June 2006 That beat that shit into a file magazine from CITR 101.9 FM Free ^___*?_@k. ^__l A ** P 1 \< Pfck its* ZA 4 4/?0. 1 , § >VT n___ __v_fe___o ■__Bfea ' F_ IP If S ^^Bt $_5__CTP ALLEN. SUNSEX £UBIjWN. NELS CLINE." MtfTMCfa yANEffUGAR MIXTAPE/D£YENDRA BANHARX AND^BiKESI wOiSski.O * ■i k-feu. * '"_P_. 0*_ 06/26 ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE IMPOSTERS ALLEN TOUSSAINT and the Crescent City Horns, THE RIVER IN REVERSE TOUR 2006 Pop music icon teams up with New Orleans R&B legend 06/28 TONY BENNETT "The best singer in the business' - Frank Sinafra + Brad Turner Trio ■Cathay Pacific SEU JORGE Charismatic Brazilian blends samba & bossa nova E.S.T. ESBJORN SVENSSON TRIO 21 st Century grooves meet jazz piano tradition McCOY TYNER TRIO Unrelenting swing from legendary jazz pianist MICHEL DONATO'S EUROPEAN QUINTET Euro-Quebecois quintet's post-bop melange PINK MARTINI Ultracool 12-piece ensemble's "urban music travelogue" ■-t-Tango Paradiso BOBBY HUTCHERSON QUARTET feat. RENEE ROSNES Jazz vibraphone master's fiercely swinging band +Amanda Tosoff Quartet MIKE STERN BAND Jazz/rock guitarist incinerates the house GRDINA/ VAN DER SCHYFF with GARY PEACOCK Legendary bassist meets Vancouver jazz stars 06/28 PAQUITO D'RIVERA QUINTET Award-winning Cuban sax giant //1 ROBERTO OCCHIPINTI QUINTET Intoxicating jazz/latin/classical powerhouse 06/30 PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND Uplifting sounds from Bourbon Street's golden age +New Orleans North 07/01 DR. JOHN Legendary New Orleans pianist/vocalist & his killer band +Jim Byrnes Acoustic Band 07/02 NEKO CASE Revved up, stripped down Country Rock and Rockabilly +Sonny Smith Program guides at TO Canada Trust branches, HMV, Starbucks and Ticket Outlets coastaljazz.ca COMMODORE BALLROOM 868 Gr URBAN GROOVE SERIES KARDINAL OFFISHALL Rap/dancehall intensity from hip-hop prince POCKET DWELLERS Infectious collision of funk/soul/hip-hop/jazz THE CAT EMPIRE Wicked Aussie funk/soul/latin grooves +Mother BAABA MAAL Senegalese superstar sings with hurricane force -f-Aboubacar Camara & Doundounba SHARON JONES & the DAP-KINGS Searing funk from Brooklyn's soul diva -i-Binky Griptite and the Dee-Kays BUCK 65 Hip-hop with real storles/lrisplred rhymes KINNIE STARR "Sings like Polly Harvey, raps like Chuck D" IVAN NEVILLE'S DUMPSTAPHUNK "The funkiest collection of human gumbo ever assembled" - Bonnie Raitt MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE "Future funk at its finest" - Music Week NO MEANS NO Legendary bass-heavy slabs of prog/punk/jazz WIBUTEE Hot electro-jazz from Norway + Zu DIVINE BROWN Canada's reigning queen of soul JACKSOUL Canadian soul powerhouse goes for the groove NILS PETTER MOLVAER Oslo's intensely grooving sonic scientist JAMIE LIDELL "Britain's answer to Prince" -~gigwise.com •CAMPBELL BROTHERS Outrageous, Righteous steel guitar-driven gospel +Reuben Cherry :ttw (SlnlfatttS CnhlO) ,$„(( Rock Out With Yer C*ck Out! The Ultravixen Peepshow Wednesday, June 7th llie Railway 579 Dtt-ismtsire < -*«-*B«a J°HN Bates* y£ 5eas°N OF N|3Htj^ares * .Saturday torn FHhroar-rds °n r> JSSaM tix 9 scratch, zulu, red cat anrXnignhfe Pat's Pub 403 East Hastings June 1st MUSIC WASTE The Pockets Dustin and Garrett Blue Gray Dots Palm Pirates June 2nd Two Gallants Oakley hall June 10th SPARTACUS BOOKS BEMIFIT My Project Blue e3rd I MUSIC WASTE I Raised By Wolves I Ladies Night I Live Girls The Jolts June 4th MUSIC WASTE Stumbler's Inn Shapes and Sizes Screaming Eagles Spell Caster Pink Noise June 16th Canned Hamm and guests June 17th Vailhalen The Quite Franklies and guests June 23rd YouSayPartylWeSayDiel All Purpose VoltageHeros Run Chico Run June 24th CASBAHI Sudden Infant Dense Syndrome Palm Pirates Blue Gray Dots June 30th A HIGH POINT PRODUCTION P8JDAY, JULY 14th THEAGGROUTES THE PARALLELS 2 June 2006 Productic Charlotte Bourne Will Brown MarloG Andy Hudson Neb JVIacura David Ravensberg Alanna Scott Caroline Walker Graeme Worthy Photo & Illustration Karin Abramova Devendra Banhart Lucas Soi Alanna Scott Saelen Twerdy Spectres of Discord by Admiral McGruff Textually Active Bike Manuals, Inkstuds Mixtape by Vancougar Calendar by Team Macho Under Review Camera Obscura, The Starlight Mints, Ju ma Molina, Magik Markers, Ethan Collister, The Bla k r Procession, Tilley and the Wall, and Trih Real Live Action Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes, Mogwai, a id Joel Plaskett CiTR Charts The Dopest Hits of May 2006 Program Guide The Highlight: Afrobeat Dear reader, Welcome to the bicycle issue. I think you'll find that bicycles and music fit together quite nicely. Now, you stubborn motorists out there may protest: you can't fit a 500 watt amp in a rat trap, nor can your 10 speed slay every lady on the block with booty bass. Valid points, but I've noticed that motorists—otherwise known as fossil fuelists, or better yet, fossil fueligans—tend to listen to bad music anyway. Nine times out of ten the distorted bass spewing from that passing Prelude belongs to Dr. Dre's 2002; a great album, certainly, but one whose lustre has dimmed somewhat since I graduated from high school. Expensive car stereos always seem to find their way into the hands of philistines, people obsessed with decibels and high-definition tweeters, oblivious to the music itself. Maybe I'm way off with this one, but I've got lingering bitterness over a youth squandered on the streets of Surrey to blame. Cyclists, by virtue of their silent machines, create space for subtler music, from the chirping of city birds to the rhythmic clacking of an old Apollo coasting downhill. It's not all hippie-bullshit, though; riding with the right album in your headphones is one of the true joys of modern city life. If you're feeling a little aggressive, toss on some Lightning Bolt and race a Hummer through a school zone. Nothing beats the catharsis of flying over speed bumps with "Assassins" screaming in your ears, while the driver of that beached whale of a vehicle curses his $200 gas tank. Then there's those late night rides coming down from Point Grey, when the only fitting response to the view of downtown sparkling against the mountains is to belt out Rufus Wainwright's "Oh What a World" at the top of your voice, off-key and proud. If you're unimpressed by my rationale for this month's marriage of bikes and bands, I've got another suggestion for you. Bicycles may not be a musical instrument, but they can carry words about music to the masses. If you've got some panniers or a paperboy basket, then you're qualified to join our distribution team. We're currently in the process of recruiting regional distribution chieftains, people responsible for keeping their neighbourhoods stocked with fresh copies of Discorder as the month wears on. Send me an email at discordered@gmail.com if the idea rings your bell, or come out to our next general meeting on June 6th. I'd love to finish this issue by riding off into the sunset, but I'm afraid some drunken gear-changing a couple nights back has left my bike indisposed. Luckily bikes are easy to fix, and I'll soon be back and rolling around with the rest of you. As my pals in cLOUDDEAD like to say, "Physics of a bicycle...isn't it remarkable?" David Ravensbergen, Editor CITR Station Manager Lydia Masemola Publisher Student Radio Society of UBC Shapes & Sizes § \Bishop Allen is Sunset Rubdown 18 Nels Cline Cover photo by Karin Abramova ©DiSCORDER 2006 by the Student Radio Society of the University of British Columbia. AU rights reserved. Circulation 10,000. Subscriptions, payable in advance, to Canadian residents are $15 for one year, to residents of the USA are $15 US; $24 CDN elsewhere. Single copies are $2 (to cover postage). Please make cheques or money orders payable to DiSCORDER Magazine. DEADLINES: Copy deadline for the July issue is June 20th. Ad space is available until June 22nd and can be booked by calling Caroline at 604.822.3017 ext 3. Our rates are available upon request. DiSCORDER is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited artwork (including but not limited to drawings, photographs, and transparencies), or any other unsolicited material. Material can be submitted on disc or in type or via email. As always, English is preferred, but we will accept French. Actually, we won't. Send words, to discordered@gmail.com and art to discorderart@gmail.com. From UBC to Langley and Squamish to Bellingham, CiTR can be heard at 101.9 FM as well as through all major cable systems in the Lower Mainland, except Shaw in White Rock. Call the CiTR DJ line at 822.2487, our office at 822.3017, or our news and sports lines at 822.3017 ext. 2. Fax us at 822.9364, e-mail us at: citrmgr@mail.ams.ubc.ca, visit our web site at www.citr.ca or just pick up a goddamn pen and write #233-6138 SUBBlvd., Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, CANADA. Red Cat Records 4307 Mafia St. Spring Cleaning Sale June 1st - 12th AlHJseaCD'g#IJ>'s 30% Off JVew & Used CD's & Vinyl ph. 708-9422 * email buddywedeakea Discorder 3 ilTlllX:CiT?R#res0n ll..l'HU-1'hlH.HIfl.. IJV IOt« 9PM Fri June 2nd Waiting For Roger P^ & Sonic City Double CD Release „ _♦£ ^\&V^X Party with Shiny Diamonds \\mOL K \ \\L.C & Arctic 5-10pm ALL AGES SHOW WeU. Sv^ktfs @ AZURE (770 Pacific Blvd, right \^(^$\^ beside the Plaza of Nations) Fri June 2nd Make The Lion The Painted Birds, Elias & Shukov @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGES ^griJifne 2nd The Manvils, Savile Row Midnight Dragon & Danny Echo @ The LAMPLIGHTER 210 Abbott Street Sat June 3rd Hey Ocean! Madison's PanicJxMs Vegas & Karmetik Underground @ The RAILWAY CLUB, 579 Dunsmuir St %Fri June 9th Whitfield CD Release wl Yoko Casionos Elias & DJs P Fembot & Lektra (from Miami) @ The MEDIA CLUB, 695 Cambie Fri June 9th Notes, Hinterland, Windows '78 & North @ The RAILWAY CLUB Fri June 9th Shoofly, The Good Sister & Headwater @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGE ^ Sat June 10th The Skatomatics CD Release ^o^Siv Party wl The Panic, Whitey & Blind God W^^C @ The LAMPLIGHTER V^\< Fri June 16th The Buttersprites, The Furios w Mongoose & The Smears @The RAILWAY CLUB Fri June 16th Matthew Mei CD Release Party wl The Pete Werner Band, Edmond & Debi Wong @ The MEDIA CLUB Fri June 16th Stem Grout CD Release Party wl Cheek & Tea @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGE Tfhu June 22nd Kobayashi, The No Luck Club @ The LAMPLIGHTER Fri June 23rd Mecca Normal, Yoko Casionos, The Feminists & Fun 100 @ The LAMPLIGtiMl Fri June 23rd Savile Row + guests @ The RAILWAY CLUB Thu June 29th AU4 CD Release Party wl Sinewave, Genika & Fontane @ SONAR, 66 Water Street FriJtme 30th Madison's Panic. Andy Collins Tart + guests @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGE Coming this JULY! Thu July 6th Hinterland, Blind Carbon Copy @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGE Fri July 7th Krome CD ReleasetParty® The WALDORF Sat July 8th Orchid Highway @ The WALDORF Sat July 8th Conrad CD Release Party @ The RAILWAY Sat July 15th The Kitchen @ The MEDIA CLUB ^mjuly22nd Superbeing Tour Kick-Off Party @ MEDIA CLUB Sat July 29th Shukov CD Release Party w/ln Media Res @ The BACKSTAGE LOUNGE G e f full show details at im uproductions.com S"»j8t EATER'S DIGEST cord short Ovaltine Cafe 251 East Hastings (Next to the Afton Hotel near Main and Hastings) The Ovaltine opened in 1942 in a shop once called Burlington Tailors. To find this oddball dining establishment, simply scan the horizon for an enormous flowing '0', and follow the arrow to the stylish pirik neon sign. There are no other cafes in Vancouver thatcan rival the authenticity of this truly vintage locale. Even Hollywood celebrities know its reputation, and come seeking to reconvene with .reality; Will Smith and Ben Affleck have eaten here and left autographed photos as proof. If that doesn't have you convinced, just head to the bathroom for a