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

NOVEMBER 2016
Randy Rampage and ChRis WalteR tell the tale of a RoWdy punk RoCk past
November 2016 1

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2
November 2016

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FRONT COVER
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www.shimonphoto.com
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
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ILLUSTRATORS
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Glenn Alderson
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MANAGING EDITOR
Joshua Erickson
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ELECTRONICS DEPT.
Vanessa Tam
vanessa@beatroute.ca
QUEER
David Cutting
david@beatroute.ca
MANAGING EDITOR
Jennie Orton
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LOCAL MUSIC/
THE SKINNY
Erin Jardine
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CITY
Yasmine Shemesh
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COMEDY
Graeme Wiggins
graeme@beatroute.ca
04
05
06
09
12
16
november ‘16
WORKING FOR THE
WEEKEND
∙ with Kiran Bhumber
Sensored & Synthesized
JENNY HVAL
PUP
JULY TALK
VICIOUS CYCLES
MOTORCYCLE CLUB
FOND OF TIGERS
JAMES GREEN
THE SKINNY
ELECTRONICS DEPT
21 CITY
24
QUEER
∙ Queen Of The Month ∙ From the Desk
of Carlotta ∙ Queerview Mirror
∙ Mandy Tsung
26 FILM
∙ The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
11 THE PACK A.D. 27 ALBUM REVIEWS
FIVE ALARM FUNK
∙ Daughters ∙ OFF!
∙ NOFX ∙ Ulcerate
∙ Mac Miller ∙ Ego Death
∙ Lido ∙ Autograf
20 COMEDY
∙ Bob Saget ∙ Tom Green
∙ East Side Culture Crawl ∙ Empire of
the Sun ∙ Craft Cider Festival ∙ Walker
Evans ∙ Layers Of Influence
∙ Lady Gaga ∙ The Darcys ∙ Gord Downie
∙ Protest The Hero ∙ Solange ∙ Martha Wainwright
33 LIVE REVIEWS
∙ Danny Brown ∙ James Blake
34 VANPOOPER
FILM
Paris Spence-Lang
paris@beatroute.ca
LIVE
Galen Robinson-Exo
galen@beatroute.ca
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November 2016 3

WITH KIRAN BHUMBER
JENNIE ORTON
At the New Forms Festival this year there was an
installation that, in very simple terms, turned a
swing set into a self propelled bit of sorcery like
you always kind of dreamed of when you were
a kid on the rickety death trap your dad put
up in the back yard. The project was called
Pendula and it was an immersive audio-visual
installation featuring projections and swings
as instruments. The relationship between
movement and music was the imaginative
brain child of Kiran Bhumber (in collaboration
with video artist Nancy Lee). Bhumber now
takes the discipline of exploring movement as
an instrument to Sensored and Synthesized,
an interactive music performance at Western
Front on November 4. Using vocal techniques,
haptic feedback, sensors, and electronics,
performer Marguerite Witvoet will wear a reactive
body suit which responds to touch with musical
output; the result is a free form ever evolving
musical performance that displays Bhumber’s
continued life work of reactive musicality and
memory & movement. We talked to Bhumber
about her work and how the idea of movement
has evolved during the process,
BeatRoute: Can you tell us about the magic of the
reactive body suit? How does it work and what was
it like to put such a thing together?
Kiran Bhumber: The bodysuit is touch reactive,
meaning, based on where and how you touch the
suit, you will generate musical outputs.
The current version uses parallel tracks of
resistive and conductive fabric for each sensor on
localized areas of the bodysuit. Simultaneously
touching the two tracks (with a metal thimble or
a highly conductive finger) completes a circuit, and
the resulting voltage depends upon how far along the
resistive fabric you touch. From there, we’re able to use the
voltage values and map them into sound parameters.
It’s been an amazing experience working with
my former professor Bob Pritchard on this project.
We have both learnt a lot about the human form,
fabrics, and how different types of performers
embody their performative characters in the suit.
BR: What was it about the relationship between
movement and sound that first made you want to
explore it?
KB: From a young age, I was obsessed with
synthesis techniques and electronic music while also
being trained as a classical musician. My compositional
styles reflected both of these passions when I started to
experiment with live-processing of acoustic instruments.
During this time, I was trying to figure out a way I could
shape both types of sounds (acoustic and computer
generated) into a more traditional performance setting.
When I first discovered interactive music
performance, I realized that I could use a performer’s
gestures to embody both of these sounds
simultaneously, and, in this way, the performer
becomes two dimensional: Performing physically
PHOTO BY TIMOTHY NGUYEN
with their instrument, and using their ancillary
gestures to trigger and manipulate electronically
generated music.
BR: Let’s talk about Pendula. What is it about and
how was the New Forms experience?
KB: Pendula is an immersive audio-visual swingset
installation and musical performance made
in collaboration with Nancy Lee. We have
surround-sound and projections (four speakers
& projections). The participants create their
own aural and visual environment through
their individualized swinging motions. We also
developed the swings to be performed as a musical
instrument. The Pendula ensemble performance
took place during our installation premiere and It
consisted of myself on clarinet, Clara Schandler(also
known as Sidewalk Cellist) on cello, Nancy Lee on
swings, and Neelamjit Dhillon on tabla.
Nancy Lee and I actually met during New Forms
2014 when we were both volunteering. While we
were painting, we were brainstorming what type of
new media art we would like to showcase at NFF. This
is when the idea of Pendula actually came about.
Having Pendula a part of NFF 2016 was very
surreal for us, because it felt like we had completed a full
circle. It was such a great experience installing the work in
an indoor, enclosed environment (our first installation was
outdoors for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival),
watching attendees enjoy themselves, and hang out with
their friends on the swings. We received really
great feedback from festival go-ers and are open to
future invitations to install the work!
BR: What have you found most surprising about
your exploration into human movement?
KB: I think what I have found most surprising
about my exploration into human movement
is that it doesn’t matter how many times you
have installed and observed individuals during a
particular installation that you have created, the
next time, you will find that there is an interaction
that someone makes that you do not expect. This
makes you go back to the drawing board to see
how you can further refine your design to take into
account these interactions.
BR: What are some undercurrents in your work
that give it its pulse?
KB: I think my work comes from my love of
both music and science, particularly with the
sensorial and perceptual relationships we have
with sound. I’m fascinated with how we can use
these properties to inform our interaction design
choices within multimedia works.
Kiran Bhumber’s Reactive Body Suit will be featured
in the Sensored & Synthesized concert at Western
Front on November 4.
4
November 2016

Jenny Hval
it was a bore, it was a fucking horror
M USIC
MAYA-ROISIN SLATER
When I call Norwegian experimental
pop artist Jenny Hval, she’s climbing
into the trunk of a car in London’s South
Hackney neighbourhood. There among
the luggage, she waits for the keys to
her next Airbnb, and offers up some
thoughts on her most recent release,
Blood Bitch, and the evolving intentions
behind her music. Though she’d been
playing in bands from the age of 16, Hval
first started seriously putting energy
into music while attending university
in Melbourne, Australia. “I was
studying other types of performing
arts and fine arts, so music was sort
of the only thing I wasn’t studying,
it was my free space. A way of
processing a lot of heavy theory that
I was reading, and sort of avant garde
art strategies I was studying,” she
explains. Immersed in this rigorous
academic environment, and finding
freedom in songwriting as a method
of digesting the information she was
taking in, Hval entered a tumultuous
relationship with pop music. “For a long
time I was quite embarrassed because
I was making these sort of Simon
and Garfunkel songs about explicit
performance art studies and heavy
theory. I didn’t take the pop music
side of what I was doing very seriously,
it was sort of like a lower art form or
something.” Though a confusing refuge
at first, the contrast between pop and
academia provided a welcome space in
which to collect thoughts and feelings.
It provided a separation from what
Hval was studying, leaving room for
the concepts she was learning to be
interpreted in new creative ways.
Since then Hval has released six
albums, the most recent of which
being Blood Bitch, a ten song LP with
blood as its central theme: the blood of
women, the blood of cult horror films,
the lust for blood by a vampire. Far from
her more premeditated theoretical
beginnings, Hval didn’t set out to create
work married to a theme or message.
“I started writing at a time when I was
playing a lot of shows with Apocalypse
Girl, the record that I did the year before.
So I was kind of tired of feeling like I was
doing social commentary with music to
it, and I wanted to just write something
that sounded beautiful.” With beautiful
music as her sole intention, Hval
joined forces with Norwegian noise
producer Lesse Marhaug and started
putting things to tape. Recorded in a
work space above a bike shed in Oslo,
the album came together with plenty
of time and experimentation. “I let
my interests and my life at the time
become an album. I fused together
the ideas of being on the road touring
with women, and exploring the creative
sides of that, and taking a lot from the
movies I was watching— cult movies,
horror films, and some sex films from
the seventies,” explains Hval. Making
a link between her time touring with
women, the creativity that comes with
such an experience, and the narrative
structures of vampire and horror films,
the theme of Blood Bitch manifested
itself. More ethereal than previous
albums where the lyrical message
is the main focus, Hval hopes this
piece of work can connect with
listeners in a different way. “I didn’t
want to write good lyrics, I wanted
to write very bad lyrics but they
would be hidden in the music so you
wouldn’t have to focus on them so
much. But I think as the album was
written in the recording process, we
ended up liking what was happening. I
don’t think it’s the sort of album where
you have to read the lyrics and study,
I really hope it can be a dream ride, a
subconscious journey to listen to.”
Though Hval’s music has evolved
greatly since her first solo album, To Sing
To You in Apple Trees, then released
under the moniker rockettothesky,
a motif can be found throughout all
her projects. Themes of sexuality and
gender, the often silenced desires of
women appear consistently throughout
her work. Though sexuality is ever
present in pop music, Hval’s approach
is a rarely heard mix of questioning and
confidence. Her fearless vulnerability
on these subjects is unique, and
disarming. Singing of menstrual blood,
gynecological visits, and washing
down birth control with rosé, Hval
hopes to erase words like “taboo”
from association with these habitual
reproductive tasks. “I want them to
have more of an occult power, and be
seen as magical,” says Hval. The desire
to romanticize things which may be
seen as clinical or grotesque seems to
be the root of Hval’s musical practice.
She began writing songs to macerate
the dense material she was taught in
school. Continuing on throughout
her career she used music to express
complex political ideas and artistic
criticisms in a way listeners who might
not have come up in academic spaces
could resonate with. In Blood Bitch she
Jenny Hval’s new album Blood Bitch is an
uncompromising political and artistic statement.
looks at the human body and the things
it does to keep us alive: cold, wet, red,
painful things. Human habits that some
experience, or are born from, but have
been reduced to doctors forms and
bottles of aspirin, and doused in bleach.
Just as Hval wants to inject emotion
back into academic ideas, does she
want to inject romance and magic into
taboos. “I think we’ve made this kind of
wound in our brains and spirits where
we think that the academic can’t have
anything to do with emotional stuff, and
the emotional stuff needs to be seen as
very simple and inexplicable. Then the
academic is sort of dry and sensible.
And that’s not true.” Hval interprets
this separation of mind and spirit as an
unhealed wound, one where she sees
pain. At 36, Hval has been making music
for about 20 years now. She says as she
ages she can see herself getting stronger
and weaker. From the trunk of a car in
South Hackeny, London, she is sitting
surrounded by suitcases, proud to tell
me everyday she becomes stronger and
weaker. Here she embodies her vision
for expressing ideas, where feeling and
thought trade places, and are admired
in new ways for growing both stronger
and weaker.
Jenny Hval plays the Biltmore Cabaret on
November 16th.
November 2016 MUSIC
5

PUP
following anything but familiar patterns
JAMIE GOYMAN
Toronto based 4 piece Pup is that punk/
rock/amazing that these past few years
fucking needed; pure unabashed raw,
live energy.
“I think, for me, the whole band
is about that cathartic release; I have a
lot of pent up energy, both positive and
negative and I think writing aggressive
snotty music is a really good way to
release some of that,” admits lead
vocalist & guitarist Stefan Babcock.
The band released their latest
album The Dream Is Over in May, a
volatile and personal record that shows
Pup’s growth from their self-titled debut
album. From the first single “DVP”
to the almost-anthemic aggression
of “Familiar Patterns,” the band have
found audiences have easily connect
with the music the new record, and it
probably has something to do with the
fact that when writing songs they’re
always thinking about playing them live.
“We recorded both our albums live off
the floor, except for vocals and a couple
overdubs; it’s important to capture that
energy by all of us playing together in the
same room rather than tracking drums
and adding bass then guitar. That’s
just never really worked for us,” explains
Babcock, “When you build songs and
JUly Talk
infusing modern connection with aged whiskey and road rash
JENNIE ORTON
Peter Dreimanis’s voice rolls over the
confessional lyrics in “Touch,” the
thundering closing track on July Talk’s
sophomore album of the same name.
Like thick tires rumbling over the
loose gravel, his Tom Waits’y growl is
enveloped by crescendos of backing
vocals and ominous piano, as the thud
of a human heartbeat shoves itself past
the Snapchat feed that is modern life.
As July Talk takes their “come together”
6 MUSIC
play them live, I think it’s important to
track them live in the studio otherwise
you lose a lot of energy. It’s always been
the goal of each record to capture the
energy of the live show.” That energy
he talks about bears its teeth when
listeners hit play or, better yet, catch the
guys live; they’re that type of group that
leaves your body writhing and buzzed,
and you love it. “We’re always on the
verge of kind of falling apart as a band
so it’s kind of probably fun for people to
witness a train that is constantly about
to be derailed.”
To break it down, what keeps Pup
going at full blast is the genuine respect
for their band mates and the desire to
be in a solid band that knows its shit,
keeps their music unrefined and puts
it out regardless of any bullshit. “We’re
highly dysfunctional group of adults
to be honest. I think we’re all just
motivated. It’s a combination of all of
us being really motivated to succeed
on our own terms, combined with a
pretty deep respect for each other…
It’s important to fight through all the
bullshit and dysfunction and look at the
bigger goal and kind of suck it up when
you need to suck it up and put in the
work and effort, and try not to let the
little things get you down.”
Starting their tour out August 27,
stage persona to the road with an album
that explores themes like connection,
longing, and intimacy in the modern
age, the band gets a rare opportunity
to see the evolution of communication
wrangle with the body’s desire for
physical catharsis.
“I think the interest on focussing
on the human connection, be it of a
physical nature or just looking each
other eye to eye, presented itself to us
because we are worried like everyone
and aside from two days off in October
Pup will be on tour straight through
to mid-December. Thats about 75+
days. “It’s a lot of touring, pretty much
nonstop. Once that’s over I think we’ll
take a much deserved month long break
and catch up on life, do what normal
people do. We already have plans to go
back to Europe in January and February,
take a month off and then get back to
it,” tells Stefan.
The band, who seem to be
constantly touring, has got it down to
an almost science when it comes to
The Toronto rockers have embraced the addictive taste of touring and are overdosing gleefully.
PHOTO BY SHALAN AND PAUL
else is, that all of these new ways we are
being given to connect to each other
digitally are really meant to bring us
closer together but we haven’t quite
figured out how to do that for real yet,”
Dreimanis posits.
July Talk seems to have set out to
show the palpable and important new
world emerging between the old and
new definitions of connection. Touch is
a reflective, sometimes sexy sometimes
sad, look at intimacy in the millennial
keeping sane for the never-ending life
of 100km per hour scenery passing by.
“It’s important to try your best to have
your own space because you’re always
around other people. I like to get up
pretty early about once a week and
take the van and go on a hike on my
own… Just even tuning out the world,
putting on headphones and listening
to music and being in your own world
is a really important part of my day.
Being able to disconnect and go into
my own world and listen to something
that nobody else is listening to around
age. The music is pleasing, and close, and
seductive, but there is a hunger that never
lets go; like a rumbling stomach. This is
due in part to the lyrics, which stagger
between sultry game playing and fitful
declarations of frustrated self-awareness.
The album also owes its palpable
viscera to the decision to record
the whole thing live. Recorded with
producer Ian Davenport, who routinely
avoids the use of a click track, July Talk
was able to replicate the energy of their
storied live show on the album.
“It was all about capturing the
moment,” says Dreimanis. “We wanted
to hear the humanity in it.”
The band has a well earned
reputation for talking with fans after
the show and it is this bridging of that
gap that July Talk has always found to be
cathartic and beneficial.
“I think there was a vibe in every
room that we played that felt a little
culty. It was a group of people who were
in on this little thing that was bigger than
the five of us and just sort of happened,”
he admits. “There has been an immense
feeling of connection in the room.”
So as the band crawls along the
highways of North America, spitting
whiskey into the crowd and then hugging
the people it hit when the lights go up,
they become innately aware of the fine
line between a digitally curated self and a
me is pretty rejuvenating.” This is why
when they hit the stage their live show
is unforgettable, any room fills wild
with the band’s potency and leaves the
audience dripping and satisfied.
Vancouver is no doubt ready for
Pup to come through with what Stefan
describes as “a loud noisy clusterfuck.”
Perfect.
Pup performs at the Cobalt on November
21 (Vancouver) and at Lucky Bar on
November 22 (Victoria).
sweaty moment between hot bodies.
“There is something really weird
about that, like for example when you
are having your Thanksgiving dinner in
a van at 7pm and all of your families
are tucking their babies in after having
a big turkey dinner back home,” says
singer Leah Fay. “But there is also
something really special about having
an insight and seeing the world through
those really brief moments of human
connection with people in a breakfast
room at a Quality Inn.”
So when Dreimanis and Fay sing,
“We get so tired and lonely, we need
a human touch. Don’t wanna give
ourselves away too much,” during the
aforementioned “Touch,” you can hear
that disconnected comfort we all share
within the iOS, and our secret desire to
stage dive into the arms of a crowd just
like us.
“The shame within it is the elements
with ourselves that we are ashamed
of or embarrassed by are usually the
most interesting and intriguing parts
of ourselves,” he muses. “A lot of what
neglects to be shown ends up being the
stuff that is going to make the person
who is gonna fall in love with you fall in
love with you.”
July Talk performs at the Commodore
Ballroom on November 23
November 2016

