BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - December 2016
BeatRoute Magazine is a monthly arts and entertainment paper with a predominant focus on music – local, independent or otherwise. The paper started in June 2004 and continues to provide a healthy dose of perversity while exercising rock ‘n’ roll ethics.
BeatRoute Magazine is a monthly arts and entertainment paper with a predominant focus on music – local, independent or otherwise. The paper started in June 2004 and continues to provide a healthy dose of perversity while exercising rock ‘n’ roll ethics.
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<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 1
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
december ‘16<br />
PUBLISHER<br />
<strong>BeatRoute</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong><br />
GRAPHIC DESIGNER<br />
& PRODUCTION MANAGER<br />
Syd Danger<br />
syddanger.com<br />
WEB PRODUCER<br />
Shane Flug<br />
COPY EDITOR<br />
Thomas Coles<br />
FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION<br />
Victoria Sieczka / badbloodclub<br />
DISTRIBUTION<br />
Gold Distribution<br />
<br />
Heather Adamson ∙ Glenn Alderson<br />
Kaje Annihilatrix ∙ Rob Antle ∙ Kevin Bailey<br />
Kim Budziak ∙ Maddy Cristall ∙ David Cutting<br />
Beth d’Aoust ∙ Mike Dunn ∙ Kennedy Enns<br />
Joshua Erickson ∙ Heath Fenton ∙ Colin Gallant<br />
Willow Grier ∙ Michael Grondin ∙ Carlotta Gurl<br />
Kyle Harcott ∙ Adrianna Hepper ∙ Sarah Jamieson<br />
Erin Jardine ∙ Prachi Kamble ∙ Karolina Kapusta<br />
Noor Khwaja ∙ Jay King ∙ Jackie Klapak<br />
Danny Kresnyak ∙ Adria Leduc ∙ Paul McAleer<br />
Kathleen McGee ∙ Hollie McGowan<br />
Amber McLinden ∙ Jamie McNamara<br />
Devon Motz ∙ Keir Nicoll ∙ Adey Okoyomon<br />
James Olson ∙ Jennie Orton ∙ Johnny Papan<br />
Cole Parker ∙ Liam Prost ∙ Mitch Ray<br />
Colleen Rennison ∙ Galen Robinson-Exo<br />
Yasmine Shemesh ∙ Paris Spence-Lang<br />
Vanessa Tam ∙ Austin Taylor ∙ Willem Thomas<br />
Brayden Turrenne ∙ Sadie Vadnais ∙ Alec Warkentin<br />
Savannah Leigh Wellman ∙ Graeme Wiggins<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Erich Bouccan ∙ Katrin Braga ∙ Mark Brennan<br />
Michael Clarke ∙ Ben Colen ∙ Scott Evans<br />
Chase Hansen ∙ Julia Iredale ∙ Sesse Lind<br />
Tim Matheson ∙ Jennifer McCord<br />
Chris Preyser ∙ Graham Spence<br />
Tonje Thielsen ∙ Leah Trottier ∙ Johann Wall<br />
<br />
Glenn Alderson ∙ glenn@beatroute.ca<br />
778-888-1120<br />
<br />
Glenn Alderson<br />
glenn@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
Joshua Erickson<br />
josh@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
Vanessa Tam<br />
vanessa@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
David Cutting<br />
david@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
Jennie Orton<br />
jennie@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
<br />
Erin Jardine<br />
erin@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
Yasmine Shemesh<br />
yasmine@beatroute.ca<br />
<br />
Graeme Wiggins<br />
graeme@beatroute.ca<br />
04<br />
05<br />
06<br />
11<br />
13<br />
<br />
<br />
∙ with Peter and Chris<br />
HENRY ROLLINS<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
19<br />
<br />
23 <br />
∙ 12 Beers of Christmas ∙ Creeps<br />
09 <br />
<br />
27 <br />
10 ∙ Darcy Michael<br />
12 <br />
∙ Top 25 Local Albums<br />
∙ Editor’s Picks Of The Year<br />
16 <br />
∙ Neurosis ∙ Protest The Hero<br />
∙ Diecember Fest ∙ Zuckuss<br />
∙ Porter Robinson ∙ Cover: Zed’s Dead<br />
∙ Contact Winter Festival ∙ Aesop Rock<br />
∙ Machinedrum<br />
20 <br />
∙ Best of <strong>2016</strong>: Top Films of the Year<br />
∙ Foliosa ∙ Rebel Soup ∙ Keithmas VII<br />
∙ The American<br />
28 <br />
∙ Queen Of The Month<br />
∙ From The Desk Of Carlotta<br />
∙ Give Em Oral<br />
31 <br />
∙ The Weeknd ∙ Beach Season ∙ DIANA<br />
∙ Drive By Truckers ∙ Meek Mill<br />
∙ Thee Oh Sees ∙ Young Mammals<br />
37 <br />
∙ PUP ∙ YG<br />
38 <br />
<br />
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Galen Robinson-Exo<br />
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©BEATROUTE <strong>Magazine</strong> <strong>2016</strong>. All rights reserved.<br />
Reproduction of the contents is strictly prohibited.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 3
WITH PETER N’ CHRIS<br />
JENNIE ORTON<br />
No matter your holiday tradition, there is likely<br />
a moment when you encounter, either very on<br />
purpose or by contact high, an adaptation of<br />
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The timeless<br />
tale of regret and redemption rings true for many<br />
people as they take stock at the end of the year and<br />
prepare for the soul-sucking onslaught of many days<br />
of family. So it is fitting as <strong>2016</strong>—one of the most<br />
world-renowned, record-breaking, sucking chest<br />
wound years of recent memory—comes to a close<br />
that we seek a lighter-hearted version of the tale to<br />
bring us gasping across the finish line of these gritty<br />
and despicable 12 months. Enter A Peter n’ Chris<br />
Christmas Carol, a cheeky twist brought to you by<br />
Fringe Festival stars and Canadian Comedy Award<br />
winning scamps Peter Carlone and Chris Wilson.<br />
We watch as Chris, absent of Christmas cheer, is<br />
visited by those familiar ghosts on Christmas Eve<br />
with hilarious results. We spoke to Peter Carlone<br />
about their take on the story and why the themes<br />
are intrinsically part of our holiday traditions.<br />
BeateRoute: So why is Chris bah humbugging?<br />
Peter Carlone: Well we wanna spoof stuff that we<br />
love. Spoof it in a way that honors it. So a part of<br />
that is we kind of want to still tell that classic story,<br />
but we were thinking like what is it that makes him<br />
grumpy? Like is he just a grumpy old guy and it’s the<br />
classic Christmas story all the way and we find spoof<br />
in that, or is it some sort of sillier comedic reason? The<br />
one we are working on right now is part of the reveal<br />
in the plot so….I don’t know if I should tell <strong>BeatRoute</strong><br />
how it turns out in the final scene!<br />
BR: What do you think it is about this story that<br />
is so universal that it has stood the test of time?<br />
PC: It’s funny you say that, I was just talking to<br />
someone about that. What I think I have come up<br />
with is that, have you ever heard this theory? That<br />
there are like five stories or only seven stories that<br />
we are all telling over and over again in different<br />
ways?<br />
BR: The literary bugaboo.<br />
PC: Yeah. (laughs) Is it ok if I call it that from now<br />
on? So I wouldn’t say that the actual plot of the<br />
Dickens story is one of those plots but that the<br />
way it’s being told must touch on one of them. You<br />
know, that someone is fundamentally not happy<br />
with something and, with some help, figures out<br />
that the main reason he is unhappy is himself.<br />
BR: Well I’m a sucker for the story and love seeing<br />
other adaptations of it.<br />
PC: Well I don’t want to shoot myself in the<br />
foot but I would say ours will be one of the more<br />
“unfaithful” adaptations. Cause we’re not just<br />
gonna DO it again, y’know? We’re not gonna just<br />
do the story. We’ll hit the major beats of it but like<br />
in a totally different way. Like right now our Jacob<br />
Marley ghost is a person who is a ghost but he’s<br />
more of a corporate ghost. He’s sent from “Ghost<br />
Corporate,” because cheering people up around the<br />
holidays has become such a huge industry that you<br />
can’t just send your best buddy to do it. There’s a<br />
whole training process, you have to be vetted to be<br />
a helper ghost…<br />
BR: This time of year does tend to make people<br />
very reflective, which is why this story resonates<br />
with so many people. What happens to YOU<br />
during the Christmas season?<br />
PC: That’s interesting…Where do you wanna go<br />
with that? How real do you want to dive? (laughs)<br />
BR: I’ll leave that up to you.<br />
PC: ‘Cause the thing is, and I think this is why Chris<br />
and I make comedies the way we make comedies,<br />
is cause things can get really heavy around these<br />
times and I think there is just a lot of power and a<br />
lot of fun to be had from making jokes and making<br />
a good piece of comedy that everybody can get on<br />
board with and doesn’t necessarily try to divide you<br />
into groups.<br />
BR: If you had access to the ghost of Christmas<br />
past, what is something you would definitely want<br />
to go see?<br />
PC: Oh wow, that’s a big one. I feel a lot of pressure<br />
to say something awesome. You know what would<br />
be kind of cool is to go back to see the moon landing<br />
and feel the energy of the crowd.<br />
BR: But not mess around, just still let it happen<br />
but just observe it?<br />
PC: Oh yeah not mess around…OR if I was gonna<br />
mess around I would go a couple years back and see<br />
what we can do about this whole Trump sitch. Just<br />
be like “GUYS! It happened, it’s not a joke!” I feel like I<br />
could write a whole book about the things I would like<br />
to go back in time and enjoy. You know what I mean?<br />
Like: “just enjoy yourself, geez!” Like University. “Just<br />
chill. You don’t have to freak out EVERY DAY. Just like<br />
freak out once a week or something, holy crap.”<br />
BR: You’ll live.<br />
PC: Yeah you’re GONNA live. It won’t have<br />
mattered. (laughs)<br />
Catch A Peter n’ Chris-tmas Carol at Performance<br />
Works, 8:00 pm <strong>December</strong> 9 and 10.<br />
4<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
HENRY ROLLINS<br />
past that, there is no past that<br />
<br />
KYLE HARCOTT<br />
Henry Rollins: world traveler, actor,<br />
author, radio and television host, and<br />
elder punk statesman as former singer<br />
to the mighty Rollins Band and Black Flag<br />
is back on the road this winter bringing his<br />
spoken-word across North America, with<br />
more than 80 dates lined up.<br />
Fans can expect Rollins to mix<br />
his always-timely commentary on<br />
the current state of politics—with<br />
anecdotes on his latest L.A. experiences,<br />
to perspective gained from his extensive<br />
world travels. “Rollins is many things,”<br />
says the Washington Post, “diatribist,<br />
confessor, provocateur, humorist,<br />
even motivational speaker…his is an<br />
enthusiastic and engaging chatter.”<br />
Since his last U.S. spoken word<br />
tour in 2012, Rollins has been busy<br />
to say the least. The epitome of<br />
a workaholic, Rollins has starred<br />
in films like He Never Died and<br />
Gutterdammerung, he’s done voiceover<br />
work, written new books<br />
like A Grim Detail, continued to<br />
contribute a column at LA Weekly,<br />
hosted on television (National<br />
Geographic, History Channel, IFC),<br />
continued to deejay a radio show on<br />
KCRW, and yet still finds time to tour<br />
as a spoken word performer–having<br />
performed countless shows around the<br />
world over the last 35 years.<br />
We were able catch up with<br />
Rollins briefly (c’mon, who else moves<br />
that fast?) to get a few answers about<br />
some stuff that had been bugging us,<br />
and hopefully, bugging him.<br />
<strong>BeatRoute</strong>: What are you most<br />
pissed-off about these days, and what<br />
can we expect from your upcoming<br />
spoken tour?<br />
Henry Rollins: What bugs me at<br />
this very moment is the amount of<br />
people who didn’t vote in the last<br />
election in America. A lot of people<br />
are complaining but I don’t know how<br />
many actually voted.<br />
BR: What are some of the bands<br />
that are an active concern right now,<br />
in your opinion, who not only bring<br />
the heat with music and talent, but<br />
also seem to understand the current<br />
climate of the music industry, and are<br />
doing great things?<br />
HR: There are a lot of bands I like very<br />
much. Bands like Thee Oh Sees, The<br />
Julie Ruin, Point Juncture WA, Ty Segall,<br />
Ausmuteants, Lowtide, Terry, Crystal<br />
Fairy, etc. that I think are fantastic. I think<br />
there are at least two music industries.<br />
There is the one that has all the Beyoncés<br />
of the world, which is a dull, corporate<br />
roar, and then there is the very exciting<br />
independent music industry. The latter<br />
has never been better.<br />
BR: As someone who was in a<br />
band that broke their backs whiteknuckling<br />
it on the road to try and<br />
get by, what’s your opinion on bands<br />
going the route of crowdfunding with<br />
subscription sources like Patreon as<br />
a means of attempting to make a<br />
living playing music?<br />
HR: I think different times and<br />
situations make for different<br />
methods. It’s nothing I would do<br />
but I’m not interested in telling<br />
someone how to make their<br />
records. It may very well be one<br />
of the better ideas. If you want<br />
direct-to-the-fans, that’s how to do<br />
it. I think it’s a completely valid way to<br />
go about it.<br />
BR: America has a new president. You were<br />
there when Reagan was elected, and American<br />
hardcore exploded in fury. Do you foresee<br />
this happening again in the Trump era?<br />
HR: I don’t but I think there will be<br />
some great benefit concerts to push<br />
back against what might be a challenging<br />
time for LGBT folks, women, nonwhites,<br />
Muslims, etc. I’m looking forward to<br />
getting busy on all that.<br />
BR: You’re friends with Tim Friede,<br />
the venom man. Weren’t you guys<br />
working on a TV show together about<br />
his antivenom processing?<br />
HR: I met him when I was part of a National<br />
Geographic thing that featured him.<br />
Amazing guy.<br />
BR: For that matter, when was<br />
the first time you remember your<br />
fascination with snakes taking off?<br />
HR: I was 11. Snake keeping is a very<br />
time consuming task. I would do it if<br />
I had the time but I don’t any more. I<br />
live all over the world and that doesn’t<br />
make for good upkeep.<br />
BR: As a champion of the Stooges<br />
for a long time, what was your take<br />
on the new documentary, and what’s<br />
with the kids picking Raw Power over<br />
Fun House these days?<br />
HR: I think anything that brings<br />
people to the Stooges is a great<br />
thing. I think Raw Power is a ver y<br />
approachable album compared to<br />
Fun House, which is my personal<br />
favorite. Fun House is more<br />
conceptual, Raw Power is more straight<br />
ahead rock. Hopefully, someone who<br />
Ever an enigma, Henry Rollins is once again taking his thoughts on the road in<br />
a politically charged landscape following the US election.<br />
becomes curious will check out ALL the<br />
Stooges material.<br />
BR: I was so excited to hear your vocals<br />
again on the new Ruts DC track. What<br />
are the chances of there ever being a<br />
Rollins solo album?<br />
HR: Hopefully none. For me, music was<br />
a time/place thing. It was an age related<br />
endeavor. I gave all when I had something<br />
to give and then moved on. I can see<br />
doing something like I did on the Ruts DC<br />
record. They asked me, I said sure but past<br />
that, there is no past that.<br />
Henry Rollins performs at the Vogue<br />
Theatre on January 4.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> MUSIC<br />
5
HALF MOON RUN<br />
Montreal band reflect on inspiration, pressure and mojo<br />
SAVANNAH LEIGH WELLMAN<br />
Half Moon Run seem to have “it” – call it<br />
destiny, luck, or perhaps mojo (the term<br />
used by Plants and Animals to describe<br />
their soon-to-be tourmates). But with<br />
just their first album they accomplished<br />
the kind of career landmarks that most<br />
indie bands can only dream of. The<br />
group’s very formation could be seen as<br />
an act of fate, when Connor Molander<br />
and Dylan Phillips found singer Devon<br />
Portielje via a Craigslist add looking<br />
for musicians. From there, their debut<br />
album Dark Eyes went gold in Canada,<br />
and the band found themselves playing<br />
international stages with the likes of<br />
Mumford & Sons. But they’re careful not<br />
to subscribe to any ideas of grandeur,<br />
and even get a little uncomfortable<br />
at the idea. “I feel extremely lucky,<br />
but when the time comes where<br />
you’re reflecting on those things, it’s a<br />
dangerous mental territory to get into.<br />
Pride comes before the fall – I’m weary<br />
of thinking about how great anything is<br />
going,” Molander shares from his home<br />
in Montreal.<br />
After any successful first album,<br />
there is always the looming question<br />
– will they be able to follow it up?<br />
Expectations from fans and critics can<br />
put a lot of pressure on the creative<br />
process, but the group decided to<br />
turn inwards and use it to their<br />
advantage. “Internally is where the most<br />
meaningful pressure came from – all<br />
we can do is try to do our best, and you<br />
can’t bother with what anybody else<br />
is going to think about it. And I think<br />
that internal pressure is a good thing,<br />
it keeps you from getting complacent<br />
– even to the extent of conjuring it up<br />
when I don’t feel it, because it’s such a<br />
great motivator.”<br />
Even with that kind of drive,<br />
when it came time to focus on writing<br />
their follow up album, the foursome<br />
(now joined by Isaac Symonds) found<br />
themselves at a bit of a creative<br />
stalemate being at home. “We had all<br />
this free time in Montreal to write the<br />
new record, and we needed to light a<br />
fire under our own asses, so we basically<br />
just got in the van and tried to make<br />
an adventure out of it. We needed a<br />
spark, and it worked wonderfully - that’s<br />
when we really hit our stride.” The final<br />
Half Moon Run harvested the warmth of California to power their new record, Sun Leads Me On.<br />
destination was California, where the<br />
band was able to mix work and leisure<br />
in a setting that inspired much of the<br />
music on the album. Even the title, Sun<br />
Leads Me On, is a nod to that journey,<br />
chasing the sunset as they drove west.<br />
The sunshine seemed to have an effect<br />
on the tone of the album too – there<br />
are more moments of optimism and<br />
pleasure than on the mostly melancholic<br />
Dark Eyes. You can almost hear echos<br />
of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds era in<br />
singer Portielje’s falsetto, or in the<br />
opening track “Warmest Regards,” a<br />
pleasant reflection featuring acoustic<br />
guitars and flutes. But the band hasn’t<br />
strayed from the percussive intensity<br />
and vocal harmonies that have become<br />
their signature sound – they’ve simply<br />
built on it, going deeper into the darker<br />
depths, and the delicately optimistic<br />
ones as well.<br />
Their upcoming Canadian tour<br />
takes place in theatres, something<br />
Molander is looking forward to. “It<br />
allows you more ebb and flow within<br />
PLANTS AND ANIMALS<br />
turns out slow brewing brings out flavours you never knew were there<br />
Photo by Jennifer McCord<br />
a set, you can really bring things down<br />
to an intimate moment.” The band has<br />
some surprises planned for this time<br />
out, in Vancouver specifically, to take<br />
advantage of the acoustic opportunities<br />
theatre venues provide. And as the<br />
band continues to build a career that<br />
has already taught them a heck of a lot<br />
about putting on a good show – you can<br />
be sure there will be some magic.<br />
Half Moon Run performs at the<br />
Orpheum Theatre <strong>December</strong> 16.<br />
Back to the basics, Plants and Animals are happy again after letting their creative juices recharge.<br />
SAVANNAH LEIGH WELLMAN<br />
Plants and Animals emerged from the<br />
Montreal scene at the height of its indie<br />
band frenzy – the success of bands like<br />
Arcade Fire was shining an international<br />
spotlight on the culture-rich bilingual<br />
city, and at the time you’d be hardpressed<br />
to find a hip 20-something that<br />
wasn’t in a band. But this three piece<br />
was no passing trend – the release of<br />
their first full length album Parc Avenue<br />
earned them both Polaris and JUNO<br />
award nominations in 2008. 2010 saw<br />
the release of the raucous La La Land,<br />
followed by the slightly mellowed out<br />
The End of That in 2012, cumulating in<br />
over six years of constant hustle (write,<br />
record, tour, repeat). When the cycle<br />
wound down, they all agreed it was time<br />
to take a breath. “We had a cumulative<br />
burnout,” says drummer Matthew<br />
“Woody” Woodley. “We needed to slow<br />
down to let our creative juices flow. We<br />
needed to play with other people, and<br />
have the luxury of time for reflection<br />
on the songs we were working on. We<br />
all had kids in the time we were off, so<br />
being able to be more domestic was<br />
welcomed, we were all into it.”<br />
Giving themselves the freedom<br />
to create unhinged by a tight deadline<br />
allowed the group to really let creative<br />
ideas foster, something they hadn’t been<br />
able to do since their first album. “We<br />
wrote in the studio, which sometimes<br />
seemed backwards, building music off<br />
of one little moment or idea, as opposed<br />
to going in with a song already finished.<br />
Sometimes the best stuff is the most<br />
intuitive stuff, and not necessarily the<br />
most fleshed out and laboured over.”<br />
This kind of improvised approach<br />
was even applied to lyrics at times,<br />
where singer Warren Spicer would<br />
fill in unwritten lines with gibberish<br />
or random thoughts, that would<br />
sometimes stick and inspire the rest<br />
of the words. The result at times feels<br />
mystical - lush cinematic landscapes<br />
that bring a sense of nostalgia, not in<br />
that they sound familiar, but that they<br />
bring an unnamed emotion almost<br />
out from behind a memory, one you<br />
want to feel again but you’re not sure<br />
why, or exactly where it came from. It’s<br />
a beautiful collection of carefully<br />
crafted musical ideas, that still<br />
maintains the loose experimental<br />
feel the band is known for.<br />
While the creative process might<br />
have harkened back to their original<br />
days as a band, the influences didn’t. “I<br />
think for a long time a lot our influences<br />
were from the golden era of rock ‘n roll,<br />
and we drained whatever was in that<br />
well for us. It came up consciously a<br />
bunch of times, let’s not make an album<br />
that sounds like the ‘70s, let’s make<br />
something that sounds contemporary.<br />
We started getting inspired by other<br />
things, and listening to a lot more<br />
contemporary music.”<br />
Woodley lists some hip-hop<br />
references, and while they may not<br />
be directly audible influences in the<br />
music itself, it’s the production and<br />
the experimentation with sounds that<br />
the band was interested in. And they’re<br />
happy with the results – for the first<br />
time in a while, it turns out. “We all<br />
really like this record, more than the<br />
past two. In hindsight when we talk<br />
about them, there’s some good stuff but<br />
we’re not completely satisfied. We’re a<br />
three headed beast, so we’re trying to<br />
keep everybody happy at the same time.<br />
You have to make compromises because<br />
of that, and sometimes when you look<br />
back you think ‘I wish I’d spoken up<br />
about that’. Part of the reason we took<br />
so long with this record is we wanted to<br />
be happy with it – and I still am.”<br />
Plants and Animals perform at the<br />
Orpheum Theatre on <strong>December</strong> 16.<br />
<br />
MUSIC<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 7
8<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
BRASSTRONAUT<br />
an amorphous sonic entity for a plugged-in world<br />
Photo by Katrin Braga<br />
BRAYDEN TURENNE<br />
Amongst the buzzing music scene here<br />
in Vancouver, six-piece sonic scientists<br />
Brasstronaut stand out among the<br />
crowd. Having just recently released<br />
their third, self-titled LP, Brasstronaut<br />
continue in their exploration of music<br />
that spans whole genres. “When<br />
there’s six people each bringing their<br />
own tastes and backgrounds… it<br />
becomes amorphous,” states the<br />
band’s guitarist, Tariq Hussain, when<br />
asked about the band’s sound, which<br />
is one that is hard to define and that<br />
revels in the openness of the medium.<br />
“We don’t really identify with any<br />
particular scene,” mentions Hussain,<br />
and perhaps that is why the band has<br />
found an international audience and<br />
have been able to branch out and tour<br />
both North America and Europe.<br />
We live in an age of mass<br />
consumption, “Where the trends<br />
almost don’t even matter. Everyone’s<br />
doing everything all of the time, and<br />
it’s available all of the time,” so there<br />
is a danger for things, whether it be<br />
music or movies, to become formulaic<br />
and stale pretty quickly. Speaking<br />
about his part mixing the album,<br />
keyboard/vocalist, Edo Van Breeman<br />
makes it clear that “[he] didn’t have a<br />
formula for it…[the songs] were mixed<br />
however they felt they should be<br />
processed. We don’t really put a lot of<br />
rules on how the whole thing should<br />
end up.”<br />
Elements of everything from jazz,<br />
rock, folk and even some electronic<br />
ambience can be heard in this latest<br />
LP, which really emphasises the idea<br />
of musical fusion. Not as much in<br />
their sound but in their willingness to<br />
experiment do Brasstronaut harken<br />
back to the prog rock bands of the<br />
1970s—bands like Genesis, Yes, and<br />
King Crimson, who each dabbled in far<br />
reaching regions of music inspiration.<br />
Some bands prefer to record<br />
more than play live, if they play live<br />
at all, but to the guys in Brasstronaut,<br />
the live element of the band is critical<br />
to what makes the whole thing<br />
special. “I think if I didn’t have those<br />
opportunities, it wouldn’t be worth<br />
it,” says Van Breeman. “[Sometimes]<br />
we’re not getting paid barely anything,<br />
but the nice thing is that we’re getting<br />
to play our music for thousands<br />
of people, and that’s amazing. You<br />
can’t put a price tag on that kind of<br />
experience. That’s why I did this, is to<br />
play those types of shows.”<br />
Brasstronaut celebrate musical fusion on the release of their third and long-awaited LP.<br />
Not to sound preachy, but in today’s<br />
tech saturated world, where everything is at<br />
the touch of a button, it is easy to become<br />
isolated. Despite this, though, the live music<br />
concert is one of the enduring traditions in<br />
our culture that promotes a communal<br />
experience. “To bring people together<br />
in a show space, you’re basically acting<br />
as a church situation or a spiritual<br />
sanctuary for people. An important<br />
thing in the dystopian world we live<br />
in, to get people together and enjoy<br />
something,” Van Breeman adds.<br />
Check out Brasstronaut’s new album<br />
and if they happen to be playing a<br />
show near you, definitely go check<br />
them out!<br />
The Railtown Sessions give local talent a chance to peacock like they always wanted to.<br />
RAILTOWN SESSIONS<br />
Light Organ Records open the talent stable and let it run amok<br />
HEATHER ADAMSON<br />
Over the past four months <strong>BeatRoute</strong><br />
has been premiering a four-volume<br />
EP series from Light Organ Records<br />
entitled The Railtown Sessions.<br />
Featuring four distinct singer<br />
songwriters based out of Vancouver,<br />
the series has highlighted a selection<br />
of the city’s deep rooted talent and<br />
helped to shine light on particular<br />
artists who have varied careers as<br />
working musicians. Vancouver’s<br />
Andy Bishop (Twin River/White Ash<br />
Falls) was the visionary behind the<br />
project, handpicking the artists who<br />
worked with a team including Bishop<br />
as producer and Colin Stewart as<br />
recording/mixing engineer to record<br />
at Light Organ Records Studio.<br />
“Our plans were very clear before<br />
beginning the project,” shares Bishop.<br />
“The vision and outcome essentially<br />
remained the same. It was one of<br />
those special recordings that came<br />
together very easily while still allowing<br />
full creativity. We never felt rushed or<br />
short on time. It was very magical.”<br />
Sarah Jane Scouten, Rob<br />
Butterfield, Johnny 99, and Debra-<br />
Jean Creelman each recorded<br />
four songs that were released as<br />
individual four-track EP albums.<br />
All four songwriters are roots<br />
artists at their core, with Scouten’s<br />
traditional elements, Butterfield’s<br />
retro-rock, Johnny 99’s country<br />
flare, and Creelman’s ethereal<br />
psychedelia, the Railtown Sessions<br />
deliver a series aimed to wet any<br />
music lover’s appetite.<br />
Each artist performed an<br />
exclusive live set at Light Organ’s<br />
studio to premiere their respective<br />
release. To culminate the<br />
conclusion of the series, all four<br />
artists will be performing together<br />
in an end-of-year show at the Fox<br />
Cabaret on <strong>December</strong> 9. “We’re<br />
going to pretty much rip off The<br />
Band’s Last Waltz by having the<br />