scrawled message from George Orwell: "In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." The varnished wood and squeaky floorboards only enhance the atmosphere. Well-used red leather swivel stools line a long white Formica countertop—perfect for a coffee and pie date. The wall decor favours ships and tasteful landscapes, velvet and ornate. S The womb-like booths are covered in brown panelling with cigarette scars that hark back to the glorious days of old when people could smoke "I have eaten a lot of brown things, and I'm OK with that." in restaurants. Aging, disintegrating mirrors hang on the walls, ideal for watching yourself pretend to smoke through a straw. Convenient old metal coat racks .grow like trees out of each booth. The staff creatively re-use old containers: the water comes in a plastic milk jug, the salt in a Tabasco sauce bottle, and the pepper in a small whiskey bottle. We were pleased to see our ALF house friends enjoying tuna melts and delicious lemon meringue pie, so we sat at the booth across from them to continue the banter. Menus arrived; choices were made. Aili, my fellow eater this month, started the meal off with the bizarre selection of both a cola and coffee. Weighing her brown caffeinated offerings, It was decided that the cola was fresh but the coffee was not. She emulated our pals' meal and enjoyed the tasty tuna melt, a delicious spread of tuna goodness smothered in a square of bright orange processed cheese. Upon having a bite, I immediately understood why everyone orders this menu underdog. Aili commented, "I have eaten a lot of brown things, and I'm OK with that. In fact, my lunch matches my outfit: brown and orange," The service is fast; the lone waitress had a slap in her step, and even broke into a run a few times. I chose the grilled cheese sandwich and fries. The fries were crispy and laden with grease, but a liberal dose of ketchup worked wonders for both items. I've also heard the fish and chips are quite good here with either beer or a milkshake. Perhaps I'll enjoy these treats next time, as this locale is so close to my new house in Strathcona. . Our friend Leanne ordered home fries which she said were reasonable, but commented that her pancakes were delightfully light and fluffy. Each pancake comes with a little whipped rosette of butter in a small white ceramic container. Note that the pancakes are only $1.50, and go very well with a steaming cup of, you guessed it, ovaltine. , CiTR - 101.9PM -^fpr ©Wfldie Are you a local band or musician? We are now accepting entries for SHiNDiG! 2006. We need from you: 1. Three songs of original material 2. Contact phone number and email address Send it to: SHiNDiG! 2006 c/o CiTR Radio #233-6138 SUB Blvd. Vancouver, BCV6T1Z1 or Emaihshindig.submissions@gmail.com Burning questions? Interested in becoming a sponsor? For more information please visit http://shindig.citr.ca Rm Bryce Dunn We start off this month a little differently . with The Rogers Sisters, who are, not surprisingly, two sisters 0ennifer and Laura on guitar and drums respectively) plus bassist Miyuki Furtado (no relation to Nelly, thank Christ!). They hail from Brooklyn, New York, that hot bed of hot indie rock, and have been on yours truly's peripheral aural radar due in part to a pretty catchy (in a souped-up Velvet Underground sorta way) album from 2004 called Three Fingers. Now just last month I saw them in concert and was so mightily impressed with their pulsating, bait- and-hook filled set that I purchased their latest 7 inch ("Never Learn to Cry" b/w "The Clock"). The former sounds like a 60's girl-group ballad that gets a kick in the tuckus from a healthy dose of Jesus And Mary Chain-style distortion, while the latter is a cryptic tune about a timepiece that somehow hits every hour (except 12?), and still manages to rock out with a rollicking bass line and crunchy, scattershot guitar. These two tracks can also be found on their latest full length The Invisible Deck on Too Pure Records. (Too Pure Records, 17-19 Alma Road, London SW18 1AA United Kingdom, www.toopure.com). Been a while since I last heard Frankfurt, Germany's The Satellites on record. They've been flirting with lo-fi sixties garage punk and the mid- eighties paisley underground revival sound since '93, and this 7 inch takes us back to October of 2005. Side one lays down the fuzz guitar nice and thick, starting off with a throaty snarl on "It's Not True". "Where Do We Go?" reminds me of a lost track that eighties garage greats The Miracle Workers could have written, with its psych- tinged Pacific Northwest stomp sound.. Flip it over and you get "Our World Will Pass", a punchy Eurobeat number rerniniscenf of Dutch masters The Outsiders, followed by "Six Days Are Gone", a mid-tempo folk-punk tune that proves these Germans still have a lot of schnell in the tank, if you get what I'm saying. (Dionysus Records, P.O. Box 1975 Burbank ,CA U.S.A. 91507, www. dionysusrecords.com). Turning our attention now to some Canadian punk rock, The Bayonettes slice through a couple quick numbers with "Stuck In A Rut" and "Sour". This two guy /two girl combo play melodic punk (a la The Soviettes) in a pretty decent introduction (forme, anyway) to this newest slab of wax. "Stuck In A Rut" rides a cool bass riff while singer Zoe wails about the boredom of living a static life, and "Sour" sings the praises of what you can do to get out and change all that to a scrappy, pop-fuelled backbeat. Less in-your-face" than label mates and fellow Torontonians The Brutal Knights, but in no way less entertaining, this is good for repeated spins on the hi-fi. (Deranged Records, www. derangedrecords.com). To wrap up another batch of vinyl verbiage, a band after my own heart; not in a sappy, flowers and candy kinda way, but more of a hi-fiving, "these are my bros" feeling. Naming your band after the bat-wielding rival gang in my favourite movie of all time The Warriors, The Baseball Furies win major points right off the bat (hahal). When I first heard them on a 10" for Flying Bomb Records, the sheer blast of rock and roll made a lasting impression, and had me filing them next to The New Bomb Turks' Destroy Oh Boy! for all the times I needed to freak out to great music. A couple records later, a move from snowy Buffalo, New York to windy Chicago and The Furies have still managed to retain the intensity and chemistry of fusing punk and rock in a volatile batch of songs for this recent single. "Lost Ones" is a mid- tempo, swagger-filled scorcher, and "Know That Girl" picks up speed with a nod to The Stooges. "Quite Alright" does The Reatards proud with a rendition containing the same amount of piss and vinegar that made it a great tune in the first place. Wrapped in a cool, cut-out sleeve, this is one record that will.stand out among the crowd and leave you wanting more, I guarantee. (Alien Snatch Records, Morikeweg 1, 74199 U-Bach Germany, www.ahensnatch.de). I'm gonna make like a banana and split—see you ■next timet STRUT, FRET ANDFLICKEP Terrible Things, Blue Velvet, (hit off ihe Blue Penelope Mulligan Terrible Things A Section 8/Studio 58 Collective Creation Performance Works Saturday April 29 Brilliant theatre is such a rare thing that when you realize it's unfolding in front of you, elation is often mixed with shock. By the time these recent Studio 58 graduates had established their twisted characters in a series of monologues delivered in rhyming couplets, it was clear they were in control of an arsenal of skills that would allow them to create richly textured worlds out of nothing but space, light and themselves. The plot was a stew of intrigue: in a Victorian era household, the rich and influential Stipple family guards a bulging closet full of secrets spanning abuse, sexual perversion and murder. To the outside world, father Henry is a renowned physician, mother Eleanor is a respected culture maven and daughters Tawnon, Mirella and Lucy are philanthropist, civic advisor and piano prodigy, respectively. Dysfunction doesn't begin to describe how they relate to one another. Imprisoned in the basement, fed on scraps and frequently beaten is another daughter, Dora. Why she is thus rejected is never explained, but this gives rise to such interesting speculation that it hardly matters. It's initially tempting to cast the cellar-dwelling creature as the id or even the family's super-ego, since she's privy to all its sins, but the metaphor breaks down when the love- starved child begins to assist the family members with their horrid activities in order to gain their approval. Massive cock-ups ensue and the dynasty collapses. Greek tragedy perfumes the air, as the downfall is orchestrated by Edith, a servant with a grudge of Orestian proportions. The performers worked with a technical precision that was at once clean and baroque. Their delivery was often arch but never parodied itself. Even when shoehorning ill-fitting dialogue into rhyming couplets, the result became a comment on character rather than on the device itself. The effect was uncomfortably mesmerizing. The playing area was empty save for a piano off to one side, yet whole environments were suggested by Itai Erdal's sculptural lighting and the meticulously possessed actors. It's hard to pluck stand-outs from such an excellent cast, but, as the hapless Dora, Stacie Steadman was a tiny wire of heart-rending optimism. And Evangela Dueck had a riveting scene as Mirella, whose face had been scarred in a riding mishap. Alone with a mirror and without her concealing veil, she was hilariously insane. As the play-progressed, I was reminded of Lars Von Trier's Dogville, in which the filmmaker set a story of abuse and revenge on a grid so stylized and unreal (more like a theatre than a film set, actually) that it should have upstaged the telling. Part of Dogville's brilliance is that it didn't, but instead became integral to the film's power. Terrible Things shares.that stylistic courage (as well as a predilection for propulsive strings in the sound design) and boasts some fabulous scenic writing. If there's any justice in the theatre world, both director Craig Hall and this razor-sharp ensemble will be pelted with awards. THE PLUGHOLE Happy Birthday Blue Velvet. Twenty years after molesting the sensibilities of mainstream movie-goers, David Lynch's breakthrough film gets a new print and an anniversary run at Vancity Theatre. Watching a DVD on a 12-inch laptop wasn't going to be anything more than a pleasant revisit, but damn—this thing is way harsher and more fucked than I remember it. Dennis Hopper's performance is giving me nightmares, and Isabella Rossellini comes across so fantasticallly bruised that it's almost obscene. Lynch's palette definitely changed with Velvet. The delirious expressionism of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man was replaced by the heightened realism of picket fences and backyard heart attacks. His camera often seems to have burst in on a Diane Arbus photo and stared at it until it squirmed. As Hopper puts it, "David does American Surrealism." It was an aesthetic that would continue into the more television compatible Twin Peaks, but for untamed Lynch, Blue Velvet is mandatory viewing. Six years earlier, Dennis Hopper was in Vancouver directing and starring in his own vision of small-town agony. Out of the Blue is a left-field curiosity from 1980 which, thanks to The Terminal City Film Festival, screened here a few years ago. It!s strong, uncompromising stuff, yet has an earnestness that one has to titter at now and again. Linda Manz gives a bulldozer of a performance as Hopper's doomed, punk rocker daughter. The remarkable thing is that this film was made back in 1980...in Vancouver. Blue Velvet plays the Vancity Theatre June 9-15. Call 604-683-3456 or visit www.vifc.org for times. Outof the Blue screens at 9:45 on June 12 & 13. ■aM I^fr ill! IlltlW^I 11^^ jlllillllW^MI IM^^'1"^ /^llVldl/lO ACDPDAMT |s^in«ma food for your soul, and is your soul ^ 11 \| [21 y IQ _f\0 ■I It A\ IM hungry? Cinema Aspirant offers glimpses of gems to be rescued from the wreckage of your local video store& Allan Maclnnis Vancouver Plays Itself: The Films of Bruce Sweeney Movie lovers, are you sick of seeing Vancouver made to stand in for some more important (read: American) city in film after film? Did it irk you that we were supposed to be grateful when, after four years of transforming Vancouver into every American city imaginable, The X-Files finally threw us a crumb and let one small sequence be set here? Does it piss you off that we can no longer shop in the Granville Book Company—one of the biggest severed limbs in the city—but can see it on film, in White Noise, its specificities erased and its location switched to Chicago? When Arnold Schwarzenegger's truck jumps some of Arthur Erickson's architecture during the SFU chase scene in The Sixth Day, do you guffaw in contempt? Do you feel a mild resentment when you find a notice on the door of your building telling you that a big Hollywood production will be presently taking over your block, whether you like it or not? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, I'd like to suggest a remedy, in the form of the films of Bruce Sweeney. The Vancouver-based filmmaker is now at work on bis fourth feature, American Venus, which began shooting with Brightlight Pictures on April 25th; like his previous three films, it will be proudly, explicitly local. Says Sweeney, "It's*shot in Vancouver and Vancouver stands for Vancouver. We have a history in BC and in Canada of selling ourselves short and selling ourselves out—a lot of filmmakers get this notion in their head that they'll shoot their film in Vancouver, set it in Seattle, and sell it to the States. It's a bankrupt bullshit idea and I want no part of it." Sweeney is committed to "rooting" his films here even when he doesn't have to. When you see SFU in Dirty (1998), there is really no need for Sweeney to identify it by name, and he admits that doing so in fact could limit its saleabflity, scaring people by being "too local"—but he does it anyhow. When he wants his characters to have an argument about architecture in his very well-received 2001 feature, Last Wedding, they don't talk about some safely universal abstractions; they discuss gentrification and the development of Expo lands, and to hell with you if you don't recognize the place names. It's a gutsy move, and a moving one, for a Vancouverite; if Sweeney is counting on people like me liking him for the gesture, it works. It's not just a matter of place names though. Consider the characters in Dirty. Everyone in it is recognizable as belonging here; they feel like people you know, even if you'd rather you didn't. There's a girl sunk in student loan debt (Nancy Sivak), hiding in her basement suite, comforting herself by binging on junk food; an unfortunate out-of-towner (Benjamin Ratner) who can't seem to break the ice with anyone and is boiling over with rage at his constant humiliation; a snobbish university student (Tom Scholte) obsessed with the dominatrix who used to treat him like the wretch he is; and the aging dominatrix herself (Babz Chula), who deals pot out of her kitchen and is grappling with mother issues. The film is spiritually akin to Todd Solondz' Happiness, but is at least a little bit warmer and fonder of its varied desperate characters than that film; it can't help it, because they're us. If all that's not enough to sell you on seeing Dirty, the film also features what is hands-down my favourite depiction of cunnilingus on film, non-pornographic or otherwise. It's not...exactly...sexy; it's cunnilingus as an explosion of frustration and spiritual starvation, more or less. Even that somehow reminds me of life in Vancouver. . Alongside Solondz, Sweeney lists Cassavetes and Fassbinder as favourites, as. well as one of our other proudly local filmmakers, Nathaniel Geary, director of On the Corner. ■"I think he's a very smart filmmaker and is making it specific. I W1 don't know anyone else who is setting films in East Vancouver sRF like that." I'm told that Dirty will be screening in August at the ■Vancity Theatre, as part of a series of Telefilm Canada award § winners; it's a must-see, and I highly urge your attendance. ■As an early appetizer, I'll be playing Sweeney's seldom-seen ^™ first feature, Live Bait (1995) at Blim (http://www.blim.ca/) on June 16*. Live Bait stars Scholte as an intelligent but sexually inexperienced young man, alienated from his family, who gets involved with an older woman. It's rilled with wry, Sweeney-esque humour and incisive observation. Both Sweeney and Scholte have both been invited to attend the screening. Sweeney says his new film is "about mother/daughter conflict, figure skating, and gun addiction, as a metaphor for addiction in general." It's set in Vancouver and in Spokane, Washington, and the difference between American and Canadian culture—particularly when it comes to guns—is one of its themes. It should wrap up production around Christmas; expect it to pop up at a festival in 2007—and expect to see Vancouver playing Vancouver, without apologies. t^ m -J o_ 11. *i!ia _ ism _\»: by Admiral McGruff The time machine dial is set to' wtf' and we hang on for dear life as we go back to September 1989. This issue introduced the 11.25" x 13" format you hold in your hands today. The switch to this 'tabloid' size would draw howls of 'sell-out' and 'what the fuck' complaints to - the then-thriving 'Dear Airhead' page of letters to the editor; there was no email in 1989 (this is important). Previously, Discorder was smaller and stapled, much like the Only magazine is today. This change brought comparisons to the Georgia Straight, which was of course, and still is, a 'sellout'. tf&d&tiii Our editor was Kevin Smith, who I can only assume was about to drop out of Vancouver Film School and go shoot Clerks. It's quite possible that there are other non-movie making Kevin Smiths in the world, but a magazine can dream can't it? So, I already mentioned the lack of email, but the wholesale lack of an internet at all in 1989 was something nobody ever talked about, or so it seems. This issue opened with a listing of, get this, 'fanzines!' Apparently, without Myspace, Livejournal and their ilk, people would get together in their basements and publish mini magazines about their lives and their favourite things, and then diligently check their P.O. boxes (like inboxes, but you had to go down the street to get it) to see if they'd gotten any friend requests lething. Mail (this pains me every time I think about it) took d; to arriver and moreover cost money to send. The Canadian government had a near monopoly on the delivery of mail, and like all monopolists charged people out the asshole to deliver it (imagine if you had to pay 35 cents every time you wanted to send mail!?). These 'fanzines' also cost money because their production costs were non-zero per copy. All in all it seems like a terrible time to-have been alive, much less trying to learn about the world around you. And Discorder was a major source of underground information for Vancouver's media starved and monopolistically marginalized masses; imagine it. And marginalized information indeed we served up! Re/Search, the publishers of the Industrial Culture Handbook, had just published Modern Primitives, which told weird tales of people with piercings and tattoos, but more of the facial tattoos and hanging-from-hooks-on- the-ceiling style of piercing; not the oh so cute belly button jewel. Judy Lahti had attended the book launch and adamantly restated that no one should attempt any of the body modification procedures that, in 1989, no one had even really thought of before. This particular issue of Discorder magazine also features, and this is really awesome, An Introduction to Chaos Theory, by Mike Grigg and Dave Hauck. A beautifully illustrated two-page spread details how rejection of non-Euclidian geometry can explain so much more of the world. "A branch of non-linear mathematics using fractal dimensions is uncannily able to analyse and explain many naturalphenomena that are irregularly shaped and have no apparently ordered or quantifiable structure." So, we're sitting right there on the cusp of the '90's, eager for information and expecting radical transformations, and the means of production are ripe to be seized. In an article entitled "Toilet Paper Celluloid: Comics as Alternative Media", Don Lebel describes the comic scene as a tangle of publishers with complicated ownerships, but then expounds upon the amazing possibilities of small-Xerox press. Wherein any comic creator with the will can create a small press, distribute their underground comics through the mail and be independent. With the rise of indie publishing, the comic world was ripe for a shakedown. "So hang ten boy wonder, because it's a brave new world..." The optimism, the DIY punkness, the idea that the world was about to meet its match. 1989, my friends, fucking ruled. £k „Ktfjsii_v 6 June 2006 ■TEXTUALLY ACTIVE! Anybody's Bike Book, The Bike Bag Book, Fix Your Bicycle, Bicycle! A Repair & Maintenance Manifesto, Bicycle: The History, True Loves, Beg The Question, and Ripple Bike Manuals by Andy Hudson I am a bike repair novice—the black marker outlines on my tool' board are just two weeks dry. Nonetheless, with help from the patient * "people at Bike Works and OCB, I reefed proudly into a seized bottom ^.bracket, free-packed a headset, and wrangled out shorn cotter pins. My, fifty dollar, ten-speed Gitane rides at least as smoothly now as it did inj 1972. To stock our home repair crib, 'I wanted to find bike books of the Osame vintage. I asked a Bike Works mechanic, alias Hoopdriver, for,, advice ("Hoopdriver" is the name of the hero in H.G. Wells' cycling5; ^romance of 1899, The Wheels of Chance). He writes the "Reluctant j Mechanic" column for Momentum, the free BC magazine for 'self- propelled people,' and is wise to what makes a bike book reliable. Before^ handily tightening up my loose fork, he came up witha shortlist: Anybody's Bike Book by Santa Cruz cycling whiz Tom Cuthbertson' is an old favourite, and easy to find used or at the library. It sold millions of copies during the 1970s craze for European-style ten speeds. Also*, handy is The Bike Bag Book, a pocket manual for emergency roadside i repairs. Both books feature Cuthbertson's entertaining, down-to- eartJi style and hand-drawn illustrations by Rick Morrall. The latest ^edition was printed in 1990. Some might find they want more precise graphics, but for the price this book is a good starter. Fi* Your Bicycle, from Clymer Press, is more textbook style,* with plenty of photos and beautiful, exploded schematics of bike **3|: components. Besides this manual, Clymer Press is an exclusive §»Mishfr of "automobile" and "motorcycle" guides. It may please you to see the gear ratio tables of a bicycle given equal graphical treatment. Thiemex of the 1970s edition, Hoopdriver points out, features a go- lucky cyclist in hot pants and a rad, racing-stripe sweater. Bicycle! A Repair & Maintenance Manifesto, printed last year, is geared toward couriers, cycling punks, and other radicals. My copy is still in the mail, but the Soviet red cover looks pretty serious. This is Sam Tracy's follow up to How to Rock and Roll, which features smokes and beers in its illustrations. Sam Tracy is an ex-courier, now a mechanic, and for all the cyclist ideology, says Hoopdriver, these are reliable manua|^40QS^J Sheldon Brown's Homepage (sheldonbrown.com) is a mid-nineties HTML glory. I've met two mechanics who shamelessly admit to having a photo of Sheldon framed at home. With repair tips and riding advice, plus a handy glossary of terms and a list of manufacturers, Sheldon's