November 2016 7

8
November 2016

JaMeS GReen
a pleasant moustache ride through
the bramble patch of life
DEVON MOTZ
Fond oF TiGeRS
fostering a world of communal capabilities
HEATHER ADAMSON
It’s here! It’s winter in Vancouver, and
that means some things are certain:
Vitamin D supplements, soggy socks,
existential dread and the inevitable
need for some warm music to keep
you going on those rainy walks. James
Green has you covered for the last one
(maybe the others as well, but you’ll have to
talk to him about that). With his first solo
offering Never Ready to be released in early
November, Green is ready to show the world
his sensitive side with a collection of songs to
hit you right where your heart should be.
Hailing from East Van, Green has been
part of this city’s music scene for several
years now, filling various roles in numerous
projects including drumming in prolific local
shoegaze outfit Did You Die. This is, however,
our mustachioed hero’s first chance to
showcase his particularly smooth brand of
alt-country. With modest compositions
reminiscent of heavyweight crooners such
as Townes Van Zandt or John Prine, and an
earnestness that could hold its own with
Sharon Van Etten or Jason Molina, Green’s
thoughtful baritone is a perfect remedy for
the coming winter.
Recorded within the cozy confines
of Afterlife Studios, Never Ready
is a dynamic record that flits
effortlessly from jangly folk to
sparse country and back again.
Tunes like “Lonesome Blues”
manage to include a myriad of
THe vicioUS cycleS
revved up like a tiger in the night
traditional country instrumentation
like slide guitar, violin and organ while
retaining the modest composition and
warm vocals that help the record weasel
its way into your head; and heart, if you
have one.
The intense honesty and
unrepentant vulnerability could make
you blush if it weren’t so charming.
Admissions of selling your furniture to
make rent and the longing to be just
a decade younger again manage to
be deeply personal but also relatable:
like all great folk songs, it’s easy to see
yourself in among the brambles. The
pleasant bounce and sway of ‘Golden
Age’ feels so familiar and comfortable,
you would think you knew the meaning
of every lyric - but even the ponderous
Green admits, “I have no idea what that
song is about.” Regardless of the themes
you manage to extrapolate from these
songs ‘Never Ready’ is an accomplished
first offering and one that should not go
under the radar.
Do yourself a favour and be sure to
stop by Art Signified’s Studio Vostok
in Chinatown on Nov 5th to see James
Green and friends celebrate the release
of ‘Never Ready’.
Vancouver’s Fond of Tigers have
resurfaced with an offering that
continues to push the boundaries
of what is possible in the realm of
composition. For a band who has never
begun the creative process with the end
result predetermined, their new album
Uninhabit showcases an ever-evolving
soundscape shaped by the communal
capacity of the band’s seven musicians,
whose shared experience and familiarity
over time are apparent within the
complexities of the music they create.
“The group of people that I play and
work with are all extraordinarily genuine
in their pursuit,” shares band founder
Stephen Lyons. “We have always been
on the fringes of the industry side of
making music and feel hopelessly out of
touch with that.”
This insulating process was
somewhat challenged when their last
album, Continent & Western, won a Juno
award for Instrumental Album of the
Year in 2011. The win came as a surprise
to the band who had already entered a
time of hiatus as multiple members were
moving to Toronto and experiencing
other touring opportunities. The timing
didn’t allow for a “seizing the moment”
type of response, although Lyons admits
they would not have known how to act
in that way if it had.
“It would have been smart if we
had used that as a momentum tool, but
I can’t see how it would have helped
in terms of our creative approach. I
have a lot of mixed feelings about it,
including frustration to have that
happen and then not do anything as a
group for a long time, but nothing was
worth doing at the expense of what
we had.”
Fast forward to present day and the
release of Uninhabit, an album that breaks
away from their historical approach of
substantial layering in a concerted effort to
remain in one emotional space for longer
intervals, although intentionally interrupted.
“I wanted to get into a groove and then
have those feelings get disrupted and
derailed and then feel them come back,”
explains Lyons.
This commitment to the process
of producing something of artistic
sustenance has continued to bridge
the divide of listeners drawn to Fond
of Tigers over the last decade and a
half and will propel them to the next
incarnation that awaits.
Fond Of Tigers’ Uninhabit is available now.
PHOTO BY ADAM PW SMITH
ADAM PW SMITH
The Vicious Cycles have been burning
a black patch through rock and roll,
finding the threads that link the their
favourite music and using them to sew their
club patches onto their leather jackets.
“When rock and roll started it
was supposed to be fun. People come
to one of our shows to have a good
time,” says lead singer Billy Bones.
They’re currently gearing up for
the debut of their new release, Tiger
In The Night b/w Full Leathers.
That’s assuming Bones makes it
to the venue, as his motorcycle
has become legendar y for
breaking dow n with sp e c t acular
regularity. His band mates
re cite a long list of times the
bike turned a short trip into an
hour s -long ordeal.
“My favourite was when I saw
Billy trying to fix his fuel line with
a piece of an old umbrella. He
had a piece of wood in the spark
plug line so that it wouldn’t short
out,” says Norman Motorcycho,
the band’s theremin and keyboard
smasher.
But as Billy tells us in many of
their songs, he loves his bike. The
Vicious Cycles are as much about
attitude as sound, and both trace
a line that trails back through
the history of rebel music. They
combine stripped down basics with
deft hooks, like if the Ramones
beat up The Barracudas and stole
their best bits.
“We’re not reinventing rock
and roll by any stretch, but we come
at it a bit different because we’re all
fans of bands like Stiff Little Fingers
and the Buzzcocks and Cock Sparrer
and the Clash,” says Bones.
That energetic, rabble-rousing
music gets mashed together with
their love for motorcycles. Billy’s lyrics
lay his thoughts out in foot-stomping
odes to old bikes, Steve McQueen and
“listening to the Mummies on the stereo.”
It’s live where the band brings it all
together. Flaming theremins, revved
up riffs and chest thumping stories
of defiance have built an enviable cult
following that is spreading down the
west coast, and into Cuba, where they
Hear The Vicious Cycles roar when they release Tiger In The Night this month.
rode their bikes and played a show
with Che Guevara’s nephew.
If you’re on your way to a VC
show and see a leather-clad guy at the
side of the road trying to get his bike
started, please give him a ride. The
show can’t really start until he gets
there.
The Vicious Cycles release their latest
single at The Cobalt (Vancouver) on
November 10.
November 2016 MUSIC
9

LIVE AT THE WISE HALL
NOVEMBER EVENTS SCHEDULE 2016
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BLUE MOON
MARQUEE
WITH GUESTS
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November 2016

THe Pack a.d.
examining the spectra of human burden
PHOTO BY REBECCA BLISSETT
Becky Black and Maya Miller continue to radiate positivity,
even on their darkest album to date.
Five alaRM FUnk
Frank Zappa meets Hedwig meets the mating dance of the silverback gorilla
KRISTINA CHARANIA
Rule #1 of the best friend and bandmate
codebook: when asked to strip naked
and be filmed while tied to a cold, hard
surface for half a day, one must always
oblige. This rule is particularly true
when you’re local badass duo The Pack
A.D., and you have a knack for creating
wicked music videos.
Take the science-fiction inspired
video for “So What” – the first single
off of the band’s latest offering, Positive
Thinking – which starts with green alien
hands examining vocalist and guitarist
Becky Black on a surgery table with
lighting wands. Eventually, these aliens
pierce her neck with thick-needled gnarly
syringes that look as if they’re covered in
extraterrestrial earwax. (Yum!)
“I think this video was [drummer]
Maya’s idea, and…well, I don’t know
why I agreed to it,” chuckles Black.
“The studio we were in [for the video]
also had really high ceilings, so it never
heated up in there. I had a wet sheet
draped over me for a couple of hours
and shivered a lot.”
“But, I love the video,” Black
concludes. “Science fiction just gets me.
I’ll always be a fan.”
Despite its title, Positive Thinking
is easily the band’s darkest release to
date. It’s also the most methodic of
their six albums, with polished song
infrastructure that extinguish the wild
guitar riffs, pounding drum lines, and
fuck-you attitude that define the band.
Together, the album’s eleven songs act as
a lens focusing on the spectra of human
burden: cases of quietly aching depression,
lethargy, biting loneliness, suffocating and
monotonous jobs. Highlights include
the pulsing rage of “Yes I Know” and
90’s grunge “Skin Me”, whose lyrics ooze
apathy (I’m made of metal/plastic heart/
attack my mind) and complement
Black’s droning, sung-through-grittedteeth
vocals.
From late October through the end
of November, the band is touring – pissing
rain, post cards to fans, and thrift store pit
stops included – in Canada and the US
with a small string of shows in France and
Germany. Fittingly, their hometown show
is their last one. “I’m looking forward to
sleeping in for a week, playing some video
games, and then doing holiday stuff [after
touring],” says Black. “Hopefully, it’ll be
nice and relaxing and not terribly, I don’t
know, cold. I might be working on some
material over the winter and recording
too, but who knows. Nothing’s set yet.”
The Pack A.D. perform at Fortune Sound
Club on November 26.
JENNIE ORTON
Among the many domestic visceral
thrills of Vancouver as a city—the
zip lines, the suspension bridges, the
whale sightings, and the bathrooms at
the Cambie—there is the experience of
seeing the throbbing behemoth that is
Five Alarm Funk. A self-described “pack
of howling funk musicians hopped up on
tainted ice cream,” 12 pieces wide Five
Alarm Funk creates a show that is utterly
relentless: a rare unhinged primate turf
war that can cause even the most “over it”
Vancouver hipster to cash in their fucksto-give
in favor of getting really sweaty.
“The driving force of the group, the
energy and the feeling of the passion
that we get from the audience is what
drives the band,” promises band-leader
Tayo Branston. “Together in this harmony
of sweat and noise and movement; it
makes for a wonderful life.”
This uncool amount of joy and
abandon has served Funk well as they
have spent the better part of the last
decade touring Canada while selfpromoting
and releasing albums and
developing a fan base capable of very
successful crowdsourcing ventures; the
most recent of which funded their yet
untitled new album and their hope of
expanding their touring efforts to the
southern states.
The album, set for a spring 2017
release, has been described as “less
chaotic” by Branston. “It has some
serious pure funk. More in the realm of a
dance record than say Abandon Earth, our
last record, which was like this heavy metal
psychotic gypsy adventure.”
Even the most ventilated of venues
stinks of that smell that was perpetually in
your high school boyfriend’s room, sweat
and pheromones and enthusiasm and sweet
sweet freedom.
“Everybody kind of leaves it at the door
at a Five Alarm Funk show,” says Branston.
“You’re there for the pure enjoyment of it.”
In a world so full of affected songs and
affected singers, it behooves us to attend live
Five Alarm Funk shows to remind ourselves
what life, hard work, and catharsis really feel
like; and to support this band of gypsy
baboons and their dream of invading our
neighbors to the south and loosening
them up in their time of great need.
Five Alarm Funk plays on November 10
at the Imperial.
PHOTO BY MAGGIE MACPHERSON
Five Alarm Funk transforms bars across the nation
into Pantheons of sexuality unseen by man.
November 2016 MUSIC
11

PHOTO BY STEVE APPLEFORD
oFF!
Keith Morris continues to
channel chaos
STEPAN SOROKA
Anti-establishment at its core, it’s tough
to toss the word “god” around when
talking about punk rock. But if there ever
were gods within the genre, Keith Morris
would be one of them. A founding
member of Black Flag and The Circle
Jerks, Morris’ influence is immeasurable.
daUGHTeRS
Rhode Island noise rockers come
back from the dead
JAMES OLSON
“Maybe somebody considers me to be a
guiding light,” Morris says, with palpable
irony, over the phone from his home in
LA. “My problem is that I’m an angry guy.
I’ve got some friends that tell me to take
a couple of steps back and some deep
breaths.” In Morris’ current band, OFF!,
he does exactly the opposite. The 61-year
old sounds just as pissed-off and angry as
in his classic work.
“I live in Los Angeles on one of the
busiest intersections in America.” Morris
explains regarding inspiration for OFF!’s
material. “The energy is really negative.
People honking their horns, screeching
their brakes, showboating, all of the
guys with tiny penises in their ‘lookat-me’-mobiles.”
Morris’ immediate
surroundings clearly inform the energy
and vibe of OFF!’s music. The chaos
of Los Angeles also motivates Morris
into hitting the road with the band.
“It’s a love-hate relationship,” he says,
regarding his home.
Of course, it’s impossible to
ignore the bigger picture when looking
at sources of frustration in the US.
“November 8th cannot come quick
enough,” Morris says, regarding the
upcoming election. “We need to get this
over with as quickly as possible. These
people, whether they tag themselves
as republicans, democrats, libertarians,
or green party are all a bunch of fuckin’
flaming shit-burgers,” he explains,
colourfully. “The two choices that we
have for the major parties are beyond
brutal. And I’m aligning myself with
the fact that that we deserve this
for allowing it to happen.” It’s a new
morning in America.
“Maybe I should learn to meditate,
get into some yoga, start jogging and
riding my bike, climbing in the mountains,
going to the petting zoo and petting all
the furry animals, buying flowers and
giving them to all the little old ladies that
live on my street.” Morris reflects. “That’s
all fine and fun and wonderful and swell
and beautiful and nice and all those
adjectives… but there is shit going on that
people need to know about!” And Morris
will have the chance to let them know
when OFF! enters the studio next
month to begin work on their fourth
LP, a yet-to-be-named follow up to
2014’s Wasted Years.
OFF! Plays the Rickshaw Theatre on
November 18.
Released in 2010, Daughters’ self-titled
third record has gone on to be not only
the band’s most well received record to date
but in a sense a fixture in the band’s cult
status. As the band essentially disintegrated
throughout the recording process,
Daughters became a “mythical creature,” as
vocalist Alexis Marshall puts it, due to the
drama and mystery surrounding its release
and subsequent acclaim. The hardcore/noise
quartet are in the midst of their first full tour
after reforming and sporadically performing
together since 2013. For Marshall and
guitarist Nick Sadler, getting the band
back together required time and space
to heal from old wounds.
“We sat down and had dinner and
within 15 minutes we started talking
about plans. We just needed to be in the
same room I guess,” Marshall says. “It
felt that enough time had gone by that
any issues that Nick and I had had been
not necessarily forgotten but they didn’t
seem that important anymore.”
Beyond Sadler’s schizophrenic
guitar work and the volatile aggression
of the Daughters’ rhythm section,
Marshall’s vocal stylings stand out as
one of the most unique elements of
the band’s sound. Described by some
as the sound of Elvis Presley being
tortured or the sound of a raving mad
southern baptist preacher losing his
mind, Marshall’s vocals certainly stand
apart from the rawer, scream leaden
work of Daughters’ contemporaries.
For Marshall the switch in style, starting
with the band’s second record Hell
Songs, came from a need to innovate.
“It seemed that if we were going to
progress musically, we would all have to
change what we were doing. To continue
to do what I was doing vocally would
have been a disservice to how we were
progressing musically,” Marshall explains.
Touring the West Coast leg of the
tour with equally abrasive acts like Loma
Prieta and The Body was a deliberate and
calculated choice for the band. Variety
is the name of the game for Daughters’
live bills. “We want to run the gamut of
fast, crazy stuff with Loma and then the
slower, doomy electronic heaviness of
The Body and then whatever the hell we
end up doing. I think it makes the night
a little bit more interesting for people”
says Marshall.
Marshall expresses optimism at
Daughters’ immediate future. While
the band has not set any concrete
date for the release of new material,
Marshall mentioned several times
throughout our conversation that the
songwriting process is ongoing with the
band planning to record at different
studios while on tour. “We’re going to
keep writing, we’re going to release
something, and we’re going to go on
more tours,” Marshall reports. “I’m
trying to be as open as possible. We’re
going to be around for a while hopefully.”
Daughters play The Cobalt with Loma
Prieta and The Body November 12.
12 THE SKINNY
November 2016

