downtime in Sherman Oaks, 

Los Angeles. “I’m looking forward 

to playing a lot of video games and 

watching CNN,” he confesses in a calm 

voice. “And a lot of buffalo wild wings. 

That’s my downtime!” 

Back from a press tour in the UK, 

the young artist has been on quite the 

ride, appearing on Jools Holland and 

performing with none other than Sir 

Elton John. Gaining momentum with 

the release of his debut album Ology 

earlier this year, his signature mix 

of intellectual, dark, and sexy songs 

have put the apple of R&B back into 

mainstreams flippant eye. 

“The tour is becoming increasingly 

comfortable for me and I have been 

able to extract more and more out of 

each performance,” notes Gallant. “I’m 

really excited to see how that goes.” 

Primarily championed by Zane Lowe 

in the UK, Gallant has enjoyed a strong 

fan following there for a long time. 

“They are just so ahead of the curve,” 

he says of his UK fan base. “They’re a 

little more open minded compared to 

the North American industry and they 

aren’t obsessed with putting things into 

categories. But things [are starting to] 

become similar in LA right now.” 

Collecting rave reviews left, 

right, and Pitchfork, Ology features 

deep and mature lyrical matter with 

instrumentals to match. “I wasn’t trying 

to make an album really, I was just 

messing around with things in a very 

natural way. Whatever came out was a 

reflection of my subconscious; I wasn’t 

trying to fool anyone or trying to be an 

exaggeration of myself,” he explains. “I 

wanted to dig deeper than [my first EP] 

Zebra. I’ve been motivated to ask myself 

tough questions and get over hurdles 

and barriers.” 

An instinctive musician who is 

both heavily introverted and profound, 

Gallant is also a strong academic at 

heart with a degree in anthropology 

and sociology of music from NYU. He 

credits his own hyper-self-awareness 

and ability to translate his imagination 

into music and lyrics to his education, 

with Ology being a product of his 

academically informed introspection as 

well as a personal journey of change. 

“Change happens in incremental steps 

— how you react to something, the way 

you feel about something, examining 

yourself in the context of the universe 

and in the context of society,” he says. 

“[While making Ology,] I noticed varying 

degrees of every perception, reaction, 

and thought [that] I had. I learned to be 

more empathetic, less guarded, and a 

little more self aware.” 

Gallant’s intellectualism makes him 

an exceptional role model, especially 

for young people of colour. “If you 

have a stance on an issue, political or 

non political, it makes sense to match 

the example as much as possible, 

intentionally or unintentionally. Being 

perceived as a role model is a big 

compliment,” he admitted. 

Everything about Gallant is 

understated but always genuine and 

always honest. Not one to colour within 

the lines, he found his way to us through 

an overwhelming sea of naysayers who 

believed that R&B had to be just about 

sex and partying, that it couldn’t be 

more. But that more, is Gallant. 

Gallant performs at Fortune Sound Club 

on October 26th. 

Gallant faces invasive questions to mine his sub-conscious for inspiration. 



New Forms Festival 2016 

contemporary electronic music festival returns with new insight and ideas 

hollie mcgowan 

After a year-long hiatus, New Forms 

Festival is back for another installment 

this month and local artists, electronic 

music aficionados, and new media 

devotees couldn’t be happier. “I’ve never 

been involved in something in my life 

where we didn’t have it for one year, 

and we received comments about it 

daily either through email, messaging, 

Facebook, or in person,” explains 

Malcolm Levy, executive director 

and co-founder of the New Forms 

Media Society. “There was just such an 

immense amount of support.” 

Exploring a different direction in 

new media and event curation, the New 

Forms Media Society produced multiple 

one-off events throughout 2015 instead of 

the annual festival. Due to a high amount 

of inquiries, however, the team decided to 

re-evaluate their initial decision. “We talked 

about it with everyone and decided to move 

forward [with the festival format for 2016]. 

It also gave us the chance to really do New 

Forms in the way that I think it’s going.” 

Over the years, New Forms 

has been held at various locations 

throughout the city. From The Waldorf 

Hotel to Great Northern Way and 

Science World, the festival has seen 

its fair share of venues with which the 

team has been able to experiment in the 

development of new creative ideas and 

insight. Now in its 16th year, the team 

will be taking their years of experience 

to a whole new level at the iconic A&B 

Sound building at 560 Seymour and the 

Satellite Gallery upstairs. “The space 

will look nothing like it has ever looked 

[before],” boasts Levy. “We’re basically 

re-contextualizing the entire space.” 

“I’m really excited about the entire 

festival, and I’m not just saying that. 

I’m excited about every aspect,” shares 

Levy. Being in his final year as director 

of New Forms, Levy has witnessed 

the festival grow into the successful 

new media arts and music hub that it 

is today. “I’ve seen artists, labels, and 

communities blow up around the 

festival. I’ve seen so many friendships, 

collaborations, communication, 

discourse, and creative growth. I cherish 

and look really fondly on all of it.” 

New Forms Festival happens at 560 

Seymour Street from October 7-8. 

Nicolas Sassoon 

Jamie Goyman 

A festival that both promotes creative 

growth and allows for attendees to 

experience independent and groundbreaking 

artists in a recognizable format, 

New Forms Festival will be making its 

triumphant return back to Vancouver’s 

cultural landscape this October. Known 

to push the boundaries of artist curation 

both musically and visually, this year 

proves to be no exception. 

Having worked with New Forms 

multiple times in the past, this year’s job as 

digital art curator for the festival has been 

bestowed on local visual artist Nicolas 

Sassoon. “A lot of electronic music events 

are very immersive and intense in terms 

of sensorial experiences,” he explains. “My 

installation work is often driven by similar 

relationships between moving images 

and the human body, or architecture. This 

correlation is particularly effective in a dark 

after-hours electronic music party; it’s the type 

of setting where people want to let go and seek 

overwhelming experiences.” 

Sassoon’s first experience with New 

Forms was creating an installation for a 

performance by electronic music producer 

Omar-S back in 2010, which in turn was 

also his first time ever creating work for an 

electronic music night. “After that specific 

one, I knew that I wanted to keep going,” 

he recalls. “I focus on the experience I want 

to create in a given space. This is what 

leads my choices for installation works, 

exhibition layouts, and online works. I 

like to think that most of the audience 

will tag along if the experience you offer is 

cohesive from start to finish.” 

“Events like New Forms or 

underground venues are so great and 

unique. They offer much more flexibility in 

terms of what you can do and the people 

behind these events are very genuine and 

passionate,” Sassoon says. “I try not to take 

in consideration mainstream audience 

reception because everyone has a different 

opinion about everything. I have a few 

people who I trust for critical feedback 

and I stick to them.” When looking at 

the festival’s programming and knowing 

Sassoon is behind visual curation, it really 

is no wonder why New Forms has become 

such an iconic event in the Vancouver 

scene and why it’s so important to go and 

experience it for yourself. 

New Forms Festival happens at 560 

Seymour Street from October 7-8. 

Best of New Forms 16 

BeatRoute’s must see acts for New Forms Festival 2016 

khotin 

Vanessa Tam 

hollie mcgowan 

With a busy weekend of programming 

setup for the return of New Forms 

this year, it’s only natural to feel a 

little overwhelmed by all the options. 

Whether you’re trying to decide which 

single day to hit up or are preparing to 

go all in on both, we rounded up six of 

our must see acts for this year’s New 

Forms Festival. 

Deft 

An artist with a strong intuitive 

understanding of rhythm and 

percussion, Deft, aka Yip Wong, will be 

a deep sonic exploration that is not to 

be missed this year at New Forms. The 

Croydon based artist has also gained 

recognition from a range of notable 

musicians as broad as his musical 

repertoire including Mark Pritchard, B. 

Traits, Addison Groove, and DJ Shadow. 

Saturday, October 8th at 560 Seymour 

Street 

evolving post-dubstep bass music scene. 

Releasing music on labels like Hotflush, 

R&S Records, and Soul Jazz as well as 

his own imprint Hemlock, Dunning 

continues to be a true innovator of 

beats and melodies that are both 

experimental yet danceable. 

Saturday, October 8th at 560 Seymour 

Street 

Strategy 

A bit of an enigma, Strategy, aka Paul 

Dickow, can be seen and heard making 

music across a variety of genres when it 

comes to electronic music production. 

House, techno, experimental, and 

dub, are just some of the styles you 

can expect to hear from the Portland, 

Oregon based artist. 

Friday, October 7th at Satellite Gallery 

560 Seymour Street 

Khotin 

Edmonton grown producer Dylan 

Khotin-Foote, who is now based in 

Vancouver, makes dreamy house 

rhythms under the moniker Khotin. 

Regularly producing work with local 

label Pacific Rhythm as well as his 

own label Normals Welcome, ambient 

Untold 

All the way from London, UK, Untold, 

aka Jack Dunning, has definitely made 

his prominent mark on the eversamples 

and club-friendly grooves 

are definite staples in the work of this 

talented local producer. 

Friday, October 7th at 560 Seymour 

Street 

D. Tiffany 

Elusive producer D. Tiffany, aka Sophie 

Sweetland, can often be found playing 

secret studio shows around Vancouver with 

regular releases coming out on local label 

1080p. Known for her lo-fi house and techno 

productions, you can trust the dancefloor 

won’t be missing any bodies dancing along 

to her original blissed out tracks. 

Friday, October 7th at Home Theatre 

Department 560 Seymour Street 

Laine Butler 

Experienced visual artist Laine Butler has 

prepared gorgeous projection work for 

numerous artists and festivals including 

this year’s Shambhala Music Festival. A 

core member of the Vancouver based 

artist collective Chapel Sound, Butler 

uses a combination of both physical and 

digital inspiration to create his totally 

unique final product. 

October 6-7 at 560 Seymour Street 

untold 

Strategy 

October 2016 ELECTRONICS DEPT. 

21

SO LOKI 

if Vancouver is a musical vacuum, then V just might be the remedy 

Chris Jimenez 

So Loki is a local hip-hop duo consisting of rapper 

Sam Lucia and electronic music composer Natura 

a.k.a. Geoff Millar, who are originally from Edmonton 

and Vancouver respectively. Finding harmony in each 

other’s obsessive work ethic, the two solo artists 

really melded over their strongly fueled passion for 

electronic hip-hop. 

Their experience with music began with Millar’s 

interest in learning music at age 16 which eventually 

led to him pursuing digital music production at 

Langara College. Lucia, on the other hand, originally 

wanted to make comics, until one day his mom asked 

him to think of a rap while she was cutting his hair at 

age 12. “It won’t hurt as much if you think of a rap and 

when it’s done, you can tell it to me,” she said to him, 

sowing the seed. 

Speaking on their experience in the Vancouver 

music scene Millar says, “I think that there’s a vacuum 

in Vancouver; it’s a gaping hole, especially for hip-hop. 

There is still people doing it though; all the stuff [that] 

we do is [the] stuff [that] we want to listen to. We 

wouldn’t do this if we didn’t think this was something 

truthful to us and something unique.” 

“Geoff is right about paving a new path because 

most [of the] people that [seem to] get anywhere in 

Vancouver leave Vancouver,” Lucia adds. “If we stay 

here, we will become that landmark. If this could 

be that place where everyone knows that So Loki is 

stamped on it, I think it would be so much more 

important than giving it to other places that have already 

built the bottom bricks. It’s very sad to see people leave 

when there is [still so much] opportunity [here].” 