site is as handy for beginners as it is for the hardcore. Want to try a fixed-gear conversion? Rebuild a mythic Peugot PX-10? Colour code your wrench sets? Sheldon's in your corner—particularly if you go for the classics. rf-V$ HP %m >$my\__~ Bicycle: The History by David V. Herlihy is not a repair book, but an elegant, engaging chronicle of bicycle history. You can take out the library copy, once I'm finished ogling. The photos and drawings collected here are gorgeous, unique beyond the standard crop of art nouveau posters and museum pieces. Most bicycle histories, says Hoopdriver, have coffee-table looks but get the story wrong. Published by Yale University Press, Herlihy matches pictorial appeal with an intelligent, socially-conscious history. When an obscure Parisian blacksmith first advertised "pedal velocipedes" in 1867, someone wrote in the New York Times, "Is it not absurd, is it not a disgrace to the inventive age we live in, to see a man obliged to employ, in order to get through the street, a great vehicle, as large almost as a house? So let us have the velocipedes." Indeed, says I, every time I pass a Hummer. Inkstuds by Robin McConnell June brings sun, fun, and summer love—the hot, concise romances which can be tidily fit inside a graphic novel. Whether budding, unrequited, or debauched, love inspires a lot of storytelling, even in the comics world. Among my favourite comic heart-throbs are a pair of Canadian gems and a series by a New York master of sequential art. True Loves is a by-product of Jason Turner and Manien Botma— the story of a young, hip vintage clothing store owner who is struggling to manage the two men in her life. One of her relationships is stalling while a fresh one grows optimistic and understanding. Jason's artwork blends attractive, simple lines with a flare for drawing physical gestures between couples. True Loves is also the most Vancouver-steeped graphic novel around, though Steve Rolston's Pounded comes a close second. Originally a web comic, True Loves is now printed by a local publisher, Reliable Press. Only issue one is out so far, but check out Jason's other ventures at http://www.jasonturnerproject.com. I highly recommend Battlism Royal, his comics duel between Impressionists who trade brushes for fists. flf||MHJ§St. Bob Fingerman's highly acclaimed series Minimum Wage has been collected in a must-have anthology. Beg the Question is the story of Sylvia and^ittfp^pH^iw'Eork fiances. Rob holds true to many geek- boy stereotypes: he is an avid collector of zombie movies, pornography, and toys. His ftiends share an-equal indifference to social graces. On the other hand, Rob's love life is very intense, and intertwined with his development as an artist. Rob mirrors»|§|german's own career, working his way through nasty porn rags and Cracked magazine while maintaining a semblance of purity in his own creations (which include a collaboration with Lydia Lunch). Rob's saga rings tirueSIb his time, and Bob Fingerman relates his pre-marital trials with rare humour. Without falling into cultural stereotypes, Fingerman finds laughs in the family gatherings where Jewish Rob is introduced to Sylvia's fully Italian family. Fingerman's talent lies in his ability to detail believable characters in ordinary life. This anthology was a long time coming, but Fantagraphics has gone over the top. Beg the Question is high on my best of 2005, and it could be your favourite summer read. In his latest and greatest, Ottawa-born mastermind Dave Cooper tells the story of a lonely artist who faces his own deep-seeded obsessions. Ripple is one of the most disturbing comics to which I've been exposed, but Dave Cooper can find beauty in disturbing places. While True Loves andBe_ the Question take place in the everyday, Ripple transports the reader into the psyche of an artist who stands shocked before a sense-shattering wreck of unrequited love. The artist is Martin, who is tantalized by the ugliness of his anti-model, Tina. Watching their relationship is like driving by a car crash. Wrong as it feels, you can't help rubber-necking. Tina rejects Martin emotionally, but toys, with his sexual proclivities. Martin is only too eager to play along. The many awards for Dave Cooper's short-lived series Weasel speak to his originality. Ripple seems to reflect his transition from comic artist to oil painter. Despite its perversity, the love and loathing shown in Ripple is well worth digesting. For more of Dave Cooper's fine work, see http://www.davegraphics.com. On the whole, comics are often classed primarily as fantasy, but True Loves, Ripple and Beg the Question show what realism comics are capable of. For more examples, listen to Inkstuds, every Thursday at 2:00 PM on CITR. Interviews with some of the artists mentioned here are available at http://www.crowncon_nission.co_i/inkstuds. ve always lovedplaying music in Victoria, especially with local gems like Chet, Run Chico Run and Away, R'io! Most recently, my travels through our fair capital gave me the good fortune of befriending the wonderful four-piece pop sensations Shapes and Sizes. Now I can play with them every day if I want to, since Nate, Caila, Rory and John have all moved out of Eden , to Vancouver, to suffer like the rest of us. They just completed their first tour, and have recently been signed to Sufjan Stevens' Asthmatic Kitty label. I talked to Nate and Caila at their home in the sweetest location, right off Commercial Drive. 8 June 2006 Can I borrow your Nord Lead? I'm doing some recording and mine is totally messed up. Nate: Of course. Thanks, man. How was the tour? Caila: It was good. It was really long, but... a. long tour for your What was the idea behind dc first time? - Caila: It was Nate's idea and he wanted to do three months, but the booking agent talked us down to two. I just wanted to go for it. Why did you think three months was going to be OK? Nate: People in the band were taking time off school, and we had to make it worth everyone's while. To make it a tour and not just go for a couple of weeks. What were your favourite towns? Caila: All your typical ones, like New York and Portland and Chicago. I found that Portland is a tough place to play. And that Portland and Seattle are such sucky towns... Caila: Yeah, they suck. Well, they don't, but aur show in Portland was probably the worst show on the tour. Nate: The whole West Coast was really hard. You have to be an established band for people to come to your shows down there. The ■moment we got off ihe West Coast, we played in Phoenix at The Trunk Space and it was fantastic. Immediately after that we had great shows all through Texas and all up the Midwest. You have all moved to Vancouver. How did you get everybody on the same page with that? Nate: I guess we're all pretty committed to the band. All of us wanted a change of scene and a move to a bigger city. I once asked the question, "Would you ever consider moving to Vancouver?" to Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, and he said he would move here if he wanted to be miserable. Caila: Maybe Carey lived in bigger cities before. I've lived in Victoria all my life, so I guess I don't know any better. Nate: 1 think also, with being on tour, you get a taste of bigger cities. Nothing against Victoria—we love it there. Yeah, it seems that every town that you go to, there's a musical community of like-minded bands trying to help each other out. victoria, i think, is one of the better4ones. i was just reading about Aaargh! Recqrds [see the April Discorder for more on Victoria's musical Utopia-ed.]. All these bands have been playing together for years NOW, like Chet and Run Chico Run. Was it too small a city for you guys? Nate: More as a city than a music community. Caila: For its size, it's the best in my opinion. Asthmatic Kitty—congratulations on getting signed. The first time I heard about it was at Richard's on Richards WHEN YOU WENT TO MEET SUFJAN STEVENS. Caila: When we first met the label, we never talked with him personally. We talked to Michael Kaufmann, one of the three, I guess, leaders of Asthmatic Kitty. Sufjan wasn't originally involved with the decision to be interested in us. He only listened to MP3s on our website. Nate: I could see him being really busy, with Illinois just coming out. I think that when he met us, maybe he felt that we were a pressure that his label was trying to force upon him. But halfway through our tour, we got a nice email from Sufjan. He told us he had been listening to our album and he liked it quite a bit. He was excited about coming to see our show in New York. Caila: We met Michael Kaufmann in Indianapolis, and he was so great. We weren't getting our hopes up, though. It was really nice to get the email from Sufjan. O You guys had breakfast .with Sufjan in New York. How. was that? How does he like his eg&s? Caila: Poached. Really? What a nerd. Caila: I had mine, poached too, Chris. Girls can have them poached. So are the papers signed? What does this mean? \ Nate: Well, that breakfast with Sufjan was really great. He was a really nice guy. And also... we're not Christian, but meeting the Asthmatic Kitty folks... they are generally Christian, but they were really like... you can talk about things I wouldn't think you can talk about with Christians. Sufjan was in the process of reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, ft was great to get to know that about him. Caila: Although you do kind of get that from his records. But what does it mean? Are you going to get to tour with him? Nate: No. He's not going on tour for a while. I KEEP BUGGING YOU ABOUT THIS, BUT YOU GUYS PLAYED IN FRONT OF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ONCE. I THINK THAT IS THE BRAVEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN A BAND DO. WHO CAN BE HARSHER CRITICS THAN LITTLE KIDS? WAS IT AN OKAY EXPERIENCE? I'VE HEARD GOOD AND BAD THINGS COME FROM IT. I HEARD THEY CALLED YOU "HOBOS". Caila: We thought they were saying "homos", and we thought, "yeah whatever." Rory had a hole in his sweater...There were a few guys that said "Hey, I can go get my guitar from my locker and play with you guys." ,_ with your music. Would you do But you are touching pi IT AGAIN? [Both shake their heads.] IF I HAD A BAND THAT PLAYED A SCHOOL, WOULD YOU BE IN IT? Caila: Sure: I'd let you do all the talking, and I would wear a I over my head. , V ^ ^ n C/5 "—i £> H £ P ffi -el > *< *w s ™ o 'M ffi to ffi> ;_s-< o o a- 5^ w ___ ^ O W 2 > BR M > p-j Eg ffi M oo 00 ta S g > %&% m z _rt 3 W [igpfi Mnmmi BUY TICKETS AT Jk hob^ca^ PURCHASE TICKETS §08138 AT hob.ca OR ticketmaster.ca 604-280-4444 10 June 2006 mix we § ANCOUGAR BECCA 1. TheShaggs | My Pal Foot Foot _.»'^B^rica | The Last Unicorn 3. Ike & Tina Turner | Nutbush City Limits ' 4. Eddie Murphy | Boogie in Your Butt 5. TheSpits | Let Us Play Your Party Enough said. CC 1. Tom Petty | Refugee If I ever do karaoke it's gonna be this song. 2. Faces | Sweet Lady Mary Rod Stewart, man. One of the best rock n' roll voices ever. Also wicked organ playing. I. Candi Staton | The Best Thing You Ever Had When you're feeling heartbroken, this is all you need. A. Lee Hazlevvood | Your Thunder and Your Lightning He's like the Steve McQueen of country music. 5. William Shatner | Mr. Tambourine Man Anyone who hasn't heard this is totally missing out. Totally. EDEN 1. Kelly Clarkson | Since V Been Gone That guy Max Martin sure knows how to write a good song. What's not to love about this song? I love Kelly Clarkson. What's not to love about Kelly Clarkson? 2. Lucinda Williams | These Three Days This is the only lady in the world I would go gay ^-Seriously. This song is so beautiful and sad. I remember I saw Lucinda live .arifeL Commodore aneFwas really drunk and decided I would go backstage and convince her to go gay with me and then we would rim off together. Turns out I couldn't get through the bouncers. - 3. GBV | Kicker of Elves ''Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo kicker of elves." Bee Thousand. So irreverent. -W6$. come they are so funny? I want to be that funny. I want to make the world laugh. 