noFX
the agony of victory and going to work wasted
SARAH MAC
Hailing from Los Angeles, California,
NOFX are legends of their own genre.
Back in 1983, Fat Mike (Burkett), lead
vocalist and bassist, along with guitarist
Eric Melvin and drummer Erik Sandin
(or Smelly, as he’s lovingly adorned)
banded together to form NOFX. After
a few tours and many failed attempts at
a fourth member and second guitarist,
Aaron Abeyta, or El Hefe as he’s been
dubbed, joined the band in 1991. The
four have remained together since and
wreaked havoc in every country and city
allowing them entry.
Throughout their 33-year
career, NOFX have released 13 fulllength
studio albums, four full-length
compilation albums, one split fulllength
record, two live albums, two
DVDs, and a plethora of EPs, singles and
7-inches.
In 2016 NOFX had two major
releases; their first book, The Hepatitis
Bathtub and Other Stories, which
debuted back in April, and in October
their 13th full-length album First Ditch
Effort dropped. Both the book and
the album gave fans a glimpse into the
band’s personal life, the history, the
antics, and the heartbreak.
Their list of accomplishments is
miles long, but NOFX isn’t slowing down.
So we chatted with Fat Mike to reflect on
this past year and the tour ahead.
“Well you know, First Ditch Effort
was the longest we’ve ever taken
between albums, it’s been four years
since our last. We didn’t want to rush
it and I wanted to do an album where I
could just relax and take my time. Since
I usually just write what I’m feeling,
the book opened up a lot of doors for
me and made me feel comfortable
talking about my deepest thoughts and
secrets,” he says.
“It turned out the way I wanted it
to, though. There were six songs that
didn’t end up going on First Ditch. They
were more ‘fun’ punk rock songs and
the album felt like it was supposed to
be more sad and somber. But the LP
version is a lot different, there’s at least
five songs on there that are different.
And check out the lyrics for ‘Generation
Z’ on the lyrics sheet cause they’re a lot
darker than what’s recorded.”
Although Burkett’s dark depiction
is accurate, NOFX always manages to
lighten the mood. Songs like “Six Years
on Dope” and “Sid and Nancy” are a
familiar style known to earlier NOFX
tunes. On the other hand, “I’m So
UlceRaTe
ERIN JARDINE
PHOTO BY JOE LEONARD
Sorry Tony (Sly)” will require a tissue
box for sure.
“The LP version of ‘Tony Sly’ is
much sadder.” He casually adds.
On a lighter note, their book The
Hepatitis Bathtub became a New York
Times bestseller – not bad for a punk
band, right?
“That’s why we did the book tour
and signings every day. You know, you
have to sell nine or ten thousand to make
the bestseller list, and on the book tour we
only sold maybe 1,500 books in a week,”
he recalls.
a steadfast hold on creation and identity
Few bands have carved such a solid
musical trajectory for themselves as
Ulcerate. A three piece, with drums, guitar,
and bass, their recorded sounds definitely
sound like a lot more than that. “Channelsplitting
and looping [are] only utilised live
so that we can pull off the sheer amount
of counterpoint material, and deliver a truly
huge sound,” explains drummer Jamie
Saint Marat. A stand out element on
the record is the formidable drumming
of Saint Marat who formed the band in
2000 with guitarist Michael Hoggard.
16 years is a long time for any
band to be hammering away, during
that time there has been a large
flux of music creation. “Metal to
me is continually splintering into
a thousand different directions.
We just write the death metal we’d
like to hear. We started the band as
teenagers and have always tread the
path of staying true to ourselves and
not paying a lot of attention to any
“So we were pleasantly surprised
that we did make the list, but we would’ve
been really bummed if we didn’t. We knew
it was a good book, but we didn’t know how
well it would sell,” Mike explains.
“But that’s what is nice about books,
it’s like putting out a good record in the
‘90s, it’s going to sell for 20 years. You put
out a record these days, you only have a
few months and then it becomes part
of Spotify or Pandora. But a book, even
though they’re on the Internet, people still
like to buy them.”
Let’s get to the tour though. For
those keeping tabs on NOFX, you
know that Fat Mike just finished a
round of detox; many wonder if the
detoxing will have any effect on the
stellar debauchery NOFX have worked
so hard to perfect. So we asked him
and he’d like to clear things up…
“I had 85 days where I was
totally clean, but now I’m drinking
before shows again. I’m just not
taking painkillers anymore. I
did a whole tour in Europe sober,
it was fine but it’s just not as fun.
So I decided I would start drinking
before shows and see how it goes.
And shows were more fun again.
So I’m gonna stick with that for a
while,” he laughs.
“You see, the thing is I play
better when I’m sober. But I had to
ask, what’s more important? How
much fun I have or how well I play?”
We all know the answer to that question…
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
NOFX plays at the Commodore Ballroom
in Vancouver on November 4 and 5.
circulating trends,” says Saint Marat. This is
a strong value to have, and it shows in their
product. Ulcerate records all of their own
music, but have had, “other people mix
demos and pre-production to get a feel
for how things might sound with outside
influence, but so far we haven’t opted for
that route with album mixes.” Every other
aspect of the recording process is dictated
by the members of the band.
“We use a lot of counterpoint and
melodic interplay which will add to the wall
of sound approach. When broken down into
individual pieces there’s a lot of repeating
motifs,” comments Saint Marat on the
musical structure. “[Hoggard] uses a loop
station combined with signal splitting to
deliver a lot of the counterpoint and overlay
material. Our bass tone is also extremely
prominent in our live mix, and will often take
up the slack in absence of a second guitarist.”
It is clearly a method for success,
New Zealand is rural for metal, and their
unquestionable identity that is adamant in
their music carried their releases overseas.
With multiple North American tours, the
live performance packs on the heavy that
the records promise.
Ulcerate plays at the Astoria Hastings on
November 6.
November 2016 THE SKINNY
13

noT yR bUddy
fostering inclusivity in Vancouver’s punk scene for five years
a thoughtful perspective on respectful discourse
My name is Mitch Ray. I put on events
and manage artists under the name
Art Signified and I co-run an art space
known as Studio Vostok. I intend on
using this column to talk about topics
primarily within the arts community.
Sometimes in a light-hearted way.
Sometimes not. At the very least I’d like
to offer a thoughtful perspective on
things. Today, I am tired.
I had an exchange recently with the
editor of another publication regarding
diversity and representation in music.
The contents of our conversation
might be a topic I explore in a future
column, but for now the aspect of that
interaction that I’d like to discuss is the
notion of respectful discourse, which
is a seemingly fleeting concept in an
increasingly polarized community. I was
struck by the passion emanating from
each of our perspectives, both wishing
for the same end result, but manifested
by different means. The fact that this felt
rare and exceptional is a sad reflection
of our sorry times. It’s prevalent in the
arts community and it transcends far
beyond this subset of society as well.
We are all traversing the same
terrain, despite the legitimate and
illegitimate claims that we are
disconnected. A person I have great
respect for in the arts community
told me that Vancouver has the
highest concentration of artists of
any “major” city in North America.
It’s because geographically we are
very small compared to some other
cities, and within our already small
city the crux of the artistic community
lives and operates in an even smaller
condensed area. We’re also supposedly
“connected” even more since the
advent of social media, yet amongst all
this proximity people are often distant
and antagonistic. We have many severe
problems that other cities do not have,
but this closeness is not a problem. It’s
a luxury. It’s an opportunity to educate
from within. Is there a limit to how
far one can go as a “successful” artist
FROM THE DESK OF MITCH RAY
in Vancouver? Probably. But being
able to make an impact on important
problems within one community is
more attainable here than elsewhere,
in theory. Perhaps this closeness serves
to enhance the intensity of certain
issues. Social media seems to bring out
the worst in a lot of people. It can give
a vehicle for the most negative traits
in an individual. I have seldom seen a
respectful, rational or productive online
debate about a serious and relevant
issue that seriously needs to be resolved.
I don’t think it’s an absurd assertion to
encourage people to listen instead of
ignore, or to inform instead of lambast.
It’s a more productive step for the
majority of a lot of these issues that
desperately require resolution. The
fact that we actually need resolution
seems to be lost in the fray entirely. Are
things actually getting better at this
rate? I don’t believe they are. Of course
there are instances where nothing can
be done, unfortunately. Some people
are garbage, some people never learn
and some people will say those things
about others without ever having made
the effort to educate them. Social
responsibility is a role that I embrace,
but the burden is a heavy one and I
don’t wish that weight on anyone who
isn’t willing to shoulder it. When you
have a platform, you should use it. Not
everyone is built for that. People need
to understand that.
What exactly am I getting at?
I don’t know. And that is exactly
the point. I don’t have the answer
and most of you don’t either. If you
don’t know, you should listen. For
those of you who were expecting a
written piece rife with the humour
you may have come to know me for,
my apologies. I haven’t found much to
laugh about lately.
Mitch Ray puts on events and manages
artists under the name Art Signified. He also
co-runs an art space in Vancouver known as
Studio Vostok located at 246 Keefer.
STEPAN SOROKA
Chances are, if you go to punk shows in
Vancouver you’ve been to one hosted
by Not Yer Buddy, an Abbotsford-based
promotion company that has been
responsible for close to 300 concerts since
its inception in 2011. Spearheaded by
Seamus McGrath, you may find Not Yer
Buddy’s hands behind everything from
sold out gigs at The Rickshaw to smokey
house parties and backyard matinees.
McGrath, who grew up listening
to his older brother’s Clash records in
rural Nova Scotia, saw a void to fill in
Vancouver following the ravaging of the
local arts scene by the 2010 Olympics.
This was compounded by the death of
a dear friend, whose passing prompted
McGrath to re-evaluate his involvement
in the community. “It rocked my world,”
McGrath explains. “I was a hermit for
several years, and that forced me to see
a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long
time. That sparked something inside of
me.” McGrath began throwing the odd
weekend house show in Abbotsford,
increasing in frequency and eventually
growing to organize events in Vancouver.
“There’s so much good fucking
music here,” McGrath explains, when
asked what makes the Vancouver scene
special. “And there is a city government
that is definitely not about it. They
don’t give a fuck. They want it out.”
PHOTO BY RD CANE
So that leaves people like McGrath
to pick up the slack and do the often
thankless behind-the-scenes work that
allows a strong local music scene to
flourish. “Sometimes I feel like I know
what I’m doing, and sometimes I don’t.”
McGrath explains, regarding his role as
a promoter. “Sometimes I feel like what
I’m doing doesn’t even matter, and
sometimes it’s the complete opposite.”
But for an entire community of local
musicians and fans, Not Yer Buddy’s
work is essential.
Dealing primarily with punk
rock, Not Yer Buddy has succeeded in
fostering a consistent atmosphere of
inclusivity at their shows. McGrath
explains that the regulars at Not Yer
Buddy concerts are approachable,
open minded, and non-judgemental.
“We don’t have an illustrious record
of attracting assholes to our shows,”
he explains. “It doesn’t matter how
many people are there or what
the bands are playing, necessarily.
Everyone is on the same wave length,
connected to the same good feeling.
There’s no bullshit, no pretentiousness,
no anger.”
Not Yer Buddy’s 5th Anniversary takes
place at the Rickshaw Theatre on
Thursday November 10th with Red
Circle, Off by an Inch, Mess, The Corps,
Dagrs, Anchoress, and Strugglers.
Regardless of what you might think, Seamus McGrath is totally your buddy.
14
November 2016

A CONVERSATION WITH RANDY RAMPAGE
AND AUTHOR CHRIS WALTER
SUSANNE TABATA
With the closing of punk music venue
Funky’s on Hastings, Chris Walter moves
east to launch his latest book I Survived
DOA by Randy Rampage at Pat’s Pub.
Not driven by money, nor prestige, this
is a self-published writer and owner of
Go Fuck Yourself (GFY) Press, whose
works include music biographies for
SNFU, Dayglos, and Personality Crisis. Plus
such notable titles as Liquor and Whores,
Punch the Boss, Chasing the Dragon and
Beer. Walter is in collaboration with Randy
Rampage, the punk rock original and cofounding
member of DOA who has been
left for dead many times and can be seen
sporting a fluorescent safety vest in transit
to and from work on the docks. There is a
code of honour among men of that era.
That is why it is doubtful Rampage will tell
tales out-of-school to the extent that anyone
will go to prison.
Before talking about the book,
attention is focused on the unfunny business
of US politics. Is it the PC overdose causing
the rise of Trump as most comics will tell
you? “I really don’t know, but something
has gone horribly awry. People are sick
and tired of political administrations that
whip them like rented mules. But instead
of going with far left or moderate options,
voters swing farther to the right. I get that
they’re rebelling against the system, but
how can they possibly believe Trump will
ever help anyone but himself?” And
while Rampage surrounds himself with
progressives, the son of a Socred has
always been a bit lighter about serious
things. “Life is about survival in a fucked
up world. There was Fucked Up Ronnie,
Fucked Up Bush I, Fucked Up Bush II,
raising. His recall is almost frightening
at times. He remembered the name on
a birth certificate that Brad Kent had
brought along as backup ID to cross the
US border! Randy remembered the names
of promoters he hasn’t seen in more than
thirty years. How freaky is that?”
There is a CODE amongst
insiders that certain things don’t get
said. Rampage has taken a bullet on
more than one occasion to save the
reputation of the old guard. “People will
get some of the truth about what went
on with watered-down Jeff Waters and
Politico Joe. There is some crazy shit
that is no one’s business and I will not
tell anyone about it. I just gave a POV
Rampage-style. And I did protect Joe
and some others a bit. I don’t want to
fuck someone over to sell books when
it’s nobody’s business.”
If your name is Chuck or Joe you are
safe. If your name is Cheryl or Jeff, buy
the book. Walter figures it’s “guitarist
Jeff Waters of Annihilator who might
not be too happy with some of his
stories and comments. I have a feeling
Randy doesn’t give a shit what Jeff
thinks because he certainly didn’t pull
any punches, literally or figuratively. He
could have gone into more detail about
his drug use, but he went deep enough,
and I know he isn’t proud of that part
of his life. Overall, I was satisfied that he
told the full story.”
“I wasn’t protecting Joe, but I
wasn’t out to hurt him either. Randy
told the stories he wanted to tell, and
Joe might not like all of them, but there
isn’t anything in the book that will send
him to jail. I never allow subjects to
settle scores in print because I don’t think
readers find that interesting. It’s one thing
and now Fucked Up Donald. Did my
generation create Donald Trump? No,
he created himself. And we are due for
a shake up. That’s the appeal of Trump.”
Rampage continues, “We were
wanting to do something about the
world but not knowing how to put it
together. Our hearts were there but we
didn’t know how to go about getting
social change. We were all dreamers
like all outsiders are. Now I know if
you don’t do something about it, it can’t
change. So vote.” Walters interjects,
“Most of us lucky enough to still be
alive are starting to realize we’re not
bulletproof and that maybe we should
take it easy just a bit. Nowadays, we’re
losing the old crew to things like heart
attacks and other health-related issues.
Ultimately, I see us as idealists that
slowly acknowledged we couldn’t save
the world from people like Trump. Like the
hippies before us, we gradually assimilated
into society, gathering occasionally at
shows featuring musicians older than our
parents were when we first steered away
from the mainstream. Perhaps I’m being
too harsh. I know a lot of very talented
and creative people, and the punks
in my circle are fairly intelligent. I can
tolerate all manners of bullshit, but I
have a limited threshold for stupidity.”
Let’s change the subject.
Being a DOA fan, Chris Walter
would have done a book on DOA but
Joey Shithead wrote it himself. “I figured
Randy would be more forthcoming
anyway, because he doesn’t have to
worry about a political career and
doesn’t have family to offend. I’m glad
we did the book. Randy’s memory is
surprisingly good and his stories range
from extremely funny to absolutely hairto
acknowledge problems and difficulties,
but another entirely for subjects to behave
like US presidential candidates. Who
wants to read that shit?”
“I know about punks, drunks,
junkies, and whores, so it only makes
sense to write about that. However, I try
to keep it fresh by combining the novels
with music biographies and memoirs, as
well as my recent foray into ghostwriting.
My next book, Tales From the Tattoo
Shop, will also be non-fiction. I wish I
could stick entirely to fiction because it’s
so much fun to write, but non-fiction
keeps me off the welfare line.”
If the world ended tomorrow for
Chris Walter, “In the smoking rubble of
Vancouver, under the bloated, rotting corpse
of a corporate banker, search-and-rescue
robots will find a copy of Mosquitoes &
Whisky, the pages glued together with
putrefied body fluids. Steel fingers will
pull the paper apart and the robot will
send a photo to human controllers safe in
a bunker somewhere. The words will read:
‘The house was a thousand miles distant.
I set off in a staggering gait, drooling bile
and lurching badly. Somehow, I made it up
the steps without my head falling off. I’d
never been so brutally hungover.’” Not to
mince words, Rampage, whose partial
remains are to be dumped over the
30 foot pool in Lynn Canyon finishes
with, “I came, I saw, I died. If you want
a straight forward honest rock ‘n’ roll
story from the bottom…that’s what this
is. And I’m proud of Chris.”
Chris Walter and Randy Rampage will
be reading from the book in an intimate
evening at Pat’s Pub on Hastings Street
(at Dunlevy) November 11, Armistice
Day, 8 p.m. onwards.
November 2016 15