Putting their work where their mouth is, the 

duo’s latest album V reaches for new heights in the 

West Coast experimental hip-hop scene. It features 

tracks that showcase depth and weirdness, similar to 

the feeling of walking out of a well-designed haunted 

house, heart pleasantly pumping. 

“I do want them to feel weird; I want them to feel a 

little bit out of place,” notes Lucia. “Some of the best 

music I ever heard was Eminem’s Slim Shady LP and 

I just remember thinking that some of this shit 

is so real I don’t [even] wanna show this to my 

mom. It’s the best feeling ever because you know 

it’s honest and you can defend it at the end of 

the day. I think people should be pleasantly 

surprised and be kind of weirded out by that 

feeling of pleasantness.” 

“I think more recently we wanted to push 

the music further,” Miller added. “We wanted 

people to feel like moshing and then have 

moments of bliss... and then moshing again.” 

Editoral assistance by: Vanessa Tam 

So Loki performs at their album release party at 

TBA on October 28th. 

Experimental hip-hop group So Loki strives to push their genre as far as possible while remaining true to Vancouver 



Been There Done That 

questionable advice from a comedian 

Kathleen McGee 

This column is usually advice from me 

but this month I’m going to share some 

advice that I received from one of the 

funniest comics working today, he didn’t even 

know he was offering advice. Hannibal Buress in 

one of the calmest comics I’ve ever worked with. 

A few years ago I opened for him at The Comic 

Strip in Edmonton, he was still mainly a cult hit, a 

comic that comedy fans knew of but wasn’t the 

mainstream sensation that he is now. 

Watching him work was a real education 

in how to be comfortable with your material 

and who you are. He was and is a comic that 

makes comedy look effortless. I took him to 

one of my favourite bars in Edmonton after 

the show. These are the things I learned from 

him that night. 

Filthy McNasty’s had the arcade 

version of Street Fighter. I didn’t know how 

to play so I just watched. About 30 seconds 

into his 50 cents a fight broke out. A pool 

cue flew right past my head and the fight 

was heading its way towards us. I started 

Hannibal Buress performs in Vancouver 

on October 21 at the Chan Center for The 

performing Arts. Kathleen McGee will be 

headlining Yuk Yuk’s Vancouver October 

27 to 29. 

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL IMPROV FESTIVAL 

a stage for the world’s best to come and say yes to 

Graeme Wiggins 

So you’ve caught a Vancouver 

TheatreSports League show, or seen 

local improv group play a show at Café 

Deux Soleil and took interest. You 

might wonder, where can I go from 

there? What else can Vancouver offer 

me in terms of improv? Well, October 

4-8 marks the return of the Vancouver 

International Improv Festival, marking 

its 17th year in existence. It’s sure to 

satisfy any improv needs you might 

have, with over thirty performances, and 

even the possibility to learn how to do it 

yourself through expert-led workshops. 

Alistair Cook, festival director, describes 

its motivation thusly: “I knew we wanted to 

bring the world to Vancouver to experience the 

great improv we have, and let our local scene 

experience some international flavor.” 

Picking artists for this kind of thing can 

be quite the task. One could focus on known 

quantities and big names, guaranteeing 

success. But VIIF focused on keeping things 

eclectic. As Cook puts it, “We really focus 

on a blend of theatrical and high-comedy 

styles at our festival. We try to select groups 

that are internationally known but not 

necessarily household names. Basically, stars of 

tomorrow, bleeding edge art, and juuuust flat 

out gut-busting funny.” 

Given that there are over 30 

performances, trying to figure out where 

to begin can be a little intimidating. Cook 

offers some suggestions: “I’m excited for the 

GOLDEN from Austin, Texas and their silent 

to move out of the way and told Hannibal 

to move as well. He said “nah I just put my 

money in” and continued to finish his game 

while a real fight went on next to him. The 

lesson here is always finish what you’ve 

started and have no fear. 

That night was also the first time I 

tried a pickle back. Hannibal ordered one, 

I had never heard of this but I’m always 

on board for anything pickle related. If you 

have no idea what I’m talking about it’s a 

shot of Whiskey followed by a shot of pickle 

juice. It blew my mind. Never be afraid to try 

something new, you’ll probably love it and it 

will probably contribute to your already out 

of control drinking problem. 

Hannibal Buress is wildly known for 

getting the “Bill Cosby isn’t nice, he’s a rapist” 

ball rolling. For years there had been rumours 

and women that tried to make people see 

what a horrible person he is. It took one set 

that went viral for people to finally believe that 

Cosby was not the sweet pudding loving man 

that his public persona made him out to be. 

Hannibal showed us we should always speak up, 

film show. One Lions (headliner from 2014), 

Sexy Baby (Hot show from NYC), Shakespeare 

after Dark (basically drunk improvised 

Shakespeare), and Rapid Fire Theatre’s SNEAK 

PEEK (an improvised movie based on a preview 

the improvisers have never seen before).” And 

if you want something with a little more local 

flavor, Vancouver favourites such as Vancouver 

TheatreSports League, The Fictionals, and 

Sunday Service will also be showcased. 

But really, given such a diverse collection 

of acts, it’s pretty hard to pick just a few; you 

can’t go wrong. As Cook puts it, “These ones 

are going to be so good, but then, now that I 

look at the rest of the schedule there are four 

Kathleen McGee has learned a thing or two from the great Hannibal Buress. 

say what you think and if there’s something 

foul on Jell-O Mountain, spread the 

word. Who knows, you might take 

down one of the biggest monsters 

in living history. 

or five more that stand out. Just get an evening 

pass, grab a beer, and enjoy a whole evening 

of curated comedy. Every night is going to be 

great. Opening night is only five dollars and 

showcases almost everyone!” 

Cook does have one serious “don’t miss” 

recommendation, however: “Make sure to see 

at least one of each of Festival Ensemble Bravo and 

Echo’s shows. The festival Ensemble is a collection 

of some of the greatest improvisers in the world. 24 

performers selected out of a pool of over 200. They 

are top notch and really do entertain.” 

Apart from simple enjoyment and 

laughter, VIIF also offers the possibility of 

taking something more practical back with 

you: knowledge. “From Hollywood to the 

boardroom, we’re seeing improv being used 

in many creative ways,” said Montreal’s Vinny 

François, who will be teaching at the festival. 

“Improvisers are also successful actors, 

business owners, writers, and engineers. 

Improv skills can be applied to many parts 

of life.” In keeping with that, VIIF has a 

series of workshops featuring many of the 

performers and instructors both from 

Vancouver and abroad. 

Check out the Vancouver International 

Improv Festival October 4 to October 8 

at venues around Vancouver. 

October 2016 comedy 

23

queer 

Queer 

View 

Mirror 

on being a hyperfetishizedfeminasian 

Kendell Yan 

Photo by Galen Exo 

Ethan 

Murley 

erotically charged minimalist artist 

David Cutting 

In his cozy West End apartment, Ethan 

Murley sits against a singular pink back 

drop. This back drop has been used as a 

focal point for a series of photographs 

that Murley has shared on his 

Instagram (@gaptoothb) with huge 

success, the inspiration of these photos 

being naked men. His goal was to show 

the juxtaposition between masculine 

and feminine and how the two intermingle 

in all forms of life. “My art is all 

me, it’s a reflection of me that is diluted 

down so that it can be consumed by a 

broader audience. I strip it down so that 

it is relatable to everyone in some way,” 

says Murley of his art. 

As we are catching up, there is a 

simple line painting against the wall. 

Murley gestures, “This new project is 

simple line drawings of erotic figures, they 

are so simple that you can’t actually tell 

whether they are male or female, I wanted 

it to be left to interpretation.” The canvas 

I am staring at depicts an individual 

performing analingus on another 

individual, in minimal presentation the 

image isn’t as erotically charged as perhaps 

the image it’s based off is. 

Murley grew up in conservative 

Mormon family, art became his way 

to express the emotions he was feeling 

in this setting. Murley shares that he 

knew who he was growing up, always 

So there I was lying on his 

bed, naked as the day 

I came; and this time 

we both did. The heat 

of that midsummer 

afternoon lent his 

bedroom the delicate 

aroma of spunk and 

old spice. Before I 

even had time to 

towel down or 

grab my briefs 

he launched into 

a psychological 

assessment of my 

sexual tactics, and 

pegged me as a 

lovelorn faux slut. All 

of this culminating in 

the poignant slut shaming 

of the outfit I wore to his house. “Don’t 

sleep with the next guy on the first date 

and wear something less slutty, you’ll land 

him,” he said. Eugh. Worst. 

I’d never done the proper Grindr hookup 

thing before, mostly I’d slogged through 

an onslaught of lousy pickup lines, racist 

assumptions, and hypermasculinist 

prejudices. Being a half-Asian, gendernonconforming, 

vers-bttm on Grindr 

demands exclusion from the 

gravitating to clothing and items that 

helped him express his inner world, 

the challenge was his family’s drive to 

censor that at times. “I wasn’t allowed 

to present as a faggot, but when I left 

I got to choose how to represent myself 

and now that translates to my art.” says 

Murley. Nothing could dim the bright 

spirit within this kind man. 

When we spoke about the future 

he said he is excited to do more shows, 

and show more of his work. He wants to 

begin doing work that can be presented 

to a broader audience in the world, as 

a lot of his past work was Vancouver 

specific. He is referring to a series of 

pieces that depicts addresses of his past 

lovers. His future is bright and full of 

collaborations with artists both local 

and abroad. Go give him follow to keep 

up to date. 

hypermasculinist, cis-white dudes who 

plaster #masc4masc and/or “sorry, no Asians, 

no femmes” all over their profiles. On the 

other hand, it demands an inclusion into the 

world of being a hyperfetishizedfeminasian 

(patent pending). 

The fucked up thing about 

#masc4masc and the rejection of 

femininity in gay hook-up culture is that 

it’s really just misogynistic internalized 

homophobia. The premium that is 

placed on being “masculine” and therefore 

“manly” creates a hierarchy that dismisses 

femininity as undesirable and weak. This 

sham “preference” constrains masculinity 

and suffocates the possibilities of a more 

nuanced sexuality. 

With race things get a bit more 

intersectional for bodies like mine, 

bodies that must brace themselves 

under the weight of a monolithic 

colonial history. The stereotype of the 

“China doll” has its roots in Marco Polo’s 

thirteenth century white-nonsense 

portrayals of the East: passive Asian 

women, weak men, lots of opium. This 

douchenozzle produced feminized 

images of “the Orient” served to bolster 

the masculine, and subsequently 

powerful image of the West. This is 

what Edward Said calls Orientalism, 

Follow Ethan Murley on instagram at @gaptoothb 

and Grindr is a breeding ground for 

orientalist bullshit. I can’t tell you how 

many times I’ve been called exotic, you 

know, like an animal or a rug. 

What #masc4masc reveals is a 

trembling masculine fragility preceded 

by self loathing. It associates “gay acting” 

with being femme, and in turn, with 

weakness, and so rejects itself and opts 

for “straight passing sex.” 

“No Asians, no femmes” conflates 

being Asian with being feminine and 

denies the infinite depths of the sexual/ 

personal identities of all gay Asian men. 

It’s the idea perpetuating a West vs. East 

mentality, or white vs. yellow, or strong 

vs. weak. The assumption remains that 

Asian men and women are wholly 

submissive, and while I am, I am not 

necessarily. This is key. 