4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs | Turn Into One of those epic songs. I wondered why I liked it S*-3__ f__]Sr'"1___ I F^_L t_«_„' •* ^____B____i ■learned the chord progression on the guitar and realized it has a chord in it. That's why I love it so much. I like her nasally, whiny, perfect voice too. 3. Karate | Diazapam This song fucking rocks. There were about four years of my life where I listened to Karate every single day. I had this old beat up Rabbit Volkswagen, and I made tapes of all my Karate records, and I would just blast them while putt-putting around Santa Cruz County. My old car could barely make it up bills, but shit did I ever belt out a lot of Karate songs in it. Karate is good. I saw them live once. Geoff Farina was not friendly. That's probably a good thing, as I would have tried to date him if he had been. MEGAN 1. Wreckless Eric | Whole Wide World Ragged and approximate vocals, layers of tambourine, and those I "glorious" (as the great Jesse Gander would say) chord progressions that make for an epic but quirky pop song. I can relate to this one. 2. Neil Young | Barstool Blues . My favourite track from my favourite Neil Young album, who is my favourite singer/song writer...so I guess this is just my favourite song. I get all misty every time I hear it. 3. Blue Cheer | Summertime Blues We were going to pick five songs each, but the iffy weather all weekhas forced me to squeeze this one in as my sixth choice. More sun, please. 4. The Time Flys | Dirt (My Best Friend) Because bathing is for pussiest 5. TheDelmonas | CC Rider Call it sacrilege or whatever, but I think The Delmonas' (or would that be Billy Childish's?) interpretation of this song is the best one. They're backed by The Milkshakes! It's still not as cool as our very own CC though. 6. Pleasure Seekers | What a Way to Die The Pleasure Seekers was the Quatro sisters' garage band in the late '60s, before Suzi went solo and appeared as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days. Arlene Quatro, the keyboard player, is Sherilyn Fenn's (of Twin Peaks fame) mom. This song is about choosing beer over boys and pretty much nails it. Of;, *. #* J^ »■DISCORDER ■NFEDS NEIGHBOUR- PHOOD"! DISTRO HELP! Get on yr bikes (or feet) and help us improve and expand our distribution one neighborhood at a time. Contest! Be the first to answer the following question correctly and win! How many operations must a skill testing question legally contain to be considered skin testing? email discorder.advertising@gmail.com with yr answers. * | tjS*_?Y~ BEN LEE I_E_Et it fr*^fc % r Awake Is The New Sleep f OV ^.-'' **'* >^ The eclectic album i^^__£4lS^^^- . fr°m acc'aimec' Hidfe |WJc i\n»'« singer-songwriter Ben Lee. Features the fk I {*"" tO t**j infectious single "Catch [If 1** I * p My ^^JHL 3 KINNIE STARR <"«^i^M^ Anything ^J^P81 Kinnie Starr returns wtth [O 00'; - - a brand new album E;? showcasing her eclectic/. of hip hop, rock, folk, R&B, electronics^ and anything else in between! IN CONCERT June 27 The Commodore (with Buck 65) i|||||fc J Prizes Autographed KINNIE STARR 'Anything' CD + T-shirt Autographed BEN LEE Awake Is The New Sleep' CD Discorder 11 1 o 1 The not^so-secret origin of Bishop Allen reads: Just^^^fvo^h/guita^^^Christian Rudder (guitar) first met whma^mdinc^Mlege m&^bridge, Massachusetts. When not busif'^wk^meiMtW^s, whey lent their burgeoning musical chops pmxband TMPjg^fpfflcers. The pair also shared an interest BEMJl^™B*©rciS the rooftop of their apartment at 66 Bisho%r_Wm Drive. After graduation, they eventually relocated to Brooklyn, renamed their project, home recorded an album entitled Charm School and self released the disc in 2003. | by Curtis Woloschuk p In short order, they found themselves NPR darlings, soundtrack contributors and recipients of a four-star review in Rolling Stone. The venerable music publication observed: "If Modest Mouse spent a year in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit, they might emerge sounding like the delightful Brooklyn quartet Bishop Allen." That quip provided an undeniably accurate assessment. Indie pop gems such as "Empire City," "Things Are What You Make of Them" and "Little Black Ache" embodied the band's endearing knack for off-kilter, melodies and clever lyrical turns. Along with angular Isaac Brock, the frenetic, unbalanced appeal of The Pixies was also an obvious influence. Despite attaining certain measures of "success," Bishop Allen experienced consistent difficulty in delivering Charm School into the hands of potential listeners. "Getting records into record stores is a hassle," reflects Rice. "You have to convince a lot of people on the inside that people on the outside will show up to buy what you're selling. Then you have to stay on top of everyone in every link of the chain." With a rhythm section of Jack Delamitraux and Christian Owens added to the fold, Bishop Allen searched for a record label that might offer them some manner of support system. "The process is frustrating," Rice chagrins "You wait and wait to hear from people who may never get back to you. There's a lot of 'touching base' and a few meetings. There's plenty of time to get work done." And so the band set about recording their follow-up album: Clementines. "We worked on it for a year and a-half," recalls the charismatic vocalist. "We went into a studio to record drums; hacked away in our rehearsal space on other instruments; went into another studio for big guitars and recorded vocals for a week in Boston." However, with no label deal imminent, studio costs spiralling and the recording process growing interminable, acute dissatisfaction set in. "We were tired of being in between releases," says Rice. "We were getting better and working harder to find new songs but no one outside the four walls of our studio was any the wiser." Late last year, someone proposed a fanciful, nigh-ridiculous idea: every month in 2006, Bishop Allen should self-record and release a four-song EP. A few minutes of debate culminated in a decision to tackle the daunting task. "The scheme had an undeniably compelling logic to it," offers Rice. "We got excited talking about it and it sounded so good and made so much sense that our exeitement quickly overwhelmed our doubt." Those early uncertainties centered on the band's ability to write, record and release a staggering forty-eight songs in a timely manner. However, such concerns ultimately became a source of inspiration for Rice and Rudder. "The desire to push ourselves creatively was our entire motivation," states the vocalist. "We wanted to force ourselves to get better and to work harder. We wanted to live on tight deadlines like newspaper reporters and to hone our songwriting with the strictest discipline." Moving the uncompleted Clementines tracks to the backburner, Bishop Allen began anew with a fresh batch of songs. "We usually start with a fragment—chords, a beat, a vocal melody, a couplet— and build outwards, adding pieces as we go," says Rice of the creative process he shares with Rudder. "Corazon" was the ideal opening track for both the January disc and a sprawling, year-long undertaking. "It's about how we found a discarded piano on the street and hauled it back to the space," Rice discloses. "I started learning to play and new ideas appeared in droves. It was like the piano was teaching me the songs." "In a lot of songs that I like, you can hear a band learning," he continues. "We're still trying new things and hopefully that makes for an interesting listen." In addition to piano, Bishop Allen has also begun incorporating strings, saxophones, flutes, Wurlitzer and glockenspiel. "We're also striving to write some longer songs, songs in different time signatures and songs with key changes. We're not doing anything that real musicians don't do all the time. But, because so much of it is new to us and because we're basically untrained, it's thrilling to us. I hope that thrill comes across." Indeed, charting the band's heady development on a monthly basis has proven absolutely enthralling. Despite its abundant appeal. Charm School offered little evidence that Bishop Allen was capable of songs with the slowly unfolding eerie beauty of "Flight 180" (April) or "The Monitor" (March). Meanwhile, February boasts four infectious-to-the-point-of-pandemic pop songs. In addition to more adventurous and accomplished musicianship, the EP seriefffinds Rice rounding into a top flight lyricist. His detailed and evocative storytelling conjures the kind of contemporary yarns The Decemberists' Colin Meloy might spin if he ever shed his fixation with all things Victorian. "Working constantly on new songs has forced me to think more about what I find interesting," confesses the songwriter, who claims to be a more avid consumer of literature and film than music. Regarding his narrative-heavy, character-centric songcraft, he suggests, "I like it when I know where words are coming from, when I have an idea of who is singing, where they're standing and how they connect to the world. I try to imagine myself somewhere—walking around Dealey Plaza after losing someone close ("The Bullet & Big D"), on a plane flying into New York City at the tail end of a long trip ("Flight 180"), driving down the Palisades with a newfound crush ("Queen of the Rummage Sale")—and then pick up on the details that surround me." At present, Rice is surrounded by "details" such as boxes of CDs and shipping manifests. Of his band's cottage industry, he submits, "It's a challenge that rests entirely on our ability to organize and accomplish thousands of tiny tasks every month. Logistical problems are constant: broken CDs; CDs that get lost or fall out in the mail; lines at the post office. April was misprinted, so we had to send it back." Such minor setbacks have failed to discourage the band. "While we didn't see these specific things coming, we weren't surprised. We're tackling them one by one and getting better at all the back end stuff every day." Despite the fact that they've another seven months of recordings to attend to, a reinvigorated Bishop Allen are about to see their workload grow all the heavier. Rudder and Rice have decided to revisit their long-delayed sophomore album and complete it in conjunction with the remaining EPs. "If we finish the EPs and we still haven't found someone to put out Clementines, we'll do it ourselves," declares Rice confidently. "Every month, it becomes clearer that we can manage on our own." The January-May EPs are available exclusively through www.bishopallen. 12 JUNE2006 I ?