FEATURED CONCERTS
VICTORIA, BC
CARMANAH
PLUS CROATIA AND
CALEB HART
SAT NOV 5
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
PLUS GUESTS
SAT NOV 12
LUCKY BAR
WINTERSLEEP
PLUS GUESTS
FRI NOV 18
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
MAT THE
ALIEN
WITH SHYLOW
AND GUESTS
FRI NOV 11
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
PLUS FAKE SHARK AND
HIGH NOON TO MIDNIGHT
SAT NOV 12
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
dRaGoneTTe
PHOTO BY LYNOL LUI
keeping things interesting and emotionally real for their fourth LP
Rykka
a long distance offering to the pop gods
JUSTINE APOSTOLOPOULOS Beatitudes has been described by
Rykka as an “offering to the pop gods.”
European pop-star Rykka is set to be
back in Canada this month with her
new album Beatitudes. The Vancouver
born Swiss-Canadian, now hailing from
Zurich, is clearly a very imaginative
artist. Her records have consistently
evolved in sound and genre, reflecting
how she has grown throughout her
career. After graduating from the music
program at VCC she shifted her focus
from jazz to more folk-based music,
transitioning from there into indie rock
and changing her stage name to Rykka.
“I was tired of being Christina Maria,
with the cursive and the rainbows,” she
says. “I wanted something with more
edge. From there I’ve been going in a
The album was recorded and produced
in Toronto’s Coalition Studios, co-write
Warne Livesey taking instrumentation
and production in a new direction for
Rykka, who had a lot of fun working on
the album. “He [Livesey] is really free in
what he can do as a producer, and we
could get really deep into production
because of it. I’d say, ‘can you make this
sound like a unicorn?’ And he would,
because he’s been producing for years.”
The single “Bad Boy,” released earlier this
year, has a very energetic and effervescent
feel with strong vocal melodies, synths,
and catchy dance beats, elements that are
guaranteed to be present throughout the
entire album.
more poppy direction.”
Rykka’s last Vancouver
After releasing her second album
Kodiak in 2013 — a conceptual album
where each song was written from the
perspective of a different animal — she took
home the coveted $107,000 first place prize at
the Peak Performance Project that year and
turned her focus back to songwriting. Over the
next three years she buckled down and wrote
more than 100 songs, from which ten were
chosen for the upcoming album.
“It was insane,” she says about the
performance was at the Fox Cabaret
in 2015 and she is excited to be touring
Canada again, bringing her new sound
back to her original home base.
“This show is really fun, a little more free
than performances I’ve done in the past.
I tend to jump up and down a lot when
I’m singing so I decided to bring a small
trampoline on tour with me this time.
I’m going to be bouncing up and down
on stage.”
process, in which she sometimes set a
goal of three songs a week. “So I began
co-writing as well, which is something I
haven’t really done in the past.”
Rykka performs at the Biltmore Cabaret
on November 10 and at Lucky Bar in
Victoria on November. 11.
PHOTO BY GABE AYALA
JAMES
VINCENT
MCMORROW
PLUS ALLAN RAYMAN
FRI NOV 25
ALIX GOOLDEN HALL
DRAGONETTE
PLUS LOWELL
THUR NOV 24
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
PAPER
LIONS
WITH GUESTS THE VELVETEINS
AND HIGHS
FRI NOV 25
LUCKY BAR
FOR FURTHER CONCERT LISTINGS & TO
PURCHASE TICKETS, PLEASE VISIT:
WWW.ATOMIQUEPRODUCTIONS.COM
ERIN JARDINE
“[Singing] is the only thing I’ve
considered doing, I’ve always sung.
It’s lucky that it worked out,” Martina
Sorbara reflects on the blast-off career
she has shared with Dan Kurtz and
Joel Stouffer as Canadian three-piece
electro-pop/indie band Dragonette.
Royal Blues is their fourth LP, and
perhaps the biggest departure from
Dragonette’s norm. The beautiful, large
pixelated tears adorning Sorbara’s face
on the album cover is no small hint of
some emotional themes. In Sorbara’s
words, these “came from life experience.
The only way I write is from what’s
happening and what was happening was
some pretty hard times. My emotional
self lives inside and the only way it really
comes out is songwriting.”
With the attention-deficit trend
of music, the preference of singles
and other channels of releasing music
over full length albums within the
electronic world, I asked about Sorbara’s
relationship with the mediums of
releasing music, to which she replied,
“There is the question of what is the
point of waiting until you have ten
songs to release a full-length. I think
Dragonette is a little bit outside of that
world. We’ve written such a range of
music on our albums, I think what our
fans appreciate about us is our quirky album
tracks and the weird left field shit that comes
up on the album, and that’s important to us.
The way we identify who we are is by that
range I don’t think we’d be the same band,
or interesting to ourselves.”
Amidst the personal difficulties
facing Dragonette, the phoenix of the
tribulation is Royal Blues. The process
changed, but the bouncy beats enjoyed
by electronic and instrumental lovers
alike are firmly in place within the
album. “The process of writing [this]
record included more songwriting with
others. Collaborating was something I
hadn’t done a lot of before. I spent a lot
of time travelling writing with basically
strangers. Before it was more of a home
studio writing process with [Kurtz].
Dragonette remain a bit of an enigma in the fast-paced world of electronic music
The music this time wasn’t specific
for Dragonette, I wanted to see what
came out of it.”
Dragonette play the Pyramid Cabaret
in Winnipeg on November 16, Louis’
Pub in Saskatoon on November 17,
the Starlite Room in Edmonton
on November 18, the Gateway
in Calgary on November 19, the
Sapphie in Kelowna on November 22,
the Imperial Theatre in Vancouver on
November 23 and Sugar Nightclub in
Victoria on November 24.
16 ELECTRONICS DEPT.
November 2016

Mac MilleR
the art of love and being yourself done with swagger
PRACHI KAMBLE
Mac Miller has never pretended to be anything but
himself, which has garnered him the respect of the
rap community over an impressively short, six-year
run. The Pittsburgh rapper has kept up with the
changing face of hip-hop and has continued to
thrive through its recent evolution.
The Divine Feminine is Miller’s fourth studio
album on which he takes his music in a very
unexpected direction. On this record Miller chose
to sing a lot, and rap with a style that effortlessly
transcends genres like rivers traversing pools of
house, funk, soul, and 90s hip-hop. His lyrics are
cheeky, their wordplay complex, and his skills as a
producer are really what has given him longevity.
With the sudden attention showered on him
because of his rumoured romance with pixie-cute
songstress and lover of donuts, Ariana Grande, his
emphatic and articulate renunciation of Donald
Trump on the Lewis Black show, and the glowing
reviews for The Divine Feminine, Miller is certainly
in a good place in his life. Miller talked to us on
his day off in Atlanta, GA, on the precipice of the
new tour, which will bring him to Vancouver on
November 6th at the Vogue Theatre.
On off-days like these, Miller binge watches
TV shows, “I watch movies and shows as much
possible,” he confesses. “Recently I’ve been watching
that Exorcist show and it’s incredible!” He just
got back from touring in South Africa where the
reception overwhelmed him, “Hearing the crowd sing
words back to me was a huge moment. Whatever the
definition of success is, at that moment, I felt like I
had done something important.”
His first single from the new album, “Dang!,”
features Anderson .Paak, a rising R&B star who is
blending hip hop, soul, and funk together with his
vocals to create some next level, post-Frank Ocean
era shit. The video for “Dang!” shows Paak and
Miller reliving a Groundhog Day-esque version of
a breakup, in a town teeming with candy colours
and Broadway musical glee. “I can’t keep on losing
you, over complications,” are sung as Paak and
Miller pine at their gorgeous video girlfriends,
whose constant eye-rolling clearly indicates that
they’ve had enough. This is the essence of The
Divine Feminine. Miller is now mature and ready for
something deeper than just a good time.
An album about love, relationships, women,
and sex was very much an intentional decision for
Miller. The idea hit him in the unlikeliest of places.
“I was doing an interview and talking about not
wanting to write about depression and dark
topics because I was tired of those emotions” he
explains, “someone in the crowd asked me what
emotion I wanted to tackle next, and I realised
I really wanted to talk about love. That’s been
absent in my music for a while. I wanted to dive
into it more. I discovered that I had a lot to say on
the matter, which was cool.” From the album’s
title to its contents, Miller’s homage to feminine
influence is evident. “I’ve had a lot of incredible
women in my life. You learn a lot about yourself
from them,” Miller clarifies. “I’ve learned about
patience and taking my time with things to make
them right for that moment. I learned how to open
myself up to my emotions, and I became more
emotionally intelligent.”
These changes are apparent on The Divine
Feminine, especially when you compare the album
to its agitated predecessor, GOD:AM. Miller has
greater confidence in himself as a musician now.
“I’ve learned to trust myself more. I’ve gotten
better at communicating my vision. I now sit in
the driver’s seat,” he notes. “I’m learning that there
will always be people who are better musicians,
and better at certain things than me, but no one
is going to have the vision that I do.” The album is a
gold mine of talent: Anderson .Paak, Kendrick Lemar,
Cee Lo Green, Ty Dolla $ign, Ariana Grande, Njomza,
and Bilal, as well as producers like DJ Dahi, Aja Grant,
Frank Dukes, and ID Labs.
Miller thrives in collaborative environments,
without compromising on that Mac Miller sound.
“I get people in the studio and see what happens.
I love collaborating. You learn so much from the
record and even more from each other.” The
album took Miller a year to create and he admits
to have been influenced by D’Angelo and Al Green
at the time. When it came to colouring between
the lines in terms of genre, Miller threw caution to
the winds. “I broke down all boundaries for myself
on what I should and shouldn’t do. I gave myself the
freedom to really create and use my voice in some
very different ways.”
Miller’s maturity doesn’t mean the fun
is gone. In fact, the album is dirtier than ever.
Brazenly provocative lines are laced throughout
the album like, “Won’t get Hall of Fame d*ck from
a minor league dude, I just eat p*ssy, other people
need food,” or, “Freak mind is divine, so we f*ck
from behind.” The album is hella sexy. Unlike surface
level, mainstream hip-hop fare, this sexy is full of
positivity and peace, and not preoccupied with a
hunger for dominance.
The album’s positive content did not make
creating it any less taxing on Miller’s soul. “I was
digging deeper into different areas of my life,” he
says, “at times I had nothing to say. It would take a
lot for me to just sit there and wait for something
to come. It’s never easy. I would never make an
album that’s easy to create. I would feel unworthy
getting anything out of an album like that. If what
I’m creating has the potential of impacting even
one person, then I want to put everything I have
into it.” Creatively, Miller is a self-professed slave to
emotions. “The first thing I focus on is the music. It
speaks loudest to me. The words come based on the
sounds. I capture the emotions through music first. I
know I can put together a song in five minutes, but
that’s not what I’m trying to do now. I want to make
the right statement and capture the right moment.”
The Divine Feminine is Mac Miller’s most
honest work to date. He has done a lot of work
emotionally and musically to get here. He finally has,
in his own words, “got angels, no more Satan,” and we
couldn’t be more ecstatic for him.
Mac Miller plays the Vogue Theatre on November 6.
PHOTO BY GL ASKEW II
Mac Miller pays tribute to love, sex, and powerful female influences on The Divine Feminine Tour.
ELEC TRONIC S DEP T
clUbland
your month measured in BPMs
VANESSA TAM
Let’s just pretend Christmas isn’t as impending as
advertising leads us to believe and continue to live
in this bubble we call November a little while longer.
Feeding into our blissful ignorance, here is our top
electronic and hip-hop concert picks for the month.
Wave Equation
November 4 @ Western Front
Electronic music will be manifesting itself in the
physical world with performances by Marguerite
Witvoet in Kiran Bhumber’s Reactive Body Suit, Mási +
Marina (Alanna Ho and Marina Hasselberg) and Sarah
Davachi. Expect a night of abstract experimentation
through physical sensors, liquid movements and
analogue synthesizers.
Rae Sremmurd
November 7 @ PNE Forum
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, brothers Khalif “Swae Lee”
Brown and Aaquil “Slim Jxmmi” Brown make up the
American hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurd. Best known for
their turnt up club bangers “No Flex Zone” and “No
Type,” this night is being posed to pop off.
Tory Lanez
November 14-15 @ The Vogue Theatre
Arguably the original “crowd walker” of rap music,
Canadian hip hop artist Tory Lanez is currently on
tour supporting his debut studio album, I Told You.
Most well known for his popular singles “Say It” and
“Dimelo,” Lanez one of the biggest artists currently
on the forefront of modern hip hop whose live
performances often become high-energy daredevil
spectacles in and of itself.
Rüfüs Du Sol
November 24 @ Imperial
After a long two-year wait, Sydney, Australia dance
music producers Rüfüs du Sol are back with a new
album titled Bloom. Comprised of Tyrone Lindqvist,
Jon George and James Hunt, the group takes on a
unique approach to songwriting to create high energy
and melodic tracks that are poised to bliss out their
fans from beginning to end.
TORY LANEZ
November 2016 ELECTRONICS DEPT.
17

eGo deaTH
Noah York and Maya Gulin embrace the noise of every day life on The Total End.
SEAN ORR
Ego is what sometimes makes it difficult
for people to see things clearly, and
see beyond their own interests and
pleasures. Ego death is the absence of
who you have built yourself to be.
Most people experience this sensation
while after consuming copious amounts
of psilocybin. I did. I drowned in Cat
Lake. I went in after my camera, which I
later realized I hadn’t even dropped into
the water. I became trapped in the SD
card of my camera. I was dead. It was
terrifying, but at once calming.
Ego Death is the name given to
the psychedelic experimental ambient
project of Noah York and Maya Gulin,
who just released the cassette The Total
End on Calgary-based experimental
label Deep Sea Mining Syndicate. It’s
no accident that The Total End is the
perfect soundtrack to actual ego
death. Time rolls like dense clouds
over the infinite horizon, senses fail.
You can hear the trees drone on like
thousand-year-old curmudgeons. The
piercing stabs of a blue whale aren’t
reassuring like a new age YouTube video;
they are confusing and full of angst. Why
are the waves eating themselves?
This isn’t a laconic task. It takes
work. Mental work. You are experiencing
the divine, but you won’t realize it until
much later. York himself recounts his
own experience. “I started rolling forward
in this giant crystal cathedral. It felt kind
of like a giant inside of a tire and I was
rolling forward slowly with this crazy
music playing. Then the rolling forward
slowed down to a stop and it all started
to go in reverse until the grains of sand
started filling back up, bottom to top,
right to left, until it was smoke again and I
was right back were I started. Easily my
most insane journey in my mind. The
next day was one of the most beautiful
days of my life. We drove to Banff and
laid down on the top floor of a parking
garage in the sun for like four hours.”
It’s that totality that is captured
on The Total End — thesis, antithesis,
synthesis. Nothing is lost or destroyed,
but raised up and preserved as in a spiral.
Recorded in one night after the death of a
beloved pet, it is steeped in despair.
“It was a heavy vibe and we
were kind of fixating on the topic of
death,” York says. “It’s really hard
to watch anything suffer until its
demise. But it wasn’t all dark. I feel like
there are some celebratory moments on
the album.”
Although York has been working
on Ego Death for a decade, it seems as
though collaborating with his romantic
partner has reinvigorated him.
“I was a pretty amateur musician
in the beginning and that naivety
added something to the music. Now
that I know a bit more what I’m doing
it’s nice to have a new voice in there
that still sometimes has to rely purely
on instinct to work out an idea.”
The result is a primordial tension.
Man and woman. Big bang and big
crunch. Entropy and creation. The
absence of who you have built yourself
up to be.
Ego Death’s The Total End is available
now via Deep Sea Mining Syndicate.
Lovers in a dangerous time, Noah York and Maya Gulin make a little noise on
18 ELECTRONICS DEPT.
November 2016

aUToGRaF
pop art for the rest of us
PRACHI KAMBLE
The artwork for Autograf’s latest single
“Future Sauce” features three Sriracha
bottles in graphic pink, yellow, and
blue—a clever spin on Andy Warhol’s
iconic Campbell Soup masterpiece. The
vibrant image accurately sums up what
this hot new electronic band is all about.
“We came up with the art design first
and the song came afterwards,” explains
Mikul Wing, one third of the ebullient
Chicago act. “There are always two
aspects to everything we do: musical
and visual. The two inspire each other in
both directions.”
Autograf is made up of Mikul
Wing, Jake Carpenter, and Louis Kha,
electronic music lovers with strong
visual arts backgrounds. Autograf’s
signature low key, house sound woke
the electronic community up with a
soothingly catchy anthem about destressing
called “Don’t Worry.” Since
the track’s success, Autograf has gone
on to remix tracks from big acts like
Odesza, Bastille, Lorde, and Griz. The
band amassed a staggering following
on Soundcloud just over the course of
a year before getting signed to a major
record label. “Ten years ago things were
controlled by record labels. Now you
can build organic followings and foster
creativity online,” notes Wing. “Music
isn’t rooted physically anymore.”
Wing and Kha met at visual arts
school. They discovered Carpenter’s
ambitious metal, robot sculpture
work after graduating, when Wing
was throwing massive art parties in
his Chicago gallery and learning from
the city’s best DJs. Being art kids, it
was clear that the trio was going to
make something unconventional. The
guys were being exposed to break
beats, a thriving local house music
scene, and the international electronic
music scene. “We like to say we’re live
electronica because of the direction
our live shows have taken,” says Wing.
“We try to create organic sounds. We’re
organic and electronic!” At their shows
you see anything and everything on
stage, including a few drum sets, bass
guitars, electric guitars, keyboards,
PHOTO BY MICHAEL VERA CRUZ
djembe, mixers, and a tonne of live
instrumentation.
There is a striking DIY element
to Autograf’s work as well. Putting
their own handiwork into making
their instruments, merch, and stage
ornaments, is all intentional. “When
we started Autograf, dance music was
all build-ups to epic tracks. The culture
around dance music was getting lost.
It was all about how hard you can rage
out. Integrating art and a DIY element
into music helped us connect and bring
culture into the music.” The band relishes
the control they get to exercise on their
music and image. “We bring in people
who are not big corporations to help us
do everything. We’re very aware of who
we are and how we want to be perceived.”
For the release of “Don’t Worry”,
Autograf famously stationed art
installations ranging in size from 4x4
feet up to 8x12 feet around Chicago,
along with murals of ice creams and
“Don’t Worry” signs on prominent
city walls. For a factory party that the
band threw to recreate Andy Warhol’s
original badass soiree, 8x5x5 foot giant
lido
turning existential dissatisfaction into relentless results
Chicago producers Autograf invigorate electronica with colourful visual art.
Warhol soup cans weighing 600 pounds
were created, as well as a ten-foot tall
smoking cigarette. Their live shows
are similarly 360 degree, immersive
experiences. On stage, their hand-made
sculptures are strung with lights the trio
lovingly picked out at Home Depot, and
which they also control live on stage.
Autograf’s aesthetic is influenced
by pop art. “We want our art to be
accessible to everybody. Art should not
be restricted to galleries,” says Wing.
Autograf want to inspire their audiences
to chase their dreams and follow their
passions by example. “We want to tell
our listeners to not hold back. Go out
and make art!”
Autograf performs at Imperial on
November 11.
Electronic music producer Lido is truly the personification of his music.
VANESSA TAM
With zero ego behind his words, Peder
Losnegård states matter of factly that, “I
am music.” Starting his career producing
music under the moniker Lido just a
few short years ago, Losnegård goes on
to explain what he meant, in that he’s the
physical manifestation of his sound. “People
are always like, ‘Oh yeah I love music too,’
and, ‘Music means a lot to me too,’ [but] I’m
like no. I’m only good if my music is good, so
I really am music.”
The background of our phone
conversation was washed with the hustle
and bustle of a standard afternoon in
New York City where the young artist is
currently stationed. “I’m trying to learn how
to sing, so I’ve been doing vocal lessons,”
Losnegård mentions casually. While the
multi-instrumentalist has been singing on
his own tracks for many years now, he’s only
just now taking singing lessons to see if it’ll
make a difference in his work. “I’ll always be
a drummer and a pianist first and foremost,
but now I’m sort of learning that my voice is
an instrument too [and] that I should learn
how to use [it],” he says.
Blending the melodic elements of
R&B, hip hop, and live instrumentals into
his predominantly electronic compositions,
Losnegård has succeeded in creating his own
sound which first started gaining popularity
during the “golden era” of Soundcloud before
major label takedowns started happening.
“I felt like everyone was just ready for me,”
he explains. “It’s just lining up exactly the
way I wanted it to be and it was completely
random. I was bored and I was fed up and
was like, you know what? I’m going to make
some really weird stuff that probably only I
will like [and put it online]. Turns out, a lot
of people liked it and it completely changed
the course of my life.”
Growing up in a small town on the edge
of Norway, the level of success Losnegård
has already experienced almost feels surreal
at times. “The fact that I was listening to
Big Timers and Snoop Dogg and Nas when
I was kid was all because of the internet,”
he says. “But it’s almost redundant to give
credit to the internet at this point because
everything is on the internet. So it’s definitely
like I owe [all my success] to people, and to the
world, and to music, but I came in at a time
where the best way of finding those things was
on the internet.”
When it comes to collaborations,
it quickly becomes a family affair for
Losnegård who’s known to become very
close with the people he works with.
“If someone helps me make something
beautiful, or helps me become a part of
something that is important to me as
music, then it’s very natural for us to
become very close as human beings too
because my connection [to music] is so
close to me as a person,” he mentions.
Some of his closest friends and
collaborators are artists like Santell,
Heavy Mellow, and Chance the Rapper.
“I’m very fortunate to work with Chance
the Rapper who is on a musical level, my
brother,” he says fondly of the rapper.
“Because I grew up on gospel and soul music
and so did he. He was the first rapper that
I really heard anywhere that was interested
in using gospel and church references in his
music. The first time I heard his music I was
like fuck, I’ve been waiting for this dude for
ten years! I’ve finally found somebody who
wants to be rapping on the sounds that I’ve
been making for so long.”
With a constantly active mind and a
quick workflow, Losnegård always seems
to be working on something new and
exciting with little downtime. “When
I’m creating stuff and the second it’s
finished, I never listen to it again. The
second the journey is over, it’s over,” he
states matter of factly. “I can’t imagine
ever being fully satisfied. I really do
think I’m gonna be creating stuff forever
because again, I sort of am what I create.
And I am the happiest when I do, so if I
don’t create anything, I’m kind of scared at
what the fuck I am,” he said, punctuating
his thought with an uneasy laugh.
Lido performs at the Rio Theatre
November 7
November 2016 ELECTRONICS DEPT.
19