So after this guy got all his 

mansplaining out, I towelled off and 

put my slutfit on. If I was white, or 

more masculine, I doubt he’d have the 

audacity to act the way he did, but then 

again being the stereotypically smart 

Asian, I know the math: if Asian then 

Femme, Femme being < Masc, Masc 

is =/> straightacting, straightacting = 

privilege, privilege remains constant 

while all others remain unequal. 

— Photo by Ethan Murley 

24 queer 


jane smoker 

pushing the boundaries of Vancouver drag 

From the Desk 

of Carlotta Gurl 

Carlotta Gurl 

People always ask me what I have 

learned over my 20 plus years 

performing in Vancouver and all 

over North America, and how these 

memorable experiences have shaped 

who I am today. Well I’d like to share 

some of the truth and wisdom I’ve 

gleaned from the past two decades 

with you. 

Performing and working with the 

myriad array of artists and entertainers 

I’ve had the extreme pleasure to know, 

I’ve learned that nothing is what it seems 

and to never judge a book by its cover. 

It’s not good to have a preconceived 

notion of a person simply because of 

the way they look or how they come 

across in their first impression. For 

example, when first meeting me, I’m 

sure people only see the vapid, vacuous 

blonde piece of fluff with limited lip 

sync ability and an ass that would make 

Christ come off the cross, and for the 

most part that’s true. However, there’s 

much more than meets the eye. Always 

take the time to delve a little deeper. 

You may be genuinely surprised what 

you find. 

As a person who has literally swam 

through the many oceans of change in 

the party scene, I can honestly say you 

don’t have to frequent every single party 

every single night. Trust me, I’ve tried 

and the only thing it accomplishes is 

burnout and exhaustion, coupled with 

horrible hangovers and in some cases 

explosive diarrhea, not a fun experience 

let me tell you. Yes, networking at a high 

profile party where you can exchange 

ideas with like minded individuals 

and get to know people on a different 

level is important and necessary for 

personal development, and I would 

say I’ve probably garnered some great 

opportunities and exposure at these 

parties. But to make that happen, I 

didn’t have to go to every single fakkin’ 

one of them. Choose the parties you 

wanna go to based on who you know 

is gonna be there, the music, the venue, 

and whether or not you have a big 

day the next day. THERE IS ALWAYS 

ANOTHER PARTY. 

I’ve had the good fortune of working 

with many different corporations around 

town which has led to many exciting 

experiences and situations both in and 

out of town. Probably one of the most 

humbling of these experiences was being 

in New York last year when the Supreme 

Court ruling came in favour of legalizing 

same sex marriage in all 50 states. I was 

there doing a media event with Tourism 

Vancouver and after the morning event 

we went to the Stonewall to witness the 

celebrations over this ruling. It was truly 

an amazing and poignant moment in 

time to be at the birthplace of the gay 

rights movement and experience this 

milestone firsthand. It was also a very 

moving experience for me personally as 

a drag queen seeing and hearing what a 

key role the drag performers have played 

in the furthering of gay rights in society. 

This truly made me feel like I was a part 

of something much bigger and made me 

feel that my purpose as a drag queen was 

much more important than I had ever 

known. There have been many more but 

those are stories for another time. Right 

now my little Lottas out there, I invite 

you all to throw me some questions for 

future columns and if there’s any way I 

can help you I will. Be nice to each other 

and remember the most important 

thing: we are all pretty...especially me. 

Love you dahlings. 

You can see Carlotta on Wednesdays 

at 11p.m. at the Junction for the Barron 

Gurl Show, on Fridays at 11:30 p.m. at 

the Odyssey for Feature Length Fridays, 

and on Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. at the 

Junction for Absolutely Dragulous. Or 

just spot her around the West End, 

because after all she is the Queen. 

David Cutting 

Jane Smoker is drag force of nature. 

She has been there and fucking done 

that. When she walks on to the stage, 

the crowd screams. We have seen her 

a thousand times and we still come 

back for more. If you are even minutely 

familiar with the Vancouver Drag 

community, you’ll have heard her name. 

Her performances are breathtaking, 

and the effort and heart she puts into 

them are what has brought this queen 

to the top. 

Blonde ambition is Jane’s game. 

Having performed on every stage this 

city, from her humble beginnings at 

Mr/Miss Cobalt in 2012, Jane Smoker 

has made herself into a consumable 

commodity. This year, Jane published a 

book of her own drag selfies, a feat that 

other queens marvel at. “When you 

first break into the scene, you’re going 

to be intimidated because there are a 

lot of BIG personalities and names that 

you’ll admire and look up to and feel 

like you’ll never attain anything close to 

their level, but it’s possible,” Jane says, 

as we talk about advice she would give 

to young performers. “Confidence is 

everything because unfortunately no 

one is going to hold your hand and no 

one is going to hand you opportunities. 

I’ve always said since day one, ‘be the 

star you think you are.’ You have to get 

out there, show them what you got even 

if that means working for free for a year. 

Show people why you belong. There is 

always a spot for you.” 

Even in her rich white woman 

demure, she gushes about community. 

“We all share this bond of being a part of 

the local LGBTQ umbrella and while we 

don’t necessarily have a best friendship 

with absolutely everyone, you know that 

in the time of need, any (if not every) 

member of the community would be 

there for one of there own in a time of 

need,” Jane maintains. “Every member 

of the community is a different piece 

to the puzzle whether you are a drag 

queen, DJ, promoter, bartender, artist, or 

even just a regular bar patron. Everyone 

is integral to making the scene rich 

with different characters, personalities, 

talents and most importantly lessons 

that we can all learn from each other, 

both young and older.” 

Jane’s list of accolades is a mile long, 

with numerous monthly and weekly 

shows under her belt, including a guest 

spot at Micky’s (a really hot drag venue 

in Los Angeles) and her role in the Spice 

Gurls as Posh. She even won the title 

of Vancouver’s Next Drag Superstar in 

2015. Her current shows are a huge draw 

for people — PLAYBOY is her monthly 

at XY and BRATPACK is her weekly at 

Junction, the latter of which she shares 

with three of her drag sisters. 

“Drag is not easy and no one knows 

what we go through except other drag 

queens,” says Jane. “A true drag sister 

is someone who will keep you inspired, 

motivated and confident when it’s not all 

sunshine and rainbows. They teach you 

and in turn you teach them back. On a 

lighter note, what’s more fun than going 

dress shopping as a group of dudes?” 

Our addiction for Jane isn’t going 

away any time soon and she wouldn’t 

have it any other way. She says we have 

a stand up show to look forward to, a 

contest for a new BRATPACK member 

coming, and, of course, new evolutions 

in her style. We’ve seen the bra and 

panty phase, we loved the stripper 

phase, we’re enjoying the current 

affluent-rich-sometimes-high-fashion 

phase, but what’s next? Guess we will 

have to feed our craving and see. 

Jane Smoker performs with BRATPACK 

on Thursdays at the Junction; at the 

BRATPACK Halloween Special on 

October 27 at the Junction; PLAYBOY 

on October 15 at XY; HELL at Sweet Pup 

Studios on October 28; and STRANGER 

QUEENS at XY on October 29. 

October 2016 queer 

25

city 

RED CAT RECORDS 

local music purveyors keep culture on rotation 

Axel Matfin 

The brand new Red Cat Records at 2447 

Hastings is open and ready to make 

some noise. Having run the original Red 

Cat at 4332 Main for over ten years, coowners 

Dave Gowans and Lasse Lutick 

are venturing farther east, prepared to 

capture the ears of the Eastside. 

“I don’t think we would have 

opened another one without being 

pretty optimistic about the future,” 

says Lutick. 

“It felt like a bit of a gamble,” 

chimes in Gowans. “But now that 

it’s open, the way the neighborhood 

has reacted, everyone’s really happy 

because everyone was coming from 

here [Hastings Sunrise] over to Main 

Street, whether it’s to buy records or 

buy [concert] tickets.” 

The storefront has seen a fresh 

paint job and is lined with a perimeter 

of wooden drawers filled with neatly 

arranged double sleeved discs. The 

room feels therapeutic, an escape 

from the busy autumn street. A library 

of the artfully curated and popular 

collections of sound, Red Cat provides 

new releases and special orders as well 

as buying and selling used vinyl. There’s 

no discrimination of styles here; as long 

as the discs are clean, they’ll probably 

take them off your hands. 

“We have rock and jazz and blues 

and funk and soul, we want something 

for everyone. We don’t turn away a lot,” 

states Lutick. “There are tons [of albums] 

where millions were made and we sell 

them every day, like Fleetwood Mac 

Rumours. Who would think that would 

be worth something ‘cause there were so 

many made? But a clean copy of that?” 

I ask how the world of a Vancouver 

music retailer has changed in the 

past ten years. They pause before 

agreeing that since vinyl is returning to 

popularity, it seems to be the preferred 

format for bands to distribute on and, as 

such, Red Cat doesn’t have to organize 

a glut of indie CDs. Despite the decline 

in overall consignment, both men also 

agreed that the amount of local bands 

producing vinyl has increased. 

“It seems like the bands that are 

committing to putting out an album 

are doing it on vinyl,” Gowans says. 

“I would like to say that it seems like 

more of them are sticking together 

for a couple of records. You see them 

bring in their second album on vinyl, 

some even their third. I think it’s a big 

financial commitment for an indie band 

and I think it’s great that people get 

the financial resources to spend $3000 

on 500 records, you know it’s a lot of 

money. So it’s pretty brave.” 

When pressed for recommendations 

of recent releases from local artists, 

both men suggest Adrian Teacher and 

the Subs’ album Terminal City. 

What’s clear from talking with the 

owners of Red Cat is that collecting 

records is no longer an arcane hobby for 

the fevered purists and collectors — it is 

access to intimacy with the art we love. 

“There is a huge desire to be 

more attached to the thing you like. 

For people that really like music, 

sometimes MP3 isn’t enough. You 

want to have it and engage with that piece 

of music,” states Gowans. 

A surge of expansion and success 

from a cultural purveyor like Red Cat 

represents the re-emergence of the people’s 

participation in the community and 

commerce of music. The era of sterile big 

box music retailers continues its deserved 

death knell; but rather than capitulate to 

digital retail trends, we should take this 

opportunity to re-engage with the crucial 

and brave cultural services provided by the 

good people at Red Cat Records. 

Red Cat Records is located at 2447 

Hastings St. and 4332 Main St. 

LANDYACHTZ BIKES 

local skateboard company gets in the cycle lane 


When Thomas Edstrand and Michael 

Perreten saw that the vacant building 

on 1146 Union St. was for sale, it was like 

fate. They’d talked about making their 

own bicycles twenty years ago while 

they were students at the University of 

Victoria, around the same time they 

decided to start their handmade 

skateboard company, Landyachtz. 

Just a few blocks from their existing 

workshop and located right on the 

Adanac bike route, the 5,000 square 

foot space provided the perfect 

opportunity to finally expand. 

“Our business has always been 

about doing things that we believe 

in,” Perreten says, “and from the first 

boards that we made, we were really 

ideological.” With both founders 

being avid skaters and cyclists, 

improving quality of life by getting 

outside and being active is at the core 

of Landyachtz’s values. “It’s a positive 

thing and so it’s great to be producing 

a product that does that for people,” 

adds Edstrand. 