band remain on stage while the<br />
artists switch out,” shares Bishop<br />
enthusiastically. “We are still<br />
working on a few ‘special things’<br />
that will be unveiled the night<br />
of the show.” No doubt it is sure<br />
to be an unforgettable night of<br />
music culminating a unique project<br />
honouring the heart of Vancouver’s<br />
music scene. “This was easily one<br />
of the most productive and fun<br />
recording sessions I’ve had the<br />
privilege of working on,” Bishop<br />
reflects. “It was just a really great<br />
hang that could have never ended.”<br />
The Railtown Sessions first<br />
<strong>edition</strong> of all four unique recordings<br />
are available now exclusively<br />
through Light Organ Records both<br />
digitally and on limited release vinyl<br />
at www.lightorganrecords.com/store.<br />
Thanks to the successfully executed<br />
format, The Railtown Sessions are set<br />
to continue with a second <strong>edition</strong><br />
that is currently in the works to start<br />
recording in January.<br />
Railtown Sessions comes alive<br />
<strong>December</strong> 9 at the Fox Cabaret.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> MUSIC<br />
9
LIVE AT THE WISE * DECEMBER EVENTS SCHEDULE <strong>2016</strong><br />
SAT<br />
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17<br />
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22<br />
MON<br />
DEC<br />
26<br />
ODDFELLOWS MARKET 10AM-4PM<br />
WPW (WISE PRO WRESTLING) PRESENTS<br />
CHRISTMAS CHAOS<br />
PETUNIA & THE VIPERS<br />
MONDAYS IN THE LOUNGE<br />
RUBY’S UKES CONCERT<br />
6:30 TO 10:30 IN THE HALL<br />
PETUNIA & THE VIPERS<br />
MONDAYS IN THE LOUNGE<br />
TOM HOLLISTON & FORD PIER<br />
LIVING MADE EASY<br />
LIVE IN THE WISE LOUNGE<br />
<strong>2016</strong> HUNKERDOWN<br />
XMAS SHOWDOWN!<br />
VANCOUVER FILM COMMUNITY MUSIC EVENT<br />
BLANCHE NORTON FUNDRAISER:<br />
THE MYRTLE FAMILY BAND<br />
PETUNIA & THE VIPERS<br />
BIG TOP • BLACK GARDENIA<br />
GEOFF BERNER • AL MADER<br />
PETUNIA & THE VIPERS<br />
MONDAYS IN THE LOUNGE<br />
SUN<br />
DEC<br />
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THU<br />
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23<br />
SAT<br />
DEC<br />
31<br />
ODDFELLOWS MARKET<br />
10:00AM-4:00PM<br />
R.D. CANE ART EXHIBIT IN THE LOUNGE<br />
OPENING NIGHT<br />
TABOO REVUE<br />
BURLESQUE IN THE HALL 8PM<br />
BENEFIT FOR<br />
SCOTT VANDELOO<br />
HOLIDAY HUSTLE!<br />
BEATROUTE’S CHRISTMAS PARTY:<br />
NO SINNER+LOUISE BURNS+THE TANGLERS<br />
+LEISURE CLUB+DJ SET by MESA LUNA<br />
PETUNIA & THE VIPERS<br />
MONDAYS IN THE LOUNGE<br />
WISE HALL FLEA<br />
NIGHT MARKET 8:00PM<br />
NO B.S. NEW YEAR’S EVE<br />
PIZZA PARTY!<br />
THE DEVIL IN THE WOOD SHACK<br />
GOLD STARS ARE FOR SUCKERS<br />
RAMBONE & THE WET REALITY<br />
THE GODSPOT • DADWEED<br />
TUESDAYS IN THE HALL 7PM (DEC. 6, 13, 20) THE IMPROMPTU ROCK CHOIR<br />
WEDNESDAYS IN THE HALL 6:30-10:30 (DEC. 14+21) METRO VANCOUVER KINK WORKSHOPS<br />
DECEMBER’S FEATURED WISE LOUNGE VISUAL ARTIST IS R.D. CANE<br />
WISE HALL<br />
1882 ADANAC STREET<br />
(AT VICTORIA DRIVE)<br />
WWW.WISEHALL.CA<br />
LEE FIELDS &<br />
THE EXPRESSIONS<br />
tightening up the fabric of mankind with some true depth of soul<br />
GALEN ROBINSON-EXO<br />
It was a Friday evening and Lee Fields<br />
was preparing for a performance in<br />
Newark, New Jersey. It was the last show<br />
before he flew out to Japan to perform<br />
there for the first time. When he<br />
answered the phone, I thanked him for<br />
taking the time to speak with us. “Well,”<br />
he said simply, “It was the right thing to<br />
do.” This sense of propriety was present<br />
throughout our conversation.<br />
The 65 year old singer recorded<br />
his first single in 1969, and has released<br />
albums on thirteen different record<br />
labels since then. A visit to his current<br />
record company’s website reveals that he<br />
and The Expressions, his backing band,<br />
are playing practically every night in<br />
the next few months, in cities spanning<br />
from Japan to Germany to California.<br />
Music seems to be a lifelong and<br />
constant pursuit in Fields’ life, and<br />
this dedication is reflected in both his<br />
music and the way he talks about it.<br />
When asked about what he sees<br />
as the message of his work, he says<br />
without hesitation, “Love. Love and<br />
togetherness, because in order for<br />
two people, or a group of people, or<br />
a nation of people to survive, we have<br />
to care about each other.” Fields and<br />
the Expressions’ latest album, Special<br />
Night embodies this sentiment, with<br />
earnest, straightforward lyrics about<br />
making the world a better place and<br />
loving the one you’re with. “My songs<br />
are simple, to the point, and about<br />
something,” Fields says. “Something<br />
that’s going to make someone’s<br />
day.” He says he is very careful to craft<br />
songs that will stand the test of time,<br />
and that he feels people will relate to:<br />
“I try to say something that’s making<br />
some sense, something that people<br />
can feel.”<br />
Positivity is a crucial feature of<br />
Fields’ music. He strives to write songs<br />
that leave his listeners with a sense<br />
of hope, and he crafts his music in a<br />
manner that is very cognizant of the<br />
power of words. In his analysis, “A song is<br />
like a house, and words are just materials<br />
for building a song. If you choose bad<br />
mortar or bad wood, that house is not<br />
going to stand for long, and the same is<br />
true of music…The mind has to absorb<br />
quality, good sound and information in<br />
order for it to be healthy, and that’s why I<br />
take a lot of time to write my songs.” He<br />
seems to take a great deal of pride that<br />
the goal of his music is to uplift people,<br />
and contrasts it against music that, in<br />
his mind, has promoted criminality and<br />
violence in the black community.<br />
For Fields, music is about<br />
connecting with people, and giving his<br />
fans avenues by which to connect to one<br />
another. In the past year, he says, two<br />
couples have gotten engaged onstage<br />
during his performance: “I would like<br />
to believe that I had something to do<br />
with two people finding each other, and<br />
experiencing real love.” It is also a crucial<br />
part of his spirituality; when asked what<br />
soul music means to him, Fields muses,<br />
“the body is like a machine, that carries<br />
the spirit around for whatever given<br />
time we have here on earth. But in the<br />
final analysis, everyone is going to have to<br />
give up the body… so to me, soul music<br />
means that the soul is of the spirit, and the<br />
spirit is of God.”<br />
In a world so rife with cynicism, the<br />
success of musicians like Lee Fields is<br />
a testament to a renewed desire for<br />
music imbued with an earnest desire<br />
to spread love.<br />
Lee Fields & The Expressions perform at<br />
the Imperial on <strong>December</strong> 7.<br />
Photo by Sesse Lind<br />
For Lee Fields hope seems to spring eternal; we should all take a drink.<br />
<br />
MUSIC<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
THE VIPER SESSIONS<br />
a collision of Vancouver forces in the dark heart of Montreal<br />
THE PRETTYS<br />
East-Van sonic therapy<br />
Photo by Johann Wall<br />
DEVON MOTZ<br />
Like The Rolling Stones famously said,<br />
“You can’t always get what you want.”<br />
And sometimes, despite your purest<br />
intentions you end up with something<br />
else entirely. Other times you may find<br />
you go on a spirit quest to Montreal to<br />
sip coffee and play gigs in sunny cafes<br />
for all the beautiful people but end up<br />
recording a dark and earnest record<br />
in an underground bunker until the<br />
sun is but a distant memory. The latter<br />
happens to be the recent adventures of<br />
Local Creature & Alien Boy! (feat. Viper) and<br />
the result was The Viper Sessions, a truly<br />
inspired and moving country album, born<br />
out of coincidence and idle hands.<br />
After heading to Montreal with a<br />
head full of dreams of playing rock and<br />
roll for our Francophone neighbors, Local<br />
Creature (Eric Campbell – The Dirt, The<br />
Catastrophes) found himself with a lot<br />
more free time then he had anticipated.<br />
Venues were all booked up for the summer<br />
and the gigs were looking scarce. “I was<br />
kind of losing my mind after a while, I was<br />
having a good time but I had no purpose<br />
for being out there. You can only go to<br />
so many coffee shops,” Campbell says.<br />
Enter Alien Boy (Scott Matheson – Vader<br />
Ryderwood), already situated in Montreal<br />
after an exodus across the country<br />
involving a foggy abduction of the extra<br />
terrestrial variety (hense the namesake).<br />
When asked about the specifics of his<br />
encounter, Matheson could only tell<br />
me that “I have been having a series<br />
of dreams that are helping me piece it<br />
together, maybe one day I can retain<br />
enough information to tell you about<br />
extra terrestrial life.” One can only<br />
hope. At this point Alien Boy was also<br />
enjoying a brief period of respite and<br />
relaxation. What happened next was<br />
pure poetry. “Well we both have a bunch<br />
of free time and the space is pretty<br />
dope so we better rent a microphone,”<br />
Alien Boy recalls. Just magic. It was also<br />
around this time Vancouver violinist<br />
and heartthrob Viper (Emily Bach -Dirty<br />
Spells, Big John Bates) was making a<br />
brief stop in Montreal. The planets had<br />
aligned, the time was right, the bunker<br />
was awful and it was as if fate itself had<br />
conspired for these three friends to<br />
meet on the other side of our big weird<br />
country to record some beautiful music<br />
in a “hellish nightmare cave.”<br />
With both Campbell and<br />
Matheson having their own unique<br />
brand of folk song writing and Bach’s<br />
incredibly adaptive violin playing, The<br />
Viper Sessions manages to hold your<br />
attention the whole way through,<br />
drawing you close with haunting<br />
melodies and breaking you down<br />
with good old fashioned grit. The<br />
bunker dwelling trio took a minimalist<br />
approach to the process, recording the<br />
entire album with a single microphone,<br />
that sadly did not survive the process.<br />
The bunker giveth and the bunker<br />
taketh away. Between the three of the<br />
band members the resume of musical<br />
projects they have been involved with<br />
is almost unbelievably diverse, and it<br />
shows. The Viper Sessions is a truly<br />
engaging record start to finish.<br />
Keep an ear to the ground for the<br />
release of The Viper Sessions early next<br />
year and be sure to find your Local<br />
Creature prowling about The Fox Theatre<br />
on Dec 22nd for the Fox’s annual<br />
Christmas Pageant.<br />
DANNY KRESNYAK<br />
The Prettys are a tripped-the-fuck<br />
out five-piece rock and roll act with<br />
elements of surf, soul, and San Francisco<br />
psychedelia in their sound and a dark<br />
chord of true-grit depression in their<br />
ugly lyrical content.<br />
This talented East-Van quintuplet<br />
is a modern day wrecking crew, borne<br />
from the ashes of a legion of defunct acts<br />
with every member keeping hooks into<br />
numerous other projects. Yet the Prettys<br />
remain the focus of their attention.<br />
I caught up with two members at<br />
the Grandview Legion, founder/guitarist<br />
Code and saxophone player Matt (last<br />
names withheld). We emptied pitchers<br />
of pilsner draft and toasted Gordon<br />
Lightfoot over bargain Irish Whiskey,<br />
while attempting the age-old question,<br />
what makes you so damn pretty?<br />
According to Code, the soon to be<br />
released LP Soiree is their “second first<br />
record,” bringing in new instruments,<br />
new members, and a newfound<br />
maturity. “Well, I don’t live in a van<br />
anymore,” he says. “Without this music<br />
we’d all be either dead or in jail… We’d be<br />
all sorts of fucked up if we didn’t play all<br />
the time.” He says the band has already<br />
begun recording material for their third<br />
album, and hopes to follow the prolific<br />
EMILY<br />
CHAMBERS<br />
straight up rhythm and blues<br />
blossoms on Magnolia<br />
COLLEEN RENNISON<br />
The Prettys have bought the ticket and are taking the ride.<br />
path of acts like King Gizzard and the<br />
Lizard Wizard by eventually releasing<br />
multiple albums every year.<br />
The first single, “Friendship,” features<br />
a disco tempo and cheery vocal melody<br />
that on a casual listen seems to be sunshine<br />
put on wax, but like a sad clown, you soon<br />
realize the smile is painted on and under the<br />
makeup is a bubbling psychopathy. “That<br />
song is actually about being a shitty friend,<br />
a shitty person in general,” Code muses.<br />
“We’re not always the happiest people<br />
but the music, playing it and playing it<br />
together is what makes us happy.”<br />
Saxophone player Matt became<br />
part of The Prettys two years ago. He<br />
saw them play live, decided they ruled<br />
and eagerly made his play to join ranks.<br />
He says he sees himself as the band’s<br />
third guitar player, providing a texture<br />
reminiscent of the Rolling Stones sax<br />
man Bobby Keys into the songs.<br />
“It’s not something you can expect<br />
while rehearsing,” he says. “We’re not all<br />
tight assess when we go into the studio.<br />
We put up a disco ball, and just create<br />
those great moments together. It keeps all<br />
the demons at bay.”<br />
Shortly after Matt joined the band,<br />
the Prettys went on their first American<br />
tour. The first show was a flop, but a bonding<br />
experience encouraged by a stoned record<br />
store manager and a few bottles of wine. On<br />
the road they encountered crack dealers,<br />
cops, attempted gear thieves, and spent<br />
many nights packed in a grimy hotel room.<br />
This is the kind of thing that will make or<br />
break a band, and in the Prettys case there<br />
is no turning back.<br />
Now, with the line up established and the<br />
stage set to rock, The Prettys will release<br />
their LP Soiree onto the scene at Fortune<br />
Sound Club <strong>December</strong> 8th.<br />
Photo by Michael Clarke<br />
Photo by Leah Trottier<br />
Local Creature — The most lovely stuff to ever emerge out of a hellish nightmare cave.<br />
The overwhelming feeling I get as I talk<br />
to Emily Chambers, who I’ve caught on<br />
the phone from the road somewhere<br />
deep in the heart of Brooklyn, is that she<br />
does whatever the fuck she wants.<br />
A Berklee College of Music voice<br />
program drop-out (“I didn’t wanna be<br />
150k in debt and have a performance<br />
degree.”), she quit her full time insurance<br />
job after three years of employment<br />
and has been on the road living out of<br />
her van, Bessie, for 66 days on a tour of<br />
the US. She booked the tour herself to<br />
support her five-song EP, Magnolia, which<br />
she independently released in September.<br />
“It’s a sign of feminine beauty and<br />
perseverance,” she says of the title, citing<br />
the departure from her R&B band project,<br />
Champagne Republic, as large reason.<br />
“It was a big thing for me to walk<br />
away.” I ask her if it makes an appearance<br />
on the album, in the form of a lyric or<br />
something. “No actually,” she replies.<br />
“It has nothing to do with any of the<br />
Emily Chambers hit the ground running with the release of her debut solo EP, Magnolia.<br />
songs.” Perfect.<br />
You’d be hard pressed to find<br />
someone who wouldn’t be taken by the<br />
flaxen haired bombshell, who’s sultry<br />
no-bullshit brand of classic soul and<br />
R&B reminds me of a cross between<br />
Diana Krall and En Vogue. She hits that<br />
flirtatious and subtly tongue-in-cheek<br />
showmanship reminiscent of Michelle<br />
Pfeiffer in the Fabulous Bake Boys on<br />
the head, but with real pipes and a real<br />
band to back it up.<br />
“For the most part it’s all live-off-thefloor.<br />
We did three days of bed tracks and<br />
I sang with the boys, I really didn’t overdub<br />
any vocals,” Chambers says.<br />
Joined by boyfriend and<br />
Washboard Union-er Brenden Krieg<br />
on drums, Winston Minckler on bass,<br />
Alexander Slock on guitar and Tyson<br />
Naylor on keys, the album has a lovely<br />
intimacy and a stunning accuracy to<br />
the live performances I’ve seen. This is<br />
likely due to having John Ram’s touch<br />
on production at Afterlife, now moved<br />
into the legendary Mushroom building<br />
that was built as a studio during the<br />
time that “live-off-the-floor” was the<br />
only way to record.<br />
Unsigned and un-managed (though<br />
perhaps not for long), Chambers is the<br />
real deal for those of you who like your<br />
rhythm and blues served straight up.<br />
Emily Chambers performs at Guilt & Co.<br />
<strong>December</strong> 14.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> MUSIC<br />
11
THE DANDY WARHOLS<br />
mellowed Bohemian flavour with a touch of pop and a big messy finish<br />
JENNIE ORTON<br />
Before hipsters had the French press,<br />
artisan gin, birch wood phone covers,<br />
waxed moustache and riding a unicycle<br />
to work, they looked to the Dandies of<br />
the Warhol variety for hints at flavour.<br />
A uniquely self-aware Portland anomaly<br />
back before Bohemian was chic and<br />
before Portland became a sea of condos<br />
and ironic street art, the Dandy Warhols<br />
have always been sneering while indulging;<br />
never pretending to be something they<br />
are not and telling it like it is with such an<br />
unbridled sense of knowing sarcasm that<br />
you can’t really argue.<br />
They have resurfaced with<br />
Distortland, their first full studio<br />
album in four years, after spending<br />
a considerable amount of time in a<br />
traveling time machine celebrating the<br />
13th anniversary of Thirteen Tales from<br />
Urban Bohemia Live at the Wonder, their<br />
third and first measurably commercially<br />
successful album. Distortland has that<br />
very self-aware, road-weary tone that we<br />
all adopt when we spend any significant<br />
amount of time looking backwards.<br />
Guitar player and founding member<br />
Peter Holmström, for one, was glad to<br />
get back into a forward trajectory.<br />
“Speaking for myself, I don’t really<br />
like dwelling on the past,” Holmström<br />
admits. “When we did the reissue of<br />
Thirteen Tales it really started freaking<br />
me out because it was like we were<br />
looking back on what we’d done and felt<br />
like it was signalling the end.”<br />
Though it would appear to an<br />
outside observer that the Dandies were<br />
teetering dangerously close to becoming<br />
a “heritage act,” the creative juices still<br />
flowed and the band continued to<br />
navigate a business and a home base<br />
that were both being gentrified and repackaged<br />
to fit a changing time.<br />
“For the first 10 years or so there<br />
was just this steady – it felt uphill –<br />
sort-of climb. The success and the way<br />
the music industry was going and our<br />
place in it. And then Napster and all that<br />
stuff changed the way that everybody<br />
does business, and it’s just sort have<br />
been survival mode since then,” muses<br />
Holmström.<br />
“I’m not really sure we’re necessarily<br />
sure what is going on.”<br />
Though the Warhols are, as<br />
always, trying to suss out enough of<br />
the game rules to play by them without<br />
succumbing to the tides, they have<br />
picked up wisdom from their time in<br />
the gauntlet that has changed their<br />
tone from societal observations to<br />
existential minefields. Couple that with<br />
the pop sensibilities of Jim Lowe behind<br />
the boards (Taylor Swift, Stereophonics,<br />
Fitz and the Tantrums) and you have an<br />
album that is both accessible and full of<br />
The Dandy Warhols take new<br />
album as a chance to stop<br />
dwelling on the past<br />
Photo by Erich Bouccan<br />
those messy truths we have come to be<br />
indebted to the Warhols for bestowing<br />
on us while we try to ignore the fact<br />
that our coffee isn’t fair trade.<br />
“We try sometimes to play<br />
along and do things that will – not<br />
fit in – but that would fit the format<br />
better than what we normally do, like<br />
shorter song lengths and less noise,<br />
but we never get it quite right,” admits<br />
Holmström.<br />
That coming up short of getting<br />
it exactly right is what has made The<br />
Dandy’s Warhols such an appealing<br />
touchstone for the ideals of those who<br />
want to march to their own drummer<br />
but who don’t want to just say “fuck it”<br />
and burn out like a candle; something<br />
messy but with the strength to evolve.<br />
During “Catcher in the Rye,” a head<br />
bobber and personal favourite<br />
of Holmström’s, churning with<br />
momentum led by Courtney Taylor-<br />
Taylor’s purring vocals and Holmström’s<br />
neato guitar tricks, Taylor advises:<br />
“Don’t you know anything can get you<br />
down<br />
If you let it.<br />
Some days more than others<br />
This is how I’ve lived and learned<br />
To divide them.<br />
If you needed a friend I can lend<br />
Some of my time to remind you.”<br />
And remind you they will.<br />
“You realize that all that little petty stuff<br />
is just petty stuff and it doesn’t matter.<br />
And you just let it go,” says Holmström.<br />
“Yoga and meditation helps.”<br />
So Bohemian.<br />
The Dandy Warhols perform at the<br />
Commodore Ballroom on <strong>December</strong> 6th.<br />
2417 EAST HASTINGS STREET<br />
12 MUSIC<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
BEST OF <strong>2016</strong> LOCAL RELEASES<br />
BY HEATHER ADAMSON, GLENN ALDERSON, DAVID CUTTING, JOSHUA ERICKSON,<br />
ALEX HUDSON, ERIN JARDINE, JENNIE ORTON & VANESSA TAM<br />
<br />
<br />
The Hard Part Begins is seductive and<br />
sensual with gauzy guitars and gentle<br />
drum machines that are strewn with lofi<br />
synth and plinky MIDI piano. Forays<br />
into toe-tapping dream pop, theatrical<br />
balladry and twangy spaghetti western<br />
are nestled within a cloud of hazy reverb.<br />
At the centre of this New Age daydream<br />
is singer Patrick Geraghty, whose<br />
trembling baritone simultaneously<br />
evokes cheeky schmaltz and aching<br />
melancholy. Sadness has never sounded<br />
sexier. (AH)<br />
<br />
Releasing this debut LP seemingly out<br />
of the blue, the title track opens with<br />
Evy Jane’s hauntingly beautiful voice<br />
floating in over orchestral instrumentals<br />
produced by collaborator Jeremiah<br />
Klein. Having been waiting since 2012<br />
for new music from the pair, they have<br />
pleasantly delivered on all fronts. (VT)<br />
Spectres – Utopia (Deranged)<br />
Moody and atmospheric, Spectres have<br />
delivered another timeless post punk<br />
offering. Just the right amount of goth<br />
undertones with a nod to Christian Death,<br />
Utopia is the sound of a band we’ve come<br />
to know and love, a band who continue<br />
to hide in the shadows of Vancouver like<br />
extras on the set of Lost Boys. (GA)<br />
<br />
IV is a vast album, boldly coming at you<br />
with an eight-minute opening track and<br />
basically keeping the drama at that level<br />
the whole time. IV is the soundtrack<br />
to your desert fever dream — crunchy,<br />
synthy, expansive and relentless. Not for<br />
the faint of heart. (JO)<br />
driven ballads will definitely make you<br />
feel some type of way. (GA)<br />
Anciients - Voices of the Void<br />
(Season Of Mist)<br />
Anciients build tension within<br />
their instrumentals very effectively<br />
throughout this sophomore opus.<br />
Tons of riffage within a solid structure<br />
of songs, with the right amount of raw<br />
emotion, felt more in the guitar lines<br />
than the vocals. They travelled a darker<br />
road this time around, drawing in new<br />
attention that this band deserves. (EJ)<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>2016</strong> was kinda meh for pop music,<br />
but in an eager reprise Carly Rae Jepsen<br />
stepped forward and gently reminded<br />
us how it’s done right. Again. On Side B<br />
she endeavors to revitalize that fuzzy ’80s<br />
feeling of romance and illusory vibes. This<br />
homegrown talent is the queen of pop<br />
and queen of our hearts. (DC)<br />
So Loki – V (Owake Records)<br />
Matching their carefully distributed<br />
debut EP, V, with equally specific ways<br />
to physically experience the record<br />
within the city, So Loki is looking to<br />
make an impact on Vancouver with their<br />
progressive hip-hop lyrics and production<br />
style. And without any exaggeration,<br />
they’ve totally succeeded. (VT)<br />
White Lung – Paradise (Domino)<br />
White Lung are as fierce as ever, but<br />
things sound different on their fourth<br />
LP, Paradise. With the risk of alienating<br />
their core fan base, Mish Barber-Way<br />
trades in her raw growling vocals for<br />
a more polished singing style and the<br />
risk pays off. White Lung have always<br />
sounded sharp, but Paradise just cuts<br />
deeper. (JE)<br />
Art D’ecco – Day Fevers (Your Face)<br />
This album is eyebrow-raisingly good;<br />
a self-reflective journey, a heroes<br />
wandering through a glammy abyss. A<br />
lot like what would happen if T-Rex did a<br />
duet with Orbison in Venus’s best-keptsecret<br />
underground Euro pop club. (JO)<br />
The Evaporators – Ogopogo Punk<br />
(Mint)<br />
Everyone’s favourite Human Serviette<br />
is back with his band of merrymakers,<br />
The Evaporators. After suffering a<br />
stroke earlier in the year, Nardwuar has<br />
returned in fine form. With track titles<br />
like “I Can’t Be Shaved” and “Mohawks<br />
& Dreadlocks,” The Evaporators’ wit is<br />
still intact, their hooks are hooky and<br />
they’re just as goofy. (JE)<br />
<br />
(Dipstick)<br />
Coming from Abbotsford, Cheap High<br />
are familiar with the hell that suburbia<br />
brings. The group boils down those<br />
experiences into a tense and seething<br />
beast of a record. Cheap High channel<br />
cues from bands such as Protomartyr,<br />
Joy Division and The Smiths, and are<br />
further proof of the well of talent the<br />
Fraser Valley holds. (JE)<br />
<br />
<br />
Honest and pure, James Green’s Never<br />
Ready is an ode to the working class<br />
of sorts, but without ever coming<br />
off too somber to pick you up after<br />
a long day on the job. Somewhere<br />
between Bill Callahan and Tom Petty,<br />
Green has found his own voice and<br />
it’s accompanied by a perfect blend of<br />
country, folk and rock ‘n’ roll. (GA)<br />
Supermoon - Playland (Mint Records)<br />
Uniquely formatted as a double 7”,<br />
Playland consists of eight short, snappy<br />
indie pop ditties. Fun and lovably<br />
off-kilter, the women of Supermoon<br />
spike their cotton-candy-sweet<br />
melodies with hints of dissonance and<br />
melancholy. (AH)<br />
Hot Hot Heat – Hot Hot Heat<br />
(Culvert)<br />
A lighthearted ode to a journey towards<br />
closure, the songs on this farewell LP<br />
run the gamut of exploring the act of<br />
growing apart to the gentle prettiness<br />
that exists within the new; all presented<br />
as happy ditties that would be very at<br />
home pulsing out of a portable radio in<br />
the basket of a fixie on Third Beach. (JO)<br />
<br />
City (You’ve Changed Records)<br />
Adrian Teacher may have disbanded<br />
Apollo Ghosts, but he’s still doing what<br />
he does best: writing concise indie rock<br />
ditties full of catchy hooks and local<br />
references. His latest is a playfully scathing<br />
commentary on gentrification. (AH)<br />
<br />
(Mascot Records)<br />
Giving us the dose of feminine strength,<br />
resolve, empowerment and badass take-noprisoners<br />
edge so many of us are yearning<br />
for in rock ‘n’ roll, this album simultaneously<br />
delivers a swift dagger to the heart while<br />
daring you to dance on the bar. (HA)<br />
<br />
Having collaborated with countless<br />
Vancouver bands over the years, pop<br />
auteur Jay Arner keeps getting better.<br />
The outstanding Jay II is full of goodnatured<br />
jokes, but the overwhelming<br />
mood is one of glum existentialism.<br />
Whistle along while contemplating the<br />
void. (AH)<br />
<br />
<br />
These New Westminster boys are<br />
growing up and exploring the potential<br />
within the soulful end of stoner rock<br />
to the point where some interludes<br />
could be described as a ballad. Not<br />
to be written off as soft though, New<br />
Waste brings forth some seriously<br />
sophisticated riffs. (EJ)<br />
Astrakhan - Reward in Purpose (War<br />
<br />
Reward in Purpose commences with<br />
a slow build of tension with ten minute<br />
song, “Omajod,” a nod to Astrakhan’s<br />
roots in doom and sludge. Powerful, clean<br />
<br />
(Heavy Lark)<br />
Finding grace in the comfort of song,<br />
Daniel Terrence Robertson’s stark<br />
debut is a beautiful exploration of life,<br />
love, mortality and religion. These eight<br />
heart-wrenching and haunting pianoharmonies<br />
pepper this album, polishing<br />
the sound as uniquely their own. (EJ)<br />
<br />
<br />
Gritty, soulful and strange, this album<br />
is an all-together riveting expression<br />
shrouded in relative darkness, including<br />
covers from generations of yesteryear<br />