ob SaGeT
50 Shades of Danny Tanner
JENNIE ORTON
For many milennials, hearing Bob
Saget’s act for the first time was a lot
like hearing your dad describe his first
time while drunk on spiced rum. A
chill comes over you and a piece of
your childhood dies. Though Danny
Tanner is never really far away,
Saget has garnered a somewhat
well deserved reputation as the
gatekeeper of blue humor on the
standup stage. You will find shades
of this filth king on stage, during
his “as himself” appearances on
Entourage, and within his Twitter
feed (“Sex isn’t everything. A healthy
relationship is one where you talk &
listen to the other person. Before
you pay them to have sex with
you.”), but it is his generosity of spirit
that he rarely gets credit for: the
winsome shrug and generous voice
we have all come to trust to tell us
why sometimes it’s ok to not fit in
at school.
“I’m not as blue as I used to
be,” he admits. “Growing up a little
bit, talking about more serious stuff
between the jokes my dad told me
when I was nine.”
Tom Green is still on that
Tom Green tip.
Life has also given Saget perspective
that has led to his involvement in
aspirations beyond that of his true
home on the comedy circuit. His
sister’s untimely death at the hands
of Scleroderma in 1999 made him
into a tireless representative for
awareness of the disease, including
a role on the board of the
Scleroderma Research Foundation.
He has done Tony award winning
plays (“an incredibly rewarding
experience”), he has hosted game
shows, he’s written books, he’s been
nominated for Grammys (“I didn’t
win. I always say ‘Kathy Griffin won,
and I like him’”), he unabashedly
reprised his role as Danny Tanner
on the new and absurdly popular
Fuller House (“Which I never
thought I’d see; I never thought
I’d walk into that living room
again. We’re called The Legacy
Cast, like we come out of dry ice
or something”), and is known and
loved for helping travelling comics
secure gigs in his home of Los
Angeles (“Stand-up comedy is a hard
road, it really is luck of the draw. So I like
to try to help out”).
“ It ’s a fun life,” he admits.
“I’m no spring chicken but I’m not
as old as my friends Don Rickles
and Norman Lear.”
ToM GReen
Canada’s original prankster re-focuses on stand-up
AMBER HARPER-YOUNG
At 15 years old, Tom Green first set foot on a
stand-up stage in Ottawa, Ontario. It is now
30 years later and he’s on a world tour that’s
landing in Vancouver in early November.
Green first got his start in
Canadian show business through rap
group Organized Rhyme, and soon
after began working for Much Music,
studying broadcasting and hosting
CHUO Radio. After college his cable
access show, The Tom Green Show, which
eventually catapulted him to stardom,
was picked up by The Comedy Network.
The show presented guerrilla-style
street interviews, risk-taking pranks, and
disgustingly hilarious behaviour; it was
the first of its kind. Eventually plucked
by MTV, Green went on to work with
the infamous American Music Channel
before his untimely testicular cancer
diagnosis at the age of 28. In innovative
form, Green insisted on televising the lifesaving
surgery that enabled his return to
writing and acting in film and television.
Before streaming was common practice,
Green hosted Webovision’s Tom Green
PHOTO BY
NATALIE BRASSINGTON
Bob Saget exudes a warm and generous energy to those not
offended into retreat by his thoughts on enemas.
“When I hang with them they
slap my cheek and go ‘you’re a
baby’ and I go ‘ok, I’ll take it. I can
be a baby, sure!’”
Saget’s greatest gift is being a
pleasant surprise. You don’t expect
him to speak so warmly about
stepping back into Danny Tanner’s
shoes (“It’s very special because
we’re family”), you don’t expect his
punch line to the Aristocrats to be
breath-takingly depraved, and you
don’t expect him to take his stand
Live!, interviewing the likes of Norm
MacDonald and Bill Burr. Green
has also appeared on the late night
television programs of numerous other
comedians, from Conan O’Brien to
David Letterman (Green’s all-time
hero); once even hosting the show
before Letterman’s retirement.
The Pembroke, Ontario-born
comic admits that in the past he has
had other projects to deter him from
constantly performing stand-up but,
says “It’s all part and parcel of the
same thing. I never really feel like
I’ve stopped doing anything, you
know? I’ve been doing music, and
the stand-up, and the TV, and my
web show. It really feels like it’s all
sort of the same thing.”
Green’s website, TomGreen.com,
features “Do the Donald,” a dark, catchy,
satirical rap video highlighting Trump’s
idiocy as an entertaining warning to
all Trump supporters. Living in LA,
Green expresses concern for current
political situation in America: “I think
that’s the sort of sad thing about
Hollywood in general, is so many
people who are completely adamantly
up act so seriously (“It’s like a date. I
remember every show I’ve ever done,
pretty much”). A renaissance man
just waiting to incite gasps, Saget
is one of the few standup comics
whose dedication and influence can
be felt in the delivery and career of
countless others.
Or any time someone starts an
inspirational speech with “Y’see kids….”
Bob Saget plays the Hard Rock Casino
in Coquitlam November 10 and 11.
against Donald Trump still stay quiet.
They don’t want to upset their fans that
are Trump supporters. People should
really stand up for what they believe in
when it’s important. There’s a moral issue
here. They don’t want to offend their fans
because they want to make money. I feel
a responsibility, with Trump having been
racist and using bigotry and racism to fan
the flames of division in America. I just
think it’s so disgusting that I have to, like,
let people know that I’m not cool with
that. And hopefully, you know, some
of my fans who may have been Trump
supporters might look at it differently.
That would be good.”
How does Green feel about coming
back to his home country? “I can tell you
I’m excited about coming to Vancouver.
I love Vancouver! I put out a skateboard
this year with Vancouver based company,
Skull Skates. I love being up in Canada. It’s
been too long and I’m looking forward
to coming back.” It might be a good
chance to welcome him back and he
will prove to you that “he’s not just
the guy from Freddy got Fingered.”
You can catch Tom Green at Yuk Yuks
Vancouver on November 4 and 5.
Visit yukyuks.com for tickets and
subscribe to connectpal.com/tomgreen
for exclusive Tom Green content.
20 COMEDY
November 2016

PHOTO BY CHRIS STERN
eaSTSide cUlTURe cRaWl
beloved annual arts festival celebrates 20 years
East Vancouver shows its tasty bits in the shadow of a murder of crows.
YASMINE SHEMESH
vancoUveR cRaFT cideR FeSTival
first-ever event cheers to local industry, quality production, and community
In the early nineties, a group of East
Vancouver artists decided to share
their work and creative processes
with the community. The main reason
for the open house, which ran out of
Paneficio Studios, was to fundraise for
political movements close to home —
supporting friends who’d been arrested
protesting Clayoquot Sound, raising
money to help a neighbour whose
house burnt down, rallying for friends
suffering from AIDS. “We started out
having very much of a cause aspect to
it,” says visual artist and muralist Richard
Tetrault. “And then, of course, it also
became an exhibition of our work and
a chance to, you know, sell some work
and meet people and all that. The two
of them worked in tandem quite nicely.”
With each passing year, more
studios become involved. The small
event quickly grew into a myriad of
open houses coinciding their dates on
the same weekend in November and,
soon, it was attracting thousands of
people. Celebrating its 20th anniversary
this year, the Eastside Culture
Crawl continues to facilitate a deep
connection between the community
and the creativity that thrives within it.
A few special events help celebrate the
Crawl’s milestone. A discussion series,
Talking Art, has eight artists speaking about
what informs their work. There is also an
exhibition, As The Crow Flies, which includes
70 artists who have been part of the Crawl for
the last two decades. Arranged salon-style
with the pieces mounted closely together,
the exhibition is held at a variety of venues
from The Cultch to The Arts Factory.
Tetrault will have two paintings on
display in As The Crow Flies. The images,
done with acrylic and graphite, are of
crows — frequent subjects in his work
(he even segued them into the Crawl’s
official logo, which he came up with).
“In some ways, they’re personality
stand-ins for my protagonists in my
paintings in the Downtown Eastside,”
he explains, referencing his oft on-site
location. “In other words, they kind of take
the place, sometimes, of my human figures.
They’re a presence that’s always there
and that’s very vacillating between dark
and light.”
He continues, “Crows and ravens were
here long before the city was, but now that
the city is here, they adapt to it. So, their kind
of contemporary landscape is alleyways as
opposed to old growth forests. And I just
find that really interesting. One of the birds
that have persisted to make their livelihood
in the urban landscape.”
And like the crows that watch
over the community from treetops and
telephone wires, the Eastside Culture
Crawl is, too, something deeply imbedded
in East Vancouver’s identity.
Eastside Culture Crawl runs from November
17 – 23. For a map of participating studios,
visit culturecrawl.ca.
YASMINE SHEMESH
There is far more to cider than that stuff
you drank in high school. You know
the kind — the sickly sweet mixture that
hurts both your molars and your stomach
lining after a couple of sips. But that massproduced
swill is a world away from the
flavourful ciders that us British Columbians
have fermenting in our own backyard. In fact,
the province is a bounty of cideries — many
of which will be showcased at the Vancouver
Craft Cider Festival on November 27.
The inaugural annual event (which
sold out quickly) is presented by the
Vancouver branch of the Campaign for Real
Ale Society. The non-profit organization is
behind the popular CiderWISE festival, but
while CiderWISE includes gluten-free beers
and ciders from Washington, Oregon, and
Spain, the VCCF will only focus on BC-made
cider. After all, says David Perry, president
of CAMRA Vancouver, supporting and
promoting local industry and community
is at the heart of CAMRA’s mandate.
In choosing participating cideries,
CAMRA worked with craft cider bar
Orchard & the Sea. As the only of its kind in
the province, the Vancouver establishment
had a discerning insight on whom the festival
could highlight. “We wanted places that are
producing, if not exclusively, predominately
cider,” adds Perry.
Amongst the featured cideries are
Scenic Road Cider Co., Salt Spring Wild
Cider, and Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse.
The latter produces some of Perry’s personal
favourites. Of note is their award-winning
Rumrunner — the apples that make up the
cider are homegrown, hand pressed, and
then aged in rum-soaked bourbon barrels
for six months. The result is dry
and slightly carbonated, retaining
gorgeous rum profiles with rich
hints of brown sugar.
The VCCF will also have
educational component where
attendees get to learn more about the
long history of cider, dating back to its
believed birthplace in Spain, as well as
Giving apples their day in a grain dominated world.
the niche of land-based ciders (cideries
that own their own orchards). And, of
course, there will be food pairings to
accompany the tastings, with glutenfree
options to accommodate those
with wheat sensitivities.
With its vast spread of cider
varieties and inclusive community
atmosphere, VCCF promises to be a
delicious evening of discovery — with
none of that sickly sweet stuff.
Vancouver Craft Cider Festival is held at
The Beaumont Studios on November 27.
November 2016 CITY
21

eMPiRe oF THe Son
art strengthens a bond not lost to loss
YASMINE SHEMESH
It has been just over a year since Tetsuro Shigematsu
premiered his one-man show, Empire of the Son, at
the Cultch. It has also been just over a year since his
father, the primary subject of the production that
explores their acrimonious relationship, passed away.
This month, Empire of the Son makes its anticipated
return to the Cultch before embarking on a national
tour. And as time passes, Shigematsu finds his
relationship with his father continues to grow.
“Interestingly enough, I feel that, in a way,
the emotional intensity has increased for me
unexpectedly,” he says, “because when I first
performed in the immediate aftermath of my father’s
death, I suppose part of me was afraid of being in
such close proximity to his death in a chronological
sense because it just happened. But now that it’s a
year later, I feel that, given that distance, I’m more
relaxed and I’m more open to accepting or feeling or
channeling my father’s spirit, or even the sense of who
he is, onstage.”
His death was something Shigematsu was as
prepared for as he could be as he finalized his script —
something left malleable to keep the story true to life.
After all, much was at stake. The newly re-assembled
Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre spent two years
putting all efforts into producing the project. The
Cultch, a venue Shigematsu calls his Wrigley Field,
took a leap of faith, too, booking it without so much
as seeing a script.
As it turned out, Empire of the Son was a
tremendous success. Its run completely sold out, the
extended run too, leaving rave reviews and enchanted
audiences in its wake. Shigematsu, however, lost his
father just 18 days before opening night.
Performing was therapy beyond compare. “It
was a way for me to grieve and work through my
feelings, sublimating it and turning it into something
else,” Shigematsu says. “And if I didn’t have all of that,
I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
For most of his life, Shigematsu’s relationship
with his father, Akira, was strained. Despite living
under the same roof, they’d never really spoken, apart
from passing condiments at mealtimes.
Born in Japan, Shigematsu’s father immigrated
to London and worked as a radio broadcaster for the
BBC and, after moving west, the CBC. Shigematsu,
himself, was drawn to the airwaves, hosting CBC
Radio One’s The Roundup, following writing for This
Hour Has 22 Minutes. Though connected by both
blood and profession, cultural and generational
barriers separated Shigematsu and his father. His
father would revel behind a microphone speaking
to millions across the world, but found it stressful
to carry a conversation with his own son.
Shigematsu first explored their relationship in
the nineties with a show he’d written called Rising
Son. When his father’s health began to decline in
2013, Shigematsu, himself now a father, knew he
needed to return to the material. What happens
when his children start questioning their identities
and, eventually, ask about Grandpa? Shigematsu
didn’t want to not have answers.
One thing mutually understood was the
radio interview. When Shigematsu pointed his
microphone at his father, everything came out.
Within this emotionally remote man were vast
worlds of experience — he had stood in the ashes of
Hiroshima. He had tea with the Queen of England
and witnessed Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy
Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. He was a bit
like Forrest Gump, Shigematsu laughs, intertwined
with such significant moments of the 20th century.
In a final interview, Shigematsu explained to
his father that he wanted to share his story and
asked for his permission to do so. “And my father,
given his stroke, would often take so long to answer,
sometimes I’d wonder if he’d fallen asleep when I
was interviewing him,” Shigematsu continues. “But
he said ‘yes’ right away.”
Unsure the question was fully comprehended,
Shigematsu repeated it. Again, he said yes. “And I
said, ‘why do you say yes so quickly?’”
“And he said, ‘because if you tell my story, then
my life would’ve had some meaning.’”
Shigematsu was surprised. As a son, he still
looked to his father for nuggets of wisdom in
answer to life’s big questions. He never anticipated
he was actually providing them to his own father.
“That, for me,” Shigematsu says, “more than the
show, more than the accolades and the tours and
all of that — the experience of giving myself an
excuse or pretext to sit down with my father for all
those hours, all those afternoons, that whole ritual,
is the thing that I’m most grateful for.”
Empire of the Son runs at Vancity Culture Lab from
November 1 – 13.
Time brings clarity and closeness as Tetsuro Shigematsu’s masterpiece returns to the stage.
22 CITY
November 2016