Like with their boards, craftsmanship 

and design are two of the most 

integral components of Edstrand and 

Perreten’s bicycles. So important, in 

fact, that when they received their 

first product sample, they shipped 

it back to the manufacturer because 

it didn’t live up to their standards. 

They then decided to craft the bikes 

in-house themselves — something 

that would not only ensure premium 

quality, but also facilitate a special 

connection between the rider and 

their ride. “When you build something 

in your community here, then people 

have more of a connection to it,” 

Edstrand explains. “People have a 

better relationship with the product.” 

And it’s all about the details. The 

two models, the Landyachtz City Bike 

and the 1146 Series, are both sleek and 

easy on the graphics, made with specific 

functionality in mind. For urban terrain, 

the LCB has a race-inspired frame, a flat 

handlebar, and hydraulic disc brakes; the 

1146 combines road bike geometry with 

its Columbus steel tubing to provide 

speed and comfort. 

That once-vacant building on 1146 

Union St. is now the Landyachtz Bikes 

flagship. Part retail shop, part workshop, 

and part community hub, with a ramp 

in the back and an arcade room, it’s 

truly a brick and mortar embodiment 

of hard work, hopes, and dreams — all 

made with love. 

Landyachtz Bikes is located at 1146 Union St. 

26 CITY 


FLUFFY KITTENS 

a sanctuary for those who like their cream iced and their kombucha in a float 

Come for the flavors, stay for the hanging basket chair, do the namesake proud. 

MENSCH. JEWISH 

DELICATESSEN 

enter at own risk: new life obsession resides inside 


What makes a great pillow and is also 

the name of Vancouver’s newest ice 

cream shop? Fluffy Kittens. 

It’s dinnertime on a cold day that 

threatens rain, but people are still filling 

the Chinatown shop. The David Bowie 

soundtrack only pauses for Queen and 

kids are spinning in a hanging nest. 

Everything is ridiculously pastel. 

I’m struck by a large splotch of 

pink on the otherwise-whitewashed 

walls, the focal point of the shop. 

Random names are scrawled in cursive 

on this splotch: Salt Lick, Tubify, Say 

Hello, Artisto. Are these flavours? Can 

I eat them? I have so much to learn. 

It turns out these are the ice 

cream, gelato, and popsicle makers, 

most of them severely local and loveintensive. 

The freezers — known as 

“dipping cabinets” to the aficionados 

— reveal the true flavours, but even 

these are strangers to my Neapolitan 

upbringing: maple fennel, buttermilk 

rhubarb, peach bourbon, chocolate 

chili. Though they do have vanilla. “To 

be honest, it’s one of my favourites,” 

says Claudine Michaud. 

Michaud is now on my Interesting 

Persons list. The owner of a Kitsilano 

spa, she originally intended to open up 

a wellness center and organic café — 

when the adjacent space was offered, 

she grabbed it to host pop-ups. But 

when one fell through — an ice cream 

shop — she wanted a scoop so badly she 

decided to open her own. 

Now, Michaud and her business 

partner and partner-partner Kirin — 

the Rennies of the holistic world — are 

hooked, and I can see why. Michaud has 

her favourite flavour stashed in the back. 

Kirin is sipping a draft of Hoochybooch 

Kombucha (that’s right: they have it on 

tap, and they do floats). The refurbished 

shop is a true mundane-to-sundae affair. 

And as the community rallies in this small 

space of hanging nests and damn good ice 

cream, I understand why it is full on a rainy 

Fall evening. Because how can you say no 

to ice cream, and love — and how can you 

say no to Fluffy Kittens? 

Fluffy Kittens is located at 611 Gore 

Avenue and is open from 3pm - 10:30pm, 

Monday - Sunday. 


Nitzan Cohen looks a little 

worried. Probably because sorrow 

has clouded my face after taking 

a tentative bite of the Reuben 

sandwich he’s put in front of me. 

But Cohen, know this: I never 

smile when I eat a great meal. 

Instead, your Reuben is making 

me question what little meaning 

I’ve eked out of my existence. And it’s 

because of the pastrami. 

The pastrami is a destroyer 

of worlds. I can only describe it as 

thus: incomparable. Cohen, the 

mensch behind Mensch. Jewish 

Delicatessen, makes it himself — 

the only one on the West Coast who 

does, he claims, north of Portland. 

Slow-cooked in the shop and paired 

with local, fresh-baked bread and 

a home-brined pickle, the meat — 

and sandwich — are prepared in 

front of you, to order. Meat & Bread 

tastes like Lunchables to me now. 

The menu is as Spartan as the small 

shop. Along with the reuben and 

pastrami, an egg salad rounds out 

the sandwich trifecta. “One man who 

lived in New York came here looking 

for real pastrami,” Cohen tells me in a 

soft Israeli accent. “He started getting 

it twice a week. Then I convinced him 

to try the egg salad. Now he gets that 

twice a week.” 

The lox is also incredible, made 

in-house with flavours of beet, vodka, 

and dill, sitting on a bagel with a 

Winnipeg snowdrift of Labneh cheese. 

And I don’t know if I still need to say 

it, but yes, he also makes the cheese 

himself. I don’t think Cohen sleeps. 

But if he isn’t sleeping, it’s because 

he’s trying to reawaken a tradition of 

real food, made well. “I’m not trying 

to reinvent the wheel. I’m trying to do 

something simple. Everything in here 

is simple.” And simple talks volumes 

— but his customers don’t. Their 

mouths are full of pastrami. 

Mensch. Jewish Delicatessen is 

located at 666 East Broadway and 

is open from 11am - 3pm, Monday - 

Wednesday and Sunday; 11am - 7pm, 

Thursday - Friday. 

Hot pastrami and home-cured lox worth leaving New York for. 

October 2016 CITY 

27

WHAT A CITY IS FOR 

bringing the city back to the people amongst the hip allure of ownership 

Sadie Barker 

When asked about the origins of 

his new book, What a City Is For, 

East Vancouver-based author and 

teacher Matt Hern refers back nearly 

ten years ago to trips to Portland 

with his graduate students. The days 

consisted of meetings with nonprofit 

organizations and planners 

— faces of Portland’s innovative 

urbanization — all of whom, it was 

quickly noted, were white. In an effort 

to diversify, Hern sought connections 

with initiatives in Portland’s black 

and Latino communities. This proved 

challenging because, he says, “Portland 

is the whitest city ever.” But it wasn’t 

always, and tracing the development of 

Portland to its current reputation — a 

liberal-dwelling locale, ripe with craft 

beer and green space — narrates an 

upsetting history. 

Portland’s development in 

the last 20 years is shadowed by 

racist constitution, discriminatory 

real-estate practice, and systemic 

displacement. Today Albina, once a 

predominately black neighborhood, 

is unrecognizable: white and uppermiddle 

class, with exclusive housing 

prices. The story surrounding it — 

a shift from black community, to 

“classic ghetto,” to site of renewed 

investment — is ubiquitous. It dictates 

the social pathologies, like addiction, 

unemployment, and displacement that 

arise when a community is subject to 

racial gentrification. This includes the 

withdrawing of social services and housing 

condemnation, typically followed by 

renewed investment in the neighborhood 

by those who can afford it. 

Hern, who has 

spearheaded many initiatives 

in his Commercial Drive 

community including 

Groundswell: Grassroots 

Economic Alternatives, is familiar 

with the problematic relationship 

between improvement and capital. 

This phenomenon is reflected in the 

skyrocketing real estate of his own 

neighborhood and the “For Sale” sign 

on his front door. Hern though, is 

hasty to differentiate between degrees 

of displacement, deeming his own 

inconsequential in comparison to 

Albina or the theft of Indigenous land. 

Portland’s urban narrative is a 

common one and it’s pervasive in 

many cities, Vancouver included. 

Commodification of land is an oftenpresumed 

concept within Western 

property rights, but it’s also, Hern 

claims, the root of civic peril. Indeed, in a 

city like Vancouver, with a 50/50 split of 

renters and buyers, property ownership 

fosters oppositional politics — owners 

seeking high property value, renters 

seeking low-rent. But should land be 

commodified? Property ownership is 

entrenched in Western consciousness, 

but that that doesn’t make it right. 

A reworking may be in order. 

Hern suggests investing in cooperative, 

non-market provisions of property, 

recognizing the importance of common 

and unfettered land, and looking 

towards Indigenous concepts of 

sovereignty. Because what is a city for? 

A city is for everyone. 

Matt Hern discusses and launches his 

book, What a City Is For, at the Djavad 

Mowafaghian World Art Center on 


Matt Hern looks at the epidemic that is gentrification 

and the scars it leaves on a community 

VANCOUVER IN THE SEVENTIES 

the dawn of Vancouver’s social justice backbone caught on film 

Jennie Orton 

As the matrix has made pocketsized 

camera computers available to 

almost every person on the planet to 

document the world around them, 

the art of photo documentation has 

gone from quality to quantity in the 

blink of a photo burst. As a result, you 

can notice two intriguing truths while 

strolling the 400 images on display at 

The Museum of Vancouver’s Vancouver 

in the Seventies: Photos from a Decade 

that Changed the City exhibit: the 

vocation of photojournalism has, by 

accessibility, become an evolved artistry 

less dependent on instinct and timing, 

and much of what gives Vancouver its 

human pulse remains unchanged. 

Curator Viviane Gosselin talks 

about the exhibition, which is a sister 

project of the book by the same name 

written by retired Vancouver Sun 

research librarian Kate Bird, and the 

decision to categorize the images by 

theme instead of chronologically, as they 

are presented in the book; ideas such as 

“Building in Vancouver,” “Performing in 

Vancouver,” and “Playing in Vancouver,” 

to name a few. This practice allowed 

for attention to be paid to the 

vibe of the city and how much the 

decade was seminal in establishing 

Vancouver’s personality. 

“Something I find captivating is 

protesting in Vancouver in the ‘70s, a lot 

of the issues are resonating with today,” 

notes Gosselin. The exhibit features 

photos documenting the Gastown 

Riots in 1971 (a clash between smokein 

protesters wanting the legalization 

of marijuana and police), the Battle of 

Jericho (a showdown between hippies 

squatting in the abandoned barracks of 

Jericho Beach and police that resulted 

in a dialogue about affordable options 

for young travellers in the city), and the 

1971 founding of Greenpeace Canada in 

Vancouver amidst concerns of nuclear 

testing and pipelines. 

“For every decade since the ‘20s 

there have always been a lot of people 

in the streets protesting and exercising 

their democratic right so I think it has 

become something of a Vancouverite 

ethos: that we want to manifest and we 

want to express ourselves and we do 

that as a collective, and the streets 

are the outlet or the place to do that,” 

Gosselin continues. 

What sets these images apart is the 

compositional expertise adopted by those 

who chose to make photojournalism their 

career in the 1970s. 

“Certainly when you look at 

those 400 images, they are amazing 

historical documents but they are 

also aesthetically stunning,” Gosselin 

posits. “They are beautiful art 

documents.” 

Vancouver in the Seventies: Photos from 

a Decade that Changed the City runs at 

the Museum of Vancouver from October 

13 - February 26. 

28 CITY 


ACCESS TO CANNABIS FOR 

MEDICAL PURPOSES REGULATIONS 

the right to grow causes ripples in the medicinal pot pond 

Jennie Orton 

The announcement on August 24 of the provisions 

under the newly minted Access to Cannabis for 

Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) put the 

legal right to grow marijuana for medicinal use 

back in the hands of registered medicinal users. 