while providing a spin on contemporary<br />
avant-country. (HA)<br />
<br />
<br />
Dark and brooding electronic post rock<br />
to take you in to the night; Sex With<br />
Strangers found their groove a long time<br />
ago but continue down a path of synthesized<br />
submission. In a lot of ways Discourse is all<br />
over the map genre-wise, but who really<br />
wants to stay in once place when you’re<br />
doing it with randoms anyway? (GA)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Dirty psych rock in all its glory. Spinning<br />
tales as old as time of life on the road,<br />
it’s all about digging the realness and<br />
forgetting about everything else. Just<br />
get lost in it, you can’t over-think this<br />
music or it loses its magic. (HA)<br />
<br />
<br />
Easy-going art-rock band Douse are<br />
building on their folksy bones with their<br />
debut full length offering, The Light in<br />
You Has Left. Heavily filtered guitars<br />
and vocals float over synth chords<br />
and play with tension throughout the<br />
album making for a dynamic listen from<br />
beginning to end. (VT)<br />
The Prettys - Soiree (self-released)<br />
When I hear “soirée,” I think of hors<br />
d’oeuvres and long-stemmed wine<br />
glasses. The Prettys’ rockin’ album<br />
Soiree, on the other hand, is the kind<br />
of party that’s characterized by raiding<br />
your parents’ liquor cabinet and barfing<br />
on the lawn. (AH)<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> MUSIC<br />
13
BEST OF <strong>2016</strong><br />
GLENN ALDERSON<br />
JOSHUA ERICKSON<br />
EDITOR IN CHIEF<br />
MUSIC EDITOR<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
In a perfect world, Kanye wouldn’t be such<br />
a divisive figure in pop culture and everyone<br />
would just STFU and enjoy TLOP for the<br />
amazing album that it is. But maybe it’s better<br />
to have Yeezy as a litmus test to filter out the<br />
people who just don’t get it. I’ve been jamming<br />
this record pretty much every day since its<br />
release, and every day I appreciate it for a new<br />
reason. Pray for Ye this holiday season.<br />
(Runners up: Frank Ocean - Blonde, DIIV – Is<br />
The Is Are, Skepta - Konnichiwa)<br />
BEST SONG<br />
Charlotte Day Wilson – “Work”<br />
I feel this track on so many levels. It’s kind of<br />
sad but it also makes me really happy. CDW<br />
made her west coast debut over the summer<br />
during Levitation, bringing her modest onewoman<br />
R&B chiller vibes to the Imperial and<br />
she killed it. Every relationship takes work if you<br />
want to be happy in your life. This song reminds<br />
me that it’s ok to not give up on love.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
I’d just got home from M For Montreal<br />
and was so sick of live music, but then<br />
my friend Simon called to remind me<br />
PUP was playing and I’m super glad he did.<br />
It was tough to pretend I didn’t know all<br />
the words at this pop punk rager and even<br />
decided to make it my one crowd-surf of<br />
the year. At one point my glasses fell to the<br />
bottom of the mosh pit and didn’t even<br />
break — a punk rock miracle indeed!<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
The Girl With All The Gifts<br />
I love me a good post-apocalyptic zombie<br />
movie and this is one of the best I’ve seen since<br />
28 Days Later. A unique take on an arguably<br />
tired genre, it’s a wild ride from start to finish. I<br />
also like how they call the zombies “hungries.”<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
Finding return flights to LA for $50 can<br />
only yield amazing results. This particular<br />
trip consisted of three free nights at a Four<br />
Seasons, one evening at the Comedy Store<br />
watching Pauly Shore, Judd Apatow and<br />
Anthony Jeselnik, and an Uber ride from<br />
Prince’s former bassist, Gerry Hubbard,<br />
who ended up dropping us at In-N-Out<br />
after a few extra circles around the block<br />
while we chatted and reminisced about his<br />
recently departed friend.<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
<br />
Australia’s King Gizzard & The Lizard<br />
Wizard is likely the hardest working band<br />
in the world. With eight records in the<br />
last four years, Nanagon Infinity may be<br />
their best. Riffs on tops of riffs, catchy<br />
hooks, harmonica solos, and blazing<br />
unhinged psychedelia abound. Runners up:<br />
David Bowie - Blackstar, Young Thug - JEFFERY)<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
With the untimely passing of Malik<br />
“Phife Dawg” Taylor (along with Bowie,<br />
Prince, and countless others) one might<br />
have thought <strong>2016</strong> couldn’t get any<br />
worse. Then Trump won. A few days<br />
later, A Tribe Called Quest released a new<br />
album and it couldn’t have been more<br />
timely. A new ATCQ album could have<br />
been firmly rooted in nostalgia, but album<br />
standout “We The People…” proves ATCQ<br />
have no time for looking back and that<br />
their sights are set firmly in the future.<br />
Political and unwavering, it is truly a<br />
breathtaking track.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
<br />
Seeing of one the most creative minds in<br />
music history perform my favourite album<br />
in its entirety in front of me was surreal.<br />
“God Only Knows” made me cry.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Hail, Caesar!<br />
Criminally overlooked, Hail, Caesar! may be<br />
the Cohen Brothers’ funniest film since<br />
The Big Lebowski. Look out for scene<br />
stealer Alden Ehrenreich staring as young<br />
Han Solo in the 2018 Star Wars spinoff film.<br />
BEST MOMENT (NOT MUSIC RELATED)<br />
Seeing Lake Louise for the first time. I was<br />
born and raised in BC and somehow never<br />
made it up to Lake Louise until recently. In<br />
such a tumultuous year filled with so much<br />
misery, tragedy, and general shittiness, it<br />
was nice to experience some quiet, tranquil<br />
beauty. four years, Nanagon Infinity may<br />
be their best. Riffs on tops of riffs, catchy<br />
hooks, harmonica solos, and blazing<br />
unhinged psychedelia abound. Runners up:<br />
David Bowie - Blackstar, Young Thug - JEFFERY)<br />
DAVID CUTTING<br />
QUEER EDITOR<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
Our home grown queen slices us deep<br />
with this epic 80’s throwback album.<br />
Comprised of rejects from her 2015<br />
EMOTION album, this collection makes<br />
me wonder if Jepsen’s producers have<br />
the Crabby patty recipe for pop Music.<br />
She takes the mundane, like going to<br />
the store and riding a bike and makes<br />
them into atheism that us gays will be<br />
worshipping for years to come.<br />
Runners up: St Lucia - Matter, Lady Gaga<br />
- Joanne (Sorry Bey)<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
Impassioned Politically charged front<br />
man Stephen Jenkins takes us to the<br />
moment where racism manifests and<br />
slays our comfortable privilege so hard.<br />
A must listen.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
This show was LIT. Nobody was standing<br />
still. The complexities of the music was<br />
effortlessly created on stage to the finest<br />
detail. The band genuinely looked like<br />
they were having a good time. I bought<br />
tickets off a 15 YO girl the morning of<br />
the show, went alone, knew every word,<br />
and REGRET NOTHING.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Contact<br />
Need I say more?<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
Meeting my drag mothers, Shanda<br />
Leer and Carlotta Gurl. Shanda was<br />
an incredible support for me when I<br />
was starting Queen of the Month and<br />
Carlotta Gurl is one of the kindest hard<br />
working queens I know.<br />
ERIN JARDINE<br />
LOCAL EDITOR<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
I’m generally not into tons of Beyonce,<br />
but that beautiful being sure knows<br />
how to motivate women and release an<br />
album. First there were the rumours of<br />
Jay-Z cheating, then the memes that<br />
spread like wildfire as social media<br />
realized the album video had been<br />
released through Tidal, a company that<br />
Jay-Z owns, and of course the stern<br />
reminder to those who allow themselves<br />
to be swallowed by entertainment<br />
media that art can progress beyond the<br />
recording studio, stage or video set and<br />
penetrate the media and ultimately the<br />
target audience’s perception of reality.<br />
Black Mirror shit. Runners Up: Sumac -<br />
What One Becomes,<br />
Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep of Reason<br />
BEST SONG<br />
Gorguts – “Pleiades Dust”<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
Sometimes one of the best way to<br />
become a fan is to be absolutely blown<br />
away by a live performance without<br />
any prior listenings or awareness. I was<br />
shocked I hadn’t heard of Fidlar before<br />
and they became my summer learning<br />
how-to-longboard soundtrack.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Deadpool<br />
Every Vancouverite loves seeing Ryan<br />
Reynolds in their city, I’m down for an<br />
obscene amount of sequels.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
<br />
with an outdated iPhone 5 with no<br />
predictable battery life, a cracked screen,<br />
fuzzy microphone and software issues.<br />
JENNIE ORTON<br />
MANAGING EDITOR<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
Roadiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool<br />
This album is so beautiful and striking<br />
that it took me about 5 listens before<br />
I could put it into words. It is anotherlevel<br />
dreamscape on par with nothing<br />
else. Runners up: Beyonce – Lemonade,<br />
David Bowie - Blackstar<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
From the first notes until the<br />
vaulting layered vocals of the chorus,<br />
this seductive piece of glam candy is<br />
like that person who has your heart and<br />
mind in a stranglehold who you gladly<br />
submit to.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
3 hours long and punctuated with<br />
stories from the Smoky Mountains; the<br />
show was gripping and joyful. Dolly is<br />
also disarmingly self-aware. When she<br />
said “I’ve always been a little too good to<br />
be real bad, and a little too bad to be real<br />
good” I discovered a new life goal.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
<br />
An absolutely stunning film in every<br />
sense of that word. I was captivated,<br />
horrified, sickened, exhilarated, and<br />
ultimately haunted by it. It is unlike any<br />
movie I have ever seen.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
<br />
My first<br />
night back, I was in the passenger seat of<br />
a car belonging to the man I came back<br />
to be with, driving down Cornwall as the<br />
sun was going down and I felt like a pretty<br />
massive badass for making it back here in<br />
one piece. Great city. Glad to be here.<br />
14<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
GALEN ROBINSON-EXO<br />
YASMINE SHEMESH<br />
PARIS SPENCE-LANG<br />
VANESSA TAM<br />
GRAEME WIGGINS<br />
LIVE EDITOR<br />
CITY EDITOR<br />
FILM EDITOR<br />
ELECTRONIC EDITOR<br />
COMEDY EDITOR<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
I love this record because it challenges<br />
hip-hop conventions while still catering<br />
squarely to a rap music audience. I also<br />
love its seamless inclusion of gospel<br />
music, it’s full of really upbeat, uplifting<br />
tracks that don’t feel contrived.<br />
Runners up: Bon Iver - 22, A Million<br />
& BadBadNotGood - IV<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
“Glowed Up”<br />
This one’s the track I found myself<br />
dancing by myself to most often<br />
this year. I feel like Kaytranada and<br />
.Paak really compliment one another,<br />
and this is a gem of a morning commute<br />
song. If this song doesn’t make you want<br />
to dance, you’re dead inside.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
<br />
It’s not often that a concert will make<br />
me tear up, but I definitely shed a<br />
couple tears during this performance.<br />
The Orpheum is a beautiful theatre,<br />
and Blake’s performance was equally<br />
elaborate and well-crafted. He was<br />
accompanied by a guitarist and a<br />
drummer, all of whom had been friends<br />
for years, and they were all incredibly<br />
on point. They played live renditions of<br />
some lesser-known dubstep remixes by<br />
Blake, the most memorable of which<br />
being “Stop What You’re Doing,” which<br />
quite literally shook the theatre along<br />
with everyone in it.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
<br />
The genius of this film is its absolute<br />
dedication to an absurd premise; it takes<br />
place in a world in which people who are<br />
single by a certain age are given one last<br />
chance to find love before they are turned<br />
into animals. The result is a surreal, funny<br />
and thought-provoking film about an<br />
expertly crafted alternate universe.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
by watching<br />
a fireworks display orchestrated by hippie<br />
lunatics at the Oregon Country Fair.<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
Obel has this incredible voice that’s at<br />
once delicate and powerful. The way<br />
that she pairs it with violin, cello, and<br />
harpsichord on Citizen of Glass gives<br />
me chills every time I listen to it. It’s<br />
haunting, evocative, and gorgeous. Like<br />
the score to an old Hitchcock.<br />
(1. Suede - Night Thoughts 2. Tragically<br />
Hip - Man Machine Poem)<br />
BEST SONG<br />
Lush - “Out of Control”<br />
It’s incalculable how many times I’ve<br />
listened to this glorious, glorious song<br />
on repeat. Reforming after two decades<br />
and releasing the wonderfully dreamy<br />
Blind Spot, Lush sadly announced<br />
they’re calling it quits for good. The<br />
reunion may have been short, but it was<br />
very sweet.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
Paramount Theatre, Seattle<br />
How to even describe this? No words<br />
can do justice to the beauty that was<br />
this evening. The 50th anniversary of<br />
Pet Sounds, one of the greatest albums<br />
of all time. A breathtaking setting. A full<br />
band that made songs like “God Only<br />
Knows” sound like the heavens parted.<br />
Brian Wilson at the piano, singing<br />
joyously. An experience I will never<br />
forget.<br />
EPIC.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Oasis: Supersonic<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
This summer, my cousins were visiting<br />
from Wales. They were here for about<br />
three weeks, but we had this one really<br />
special day at Spanish Banks. We took<br />
turns barbecuing burgers and hot dogs.<br />
We swam in the ocean. I taught my<br />
youngest cousin how to skim board. We<br />
kicked the ball around and bruised our<br />
shins. We laughed until the sun set. It<br />
was perfect.<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
Bernie Sanders is a fan of Kanye West. I<br />
know because Kanye is as progressive as<br />
you get: he is an explorer, and his ability<br />
to find uncharted realms in sound<br />
constantly amazes me. If Kanye’s ego<br />
is really as big as people think it is,<br />
then why is he so freely able to risk<br />
everything? Kanye made Pablo for one<br />
person: himself. Everyone else can go<br />
fuck themselves. Runners up: Chance<br />
the Rapper - Coloring Book; Dorian Ye -<br />
The Life of Paul<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
I never knew that Sister Nancy would<br />
sound so good hyped by Swizz Beatz.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
I never get tired of talking about Kanye,<br />
but this show spoke for itself. Kanye flew<br />
over the crowd and played 74<br />
immaculate songs. Everyone else needs<br />
to quit practicing on stage.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
<br />
“Booo.” Yeah, whatever. This movie kind<br />
of sucked (it felt like I was watching the<br />
Celebrity Apprentice) but putting the<br />
quality aside, it penetrated the populace<br />
and spread a message we need to hear.<br />
There were better movies, like The<br />
Lobster and The Neon Demon, and<br />
even better documentaries, like Where<br />
to Invade Next, but I would rather<br />
see a film with an impact, and in that<br />
regard, DiCaprio delivers.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
Oh man, we’ve been waiting for a new<br />
album from Frank for four years and<br />
he didn’t let us down. This album is so<br />
perfect and timely it makes me want to<br />
cry in public. Runners up: Flume - Skin,<br />
Kanye West - The Life Of Pablo<br />
BEST SONG<br />
<br />
Is it too soon to call this song iconic? I<br />
don’t think so. The lyrics are iconic, the<br />
video is iconic, the dance moves are<br />
iconic, all of the residual memes were<br />
iconic, Drake is iconic.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
<br />
I’ve always wanted to see these guys live<br />
and it just so happened that they were<br />
playing Pemberton the year I was set<br />
to go. Yolandi’s voice sounds like a high<br />
pitched hyper-angel.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Zootopia<br />
I’m terrible at watching movies when<br />
they’re still new and just so happened to<br />
see this one while I was on a plane. The<br />
last time I set foot in a movie theatre was<br />
to see Star Wars - The Force Awakens<br />
last year. Sorry.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
I turned 30 this year which is kind of<br />
the best/worst thing ever depending on<br />
how you look at it.<br />
BEST ALBUM<br />
<br />
Chance may have had the breakout album<br />
of the year, but compatriot Noname got<br />
more play from me. She shares some<br />
similarities to Chance but while he’s<br />
gone on to push the envelope of rap, she<br />
holds things down lyrically with a great flow<br />
and way with words. There’s some deeply<br />
affecting and relatable stuff here. Runners<br />
up: Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition, Carly<br />
Rae Jepsen - Emotion Side B<br />
BEST SONG<br />
Aesop Rock – “Rings”<br />
Super affecting song about age and<br />
giving up on your interests. He’s best<br />
when he doesn’t let his hyper-lyricism<br />
get in the way of narrative and this<br />
captures that balance perfectly.<br />
BEST LIVE SHOW<br />
<br />
<br />
It’s not often you see a 68 year old thrust<br />
his pelvis like that. He’s still got moves.<br />
Made especially important given his<br />
recent stomach cancer diagnosis.<br />
BEST MOVIE<br />
Green Room<br />
Terrifying and brutally violent. Any<br />
movie that uses “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”<br />
as a plot point will likely be a fave.<br />
Violence against Nazis seems all the<br />
more relevant at this point in the year.<br />
BEST MOMENT<br />
That it’s coming to a close. <strong>2016</strong><br />
killed off some of my favourite artists,<br />
elected a terrifying monster to the most<br />
important position in the world and failed<br />
to move very much forward personally.<br />
Here’s hoping 2017 gets better.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 15
NEUROSIS<br />
in pursuit of their emotional essence for over 30 years<br />
ERIN JARDINE<br />
Few carry such formidable influence<br />
over the development of heavy music,<br />
yet actively practice the gratitude and<br />
humility for the art as Neurosis. “If<br />
we’re credited with pioneering a genre<br />
or a sound, I guess on a certain level<br />
we succeeded in finding our own voice.<br />
The fact that it’s inspirational to other<br />
people is a great honour. When you<br />
make such self centred weird music the<br />
fact that anyone else likes it at all is a<br />
pure miracle,” aptly puts vocalist and<br />
guitarist Steve Von Till. “When you’ve<br />
been around for 30 years, you’ve seen<br />
so many labels come and go. They seem<br />
quite absurd in the grand scale. We were<br />
always inspired by the DIY punk ethos<br />
of ‘fuck you we do what we want’ and<br />
what we wanted to do was to create an<br />
emotionally powerful, original mode<br />
of expression.” Neurosis has released<br />
twelve LPs, with their most recent being<br />
<strong>2016</strong>’s Fires Within Fires.<br />
Each release offers a window into<br />
the development of this group as their<br />
lives ebb and flow like any other. “We<br />
see it as a spiral of evolution, we’re<br />
spiralling towards the essence of what<br />
we are supposed to be. We feel very<br />
lucky that the inspiration we tap into<br />
just by finding each other and opening<br />
ourselves up to the spirit that seems<br />
so much bigger than us, this own force<br />
of nature that it just happens we are<br />
the ones who get to tap into it. By the<br />
strange geometry of our relationship with<br />
our instruments and each other, we tap<br />
into something fairly infinite and we’ll<br />
probably die trying to find the perfect<br />
versions of ourselves, but that’s fine,” Von<br />
Till is evidently in awe of the creations<br />
produced by Neurosis over the years.<br />
The Fires Within Fires release<br />
lined up perfectly with their 30 year<br />
anniversary string of shows, but even<br />
that was a natural collision of unrelated<br />
forces. “We live pretty far away from<br />
each other. It’s rare that we actually get<br />
the time to just sit and jam. We took<br />
a weekend to meet up and see what<br />
happens and by the end of this one<br />
weekend we had the skeleton for this<br />
whole album. The technical date for our<br />
anniversary is <strong>December</strong> 2015, originally<br />
we were going to book gigs at that time.<br />
As soon as that weekend was over we<br />
were like ‘holy shit, we can’t believe this<br />
album has just dropped in our lap like a<br />
Photo by Scott Evans<br />
gift from the universe, fuck gigs, we’re<br />
spending our anniversary alone in the<br />
studio where we want to be.”<br />
So, technically Vancouver is celebrating<br />
Neurosis’ 31st Anniversary on <strong>December</strong><br />
20 at the Venue with Yob and SUMAC.<br />
Photo by Chris Preyser<br />
PROTEST THE HERO<br />
a sea of change in their latest release<br />
JAMES OLSON<br />
Never ones to rest on their laurels,<br />
Toronto’s Protest the Hero sought to<br />
take on a new distribution approach<br />
with the release of their latest EP, Pacific<br />
Myth. Released over a 12 month span<br />
to paying subscribers via Bandcamp,<br />
vocalist Rody Walker cites the NOFX<br />
“7 Inch of the Month” vinyl club as the<br />
primary influence for the prog-rockers<br />
to experiment with sharing music with<br />
their fans. Walker describes the process<br />
as a fun experiment that allowed the<br />
band to push themselves to write<br />
music in a more streamlined fashion.<br />
More generally, Walker encourages<br />
experimentation when it comes to different<br />
distribution methods. “I think everyone<br />
should be attempting to experiment and<br />
I don’t know necessarily if you need to<br />
innovate but why not?” Walker says. “The<br />
industry has been the way that it was for so<br />
long that it needed something to shake it<br />
up. Crowdfunding and other things like<br />
it came in and really shook it up. There’s<br />
no reason not to push it further.”<br />
Pacific Myth also signalled a sea<br />
change in the writing process within the<br />
band as drummer Mike Ieradi recorded<br />
in the studio with Protest for the first<br />
time. “Mike had a lot more input [in<br />
the songwriting],” Walker reports. “He<br />
constantly writes music on GuitarPro<br />
and he just sends it out. So we wound<br />
up using a lot of his guitar stuff which<br />
is hilarious because he’s a drummer. I<br />
think things really changed up for the<br />
other guys in the band.”<br />
Last year Protest celebrated the<br />
ten year anniversary of the release<br />
of their debut album Kezia with an<br />
accompanying tour in which they<br />
performed the record in its entirety<br />
with the original lineup on stage.<br />
Walker provides a particularly wry<br />
perspective on the longevity of the<br />
band in reference to that tour. “What I<br />
think was most interesting about those<br />
Kezia shows was meeting a lot of people<br />
coming out that were our age and had<br />
listened to the record a long time ago,”<br />
Walker observes. “And then there were<br />
these kids with a ghost of a moustache<br />
on their face going ‘Oh yeah I used to<br />
love Kezia back in the day.’ What? You<br />
loved that when you were like two?<br />
You’re 12 years old right now, what the<br />
fuck are you talking about? If we keep<br />
going here there are going to be kids<br />
coming to shows that weren’t alive when<br />
Kezia came out. That’s a little terrifying to<br />
me but also kinda funny to me.”<br />
After <strong>2016</strong> mercifully concludes,<br />
Protest join August Burns Red on their<br />
own anniversary tour before setting their<br />
sights on Australia to escape the dreaded<br />
Canadian winter. Protest the Hero aim to<br />
keep forging their own path.<br />
Protest the Hero play Vogue Theatre<br />
<strong>December</strong> 8th with A Wilhelm Scream.<br />
16 THE SKINNY<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
DIECEMBERFEST AND THEIR PETS<br />
the soft fuzzy side of the crusty scene<br />
ADRIANNA HEPPER<br />
Adrianna Hepper is cat-mum to E. Van’s<br />
wildest little rock n roller Yngwie Meowmsteen,<br />
and founder of PetFam.com . Sign up to safely<br />
connect with other loving, nearby pet parents<br />
for free pet sitting exchange!<br />
Patrons and participants of all music<br />
loud, heavy, aggressive, and sweaty:<br />
what, I pray thee, is our DEAL with<br />
dissolving into helpless, baby-talking<br />
babbling softies the second a cat comes<br />
into view? What compels us to swaddle<br />
a filthy stray in the warmth of our most<br />
beloved battle jacket without a second<br />
thought, or transition from smashing a<br />
drum kit to patting out a lengthy drumbum<br />
solo hilariously on our dogs’ butts?<br />
Many of us heavy music lovers also<br />
love to support pet rescues - could it be<br />
as musical underdogs we feel a particular<br />
affinity for the real… underdogs?<br />
Whatever the reason, oi! We<br />
bloody love our pets! And here to prove it<br />
are four local badass musicians confessing<br />
their love for their widdle furbabies.<br />
<br />
Cavan Egan<br />
Guitarist and Vocalist<br />
Bushwhacker<br />
Sage Davies<br />
Vocals/ Guitar<br />
The Waning Light<br />
Parker Lane<br />
Vocals<br />
The Mountain Man<br />
<br />
Drummer<br />
Bog<br />
1.What kind of pet do you have, and<br />
what is its name?<br />
1. Snoop Lion is a “felis catus,” otherwise<br />
known as a “domesticated cat.”<br />
1. My dog is a rat terrier named Princess<br />
Slaya.<br />
1. I have a big German shepherd named<br />
Loki.<br />
1. I have a 30 pound Maine Coon cat<br />
named Sunrise.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
4. What’s your most hilarious or<br />
<br />
<br />
a human, who are you pretty sure<br />
<br />
personality?<br />
To pinch the cheeks of these hopeless,<br />
pet-loving musicians in person, come<br />
down to Diecemberfest, Dec. 9 at the Russian<br />
Hall in Vancouver where they’ll all be<br />
playing. Bring a food item for pets (SPCA)<br />
or for humans (Food Bank) to be entered<br />
to win good stuff from local businesses!<br />
2. I once spent five hours wrapping a<br />
2×4” in twine to make him an adequate<br />
scratching post. Halfway through the<br />
process I had to grab a pair of gardening<br />
gloves to keep my hands from blistering.<br />
3. Following a recent minor operation,<br />
Snoop had to wear a cone and stay<br />
inside for ten days. He protested by<br />
pissing on my expensive MEC raincoat.<br />
4. Shikapoo, Shikapuss, and Mr. Meow<br />
(who wants his morning meats).<br />
Recently I’ve also started calling him<br />
Psycho Dink.<br />
5. Back in time, Snoop Lion would<br />
probably turn up as a Viking, Pirate, or<br />
maybe a Samurai. If it were a future<br />
reincarnation, probably a secret agent<br />
eager to hunt and kill his enemies, yet<br />
loyal and loving to his allies.<br />
2. I make little blanket forts for her. It just<br />
kills me to see her little head poking out.<br />
3. While camping last summer, Slaya<br />
unzipped the tent and bolted at<br />
4:00am. Having derided our white trash<br />
neighbours for having lost their six<br />
year old the previous evening, now we<br />
were the dickwads waking everyone up<br />
looking for the damned dog.<br />
4. Frequently I tell her that she’s “Dada’s<br />
number one girl.” Neither Mrs. Sage nor<br />
our daughter, Haida, are impressed.<br />
5. Slaya would be that neurotic stoner<br />
that’s worried about everything but<br />
can’t be arsed to even get off the couch.<br />
2. When I’m eating spaghetti, I like<br />
to share and hope for a Lady and the<br />
Tramp-type scene. It never ends up that<br />
way.<br />
3. If Loki isn’t monitored when he’s<br />
doing his business, he will eat said<br />
business. Once, after chomping down<br />
some delicious fecal matter, he ran up and<br />
licked my friend’s arms and white shirt.<br />
4. My girlfriend constantly calls him<br />
Tuna Lips because his breath always<br />
smells like sour fish (laughs).<br />