WalkeR evanS
a revolutionary and his portrait of contemporary life ...just don’t call it art
GALEN ROBINSON-EXO
Walker Evans is, by all accounts, a
pioneer of modern photography. In
1933, his was the first solo show in
the medium to ever be exhibited at
the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. His iconic book, American
Photographs, is a defining piece of
North American photographic history.
He is regarded in the art world as
an architect of the documentary
photography genre and his influence
on modern street photography can
hardly be overstated.
Starting on October 29, the
Vancouver Art Gallery will be showing
a retrospective exhibit of Evans’ work.
This career-spanning collection,
entitled Depth of Field, is the most
comprehensive accumulation of his
work that has, to date, ever been
shown in Canada. We spoke with
Vancouver Art Gallery curator Grant
Arnold, who described Evans’ work
as “seemingly cool and detached, and
extremely descriptive… [it] doesn’t
necessarily at first glance even look
like art, but the more you look at [the
images] the more you realize there is a
poetic aspect to them which survives
over time.”
Evans was the progenitor of
what has been described as a lyrical
documentary style, documenting the
daily realities of a growing America
with a keen eye for detail. In the 1930s,
Evans’ approach to photography was
in direct contrast to that of many
of his contemporaries. At this time,
photography was not seen as an
art form on par with more classical
mediums like painting or sculpture.
There were almost no museums that
collected photography and very few
that exhibited it.
Fine art photographers like Alfred
Stieglitz and Edward Steichen were
determined to change the art world’s
perception of photography as a practice,
and thus focused on the creation of
images that would accomplish that
goal. Evans wasn’t interested in this and
regarded their work as too imitative of
other media. He preferred to capture
the world as it was and his insistence on
this point led some to describe him as
an “anti-art” photographer. As Arnold
explains it, “He looked a bit more to
newsreels and things like that as a kind
of vocabulary to base his work on…
and deliberately rejected work that
was self-consciously positioning itself as
art.” Still, he had connections with the
MoMa very early on in his career, and
while he may have publicly denounced a
“fine art” approach to the photographic
medium, his career certainly benefitted
from his relationships with the art
world’s elites.
The works on display at the
Vancouver Art Gallery will showcase the
breadth of Evans’ photographs, from the
streets of New York to portraits of the
Dust Bowl, spanning his early career in
the 1920s to images he made just before
he died in the 1970s. Also on display
will be a number of signs that Evans
collected throughout his career and
would exhibit alongside his own work
while he was alive. As Arnold describes,
“He would often just take signs he
liked from public spaces, which makes
sense when you consider how often
he would photograph signs, and they
would be pretty commonplace...some
of them would just say ‘no parking,’
but he would have been interested
in the graphic design element [of
them].” These small pieces of history
complete this exhaustive exhibition
of Evans’ exploration into the
American character.
Walker Evans: Depth of Field runs at the
Vancouver Art Gallery from October 29
– January 22.
PHOTOS BY WALKER EVANS
Walker Evans’ camera was both a news reel and a lens for a growing world.
November 2016 23

QUEER
FRoM THe
deSk oF
caRloTTa GURl
CARLOTTA GURL
Hello all my beautiful people and
welcome to Carlotta Gurl’s warped,
wild, and wonderfully weird world.
First of all, I would like to say a heartfelt
thank you to everyone for all the positive
feedback on my last two columns. It
does this old queen good to know she
can entertain the masses not only with
crazy cartwheels and carefree onstage
antics, but also with humorous stories
and vivid experiences culled from her
amorous youth as an up and coming
entertainer in the city. Although my
mind may have gotten a little foggy
(due to the occasional bender and the
subsequent repercussions), this queen
has still retained at least 50% control of
her faculties, thus at least half of what I say
makes sense, and the other half I can chuck
into my old trunk of fried wigs.
This column has become a passionate
vehicle for me to express my creativity in
a new and uncompromising way. I believe
it is very important for all of us to show
our creativity any chance we get. We get
so obsessed and weighed down with the
pressures of money, position, and the
creature comforts we so need to survive,
sometimes at the detriment of our spirits.
Being creative allows us to escape the
ordinary, if only for a brief time. We all
have some creative part of ourselves tucked
away somewhere that’s screaming to come
out. Do yourselves a favour and embrace
this. Take that art class you’ve always wanted
to take, express that interest in that theatre
company you’ve always been interested in,
or dress up as that character you’ve always
wanted to dress up as. Take that time, if even
a little, to nourish your artistic side. You will
find yourself a much happier and more fulfilled
human being because of it.
People always ask me my thoughts on
gender and if being a drag queen has ever
made me think about becoming a woman.
For sure I have entertained the notion on
more than one occasion, I have definitely
done drag to the point where it felt like I was
living as a woman. But really that is quite
the exaggeration, I mean what woman
would be as garish and slut barring as
me? I’m lucky that I’ve always been quite
comfortable in my own skin. For those
that feel they have not been born into
their right body, I think it is very important
they make the necessary changes they
need to become a whole person. We are
only on this planet for a short time so
embrace who you are and you are most
happy being. Sometimes the path to
becoming your authentic self can be a rocky
one, but that is the choice we all need to
make to find happiness in our lives. Be who
you want to be and take the time to find
out who that is. There is much truth
to the old adage: “Life isn’t about the
destination, it’s the journey.”
Until next time my precious
Gurls out there, love yourself, express
your creativity, love the gender you
want to be, love your life, and, most
importantly... love me. Keep your freak
half flying. Love you all.
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.
JAYLENE TYME
DAVID CUTTING
a community legend
“The most important thing in life is to be
gracious to others.” —Jaylene Tyme
The glitter, the rhinestones, the sequins,
the makeup — every minute detail
creates a vibrant and contrasting texture
on stage. Her smile lights up the room
and her heart emanates joy. Jaylene Tyme
is our local legend. Her experience with
drag started in Calgary, Alberta inan
underground scene that, Tyme recalls,
thrived inits uniqueness. DzI remember
I didn’t have my shit together,dz she
reminisces. DzI just wandered around
trying to find myself, I found kindness
in the scene.dzIn those early years,
Tyme was inspired byold school drag, a
combination of humour and glamour
that was showy and shiny. She admits
that in these early days she was more
concerned with looking like a girl —
something, years later, she would realize
was tied to her own gender identity. DzI
found my expression of self through the
expression of drag,dz Tyme says. DzIt
was the pulse ofmy truth, the character
that I put on was the closest expression
tomy spirit.dzJaylene Tyme loves the word
Dzcommunity.dz She never misses an
opportunity to say it.DzCommunity tome
represents family,dz she explains. DzWhen
I first came out into the gay community
at19, I separated myself from the family
that I knew because I needed to find
somewhere that I could be myself, because
I was at a point where I was confused. I
didn’t understand what gender identity
meant, what being gay meant, what being
different meant. I knew that there must be
something out there. So when I left home
I kinda left not knowing what to expect.
I was very much alone and I needed to
find a new family. So when I went into
the gay community, that was when I was
really able to realize a community. In other
words a family of people that share the
same curiosity, share the same challenges,
share the same passions, init all there is
PHOTO BY CHASE HANSEN
It was said when Jaylene was Empress in 2006
that she wouldn’t miss the opening of a bag of chips.
a lotof talent, artistry, and dysfunction.
A real multitude of personalities that
are relatable.dzTyme hosts a show atXY
Nightclub every Sunday called Legends. It
a Vegas-style show that offers world-class
impersonations. Tyme and her guests
challenge themselves bytransforming
into characters. Some of her most notable
characters include Dolly Parton, Barbara
Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, and Cher, the
latter who was her first impersonation.
Her transformations are so complete
that even the tiniest characteristics are
accentuated. In2006, Jaylene Tyme won
the title of Empress of Vancouver under
the Dogwood Monarchist Society. The
title, she says, is among her proudest
achievements, next to her sobriety and
living her authentic truth every day. The
role of Empress is important because the
person elected becomes the ambassador
for the gay communityof Vancouver.
And Tyme’s early experiences are what
made her such a powerful Empress. DzI
remember when I experienced challenging
points inmy life, I wasn’t looked down
on,dz she says. DzI remember this clearly
and now I carry that in everything I do. I
always remember the kindness I was given
and in turn give that same kindness to
everyone I meet.dzTyme’s self-awareness
makes her a person to admire and her
willingness to share sogenuinely makes
her the most wonderful person to speak
with. With her radiant aura, she
breathes life into the world around her.
Not to mention, her drag verges on
mastery. Weare honoured to know her.
Jaylene Tyme is the host of Legends at XY
Nightclub and the founder of The Legends
Calendar, a calendar filled with local drag
talent and their transformation into icons
from history and pop culture. The calendar
is available for purchase at 1181 Lounge
and XY, as well as Little Sister’s Book & Art
Emporium. All proceeds from the calendar
go to the Dogwood Monarchist Society.
24 QUEER
November 2016

Mandy TSUnG
intersections in oil and ink
KENDELL YAN
Mandy Tsung is constantly asked the
question, “Why do you paint women?”
In defiance, she questions them: “Do
you ask all of these men why they paint
women in this certain way? Do they
ever have to explain themselves?”
Tsung is a queer, half-Chinese,
intersectional feminist whose
work in oil paintings and tattoos is
concerned with the nuances of race,
female expression, sensuality, and
sexuality. “Because I am a women
I have these experiences,” she says,
“I’m speaking for myself when I’m
painting a woman, whereas I feel like
men don’t know they are speaking for
women...they paint what they see as a
surface object...maybe they don’t have
the concept that a woman is a person.”
Besides, most of her models are close
friends of hers who identify as nonbinary,
so while she paints the female
form, she actually doesn’t just
paint women.
In August, Tsung worked with a
group of artists on a show called “Dirty-
Knees” that focused on the varying
experiences of growing up half-Asian,
of being borne by two distinct cultures
but never fully belonging to either.
Language is one of many currencies that
afford cultural flexibility. “By the time I
was old enough to learn Cantonese,” she
says, “I just wanted to be Canadian. You
want to assimilate and there’s so much
pressure to do so.”
Being queer has a huge influence on
Tsung’s work, but having hit her “queer
puberty” after college, she struggled
in understanding and claiming it.
“Someone was saying I objectify women
in my paintings,” prompting counsel
from her queer friends, “they said we
see women in a sexual way because
we’re attracted to them, but you can
still make art that conveys sexuality
without turning them into passive
objects...that’s harmful.”
Her portrayal of the female form
is subversive insofar as her approach
to the subject, “I’m a woman,” she
hesitates for a moment, “maybe I’m a
non-man painting non-male people.”
There’s a difference and Mandy Tsung
QUeeRvieW MiRRoR
my gay grampas
DAVE DEVEAU
Though scientists and academics have
pondered the notion of a gay bloodline
for almost as long as gays have walked
this mighty Earth, the findings still
feel hazy, or at least my limited-atbest
research has come up with more
questions than answers. In traditional
families, these stories trickle down
the family tree to give us a sense of
who we are and where we’re from:
of the bigger picture. But without
some kind of bloodline, how are the
stories of our queer ancestors passed
on? Where do young queers get a
concrete sense of what came before?
The internet and popular culture do
not legacy make.
I’m not saying life revolves
around our queer experience, but we
can’t deny that our experiences are
shaped by our queerness. If we want
to learn from our community’s rich
history and get a sense of where we fit
in the landscape of queer activism and
social understanding of queer issues,
it’s pivotal for us to make contact. So what
can we do? To start, we can say hi. Just hi.
Our queer elders are all around us — At
the bar, in Jim Deva plaza, at Pride. But we
need to be willing to connect. We have to
be open to the possibility that we want
to share our stories and that we’re not
wants people to learn something
about why that difference exists in a
movement of artists painting women.
Queer tattoo culture and non-white
tattooing traditions have greatly informed
her painting practice as well. “With certain
designs I’ve made with half-Asian people in
mind they tend to go into that community...
people get it, I don’t have to write a
statement about every tattoo I make,
hitting on each other, but just trying to
genuinely connect. (Though by all means,
hit on each other if that’s your jam.)
When I lived in Toronto ten years
ago I had gay grandpas. These were men
who I’d seen at the bars so many times
that I thought I should at least say hello.
One was a drag queen, decked out in
heels, even at 76; the other was his partner
of 50 years. I found that inspiring, both the
heels and the longevity of their relationship. I
didn’t know them well. We never spent time
together outside of the bars, but I also spent
a hell of a lot of time in the bars, so it felt like
quality time. As a bright-eyed little homo,
these men opened my gay eyes. Hearing
about the early years of their relationship,
about their unwillingness to actually admit
to one another that they were in a
relationship together as a result of the
turbulent world around them, made me
deeply grateful for how far queer rights
have come.
Through the work my husband
and I do through his company Zee Zee
Theatre, we have been fortunate enough
to meet a huge spectrum of queers from
various generations, and we’ve been
welcomed into the fold of many a dinner
party where we were the youngest by
30 or, at times, 45 years. What a gift.
Through these dinner parties we were
able to meet two gentlemen who we
consider some of our dearest friends. There
are decades that divide us and we have
it’s understood through experience.”
In January Mandy will be
collaborating with two other artists on
a show titled “Strong Female Character”
at Hot Art Wet City, as well as a solo
show in New York in the Fall of 2017.
Mandytsung.tumblr.com
@Mandytsung
1hand.bigcartel.com
had very different life experiences, and
we take the time we have together to
share these untold stories from our gay
lineage. These incredible men, at 65 and
85, have become our gay grandparents,
though they would kill us if we ever
said that in front of them. They’re
dear friends, but the notion applies.
It’s through them that we get a better
understanding of our queer selves and
certainly of the great strides that have been
made in queer liberation, and the luxuries
and privilege that our generation holds.
Let me be clear: These men are not
our daddies. They are not picking up
the cheque. They are beautiful and
kind men who have a wealth of life
experience that they’re willing to
share over a glass of wine and a lot of
belly laughs.
A few years ago we asked our
gay grandparents if they’d allow me
to write a play about them, and we
were thrilled when they said yes. They
were very candid in what they shared
and I’m so proud to be able to share
their life story, of sorts, in the form of
a Technicolor gay musical at The Cultch’s
York Theatre this March. It’s called Elbow
Room Café: The Musical and it’s about
their legacy, about the stamp we want to
leave on this community, this world once
we’re gone. How people will tell the story of
who we were. Lucky me to have found gay
grandparents whose story I can help tell.
November 2016 QUEER
25

FILM
PARIS SPENCE-LANG
THiS MonTH in FilM
19TH ANNUAL EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 18TH-30TH
These films are so European Union, the theater
seats have the armrests removed. Featuring films
from 23 EU countries, including the big ones like
France and Luxembourg, viewers will be treated to
everything from Belgian exposés on immigration,
to costume pieces born of Dutch novels. Film is
meant to bring people together, from the directors
to the viewers, and this fantastic program was
made possible through the efforts of Vancouver
consulates, EU delegates, and the embassies of
the participating states themselves, making this
a true multicultural union of expression and
entertainment. The European Union Film Festival is
playing at the Cinematheque.
18TH ANNUAL ANIMATION SHOW OF SHOWS
NOVEMBER 13TH-14TH
This largely crowd-funded show has been sharing
the new and innovative in animation for 16 years,
with 32 of the animated shorts receiving Academy
Award nominations and nine of them taking home
the golden man. That’s right—these aren’t your
average Seth MacFarlane cartoons. This year’s lineup
includes 16 short films from around the world,
with heavy hitters like Pixar’s Piper, technological
marvels like Google’s Pearl (which will still make
you cry), and lesser-known gems from countries
like Latvia, Korea, and Israel. With both a kidfriendly
section and a few after-hours films, all will
be enthralled with the imagination and illustration
behind this incredible festival. The Animation Show
of Shows is playing at the Rio Theatre
talented neurosurgeon, piano player, and etc. etc., is
suddenly thrust into a world of… well, more worlds as
he must save the multiverse from itself. With a trailer
that feels uncannily Christopher Nolan, this might be
a Marvel returning to X-Men form. Just without that
frog guy. In theaters November 4th.
THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN
While I spent my 17th year on a rainbow of joy,
high school junior Nadine spends hers enduring
humiliations stemming from the opposite sex. Oh
wait. The Edge of Seventeen follows Nadine as if she is
a shadow of our former selves, pinballing through highschool
tropes faster than a Vine-friendly version of John
Hughes. Portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld with a genuine
earnesty that plays off of an applaudingly cruel Woody
Harrelson, this film’s sure to be more popular than all
the band kids combined. In theaters November 18th
THe cabineT oF dR. caliGaRi
an archetypal piece of German Expressionist cinema
MEGHA SEQUEIRA
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari innocently
opens amidst a garden, where we, the
unassuming audience, find Francis. This
all-around protagonist and young man
is recounting events recently endured
by him and his fiancée, Jane—more
horrifying, in fact, than the meeting of
the couples’ parents. We soon discover
that Francis is recalling his time at the
county fair, where Jane, his friend Alan,
and himself are urged to enter the tent
of Dr. Caligari, a shrouded figure whose
act consists of a large crypt-shaped
cabinet. In it resides a somnambulist
he controls at will. Despite being
asleep for 25 years, Cesare, Caligari’s
sleep-walking minion, has awoken with
the power to see into the future. When
Alan challenges Cesare on when he will
die, Cesare declares that he will be dead
before dawn. Later, Alan and Francis are
unshaken but Jane is shown to be deeply
affected by Cesare’s predictions and when
Alan is indeed found dead the next morning,
all roads lead to Dr. Caligari.
Widely regarded as the archetypal
piece of German Expressionist cinema,
Caligari contains aspects of artistic nuance
coupled with characteristics of film noir, still
a novelty in 1920. The expressionist style
features intangible twists and curvatures,
and light that bends and bounces as if
telling its own version of the story. Shadows
and streaks play pivotal roles, tossing out
the ideas of visual propriety and steady
cinematography that had become the
epitome of black and white cinema. Sharp
forms make their appearances alongside
spiralling streets and towering structures,
questioning the viewer’s depth perception
while tilted walls and windows close in all
around. Cubist homages to the greats like
Picasso abound in the crammed nature of the
buildings and door frames, as well as angular
wall hangings and geometric trees, cutting
through the air and filling the viewer with
anticipation of the mystery lying just ahead.
Much like Cesare with the death of Alan,
the film has been thought to foreshadow
the darkest period in German history:
WWII and the rise of authoritarianism
alongside Adolf Hitler. Exploring themes
of unquestionable obedience to authority,
Caligari had critics quickly liken Cesare to
Germany’s soldiers under the reign of the
Third Reich, with one popular German
writer, Siegfried Kracauer, drawing direct
parallels between Caligari and Hitler.
Playing with perceptions of reality and the
viewer’s point of view in the ways in which it
presents the storyline, you will, perhaps, for a
brief period of time, see the film’s dramatic
and eclectic shapes and music as much more
real than the reality you are accustomed to.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is playing at
The Cinematheque on November 12 with
a live musical accompaniment.
UPCOMING RELEASES
DOCTOR STRANGE
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Doctor Strange, the
latest of the Marvel heroes to gain the superpower
of cinematic stardom. Strange, a handsome and
26 FILM
November 2016