^=a "Maybe we can meet in ihe middle and agree that we're both stupid and pretentious99 by David Ravensbergen | Illustration by lucassoi.ca If you had the good fortune of wandering into San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the morning between November 7th and 23rd, 2003, chances are you now own an exclusive, personalized Matmos album. Over an epic 96 hours, sample- wielders Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt willingly confined themselves and their collection of idiosyncratic gear in an "art prison," interviewing visitors and composing audio portraits about their lives. When each piece was completed, the lucky subject was handed a burned CD and turned loose, left to decipher some resemblance between the odd collection of glitchy samples and her own life. If you're getting images of blank white paintings and insufferable conceptual artists, don't be misled—Matmos' music is more palatable than you might think. The duo first met during Daniel's stint as a go-go dancer in a fish-head jockstrap at San Francisco's Club Uranus, where he.was trying to earn money to pay for college. From these sordid beginnings they developed a mutual love for manipulating unusual samples, composing their first self- titled album in 1998 using sounds ranging from amplified crayfish nerve tissue to shorn human hair. Since then, they have found a home on Matador Records and released some stunningly esoteric albums, such as 2001's occasionally nauseating, Iiposuction-themed A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure. I asked Schmidt to describe the sampling concepts on their latest CD The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast, a collection of ten diverse biographical portraits inspired by their museum installation. "We're kind of bonk-you-over-the-head literal with this stuff. I guess you could describe that as conceptually rigorous, or you could describe it as stupidly literal," he explains. The album—named for a line from Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations—focuses on ten literary and historical figures, using recordings of objects and actions related to their lives to compose audio biographies. "Wittgenstein talks about roses and teeth in this paragraph, so we record: roses and teeth!" Schmidt jokes. "Kind of stupid, but like a lot of art stuff, if you describe it one way, it's completely ridiculous, and if you describe it in another way it sounds high flown and pretentious." After a brief pause, Daniel suggests, "Maybe we can meet in the middle and agree that we're both stupid and pretentious," For all the self-deprecation, Daniel has a point; as a PhD in medieval literature and a driving force behind both Matmos and the new wave sleaze of the Soft Pink Truth, categorization does not come easy. Their unclassifiable sound hovers near the nebulous realm of intelligent dance music or IDM, and is further complicated by the pair's involvement in the academic world. Intrigued by Daniel's dissertation on melancholia in literature, I inquired about the relationship between their musical and scholastic pursuits. "The actual process of making this music is one in which I get lost in the process, I get lost in the sounds. I'm not hashing something out on an intellectual level and then proving it," explains Daniel. V* "O '■' Schmidt, an instructor at the San Francisco Art Institute, reacts in horror to the label of academic, but admits that the scholarly life influences how he conducts himself in interviews. "The curious, unforeseen part of making records and having people actually buy them and sort of being successful is that you journalist people then call us out on the carpet, and ask questions like, 'well, why did you do this?'" Such questions are inevitable for a band that clearly invests so much intellect in their recordings, no matter how IAS lUS DIARY much they insist that they're simply "sitting in their living room the Naked Lunch creator. Deciding who to include was a difficult making funny songs." process, guided by the desire to construct a respectable track list Perhaps in response to my persistent badgering, Drew explains rather than an undergraduate syllabus. After recording four of the tracks, a pattern began to unfold; sensing the emergence of a . workable concept, Schmidt thought "ah, good—let's do them all queer." While their choice "delimited the entire world of the living and the dead," it still allowed for a great deal of stylistic variation; the surf rock of "Solo Buttons for Joe Meeks" follows a jilting laptop barrage on "Germs Burn for Darby Crash", and somehow it all works. While the title honours go to Wittgenstein, the nearly 14-minute tribute to William Burroughs provides the album's centrepiece. A notorious paranoiac, Burroughs saw language as an infectious virus from outer space, one which he tried to escape through fragmented writing strategies, copious drug use and sex with young Moroccan boys. He pioneered the famed cut-up technique with Brion Gysin during the creation of Naked Lunch in an effort to escape the control mechanisms implicit in language. Drew Daniel discovered Burroughs when he stumbled across a copy of The Soft Machine at age 16; hallucinatory and lewd, the novel was Daniel's first encounter with descriptions of gay sex. "My own experience of representations of queer sexuality was by way of the cut-up, which maybe says something about why I'm so...perverted," he laughs. In addition to challenging delicate American standards of decency with his novels, Burroughs worked as a recording artist, collaborating with musicians like Kurt Cobain. During / one of his more unhinged periods, Burroughs conducted an audio campaign against The Moka Bar in London, making field recordings outside the cafe and later playing them back on site. The technique allegedly created a disturbance in the fabric of reality, ultimately forcing The Moka Bar to close. During his years as an undergraduate at Berkeley, Daniel tried to emulate Burroughs' success. "I went to Cafe Milano with a jambox and I recorded ambience, and then I walked down Telegraph Avenue playing Milano for the people on Telegraph," he reminisces. "It was really fun to do. It was interesting because it started to confuse me where the sound was coming from, and what was now and what was then, but it didn't destroy Cafe Milano or Telegraph—they're both going strong today." Though the experiment failed, Daniel remains fascinated by the possibilities of recontextualizing the sounds of everyday life. In light of the improvements to synthesizer technology in recent decades, Matmos' commitment to using recordings of real life may seem masochistic; the manure sounds on Rose's opening track could have been approximated by a computer, 'wtth far less bother. "I think at home you could fake some of the textures, but the rhythms of everyday life, the specific way that a shovel full of marijuana—uh, manure..-." Daniel struggles to regain his composure as Schmidt cracks up about the Freudian slip. "The specific way that a shovel full of manure strikes a pile of roses is going to have a particular trailing effect in the rhythm that I can't fake. The real world gives you things that you can't come up with on your own." mmowmmwom . ^_B0dmmFhuiiwmR W SCORE FNE FLICKS FOR HOT mysMdjmsTicsuRQWM, HOUSEFILMS'kWKEUCTOR/ mm mucni$EL nam to DIRECTOR CBS yARD, WO BREAK W_ NOSE WRING yANTS "LIGHT OiCHESTMION" RHINOPLASTY, ivl MITE TO COMPmm HIS PRLNCFMBERT. 0URSEMS ALONG TO RECORD II *i£lP I'M STILL ATM. Off job m 7M mimco.m INSTITUTE, MS fflfbf CONTllHl ymOA/MFhl) ATBERKELEI AT NIGHT k£ tMTCH RERUNS OF'WESHA:' 4@_& BJORK CAILS, y[ JOIN HER BAND ON. yORLD TOUR, k/t TR TO RECORD KARL MERTh LEkWMLOm yiTH A DICTAPHONE IN PARIS. that he sees his involvement in music "as an escape from language." Oddly enough, Matmos take their non-linguistic approach into some heavy literary territory on their new album': "Tract for Valerie Solanas" ruminates on the author of the vitriolic SCUM Manifesto, and "Rag for William S. Burroughs" tells the psychedelic tale of Unfortunately, the upcoming Matmos tour doesn't feature a Vancouver stop, as their last visit saw them mistaking the Downtown Eastside for the set of Night of the Living Dead. Check out the sure to be schticky show in Seattle on October 21st, or fust stay at home and say MatmossomtaM frontwards and backwards, and watch as time collapses. Discorder 13 a* I-.a liaji . Pit M ® S 1 li I 111! I His illll £@8 ® J _ 1 * 5 ! ttt Jtlljl iiltafa "II s«fieaafiaes^a I 3 1 111 - =£ fi ^ _ fe B -2 " =3 J * JfJa H_i-3T5 "(tig® „u« ■_" IJ § 1JJ-8- tt Iff ftp |1522!Ji_ilf 5 . ,£,.§ fesg „-g g, LMllMtS IllflSlUli 1?J 111 11 §** !|1 II ii§s.||i_i| l~'3|ijj|f£ ill lit niil _ r§ <3 t "is "8 Q * J?<3>| 5 Id I „ silriilM P J __: J £, _ 2 &q,o J p^ s ii e_ p.2-5 1®*-!! S®_3£9 l||ll*|jllfJa IsilllIISIlii S= B ,1 5fs " 1 4 I--" 3 & <_ £ S-f I I | ^ f * iiS«tfl|i |lS|C|S|| 51P If tifilJN lfl||f III111 1 i | 1 1 fJ<a If 3 138 «e 2_*|„ |® ■sal.S'S'i.S I « III* •| I § « _ 3 S | | ■| _ £1 1 111 S ®l53 •I | £ 116 g a s I _ III II si til I Mb I _ 3 I * _ ■» "S § « 3 tmt ifiiii lif 113' "Uf *__ P «i Q ^ S S-l-l^J- Fancouver has a healthy cycling communiM that loves to talk about their rides. Playing back the many interviews I conducted with Vanomvm^yclists, I had trouble k&@j)ing up with their enthumistic vMponses, but I did manage io cg^pile a lilf i^wzi/ bicycles rule. First of all bikes are just plain good for you: good for mef good for community and good for our health. They're a mobile political statement, and they c'anprovide accessible transpdmation for people in various economic situations. Yet cyclists aren't always aXj& seriously on the road, everyis more,4$Ld more people come to rely on two wheels for transportatiori^WfemWancouver has a lot going for it in terms of cyclability—scenic bike routes, above-zero temperatures^^jm (Sundance of community bike shops—motorii^mtill have a hard time getting it through their heads that bicycles are not just toys, and bicycle commuters are not all nutty left-wingersmmi an axe to grind. MORE THAN JUST A BETTER Way to get to Work, cycling can be the gateway to a diverse and multi-layered social scene. Inspired by the global Critical Mass phenomenon, Simon Little and friends started up their own late-night ride, meeting every second Thursday to explore the streets of Vancouver after hours. Dubbing the event "Midnight Mass", Little has been spreading the word since the first ride took place on a rainy night last Novefhbek The group meets on Commercial Drive before heading out to explore some of Vancouver's lesser-known neighbourhoods, ultimately winding up in one of the city's 24-hour restaurants or coffee shops. "It's tonnes of fun...You find places in the city that you didn't know existed," Little enthuses. While numbers have been sparse during the winter months, he expects people to come <nj||_ droves as the weather improves—the latest ride having attracted more than 30 people. Critics of Midnight Mass feel that the event will encounter difficulties with the law as the ride attracts more people. According to one recent Mass participant and critic, the problem is one of "a lot of cyclists riding around, most of them without helmets, most of them drunk or stoned." Obvious safety issues aside, g_rrAjp11Nfc_fl perceived problem is simply a challenge to Vancouver's tradition of late night prudishness. fn_iwte_raccounts and experiences of Midnight Mass vary, but the best way to really know what it's like isto make it out to one yourself. For the less adventurous, you can check out footage and picl|n;eiTrom the rides so far' at http://www.midnight-mass.blogspot.com/. Despite the detractors, the event continues to gain support for Its relaxed approach, free of grand political philosophizing or the confrontational tactics that some dislike about Critical Mass. If you have yet to have a Mass experience of the Midnight or Critical variety, June is the perfect time to 16 June 2006 GET UN ycniR BIKES END RIDE induct yourself. As Bike Month, Vancouver enjoys its most sud^stful Critical Mass ride at the end of June. To fin4*OTfe«bout some of the many other cycling events happening over the course of the month, pick lip a free copy of Momentum magazine, or check out t^e PEDAL and VACC .websj&es.