5. Do cartoon characters count? Because<br />
he’s totally got Yogi Bear’s demeanour,<br />
“Duhhhhhhhh.”<br />
2. I occasionally buy him expensive wet<br />
dog food, so that I can heckle him for<br />
eating the same food as a poodle or tiny<br />
Yaletown dog.<br />
3. I have literally watched Sunrise fight<br />
three cats simultaneously. He won, they<br />
backed away. He also bullied another cat<br />
of mine so bad that it peed all over the<br />
house from stress. He likes to dominate.<br />
4. “SUNBOY!” said in as high pitched a<br />
voice as possible.<br />
5. John Goodman in his fattest and<br />
most surely role.<br />
SHATTER. BUDDER. RESIN. OIL.<br />
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(Santa told me )Matcha Torches Body Fat(it was santa)<br />
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<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
ZUCKUSS<br />
the joke is on you<br />
HEATH FENTON<br />
Local grind busters Zuckuss have been<br />
at it for nearly 20 years. They play<br />
regular gigs thoughout Vancouver, but<br />
space them out with enough months in<br />
between for a hefty dose of headliner<br />
excitement every time they pop up on<br />
a bill. Zuckuss play what they like to call<br />
Star Wars inspired pornogrind, and it<br />
goes pretty much exactly like it sounds.<br />
“Basically we take pornography, Star<br />
Wars, and death metal grind, [and] fuse<br />
them all together,” drummer Bossck<br />
Jass explains. “Conceptually that exists<br />
mostly in our artwork and song titles.<br />
There are no lyrics. We use vocals<br />
purely as a percussive instrument.”<br />
With three records under their belt,<br />
Titfucked By A Tauntaun (2000),<br />
Rancor Rimjob (2004), and Gamorrean<br />
Gangbang (2009), you can probably get<br />
the jest. Let’s just say that the artwork<br />
for each album is pretty much spot<br />
on too. It may seem all tongue and<br />
cheek, and it is. But make no mistake,<br />
when it comes to the music, Zuckuss<br />
are as serious as it gets. Jass, guitarists<br />
Dungar and Boba Frett, bassist Lord<br />
Blader, and vocalist Landin Morpussyin<br />
spew out a spastic, chaotic, and brutal<br />
brand of metal. Crazy, obscene, and<br />
often bizarre samples are trampled<br />
under sheer terror vocal sounds and<br />
savage musical earthquakes. Their<br />
lack of song structures makes it go off<br />
like a symphony of car bombs. “We’ve<br />
averaged it out that a song that is<br />
typically under two minutes long may<br />
contain anywhere from 25-30 different<br />
riffs with blast beats upon blast beats.<br />
Very chunky and heavy,” says Jass. “It<br />
takes a lot of hard work to play and<br />
learn this music.”<br />
Are there any other metal bands<br />
in this town that can lay claim to<br />
being around for 20 years? If there are,<br />
then I can’t think of any (Annihilator<br />
doesn’t count). Zuckuss might just<br />
be the oldest band you never heard of.<br />
However, they are no slouches. They<br />
have been around the greasy metal shop<br />
like an old oil rag. They’ve shared the<br />
stage with such high profile acts such as<br />
Napalm Death, Cryptopsy, Suffocation,<br />
Cattle Decapitation, and Kataklysm.<br />
They are very well versed in the<br />
underground and that is where they get<br />
their respect from. “We kind of want to<br />
be that band that no one knows about.<br />
We’re not exactly making a product that<br />
is very sellable,” Jass goes on. “Especially<br />
with the blatant plagiarism of Star<br />
Wars imagery. We don’t pay for any of<br />
the samples we use. And we use a shit<br />
tonne of them. No record label will ever<br />
sign us. The risk would be high to take<br />
us on. We have a very limited fan base.<br />
So we really don’t fucking care.”<br />
True to form, Zuckuss have an<br />
agenda. They are presently in the<br />
studio recording their 4th record and<br />
plan to release it to coincide with their<br />
20th anniversary on May the 4th. 2017<br />
is also the 40th anniversary of Star<br />
Wars. The fourth coming record Zuck<br />
My Nock will be the latest installment<br />
in Zuckuss’ plan of an end total of nine<br />
albums in three trilogy structures that<br />
replicate George Lucas’ Star Wars vision.<br />
“We like to have fun. Most death<br />
metal to me is ridiculous. They sing<br />
about raping corpses and mutilating<br />
people. And the guys doing it are so<br />
serious about it. Zuckuss is poo poo<br />
humour. We’re playing the most brutal,<br />
heaviest, fastest, and most complicated<br />
death metal possible. But we do it with<br />
a shit eating grin on our face. There is<br />
no blood and no violence. We don’t<br />
promote racism or intolerance. We are<br />
happy when we play our music. We’re<br />
a bunch of jokers,” Jass proclaims. “But<br />
we’re serious about the music. Make<br />
the music brutal, but the imagery light<br />
hearted.”<br />
Seeing them live is like a harmless<br />
prank that becomes serious business<br />
right quick. So you best get in on it.<br />
Zuckuss will be opening for the Golers<br />
and Tyrants Blood on <strong>December</strong> 3rd at<br />
Pat’s Pub.<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY SYD DANGER<br />
In physics, “dead time” is the time after each<br />
event during which the system is unable<br />
to record another event. I chose it as the<br />
name of this column because I believe it<br />
signifies the reality of how the underground<br />
arts community operates, especially in this<br />
day and age, and especially in a city like<br />
Vancouver. The artists I’m referring to go<br />
largely unnoticed by anyone outside of the<br />
community they’re involved in, whether it<br />
be through the grind of establishing oneself<br />
by playing lowly attended shows, or through<br />
the work of DIY spaces that are navigating<br />
the ever tricky balancing act of legality and<br />
legitimacy. The irony of having to hide to<br />
exist, but being unable to sustain without<br />
being seen, would be quite humourous if it<br />
wasn’t so bitterly true.<br />
Despite being the very fabric of the<br />
so-called culture that “our” spokespeople<br />
claim to champion (and use to decorate<br />
their rhetoric with), the arts community<br />
are among the ones who have slipped<br />
beneath the cracks, toiling in that “dead<br />
time” that isn’t being noted by anyone above<br />
the surface. And when the occasional ray<br />
of potential light appears in the form of<br />
funding or the relaxation of unreasonable<br />
rules, I’m naturally inclined to be skeptical<br />
of whatever is presented. Take for example<br />
the naive excitement that surrounded the<br />
announcement of the $15 million BC Music<br />
Fund earlier this year. Has anyone you or I<br />
know seen any of that? Do you believe any<br />
of us will? Are we not part of that group<br />
that “develops culture” and “contributes to<br />
the cultural fabric of our province”? I guess<br />
not. We are the tier below. When they talked<br />
about creating jobs were they talking about<br />
enabling artists to work within their own<br />
industry? Or were they talking about the<br />
numerous bureaucratic channels one has to<br />
pass through just to be told yes or no?<br />
This isn’t surprising. Nor is it new. We<br />
have relatively little systemic support, a<br />
the irony of having to hide to exist<br />
FROM THE DESK OF MITCH RAY<br />
police force that at times serves as a revenue<br />
collection agency, and a myriad of outdated<br />
regulations that are gifted a convenient cop<br />
out clause in the form of vaguely worded<br />
criteria that allow the powers that be to<br />
tread the line between misleading and<br />
dishonest. The arbitrary and petty nature<br />
of certain processes, coupled with the<br />
constantly changing and unclear criteria, can<br />
make something like a licence application<br />
feel like nothing more than a thinly veiled<br />
bribe, under the guise of legitimate due<br />
process. It’s a trait of this part of the world;<br />
the over complication of processes and<br />
implementation of arbitrary guidelines that<br />
largely serve the institutions that perpetuate<br />
these processes and guidelines, rather than<br />
the people they claim to assist. No, this is<br />
not the case 100 per cent of the time but<br />
it often is, and we feel it regularly in our<br />
backyard. It’s a vocalized facade trumpeting<br />
arts and culture rendered laughable in a<br />
city landmarked by the cruel poeticism of<br />
constant reminders such as the old Red<br />
Gate now occupied by a Crossfit, or<br />
development deals being sweetened by<br />
the allure of the very “cultural fabric”<br />
they are rendering obsolete.<br />
It’s hard not to feel like the walls are<br />
closing in. The available area is literally<br />
shrinking. But this is not an excuse to fold.<br />
It’s under these circumstances that the finest<br />
art emerges and the most creative thinkers<br />
are forced to invent new ways of existing, of<br />
sustaining, and of thriving. The landscape<br />
is changing. The new era of Vancouver is<br />
looming over the remnants of the golden<br />
age, and although I loathe much of what is<br />
coming, I’m excited for the art and music<br />
that will grow out of adversity.<br />
Mitch Ray puts on events and manages<br />
artists under the name Art Signified. He also<br />
co-runs an art space in Vancouver known as<br />
Studio Vostok located at 246 Keefer.<br />
<br />
THE SKINNY<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
CLUBLAND<br />
DECEMBER <strong>2016</strong><br />
VANESSA TAM<br />
Vancouver — The end is nigh, the end of <strong>2016</strong> that is. And thank goodness,<br />
amirite? Let’s put a bow on this garbage year and take it to the curb on a high<br />
note with our top five end of the year electronic and hip hop concert picks.<br />
Tensnake<br />
<strong>December</strong> 10 @ Celebrities<br />
Hailing from Hamburg, Germany, Marco Niemerski, known professionally<br />
as Tensnake, is probably most recognized for his popular single “Coma<br />
Cat” which swept the interwebs as well as the UK Singles, Indie, and Dance<br />
Charts back in 2010. Currently, he’s become just as well known for his<br />
marathon deep house and disco infused sets that continue to pack dance<br />
floors around the world.<br />
Sweater Beats<br />
<strong>December</strong> 14 @ Fortune Sound Club<br />
Gaining popularity in the midst of Soundcloud’s heyday with the release<br />
of his debut single “Mlln Dllr” on Annie Mac’s Radio1 show, Antonio Cuna,<br />
also known as Sweater Beats, has always been on his own hybrid wave of<br />
contemporary R&B and dance music. Currently on tour with a brand new<br />
live set, only purely euphoric and sexy vibes can be expected from this<br />
experienced producer.<br />
Roy Woods<br />
<strong>December</strong> 15 @ Imperial<br />
Another OVO Sound wunderkind, Roy Woods, who also goes by Denzel<br />
Spencer, is a Canadian rapper, singer, and songwriter from Brampton,<br />
Ontario. Getting his first big break when Drake premiered his single,<br />
“Drama,” on OVO Sound radio, the young crooner will definitely make ya<br />
body whine in support of his debut LP, Waking at Dawn.<br />
Falcons<br />
<strong>December</strong> 16 @ Fortune Sound Club<br />
Deeply engrossed in the future of hip hop, R&B, and electronic dance music,<br />
Falcons is an LA based producer that prefers to live on the more turnt up<br />
side of the musical spectrum. Well known for his original single “Aquafina”<br />
featuring American rapper Goldlink, Falcons has been able to travel all<br />
around the world with his music and has even spent some time living here<br />
in Vancouver back in the day.<br />
The Funk Hunters<br />
<strong>December</strong> 21-22 @ Commodore Ballroom<br />
Vancouver’s own The Funk Hunters put the soul back into electronic dance<br />
music. Fresh off of a successful year playing international stages including<br />
Coachella, Burning Man, Pemberton Music Festival, and Shambhala, the DJ<br />
duo of Nick Middleton and Duncan Smith are returning to their hometown<br />
for the holidays to share their bass heavy sound, their stunning customcurated<br />
visuals, and their animated stage presence.<br />
The Funk Hunters<br />
Photo by Mark Brennan<br />
PORTER ROBINSON AND MADEON<br />
a bromance that benefits us all<br />
PRACHI KAMBLE<br />
EDM besties Porter Robinson and Madeon share how their ten years of friendship inspired The Shelter Tour.<br />
While these two electronic music<br />
producers have both played in<br />
Vancouver many times before, Madeon,<br />
also known as Hugo Leclercq, and Porter<br />
Robinson’s upcoming performance on<br />
The Shelter Tour will be based around<br />
their first collaborative single “Shelter” as<br />
well as the duos own inspiring friendship.<br />
Currently in their 20s, Robinson<br />
and Leclercq first met in an online music<br />
production forum back in 2006 when<br />
they were just 14 and 12 respectively.<br />
“We’ve seen each other grow into<br />
adults and our unique life situations<br />
are [actually] incredibly similar,” says<br />
Leclercq of their decade long friendship.<br />
“We are both electronic music<br />
producers who had to tour the world at<br />
a young age. Those things are difficult to<br />
share with everyone else.”<br />
“It’s similar to when twins develop<br />
their own language,” explains Robinson,<br />
seamlessly picking up where Leclercq<br />
trails off. “Hugo and I have so many<br />
[shared] references, patterns of speech,<br />
and ways of thinking and discussing<br />
ideas. It can be hard to decipher for<br />
other people. That’s how close we are<br />
and how much of a deep understanding<br />
we have of each other’s sensibilities.”<br />
While Robinson is mostly known<br />
for his sweeping electro house<br />
compositions and Madeon is more<br />
recognized for his futuristic electropop<br />
tracks, together the two producers<br />
operate in an aural sweet spot that<br />
highlights both of their strengths<br />
simultaneously. Their collaborative<br />
single “Shelter,” for example, is a perfect<br />
representation of the duos chemistry as<br />
producers and was created in Leclercq’s<br />
home studio located in Nantes, France.<br />
Focusing primarily on songwriting<br />
and lyrics, the two producers chose to<br />
work on the track together in the studio as<br />
opposed to online. “A lot of [our process]<br />
was [through] conversation. Talking about<br />
what we wanted to express, about music<br />
and sharing a human moment opposed<br />
to sending demos back and forth over the<br />
Internet,” says Leclercq.<br />
“We [also] spent a long time stuck and<br />
frustrated with the lyrics. The big surprise<br />
came when we changed the theme of the song<br />
to something a lot more real to us,” explains<br />
Robinson. “That was a big breakthrough.”<br />
“[The new theme that we decided<br />
on was] family and passing on. The idea<br />
of transmission through generations<br />
and how those ideas formed who we<br />
are [as people],” Leclercq adds.<br />
Building on the pair’s musical<br />
collaboration, the two also combined<br />
their talent on the visual aspect of their<br />
tour. “We wanted to showcase our<br />
friendship and the human component<br />
of our music, opposed to the fictional<br />
visuals we use in our solo work. So<br />
the slides in the art show are more<br />
photography based,” says Leclercq.<br />
“We had so many breakthroughs<br />
about videos and lighting that were very<br />
revelatory,” Robinson mentions. “One<br />
of Hugo’s biggest demands was the use<br />
of a lot of negative space, often times<br />
refusing to shift the borders of video<br />
walls to create [an] infinite perspective<br />
which [looks] pretty amazing. So the<br />
visuals are deeply collaborative.”<br />
Leclercq adds, “The real show will<br />
be the way we interact with each other<br />
on stage. We have a great time together<br />
playing our favourite music.”<br />
Porter Robinson and Madeon perform<br />
at The Vogue Theatre <strong>December</strong> 6 and 7.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> ELECTRONICS DEPT.<br />
19
ZEDS DEAD<br />
KAROLINA KAPUSTA<br />
ZEDS DEAD ELECTRONICALLY RECREATES THE BRILLIANCE OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ON THEIR FIRST ORIGINAL LP.<br />
After almost a decade spent releasing an<br />
onslaught of EPS and remixes, travelling<br />
worldwide on several massive tours, and<br />
most recently, completing their first<br />
full-length studio album and starting a brandnew<br />
record label, Dylan Mamid and Zachary<br />
Rapp-Rovan, also known as Zeds Dead, have<br />
accomplished an insane amount in their careers so<br />
far. “I still think we’re freshmen in this scene [in terms]<br />
of people [that we] look up to. I forget [that] we’ve been<br />
in it for [so] long,” Rapp-Rovan answers humbly over<br />
the phone.<br />
Rapp-Rovan and Mamid first met in their<br />
hometown of Toronto in the mid-2000s where<br />
they bonded over their mutual love for hip-hop<br />
music and production. Growing up in the Myspace<br />
era, the duo originally teamed up under the title<br />
Mass Productions and independently released a<br />
free LP inspired by 1990s hip-hop titled Fresh<br />
Beetz. Pretty soon thereafter, the two friends first<br />
discovered electronic dance music and began to<br />
produce dance beats under Zeds Dead, a moniker<br />
inspired by the movie Pulp Fiction, in 2009.<br />
As their fan base began to expand, the duo<br />
founded a weekly underground party that they<br />
called Bassmentality in the actual basement of a<br />
Toronto bar called 751. Used as a platform for<br />
new DJs to freely play, the night championed the<br />
early EDM scene in Canada and explored sub-genres<br />
like dubstep, UK garage, and bass. Over the years<br />
the party became known for featuring local weekly<br />
performances by Zeds Dead and The Killabits as<br />
well as international acts like Skrillex, Nero, Borgore,<br />
Bare Noize, and Camo & Crooked, to name a few.<br />
In 2013 Zeds Dead released their breakout<br />
EP Hot Sauce through Diplo’s Mad Decent label,<br />
which quickly placed them on the international<br />
EDM circuit. A short year later, the young<br />
producers showed off their knack for collaboration by<br />
working closely with Toronto-based rapper Omar LinX<br />
as well as other well known artists like Twin Shadow, Big<br />
Gigantic, Bright Lights, and Dirtyphonics to release their<br />
EP Somewhere Else to much critical acclaim.<br />
Northern Lights is the first original LP from the<br />
Zeds Dead camp and showcases a striking compilation<br />
of musical genres and partnerships from beginning<br />
to end. Listening to it, the bass and dubstep genres<br />
that some of the first Zeds Dead fans initially fell<br />
in love with merge with party-ready electro-house<br />
tracks, calming soundscapes, and that fusion of hiphop<br />
the pair is known for, to create both a cohesive<br />
and encompassing sound. With vocal features<br />
from a haphazard collection of artists including<br />
Weezer’s frontman Rivers Cuomo, rapper Pusha<br />
T, Swedish rapper Elliphant, Jadakiss, and Freddie<br />
Gibbs, it all somehow<br />
works together on the<br />
album. “I’m really<br />
proud of who we got<br />
to collaborate with<br />
for Northern Lights,”<br />
explains Rapp-Rovan.<br />
“We collaborated<br />
with [so many] of the<br />
people we looked up to<br />
growing up listening to<br />
music. We’ve wanted to<br />
make our own album<br />
since we started Zeds<br />
Dead. It’s just the way<br />
it went that we ended<br />
up releasing remixes<br />
and EPs instead.”<br />
Two years in the making, the pair decided<br />
to lighten their show time having been touring<br />
nonstop since 2010 to dedicate the necessary<br />
studio time to work on the album. “We wanted to<br />
make a real album that was kind of like the stuff<br />
that we grew up on, where it wasn’t just a collection<br />
of songs, it was more like something you could<br />
listen to front to back [that] was cohesive and told<br />
a story. Northern Lights is representative of the<br />
feeling that we were going for.”<br />
While the backdrop of the album is very<br />
moody, mysterious, and dark, the bright range<br />
of vocalists guide the listener through the album<br />
like the beguiling shimmer of the aurora borealis<br />
itself. “Sort of like beauty in darkness, if you want to<br />
call it that. It’s interpretative but it’s definitely dark, but<br />
there are light moments, and it’s not all super serious,”<br />
concludes Rapp-Rovan. “We did our best to put<br />
together a cohesive piece of work. It took two years and<br />
we made a lot of music before narrowing it down to the<br />
best of what represents what Zeds Dead [truly] is.”<br />
According to Rapp-Rovan, the most<br />
challenging track for them to create was most<br />
definitely “Stardust,” featuring synthpop singer<br />
and producer Twin<br />
Shadow. “We went<br />
through so many different<br />
phases. We knew that we<br />
had something really<br />
dope and there was a<br />
lot of experimentation.<br />
In the end I think we<br />
came up with a really<br />
cool piece of music that<br />
isn’t easy to place or put<br />
in a box,” he explains.<br />
Released just last<br />
month, Northern<br />
Lights was also<br />
the first release on<br />
Deadbeats, the official<br />
musical im<strong>print</strong> of Zeds Dead. “We’ve wanted<br />
to have a record label for a really long time now.<br />
[Just] to be able to release our own music as well<br />
as put out artists that we think are really great,”<br />
says Rapp-Rovan. “We’ve always been kind of<br />
do-it-yourself so it just furthers that story.” So<br />
far, the label has also rolled out the debut EP of<br />
French electro producer Nebbra and plans to also<br />
release a compilation of songs from promising upand-coming<br />
artists that Deadbeats has picked set<br />
to come out at the end of the year or early 2017.<br />
The label won’t be limiting their releases to just<br />
electronic music either. “We’ve always been hiphop<br />
heads and we definitely want to showcase that<br />
side of us,” says Rapp-Rovan. More than a record<br />
label, Deadbeats will also act as a community for<br />
like-minded artists, a literal expansion of the Zeds<br />
Dead world.<br />
Having just released a music video for their<br />
single “Too Young” off of Northern Lights, the<br />
creative duo wants to send a message to their fans<br />
using the pastel-coloured, hash-tag adorned<br />
stop-animation by artist Chris Ullens as their<br />
means of delivery. “It’s a critique on our overuse<br />
of social media,” states Rapp-Rovan. As artists<br />
that first released their music via Myspace and<br />
have seen social media, and media in general,<br />
evolve at breakneck speeds, the song is pretty<br />
on point with the social media conundrum our<br />
generation faces. The claymation in the video, like the<br />
catchy song itself, appears attractive and bright where<br />
the dark lyrics and even darker motifs catch you<br />
off-guard. Much like social media has changed,<br />
the electronic music scene has transformed<br />
almost past recognition since Zeds Dead first<br />
started producing music, and yet, Rapp-Rovan says<br />
they’re not worried. “I think we [just like to] keep<br />
to ourselves and stay in our own world, and it hasn’t<br />
failed us yet.”<br />
The industrious pair plans to take it easy<br />
in the New Year after hitting up multiple<br />
cities across North America and Europe on the<br />
Northern Lights tour. The dynamic duo has<br />
collaborated with Strange Loop (the company<br />
behind Flying Lotus’ psychedelic visuals)<br />
for some very trippy production to unleash<br />
on the audience. “Generally our sets are<br />
almost completely our own music and the visual<br />
accompaniment that we have goes perfectly with<br />
it,” Rapp-Rovan promises. “It’s going to be a real<br />
audio-visual experience.”<br />
Zeds Dead performs at Contact Winter Music Festival at<br />
BC Place on <strong>December</strong> 26th.<br />
20<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
FLUME<br />
Australian producer Flume, known<br />
personally as Harley Edward Streten,<br />
has been enthralling electronic music<br />
fans since his first critically acclaimed,<br />
double-platinum studio album, Flume,<br />
released in 2012. His innovative,<br />
matchless work fluctuates between<br />
experimental, electro-pop, hip-hop, and<br />
future bass. His second chart-topping<br />
studio album, Skin, was released earlier<br />
this year to more critical acclaim and<br />
features the popular single “Never Be<br />
Like You” with Canadian vocalist Kai.<br />
<strong>BeatRoute</strong>’s must-see acts<br />
KAROLINA KAPUSTA & VANESSA TAM<br />
After a successful summer festival circuit, local dance music fans were left<br />
looking forward to the reveal of one of Vancouver’s largest winter music events.<br />
Contact Winter Music Festival’s lineup this year is loaded with something for<br />
everyone and takes place at British Columbia’s largest venue, BC Place. Here you<br />
can check out our eight must-see acts on this year’s festival, and wrap up the<br />
holiday season dancing with your crew to some of the top sounds in EDM today.<br />
MIJA<br />
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Mija, also known as<br />
Amber Giles, is an electronic music producer,<br />
DJ, and promoter who first became popular<br />
by playing a back-to-back set with Skrillex<br />
back in 2014. Not wanting to be categorized,<br />
Mija describes her sets as “fk a genre” and<br />
regularly traverses everything from trap and<br />
heavy bass to disco, bounce, and beyond.<br />
BIG WILD<br />
Well known for his distinctly atmospheric,<br />
groove-driven tracks, Matt Collar, who<br />
produces music under the name Big Wild,<br />
is an incredibly talented electronic<br />
music DJ, producer, composer, and<br />
engineer. Inspired by the natural beauty<br />
of Northern California, the young artist<br />
is known to mix his computer-based<br />
recordings with live piano, drums,<br />
guitars, and other instruments on stage<br />
during his performances.<br />
ZEDS DEAD<br />
Zeds Dead is a bass-fueled Canadian<br />
electronic music duo that has worked<br />
relentlessly to make an im<strong>print</strong> on the<br />
global electronic music scene. Over<br />
an onslaught of EPs and remixes over<br />
the years, they have recently released<br />
their first studio album Northern Lights<br />
which is a prime example of their edgy<br />
and untouchable sound – a medley of<br />
dubstep, trap, hip-hop, and drum & bass.<br />
DISCLOSURE<br />
Grammy nominated brothers Howard<br />
and Guy Lawrence are two English<br />
electronic music producers that are<br />
most commonly known together<br />
as Disclosure. Gaining international<br />
recognition for their debut studio album<br />
Settle, the hysteria currently surrounding<br />
the project first came to light almost<br />
solely based on the success of their single<br />
“Latch” featuring Sam Smith, which later<br />
helped launch the album to the number<br />
one spot on both the UK and US Dance/<br />
Electronic Album Charts.<br />
MARSHMELLO<br />
Marshmello, like this producer’s<br />
name suggests, doles out fluffy gooey<br />
electronic music goodness with every<br />
song he releases. The mysteriously<br />
masked music maker (whose identity<br />
remains anonymous) creates happygo-lucky<br />
synth-filled dance music and<br />
originally blew up in 2015 after remixing<br />
songs by Zedd and Jack Ü, while also<br />
releasing his own original singles<br />
“Summer” and “Alone.”<br />
DREZO<br />
Los Angeles-based Drezo, or just<br />
Andre to his friends, is known for the<br />
signature deep house style he brings<br />
to his sets throughout the underground<br />
music scene. The unique sound that<br />
he has created continues to innovate<br />
house music with equal parts ominous,<br />
repetitive, and impulsively driven beats.<br />
HUCCI<br />
Although not much is generally known<br />
about the UK based trap producer<br />
Hucci aside from his first name probably<br />
being Oliver, all you really need to know<br />
is that his hard hitting bass heavy tracks<br />
supplemented by intermittent showers<br />
of hi hats and soaring vocal drops will<br />
truly knock you on your ass.<br />
Contact Winter Music Festival <strong>2016</strong><br />
takes place <strong>December</strong> 26-27 at BC Place<br />
single bill<br />
$11<br />
DECEMBER HIGHLIGHTS<br />
double bill<br />
$16<br />
DEC 1- 9<br />
BEST FILM OF THE 21st CENTURY?<br />
MULHOLLAND DRIVE<br />
DEC 10 - 14<br />
BY / WITH / ABO U T<br />
FASSBI N DER<br />
DEC 15 - 19<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> ELECTRONICS DEPT.<br />
21
AESOP ROCK<br />
when you write about seclusion and some buyers finally tune in<br />
Photo by Ben Colen<br />
WILLOW GRIER<br />
A lone figure huddles beneath giant bat<br />
wings. Just above their peaked tips are<br />
dozens of serpentine eyes, nefariously<br />
reaching claws, jagged brambles and<br />
slimy tentacles, writhing forth from a<br />
cloak of darkness. This ominous scene<br />
is the visual representation of Aesop<br />
Rock’s latest album, The Impossible<br />
Kid, as brought to life by historically<br />
imaginative artist Alex Pardee.<br />
The artwork is symbolic, first,<br />