But as Vincent Vega once said: it’s legal, but it ain’t 

100% legal. Here’s 

what you need 

to know about 

the amended 

regulations. 

The favorable 

ruling in Allard v. 

Canada earlier this 

year declared it a 

violation of liberty 

and security 

rights protected 

by section seven 

of the Canadian 

Charter of Rights 

and Freedoms to 

require individuals 

to get marijuana 

only from licensed 

producers. The 

right to grow 

for personal 

medicinal use 

was stripped 

from the formerly 

accepted MMAR 

(Marihuana Medical Access Regulations) when 

it was amended into the MMPR (Marihuana for 

Medical Purposes Regulations) in June of 2013. 

You following this so far? 

This ruling was contested in a number of 

directions: R v. Smith in June of 2015 resulted 

in the expansion of legal products from just 

dry plant to other extractions, then the Allard 

decision in February of 2016 resulted in the 

formation of the ACMPR. 

According to Terry Roycroft of the Medicinal 

Cannabis Resource Centre Inc., the changes 

merely bring the situation back to its roots but 

don’t deal with any of the problems that led to 

the court decisions that changed the MMAR in 

the first place. 

“People can grow their own medicine, 

they have the choice so that’s really good 

for the patients,” Roycroft admits. “The 

downside is they’ve re-introduced the 

doctors into the mix here. Back in the MMAR 

there was a lot of pressure on doctors to sign 

off on large amounts because this is where 

dispensaries get a lot of their product. They 

get it from the MMAR growers. It’s not legal; 

it’s a grey area.” 

This creative method of growing for 

profit under the legal umbrella of registered 

medicinal use is a significant shortcoming in 

the regulations surrounding the right to grow. 

“The doctors are all seeing a lot more people 

coming to them, wanting to grow, and pushing for 

higher grow limits,” notes Roycroft. “They have 

put the doctors in the untenable position now of 

being again the gatekeepers.” 

Under the new rules, licensed medicinal 

users can grow five plants outdoors or two plants 

indoors for every 

gram prescribed 

by their doctor. 

Materials to grow 

the plants are 

now allowed to be 

supplied by licensed 

providers in the 

form of seeds or 

cuttings. This is the 

only legal way to buy 

growing materials, 

although seeds can 

be procured from 

various sources 

outside that. See, 

this is what Vega 

was talking about. 

Where it gets 

sticky, so to speak, 

is the fact that there 

are no ratios on the 

height of the plants 

or number of lights. 

So, licensed growers 

can grow their 

allotted plants to a wide variance of heights and size, 

making it possible to grow extremely large amounts 

of medicine every month; the excess of which ends 

up often being sold to the dispensaries. 

Though this lack of ratios can result in a sort 

of lawless excess in the local market, it can make it 

possible for licensed growers to grow enough 

product to create extractions; the production 

of which requires exponentially more plant 

than just rolling does. Oils are legal to produce 

by growers and, unlike the oils produced 

legally by licensed producers, wherein the 

THC level is restricted to 3% per gram, the 

THC levels are not regulated. Any extraction 

can be made by materials either personally 

grown or purchased from LPs and can be 

made as strong as the individual requires. As 

such, the upsides and drawbacks of the right 

to grow are equally matched. 

For those who are recent or continuing 

licensed medicinal users who want 

information and/or assistance with their 

applications to either possess or grow, you 

can contact the Medicinal Cannabis Resource 

Centre Inc. and set up an appointment with 

one of their physicians to discuss your options 

and get information on the use of medicinal 

marijuana. 

Call the Medicinal Cannabis Resource Centre at 1-855- 

537-6272 or check them out online at mcrci.com. 

October 2016 CITY 

29

film 

This Month 

in Film 


Halloween at The Rio – Oct. 31 

Couldn’t find the sexy Swamp-Thing 

costume you were looking for? Skip the 

clubs and haunt the Rio’s Halloween 

triple-bill instead. Start off by jamming 

to Harry Belafonte with Beetlejuice. 

Next, the power of Christ will likely 

compel you to watch one of the scariest 

movies of all time, The Exorcist. Chase 

off the chills by finishing with the light 

hearted Rocky Horror Picture Show: 

Halloween Edition. It’s the perfect excuse 

to dress up as an alien transvestite. 

Jim Jarmusch finds a kindred connection in The Stooges’s rare brand of keeping it real. 

Upcoming Releases 

Everyone’s on the lookout for the next 

big horror flick, and what could be 

scarier than Being 17? But this highly 

acclaimed movie is far from the shits 

how your Shins-year was, following 

two warring teens who are forced to 

live with each other—and with their 

complicated desires. (October 7) In 

the realm of uncomplicated desires, 

Inferno sees Robert Langdon once 

again wanting to unravel a mystery— 

until he wakes up with amnesia. The 

desires are uncomplicated further 

when his doctor turns out to be an 

attractive, intelligent, single woman. 

(October 13) But Langdon’s troubles 

with the church can’t hold a crucible 

to the fraternal feuders of Oasis. 

Supersonic is a documentary from the 

Academy Award-winning producers of 

Amy and weaves concert footage with 

candid interviews in what could be the 

biggest sibling rivalry since Cleopatra 

and Ptolemy (October 26). 

Gimme Danger 

Detroit’s most badass tattoo that will never quite stop itching 

Jennie Orton 

There is a group of people, both 

larger than you expect and smaller 

than deserved, who cite The Stooges 

as the greatest rock band that ever 

existed. There are glossier entries 

into this title competition, but as Jim 

Jarmusch lovingly demonstrates in his 

rockumentary Gimme Danger, none 

as steadfast in their conviction to be 

themselves as this band. 

In a candid and surprisingly 

soothing gravely delivery, a voice 

flavored overtop of years of relentless 

vocal theatrics and bouts of substance 

courting, Iggy Pop details the long but 

refreshingly genuine tale of The Stooges 

and not only their many rises and falls, 

but the cultivation of their very selfaware 

presence in the rock pantheon. 

Though the surviving founding 

members were present at time of filming 

and accounted for in one recorded 

documentation or another (guitarist Ron 

Asheton died of a heart attack in 2009, 

his brother drummer Scott Asheton died 

of a heart attack in 2014, and saxophone 

player Steve Mackay in 2015) they all begin 

to turn into dads before your eyes, while 

waxing romantic about the journey that 

both made them and broke them over 

the years. It is only Pop, who retains 

his appearance as a Velociraptor, who 

outlives the rest, both literally and 

figuratively, to tell the whole tale. 

As a music documentary, this 

film does a somewhat orgasmically 

detailed job of chipping away at the 

sedimentary rock that is The Stooges’ 

growth as a musical entity: from Pop’s 

early influences of Soupy Sales and the 

“mega clang” of the metal puncher at a 

car manufacturing plant he visited on a 

school trip, to their decision to not follow 

John Sinclair and his disciples down the 

primrose path of white panther madness 

in the late sixties and the wild ride that 

was Ziggy Stardust’s ever pluming wake. 

But it is Jarmusch’s skill at finding the 

surprise in the story that mines the beauty 

out of this band’s relentless loyalty to 

not only each other but their roots (Iggy 

Pop, believe it or not, cites living in close 

proximity to his parents, who let him 

have their master bedroom for his drum 

set, as one of his early life gifts). Jarmusch 

succeeds where others have failed; those 

who tried to, as Pop puts it, “penetrate the 

tangled web of our career”, only to “drop 

out in horror”. 

This is a tale from the ever topical 

front lines of Detroit, where people are 

made from steel wire, and music has a 

certain work ethic attached to it the 

dwarfs other venues. The Stooges may 

not be cited in the same annals of the 

likes of the Beatles or the Stones or even 

the Thin White Duke himself, but they knew 

how to shake shit up in a way that endures. 

“I think I helped wipe out the 60s,” 

Pop admits with a grin; the type of grin 

earned after years of inducing primal 

squirms from those just one inch away from 

total freedom. 

Gimme Danger will be released 


30 film 


Bon Iver 

22, A Million 

Jagjaguwar Records 

Justin Vernon, or Bon Iver, is an endlessly memeable 

cultural character. From the now self-parody 

narrative of Justin Vernon retreating to an isolated 

cabin in the woods to record For Emma Forever Ago 

(2009), to his upset Grammy win and the resultant 

“who the heck is Bonny Bear?” backlash. The weight 

of expectation plays heavily into a major music 

release, but few artists with as much mainstream 

success seem to be as dedicated to move beyond 

what has driven their success, as Bon Iver. 

Folks who pine for the passionate guitar-folk 

of tracks like “Skinny Love” and “Lump Sum” were 

somewhat left in the dust for the misty and layered 

second record, the sultry, Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011), 

but it’s hard to lament the change too much. That 

said, the more low-tempo, atmosphere-centric 

tonality that characterizes Bon Iver, Bon Iver, and 

carries on into 22, A Million doesn’t come entirely 

out of left field. Vernon has released two records 

under his own name, the second of which, the wispy 

Hazeltons (2006) features some of the same vocal 

doubling that would go on to characterize Bon 

Iver. The long-winded, post-rock inspired Volcano 

Choir, and specifically their 2013 record Repave, also 

pushed Vernon’s penchant for experimentation. 

What seems to separate Bon Iver from Vernon’s 

catalogue is one thing: Vernon’s voice. Falsetto 

vocals, creative auto-tune, and beautiful, but 

obfuscatory lyrics permeate all stages of Bon Iver’s 

discography, and true-to-form, on this new release, 

vocals are somehow even more prescient. 

The lead up to the release of 22, A Million has done the 

record a palpable disservice. The unpronounceable 

tracklist, ambiguous title, and Vernon’s obnoxiously 

public bromance with hip-hop Godhead Kanye 

West manifested a disingenuous narrative of ‘Bon 

Iver goes electronic.’ But that is not what 22, A 

Million sounds like. 

Instrumentally, the record is divergent from its 

predecessors, especially in its earlier tracks, but it 

never strays tonally from what has been established. 

Opening cut and early release “22 (OVER S∞∞N),” 

opens with what sounds like a lo-fi vocal loop, with 

a cute auto-tune sample suggesting ‘it might be 

over soon.’ It’s a unique and gripping introduction, 

but as soon as Vernon’s falsetto vocals begin 

spewing pleasant, but incomprehensible lyrics and 

a disaffected electric guitar accented by floating 

horns enter the soundscape, the track reveals itself 

unapologetically Bon Iver. 

This cut, and the rhythmic, compressed, 

“10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄” that follows are 

among the most sample-driven songs. The 

latter’s squelchy drum loop is possibly the most 

ostentatious movement for the entire duration. 

Not to say that the smaller movements are 

boring, but there are moments that are staged a 

bit like adult contemporary. There is a softness and 

a smoothness that ques accessibility. “8 (circle)” is 

perhaps the best example, a track that opens with an 

airy ‘90s vintage synth, flute, and some delay-heavy 

snare rims. It borders on cheesy, but holds onto a 

horn-fronted swagger as it builds. The track also 

holds a tonal and melodic similarity to Frank Ocean’s 

perfect “Thinking About You,” which serves as a 

reminder of Vernon’s hip hop connections, without 

ever getting his feet too wet. 

The closest Bon Iver gets to stepping out of his own 

skin is the strangely affecting “715 – CRΣΣKS.” 