^ Calendar highlights include The Mountain Equipment Co-op bike-drop on June 3rd, the huge Critical Mass on the last Friday in June and the International Nude Bike Ride, an event promoted by the Work Less Party and the CiTR cycling program "Pedal Revolutionary". Events like Bike Month and improvements to the city's bike-friendly infrastructure are mainly due to the hard work of non-profit organizations. PEDAL (Pedal Energy Development Alternatives), one of the most multi-faceted cycling non-profits in town, recently opened a new depot near 3rd and Columbia. In their back alley location, manager Omar leads his staff and a dedicated group of volunteers in collecting used parts and assembling bikes to be given away through Our Community Bikes' free bikes program. PEDAL does their part to help develop a positive bike culture with the chopper bike PedalPlay splinter group, and with their new dance project, the Bicyclettes. Omar describes the Bicyclettes as "a group often or twelve women who do bicycle-themed dance routines." The troupe has done a couple of performances to date, and plan to do battle against their male counterparts at a future dance-off. Vancouver boasts three community bike shops—places where you can get your bike fixed for dirt cheap, learn how to fix your bike for even ■cheaper, and in some cases, build your own bike from used parts with instruction from the staff. These shops serve a neglected demographic of students, the working poor, binners and others who for one reason or another don't want to pay commercial shop prices. The community bike shop niche has a noticeably different feel from commercial bike shops. Places like Our Community Bikes on Main, the Bike Kitchen at UBC and Bikeworks downtown are more like workshops for people to learn about their bikes than places where you just take your bike to fix a flat. You can still pay the staff at a community bike shop to fix your bike and pick it up later, but you would only be getting the bare minimum of benefit from an incredible ;e of knowledge. Many things have changedf&pthe better in Vancouver in the last terJipars: almost all the bike routes were created and traffic calmed, Skytrain rules concerning bikes have been relaxed and buses have come in with bike racks on express routes. By 2008 all trolley buses, meaning the entire fleet, will have bike racks, further increasing the favourable hybrid of cycling and public transit. There is room for improvement though; it's still hard to bus a group of three or more cyclists to the ferry on time for a trip to the Island. Since cycling is such a great way to get around, whyjBjtt more people dflilfas a means of transportation? Posing the question to various people around the city, I received answers ranging from rainy weather and safety issues to laziness and fitness barriers. For some, the prospect of riding on the road appears too dangerous, and they opt to stick to the sidewalk or just stay in the car. In response, three of the cyclists I interviewed stressed the fact that a bfcycle is a vehMe'with- the right to claim space on the road, just like a car. I met many long-term commuter cyclists like Martin at Bikeworks who've never bothered to get ^driver's, licence, and unless they have to move heavy furniture, will always be on their bikes. TagHlyV nsing a bike as your primary mode of transportation is mostly an issue of willpower and determination; you just have to get out there and rack up. As they say in the movie Wildstyle, "ain't nothing to it but to do it." Once you're feeling confident and stable on your wheels, you can up the ante by checking out the racing world. The Tuesday Criterium races, held throughout the summer at UBC, are a good place to get started. Criteriums—typically called ?crjttsfeaare brief but intense races around short sections of city streets. Omar from PEDAL and Andrea from the Bike KitcMfen referred me to the event as a non-threatening introduction to cycle racing, with specific categories for new racers. You can try it out and get a sense of what it's like before you go out and drop a tidy sum on a high-powered racing bike. Ed Luciano from the Mighty Riders shop kindly enlightened me about the oii|ins of courier racing. Ed, fiCRHjig-time cyclist originally from Toronto, told me that around ten years ago groups of Torontonian bike mechanics and their courier customers would head out to prowl the city after hours and get up tc* no good. These late-night forays were referred to as "AHegpfeat" races, and eventually grew into the organized courier races that now take place in many cities under the same name. A large, wooden figure-eight track was built at an indoor location in East Van some years back in the name of Alley Cat racing, and many have fond memories of this corporate sponsored race. Johann, the manager at Our Community Bikes, has a poster of the event in the back of the shop if you want to see what the wooden track looked like. Unfortunately, biking isn't all endorphins and community-building; theft continues to be a major issue in Vancouver, even if the police don't treat it like one. Many blame the problem on the VPD's lack of political will when it comes to stolen bicycles. Reported numbers of thefts hardly match all the bikes surfacing in pawn shops around the city, and few cyclists ever see a bike that's been stolen again. As ten year commuter-cyclist Andrea Smith suggests, your best bet is to insure any bike that would be too heartbreaking to lose. Keep in mind that a good commuter bike runs about 1000 dollars new—at that price, insurance is pretty much mandatory. Despite the risks of losing your ride, the costs—economic, human and environmental— pale in comparison to our oil-loving friends with whom we share the road. You can live your life by the slogan "one less car," but events like Midnight Mass call attention to the simple joy of getting on a two-wheeled contraption and striking out to feel the wind through your hair. Problems of dealing with transit, impatient drivers and the difficulty of picking up a date on a bicycle all fade into the background as I kick off on my self-made, pink and black mountain bike and shoot down the road. Ride safe. M by Mike LaPointe | Photo by Saelen Twerdy THE MOOD AT RICHARD'S Dn Richards was uneasy forSunsetRubdown'slive Vancouver debut Delayed due to the cancellation of an opening act, the show was still laced with a hint of gunpowder from the shooting only a few nights before, and Sunset Rubdown had been experiencing technical difficulties all night. The disquiet culminated in Spencer Krug's onstage proclamation, "leant get comfortable up here. Everything is fucked up." The small audience seemed to share his sentiments, as the applause was nervous and awkward, seemingly out of place in the hushed venue. Enamoured with their first release" as a four-piece, Shut Up I Am Dreaming, I arranged an interview and had been observing and pestering the band throughout the afternoon. As soundcheck wore on due to drum troubles ("I don't own my own set," admitted drummer Jordan Robson Cramer), tensions and cigarette consumption rose, and my interview with Spencer became less and less likely. Watching the band interact, with all eyes on Krug, I began to wonder: who exactly is Sunset Rubdown? Guitarist Mike Doerksen explained to me that "Sunset Rubdown has been in Spencer's head for about eight years." His first release under the name, 2004's Snake's Got a Leg, was a collection of 16-fi basement recordings, generating not only the first editions of several of Shut Up I Am Dreaming's numbers, but also the Wolf Parade favourite, "I'll Believe in Anything, You'll Believe in Anything." Though fans of the album admire its dishevelled sensibility, Krug was dissatisfied by the lack of focus resulting from its hasty assembly, designed to arrive on the heels of Wolf Parade hype. With his next effort, Krug began to arrange the line-up that would eventually become the current incarnation of the name. After being kicked out of Pony Up!, multi-instrumentalist Camilla Wynne Ingr "thought that was it for [her] and a band." But last May, a chance meeting plunged her into Sunset Rubdown." [Spencer] was looking at me weird at a poker game," recalled the former boxer. At that time, Krug was at work on 2005's Sunset Rubdown EP, a recording done mostly alone 1 8 June 2006 on a Radio Shack microphone. Ingr lent vocals to "Jason Believe Me, You Can't Trust Your Dreams," one of many folk-infused songs that form a stark contrast to the grinding laptop gadgetry of Snakes. Not knowing much about the compatibility of each other's music, she initially joined Sunset Rubdown as a provisional member. She's still there. The Sunset Rubdown EP remains a bit of an anomaly on the band's radar, existing as a brief, stripped-down, largely acoustic effort in between two denser, lengthier albums. Their latest LP takes the opaque Sunset Rubdown aesthetic of Snakes and lends it further depth with live instruments. The result is Krug's most realised vision in or out of Wolf Parade; an album that transcends genres, from the Cossack-like "They Took a Vote and Said No," to the bewildering "Swimming," sort of like a soundtrack to the hall of mirrors from Something Wicked This Way Comes. Krug decided to expand the lineup from two to four for the new album, enlisting the help of Doerksen and Cramer. "[Spencer and I] had been sharing a jam space in Montreal before Wolf Parade," said Doerksen, who was then playing in a "biblical rock" band called the Ten Commandments with Cramer. Biblical, "but not in the Christian way," added Doerksen. The two were the final trade needed to ditch the laptop, moving Sunset Rubdown further from the lo- fi project it once was and closer to a viable rock and roll outfit. "I think that the popularity of Wolf Parade allowed Spencer the confidence to do that," said Doerksen. With the band assembled, they went to work on Shut Up I Am Dreaming, beginning with the reworking of several songs from Snake's Got a Leg. "The album is meant to be a band, not just Spencer," said Cramer, a notion evident in the character brought to the songs by each member. While Spencer supplies the direction and the voice, Shut Up I Am Dreaming feels like the product of four individual efforts. Like a jazz bandleader, Krug seems to trust his musicians to find their place within the songs and flourish. In that respect, Cramer explained, "We go by instinct." But in the end, as he pointed out,*"the songs are Spencer's," and Sunset Rubdown live still looks like Spencer's show. The band's inexperience probably doesn't help. "We only played three shows before we went on tour," said Ingr, making the Vancouver gig the band's seventh appearance. "And two of us had never been on tour before," she added, referring to Doerksen and Cramer. ' The focus on Spencer is certainly also due to the success of Wolf Parade. On the posters for their "show, Sunset Rubdown was advertised as "Sunset Rubdown (member of Wolf Parade)," and Shut Up I Am Dreaming comes with a similar sticker. The two projects are inseparable. "We're resigned to that fact for now," said Ingr, "and the only way we can be regarded as our own thing is to prove it with the live show." And what did they prove in Vancouver? Krug, for one, showed that he's a more versatile songwriter than his contributions to Wolf Parade would indicate. Relentless touring, most recently praying a set at the massive Coachella festival, has tightened up his musicianship. He's somewhat of a virtuoso on the keyboard now, moving like the puppeteer of a marionette, half-sitting, half- standing. While he still gets nervous on stage, as Ingr reported, he sings with more passion and lucidity than ever before. But the rest of the band proved that they're the force behind his vision. Without them. Sunset Rubdown is a sail without wind. You get a sense that this line-up isn't merely another link in the ongoing experiment of Sunset Rubdown, easy to turn over. I never did end up getting to talk to Spencer, but the three I spoke with are now Sunset Rubdown as much as he is—they just . don't quite behave like it yet. Maybe they should get their own drum kit. Jordan replied, "It's next on the to-buy list." «^ Hit with a Wet Fist Nels Cline on Wilco, Musical Epiphanies, and the Music of John Coltrane | by Allan Maclnnis mi uitarist Nels Cline is, for me, by IwJB far the most exciting player coming to the Vancouver International JaZZ Festival this year, but he doesn't really think of himself as"a jazz musician. "I think real jazz players know far more about the ins