speaking to the crushing weight of a<br />
year of tumult. <strong>2016</strong> has taken with both<br />
hands, with great losses felt throughout<br />
the music community, coupled with<br />
political and social upheaval. Some<br />
remarked that the apocalypse was upon<br />
us. Secondly, the artwork speaks to<br />
the personal struggles Ian Bavitz (Aes<br />
himself) has faced over the past few<br />
years, brought to life in arguably his<br />
most personal release to date.<br />
“I wanted it to feel like a person’s<br />
desire to isolate,” says Bavitz of the<br />
visual Pardee actualized. “Feeling like<br />
the environment was coming alive.<br />
Like being alone in a place you don’t<br />
know, and sensing that maybe there’s<br />
something out there. Letting any little<br />
bump in the night become exaggerated<br />
in your head.”<br />
This reflected the experience Bavitz<br />
had while writing The Impossible Kid, as<br />
he retreated to a cabin in the woods,<br />
with only his cat Kirby (who has its own<br />
song on the album) for company, and<br />
the overwhelming silence of isolation.<br />
Bavitz details this account on “Rabies,”<br />
reminiscent of Kerouac’s Big Sur, in all its<br />
introspection-turning-to-madness.<br />
Bavitz discusses his isolated writing<br />
process and how The Impossible Kid fits<br />
into his repertoire: “I go dark, over-think,<br />
and make shit. That’s sorta the cycle I live<br />
in. I wouldn’t know how to judge which<br />
of my works is more or less personal...<br />
They all kind of consume me at the<br />
time.” He continues: “I had a handful<br />
of years which resulted in some losses,<br />
and had the opportunity to get away for<br />
a second, so I took it. I’ve lived in some<br />
amazing cities, but there is occasionally<br />
the feeling that you need to ‘keep up’<br />
with what’s going on in these places<br />
in a way that is counterproductive for<br />
me. Once I start to feel like I’m in a<br />
competition every time I step outside<br />
my home, it’s time to move on.”<br />
Although the album is touted<br />
as coming from a place of darkness,<br />
there is a lightness that peeks through,<br />
along with the clever humour that sets<br />
Aesop Rock apart (“Lotta Years,” for<br />
example). For instance, Bavitz has rediscovered<br />
his love for drawing (which<br />
he discusses in the track “Rings”) and<br />
skateboarding, and this has become a<br />
fresh source of inspiration.<br />
“Skateboarding is 100 per cent<br />
responsible for everything I am today,”<br />
Bavitz states. “That is how I always<br />
identified, and growing up it was who<br />
I felt most comfortable around. It was<br />
something that attracted a pretty<br />
diverse group; all types of weirdoes and<br />
creative minds and people into art and<br />
music and all that shit.”<br />
Additionally, Bavitz has taken on<br />
the role of sole producer, having largely<br />
worked with collaborators previously.<br />
“Being in control of every sound and lyric<br />
allows me to feel like the final product is<br />
truly mine, instead of saying ‘Here is my<br />
solo record’ when I only really did 50 per<br />
cent or less of the actual legwork,” he<br />
explains. “If it’s awful, at least it’s mine. If<br />
it’s great - wonderful. I hope the passion<br />
I have is clear and that people know<br />
that whatever they hear is not gonna be<br />
some bullshit. I work my ass off.”<br />
For decades, Aesop Rock has<br />
been making hip hop for intellectuals<br />
and weirdoes. His honesty creates instantly<br />
relatable moments to offset even the<br />
most outlandish settings. His wordplay is<br />
so complex it’s often hard to keep up with,<br />
but after settling into its subtle nuances,<br />
it’s impossible not to appreciate.<br />
“I love reading science news<br />
and seeing what we as humans are<br />
discovering,” he describes of his<br />
inspiration. “And watching people who<br />
really get into shit, no matter what it is.<br />
If you make the best risotto, and that’s<br />
your passion, and I can tell, then I can<br />
watch you talk about that shit all day.”<br />
Whether waxing philosophic on the<br />
dissolution of Pluto’s status as a planet,<br />
taking the listener into the mind of a sea<br />
swept sailor encountering a mermaid,<br />
or wryly discussing the awkwardness of<br />
being in therapy (“Shrunk”), he never<br />
Self-produced new album a step towards greater ownership of his craft.<br />
takes the same path twice.<br />
Given his standing as an icon of<br />
the underground rap world, <strong>BeatRoute</strong><br />
asked Bavitz what his thoughts were<br />
regarding the future of Trump’s America<br />
and what it means for the world of<br />
counter-culture.<br />
“Trump is an abomination,” Bavitz<br />
replies. “I guess what I sometimes<br />
struggle with is the choice of [spending]<br />
my time and energy speaking out<br />
against this awful man and what I<br />
believe it means for us as a society, or<br />
[recognizing] that that’s a losing battle,<br />
and just doing my best to spread what I<br />
believe to be positivity in an attempt to<br />
make people realize that all is not lost.”<br />
“Countercultures thrive when<br />
mainstream culture is a disgusting place<br />
- and when I think of what has helped<br />
me personally throughout my life, it<br />
was never someone berating me about<br />
what I should and shouldn’t believe,” he<br />
continues. “It was people showing me<br />
that there is other shit out there.”<br />
The Impossible Kid is a prime<br />
example of something bright<br />
coming from darkness. Upon further<br />
examination of its telling album art,<br />
perhaps one can ascertain that the lone<br />
figure is actually taking his own bizarre<br />
features and harnessing them into a<br />
superpower. A striking reminder that<br />
what many think to be impossible can<br />
become reality, if you know how to look<br />
at the whole picture.<br />
Aesop Rock plays the Starlite Room<br />
in Edmonton on <strong>December</strong> 16th, The<br />
Gateway in Calgary on <strong>December</strong> 17th,<br />
and Venue Nightclub in Vancouver on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 19th.<br />
MACHINEDRUM<br />
a celebration of life and positive human energy<br />
HOLLIE MCGOWAN<br />
Machinedrum has escalated to a<br />
new stage in his career, and with his<br />
latest release on Ninja Tune, Human<br />
Energy, he is inviting everyone to join<br />
him. “I wanted to create an album that<br />
embodied a feeling [of unity] by having<br />
a more uplifting and celebratory nature<br />
sonically,” explains Travis Stewart, aka<br />
Machinedrum, from his new home in Los<br />
Angeles. “The album is a celebration of life<br />
and of the positive energy that everybody<br />
has [the] potential to tap into.”<br />
For the past 15 years, Stewart has<br />
developed a reputation for his ability to<br />
traverse across a variety of electronic<br />
music genres while maintaining a<br />
high calibre. Under his solo moniker<br />
Machinedrum or in collaboration with<br />
other artists like, Om Unit as Dream<br />
Continuum, Jimmy Edgar as JETS, or with<br />
Praveen Sharma as Sepalcure, Stewart<br />
has proven himself to be both versatile<br />
and a true master of percussion.<br />
Through a series of recent events in<br />
his personal world, Stewart began taking<br />
a new approach to life thereby adding a<br />
more positive and uplifting element to<br />
his sound. “The whole approach to this<br />
album in general was sort of a naïve kid’s<br />
approach to learning about these new age<br />
concepts,” tells Stewart. “I wanted to have<br />
fun with it rather than just bore people<br />
with all the details [of new age ideas]<br />
which can usually push people away.”<br />
A return to alternative therapeutic<br />
practices such as reiki and guided<br />
meditation, not to mention a recent<br />
engagement to his partner, paved the<br />
way for an inner transformation which<br />
is reflected in Human Energy. “A lot of<br />
it happened unconsciously,” he shares.<br />
“When I was writing the album, I was just<br />
going with the flow and [didn’t] really<br />
give it too much thought. I was kind of<br />
leaving my body, as I do whenever I’m<br />
writing songs, and tapping into another<br />
plane of existence.”<br />
New experimentations with<br />
sound and a deeper connection to the<br />
subconscious led Stewart to incorporate<br />
the connection between sound and<br />
colour in his work. “I have a synesthetic<br />
relationship with music. Whenever I<br />
hear music that really speaks to me<br />
it puts pictures in my mind. Certain<br />
sounds have tones and colours for me.”<br />
Not too long ago, Stewart tried his<br />
own hand at producing music for the<br />
alternative healing arts, and then shared<br />
the instrumental track made for guided<br />
meditation with his online followers. “I<br />
actually made that tonal piece to help<br />
me meditate when I was writing the<br />
album,” he says. “I would start everyday<br />
by listening to it while meditating for 15<br />
minutes, then I would start working on<br />
music. It was a palate cleanser in a way. It<br />
really helped clear my mind and be able to<br />
focus without thinking about everything<br />
else that was going on in my life.”<br />
With a new direction in the studio,<br />
Stewart also collaborated with artists<br />
Strangeloop and Timeboy to create<br />
an audio-visual experience fit for his<br />
performance. A desire to “hit people<br />
with energy” by utilizing projections of<br />
colour in finely calculated ways on the<br />
dance floor, Stewart is hoping to give<br />
his audiences more than just a party. “I<br />
want people to feel like they’re present<br />
and connected to the music. Rather<br />
than it [just] being about me and what<br />
I’m doing, I want people to feel like<br />
they’re all [in it] together.”<br />
Machinedrum performs at Fortune<br />
Sound Club <strong>December</strong> 29th<br />
22 ELECTRONICS DEPT.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
The best way to countdown to<br />
<strong>December</strong> 25? With beer, of course.<br />
And since Vancouver is such a fertile<br />
breeding ground for the craft variety,<br />
it’s a perfect way to both support<br />
local and get into the holiday spirit.<br />
<strong>BeatRoute</strong> hit some of the city’s finest<br />
breweries to find the tastiest seasonal<br />
offerings to celebrate with.<br />
33 ACRES BREWING<br />
33 Acres of Ocean - West Coast Pale<br />
<br />
Christmas brings about feelings of<br />
nostalgia and this beer fills that need<br />
quite well. It’s a West Coast style pale<br />
ale that has a nice pine/evergreen<br />
flavour that has a bit of hop kick<br />
without being overpowering. It’s a<br />
drinkable beer that has a refreshing<br />
citrus flavor, and that pine touch will<br />
remind one of the Pacific Northwest<br />
and keep with the season nicely. (GW)<br />
<br />
<br />
While 33 Acres avoids falling into<br />
the stereotypical seasonal trap, that<br />
doesn’t mean that their beer has<br />
no seasonal aspects. Says 33 Acres<br />
manager, Dustin Sepkowski, “It’s<br />
important that seasonal brews will<br />
interest us and encourage us to try<br />
them, but also to have our core staples<br />
be just that. A beer that is clean and<br />
drinkable, and the consistency to earn<br />
the trust of beer drinkers.” 33 Acres<br />
of Darkness is a seasonal favourite,<br />
selling much more during the winter<br />
months than otherwise. It’s a black<br />
ale that while isn’t super strong, nor<br />
super thick, provides the comforting<br />
warmth that’s perfect for the cold<br />
months—warm and satisfying<br />
without being filling. (GW)<br />
<br />
<br />
Having trouble dealing with in-laws,<br />
or other family members? Maybe 33<br />
Acres of Euphoria is the right beer for<br />
you. It’s super strong at 9.2% so it will<br />
get you buzzed quite quickly, but it’s<br />
delicious banana and spice flavour<br />
will make it enjoyable to drink down.<br />
It’s strong but not overpoweringly so.<br />
It’s got a spiciness that will encourage<br />
drinking and an alcohol content that<br />
will make sure you’re going to be able<br />
to handle whatever your gross uncle<br />
has to say. (GW)<br />
PARALLEL 49 BREWING<br />
<br />
This dark and warm milk stout is<br />
light in alcohol, but rich in flavour.<br />
Sweetened with lactose (milk sugar)<br />
and chocolate, it leaves a pleasantly<br />
lingering coffee aftertaste. (KN)<br />
<br />
A sea salted and caramel Scotch<br />
12 BEERS OF CHRISTMAS<br />
Ale, Salty Scot is a darker brew that<br />
maintains a harmonious balance<br />
between its two flavours. (KN)<br />
<br />
Toques of Hazzard — an Imperial White<br />
IPA — has a malty tartness that’s not<br />
quite sour, with flavours of gooseberry<br />
to keep the brew light bodied. (KN)<br />
Along with these brews, Parallel 49 is<br />
also offering a Season’s Greetings case in<br />
partnership with Central City Brewing,<br />
which features 24 different beers — one<br />
for every day of the advent calendar.<br />
R&B BREWING<br />
<br />
It’s just not winter without a seasonal<br />
stout and R&B is delivering one with<br />
a twist. Served on nitro, the Dark<br />
Star Stout is smooth, creamy, and<br />
surprisingly mellow for a stout. Not too<br />
heavy — very Guinness like in terms<br />
of comparison — with rich notes of<br />
chocolate and coffee. (JE)<br />
<br />
For those that like their stouts strong, this<br />
is the beer they are looking for. The Ursos<br />
Arctos is a Russian Imperial stout with a<br />
hard hitting 10.4% and 70 IBU. Very rich,<br />
very heavy, and with super concentrated<br />
caramel notes, the Ursos Arctos is a very<br />
complex tasting beer with layers of flavour<br />
that hit you in waves as you drink it. Not for<br />
the faint of heart, but one of the best beers<br />
you will taste this winter. (JE)<br />
STRANGE FELLOWS BREWING<br />
<br />
A brewery that never fails to challenge<br />
themselves and the palette of their<br />
consumer, Strange Fellows Brewing is<br />
featuring two limited release holiday<br />
JOSHUA ERICKSON, KEIR NICOLL, GRAEME WIGGINS & ERIN JARDINE<br />
seasonals that explore the dark side of<br />
folklore themes and quirky traditions.<br />
For example, their principal holiday<br />
beer is an ode to the anti-father<br />
Christmas, Krampus himself. “We<br />
actually have a Krampus costume<br />
that one of our bartenders made, you<br />
can come here in <strong>December</strong> with kids<br />
and have a photo on the throne with<br />
Krampus, and we made at least four or<br />
five kids cry,” laughs head brewmaster,<br />
Iain Hill. If you’ve seen Krampus, you’ll<br />
know why kids are crying. The beer is<br />
a Belgian Abbey Dubbel. “It’s not a<br />
hoppy beer, more based on malt and<br />
yeast flavours,” Hill adds. “It needs<br />
to age a long time and we made it<br />
months ago. It’s brewed in the historic<br />
style of Belgian monasteries — like a<br />
Trappist ale.” (EJ)<br />
<br />
The second winter seasonal is Boris,<br />
a Russian Imperiale Stout. Strange<br />
Fellows experiments extensively with<br />
aging beers and attaining flavours<br />
through a barrel, and Boris is the beer<br />
that puts Strange Fellows through<br />
its paces. (EJ)<br />
STRATHCONA BREWING<br />
COMPANY<br />
<br />
Don’t be alarmed by the high ABV of<br />
this local take on a classic Belgian style.<br />
Relative newcomers to Vancouver’s<br />
bountiful craft beer scene, Strathcona<br />
Beer Company’s strikingly authentic<br />
version of this dark, malty treat of<br />
an ale is a lip-smacking gift boasting<br />
a robust, rich flavour that avoids the<br />
overly complex palate distractions<br />
some Belgian Abbey ales tend to get lost<br />
in. Accessible to both those seasoned in<br />
the expansive world of Belgian beers,<br />
and to others who’ve never heard of<br />
world-renowned ales such as Chimay or<br />
La Chouffe, this single-batch Dubbel<br />
is highly drinkable — dangerously so.<br />
As a beer style sometimes recreated<br />
less-accurately than others by<br />
craft breweries, it’s impressive and<br />
appreciated to have such a faithful<br />
rendition of one of the tastiest, winterappropriate<br />
brews available right in<br />
our Eastside backyard. Made with<br />
dark Belgian candy sugar imported<br />
directly from Belgium, this Dubbel is<br />
sweet, reaffirming, and (be careful<br />
— remember the ABV!) worthy of<br />
repeat refills. (WT)<br />
BRASSNECK BREWERY<br />
<br />
Six years ago, on Beatty street, stood a<br />
well-regarded brewpub by the name<br />
of Dix BBQ & Brewery. Following its<br />
closure, the brewers moved on to<br />
other projects, but they’ve kept the<br />
spirit of Dix alive with the help of<br />
Nigel Springthorpe and Brassneck<br />
Brewery, through a yearly tradition<br />
of a collaboration in the muchloved<br />
Pacific Northwest IPA<br />
style called the Spirit of DIXmas.<br />
Brassneck, one of Vancouver’s<br />
premier craft breweries, actually<br />
operates using Dix’s brewing<br />
system, having purchased it<br />
following the closing of Dix’s doors.<br />
As the very first IPA produced<br />
by the Main St. brewery, Spirit of<br />
DIXmas is a lovely, welcome addition<br />
to BC’s massively varied IPA family. It’s<br />
strong (as expected), aromatic, and<br />
flowing with flavour notes running<br />
from pine to citrus and beyond.<br />
Made with Centennial, Citra and<br />
Simcoe hops, Spirit of DIXmas is<br />
an excellently balanced IPA with<br />
that requisite light-handed touch<br />
of bitterness that leaves you<br />
craving another glass. Get down to<br />
Brassneck before it’s sold out. (WT)<br />
FEATURED CONCERTS<br />
VICTORIA, BC<br />
FUNK THE HALLS<br />
WITH THE FUNK HUNTERS<br />
PLUS DIRTY RADIO AND<br />
ASTROCOLOR (DJ SET)<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9<br />
THE JON AND ROY<br />
HOLIDAY SPECIAL<br />
WITH GUESTS DANIEL WESLEY,<br />
FOX GLOVE, AND FINTAN O’BRIEN<br />
ALIX GOOLDEN HALL<br />
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10<br />
SONREAL<br />
PLUS GUESTS<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2<br />
USS<br />
PLUS REPARTEE AND GUESTS<br />
ALIX GOOLDEN HALL<br />
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9<br />
& SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12<br />
FUNK THE HALLS<br />
WITH THE FUNK HUNTERS<br />
PLUS PIGEON HOLE AND<br />
ASTROCOLOR (DJ SET)<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10<br />
NEW YEARS EVE WITH<br />
JESSE ROPER<br />
AND GUESTS DEEP SEA GYPSIES<br />
AND NO LIARS<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31<br />
BENJAMIN<br />
FRANCIS<br />
LEFTWICH<br />
PLUS GUESTS<br />
<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5<br />
POLYRHYTHMICS<br />
PLUS GUESTS<br />
SUGAR NIGHTCLUB<br />
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24<br />
FOR FULL CONCERT LISTINGS & TO PURCHASE<br />
TICKETS, PLEASE VISIT:<br />
WWW.ATOMIQUEPRODUCTIONS.COM<br />
FACEBOOK /ATOMIQUEPRODUCTIONS TWITTER @ATOMIQUEEVENTS<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> CITY<br />
23
CREEPS<br />
the Canadian play that shook the ground and opened minds<br />
MADDY CRISTALL<br />
From <strong>December</strong> 1-10, the Vancouver<br />
based Realwheels Theatre presents<br />
their production of Creeps. Creeps<br />
is a controversial, ground-breaking,<br />
and subversive play that transformed<br />
Canadian theatre by offering a unique<br />
perspective on living with a disability.<br />
The play was written in 1971 by David<br />
E. Freeman who, as someone who lived<br />
with cerebral palsy, wrote the entire play<br />
by typewriter, which he worked with a<br />
stick held between his teeth.<br />
Creeps is a story of four disabled<br />
men who spend their days brooding<br />
in a gruelling and insulated workshop.<br />
After growing tired of the way they are<br />
treated, they rebel by holing themselves<br />
up in the warehouse washroom. In there,<br />
they indulge in gossip and smoking, while<br />
liberating themselves by rejecting the<br />
institutionalized conduct they’ve been<br />
subjected to. In the original production<br />
in the 1970s, Freeman personally coached<br />
the actors so that they would not be seen<br />
to simply impersonate the disabilities<br />
associated with the condition. The<br />
play also has the educational purpose<br />
to inform the audience about the<br />
causes and symptoms of cerebral<br />
palsy. The unapologetic honesty and<br />
audaciousness of the script is both<br />
hilarious and heartbreaking, and the<br />
sarcastic dialogue encapsulates a blend<br />
of cruelty and transparency into this<br />
understudied world.<br />
24 CITY<br />
Directed by the innovative Brian<br />
Cochrane (52 Pick-up, Wide Awake<br />
Hearts, Speech & Debate), Creeps’<br />
casting features actors both with and<br />
without disabilities and includes, from<br />
the disabled community, Paul Beckett,<br />
Adam Grant Warren, and Aaron<br />
Roderick, alongside David A. Kaye and<br />
Genevieve Fleming.<br />
Creeps includes some outdated<br />
language that may “Raise some<br />
interesting questions and cause<br />
controversy,” says producer Rena<br />
Cohen, but it gave a voice to a<br />
misunderstood community in a<br />
particularly complex time in a world<br />
that remains prejudiced. Cohen<br />
describes that the characters feel<br />
that they’re “the toilet of humanity”<br />
and that “the play is an argument<br />
between those that are protesting the<br />
structures between those disabilities.”<br />
She explains: “it’s a dark comedy that<br />
deals with difficult subjects, it is also<br />
an opportunity to recognize how far we<br />
have come over the past 45 years.”<br />
A powerful and fresh display of<br />
the fight against oppression through a<br />
brutally honest lens, Creeps brings some<br />
sense of the difficulty of living with a<br />
disability to light in the powerful form<br />
of live theatre.<br />
Creeps runs from <strong>December</strong> 1-10 at the<br />
Historic Theatre. Tickets are two for one<br />
on <strong>December</strong> 3, which is the International<br />
Day of Persons with Disabilities.<br />
Photo by Tim Matheson<br />
Creeps fearlessly embraces dark humor within the search for humanity with a disability<br />
FOLIOSA<br />
going green has never been so easy<br />
ADEY OKOYOMON<br />
Listen up plant lovers: Foliosa is about to<br />
become your new favourite gardening<br />
company. Based out of Vancouver,<br />
they specialize in setting up indoor<br />
gardens — and creating the plant<br />
wonderland of your dreams.<br />
“I had the idea for what is<br />
now Foliosa a couple of years ago<br />
when I was studying landscape<br />
horticulture,” says founder Britt<br />
Wainwright. “It was a very tiny<br />
idea and it took me a while to figure<br />
out exactly what I wanted Foliosa to<br />
become. Plants can be scary because<br />
they are living things and most people<br />
don’t have the time to nurture them.<br />
So, you see a lot of spaces with the<br />
wrong plants and they are getting over<br />
or under watered. I want to change that<br />
by making the right plant choices for<br />
spaces and I also offer the service of caring<br />
for them, like a plant mom.”<br />
Foliosa doesn’t stop at installing<br />
Rebel Soup gives the ugly food of the world<br />
a chance to be part of something great.<br />
plants in your home or office — they<br />
also help you look after them, coming<br />
in to water, dust, and clip, and ensuring<br />
that the plants flourish and receive<br />
proper nutrition. Say farewell to<br />
unknowingly killing your plants.<br />
Wainwright’s hope is to collaborate<br />
with and promote local makers. Along<br />
with beautifying homes, Foliosa has<br />
garnished venues like the American<br />
and Tacofino with greenery. “When<br />
styling for permanent containers, I put<br />
emphasis on adding plants that<br />
are best for the space by making<br />
sure they can thrive in their<br />
environment.” Wainwright says. “I<br />
take into account what the client is looking<br />
for — it’s important to me to understand<br />
their vision, if they have one — and blend<br />
it with what I think will look beautiful and<br />
function within the space.”<br />
“With event styling there’s more wiggle<br />
room for getting a bit wild. Since you’re not<br />
worrying about long term plantings, you get<br />
more creative freedom,” she adds.<br />
Suffice it to say, we now all have a fairy<br />
plant-mother in Britt Wainwright.<br />
Learn more about Foliosa and their<br />
services at foliosa.org.<br />
REBEL SOUP<br />
challenging perceptions one bowl at a time<br />
ADRIA LEDUC<br />
“We don’t believe in conventional<br />
standards, and in buying Rebel Soup,<br />
you’re taking a stand with us,”<br />
says Amanda Slater, who aims to<br />
challenge the perception that “ugly”<br />
produce has no value.<br />
Combining her background in<br />
holistic nutrition and the support<br />
of a social venture entrepreneurship<br />
program, Slater has transformed<br />
what started out as a home-based<br />
soup club into Rebel Soup, a small<br />
business on a mission to tackle<br />
f arm-level food waste through<br />
the simple process of making<br />
soup.<br />
Rebel Soup works directly with<br />
local farmers to buy their unsellable<br />
produce, which can amount to<br />
between 30 and 40 percent of what<br />
they grow. These vegetables, though<br />
perfectly nutritious, cannot be sold<br />
to supermarkets because they do<br />
not meet aesthetic standards. In<br />
contrast to the aisles of uniform,<br />
blemish-free produce found in<br />
supermarkets, Rebel Soup embraces<br />
unwanted, uniquely shaped veggies<br />
and transforms them into nourishing<br />
vegan soups.<br />
“Don’t be fooled by a pureed<br />
vegan soup!” asserts Slater. The soups<br />
are hearty, packed with roughly a<br />
pound of veggies in every jar, often<br />
Britt Wainwright uses her green thumb to<br />
save the lives of green things everywhere.<br />
combined with ingredients such as<br />
nut milks and organic beans for fiber<br />
and protein. Slater chooses spices and<br />
combinations that bring out the natural<br />
flavours of the vegetables in an effort to<br />
deepen the connection between people<br />
and their food.<br />
Since its launch in early October,<br />
Rebel Soup has quickly gained<br />
momentum. Slater hopes to have the<br />
soups carried by a few cafes and small<br />
retailers in the new year. Currently, the<br />
soups are available through the online<br />
soup club at rebelsoup.ca, where you<br />
can select your flavours and have the<br />
option of delivery or pickup. Rebel<br />
Soup will also be a vendor at the first<br />
annual Kitsilano Winter Market, held<br />
at Kits House on <strong>December</strong> 3.<br />
Rebel Soup aims to bring<br />
awareness to food waste issues by<br />
providing a convenient meal option<br />
that has a real impact. “Our mandate<br />
is ‘good for the environment, good<br />
for the farmers, good for you,’” Slater<br />
says. “We want to make sure that<br />
the farmers are being paid. We<br />
want to reduce the amount of<br />
food that’s being wasted and be<br />
able to provide a very accessible,<br />
nutritious meal for people.”<br />
Learn more about and purchase Rebel<br />
Soup at rebelsoup.ca.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
KEITHMAS VII<br />
a legendary party for the legend himself<br />
SADIE VADNAIS<br />
“If you can remember Keithmas then<br />
you weren’t there!” jokes Jon Hewer, the<br />
man behind the party of the season. “It’s<br />
become our de facto motto for the event.”<br />
In its seventh consecutive year, the<br />
event that combines Keith Richards’<br />
birthday and Christmas is only growing,<br />
giving the rock and roll junkies of<br />
Vancouver a place to get their ya-yas<br />
out, knowing that they’re giving back<br />
to some of the people that need it most<br />
this winter season — the beneficiaries<br />
of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.<br />
“This kind of started as a lark<br />
seven years ago,” remembers Hewer.<br />
“We thought it would be a fun night.<br />
By the time the night arrived it had<br />
morphed into this whole other thing<br />
where the sum was greater than the<br />
parts. We raised $800 bucks and five<br />
boxes of food and had so much fun that<br />
we immediately said we have to do it<br />
again next year. And now here we are,<br />
seven years into it, and have raised over<br />
$30,000 for the Food Bank!”<br />
Beyond the charity of the evening,<br />
there’s plenty to get into on the night<br />
itself through raffles and auctions. Last<br />
year they auctioned off Richards’ pants.<br />
The moment the name was called for<br />
the winner, the whole theatre went wild<br />
— a consistent occurrence throughout<br />
the evening.<br />
With the support of many,<br />
Keithmas is a consistent must for<br />
partiers. With an eclectic musical lineup<br />
— which, this year, includes Rich Hope<br />
performing songs from the Rolling<br />
Stones’ album Some Girls — the event is<br />
sure to give a proper tribute to the man<br />
of the hour.<br />
“We tend to get all the credit as<br />
organizers, but really the bands are what<br />
makes it so special,” says Hewer. “Without<br />
the artists generously giving all of their<br />
time there is no Keithmas. And lastly, on<br />