Vernon’s vocals are multiplied and pitched up and 

down to create robotic harmonies with himself. It 

works to such great effect, that the relatively clean 

piano that opens 

“33 “GOD” immediately thereafter feels a little 

awkward, especially when the cringe-worthy lyric “I’d 

be happy as hell if you stayed for tea” jumps out early 

in the song. This track eventually redeems itself when 

a fast and complex drum track breaks the rhythm, 

but this transition, and several others like it, hurt the 

flow of the record. 

22, A Million starts and stops frequently in this 

manner all the way through its first half, but after “29 

#Strafford APTS” kicks in with its familiar acoustic 

guitar picking and distant pianos, the record settles 

into a flow that is much more reminiscent of Bon Iver, 

Bon Iver. The closing track “00000 Million” bookends 

the record as only Bon Iver can, with a sparkly major 

key piano ballad intercut with a fitting Fion Regan 

sample. Once again, the lyrics feel subservient to the 

soaring vocal melody, but in doing so it removes any 

inherent cliché in the song’s otherwise pop-standard 

structure. 

It’s hard to tell if 22, A Million is the record we 

wanted from Bon Iver. The production is strange, and 

often disjointed, but the songwriting is familiar in all 

the right ways. The textural horns, frequent pianos 

and hazy synthesizers that permeate the record all 

feel like Bon Iver at this point, and the few acoustic 

guitar and banjo features are similarly comforting 

in their familiarity. The moments where Bon Iver 

commits the hardest to his new electronic aesthetic 

and lets samples and modulation define the tone are 

the most successful, if only because they come the 

closest to fulfilling the promise of the “Bon Iver goes 

electronic” narrative. 

22, A Million is listenable from front to back, an 

album through and through, and although not 

without its awkward moments, is one that should 

help make your winter another good one. 

• Liam Prost 

• Illustration by Greg Doble 

October 2016 film 

31

album reviews 

Banks, The Altar Crying, Beyond the Fleeting Gales Cymbals Eat Guitars, Pretty Years D.D Dumbo, Utopia Defeated 

À La Mode 

Perfection Salad 

Independent 

In keeping with the cuisine-centric 

image portrayed by À La Mode, 

Winnipeg’s self-described “heart-pop” 

band, Perfection Salad is a delicious 

recipe of synth-pop, slacker-rock, and 

millennial melancholy spread over 27 

minutes and two languages. 

The band’s debut full-length 

features a sublime mix of sleepy, oneiric 

melodies and louder, more upbeat 

indie-rock jams all complemented 

by the skill of vocalist Dominique 

Lemoine’s occasionally-accented 

storytelling. 

Parallels can be drawn between À 

La Mode and Baltimore’s dream-popdarlings 

Beach House, especially on 

tracks like the ironically-titled “Never 

Sleep Again,” which features a hazy, 

almost nursery-rhyme atmosphere, 

complete with softly twinkling chimes, 

and a beautiful string section. 

“Ce sentiment,” the albums 

attention-grabbing third track, follows a 

quiet-loud-quiet format that showcases 

the power and maturity of Lemoine’s 

voice in a way that isn’t necessarily 

prevalent on many of the albums 

simpler pieces. 

Even a track like “Total Doom”, 

which is ‘cutesy’ almost to a fault, doesn’t 

detract from what is ultimately a 

strong release. 

Overall, Perfection Salad isn’t 

perfect, but it is a delectable slice of indiepop 

that is sure to leave you satisfied. 

Banks 

The Altar 

Harvest 

• Alec Warkentin 

A subdued but gorgeous voice, 

alone in a room with nothing but 

a piano and her frustrations of 

failed romances. This is how Banks’ 

sophomore release The Altar opens, 

and it is one of the album’s best 

moments. The singer thrives when 

her vulnerability is accentuated by 

the bevy of vocal effects, Wonkyinfluenced 

beats and the occasional 

stripped-back ballad that make up 

her music. “Fuck With Myself,” with 

its piercing string-pluck synths, hits 

this mark wonderfully, covering the 

topics of self-acceptance, self-love and 

self-destruction that the title suggests. 

Self-acceptance is a running theme of the 

The Altar. The title evokes Banks herself 

as a Goddess, the title of her debut, that 

she herself is praying to. Standouts 

“Gemini Feed” and “Mother Earth” 

also hit on this topic effectively. 

Unfortunately, The Altar faces 

the same general problems that 

her debut did with an overstuffed 

tracklist that hides its gems in 

between a lot of filler. “Trainwreck” 

is a suitably titled track, and dulls the 

listener’s impression of the entire 

album with its overly trendy, EDMfocused 

sing-rapping which doesn’t 

play to any of Banks’ strengths. “This 

is Not About Us,” “Weaker Girl” and 

“Judas,” while not as overtly bad, 

are dull and do nothing to either 

impress or interest the listener. As 

a soulful crooner writing confessionals 

about the trappings of relationships, 

Banks is an extremely talented lyricist 

with a knack for ear-catching melody. 

It’s just too bad she only shows up for 

half of The Altar. 

Crying 

Beyond the Fleeting Gales 

Run For Cover 

• Cole Parker 

Crying is a charming New York trio 

that got their start doing genre fusions 

of twee pop and chiptune, somehow 

managing to make the blend sound 

good. This was mostly thanks to an 

exceptional sense of melody and 

remarkably earnest lyrics from lead 

singer Elaiza Santos. That was only 

two years ago, when they released two 

EPs, Get Olde and Second Wind. 

Beyond the Fleeting Gales is their 

first full-length record. Despite that, 

the record already serves as a bit of 

a departure from the group’s stylistic 

roots, which might seem obvious 

from the admittedly awful album 

cover. Despite the album art’s gaelic 

typeface and plain images of blue skies 

and green fields, the album has more in 

common with Irish rockers Thin Lizzy 

than with the hypothetical Celtic 

gospel album it seems to hearken 

back to. Moving away from the 8-bit 

and sliding closer to the ‘70s and ‘80s, 

their debut is chock-full of hair metal 

shreds and Yes-like arpeggiated synth 

leads. Impressively, they never seem to 

fall into the corny clichés that plague 

the rock music of those decades. The 

Game Boys are gone, replaced almost 

entirely by boss-battle-adjacent 

synths. They provide atmosphere 

for the LP’s slower forays into progish 

power ballads, and harmonize 

with Santos’s voice in a way that still 

sounds unique. Beyond the Fleeting 

Gales is Crying ditching their gimmick, 

while still managing to carve out their 

own distinctive niche. 

Cymbals Eat Guitars 

Pretty Years 

Sinderlyn 

• Cole Parker 

Even in a year filled with stranger 

things and get downs, Cymbals Eat 

Guitars’ Pretty Years turns out to be 

the most impressive throwback to a 

wistful time period more invigorating 

than our own. Although Pretty Years is 

an album that is heavily influenced by 

the golden eras of Springsteen, Bowie, 

and the Cure, it is, against all odds, 

entirely unique; the band’s very own 

masterpiece. 

Pretty Years is heavy on warm, 

catchy synths and vibrant bass lines, 

contributing to the overall nostalgic 

sound of the album. As with all 

Cymbals Eat Guitars work, the guitar 

work is something to be admired, 

but the lyrics are what transcend the 

album into something iconic and 

unforgettable. “Goodbye to my 

dancing days/Goodbye to the friends 

who fell away/Goodbye to my pretty 

years,” wails Joseph D’Agostino, the 

band’s founder and frontman, on the 

chorus of standout track “Dancing 

Days.” It’s hard to imagine that D’Agostino 

only started writing choruses with 2014’s 

excellent LOSE. 

Even though the album was 

recorded and cut in under a week, you 

wouldn’t be able to tell. Lyrically and 

musically, Pretty Years is the product 

of passion. Each band member had a 

volcano of inspiration brewing inside 

of their souls—suddenly overflowing, 

ready to explode at any moment. So 

rather than letting the energy go to 

waste, they went to the studio. 

D.D Dumbo 

Utopia Defeated 

4AD 

• Paul McAleer 

Twenty-seven-year-old Oliver 

Perry lives a relatively simple life in 

Castlemaine, Australia. He lives in a 

small shed attached to some horse 

stables, an idyllic rural lifestyle that Perry 

uses to make his auteurist pop music 

as D.D Dumbo. His self-recorded EP, 

2013’s Tropical Oceans, is a looping, lo-fi 

adventure into the head of a musicallymeditative 

madman. Utopia Defeated, 

D.D Dumbo’s debut album for 4AD, 

continues that trend, but strips away 

the lo-fi and pushes it into a professional 

studio. The result is a wild, whimsical trip 

into the mind of one of indie music’s most 

underrated songwriters. 

Dumbo uses a 12-string guitar, and 

instruments from around the world, to 

create a rich textural background for 

each of his creations to chug along within. 

Album opener “Walrus,” is a head-bopping 

pop tune akin to a subdued Vampire 

Weekend. Dumbo’s voice is restlessly 

expressive, always searching for groove 

amongst the kinetic rhythm. The funky, 

imaginative “Satan” is further proof of 

this, showing off Dumbo’s confident 

tenor that can reach into falsetto with 

unpredictable ease. Overall, Utopia 

Defeated is a rhythmically dense debut 

that marks Dumbo as a major talent to 

follow both now, and hopefully well into 

the future. 

Gal Gracen 

The Hard Part Begins 

DISNY Records 

• Jamie McNamara 

The Hard Part Begins with a goodbye, 

the scent of cologne, leaving a humid 

crowded concert hall and stepping into 

the crisp night air, snow crunching 

beneath your feet. The nods to this 

experience in the first song’s beginning 

lines act as Scene One in a collection 

of musical anecdotes dedicated to the 

plight of a wallflower and his surreal 

take on what occurs around him. 

Patrick Geraghty describes his 

project, Gal Gracen, as “Devotional 

Voyeurism,” which even more than his 

initial release, Blue Hearts in Exile, 

it is. This follow-up EP of selfrecorded 

songs is the story and 

well-stewed over observations of 

someone looking from the outside 

in, desperately trying to make sense of 

what they see. All this is set to Geraghty’s 

signature dallying guitar riffs, some janky 

synths and the occasional wisp of flute. 

The anxiety, the poetry, the ’60s-gonewrong-sounds, 

all works together to 

create a new genre, a sort-of neurotic 

psychedelia. 

Like slacker rock’s jumpier and more 

apprehensive little brother, Gal Gracen’s 

The Hard Part Begins should play in the 

background of all your fever dreams 

• Maya-Roisin Slater 

32 reviews 



34 


Green Day, Revolution Radio Mick Jenkins, The Healing Component Jimmy Eat World, Integrity Blues JoJo, Mad Love 

Green Day 

Revolution Radio 

Reprise 

When you use the term “Revolution” 

in your album title, you set an 

expectation for something earth 

shattering in its importance. What 

Green Day has instead provided with 

Revolution Radio is a mashup of social 

justice keyword pop punk ditties with 

bratty, throwback Green Day threechord 

thrashers. The result is a mixture 

of emotions: you feel glad to hear them 

being brats again, but you keep getting 

hit with the same misguided attempt 

at topical moral fabric that brought us 

that tragic, poser cover of John Lennon’s 

“Working Class Hero” in 2007. That’s not 

to say the album doesn’t have its fun bits; 

debut single “Bang Bang,” is as mean, 

messy and relentless as a Green Day track 

should be. “Say Goodbye,” which owes 

its backbone to Jack White, is a catchy 

rabble-rouser, and “Too Dumb to Die” 

has some neato feedback to it. 