lady GaGa
Joanne
Universal Music Canada
Bon Jovi, Bret Michaels, and Jenna Maroni: just
three pop/rock acts to have pulled the nowclassic
“going country” maneuver. With much
of Joanne, Lady Gaga is the latest to join their
ranks – to mixed success. There are a handful
of worthwhile surprises from the artist born
Stefani Germanotta that we’ll get to a bit
later, but overall Joanne is not the hard-won
reinvention many expected of her.
In the three years since Gaga’s worstreceived
full-length, ARTPOP, she’s done much
to shed the expectations that came along with
her larger than life persona that mixed up highand
low-brow forms of expression, capturing
all the world’s attention along the way. She
won a Golden Globe for her performance on
American Horror Story, was nominated for
an Oscar for Best Original Song, and nabbed
a Grammy for her album of jazz standards
(another classic sidestep for an out-of-vogue
pop star) with Tony Bennett.
With all that branching out done, what
were fans to expect upon the announcement
of Joanne? A Sasha Fierce-esque character?
Maybe even a Chris Gaines? In fact, Joanne is
the name of a deceased aunt she never met
and happens to share a sexual assault trauma
with. On the title track Gaga strums tenderly
and restrains her vocals to a vulnerable crackle
as she implores her aunt not to go into the
afterlife but instead stay with her family.
A pretty standard grief track, though one
suspects that’s because of the lack of the room
for nuance in pop music rather than Gaga not
having complicated feelings about it all. Early in
the album, “Joanne” reinforces that Gaga knows
which muscles to flex to best serve a song’s tone,
never falling victim to over-belted wails.
It’s a shame she doesn’t quite pull that
part of her act off when she adopts a new
tonality for the “gone country” contingent of
the record. From opener “Diamond Heart”
through “John Wayne” (yes, really) and along
to “Million Reasons,” Gaga misses the mark
of a successful genre transition with tooaffected
nasality and flattened consonant
annunciation. It’s the voice your friend Steve,
whose OkCupid page says he’s into all music
except country and metal, makes when he
wants to get a cheap laugh. In fairness, these are
the absolute low points on an album that does
come with strong highlights and more successful
new fields of exploration.
“Sinner’s Prayer” is the one slice of Dixiefried
Gaga (unless you count the title track,
which lies closer to folk ballad than country)
that pans out. It’s also a song where her cast of
major supporting characters shines brightest.
Written by Gaga, Thomas Brenneck, Mark
Ronson (co-producer for the entirety of the
album) and Josh Tillman (aka Father John
Misty), it’s a western fable about two tainted
people in an explosive love affair. It’s where
Gaga best commits to Southern mysticism and
benefits from the dual guitars of Sean Lennon
and Josh Homme – one smoky and mysterious,
the other a bright lilt that carries the tune.
The following three tracks that conclude
the standard version of the album are a hat
trick. “Come to Mama” is a bit hammy in its
let’s-all-just-get-along sentiment, but cabaret
vocal from Gaga and a Phil Spector Christmas
meets Let’s Dance Bowie composition offers
what a lot of us want from pop – a simple, feel
good moment.
“Hey Girl” puts both feet firmly in the
‘70s with its near exact interpretation of the
rhythm from “Bennie and the Jets” paired with
psychedelic synth squeals and harp plucked by
duet partner Florence Welch. It’s a girl-power,
support-one-another anthem that works
quite well due to Gaga’s turn as a supporting
character, letting Welch’s vocal dramatics take
the lead.
Finally there’s “Angel Down,” a song
that’s been interpreted both as a little too
pandering and as a sincere plea. It touches
on the confusion of the social media era and
puts police brutality against people of colour
into the center of its yens. A minimal, twinkling
instrumental takes the background as Gaga gives
a perfectly measured amount of vocal intensity,
all the while creating an instant earworm with
her Leonard Cohen-like cadence.
Taking inventory of the highs and lows
of the album, it almost feels like there are two
Joannes. While Gaga reflects and plays with
a new direction, she’s tapped into both her
strengths and weaknesses. It helps humanize
the record, even if at some expense of the
listener’s ear. Perhaps this is best exemplified
by her not-quite-smash lead single “Perfect
Illusion.” It’s the closest thing to classic Gaga
style and makes awkward use of rock (Homme
again) and Kevin Parker of Tame Impala’s
signature synths. It doesn’t add up to much to
remember – but as an act of imperfection it
gives us a modular vantage to approach what
we expect Gaga to be, where she was, is, and is
headed next. This album is one that questions
itself, making strides and missteps towards
a high point for Gaga. It may be a necessary
breather for her, but it could just as easily be
the work we last remember from her. Only
time will tell.
COLIN GALLANT
ILLUSTRATION BY BADBLOODCLUB
November 2016 27

ALBUM REVIEW S
Animals as Leaders,
The Madness of Many
The Darcys,
Centerfold
Gord Downie,
Secret Path
The Game,
1992
Moby & The Void Pacific Choir,
These Systems Are Failing
Animals as Leaders
The Madness of Many
Sumerian Records
Tosin Abasi, Javier Reyes, and Matt
Garstka, otherwise known as Animals
as Leaders, have come together again
to take you into the madness of their
musical minds. The Madness of Many
is the first album the band has selfproduced,
however, it often feels
like a disappointing follow-up to
their Billboard Top 200-charting
The Joy of Motion. After putting
out three mind-bending records,
each one was better than the last,
it feels that the trio have hit their
ceiling in terms of ingenuity.
The deception comes with
the intro track “Arithmophobia,”
where the listener is charmed by
the sound of a sitar which leads
to an onslaught of heavy riffage,
followed by mellow jazz solos, and
an intense breakdown to finish.
No complaints, classic Animals
as Leaders. As the next few songs
go by, however, the listener is left
begging for something special to
grasp onto. It isn’t until the end of
the fourth track “Inner Assassins,”
where the usual chugs fade to clean
strumming and a gorgeous, melodic
solo, that some sense of inimitability
was reached.
Animals as Leaders haven’t
in any way “fell off,” as far as their
talent and song writing ability is
concerned. The issue is the inability
to keep the listener engaged and
excited throughout the entire album.
Regardless, Animals as Leaders are
still the masters of their own domain.
The Darcys
Centerfold
Arts & Crafts
There is a plague of artists scoping out
the ‘80s for inspiration, and while the
era is easy to dismiss as an awkward
transition period, there is plenty of
fun synth tones and bubbly drum
machines to mine for ideas. That said,
a self-serious indie rock band deciding
to shirk their low-tempo droning
choruses for danceable rhythms is
hardly a new idea.
Toronto’s The Darcys are
following this trend boldly, with
direct lyrical and para-textual
references to the so-called ‘decade
of shame.’ It comes across playfully,
but never broaches direct parody.
The tonal infrastructure borrowed
from the period is dialed in smartly
with contemporary polish. There’s
enormous detail in every track, and
each one is extremely fresh. Beyond
the tone and instrumentation, the
musicianship is as precise as you
would expect from a band who put
out a Steely Dan cover album less than
five years ago.
Centerfold doesn’t come entirely
out of left field for The Darcy’s.
Warring (2013) was hardly inaccessible
as a record (it did come out on Arts
& Crafts after all), but it did contain a
certain level of brood. This new release
feels like The Darcys are finally enjoying
themselves, and it’s entirely infectious.
Gord Downie
Secret Path
Universal Music Canada
There’s no need for introduction
to the terminally-ill Canadian rock
legend Gord Downie. He and his band,
The Tragically Hip, are easily one of
the greatest Canadian rock groups of
all time. Secret Path, however, is a solo
project. In Secret Path, Downie tells
us the story of Chanie Wenjack, an
indigenous boy who died escaping a
residential school 50 years ago.
In a press release accompanying
the album, Downie tells us that “this
is Canada’s story.” Residential schools
are a dark part of our history that we
rarely acknowledge, but it is essential
to our identity as Canadians. There is
no better musician who could possibly
capture this pain, this sense of loneliness
and confusion than Downie.
The title track is one that vividly
describes the journey of Wenjack
and is the best track on the album.
Pounding, unrelenting drums propel
each song forward into the next,
making the album feel exactly as it
should: a journey. The production
on Secret Path is top-notch, but as it
always is with Downie, it’s never really
just about the chords and beats. The
passion in the project is what pushes
it into the realm of being one of the
most essential Canadian albums in years.
Downie and his brother, who helped with
the album, are donating all proceeds to go
towards healing the wounds caused by
these residential schools.
The Game
1992
Blood Money/eOne
Fresh off the release of two massive
albums last year, West Coast rapper
The Game is back again with 1992.
Usually, an artist releasing full-length
albums in a short succession is call
for concern, but the quality of the
Compton rapper’s 2015 output, The
Documentary 2 and The Documentary
2.5, proved otherwise.
While 1992 does not have as
many memorable tracks as his 2015
albums, it still has just as many Kanye
references (if not more), and proves
that The Game is still riding a hot
streak. One of the best tracks is the
opener, “Savage Lifestyle,” featuring
a Marvin Gaye sample, a chorus
dedicated to the aftermath of the
Rodney King trial, and a whole lot of
rage to the boys in blue over a beat
that never stops switching up just like
The Game’s flow.
Colour is an important theme
of 1992, specifically red and blue.
On “True Colors/It’s On,” he tells
a horrifying story of his childhood
about his dad molesting his sister,
detailing the blood on her shirt when
he found her. 1992 is a solid, honest
album, offering nothing extraordinary
save for a few tracks, but The Game’s
talent makes it a worthwhile and
smooth listen nonetheless.
Hope Sandoval and the
Warm Inventions
Until The Hunter
Tendril Tales
Fans of ‘90s dream pop forbearers
Mazzy Star are in luck. The
enchanting voice of vocalist Hope
Sandoval has been renewed in Hope
Sandoval and the Warm Inventions’
highly anticipated new album:
Until The Hunter. The album is a
mellow exploration of loss, growth,
and questioning. The repetitive
background in many of the songs pulls
the listener into a trance, a delicate
balance between dream pop and
psychedelic folk.
In the track “A Wonderful Seed,”
the artists seem to draw inspiration
from traditional Celtic folk music
while integrating ghostly hums.
The album’s first single “Let Me Get
There,” features a vocal duet between
Kurt Vile and Sandoval. While there’s
no doubt that the two are both
powerful musicians, Vile’s voice seems
out of place. At times, his vocals and
the electropop guitar accents detract
from the dream-like atmosphere of
the song.
Apart from that track, the album
makes the listener feel as though
they are high on a Viking ship that is
floating through the clouds, and is a
must listen for ethereal dream pop
lovers and Mazzy Star fans alike.
Moby & the Void Pacific Choir
These Systems Are Failing
Little Idiot Music
Moby is no stranger to criticisms on
his vastly-varied body of work. Well,
he received a great deal of praise
for his most successful, and not-soarguably
best, album Play in 1999.
That featured many truly timeless
electronica classics like “Why Does
My Heart Feel So Bad,” and that
song from The Beach, but his
previous album, Animal Rights,
nearly ruined him as he tried to
force his angsty, teenage punk
years into an album. So, while
that train wreck was criticized
for deviating too far from what
he was good at, so too was the
preceding album, 18, chastised for
sounding too much like Play. Also,
if you, like me, happened to be in
attendance at his much-hyped set
at Shambhala 2014, there’s a good
chance you criticized him to his
very core for that colossal mockery
of a “DJ set.”
Now we have These Systems
Are Failing, and while I tried to
push my negative associations
garnered from my one experience
seeing him “perform” aside while
listening to his latest record, it
didn’t help much. It seems as though
he has returned to his ‘80s punk
influences, channeling his personal
issues with the modern world into
perhaps his lividest music yet. The
problem is, it doesn’t pack enough
of a punch; even with all its fuzzy,
synth heavy guitar lines and drum
machines and his deadpan voice that
permeates through out. Like the rest
of the album, it’s monotonous and
uninspired. Much like the way he
apparently perceives this generation,
you might say.
NxWorries
YES LAWD!
Stones Throw
When Anderson .Paak released his
debut album Venice in 2014, he was
essentially homeless, hustling to
survive. That album caught the ear
28 REVIEWS
November 2016

AVAILABLE NOW
“HOOKS ON HOOKS... CAPTURES THE BEST POSSIBILITIES OF A TWO-PIECE ROCK BAND”
– BILLBOARD, BEST ALBUMS OF 2016 (SO FAR)
NOV 25
NOV 26
VICTORIA
VANCOUVER
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB
FORTUNE SOUND CLUB
THEPACKAD.com
November 2016 29