<strong>December</strong> 16th, let’s raise a glass (or a bottle)<br />
of JD to the human riff master himself, the<br />
indestructible Keith Richards, without<br />
whom this event wouldn’t exist!”<br />
A worthy toast, to be sure.<br />
Keithmas VII takes place on <strong>December</strong><br />
16 at the Rickshaw Theatre.<br />
THE AMERICAN<br />
new venue with a no-bullshit attitude aims to reinvigorate Vancouver nightlife<br />
NOOR KHWAJA<br />
In the wearisome bar scene of<br />
downtown Vancouver, finding your goto<br />
hangout is no easy feat. The city’s<br />
newest watering hole, the American, is<br />
attempting to establish a new pocket<br />
of nightlife that will hopefully refresh<br />
this monotony.<br />
Simon Fallick, one of the<br />
pub’s owners, discusses his and his<br />
team’s collective aim to create “An<br />
atmosphere that’s not easily found<br />
in Vancouver.” The casual and playful<br />
interior of the American will be “an<br />
inviting type of space for people to<br />
come and enjoy,” catering to those<br />
who are tired of “going to clubs and<br />
grimy bars.” Fallick explains that the<br />
space will be the perfect spot to<br />
just “listen to some great music<br />
and shoot pool without having<br />
to get dressed up or worry about<br />
dealing with shit heads.”<br />
The location of the American<br />
on 926 Main Street is a story in<br />
itself. The building is over 100 years<br />
old and was, at one point, home<br />
to an infamous hotel by the same<br />
name. After being a notorious spot<br />
for criminal activity in its heyday, it<br />
has since been refurbished, adding<br />
new additions to the neighborhood.<br />
The last of these was Electric Owl,<br />
a Japanese izakaya-style venue<br />
that eventually shut down and was<br />
purchased by the new owners of the<br />
American.<br />
While chatting about Electric<br />
Owl’s closure, Fallick emphasizes<br />
that “The promise for something<br />
special was always there.” The<br />
main difference between the<br />
American and its former inhabitant<br />
is that, unlike Electric Owl, the<br />
aim of the new space isn’t to be a<br />
live music venue, but rather, “to<br />
create something where you [can]<br />
just go and be yourself and have<br />
fun.” The subtler styles of events<br />
at the American include pop-up<br />
restaurants, as well as DJ sets on<br />
the weekends. With the addition<br />
of arcade machines, the team also<br />
plans to potentially host gaming<br />
events at the pub.<br />
Whether you want to watch a<br />
big game in a friendly environment<br />
or catch up with some friends, the<br />
American offers a lighthearted<br />
and fun space to unwind. As<br />
Fallick jokingly refers to it, the new<br />
“Cambie for adults” is sure to bring<br />
something special to this “vibrant<br />
part of the city.”<br />
The American is located at 926<br />
Main Street.<br />
DEC<br />
10-11<br />
DEC<br />
14<br />
DECEMBER<br />
DEC<br />
16<br />
DEC<br />
17<br />
DEC<br />
18<br />
DEC<br />
19<br />
DEC<br />
20<br />
DEC<br />
21<br />
DEC<br />
22<br />
DEC<br />
23<br />
DEC<br />
24<br />
JAN<br />
30<br />
JAN<br />
1<br />
JAN<br />
5<br />
JAN<br />
8<br />
THE GEEKENDERS PRESENT<br />
RICHARD O'BRIEN'S<br />
ROCKY HORROR SHOW<br />
LIVE!<br />
THE GENTLEMEN HECKLERS PRESENT<br />
DIE HARD 2<br />
PARK CHAN-WOOK DOUBLE FEATURE<br />
THE HANDMAIDEN + OLDBOY<br />
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS<br />
LEONARD COHEN<br />
TRIBUTE CONCERT<br />
LIVE MUSIC, DANCE, POETRY AND MORE!<br />
PARTIAL PROCEEDS TO<br />
THE VANCOUVER FOOD BANK<br />
MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO<br />
THE PRINCESS BRIDE<br />
LABYRINTH<br />
MIKHAIL KALATOZOV'S<br />
I AM CUBA ('SOY CUBA')<br />
YULETIDE DOUBLE BILL!<br />
ELF<br />
HOW THE GRINCH<br />
STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000)<br />
THE FICTIONALS COMEDY COMPANY PRESENTS<br />
IMPROV AGAINST HUMANITY<br />
HO HO HOLIDAY SPECIAL<br />
#IAHATRIO<br />
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE<br />
GREMLINS<br />
THE SOUND OF MUSIC<br />
DIE HARD<br />
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S<br />
CHRISTMAS VACATION<br />
BAD SANTA<br />
STANLEY KUBRICK'S<br />
THE SHINING<br />
HOLIDAY HANGOVER TRIPLE FEATURE!<br />
SHAUN OF THE DEAD<br />
THE BIG LEBOWSKI<br />
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS<br />
PAUL ANTHONY'S<br />
TALENT TIME<br />
FIRST THURSDAY OF EVERY MONTH!<br />
THE 2017 GOLDEN GLOBE<br />
AWARDS<br />
LIVE & FREE ON THE BIG SCREEN<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> CITY<br />
25
Winter Wellness<br />
Winter may well be the hardest season to stay on top of our overall health. For most of us, we’re stuck indoors<br />
and, when we’re not, soggy weather and frigid temperatures put us in danger of catching a cold. Motivation<br />
for going outside and getting exercise is often lacking, especially in light of holiday parties, copious amounts<br />
of alcohol, and days filled with delicious indulgences. Plus, seasonal depression is a very real mental health<br />
issue — and is at its crux. All things considered, it’s especially important not to be sparing with yourself in<br />
body, mind, and spirit. So, we consulted a few local experts for insight on how to keep well this winter.<br />
HOLISTIC NUTRITIONIST CHLOE ELGAR<br />
understanding the connection between physical and spiritual<br />
KIM BUDZIAK<br />
Open books are hard to come by, even<br />
in the age of Instagram. There is quoting<br />
Rumi and then there is understanding<br />
what the hell you’re actually quoting.<br />
There is surface open and then there<br />
is deep open. Chloe Elgar is the deep<br />
blue Pacific kind of open. Her sense of<br />
humour blankets company in an instant<br />
state of ease, without detracting from<br />
her unmistakably human demeanour.<br />
“You have to meet people where<br />
they’re at,” she says warmly. “Small<br />
steps. If I tell them to go put their<br />
crystals outside in the morning are<br />
they going to think I’m a wacko?”<br />
Probably. But then again, mysticore<br />
is trending.<br />
Elgar’s approach to health,<br />
however, will have the energy to<br />
carry her through the next wave<br />
of amethyst and quartz carriers<br />
(but she’s into it, in case you were<br />
wondering). From her conflictheavy<br />
upbringing and psychology<br />
background, Elgar finds herself today<br />
in happier, healthier territory: holistic<br />
nutrition. She’s part psych major, part<br />
public figure, part intuitive healer, and<br />
part writer, among other things. Everything<br />
she says makes so much sense, it seems wise<br />
she should publish a how-to-be-you manual.<br />
Actually, she did: Living in Light.<br />
She easily toes the line between<br />
personal and professional, drawing her<br />
authority from a place of vulnerability,<br />
sharing her struggle with an eating<br />
disorder and anxiety boldly on her<br />
website, Chloe’s Countertop, alongside<br />
useful advice, recipes, and her podcast,<br />
Conscious Conversations. It’s all part of<br />
her larger belief in an integrative approach<br />
to health and wellness that includes<br />
practitioners outside of her realm of<br />
expertise (osteopath, chiropractor, MD),<br />
as well as spiritual discovery.<br />
“All of our weight and body issues,<br />
all that physical stuff is connected<br />
with the spiritual, the emotional,” she<br />
explains. “You can follow a diet or eating<br />
plan, but it’s not sustainable unless you<br />
face the reasons you’ve had to turn to<br />
it in the first place.” She speaks bluntly<br />
about the big missing piece she sees<br />
blocking people looking to get healthy:<br />
the inner child.<br />
“It’s going back to your childhood<br />
to look at where and how belief<br />
systems were created so you can start<br />
to understand why it is we do what we<br />
do. If someone told you when you were<br />
younger that there are starving children<br />
in Africa, so you should eat everything<br />
on your plate, then overeating, binge<br />
eating, and not knowing when you’re full<br />
can actually come from that moment.”<br />
In Elgar’s world, we always have<br />
a choice. “Either your body is going to<br />
be the waste bin, or the garbage is,” she<br />
says, encouraging her clients to trust<br />
their bodies to let them know when<br />
they’re full, not full, and what they’re<br />
really craving.<br />
“I know I am not for everyone,”<br />
she admits. “And not everyone is for<br />
me. I just have to be really authentic<br />
within myself so I can help people as<br />
best as I can. Intuition and spirituality<br />
and emotional practice is really<br />
important. It took me years to get this<br />
stuff and really embrace it.”<br />
Her clients, followers, and even<br />
first-time acquaintances can find solace<br />
in the fact that Elgar will match their<br />
output and then some, sharing when<br />
they share, listening when they need an<br />
ear, and gently guiding them through<br />
their dark baggage, back into the light,<br />
crystal-assisted or not.<br />
To find more about holistic nutrition, contact<br />
Chloe Elgar at chloescountertop.com.<br />
YOGA<br />
the quiet practice of self-care<br />
WILLEM THOMAS<br />
With the onset of winter, it’s common<br />
to sequester inside and fall into a<br />
social-hibernation state of cancelled<br />
commitments and avoided friends. It<br />
becomes alarmingly easy to slack off on<br />
looking after yourself and maintaining<br />
any level of self-care — something<br />
everyone needs.<br />
One of the best ways to enact selfcare<br />
is to do something that makes<br />
you feel content and comforted.<br />
Yoga has been proven to be a prime<br />
opponent of stress and depression,<br />
so <strong>BeatRoute</strong> spoke to Carly Russell,<br />
a longtime yoga therapist, about yoga<br />
and self-care in the wintertime.<br />
<strong>BeatRoute</strong>: How do you define selfcare?<br />
Carly Russell: Self-care is a dedication<br />
of energy to taking a look at your<br />
needs and creating a time and space<br />
for your needs to exist. It’s figuring out<br />
what it is you actually want and what<br />
you need to do to go about creating<br />
that change — without feeling like a<br />
failure if you don’t feel amazing 100%<br />
of the time.<br />
BR: Why is yoga a good therapeutic<br />
form to combat the “winter blues?”<br />
CR: In the winter, people want to feel<br />
warm and to feel comforted. I think<br />
people are drawn to yoga because it<br />
sort of represents that. People see it<br />
as a way to bring comfort through<br />
flexibility of the body and the mind.<br />
It’s empowering someone through<br />
movement and healing so they feel more<br />
in control of their bodies. Yoga teaches<br />
us to go from the inside out, to not be<br />
outside in, so it’s being able to take a<br />
moment and look at your surroundings<br />
and the energy you have to give out<br />
and making sure you’re taking enough<br />
energy back in towards yourself in order<br />
to be able to live healthily.<br />
BR: Why yoga specifically, as opposed<br />
to other forms of exercise?<br />
CR: For many, yoga represents a<br />
difference: the quiet practice, focusing<br />
on breathing control, and also just<br />
being able to sit with yourself. Asking<br />
yourself hard questions and moving<br />
through spaces that are challenging.<br />
It’s working with both the effort<br />
and the ease, and creating a balance<br />
between the two.<br />
BR: What would some of your other<br />
self-care methods entail?<br />
CR: Eating better, joyful activities<br />
that are stimulating. I do sensory<br />
deprivation therapy, which has helped<br />
my meditation practice. What self-care<br />
looks like for me is going to look different<br />
for you. That’s why there’s so many things<br />
out there for therapeutic purposes.<br />
Find Carly Russell at Seacity Fitness and<br />
Burrard Physiotherapy.<br />
FABLE NATURALS<br />
tips for keeping skin soft and luminous<br />
this winter<br />
SARAH JAMIESON<br />
Dry skin is a reality that many face this<br />
time of year. No one seems immune<br />
to the perils of winter that leave skin<br />
feeling parched, red, or irritated.<br />
“Even though we live in a rainy<br />
climate, we spend a lot of time indoors with<br />
the heaters on, which can make dry skin<br />
worse,” explains Gwen Richards, co-founder<br />
of Fable Naturals, a Vancouver-based<br />
company that specializes in handmade,<br />
local, fairly traded, and natural skincare.<br />
However, according to Richards, a<br />
solid regimen of daily moisturizing and<br />
weekly exfoliation can go a long way.<br />
Using a humidifier, drinking plenty of<br />
fluids, and applying a moisturizer specially<br />
formulated for dry skin are also ways to<br />
keep your skin supple in the winter.<br />
“Vancouverites are busy and active<br />
and often forget to protect their skin from<br />
the elements during the winter season,”<br />
she adds.<br />
Moisturizing is important because it<br />
maintains the integrity of the skin’s natural<br />
moisture barrier (a physical and chemical<br />
barrier that keeps out microorganisms<br />
and irritants). A healthy barrier means<br />
softer skin, fewer wrinkles, even skin tone,<br />
and fewer breakouts.<br />
Because soap-based cleansers can<br />
strip the skin’s moisture barrier, Richards<br />
recommends using oil cleansers in winter<br />
— especially if you have dry or mature<br />
skin. “Our rosehip and olive facial oil is a<br />
customer favourite all year round because<br />
it is so nourishing. The benefit of using oil<br />
is that you get intense hydration from just<br />
a few drops.”<br />
And for anyone who may be put off by<br />
oil-based cleansers, fear not — they won’t<br />
clog your pores. Richards gives her word.<br />
Fable Naturals is available at various stockists<br />
including the Soap Dispensary and Be<br />
Fresh, and online at fablenaturals.com.<br />
26 CITY<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
DARCY MICHAEL<br />
part sass king, part domestic goddess<br />
COMEDY<br />
BETH D’AOUST<br />
Darcy Michael may be racking up film<br />
and television credits and relishing the<br />
success of his recent comedy album,<br />
Family Highs, which shot to #1 on iTunes<br />
shortly after its release this past spring,<br />
but as we chat on this blustery morning,<br />
he’s tidying his office and cleaning<br />
his cats’ litter boxes – activities he<br />
claims keep him humble. A family<br />
man, recently appreciating some<br />
downtime at home with his husband<br />
and daughter in Ladner after years of<br />
non-stop travel to Toronto and L.A.<br />
for work, Michael is enjoying a bit of<br />
domestic bliss. “I secretly just want<br />
to make enough money that I can be a<br />
comfortable housewife,” Michael jokes.<br />
“Cleaning the litter box and making<br />
homemade ginger juice and burning<br />
sage, that’s my shit.”<br />
This recent change in pace is only<br />
temporary, however, as Michael has<br />
been hard at work writing scripts for<br />
Darcy — a show in development for<br />
CTV, based on Michael and his husband<br />
Jeremy’s experiences as a gay couple<br />
raising their daughter in a small town.<br />
“The way I sold the show originally was I<br />
wanted to make a gay Roseanne,” laughs<br />
Michael. “Because, you know, it’s about<br />
a blue collar, kind of not rich family<br />
making ends meet. And that’s kind of<br />
how Jer and Grace and I started.” It’s<br />
no surprise that Michael has gravitated<br />
toward this fresh take on a familiar<br />
premise, given his description of his own<br />
upbringing in a loving, unpretentious<br />
household in small town Ontario. “My<br />
parents definitely shaped who I am as a<br />
comedian. And my whole family. Most of<br />
the memories that I still have from being a<br />
kid are of us laughing or doing something<br />
stupid. […] Food fights are still a big thing<br />
in our family […] Handful of spaghetti<br />
across the room? Let’s dance!”<br />
Considering the marital bliss<br />
Michael has enjoyed for over a decade<br />
here in Canada, we couldn’t help but<br />
digress to the topic of recent political<br />
affairs south of the border. As an artist<br />
considerably invested in politics and<br />
social justice, Michael is a tad deflated.<br />
Darcy Michael does it for the love of good-natured ribbing, handfuls of spaghetti and high quality protest art.<br />
“It’s a nightmare. I guess we all now<br />
know how racists felt when Obama<br />
got elected.” Determined to look for<br />
a positive, however, he adds that<br />
“repression breeds art. Fear breeds<br />
art. The silver lining is that we’re<br />
going to create some amazing<br />
protest art over the next four years.”<br />
And we look forward to the birth of<br />
Michael’s particularly irreverent breed<br />
of protest art in years to come.<br />
It’s been a while since Michael’s<br />
schedule has allowed him to perform<br />
in his home clubs, so he looks forward<br />
to reuniting with long time friend<br />
and fellow comedian, Ivan Decker,<br />
for their upcoming New Year’s Eve<br />
show. “Ivan’s my comedy brother,<br />
we started together. Well…” quips<br />
Michael, “I’d prefer if we were<br />
comedy boyfriends, but he’s pretty<br />
dead set on staying straight.” To<br />
experience Michael’s unapologetic<br />
sass and good-natured ribbing of fellow<br />
comedians in person, head down to The<br />
Comedy Mix on New Year’s Eve.<br />
Darcy Michael headlines The Comedy Mix<br />
<strong>December</strong> 29-30. On <strong>December</strong> 31, Darcy<br />
performs in a Triple Header with Ivan<br />
Decker, Chris James and host, Kevin Banner.<br />
Visit http://www.thecomedymix.com/<br />
for tickets.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> COMEDY<br />
27
QUEER<br />
RAYE SUNSHINE<br />
she’s extra!<br />
DAVID CUTTING<br />
Imagine a child at home in Mission:<br />
playing alone, obsessed with Sailor<br />
Moon, and imagining a world in which<br />
they create artistic performances of<br />
their very own. These are the humble<br />
beginnings of the drag behemoth<br />
known as Raye Sunshine.<br />
With horrible pencil thin eyebrows<br />
and a thirst for audience adoration,<br />
Sunshine made her first appearance on<br />
the Odyssey stage performing to “Boys”<br />
by Britney Spears. Having grown up gay<br />
in a small community, Sunshine was<br />
prepared for what the drag scene had<br />
in store. “I’ve been hated my whole life,”<br />
she states. “I just don’t give a shit.”<br />
Dubbed the “Supermodel Empress”<br />
during her reign, Sunshine did a staggering<br />
22 courts and visited everywhere. She<br />
was driven to ensure that she represented<br />
the Vancouver community on as big of a<br />
scale as she could. Traveling as she has,<br />
she learned a valuable piece of wisdom.<br />
“It’s not about pleasing the other girls, or<br />
hyping up a promoters ego or a visiting<br />
Ru girl,” she says. “The most important<br />
thing is the audience, the ones that came<br />
to see you perform.”<br />
“The worst thing you could ever do is<br />
just walk past and stay within your group.”<br />
Sunshine understands what is<br />
truly responsible for her success and<br />
she honours that. “Mingle,” she insists.<br />
“Use that drink ticket to buy someone<br />
standing alone a drink, ask them what<br />
brought them out. For fuck sakes, smile<br />
at the group of new people at the club,<br />
‘cause chances are those are the ones that<br />
will come and fill the seats at your shows.”<br />
Sunshine is also an accomplished<br />
makeup artist and is always willing<br />
to lend tips and tricks to new queens.<br />
Being able to express her creativity in<br />
different ways is extremely fulfilling<br />
and the help she lends to new queens<br />
is a mark of that — she wants to see them<br />
learn and grow just as much as she has. Not to<br />
mention, her looks are creative and edgy,<br />
and are accompanied with performances<br />
where every detail is considered and<br />
executed with great intention.<br />
“It’s the thrill of creating something<br />
on stage that a community can talk<br />
about,” she explains. “Using art to<br />
create conversation makes everything I<br />
do worth it. I get to live in my fantasy<br />
world that I’ve created, being as bat shit<br />
crazy as I am, millions of ideas tumble<br />
through my head with in a single<br />
day, creating those ideas into life and<br />
executing them into reality is a thrill.<br />
That thrill of the stage, the roar of the<br />
crowd and the gasps make it worth it,<br />
but also feeling that fear right before I<br />
go on, is addictive. If I ever lost that fear<br />
before going on stage I would probably<br />
quit drag because at that point it’s not a<br />
risk or a challenge anymore.”<br />
Sunshine is a drag fixture, and when<br />
we talk about the future, she has a very<br />
clear idea of what she wants to achieve.<br />
“I want to expand my ‘empire’ and show<br />
the world my love of drag,” she says. “So,<br />
who knows where I’ll be, but I do know<br />
I will always perform in Vancouver<br />
because without this city and the<br />
people that raised me up, I would still be<br />
that new boy in a dress walking around<br />
Bingo collecting donations.”<br />
Catch Raye Sunshine on January 13 at the<br />
Commodore Ballroom for “It’s Just Drag.”<br />
Photo by Chase Hansen<br />
28 QUEER<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
Photo by Graham Spence<br />
JANE<br />
SMOKER<br />
pushing the boundaries of<br />
Vancouver drag<br />
FROM THE DESK<br />
OF CARLOTTA GURL<br />
CARLOTTA GURL<br />
I tend to and stay optimistic, even in<br />
a world where hate, inequality, and<br />
homophobia seem to reign supreme.<br />
We’ve fought homophobia for what<br />
seems like forever and have achieved<br />
some great milestones such as gay<br />
marriage acceptance and more civil<br />
rights equality; but what will the<br />
future bring? Is it two steps forward<br />
and one step back? What can we do to<br />
protect ourselves from the oncoming<br />
struggles? I choose to think positive,<br />
that we can and will, in the face of<br />
insurmountable obstacles such as<br />
blatant homophobia, survive and<br />
prosper. I choose to believe that in<br />
any case love really does trump hate!<br />
I’ve had some people curious to<br />
know my “coming out” story recently.<br />
Well, there’s not too much to tell.<br />
I’d endeavour to say that I was never<br />
really in; I was always loud and<br />
flamboyant, even as a child. Not to<br />
say that this is a prerequisite for<br />
being gay, but everyone around me<br />
seemed to know I was “queer” before<br />
I even knew what the word meant. It<br />
wasn’t until I moved out of my small<br />
town and went to a relatively bigger<br />
city where I studied the arts and<br />
met like minded individuals who<br />
were all trying to find themselves<br />
and discover who they were. What<br />
followed was a time of exploration<br />
and self discovery, where I learned<br />
that being gay was wonderful; it was<br />
there that I started to develop the<br />
Carlotta personality. Coming out<br />
can be an amazing experience when<br />
shared with people we know will<br />
understand and not make judgments<br />
out of ignorance. There are some<br />
wonderful programs today, such<br />
as Out in Schools, designed to help<br />
people understand and accept their<br />
sexuality without the stigma and<br />
negative reactions that have been<br />
associated with it in history. We can<br />
only hope that the struggles in gay<br />
culture faced in the past won’t be as<br />
difficult for today’s youth in society.<br />
That is my ultimate Christmas wish.<br />
Until next month, I love you all my<br />
dahlings and hope you have a wondrous<br />
and gay holiday season filled with love<br />
and laughter and some fantastic drag<br />
shows. Remember… If Carlotta Gurl<br />
was Mrs. Claus, Santa would definitely<br />
come more than once a year.<br />
GIVE EM’ ORAL:<br />
THE ODYSSEY<br />
with Brandon Patrick Folkes, general manager of the Odyssey<br />
DAVID CUTTING<br />
The odyssey is coming back to life and<br />
we got a chance to speak with Brandon<br />
Patrick Folkes, one of the men who is<br />
taking on the role of animating the club<br />
space in its new era.<br />
BR: What is the importance of queer<br />
spaces?<br />
BPF: Plainly they are where our culture<br />
- in our community - nurtures and<br />
grows. They have existed (and continue<br />
to exist) as homes and safe havens<br />
for the many who need physical and<br />
emotional refuge. They are places for<br />
us to share, socialize, create, and meet<br />
- stages to produce on, rooms to help<br />
give back, and where love can be shared<br />
without shame. Without them, we as a<br />
community wouldn’t have a proper<br />
forum for us to allow our purest form<br />
of personal and collective expression.<br />
BR: What do people need to know<br />
about the Odyssey that they don’t<br />
know, or that they get wrong?<br />
BPF: I think a lot of people have<br />
“made up their mind” about the new<br />
Odyssey based on events of the past<br />
year and that isn’t my place to argue<br />
as new management. But it has been<br />
the toughest thing for us to deal with<br />
in trying to retain a piece of our local<br />
culture. I really want people to<br />
understand that all the staff and<br />
management care about this place.<br />
None of us would be here if we didn’t<br />
see the importance of its existence<br />
and didn’t want it to grow. Sebastian<br />
(the other manager) and I without<br />
question love this space and have<br />
made it our personal mission to<br />
succeed. We have been fortunate to<br />
have many of the old staff and artists<br />
from the old Odyssey come and work<br />
with us now, and to me it means we<br />
are doing something right and to<br />
have that support is incredible.<br />
BR: Tell us about your dream for<br />
the Odyssey.<br />
BPF: My dream for The Odyssey is to<br />
have it live up to its legacy and move it<br />
forward into a new exciting era in our<br />
community. We may not be the exact<br />
clone of our original selves; but let’s<br />
be real - nothing really ever is. As with<br />
the times we must evolve and be just<br />
as bold. Social progress is consistently<br />
evolving forward; and these places<br />
outside of the Davie Village are an echo<br />
of that change. As the old Odyssey<br />
on Davie once stood as a platform of<br />
LGBTQ+ progress and creativity, the<br />
new one antes that jump even further<br />
by being there outside of the bubble<br />
and being a solidified LGBTQ+ space to<br />
exist for all. To further this ideal - this is<br />
my dream.<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> QUEER<br />
29
FILM<br />
THIS MONTH IN FILM<br />
PARIS SPENCE-LANG<br />
TOP FIVE MOVIES OF <strong>2016</strong><br />
PARIS SPENCE-LANG<br />
ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY<br />
Star Wars has a history of great prequels, so it’s no surprise to see another<br />
one. For the lucky among us, our first encounter with the franchise was<br />
not of a Gungan, but of R2D2 escaping with the Death Star plans. Left off<br />
where A New Hope picks up, Rogue One follows an unlikely band of heroes as<br />
they attempt to steal the plans. A little anti-climactic since we already know the<br />
Death Star has been destroyed, like, four times. (In theaters <strong>December</strong> 16th)<br />
BARRY<br />
Obama wasn’t always a POTUS—before he took up residence in Trump<br />
Tower, he had to go to POTUS school. Then known to his friends as Barry<br />
(and to Republicans as “Barrier”—ha!), Obama spent his post-secondary<br />
years torn between the same insecurities as us all. Except he clearly handled<br />
them better. This riveting biopic will leave you wanting more—just like his<br />
second term. (In theaters <strong>December</strong> 16th)<br />
THE FOUNDER<br />
As Supersize Me showed us, Obama isn’t the only one capable of helping<br />
us grow. But McDonalds wasn’t always an international obesity generator;<br />
it was once a local, homegrown obesity generator. Though strange to find<br />
out even Birdman has a craving for McNuggets, Michael Keaton is sure to<br />
pull off a killer performance of Ray Kroc. And the best part? No subliminal<br />
advertising! (In theaters <strong>December</strong> 16th)<br />
THE FOUNDER<br />
You can look at some prissy list of the<br />
year’s top Scandinavian cinema. You<br />
can watch the Oscars and wonder<br />
where the good directors have gone. Or<br />
you can read my list. I don’t like socially<br />
aware movies. I don’t like movies with<br />
stunning cinematography, and I don’t<br />
like movies with the plot of an Alexandre<br />
Dumas novel. I just like movies. I don’t<br />
think Rolling Stone will agree with this<br />
list, but they can go fuck themselves. I<br />
think these are the best movies of <strong>2016</strong>—<br />
and to be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m right.<br />
WHERE TO INVADE NEXT<br />
I’m tired of people saying the world is<br />
going to hell in a man purse—there’s<br />
plenty of hope if you look for it. Michael<br />
Moore found it, and all he had to do<br />
was leave America. A one-man invasion,<br />
Moore tours Europe and Tunisia to steal<br />
the best ideas the world has to offer:<br />