Unfortunately, there are just 

as many flaccid entries to match: 

“Revolution Radio” sounds more like 

Blink-182 whining about how no one 

listens to them, “Still Breathing” is trite 

and full of long-road rhymes like coupling 

“horizon” with “siren,” and “Youngblood” 

is a song that should just not be written 

by someone in their mid-40s. Green 

Day has always been striving to be more 

impactful on a social scale than they are, and 

for that they deserve to be commended, 

but ultimately what would be a more 

honest record is one about what it feels like 

to weather that storm and come up short. 

‘Cause that is the real modern activism: 

being angry and frustrated and unable to 

find a way to make a difference. 

Mick Jenkins 

The Healing Component 

Free Nation Records 

• Jennie Orton 

Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins has always 

been fascinated with water. The way it 

functions as a life force, but also the ways 

it can take life away. His breakthrough 

mixtape, 2014’s The Water[s], used 

this fascination to cement the 

25-year-old as a Chicago rapper that 

favours intimate introspection over 

belligerent bangers. 

His debut album, The Healing 

Component, finds him fixating on 

love, often using water as a metaphor 

for an all-consuming love. On “Strange 

Love,” Jenkins talks about drowning 

underwater, the beat flowing like 

a babbling brook complementing 

his baritone voice and easy-going 

cadence perfectly. Two tracks 

later he takes this metaphor to an 

even more powerful place with 

“Drowning,” his collaboration with 

BADBADNOTGOOD. The band 

barely makes themselves known in the 

first two minutes of the song, using 

sparse instrumentation while Jenkins’ 

brings his voice to a falsetto register 

with vulnerable veracity. He repeats Eric 

Garner’s final words, now a rallying cry for 

the Black Lives Matter movement, “I can’t 

breathe,” like an incantation, dwelling 

on the words until he finally gives in and 

drops a rapid fire flow that ruminates on 

the American political landscape. 

Elsewhere, Jenkins enlists newlyminted, 

Polaris Prize 2016 winner 

Kaytranada to pick up the pace on 

two tracks. The first, the celebratory 

“Communicate,” features Kaytra’s 

trademark bobbing bass lines and 

buoyant, constantly oscillating synths 

that propel the track into bona fide 

mainstream radio territory. It’s a fitting 

celebration for a young rapper that 

deserves all the praise he’s about to get. 

Jimmy Eat World 

Integrity Blues 

Dine Alone Records 

• Jamie McNamara 

Integrity Blues is the ninth studio 

album from Arizona’s Jimmy Eat World, 

following 2013’s Damage, an album 

that saw the band stray away from the 

studio and record straight-to-tape from 

home and which drew a mostly positive 

critical reception. 

The band worked with producer 

Justin Meldal-Johnsen (M83, Nine Inch 

Nails) and crafted a more polished 

sound than their preceding release’s 

rawer sound. Perhaps Meldal-Johnsen’s 

most notable influence comes through 

on the track “Pass The Baby,” which has 

an automated, electro-pop/alternative 

feel to it. Dark and moody to begin 

with, somewhat reminiscent of acts like 

Imagine Dragons or AWOLNATION. 

The track seems a little out of place, 

but its atmosphere actually transitions 

quite nicely into the following track 

“Get Right,” which is a lot more 

charged up and energetic, proof that 

the group still has preserved and 

maintained some of the youthful 

spirit responsible for their work on 

albums like 2001’s Bleed American. 

Overall this is a solid effort from 

a band who has been working for over 

two decades. Expect lots of cheery, 

bright and jangly guitar lines carrying 

Jim Adkins’ signature vocal style, with 

a few heartfelt ballads such as the title 

track of the record intermingled. 

JoJo 

Mad Love 

Atlantic 

• Paul Rodgers 

JoJo had a lot to fight for with this 

album. It’s her first official full-length 

with Atlantic Records since her drawn 

out split with her previous labels who 

caused “Irreparable damages to her 

professional career.” 

For those who remember her 

2004 hit “Leave (Get Out),” you’re 

late to the party. JoJo has released 

a series of brilliant, unpolished 

mixtapes in the past few years while 

fighting to be released from said labels. 

Title track “Mad Love,” is 

reminiscent of Rihanna’s “Love on the 

Brain.” JoJo flexes her entire vocal 

register while contemplating the 

universal questions that come up 

when you’re in a relationship so 

bad it’s good. It pulls in classic 

elements of big, orchestral R&B in a 

way that still feels fresh. “Vibe” tacks 

on to the dancehall riddim becoming 

all too common in pop music right 

now, but where her music leans on 

what’s popular, her lyricism and fierce 

independence make it seem new. 

Unexpected appearances from Remy Ma 

(on “FAB.”) and Alessia Cara (on “I Can 

Only”) show the link between JoJo as a hard 

b*tch and her roots as a pop princess. 

It’s clear JoJo has poured a lot of heart 

and soul into Mad Love. It’s a successful R&B 

album, if you can work past the formulaic 

moments and see the depth of musical 

knowledge JoJo’s utilized to get to this point. 

• Trent Warner 

October 2016 reviews 

35

Joyce Manor, Cody Mac Miller, The Divine Feminine Merchandise, A Corpse Wired for Sound M.I.A., AIM 

Joyce Manor 

Cody 

Epitaph 

Instead of relishing in the emo-rock 

revival and tracing its roots around, 

we should just acknowledge that Joyce 

Manor is lovable because they write 

tight, snappy pop-punk songs that 

never overstay their welcome. Cody 

even has the outfit writing some of 

their longest songs to date. Long, of 

course, is relative: the longest track on 

the record is still a paltry four minutes. 

As opening tracks go, rarely do 

you get one as precise and barn-raising 

as “Fake ID.” An anthemic guitar line 

cuts into focus leading into a perfectly 

pitched narrative about an attractive 

underage girl and her adoration of hiphop 

iconoclast Kanye West. The track 

is hilarious, sharp, and so listenable, 

you might even forget there is a whole 

record left to adore. 

And adore you shall, track after 

track, Cody is infectious and dynamic. 

“Angel in the Snow” and “Make Me 

Dumb,” in particular, both have 

rhythmic circularities and enticing singalong 

choruses. 

The record ebbs and flows strongly 

with a nice acoustic cut in “Do You 

Really Want to get Better” and a few 

well-earned down tempo movements 

throughout. Cody is almost too 

squeaky clean in its song and album 

structure, but that’s a pretty minor 

criticism of an otherwise punchy and 

fully realized outing. It’s quick, snappy, 

and we can’t stop listening to it. 

Merchandise 

A Corpse Wired for Sound 

4AD 

• Liam Prost 

Merchandise’s latest album A Corpse 

Wired for Sound isn’t quite sure what 

it’s trying to be. 

A dash of post-punk, a smattering 

of shoegaze, and a whole lot of synth, 

Corpse is an odd mishmash of tracks that 

manages to hold itself together through 

loud, echoing drum beats, pulsating 

basslines, and frontman Carson Cox’s 

brooding-yet-catchy vocal delivery. 

With a title lifted from a short story 

by sci-fi author JG Ballard, A Corpse 

Wired for Sound keeps with the theme 

by burying some of it’s more technical 

instrumentation underneath the rubble 

of dystopian dissonance. 

Stand-out tracks like sonic opener 

“Flower Of Sex,” and the deceptively 

cool “Shadow Of The Truth” have an 

infectious energy, but A Corpse Wired for 

Sound suffers from a tendency to aim for 

highs it can’t always seem to find. 

Still, the album is a welcomed 

change of direction from the 

Tampa three-piece, following 2014’s 

underwhelming After the End, and 

the peaks it does manage to hit are 

worth committing to the slightly over 

40-minute runtime. 

A Corpse Wired for Sound is 

undoubtedly a stronger record than 

Merchandise’s debut effort for 4AD, but 

ultimately leaves the listener wishing 

they had pushed this new transition a 

little further. 

M.I.A. 

AIM 

Interscope 

• Alec Warkentin 

As a self-proclaimed final album, M.I.A.’s 

fifth studio effort, AIM, is off the mark if 

the 41-year-old rapper wants to go out 

on a high note. The album opens with 

“Borders,” a track that has that classic 

M.I.A. style: a dance groove juxtaposed 

against a simplified-to-abstraction 

narrative. Unfortunately, the record 

wanes into a scheme of abrasive 

repetitiveness after that, with just a 

few moments of undeniable strength, 

artistry and spot on production. There’s 

a great willingness to experiment on 

the record that has to be admired, but 

M.I.A.’s show of vocal tone-deafness 

and lack of clarity is untoward and 

doesn’t do her justice. “Foreign Friend” 

is a prime example of this failing on 

the album, with its melodic pops of 

strength and singular moment of 

clever lyricism wasted by stale timing 

and consistent pitchiness. “Visa,” “Fly 

Pirate,” and the Diplo remix of “Bird 

Song” are saving graces on the record 

and better demonstrate M.I.A.’s ability 

to push repetitiveness in a track without 

going over the line. While the album 

fails as a last dance to remember, it does 

have some moments that will stand out 

in the full body of M.I.A’s work, leaving 

listeners hoping that she’ll come back 

again with another effort. 

Mac Miller 

The Divine Feminine 

REMember Music 

• Andrew R. Mott 

From a high school rapper selling 

CDs out of his backpack to telling 

introspective love stories, Mac Miller’s 

progression has been nothing short 

of spectacular. Miller’s fourth studio 

album, The Divine Feminine, boasts 

production from I.D. Labs, DJ Dahi, and 

Tae Beast amongst others. 

Features on the album come 

from Anderson .Paak, CeeLo Green, 

Kendrick Lamar, Ariana Grande and 

more. “Dang!” featuring Anderson .Paak 

was the first of three singles released 

before the album, and was followed by 

“We” featuring CeeLo Green, and “My 

Favorite Part” featuring Ariana Grande. 

Miller’s jazz influence is much more 

evident on The Divine Feminine than 

any of his other albums through his 

use of piano, horns, and a mood he 

sets like a fine red wine. The first track, 

“Congratulations” featuring Bilal, has 

Ariana Grande introduce the album 

before Miller sets the tone by calmly 

rhyming about a girl he loves, and the 

vivid memories he still has of her over a 

piano-riddled track produced by Miller 

(as Larry Fisherman) and Aja Grant. 

Throughout the album Miller 

focuses his rhymes on a lover, begging 

them not to leave on tracks like “Dang!” 

and “Stay,” and shows off both vocal 

improvement and lyrical maturity 

on “God Is Fair, Sexy Nasty” featuring 

Kendrick Lamar. 

Mr. Oizo 

All Wet 

Ed Banger Records 

• Dalton Dubetz 

Quentin Dupieux, aka Mr. Oizo, has a 

knack for breaking molds. The producer’s 

constant innovation over the last 20 years 

has cemented him as a closely-guarded 

secret – one that has started to leak into 

mainstream electronic consciousness. 

All Wet is but another morceau of 

psychedelic chirping in Mr. Oizo’s arsenal. 