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November 2016

NxWorries,
YES LAWD!
John K Samson,
Winter Wheat
Pale Lips,
Wanna Be Bad
Peeling,
Rats In Paradise EP
Solange,
A Seat At The Table
of New Jersey native Glen Boothe,
otherwise known as producer
Knxwledge, who himself is no stranger
to the hustle (you don’t get to 64
releases on Bandcamp without serious
dedication, after all). The two started
working together as NxWorries,
releasing an EP in 2015 called Link
Up & Suede. The latter track would
make it’s way to none other than Dr.
Dre, landing .Paak a contract with
Aftermath Records and a total of
eight(!) guest spots on the Dre’s 2015
comeback album, Compton.
Yet, as amazing as 2015 was for
.Paak, 2016 has somehow been even
better. In January he released the
album of the year in Malibu, all the
while working with Boothe on a followup
to that 2015 EP, the full-length YES
LAWD! for Stones Throw Records.
YES LAWD! is a fitting victory
lap for .Paak, even when it doesn’t
work all that well. It’s a dank and
dusty beat-tape, filled with subthree-minute
throwback jams, that
sounds like a ‘70s R&B Madvillainy.
In a few ways it mirrors that 2004
classic from Madlib and Doom, most
notably that it features two of the
game’s most outlandish outsiders
flexing on the game with an infectious
unfuckwittability. The album finds
.Paak adopting a Superfly-era Curtis
Mayfield persona. He’s a shit-talking
amalgamation of Shaft and Sade,
torn between being a lover and a
player, often in the same line. On
the late-album cut “Sidepiece,” he
contemplates his place as a rap game
Don Juan, protesting his love for a
woman is strong enough to relinquish
his other sexual escapades, even
though “one won’t do, and two is not
enough for me, no!”
It’s soundtracked by swelling,
sampled strings and slowly rolling
toms and tams straight out of the ‘70s.
On opener “Livvin’,” and the stunted
jam “Kutless,” the dust in the grooves
of the record is as audible as any of the
sampled instruments.
There are brief moments that
take away some enjoyment from
YES LAWD!, but it still leaves the
impression that when they’re on,
NxWorries are the smoothest duo
since Rob Thomas and Santana.
Pale Lips
Wanna Be Bad
Hosehead Records
Montreal garage-punks Pale Lips have
a ripping time of a first LP on their
hands with the release of Wanna Be
Bad. Just a few chords, vocals that run
from sweet harmonies to raw yowls
and a healthy heap of sass keep these
12 nuggets of brittle but bright power
pop a riot from start to finish.
Tongue-in-cheek opener “Doo
Wah Diddy Shim Sham (Bama Lama
Loo)” makes playful use of vintage
garage-pop scatting while maintaining
the genre’s reverence for earnest vocal
melody. If that sounds a bit innocent
for a record called Wanna Be Bad,
fear not: “Queen of Spades” is
an ode to the thrill of gambling,
“Mary-Lou Sniffin’ Glue” (sounding
not unlike an Exploding Hearts
song) preaches the joys of inhaling
that you should not, and “Run Boy
Run” is about taking vengeance on
a cheater.
Like much punk and garagerock,
the album doesn’t exactly
swell with variety throughout.
Rather, it takes something fun and
unfussy and injects it with snark, snarl
and a sense of humour that makes
the tracks endlessly personable. It’s a
saccharine and venomous concoction,
perhaps described best a big, bright
lollipop coated in a lethal dose of speed
and arsenic.
Peeling
Rats In Paradise EP
Buzz Records
Toronto DIY punk “supergroup”
Peeling features members of
Mexican Slang, Odonis Odonis,
Dilly Dally, and Golden Dogs. Their
first EP as a group, Rats In Paradise,
combines aspects of garage rock,
punk, noise and pop into one album.
In the song “Magic Eye,” lead
singer Annabelle Lee’s rasp and
growl is paired with hard hitting
drum beats to create a sultry song
focusing simply on body positivity and
sex. Another song off of the record,
“Leisure Life,” condemns apathy, greed
and those who are “making money off
of war and institutional oppression.”
While the themes of the album
seem a bit heavy handed, what’s
produced is an enjoyable, almost
pop-influenced, punk album. In just
four songs, Peeling tackle broad
concepts such as sexuality, death,
consumerism, religion and mental
illness, but - like much of Buzz
Records catalogue – Rats In Paradise
is still a hazy, fuzzy and fun album.
Protest the Hero
Pacific Myth
Sony Music
There’s no middle ground when it
comes to discussing Canadian progrockers
Protest the Hero. Four strong
albums in, PTH has developed a
love-‘em-or-can’t-fucking-stand-‘em
reputation that stems primarily
from frontman Rody Walkers
divisive vocal delivery which shifts
from crystal-clear highs to vicious
gutturals on a dime. However, Pacific
Myth, their latest EP of voracious
fret-burners, is a prime example of
a band that knows their place so
well that they’re unable to escape the
territory of self-parody that comes
from musicians that *literally* grew
up playing the same music they’re still
putting out 15 years on.
To remedy this situation, Protest
has started implementing unique
marketing strategies to produce
their work, beginning with 2013’s
Volition (which was crowdfunded
via Indiegogo), and continuing with
Pacific Myth, which was released over
a 12-month span to paying subscribers
via Bandcamp.
The result is 12 tracks (well, six,
with accompanying instrumentals)
that essentially sound like rejected
cuts that didn’t quite make it onto
their last full-length. In fact, any
song on Pacific Myth could be
slipped into any other post-Fortress
release and the listener would be
none the wiser.
While the guys in Protest are
undoubtedly talented, Pacific Myth
has made it clear that being really,
really good at what you do doesn’t
necessarily make it interesting.
John K. Samson
Winter Wheat
Anti-Records
As if John K. Samson needed
to prove to us that he is among
Canada’s best songwriters, Winter
Wheat is the lyrically ambitious, clean
and clever, release that we weren’t
sure we were going to get this late in
his illustrious career.
With the Weakerthans now
permanently defunct, and his
Propaghandi days a distant memory,
Samson began settling into singersongwriter
mode on Provincial (2012).
It’s a beautiful record, but also small and
reserved. Armed with the knowledge
that Samson writes fitfully, this year’s 15
track, sprawling, Winter Wheat, comes
as a most pleasant surprise.
Close listens do not go
unrewarded. The record is packed with
extremely compelling narratives, such
as the charming and fun first-person
account of a Cambridge spy about
to be caught on “Fellow Traveler,”
but it also maintains the many
quotable one-liners that made
Weakerthans’ blue-collar anthems
so memorable. “The payday lonely
pray in parking lots, a one bar wifi
kinda town,” Samson whispers on
“Capital.”
The record is fairly sparse
in its production, and this helps
highlight Samson’s lyricism. This is
most true of “Alpha Adept,” which
balances its delusional narrator
with some slinky bass guitar, wirey
synths, and a beautifully sci-fi
keyboard breakdown. “17th Street
Treatment Centre” sounds like a
first take recording, just electric
guitar and wavering vocals, it feels
deliberately unpolished, like it was
recorded from the hospital bed of the
protagonist. Among the most energetic
and fun songs on the record is ‘Fellow
Traveler,’ but with its soft percussion,
and widely spaced doo-wop vocal
harmony, the track never peaks quite as
highly as it could.
Winter Wheat is a fantastic record,
a sprawling collection of short stories
with a clean, but soft, coat of paint.
Solange
A Seat At The Table
Saint/Columbia
On her first album in eight years, A
Seat At The Table, Solange Knowles
considerably raises her creative
ante, while providing a strong
female perspective concerning race
and gender issues in 21st century
America. In co-writing, producing,
and arranging the album, Knowles
proves not only a deft-yet-sensitive
hand at vocalizing the strength and
struggles of today’s women, but her
skills as a composer and producer
serve as an example of the highest
degree of musical imagination and
taste currently in pop music.
From the cascading intro
harmonies of “Rise,” there’s an inkling
that A Seat At The Table might be a
more run-of-the-mill pop exercise, but
the notion is quickly disregarded, as
the opening cut never drops the beat,
settling on vocals and Wurlitzer with a
subtle high-hat/kick on the off beat to
November 2016 REVIEWS
31

la vida local
Tasseomancy,
Do Easy
Twin Rains,
Automatic Hand
Martha Wainwright,
Goodnight City
Anchoress
Anchoress is Ruining My Life
Independent
keep the cut off balance.
“Don’t Touch My Hair”
is continually rising, with an
arrangement brought to classy
heights by classic ‘90s hip-hop horns
that blaze into a sort of Daptone
climax. It’s a shocking move for a pop
record, but at this point, Knowles
has confounded throughout, and her
artistry, and reverence for the history
of black pop music is well assured.
Solange Knowles is a singular artist,
distinct and distant from her
commercial pop past, and A Seat At
The Table is a smart, unpredictable
album that ought to position her as a
serious voice in the social movements
of her time, and breathes some life
into a style that has long become
sterile, rote, and endlessly greedy.
Tasseomancy
Do Easy
Outside Music / Hand Drawn Dracula
If you’re looking for a slow-burning,
ethereal album filled with spinetingling
harmonies, you’ve come to
the right place with Tasseomancy’s
Do Easy.
Tasseomancy’s definition as
a word describes the divination of
information based on tea, coffee,
or wine-resin reading. It’s a form of
fortune telling that belongs to the
earth. On that front, Do Easy has you
covered with unadorned yet hair-raising
harmonies from twin vocalists Romy
and Sari Lightman. The duo formerly
known as Ghost Bees form the crux
of the band, but this LP is bolstered by
the perhaps more recognizably named
contributions like Simone Schmidt
(Fiver, One Hundred Dollars) and Alex
Cowan (Blue Hawaii, Agor).
Starting with the pianopunctuated
torch song “Dead Can
Dance and Neil Young,” drifting
blissfully along to lead single “Missoula,”
(a bit like Belinda Carlisle meets Beach
House in a Leonard Cohen-written
fable), and wrapping with the startling
spare “Eli,” Tasseomancy track deeply
personal themes best explained in
late-night whispers and not in a
needfully brisk album review.
If you’re someone who values the
reward of taking time to settle into deeply
considered pacing and merits reflection
on – and investigation of – pristine, obtuse
music without a single clear grabbing
point, you’ll find the rewards of Do Easy to
be rich and plentiful.
Twin Rains
Automatic Hand
Independent
Drift into the electro-dream realm
of Canadian duo Twin Rains. Their
debut album, Automatic Hand, splices
motivational melodies and despair,
creating a sublime mindscape for the
listener. After moving from homeland
Toronto to Vancouver, Jay Merrow
and Christine Stoesser unearthed
this gleaming gem, full of laidback
beats and whimsy. There is a deep
stormy ripple throughout the album,
a yearning and pining vibe that is laced
with Stoesser’s solemnly sultry vocals.
Opening track “Before” totes a weight
of anticipation, while twin track
“Ghost Bird,” is slow, almost dragging
with trailing guitar and sorrowful
vibraphone.
Fear not, though, the album is
not entirely dark. Sunny guitar licks
grace their first single “Flash Burn,”
while “Automatic Hand” is dressed
with the zest of Ace of Base. Haunting
synth and a driving beat unleash
an uncontrollable dance-y pants
direction on “A Swim,” laden with
contemplative lyrics like, “If I know
that the moon is making the waves,
who am I to point out the undertow?”
The frequency of loneliness and
reverie reverb throughout.
As a whole, the album is
seamlessly cohesive, marrying poppy
guitar, airy vocals, intriguing synth,
and wandering beats, all whilst
carrying a wide spectrum of emotion.
Just in time for the reflective essence
of winter, this debut is not to be
dismissed.
Martha Wainwright
Goodnight City
Cadence Music
After four years of slumber since
her last solo album, Come Home
To Mama, Martha Wainwright reemerges
only to say “bonne nuit” with
Goodnight City.
Wainwright has recently
admitted to feeling exhausted and
satiated in the studio after spending
long, persistent hours arranging each
of the 12 songs for this release with
her band, proudly stating that “the
integrity of the songs and our ability
to play together as a band” comes
through due to minimal overdubs
and the cohesive camaraderie that
inevitably unfolds out of such a
focused collaborative period.
While Wainwright wrote lyrics
for only half the songs on Goodnight
City, she carefully adapted and
crafted six other offerings from
songwriters such as Beth Orton,
Canadian poet Michael Ondaajte,
and her brother Rufus Wainwright.
The album begins in an easy, playful
realm while quickly unraveling into
a stormy battle of arrangements,
verbose lyrical content, and the
raw, effortlessness of her voice.
Each song demands attention of its
own, resulting in a dramatic journey
through voyeuristic landscapes.
Revealed are intimate glimpses into
the symptoms of family, romance and
fame, making this a challenging listen
unsuited to the emotionally faint at
heart. Admittedly, some of the clichéd
content is only forgivable due to the
impressive charisma of her voice, but
will most certainly lend to a steamy,
boisterous live show.
Veteran hardcore nice guys Anchoress are back to ruin your life with face
melting riffs and lung shrinking anthems. An album for punk fans old
and new, AIRML has more chant along choruses than you can throw a
beer can at and enough fancy fretwork to get your feet moving and your
fists pumping.
Brutes
S/T EP
Pop Era
If this were the Batcave at the zeitgeist of darkwave, these kids would be
the cat’s pyjamas — all spooky synths and disaffected dirges set to the sexbeat
of a forgotten world. Alas, it’s 2016 so a new haven for the haunted
must be resurrected and I’ll be damned if this ain’t the soundtrack to
their fever dreams. This Vancouver trio conjures up the souls of gothic
past (Kiss In The Dreamhouse - era Siouxsie and industrial iconoclasts
Cabaret Voltaire) with cold-stare contemporaries like Soft Moon and
Zola Jesus with menacingly moody results. “Hated Thing” is a prickly pear
of staccato-stabbing keyboard work from Jonathan Salvatore Crozier and
Christian Pelech, while “The Beast” is no creature comfort, rhythmically
lurching and pulsing forward whilst vocalist Lindsay Dakin warns you of
its impending arrival. She coyly suggests “It’s understandable you want
to escape into the arms of a beautiful saviour,” but something tells me
you’ll be dead and buried faster than you can namedrop an Alien Sex
Fiend song (See what I just did there?). Don’t be surprised if you start
hearing a lot more from this trio in the future - your melted mind will
thank you later.
Adrian Glynn
morelightthannolight
Light Organ Records
With morelightthannolight, Adrian Glynn brings the folky storytelling of
his past into a modern landscape, blending acoustic guitars with bright
synths and drum machines. While the overall vibe feels upbeat and lighthearted,
there’s a darkness in the lyrical depths that fans of his earlier
work will be pleased to know hasn’t been replaced with shinier things.
Passive
NØ. 2
Independent
NØ. 2 is a collection of three new songs by this post-punk duo, this time
working with outside producer Alex Kurth. It retains the lo-fi sound of
their first release, and offers a mix of two driving numbers highlighted
by guitarist Ian Schram’s eccentric guitar playing, contrasted by the
atmospheric dirge of the closing song “Not Pray.” The tight musicianship
of the duo and Schram’s cunning lyrics raise the band above their
contemporaries and warrant taking a listen to their work.
32 REVIEWS
November 2016

LIVE
Danny Brown, Zeloopers
Vogue Theatre
October 6, 2016
Detroit rapper Danny Brown is an
enigma. After the huge success of his
albums XXX (2011) and Old (2013), he
opted to wait three full years before
releasing his latest album Atrocity
Exhibition. Instead of capitalizing on
the hype and rushing something out,
Brown opted to take his time to create
an album he could be truly proud of. The
album is his weirdest and least hyped-up
album so far. Although Brown’s show
at the Vogue was not sold out, it didn’t
diminish the crowd energy one bit, as
people looked ready to party the second
they walked in the door.
Filling up around 10:15, Brown’s
advertised start time, the makeup of
the crowd really began to reveal itself.
On the floor was all the kids (literally,
kids – I would venture a guess to say
at least half the floor was 18 or under)
with drinks, joints, or pills in hand.
On the balcony was all the adults who
enjoyed Brown’s recorded material,
but didn’t want to get swept up into
the action on the floor with all the
kids. Introducing his set with a bizarre,
ugly, and stylistically appropriate
remix of Joy Division track “Atrocity
Exhibition,” which his new album is
named after, Danny Brown took to the
stage and opened with XXX cut “Die
Like a Rockstar.” The crowd went off
like a bomb and didn’t stop until Brown
walked off stage.
Decked out in skinny black jeans, a
black leather vest, and a Hanson t-shirt
(yes, Hanson of “Mmm Bop” fame),
Brown’s energy was infectious. Going
through his set in chronological order
– beginning with XXX, moving on to
the Old in the middle, and ending with
Atrocity Exhibition material, Brown
proved himself to be a formidable
rapper. Most impressive was his
decision to use minimal backing tracks.
Most rappers now focus on high-energy
live shows and rely on backing tracks to
fill in the gaps when they need to catch
a breath. Not Brown though. Only
employing backing tracks for choruses
and hooks, Brown put his rapping
chops on full display, which showcased
his unique flow and clever wordplay.
After performing for exactly one
hour, Danny Brown excitedly went to
front of the stage after a firing on all
cylinders performance of “Pneumonia,”
and yelled, “That’s it! Good night!” and
left the stage. The audience was left
confused by his abrupt departure and
wanted more. Alas, despite around
five minutes of intense cheering, there
was no sign of Brown coming back. It
was a shame the set ended so quickly –
though, to his credit, Brown fit 20 songs
into his one-hour set. I would have also
liked to hear more Atrocity Exhibition
tracks. That being said, Brown still
proved he really is one of the best, most
creative, and exhilarating rappers there
is in the world right now.
PHOTO BY DARROLE PALMER
PHOTO BY GALEN ROBINSON
James Blake
Orpheum Theatre
October 13, 2016
You probably wouldn’t expect a
James Blake performance to test the
structural integrity of the Orpheum
Theatre; the 28-year-old English
musician is better known for his talent
of rattling emotional foundations with
his brand of soulful electronic music
than architectural ones. But although
it was a terrifically stormy Thursday
night, the historic venue was rumbling
with bass thunderous enough to rival
the awesome weather outside.
Aside from the incredible lightshow
- most memorably the flickering
aquatic-like downward projections
during “Limit to Your Love” - Blake
held the audience captive from his
position hunched over his synths and
the majority of the audience remained
respectfully seated throughout the
nearly 20-song set.
The packed theatre seemed content to
acquiesce to their solemn surroundings
and sway enraptured in their seats.
Probably the track most conducive
to raver gyrations was an homage to
the pre-EDM dubstep genre courtesy
of an old remix from U.K. producer
Untold. Suddenly the decorous
former vaudeville movie house was
transformed to a British club that one
could imagine as the ominous setting
for a new James Bond film or the like.
Blake’s third album, The Colour in
Anything, released earlier this year on
Polydor Records, was a conscientiously
more collaborative effort. However,
apart from a brief vocal contribution
from opener Moses Sumney, Blake’s only
assistance was from his two supporting
musicians (and childhood friends) on
guitar, synths and percussion, each
sharing equal stage space on three
elevated platforms, and the artistic
video projections behind the stage.
The musical additions were hardly
missed and some of the most heartwrenching
tracks occurred during a solo
encore comprised of “Wilhelm Scream”
(a song adapted from a track by Blake’s
father), a cover of the Joni Mitchell song
“A Case of You” and the complexly
looped 2011 track “Measurements.” The
latter faded with the lights, allowing
Blake to make a ghostly exit and cede
the theatrics once again to the storm
battering the city outside.
November 2016 REVIEWS
33

MICHELLE HANELY
JJ BEAN COMMERCIAL LA CUISSON GENE
Can you believe it’s been two years since Vanpooper debuted in
BeatRoute? Wow! In Vanpooper #1 I gave a scathing review to the JJ
Bean on Commercial Drive, but they finally renovated their disgusting
bathrooms and it’s time for an update.
These bathrooms were once horrifying nightmares. Broken toilets,
holes in the wall and some of the most obscene graffiti west of Bon’s
Off Broadway. But now they are sparkling and shining and new with
beautiful tiles and brand new toilets. There’s even a hook to hang your
coat and bag up while you poop. They’ve also finally added a used
needle bin because harm reduction is so great and important. I’m very
impressed with how this JJ Bean has turned its toilets around.
Did you know that there’s a cafe in the city that makes coffee
out of cat poop?? It’s true! Kopi Luwak is made from the digested
coffee beans that wild Indonesian civet cats poop out. I went all
the way to La Cuisson in Kerrisdale to try it but then I realized
it was 60 dang bucks a cup and I don’t know if cat poop coffee
aligns with my vegan morals. Oh well.
The bathroom at La Cuisson is adorably decorated with fake
flowers and cute paintings. It brilliantly utilizes an old coffee
barrel as a garbage can. It was spectacularly clean and well
stocked. A great place to poop, and a great place to spend a small
fortune on coffee made of poop.
Gene is a cute little coffee shop in the coolest building in Mount
Pleasant. This triangularly shaped cafe on Kingsway and Main is home
to some famously grumpy baristas and some very weird bathrooms.
Due to the odd shape of this building, the bathrooms here are
naturally strange. There are two very small bathrooms. The one I went
to was bright and clean. It cleverly had bits of chalkboard paint on the
walls to discourage graffiti, which is a brilliant touch. The mirror was
broken in half, but it seemed like it could have been an intentionally
quirky piece of bathroom interior design by the Emily Carr students
who work there. Not an awful place to poop, but there are definitely
better coffee shop toilets on Main Street.
34
November 2016