tantalizing ideas such as no homework,<br />
two-hour lunch breaks, free university,<br />
decriminalized drugs, and a woman<br />
president. The film is eternally optimistic,<br />
and while some say Moore isn’t a true<br />
documentarian, I’d rather watch hope<br />
than fact any day of the week.<br />
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS<br />
With stunning stop-motion animation,<br />
A-list voice acting, and a killer story,<br />
Kubo is a near-perfect masterpiece.<br />
Yes, it’s a movie for children, but by<br />
now that should be a compliment.<br />
Both funny and deeply emotional, you<br />
will laugh and cry at what is probably<br />
the only movie with origami fight scenes.<br />
Kubo wields his shamisen like a violin<br />
against the devil—not only does he use<br />
it to battle evil, he does so with gnarly<br />
licks that reinforce a raw and energizing<br />
score. Finally, Matthew McConaughey<br />
has found his calling as a samurai beetle.<br />
GREEN ROOM<br />
This film is great because it captures<br />
what most of us are feeling postelection:<br />
like our band has just witnessed<br />
a murder at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar<br />
and are now forced to fight for survival.<br />
And though the world around us isn’t<br />
as bad as it seems (see #1), it literally is<br />
in Green Room. This is slasher cinema<br />
done right—by carefully concocting<br />
a plausible setting and scenario for<br />
hammers, machetes, attack dogs, and<br />
Exacto knives to come out, the fear<br />
is real. And now I know how to kill<br />
someone with a fluorescent light bulb.<br />
THE NEON DEMON<br />
Everyone says this movie sucked. Maybe<br />
they’re right (it got booed at Cannes),<br />
but then again, probably not. Nicolas<br />
Winding Refn (Drive) paints another<br />
colourful masterpiece using the power<br />
of his mind in this emotion-void pit of<br />
failing humanity as he drags naïve model<br />
Jesse (Elle Fanning) through LA’s worst.<br />
When she comes out the other side,<br />
she is no longer a person but a warning<br />
to society as it plummets towards…<br />
well, I don’t want to spoil the ending.<br />
Though the ending will probably spoil<br />
your appetite.<br />
SWISS ARMY MAN<br />
But honestly, Earth is amazing. And<br />
even if neo-Nazis are trying to kill<br />
you, or fashion models are trying to<br />
steal your mana, just remember that<br />
someone made Swiss Army Man.<br />
With a box office dominated by high<br />
budgets and higher sequels (Fast<br />
and Furious SEVEN!), someone had<br />
the decency to make a movie about<br />
farting and boners and other dumb<br />
shit that is entirely sincere—AND<br />
heartwarming. And the good news<br />
is Daniel Radcliffe finally broke free<br />
of his Harry Potter stigma. It just took<br />
playing a dead guy to do it.<br />
30 FILM<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
REVIEWS<br />
THE WEEKND<br />
Starboy<br />
XO / Republic<br />
Starboy, the latest from Toronto-based songbird<br />
The Weeknd — moniker of Abel Tesfaye — is an<br />
unfortunate expression of the Faustian bargain: a<br />
trade of what made him originally interesting, for<br />
the benefit of radio-friendly superstardom.<br />
While he’s certainly come a long way from his<br />
“drinking Alizé with his cereal for breakfast” roots,<br />
having found unprecedented success over the last<br />
two years, Starboy marks a shift in direction from<br />
the self-abusing efficacy of his earlier work — and<br />
that’s not necessarily for the better.<br />
Tesfaye seems to have fallen into the realm of<br />
mainstream R&B braggadocio (which isn’t entirely<br />
unwarranted), but the progression from the<br />
fragility of his prior releases to the conventions of<br />
the “superstar status” ethos has diminished his role<br />
of the interesting, heart-on-his-sleeve-and-drugson-his-upper-lip<br />
image that made him so endearing<br />
in the first place.<br />
Sure, some of the hedonistic tendencies<br />
are still there, but it no longer seems to have the<br />
same part-humility, part-hard-truth aspect of<br />
Tesfaye’s earlier songwriting (particularly his Trilogy<br />
mixtapes) which featured an obviously younger,<br />
more exploratory form of basement-R&B: esoteric<br />
samples, confessional lyricism, stark, crystalline<br />
synth backdrops, and an atmosphere of melancholia<br />
that made it cool to revel in lachrymose debauchery.<br />
Tesfaye himself seems to address some of the topics<br />
of his previous works on Starboy, particularly on<br />
the stand-out track “Reminder,” which has him<br />
~reminding~ the listener that he “just won a new<br />
award for a kids show / Talking ‘bout a face numbing<br />
off a bag of blow,” before reeling with his newfound<br />
status as a household name in the following line:<br />
“I’m like goddamn bitch I am not a Teen Choice /<br />
Goddamn bitch I am not a bleach boy.”<br />
Considering the lyrical content of Tesfaye’s<br />
releases, this reference to his mega-hit “Can’t Feel<br />
My Face,” off of 2015’s Beauty Behind the Madness,<br />
can be taken as rather ironic to both listener and<br />
artist when considering the supposedly conservative<br />
views of the masses that have propelled the<br />
decidedly un-conservative Tesfaye to stardom, and<br />
the truth that if the vibe of Starboy is any indication<br />
of Tesfaye’s future projects, there’s a lot more Teen<br />
Choice Awards coming his way.<br />
This overt pop bent isn’t inherently a bad thing,<br />
but unlike Tesfaye’s past work, the material on<br />
Starboy lacks the charisma and magnetism required<br />
to save it from its most glaring issue; Starboy<br />
features 18 tracks — a 68-minute runtime — with<br />
little variation to separate the soppy, overworked<br />
808-driven pop tunes from one another. The result<br />
is an album that feels more than a tad bloated.<br />
It seems that Tesfaye has fallen for a common<br />
pop music pitfall that arises once an artist starts<br />
receiving massive radio-play: albums become less<br />
about the coherent whole, and more about drawing<br />
the listener’s ear to the singles.<br />
Case in point: the features on Starboy, which<br />
are comprised of a long list of the usual suspects,<br />
from the certified collab-gold Daft Punk (on not one,<br />
but TWO tracks), to fellow phenom Future, and the<br />
omnipresent Kendrick Lamar, who seems to have<br />
made it his mission to feature on every major album<br />
of <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
While each of the artists featured on Starboy<br />
manage to bring something to the table, for better or<br />
worse, they contribute to the overall feeling that this<br />
album was produced under the umbrella of “too big<br />
to fail.” Many of the tracks give off this atmosphere of<br />
pre-packaged, inoffensive, formulaic radio-rap ready<br />
to climb up the charts because that’s what they were<br />
produced to do.<br />
Maybe this is an overtly cynical approach to<br />
dissecting Starboy, as anyone who came up listening<br />
to his Trilogy set of mixtapes can attest to knowing<br />
that The Weeknd finding success wasn’t so much a<br />
question of “How?” as it was a question of “When?”<br />
Tesfaye is clearly no longer the under-the-radar<br />
wunderkind who somehow managed to soundtrack<br />
a thousand late-nights (and their accompanying<br />
morning-afters), but by breaking into the role he<br />
was undoubtedly destined for — that of a major<br />
hitmaker — he seems to have followed a steady<br />
decline in terms of captivation and originality that<br />
began with his lacklustre debut studio album Kiss<br />
Land in 2013.<br />
The unfortunate truth is that albums like Starboy<br />
will eventually be forgotten. Stacked up against the<br />
dime-a-dozen pop releases that managed to maybe,<br />
just maybe, shuffle off one or two memorable songs<br />
before they fade into the backdrop, but if that works<br />
for The Weeknd, who are we to judge?<br />
If the explicit references to expensive cars,<br />
jewelry, and the lifestyles of the rich and famous<br />
found across Starboy are any indication, Tesfaye is<br />
reaping the benefits of much-deserved success and<br />
enjoying every minute of it.<br />
In his own words: He’s a motherfuckin’ star, boy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS<br />
31
ALBUM REVIEWS<br />
Beach Season<br />
Libra Year<br />
Universal Music Canada<br />
Just two years ago, Calgarians Simon<br />
Blitzer and Sam Avant, otherwise<br />
known as Beach Season, were hiding<br />
out in their parents’ basements, hard<br />
at work pioneering “bootywave.” The<br />
self-named genre was a proprietary<br />
blend of sultry, synth-heavy tracks<br />
that featured ample low-end, and<br />
lithe, R&B-flavored vocals from Avant<br />
that had a bedroom intimacy, even<br />
with its admittedly lo-fi production.<br />
Libra Year, the duo’s major label,<br />
debut EP for Universal, is leaps ahead<br />
of “bootywave”-era Beach Season, but<br />
it’s often clear that they haven’t quite<br />
found their voice, no matter how hard<br />
they attempt to remain “on brand.”<br />
Production wise, Libra Year is in a<br />
totally different league than that of<br />
their earlier, SoundCloud-hosted work.<br />
Its six tracks explode with massive<br />
synth chords, DJ-Mustard-meets-<br />
Flume basslines, and crisp, radio-ready<br />
vocals from Avant.<br />
Yet, while songs like “Tribes” and<br />
“Body Heat,” are sonically scintillating,<br />
dig beneath the surface and they both feel<br />
vapid and impersonal, filled with vague,<br />
R&B clichés that don’t do much to set<br />
Beach Season apart from a slew of other<br />
acts currently dominating pop radio.<br />
The EP’s final track, “Pink Room,”<br />
is proof that Beach Season can make<br />
genre-mashing pop music that is fun<br />
to listen to, but it may be some time<br />
before Blitzer and Avant hone their<br />
talent into a project that fully realizes<br />
that potential.<br />
<br />
Blu and Union Analogtronics<br />
Cheetah in the City<br />
Fat Beats<br />
Ever since his groundbreaking album,<br />
Below the Heavens, came out in 2007,<br />
I’ve held up Blu as arguably the most<br />
talented MC around when he’s on his<br />
game. However, the inevitable dilution<br />
of his prolific nature means that he<br />
often puts out subpar material. As<br />
such, I’m left excited but wary of new<br />
releases as they come. So I came to this<br />
project with Union Analogtronics a<br />
little apprehensively.<br />
The album largely sees Blu check<br />
his ‘conscious rapper’ hat at the door,<br />
instead dropping rhymes dripping with<br />
bravado. Thought provoking lyrics are<br />
sacrificed for his pure flow to shine<br />
through, and while his complexity<br />
emerges on a few numbers, his raps<br />
stand out more as a complimentary<br />
item for the consistently impressive<br />
soundscapes of Union Analogtronics.<br />
The French-based production team<br />
produce warm, synth-laden, bass-heavy<br />
bangers driven by hard hitting jazz and<br />
funk undertones that stay fresh and<br />
dynamic throughout, bringing the best<br />
out of the impressive roster of guest<br />
vocalists featured on the album. While<br />
Blu changes up his typical approach<br />
on this one, Cheetah in the City is a<br />
quality release with superb production,<br />
providing an unabashed and intentional<br />
Boom it in Your Jeep type of sound.<br />
Bow Wow & Soulja Boy<br />
Ignorant Shit<br />
Independent<br />
<br />
Picture this: It’s 2007, George ‘Dubya’<br />
Bush is golfing out the remaining years<br />
of his presidency, demotivational<br />
posters are being shared via primitive,<br />
T9 word texts, and Soulja Boy’s seminal,<br />
proto-meme-rap dance-anthem “Crank<br />
That (Soulja Boy),” is bumping out of<br />
first-gen iPod Touch earbuds worldwide.<br />
It was a simpler time; the halcyon days<br />
of pre-Future trap music and garish,<br />
blinged-out grandstanding. Those<br />
warm memories are something that<br />
should be cherished, which is more than<br />
can be said about Ignorant Shit, Soulja<br />
Boy’s joint mixtape with fellow ‘what’s<br />
he been up to?’ rapper, Bow Wow.<br />
The album is very similar to the<br />
latest Ghostbusters film; you tuned<br />
in hoping for an injection of a healthy<br />
dose of narcotic nostalgia, the problem<br />
is that the feeling wore off in the<br />
first four minutes and you were left<br />
with 80+ minutes of vacant time to<br />
introspectively wonder why someone<br />
felt the need for this resurgence.<br />
Ignorant Shit stands as an<br />
effort to resurrect two careers back<br />
into relevancy, and in some ways it<br />
surprisingly succeeds. The fifth track<br />
“That Way,” is a great microcosm of the<br />
album, a lightweight Pusha T mockup<br />
that does little to justify its existence.<br />
Soulja Boy and Bow Wow followed<br />
the script and created a cookie cutter,<br />
Atlanta-sound album glamorizing the<br />
duo’s wealth accumulated over the<br />
past decade. Still, despite their wellpublicized<br />
differences in the past, it’s<br />
nice to see both artists could reunite<br />
and create an album that would have<br />
been deemed creative and noteworthy<br />
if it came out in 2007.<br />
<br />
The Colourist & Emilíana Torrini<br />
The Colourist & Emilíana Torrini<br />
Rough Trade<br />
Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana<br />
Torrini has been making music<br />
professionally for almost two<br />
decades, working on six solo albums<br />
and cataloguing a lengthy list of<br />
collaborations with everyone from<br />
trance DJ Paul Oakenfold, to Australian<br />
pop star Kylie Minogue. Torrini’s<br />
discography is a document of an artist<br />
that works best when being pushed<br />
to their personal creative limits, a trait<br />
that has led Torrini across the globe,<br />
collaborating with gypsies in Cordoba,<br />
a 60-piece symphony orchestra in<br />
Iceland, and an experimental jazz band<br />
in Belgium.<br />
Still, after all these disparate<br />
collaborations, Torrini’s work with The<br />
Colourist Orchestra, a Belgian ensemble<br />
founded in 2013 by percussionists Aarich<br />
Jespers and Kobe Proesmans, is arguably<br />
the best work she’s done to date.<br />
Jespers and Proesmans assembled<br />
an eight-piece orchestra to deconstruct<br />
songs from across Torrini’s catalogue,<br />
taking odds and ends from the original<br />
songs, but largely piecing them back<br />
together in ways that leave the new<br />
versions almost unrecognizable when<br />
compared to their original compositions.<br />
Performed live for this album,<br />
these compositions are lush, vibrant<br />
pieces of music that overflow with<br />
string swells, whimsical woodwinds,<br />
and organic grooves that Torrini<br />
takes full advantage of. Opening track<br />
“Caterpillar,” is underscored by a<br />
thumping rhythm section reminiscent<br />
of a classical Moderat, living in stark<br />
contrast to Torrini’s flawless soprano.<br />
It is immediately entrancing, leading off<br />
11, sprawling compositions that build<br />
upon the original works of Torrini, but<br />
never live in their shadow.<br />
Cowards<br />
Interviews With Dull Men<br />
Independent<br />
<br />
The fact that Steve Albini has heard this<br />
record might tell you everything you<br />
need to know about it. Jordan Koop, who<br />
recorded Interviews With Dull Men in<br />
2013 in his then brand new Noise Floor<br />
Studios on Gabriola Island, used the<br />
record as an example when he attended<br />
Albini’s master class mentorship in France<br />
last year.<br />
That Albini himself was influenced<br />
by bands such as the Birthday Party, Pere<br />
Ubu and Throbbing Gristle is no secret.<br />
That Cowards are influenced by Big Black<br />
and Rapeman is probably no secret either.<br />
Interviews is minimal and<br />
repeating like a drunk night out with an<br />
abusive old friend. Dark and nihilistic,<br />
it expounds on the liminal, pushing the<br />
threshold of the listener, entreating us to<br />
explore the limits of our thinking — the<br />
horror of philosophy. Self-abasing verging<br />
on anti-social, it’s a “sticky sheen of selfhate<br />
and seedy situations set upon a<br />
crunchy Pro Co Rat infected bass.”<br />
The songs here have been given<br />
a little more room to breathe, with a<br />
couple old tracks re-recorded and a<br />
bunch of new material that is finally<br />
seeing the light of day, which wasn’t<br />
always a certainty as the band broke up<br />
in September of 2014. A pity since this<br />
is once of the best albums of the year.<br />
Limited <strong>edition</strong> of 100 tapes.<br />
<br />
Dark Tranquility<br />
Atoma<br />
Century Media Records<br />
Dark Tranquility, one of the more<br />
prominent Swedish melodic death<br />
metal bands, has been dishing out one<br />
great album after another since their<br />
1993 release Skydancer. For 13 years<br />
they have been defining the genre, so<br />
it is completely disheartening to hear<br />
their latest album, Atoma. The meat,<br />
albeit bland, is definitely in the middle<br />
of the album: “Neutrality,” “Clearing<br />
Skies,” and “When the World Screams,”<br />
have the elements of a classic DT song:<br />
the speed and the energy a longtime fan<br />
has come to expect.<br />
However, it’s not enough to<br />
make up for the watered-down goth<br />
rock that infiltrates the first few songs,<br />
overshadowing the rest of the album.<br />
The overbearing clean vocals, are way too<br />
prominent throughout and don’t offer up<br />
a pleasant contrast with the harsh - as is<br />
the expected - melodeath formula.<br />
Coming into this expecting any<br />
of the passion we heard on Haven, or<br />
more recently We Are the Void, is a<br />
huge disservice. A few of the tracks on<br />
the album are almost redeeming, but<br />
the oscillation between the bland, hard<br />
rock-styled songs and the traditional<br />
melodic death songs is far too unstable,<br />
unpredictable and unenjoyable. There is<br />
just too much uninspired fluff to make<br />
this a notable album.<br />
DIANA<br />
Familiar Touch<br />
Culvert Music<br />
<br />
In 2013, Toronto synth pop group<br />
DIANA had an overnight success<br />
most bands only dream of. The band,<br />
consisting of Carmen Elle, Joseph<br />
Shabason, and Kieran Adams, posted<br />
“Born Again” online without expecting<br />
anything to come of it. The single<br />
exploded online, garnering fanatic<br />
response and catapulting DIANA into<br />
the crosshairs of plenty of unexpected<br />
label attention. Perpetual Surrender, the<br />
album that followed was a hastily-crafted,<br />
32 REVIEWS<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
flash-in-the-pan that seemed to be formed<br />
out of pure creativity; hindbrain instincts<br />
taking over and producing gold.<br />
As both a blessing and a curse, DIANA<br />
had plenty of time to craft their sophomore<br />
album, resulting in Familiar Touch, a loving<br />
recreation of ‘80s pop music from the likes<br />
of Talk Talk, Cocteau Twins, and OMD.<br />
Unfortunately, DIANA suffer the same fate<br />
as many bands doing ‘80s synth pop<br />
amalgamations often do: by basking<br />
in the neon glow and the hues of Hughes<br />
(John, that is), they get lost in a Marty Mcnot-so-fly<br />
time machine, ultimately making<br />
music that sounds dated upon arrival.<br />
The songs of Familiar Touch are<br />
particularly upsetting because they<br />
never quite reach the highs of Perpetual<br />
Surrender, often being just good enough<br />
to compare to the ‘80s tunes they are so<br />
eagerly inspired by.<br />
Admittedly, Perpetual Surrender<br />
isn’t all this disappointing. “What You<br />
Get” is a heart-on-the-sleeve synth jam<br />
that could’ve sound tracked a prom<br />
scene in basically any ‘80s movie that<br />
had one. It’s a great song, but much like<br />
the rest of the album, it just feels like<br />
one you’ve heard before.<br />
Drive-By Truckers<br />
American Band<br />
ATO Records<br />
<br />
There won’t be enough space here to<br />
properly justify why American Band is the<br />
year’s most important rock record, there’ll<br />
only be enough room to gloss over the fact.<br />
Kicking off with “Ramon Casiano,”<br />
co-frontman Mike Cooley lays down<br />
what will amount to a history lesson<br />
in American race dynamics from the<br />
perspective of middle-aged, southern<br />
white guys. The story of the murder<br />
of the aforementioned Casiano at the<br />
hands of Harlan Carter, a 17-year-old<br />
Texan who would later become head<br />
of the NRA, kicks off with a powerful<br />
rock groove which seldom lays back<br />
throughout the album. Patterson Hood<br />
gets his licks in on the subject in “Guns<br />
of Umpqua,” a retelling of the mass<br />
shooting on the Umpqua Community<br />
College in Oregon in 2015. Hood and<br />
Cooley have always had a distinct knack<br />
for post-incident ambiguity in narrative,<br />
but the songs on American Band get<br />
closer to point, and therefore the roots<br />
of the seemingly endless problems in<br />
America today. “Kinky Hypocrite” is a<br />
stone classic, a Faces riff with Cooley<br />
taking the righteousness of the political<br />
religious right to task for their own<br />
sexcapades, all in the most tuneful way<br />
possible. Hood’s “What It Means” is a<br />
relentless series of questions without<br />
answer, and Cooley’s “Once They<br />
Banned Imagine” is the greatest protest<br />
song since “Killing In The Name.”<br />
To be succinct in imploring<br />
listeners to really hear American<br />
Band, the most chilling and troubling<br />
statement is the one that’s never made:<br />
Middle-aged southern white men may<br />
only hear these truths if they’re spoken<br />
by middle-aged southern white men.<br />
Fear of Noise<br />
Hierarchy<br />
Independent<br />
<br />
Bask in the gloom of Hierarchy, the<br />
latest from Vancouver’s jazz-punkpsychedelic<br />
three-piece Fear of Noise.<br />
Stretched over seven tracks that sound<br />
more like aural fever-dreams, Hierarchy is a<br />
labyrinthine knot of sonic chord progression,<br />
thundering stereophonic drum beats (think<br />
doom-rock at its finest), and winding pitter<br />
patters of bass that ultimately equates to a<br />
sound that’s by no means “easy listening,” but<br />
is ultimately rewarding as hell.<br />
From the moment the birds begin to<br />
chirp and the dissonance begins to build<br />
on opener “Blister,” Hierarchy promises the<br />
listener that this won’t be a simple Sunday<br />
drive. While the album itself hovers<br />
around the forty-minute mark, time has<br />
no place amidst the rollicking percussion<br />
and the climbing-up-the-walls delirious<br />
atmosphere which at points can be a tad<br />
disorienting. But it’s not all insanity.<br />
Songs like “Spider Pills” and “Lost in<br />
Solution” ditch some of the more abrasive<br />
noise for a conventional, straight-forward,<br />
almost beautiful kind of guitar-heavy<br />
lament before the 8-and-a-half minute<br />
“Smooth Talk Rough Planet” closes the<br />
album off with a full-force wall of sound.<br />
In the end, Hierarchy isn’t so much<br />
about being fearful of noise, but instead<br />
opening yourself up and embracing the<br />
madness.<br />
Future States<br />
Casual Listener<br />
Golden Brown<br />
<br />
If Vampire Weekend and some ‘60s pop<br />
rock band had a millennial-indie-goth<br />
baby who got really into vapourwave<br />
just last week, Future States would likely<br />
be that kid.<br />
Casual Listener, the first full-length<br />
from this Montreal psych pop five-piece,<br />
was recorded in a church in northern<br />
Quebec over a two-week period last year.<br />
Future States dare to explore new<br />
ideas, evident within their rich, yet alien<br />
arrangements. One moment we have a<br />
melancholy indie folk song with nothing<br />
but whispery vocals, whistling and<br />
acoustic guitar, the next we have chilled<br />
out, ambient electro.<br />
“Melody” is truly the focal point<br />
of the nine song album. It’s a cool<br />
breeze of a listen, created by layer<br />
upon layer of ‘60s-esque, warped-tape<br />
guitars. It features surfy, indie rock<br />
hooks, and warm synth textures all laid<br />
on top of unpredictable percussion,<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS<br />
33
a combination of live drums, drum<br />
machines and sampled breaks.<br />
Each song flows gently into the next,<br />
complimented by moments of hazy drones<br />
formed from obscure samples — what<br />
sounds like dial-up internet noise, effects from<br />
random video games, whistling birds, crashing<br />
waves, pitch shifted vocal patterns and lifted<br />
music pieces that are chopped and re-sewn.<br />
It’s apparent the young band put a lot of<br />
detail into the production, resulting in a quirky,<br />
laid back album that lightly touches roots of<br />
experimentation.<br />
Industrial Priest Overcoats<br />
Gone.Nativity<br />
Independent<br />
<br />
Industrial Priest Overcoats frontman<br />
Trevor McEachran describes his band’s<br />
latest offering as one that is deeply<br />
inspired by his personal experiences<br />
with drug addiction, mental illness,<br />
and prejudice that is inescapable for<br />
indigenous people living in Canada.<br />
Gone.Nativity is a record that delivers<br />
on every ounce of rage and wildness<br />
expected from a person in McEachran’s<br />
shoes, but it also pleasantly surprises<br />
with mature melodies that show signs<br />
of restraint and careful deliberation.<br />
The record is all over the place<br />
in terms of cohesiveness, but the<br />
individual songs are enjoyable and the<br />
lyrics are refreshingly blunt. “Now I<br />
have to decide<br />
whether to swallow my pride or<br />
spit on your eye,” shrieks McEachran on<br />
standout track “ALL MY RELATIONZ.”<br />
McEachran’s vocals and high-pitched<br />
shrills are reminiscent of Colin Newman<br />
from the English post-punk band Wire.<br />
Released in 1977, Pink Flag by Wire is arguably<br />
one of the best albums in the genre, so while<br />
Industrial Priest Overcoats have a long way<br />
to go, the elements are there for success.<br />
There are truly ear-catching moments<br />
scattered through Gone.Nativity and the<br />
energy is palpable, but the band seems<br />
to move on to the next idea before fully<br />
fleshing out the ones that work.<br />
<br />
Trap or Die 3<br />
Def Jam/CTE World<br />
<br />
Jeezy, formerly known as Young Jeezy,<br />
is 39 years old, but that doesn’t stop<br />
him from falling victim to the trap.<br />
When it comes to trap music, releases<br />
are plentiful, beats are predictable, and<br />
lyrics are interchangeable. Trap or Die<br />
3, Jeezy’s seventh studio album, is no<br />
different from all the other generic trap<br />
releases this year that took less than a<br />
week to make. It seems like rappers are<br />
racing (probably to the bank), attempting<br />
to release project after project in the<br />
shortest timeframe, and the worst part is<br />
that quality or originality doesn’t seem to<br />
matter anymore.<br />
“Girl, you know you’re flexing with<br />
your flexing ass,” exclaims Jeezy on<br />
“Sexé,” channeling his inner 2 Chainz on<br />
a track that sounds identical to others<br />
but with slightly more ridiculous lyrics.<br />
Trap or Die 3 was Jeezy’s third numberone<br />
album in the U.S, and it is also third<br />
album in as many years. Jeezy’s next<br />
album, Snow Season, is due to arrive<br />
before the end of the year, bringing a<br />
blizzard of fatigue with it. Despite these<br />
criticisms, Trap or Die 3 delivers… on<br />
being mindless “turn up” music that is<br />
awful enough to mirror the thought<br />
process behind bad decisions commonly<br />
made in drunken stupors.<br />
Laurel<br />
Park EP<br />
Counter Records<br />
<br />
Southampton-raised, London-based<br />
singer, songwriter and producer Laurel is<br />
evidence of the Internet’s ability to serve<br />
as a fantastic incubation chamber for the<br />
music industry. The roots of the 22-year-old<br />
singer-songwriter’s career originate directly<br />
from SoundCloud. The service was home to<br />
Laurel’s earliest bedroom-productions that,<br />
like many young creators on the website,<br />
showed indisputable talent, but a lack of<br />
confidence and distinct direction.<br />
Now signed to esteemed<br />
independent label Counter Records,<br />
Laurel’s voice is almost unrecognizable to<br />
those early recordings, as is her song writing<br />
and production abilities. On “Hurricane,”<br />
the first single from her brand new fourtrack<br />
Park EP, Laurel shows just how much<br />
impact a few years of development can<br />
have on a young artist. It’s an impeccablyproduced<br />
indie pop track that is expansive<br />
despite still being made in a bedroom.<br />
It’s highlighted by Laurel’s endlesslyemotive<br />
voice that is often reminiscent<br />
of Florence Welch, impressively reaching<br />
the same stadium-sized heights, all from<br />
the comfort of her bedroom.<br />
“Goodbye (Demo),” the last track<br />
on the EP, does the complete opposite,<br />
stripping away everything but fingerpicked<br />
guitar and Laurel’s quietest<br />
vocal delivery that manages to pack<br />
the most punch. It’s a torch song that<br />
is unflinchingly intimate, unvarnished<br />
and an overall haunting way to end a<br />