Starting strong with “OK Then” and “Sea 

Horses,” Dupieux opens his oeuvre with 

a sleazy seminar on the archetypal funkladen 

French house sound. “Freezing Out,” 

featuring Canadian sex-siren Peaches, 

is a jarring departure from convention, 

a footwork-accented dubstep ode to 

vaginas. From then onward, Dupieux 

takes listeners on a veritable rollercoaster 

of sonic exploration. Standout dancefloorready 

tracks like “Ruhe,” “All Wet” and 

“Low Ink” clash with the bare noise of 

“Chairs” and “Useless” in a beautiful 

chaos best consumed as an album, not 

a shuffled mess of singles. 

Where Mr. Oizo’s sound was once 

too-future, votes of confidence from 

creative luminaries like Boys Noize, 

Charli XCX, and even Skrillex, are a 

resonating “fuck you” to the pandering, 

safe trend that electronic music has 

been invaded by as of late. Ultimately, 

Dupieux’s latest work is an unapologetic 

tapestry of intriguing tidbits. While 

few of its tracks fit the conventional 

definition of music, the impression is 

that Mr. Oizo never intended for them 

to be. All Wet, then, is a challenging, but 

rewarding listen for the open-minded. 

NOFX 

First Ditch Effort 

Fat Wreck Chords 

• Max Foley 

First Ditch Effort is the latest release 

from punk legends, NOFX. In anticipation 

of this album, two teaser songs 

were released: “Six Years on Dope,” 

which dropped in late August, and 

“Sid and Nancy,” released on Record 

Store Day. Both of these songs are great 

examples of the array of music on First 

Ditch Effort, both genuine and the 

ridiculous that is NOFX. Recently the 

band published their first book, The 

Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories, 

where they shared experiences on a 

very personal level. This album is almost 

a continuation of the same open 

honesty. Lyrically, First Ditch Effort 

has more depth, both personal and 

emotional, which is a far cry from their 

earlier albums. There are slightly more 

harmonies and little less political aggression, 

but this is NOFX; naturally the 

lyrics are smart and equally smartass, 

with cleverly camouflaged sarcasm and 

angst. Melodically, it’s as most NOFX albums 

are: infectiously upbeat, fast, and 

easily addictive. Short quick tempos 

are reminiscent of older albums, but 

they’ve also added slightly more complex 

and experimental elements to this 

album. From rhythm patterns, to the 

use of a piano and audio clips. Overall, 

First Ditch Effort is a great addition to 

the ever-growing NOFX discography. 

Conor Oberst 

Ruminations 

Nonesuch Records 

• Sarah Mac 

Conor Oberst, for as long as modern 

memory serves, has been a voice of 

fragility and yet brazenly earnest 

confessionals. At first, the patron 

saint of the broken hearted, leading 

Bright Eyes to fame with a swath of 

sweetly sad and oddly compelling 

tales. This time around, when Oberst 

sat down to write, the intention to 

make an album was not there. But 

what poured out as he holed up in his 

hometown of Omaha, with snow piling 

up outside, and wood fire ashes piling 

up on the hearth, became a glowing 

and honest collection of stories that 

is the perfect soundtrack to the drawing 

cold of the season. Decidedly unpolished, 

with little effect, and warmth instilled by 

gloriously imperfect harmonica parts, 

the album dances between the stirring 

piano and guitar styles the songwriter 

is known for, with the air of a train 

hopping transient, looking to escape 

some unknown history. The highlight of 

the album is “Barbary Coast (Later),” a 

perfect Jack Kerouac-ian example of the 

aforementioned feeling. There are moments 

that make the listener think of Jeff Buckley 

(“You All Loved Him Once”) and Andy 

Shauf (the dark and uniquely human stories 

of the album, including “Mamah Borthwick”), 

and yet it all comes together so undeniably 

Conor Oberst. 

• Willow Grier 

36 reviews 


Blink 182 

Abbotsford Centre 

September 18, 2016 

Pop punk started in the suburbs, so it 

makes perfect sense that Blink 182’s 

first appearance in Western Canada 

following the release of their latest 

album, California, would bring it 

right back to where it all started. The 

Abbotsford Centre is basically the 

Thunderbird Arena but a significantly 

further drive from UBC, plus a $14 

bridge toll — so not punk. 

The bill on this tour was rounded 

out by The All-American Rejects and 

A Day To Remember, a really solid pop 

punk band who know how to execute 

hardcore breakdowns. And while 

there were a significant amount of the 

openers’ tour merch spotted on the 

backs of confused teens wandering 

aimlessly around the concourse, it was 

clear the majority of people were there 

to see Blink 182. 

The new lineup of Blink 182 can’t be 

ignored. What they want you to believe 

is that guitarist Tom DeLonge is out 

there chasing aliens and government 

conspiracies, but I’m onto them. After 

witnessing what was once known as the 

Mark, Tom, and Travis show, I’d have to 

say this was more like the Mark Hoppus 

and Travis Barker pop rock nightmare. It’s 

cool that they tried to replace Delong with 

Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba under the guise of 

“filling in,” but it just doesn’t work. There are 

some Blink 182 songs that just should not 

be sung without one of the most distinctive 

voices in pop punk. And when I say “some,” 

I basically mean all of them. 

The band started with “Feeling 

This,” unveiling the huge flaming “F-U- 

C-K” lit up behind Barker’s drum kit, a 

classic stage prop the band has been 

using for the last 15 years. While Skiba 

is undoubtedly an integral part of the 

pop punk family tree and Alkaline 

Trio are respected members of the 

Warped Tour alumni, his posture 

on stage was so rigid and starchlike 

that it seemed as though he was 

playing his first show with the band. 

His definitive voice as the frontman 

for Alkaline Trio was also a confusing 

and compromising replacement in 

most instances throughout the night 

when DeLonge’s voice was needed to 

draw the distinction between a basic 

pop rock band and the pop punk 

powerhouse that Blink 182 built 

their name on. Bouncing around into 

familiar singles territory with tracks like 

“What’s My Age Again” and “All The 

Small Things” almost made the lack of 

substance forgivable, but definitely not 

forgettable. 

The strongest moments of the 

band’s set were playing the newest 

tracks off California, their seventh 

studio album and first without 

DeLonge while on his sabbatical in 

space. The notes of the first single 

off the new album, “Bored To Death,” 

started just as a fire alarm in the arena 

was tripped and the band was forced 

to play with all of the lights on. An 

awkward moment only made more 

appropriate when a flood of blowup dolls 

was unleashed in the audience. 

Blink 182 is currently treading 

dangerous territory. They’re not 

entirely a nostalgia act but the 

singles that made the band what 

they are today no longer represent 

where they are at or what they’re 

capable of any more. Maybe 

DeLonge is out there writing about 

aliens, but Hoppus and Barker are 

the ones with their heads in space 

if they think they can keep the old 

Blink ship going for much longer. 

• Glenn Alderson 

Nao 

Biltmore Cabaret 

September 24, 2016 

Big hair, big voice, and even bigger 

personality — Nao played a sold out 

show at the Biltmore Cabaret early 

Saturday evening (September 24th). 

The London based artist made a stop in 

Vancouver while performing her latest 

releases off the her new record For All 

We Know on a North American and 

European tour. With a voice like velvet, 

Nao and her band delivered futuristic 

and neo-soul vibes to an energetic 

crowd full of fans who were ready to 

have their expectations exceeded, and 

they were. 

The crowd buzzing and 

chatting amongst themselves, the 

curtains closed as the room went 

dark — the show was about to start. 

The artist walked out to the carpeted 

stage, barefooted, and in a tribalinspired 

two piece, exuding confidence in 

every movement in her step. The Biltmore 

is kind of a weird venue, it has this 

dungeon-like feel to it that makes it seem 

incredibly exclusive and Nao seemed 

to agree: “I feel like I’m playing a private 

show for you” she says as the crowd 

cheered back. Performing with a live band 

consisting of a bassist, guitarist, drummer, 

and keyboardist, there was a very clear 

indication that Nao and her band had a 

very symbiotic relationship. While Nao is 

considered to be an electronic artist, it was 

refreshing to hear her voice stripped down 

with a live band. Feeding off each others 

energy on stage, the band absolutely 

destroyed their performance while Nao 

remained true to her authentic sound. 

It’s at this point that I should mention 

that the band absolutely stole the show and 

delivered groovy, funky rhythms with the 

assistance of Nao’s stage presence, twisting 

and twirling as she serenaded the crowd. 

Opening with “Happy” off 

her latest record, the crowd was singing 

along and moving swiftly to the sonics 

that were bouncing off the wine-coloured 

velvet inside of the Biltmore. Bodyrolling 

through each musical break, the 

performance got hot and sweaty quick. 

This lead to the second song of the evening, 

“Inhale, Exhale”, which almost served as a 

reminder to the audience as they moved 

through the thick, cloudy air of the venue. 

The singer also took a moment to pause 

and cover a little bit of Justin Timberlake’s 

“Señorita” while performing “Trophy” — 

the “(Apple) Cherry” on top. 

A performance filled with singalong 

bangers like “Girlfriend”, “Zillionaire”, 

and Mura Masa’s “Firefly” — Nao truly 

delivered a unique and unforgettable 

experience for her Vancouver fans. With a 

guitar solo that left the audience howling 

for more, the charismatic singer primed her 

audience for the final song: “Bad Blood”. 

The crowd was singing along to every word 

and it was easy to decipher that there is 

something very special in her presence that 

invokes her fans to want to interact with the 

performance. Nao’s impalpable voice was 

lovely just like September (a “Zillionaire” 

reference for those who aren’t nerds) 

and the most perfect way to have 

started the evening. 

• Molly Randhawa 

October 2016 reviews 

37

michelle hanely 

Chapters Broadway The Vogue Theatre Peace Arch Border 

Crossing 

Have you ever walked around a bookstore and suddenly had the 

overwhelming need to poop? You are not alone! It is so common it 

has a name, Mariko Aoki phenomenon, named after the Japanese 

woman who discovered it. 

On a recent trip to Chapters I was suffering hard from Mariko 

Aoki phenomenon and had to find a bathroom quick. After getting 

lost throughout the aisles of overpriced candles, discounted Dan Brown 

paperbacks and American Girl dolls I finally found the toilet but with 

an ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign and directions to the Starbucks bathroom 

located inside the Chapters. If I wanted to poop at another Starbucks I 

could have gone to any other of the 108 locations in the city. 

The Vogue is one of Vancouver’s few remaining theatres. This 

1940’s art deco gem is one of the best places to see a live show 

in Vancouver. It is also home to some of the best looking and 

hardest working bartenders in the city. 

The Vogue recently was refurbished and renovated but it 

seems like the bathrooms still could use a bit of an upgrade. 

Although they are very cute and maintain the charm of the old 

theatre, some of the stalls don’t lock and there’s usually a bit 

of graffiti on the walls. Also I hear that this bathroom is super 

haunted and the thought of being spooked by a ghost mid-poop 

is enough to make me want to avoid it. 

Crossing the border is always a bit stressful, and it’s even more 

stressful when you have to go through secondary inspection. The 

long lineups and macho border dudes make me really anxious and 

anxiety makes me poop a lot. Luckily for me the US border has some 

great toilets! 

There was a long lineup of tourists waiting for the single 

toilet, but one should always expect a wait at the border and the 

bathroom line is no exception. When I finally had my turn I was 

very impressed with how spotlessly clean the bathroom was. It 

was very well stocked and very spacious. This toilet is definitely 

worth stopping by on your next cross border trip. 

38 



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