tauntingly short EP that puts Laurel<br />
at the top of the list of artists to be<br />
watching in 2017.<br />
Letherette<br />
Last Night on the Planet<br />
Ninja Tune<br />
<br />
Letherette is indeed making ninja like<br />
moves on the musical front. Hailing<br />
from Wolverhampton, UK, the duo<br />
of Richard Roberts and Andy Harber,<br />
T H E A S T O R I A<br />
FB www.facebook.com/astoria.hastings<br />
INSTAGRAM @theastoriaeastvan<br />
TWITTER @Astoria25<br />
DANCEDANCEDANCE<br />
LIVEMUSICLIVEMUSICLIVEMUSICLIVEMUSIC<br />
FRIDAY DECEMBER 2<br />
GIGANTIC! THE EAST VAN 90S PARTY<br />
SATURDAY DECEMBER 3<br />
THE VELVETEINS (AB) ILLACUDA<br />
WISHKICKER BRIDAL PARTY<br />
SUNDAY DECEMBER 4<br />
THE KILLING FLOOR BLUES BAND<br />
THE REMEDIALS GODSPOT<br />
THURSDAY DECEMBER 8<br />
LITTLE BIRD TRASHCAN PANDA<br />
THE SHACKLES JESSE STEWART<br />
TUESDAY DEC 20 + TUESDAY JAN 10<br />
ART ROCK<br />
THURSDAY JANUARY 5<br />
WEIRD CANDLE PSYCHIC POLLUTION<br />
SHITLORD FUCKERMAN THONG (PDX)<br />
SATURDAY JANUARY 7<br />
HISSING (SEA) INFERNAL COIL<br />
CEREMONIAL BLOODBATH<br />
RADIOACTIVE VOMIT<br />
FRIDAY JANUARY 20<br />
KANGA WIRE SPINE ACTORS<br />
ADRIAN H DJ SEAN REVERON<br />
MOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMORE<br />
FRIDAY DECEMBER 31<br />
RENT CHEQUE NYE<br />
TUESDAY DECEMBER 6<br />
BLANKETFORT<br />
WEDNESDAY NIGHTS<br />
KARAOKE<br />
ALL 90S HITS, HIP HOP, POP, BRITPOP, ALT<br />
FRIDAY DECEMBER 9<br />
BANGERS + TRASH DANCE PARTY<br />
HIP HOP + MODERN/RETRO POP<br />
SATURDAY DECEMBER 10<br />
LIVE FAST! PUNK NIGHT<br />
PUNK, POWERPOP, POSTPUNK, HAIR METAL, OI<br />
FRIDAY DECEMBER 16<br />
HOLY<br />
A BENEFIT RAP NIGHT FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER<br />
SATURDAY DEC 17 + FRIDAY JAN 13<br />
THE DARK EIGHTIES DANCE PARTY<br />
CULT 80S HITS, GOTH, POST-PUNK, NEW WAVE<br />
FRIDAY DECEMBER 23<br />
A SOULFUL CHRISTMAS DANCE PARTY<br />
PRESENTED BY BURNING HEARTS SOUL CLUB<br />
34 REVIEWS<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
have pushed through the muddle of<br />
digital label chaos to release their debut<br />
album, Last Night on the Planet, under<br />
the subversive heavyweight Ninja<br />
Tune. The duo shows an impressive<br />
dedication to musical diversity,<br />
evident in what is a full spectrum of<br />
genres throughout the album. From<br />
beginning to end, it truly feels like a<br />
complete work, without gap or void,<br />
encompassing what many have come<br />
to expect from Ninja Tune signings.<br />
The intro track “Momma,” is a<br />
smooth hip-hop ode aided by the<br />
services of Rejjie Snow on the mic. Their<br />
first single off the album “Shanel,”<br />
has that old-school, 808 breakbeat<br />
vibe that’ll have you questioning<br />
what era you’re in. As the journey<br />
continues, they bring in their<br />
house influence and keep it riding<br />
for a few tracks, before breaking it<br />
up a bit showcasing some ethereal<br />
elements. Yet, the duo still finds<br />
a way to work in some more hiphop<br />
with the title track that fades<br />
to another meditative melody at<br />
the end. With Last Night on the<br />
Planet, it’s clear Letherette have<br />
found their niche, setting them up<br />
to keep releasing quality music for<br />
years to come.<br />
Living Body<br />
Body is Working<br />
Kingfisher Bluez<br />
<br />
With its influence in all the right<br />
places, Body is Working, the debut<br />
album from Leeds, UK based, selfdescribed<br />
“Post-Brexitcore” band<br />
Living Body, is a rich studio release<br />
with deliberately paced movements<br />
and instrumentation. Studio is the<br />
key phrase here, because the record<br />
feels a little bit like a rock opera. While<br />
cinematic, very little of it conjures<br />
images of a live performance. With<br />
post-rock linearity, there are expansive<br />
swells and dynamic low moments,<br />
but it also contains some achingly<br />
raw vocalizations from both male<br />
and female singers with some clearly<br />
pointed lyricism.<br />
Hyper-articulate and quintessentially<br />
modern British guitar work reels in the corners,<br />
flutters and clean hooks are everywhere<br />
with the horns, keys, and understated<br />
rhythms playing second fiddle,<br />
occasionally there is a literal fiddle or two<br />
as well, as in standout track “I Recollect.”<br />
Production elements also fill the gaps,<br />
but adds a layer of digitality that roots this<br />
record in its studio feeling.<br />
Body is Working is more than a proof<br />
of concept, it’s an exercise in masterful<br />
guitar work, smart songwriting, and clever<br />
arrangement. That it left us wanting more<br />
might be more of a compliment to Living<br />
Body than it seems.<br />
<br />
Bruno Mars<br />
24K Magic<br />
Atlantic Records<br />
Who does Bruno Mars think he is? No,<br />
seriously, I’m asking.<br />
Based on wedding and Bar<br />
Mitzvah neo-classic “Uptown Funk,”<br />
Mars’s biggest hit to date, you’d think<br />
24K Magic would simply jack Prince<br />
one more time and that Mars would<br />
shell out for Mark Ronson (who did<br />
the heavy lifting of writing “Uptown<br />
Funk”) to produce his album. Instead,<br />
he and producers Shampoo Press & Curl<br />
(really?) and The Stereotypes (really?)<br />
ripped off Ronson and a confusing<br />
melee of other hitmakers for a mostly<br />
confused, anachronistic mess.<br />
To be fair, there are a couple of<br />
good things about 24K Magic: it’s only<br />
nine songs long, Halle Berry makes an<br />
appearance, and occasionally Mars<br />
seems to be in on the actually funny<br />
part of the joke this record is.<br />
“Chunky” uses silly jewelry<br />
terminology and soggy, boogie hues<br />
to give love to the old-school ladies.<br />
“Shout out to the girls who pay their<br />
rent on time,” he sings for some reason.<br />
A better delivery of funk-indebted<br />
humorous, light-heartedness is “Perm”<br />
(which Ronson and Mystikal are likely<br />
filing suit over at this very moment).<br />
Mars actually sounds reverent and<br />
delightfully charming for the briefest<br />
of moments, encouraging someone<br />
uptight to “throw some Perm on your<br />
attitude.” It’s the same hook-heavy,<br />
substance-free fun of “Uptown Funk,”<br />
just a little too familiar for comfort.<br />
Not much of the rest of the album<br />
is even worth talking about. There’s<br />
some pretty embarrassing Boyz II Men<br />
posturing, a fake missed call to Halle<br />
Berry and perhaps the most revolting<br />
song of all time: “Versace on the Floor.”<br />
That one is recommended to only the<br />
most adventurous of masochists, for<br />
whom the surprise should not be spoilt.<br />
Don’t bother seeking out this<br />
album. There are plenty of places<br />
you’ll inevitably encounter it anyway:<br />
an awkward car ride that can only<br />
be put at ease by the worst of top 40<br />
radio, a nightclub you wish you hadn’t<br />
gone to but got dragged to by that<br />
one friend, literally anywhere caterers<br />
work, the lobby of an office building<br />
that smells like leftovers crossed with<br />
feet, or perhaps even the Seventh<br />
Circle of Hell.<br />
Meek Mill<br />
DC4<br />
Maybach Music Group<br />
<br />
After a tumultuous year away from the<br />
spotlight, Philadelphia rapper Meek<br />
Mill returns with DC4, his first project<br />
since Dreams Worth More Than<br />
Money, an album that many believe to<br />
be a high point in his career. Following<br />
some high profile feuds with some of<br />
the industry’s top names, Meek Mill<br />
seems eager to prove himself an equal<br />
among their ranks, a feat he tries to<br />
achieve with DC4.<br />
The album is filled with an<br />
intensity that often translates into<br />
yelling, but that’s not a complaint. This<br />
album truly plays on his strong writing<br />
abilities and his ability to revisit his<br />
childhood and themes of violence towards<br />
black people with a broad lens. Despite<br />
the themes the album isn’t completely<br />
serious, incorporating some infectious<br />
tracks like “Offended.” The roster of<br />
features including Young Thug, 21 Savage,<br />
and Atlanta trio Migos, adds a level of<br />
credibility to the album, showing that<br />
some of the scene’s top players still run with<br />
Mill. If this album is anything, it is proof<br />
that Meek isn’t about to let his career<br />
take a hit from any other rapper.<br />
Monomyth<br />
Happy Pop Family<br />
Mint Records<br />
<br />
With lazy, skate park guitars, much<br />
like that of bands like Heaven for<br />
Real and Walrus, and a relaxed power<br />
pop sound like Nap Eyes, Happy Pop<br />
Family, Monomyth’s new 11-track<br />
album, is the perfect listen for a warm<br />
Sunday afternoon. The Halifax fourpiece<br />
plays with hallowed sounds and<br />
guitar-monies, reminiscent of bands<br />
like Television, that mesmerize you<br />
without you even being aware of it.<br />
With garage-y, indie pop hooks, the<br />
lazy beach day vibe of Monomyth gives<br />
each chorus of these songs a catchy<br />
element you’ll find yourself humming<br />
throughout the day. Their drowsy<br />
vocals and lyrics, seemingly inspired by<br />
early ‘90s grunge, alongside psychedelic,<br />
jangly instrumentals hold something for<br />
fans of various sub-genres.<br />
Despite being consistently<br />
compared to Halifax legends Sloan, I<br />
myself find nothing in common with<br />
the two acts. While both bands are<br />
great, Monomyth brings a calm vibe<br />
and an I-don’t-care attitude in their<br />
sound that will connect with the new<br />
generation of slacker youth. Overall,<br />
the album is a soft sludge piece of art<br />
representative of the common human.<br />
Agnes Obel<br />
Citizen of Glass<br />
Play It Again Sam<br />
<br />
One of the more underappreciated<br />
technological advancements in music<br />
production is the ability to change<br />
the pitch of the human voice. Not<br />
in the T-Pain, “All I Do is Win” usage<br />
of AutoTune, but in the ability to<br />
completely drop the octave of a<br />
human voice while still keeping<br />
it in tempo. The results can often<br />
be controversial: Frank Ocean on<br />
this year’s Blonde standout “Nikes”<br />
is a clear contender for positively<br />
received use, but then there’re the<br />
less-than-favourable initial reactions<br />
to hearing Justin Vernon of Bon<br />
Iver, or Dave Longstreth of Dirty<br />
Projectors - both seasoned “acoustic”<br />
musicians - adopting the digital<br />
baritone throughout the year.<br />
Five-time Danish Music Award<br />
winner Agnes Obel, falls in the latter<br />
category. The classically-indebted,<br />
folk singer-songwriter uses the<br />
technique on “Familiar,” the first single<br />
off of Citizen of Glass, her intoxicating<br />
third full-length. The single features<br />
Obel dropping her gently-emotive<br />
falsetto into a lower register for the<br />
chorus; the resulting voice is exactly<br />
like the title of the song describes.<br />
It feels so recognizable - comforting<br />
in its warmth, yet off-putting in its<br />
unnatural pronunciation and eerie,<br />
lower-range falsetto. It’s an unnatural<br />
element that Obel juxtaposes with<br />
ornate string arrangements and an<br />
elegant piano accompaniment that<br />
wrap her uncanny valley voice in silk.<br />
It’s the only time Obel obfuscates<br />
her operatic voice on Citizen of<br />
Glass, but it is one of the strongest<br />
singular moments on any album from<br />
the last year, a high-watermark that<br />
the rest of the album never quite<br />
achieves again, despite being wholly<br />
captivating, and coming close on “It’s<br />
Happening Again,” and the aching,<br />
album closer “Mary.”<br />
With its classically-influenced<br />
instrumentation, Citizen of Glass is<br />
a stark, frost-bitten album that often<br />
sounds like it doesn’t belong in <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
but then again, it often sounds like it<br />
doesn’t belong in any time period at<br />
all, and that’s just one of many great<br />
things about it.<br />
Allan Rayman<br />
Hotel Allan<br />
Universal Music<br />
<br />
Beginning with a mournful, selfaddressed<br />
lament, Toronto’s Allan<br />
Your Connection to Vancouver’s<br />
Independent Theatre Scene!<br />
A Peter n’ Chris-tmas Carol<br />
<strong>December</strong> 9-10<br />
A hilarious send up of the Classic<br />
Dickens’ Christmas story.<br />
Pajama Men:<br />
Pterodactyl Nights<br />
February 16-18<br />
A surreal night of jubilance and<br />
inventive comedy.<br />
Funny Music Weirdo<br />
April 20-22<br />
“I love it when comedy feels like skydiving ...<br />
Chase Padgett is almost frighteningly funny.”<br />
—The Georgia Straight<br />
Tickets as low as $20!<br />
TheatreWire.com<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS<br />
35
LA VIDA LOCAL<br />
Rayman has finally released his debut<br />
LP. A great deal of mystery surrounds<br />
this singer/songwriter. He shies away<br />
from press, and his releases seem to<br />
emerge from a great enigmatic fog.<br />
However, once heard, they sink deep<br />
within a very profound part of the<br />
lucky listener’s very being.<br />
He has a distinct vocal style that<br />
is hard to forget. Tastefully subdued<br />
and layered in emotion, characteristic<br />
of a southern bluesman, his voice<br />
projects heartfelt, soulful lyrics borne by<br />
mesmerizing melodies and rhythms.<br />
He brought back some of his<br />
previous singles like the incredible<br />
“Lucy The Tease,” a song that will<br />
instantly get you hooked on Rayman’s<br />
sound. “Tennessee” is also found here,<br />
combining a serene depth of melancholy<br />
lyricism and surprisingly fresh hip-hop<br />
percussion and sampling.<br />
This full length also features many<br />
new songs, and really showcases this<br />
man’s range. A funk groove kicks off<br />
“Beverly,” before being joined shortly<br />
down the road by some ethereal guitar<br />
plucking, only to be bombarded by a juicy<br />
bassline and Rayman’s signature crooning.<br />
A release that certainly merits<br />
multiple listens, but you will find that goes<br />
without saying once you hear it.<br />
<br />
Dawn Richard<br />
Redemption<br />
Local Action/Our Dawn Entertainment<br />
Monomyth is a term used to describe<br />
a basic narrative framework that’s<br />
been pulled from the stories of Jesus<br />
Christ, Gautama Buddha and applied<br />
to the creation of modern-day fictions<br />
such as Star Wars, The Matrix or The<br />
Lord of the Rings. They’re all about the<br />
hero’s journey, a protagonist gathering<br />
some deeper knowledge and their<br />
transformation into something better<br />
because of it. In <strong>2016</strong>, D∆WN, or Dawn<br />
Richard, is our redeemed protagonist.<br />
D∆WN got her start in music as a<br />
member of P. Diddy-sponsored, reality<br />
show-spawned girl group, Danity Kane. It<br />
wasn’t until 2013, with her independentlyreleased<br />
solo debut Goldenheart,<br />
that her journey progressed from the<br />
blandness of pseudo-top 40 stardom to<br />
her destined role as a visionary blender of<br />
R&B, dance, and electronic music.<br />
Redemption is the final piece of the<br />
monomythic album trilogy, starting with<br />
Goldenheart and punctuated by last year’s<br />
brooding Darkheart.<br />
Almost every track of Redemption is a<br />
highlight, with various interludes providing a<br />
pause in an otherwise non-stop affair. “Love<br />
Under Lights” turns its EDM-crescendo into a<br />
shimmering metamorphosis of the entire song<br />
while “Black Crimes” is a Black Lives Matter<br />
anthem that contrasts the term ‘hate<br />
crime’ with law enforcement’s seeming<br />
love of their ability to commit them.<br />
Redemption is impassioned,<br />
empowering and the perfect way to end a<br />
trilogy that we can only hope gets a sequel.<br />
Sad13<br />
Slugger<br />
Carpark Records<br />
<br />
Sadie Dupuis, of Speedy Ortiz fame,<br />
shows fans another side with a solo<br />
project that is a fuzzy, feminist fantasy.<br />
Under the name Sad13, Dupuis leans<br />
away from the harder grunge sounds<br />
of Speedy Ortiz, aiming instead<br />
towards a more pop and electronic<br />
influence. Fortunately, the change of<br />
pace is welcomed.<br />
Slugger is filled with feminist pop<br />
anthems that everyone can dance to.<br />
The 11 songs on the album expertly<br />
weave a narrative that combines<br />
both personal struggles and political<br />
commentary. “Get a Yes” is a song about<br />
consent in relationships; a much-welcomed<br />
break from the American news cycle where<br />
women are constantly told they don’t have<br />
control over their own bodies. Other songs<br />
like “Hype,” confront sexism in the music<br />
industry with fantastic lyrics like, “they still<br />
wanna lick my asshole/ they still wanna buy<br />
what I’m selling them.” Overall, Slugger is an<br />
album that packs a punch while still being<br />
incredibly fun to listen to.<br />
Thee Oh Sees<br />
An Odd Entrances<br />
Castleface Records<br />
<br />
Leave it to John Dwyer and co. in Thee<br />
Oh Sees to not only release two albums<br />
in one year, but to release two<br />
albums that manage to be at once<br />
completely different, and yet meant<br />
to play as companions.<br />
A Weird Exits was a snapshot of a<br />
new version of Thee Oh Sees, complete<br />
with new drumming tandem Ryan<br />
Moutinho and Dan Rincon, making a<br />
case that, while they’ve always been<br />
known primarily for their raucous live<br />
show, they could reach excellence as a studio<br />
band as well. That album landed fairly far on<br />
the more psychedelic side of Thee Oh Sees<br />
discography, filled with Hendrix-esque guitar<br />
heroics, but anchored with pummeling<br />
krautrock-inspired rhythms that helped<br />
keep even the wooziest elements of the<br />
songs grounded.<br />
An Odd Entrances dives even further<br />
into the transcendent qualities of krautrock,<br />
slowing down the tempo overall and offering<br />
up even more new looks (see: bossa nova<br />
pastiche on “At The End, On The Stairs,” and<br />
folkloric balladry on “The Poem”) from a<br />
band that never ceases to bring garage rock<br />
to surprising new places.<br />
Young Mammals<br />
Jaguar<br />
Odd Hours Records<br />
<br />
Although Young Mammals originate<br />
from Houston, the sound of the band’s<br />
latest offering, Jaguar, would beg to differ.<br />
Layered with carefree, twangy guitars and<br />
dreamlike vocals, Jaguar can conjure<br />
the breezy atmosphere of a beach<br />
instantaneously. The sound of summer<br />
is practically bursting out of this record,<br />
melting through chunks of coldness that the<br />
winter season carries with it, but that does<br />
not necessarily mean that the entire<br />
album is memorable. The majority of<br />
Jaguar blends together, nearly seamlessly,<br />
so while it does not make for the most<br />
surprising or interesting listen, it capitalizes<br />
on what works. Since the majority of<br />
tracks fall under three minutes, the album<br />
flows quick, making it easy to commit to<br />
in a short amount of time.<br />
Standout tracks include the<br />
irresistibly catchy title track “Jaguar” and<br />
slow-burner “Heavenly,” which feature strong<br />
lyrics and vocals that steal the show. While<br />
the lyrics on other tracks match the music<br />
well enough, they are easily forgettable and<br />
there is room for more creativity. However,<br />
as the band’s name states, Young Mammals<br />
is young, and the amount of potential Jaguar<br />
showcases is exciting.<br />
<br />
Sort of Damocles<br />
When I Die Throw My Body In The Garbage<br />
Boat Dreams From The Hill<br />
The sonic equivalent of looking through pictures of people and good times that<br />
have passed you by, Sort of Damocles captures melancholy in its most gentle<br />
and beautiful form. This is an album that asks the listener to contemplate and<br />
reflect, as it is music that lends itself to introspection.<br />
<br />
Cheap High<br />
Subterranean Suburbia (LP)<br />
Dipstick Records<br />
A product of the burgeoning post-punk scene in Abbotsford, Cheap High<br />
comes out swinging with their debut, Subterranean Suburbia. Creeping with<br />
post-punk tension, the album takes fans into Cheap High’s dystopian nightmare<br />
of superficial relationships and a willingly isolated and apathetic society.<br />
Expressing the frustration, rage, and emptiness of modern living, the album<br />
pairs its Joy Division tendencies with clever, image-heavy lyrics. In all, Cheap<br />
High proves that post-punk is far from dead.<br />
<br />
Mother Upduff<br />
The Decay (EP)<br />
Independent<br />
Mother Upduff’s most recent EP does not shy away from its roots, with psychedelic<br />
noise rock overtones leading the way. The heavy, bluesy, and soulful<br />
album brings to mind a grittier sound of soul power, not unlike the Black Keys.<br />
“Concept and Scope” sounds like a James Bond theme from the days of yore,<br />
while the dogged guitars of “Parnassus Drive” make you feel as if you’re in a<br />
dark, smoky blues club. The album is bare and raw – no special effects here –<br />
as the band continues to embrace its live sound with its strained (and at times,<br />
sharp) vocals.<br />
<br />
Little Crow<br />
Little Crow<br />
Independent<br />
An atmospheric debut release that exhales a melancholy tale, acoustic-alternative<br />
duo Little Crow deliver a soft-spoken yet powerful record that touches on<br />
subjects of love, heartbreak, and fading memories. A haunting effort fueled by<br />
pure emotion, this four-song EP holds greatly produced recordings of beautiful,<br />
radio-worthy tracks that leave you wanting more.<br />
<br />
Winona Forever<br />
This is Fine<br />
Independent<br />
This is Fine is a distorted collection of poppy indie-rock songs that will surely<br />
get you groovin’. Winona Forever’s catchy opening tracks bring to mind laying<br />
on the beach during a relaxing summer day, sipping a refreshing beverage,<br />
smiling as the sun smiles upon you.<br />
With elements of garage rock, alternative, and pop, the indie-darlings<br />
from Langley, BC deliver a likeable, upbeat record.<br />
<br />
Post Death Soundtrack<br />
The Unlearning Curve<br />
Independent<br />
PDS have crafted a consistent stream of tracks that utilize a broad range<br />
of instrumentation while still retaining a linear mood and tone that carries<br />
through most of the album. Due to the consistency in the songwriting,<br />
each song serves as a fairly good reflection for the rest of the album. Each<br />
track is cool and foreboding, giving off an air of intrigue and edginess, with<br />
an overarching sense of melancholy that runs throughout.<br />
<br />
36 REVIEWS<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
LIVE REVIEWS<br />
PUP, Meat Wave, Chastity<br />
The Cobalt<br />
November 21, <strong>2016</strong><br />
It may have been a Monday night,<br />
but it sure felt like a Friday at the<br />
Cobalt for PUP’s first Vancouver<br />
show in almost two years.<br />
Completely sold out, the venue<br />
was nearly packed for the night’s<br />
first opener Chastity. Hailing<br />
from Whitby, Ontario, frontman/<br />
songwriter Brandon Williams<br />
and his band started the night off<br />
strong. Mixing a singer-songwriter<br />
approach with elements of hardcore,<br />
emo, and post-rock, Chastity put<br />
on an impressive performance.<br />
During the last two tracks, Williams<br />
opted to spend the rest of his time<br />
performing in the crowd or on top of<br />
tables and getting the crowd moving.<br />
An early sign the night was going to<br />
be a wild one.<br />
Second on the bill was Chicago’s<br />
Meat Wave. With an already warmed<br />
up crowd, Meat Wave blasted into<br />
their furious brand of garage punk<br />
without hesitation. Although it<br />
was obvious most of the crowd<br />
had never heard Meat Wave before,<br />
that didn’t stop them from playing<br />
as hard and fast as they could. By<br />
the end of the set beers were flying<br />
and people were moshing wildly:<br />
a great first appearance for Meat<br />
Wave in Vancouver.<br />
As wild as things got, it was<br />
all practice for when PUP hit the<br />
stage. As a band from Toronto who<br />
tours almost constantly, having<br />
nearly two years between shows<br />
in Vancouver seems like a major<br />
oversight. Their presence was<br />
surely missed here. Opening up<br />
with their brilliant track “If This<br />
Tour Doesn’t Kill You Then I Will”<br />
from this year’s The Dream is Over,<br />
the audience sang every word along<br />
with frontman Stefan Babcock<br />
and you could seethe smiles creep<br />
across the band members faces’ as<br />
the song went on. Second song in<br />
they played their breakneck-paced<br />
smash hit “DVP” and it was madness<br />
for the rest of the night. The next<br />
hour was filled with songs from all<br />
three of their albums and a nonstop<br />
onslaught of stage divers, crowd<br />
surfers, and people looking for their<br />
missing shoes/glasses.<br />
PUP may not look the part of<br />
your average punk band, but they<br />
certainly perform like one of the best<br />
out there. Nearing the hour mark,<br />
Babcock shouted into the mic “PUP<br />
the band doesn’t believe in encores…<br />
We’re gonna play two more songs<br />
then walk off stage. Have a great<br />
night! ” True to their word they<br />
did, and the crowd did not look<br />
the least bit pissed about it. In<br />
f act, audience members seemed<br />
too smiley, sweaty, and covered<br />
in beer to care about much else.<br />
Simultaneously ferocious and fun,<br />
PUP proved why they are one of the<br />
most-hyped bands of <strong>2016</strong>. Hopefully<br />
they don’t take another two years<br />
before returning to Vancouver.<br />
<br />
<br />
Photo by Timothy Nguyen<br />
YG<br />
Vogue Theatre<br />
Nov 21, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Rapper YG, a Brazy Bompton native,<br />
took the stage twice Monday night with<br />
two sold out shows at the Vogue Theatre<br />
for the Vancouver stop of his Fuck<br />
Donald Trump Tour. The venue’s air was<br />
heavy with the aroma of a particularly<br />
dank sativa, mixed with Polar Ice vodka<br />
shots and, at the earlier all ages show, a<br />
side of “Mom, I’ll be home by 10.”<br />
Dressed in the current go-to<br />
California closet ensemble of designer<br />
plaid, ripped jeans, Eazy-E shades and<br />
shiny gold trainers, YG 400 finessed<br />
some signature tracks like “Toot It<br />
and Boot It,” “Who do you Love?” and<br />
“Why You Always Hating?” The massive<br />
nine-foot tall monitor behind him<br />
broadcasted images of flowing malt<br />
liquor, palm trees and prescription bottles<br />
full of dried herbs, hyping up the crowd<br />
who simultaneously roasted blunts,<br />
echoed lyrics and beat each other up.<br />
YG took the time to reach<br />
out to shirtless audience members and<br />
also pull out his phone to check the<br />
last-minute score of the Raiders game. The<br />
show peaked as YG took a Trumpesque<br />
mannequin onstage, stomping<br />
its head while the crowd chanted<br />
“Fuck Donald Trump.”<br />
The after show scene outside<br />
the venue saw attendees posing for<br />
selfies with dismembered limbs of<br />
Donald Trump in YG hoodies and trying<br />
to convince limo drivers to take them<br />
back to the burbs. Satisfied.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> REVIEWS<br />
37
KATHLEEN MCGEE<br />
PACIFIC CENTRAL STATION<br />
Ah the Greyhound bus station. Forever a place that no one<br />
really wants to go but since airlines still insist on charging $500<br />
for a round trip to Calgary, it’s a necessary evil. As a Canadian<br />
performer I’ve seen my share of Greyhound stations and as far as<br />
bus station bathrooms go, this one is surprisingly nice.<br />
It has its own security to keep the riff raff out and, besides<br />
having a mysteriously cut up toilet seat, was very clean and well<br />
stocked. It will make taking the Greyhound feel less shameful.<br />
MCDONALD’S<br />
(GRANVILLE & BROADWAY)<br />
It’s important for McDonald’s to have good bathrooms. They<br />
are always needed immediately after dining. The plus about<br />
this bathroom is you don’t need to be buzzed in by the staff. It’s<br />
always nice to find an unlocked public bathroom. This bathroom<br />
however, was too clean. Yes I said it — too clean.<br />
I think I left that bathroom as a blonde because the smell<br />
of bleach was so strong. Also, points taken off for one-ply toilet<br />
paper. Come on McDonald’s, you know the messes your food<br />
makes. You need a two-ply minimum policy at least.<br />
SCOTIA BANK THEATRE<br />
(UPPER LEVEL)<br />
I’m a fan of any bathroom that provides me with reading material,<br />
and Scotia Bank Theatre doesn’t disappoint! Movie posters and<br />
upcoming events are posted in every stall. This experience was<br />
enhanced by the tears of a 14-year-old girl crying to a friend<br />
because they were on a double date and she didn’t think Hunter<br />
was “feeling her.”<br />
This bathroom was overall very clean and very entertaining.<br />
Way to keep the drama on the big screen and out of the bathrooms!<br />
JANUARY 4TH VOGUE THEATRE<br />
DOORS AT 7PM - ALL AGES WELCOME TICKETS AVAILABLE AT TICKETFLY.COM<br />
38<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 39
40<br />
<strong>December</strong> <strong>2016</strong>