and outs of that language than I do. I have some familiarity with it, and I have a kinship with the idea of improvising both spontaneously with no parameters and within compositional parameters: he informs me, but he also finds himself at home in the worlds of rock and of avant-garde/ improvised music. In the former category, he has, somewhat famously, been recently added to the WllCO roster, and has recorded with everyone from Mike Watt to Lydia Lunch. In the latter realm, he has produced smouldering free jazz with saxophonist Wally Shoup, explored the outer edge of guitar noise with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, and recorded discs of ambient ' texture with Devin Samo (which he describes on his website, with typical good humour, as "dronefestS"). Asked how he categorizes his playing, he laughs and says, "I've given up. I used to be tormented by these distinctions and I had to discard them in order to not quit playing music." Jazz is clearly writ large in Cline's life, however. His current (non-vocal) trio, The Nels Cline Singers, freely delve into the idiom on their recent recording, The Giant Pin, and he is currently engaged in a project devoted to the work of pianist and composer Andrew Hill, featuring Ornette Coleman sideman. Bobby Bradford on cornet and New Klezmer Trio leader Ben Goldberg on clarinet. Asked which guitarists he admires, he says "Lee and Thurston are certainly influential," and name-checks Tom Verlaine and ' Richard Lloyd from Television, but then jazz takes the fore: Jim Hall, Wes Montgomery, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner all get mentions. Cline admires Derek Bailey for being "courageous enough to do all the stuff that I was too cowardly io ever do, which is to strike out on a path of pure investigation and pure unadulterated exploration of the parameters of the guitar and of improvisation." But then he adds, "he's not my biggest influence by any means, because I'm still a pretty much traditional player—my music, I think, is pretty emotion-driven. There are times when I get out of my own way and we'll all improvise, but we do it in a way that's much more related to, say, John McLaughlin with Tony Williams' Lifetime." Influence-wise, Cline lists three big "musical epiphanies." As a young teen growing up in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, Ravi Shankar and Jimi Hendrix were the first real discoveries; "then probably John Coltrane was the next big one. There's a whole bunch of little ones, but Coltrane was my first glimpse into something far beyond what I could comprehend at that time." Fitting, then, that the Nels Cline Singers will be sitting in with Orkestrova's Electric Ascension on June 25th (Ascension is a famously noisy orchestral free jazz piece that Coltrane produced two years before his death in 1967, when his music was at its most adventurous). It's Cline's second major engagement with the music of Coltrane; in 1999, he and Gregg Bendian recorded their take on Interstellar Space, Coltrane's famous album of free duets with drummer Rashied Ali. "It's one of those weird things, like playing in two different Miles Davis tribute bands at the same timeEyou have these weird points of inspiration that follow you through your whole life, or you're following it, it's kind of hard to tell." I asked Cline how he approached Interstellar Space; given that much of the music on that disc is improvised, did he actually set out to play what Coltrane played? "Yeah, actually," he laughs. "I went and investigated a lot of his melodic and sequencing things and the register parameters— I mean, I studied it pretty carefully. We knew we were biting off more than we could chew and that we were maybe gonna get killed in the press. It turned out not to go that way at all." The album was nominated for the International Jazz Critics Award for best tribute record that year, and got "alarmingly favourable" reviews in jazz magazines. "Ultimately the best thing was that Rashied Ali praised it in print. Who cares what those critics said if ll||Pigd|ikes it!" Like any teenlgEp"owing up in a cultural milieu skewed towa^y^k and pop, Cline did not naturally begin with jazz. I asked him how he hooked onto the music of Coltrane. "My twin brother Alex and I were lent a copy of Coltrane's Greatest Years Volume One around 1971, so we were in-between junior high and high school. Our friend David heard it, and thought that Alex would like it because he was so into the instrumental pieces of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at that time. We sat down to listen to it in my friend's apartment. The first piece was an edited version of "Africa," and that was it. That was absolutely like, what's the. expression, I was hit with a wet fist. We were dumbfounded that we had not heard about, all this and that became the pivotal moment where all this investigation had to ensue and I had to find out who this man is and where did he come from and who did he play with, and then you discover Miles Davis and that leads out into pretty much everything..." ^^ Despite his musically adventurous nature, Cline is genuinely enthusiastic about his membership in Wilco. "The Wilco thing just sort of fell out of the sky and it's really pleasurable. I love it. I have a lot of latitude—everybody kinda wants me to do what I do—plus it taps into a lot of other, in some ways, latent and temporarily discarded facets of what I like. And it saved my ass! It's not like I'm raking in major dough, because we're .not that kind of band, but it's made my life a helluva lot easier and in a way enabled me just to survive and continue to do less viable music commercially." The experience of live gigs with them is also quite refreshing. "It's really different playing with Wilco, because the audience is with us as soon as we walk on stage, for the most part. That was a mind-blowing experience after spending my whole life trying to just get over, you know?" Working with the band does require a fair bit of devotion, Cline admits, but adds, "that's fine, because frankly, all the time I was devoting ' to doing improvised music was basically just becoming more and more difficult to survive on. I was getting tons of work but I was making less and less money..." Nels Cline will be in Vancouver for much of the festival. In addition-to the Orkestrova event, he'll be part of the visiting faculty for the improv workshops, will give a pre-fest show with. Dylan van der Schyff and Peggy Lee at Rime on the 20th, and will be on a double bill with Mats Gustaffson's project, The Thing, on June 23rd. That gig, at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, is THE show not to miss at the festival, if you're a fan of adventurous music. The Nels Cline Singers "don't get to play very often, anywhere"—all the members have other commitments^and are bound to open a few ears. The Thing is also a hugely powerful trio, with a foot in the world of rock; I'm hoping they'll do their cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Art Star," which truly cooks. Cline is not the only member of the Nels Cline Singers who will be doing other shows at the festival. The Singers' drummer and electronics man, San Francisco-based Scott Amendola, will. be playing with pianist Paul Plimley at a late night gig at the Ironworks on the 24th. Amendola is on one of Plimley's records, Safe Crackers, and says of playing with him live, "Nothing gets by Plimley, so who knows what to expect. With Paul, I always feel like we've only just begun by the end of the gig." Asked about Cline, Amendola describes him as "one of the most inspired and continually prolific people I know," and says that "Nels is someone I feel like I'll be playing with for the rest of my life." Amendola and Cline have been playing together in a variety of projects for about 12 years now. Bassist Devin Hoff, who has been working with Cline since 1999, also expresses great enthusiasm for playing with the Nels Cline Singers. "Playing with Nels is a very .satisfying experience. His music and his approach are both very emotional and very visceral at the same time; I walk off stage feeling physically exhausted and emotionally cleansed." I asked Nels Cline if he had anything he wanted to say to Vancouver audiences*before we signed off. He thought about it for a few minutes, then laughed. "Something I want to say to Vancouver audiences...? I dunno...Much love!" Be there on the 23rd to reciprocate. * . Discorder 19 „ ___&___ _>___\_\ DECEMBERUNDERGROUN0 I: .;;, Vans Waeped Toum ] July 18 I Thunderbird Stadium I YOUTH 'RATHER RIPPED" Brand new album featuring 12 new songs of forward motion & harmonic /melodic surprise. Produced by the f>and and engineered by TJI Dohei4|^ ($&1cb* Beth Orion? £ dolw Asnello (Breeders,"Kills) www.sor»Jc^«>utti.cxjm DONAVOl^ FRANKENREITER move by yourself borwon - #; ___ ■-»•* I ma :H 'WW' (Also available: P 'Th. Abbey Road Sessions' DVD ft On th* heels of his debui aibunf'^lH (aturina "Free" (with Jack Johnson)*! Donavon \fitjip|*enreiter releases a 1 new CD thot incorporates a soulful 70's influenced sound and a unique ! homegrown funte that will make this j| the iummer album of 2006 and beyond! * 0-ro: ^0,=, * 1 1H CONCERT ljrJ JUNE 12 . U? 1 THE COMMODORE B irvtvift ST^rr M \ .WV_Wfff Anything From sexy grooves to rockin' beats, Kinnie Starr's new CD showcases her eclectic mix of hip hop, rock, ^0#s,. folk, R&B, electronica, and * *>T« anything else in between. \ j CD includes the title track |k "Anything" and "La Le La La* featuring Tegan Quin (Tegan and Sara). "Sexy,, androgynous and full of 'tude, Kinnie Starr is a hip hop, IN CONCHFO" June. 27 »dor WWW.Mnnwstarr give ti^oS the hmv gift card music • DVD • more 20 June 2006 I / :'l I IP Mi li%\\\ discordinstcillation Tuwf; \Cuwtee$yWill Bmynfl I DEYENDRfl BflNHflRT Last month I was doing some research into Vetiver for what better, way to sneak more art into the magazine than If you happen to be in Modena, Italy around Jun&24th, Under Review, and I stumbled across some drawings under the guise of a respected musician? So I asked Devendra check out his latest work at the Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, and on vetiver.com that I thought were rad. I was excited when I if he'd like to show some of his artwork in Discorder, and he send me a postcard and a breadstick while you're there, found out that they Were done by Devendra Banhart, because agreed that it would be a great idea. , n to!! ■1 tepjp* . jp^^g***' 01 ifs m • • **»*»* ft*** y_M m Discorder 21 KSSDER REVIEW CAMERA OBSCURA, M AGIK MARKERS TRIKE, ETHAN COLLISTER, TILLY AND THE WALL THE BLACK HEART PROCESSION, THE STARLIGHT MINTS JUANAMOLINA ■_■_!! Let's Get Out of This Country (Merge) Tired of having If You're Feeling Sinister on a constant loop? Still looking for that cute sound of Scottish accents lamenting about social awkwardness, but just can't find the right album? The pessimistic but openly romantic opener, "Lloyd, I'm Ready to be Heartbroken" sets the mood for an album dominated by failed romance, cynicism and a-ready-for-more attitude. Tracyanne Campbell's incredibly cute and sexy voice drives the album across the band's lush backdrop of baroque organ sounds, twangy guitars and catchy drum beats. Camera Obscura may not be treading a lot of new ground here, but they have refined the twee pop sound that originally made them so attractive. The loungey "Tears for Affairs" oozes sappiness but still works, while the title track is an upbeat piece that's perfect for any road trip. These two are followed by the mournful "Country Mile", which ties them together in a way that is hard to forget. Camera Obscura may never be able to recreate the beautiful simplicity of Teenager, but they don't seem to be even trying. The music may be simple pop, but that's okay. It's what they do best, so why would we want to hear them do anything else? Jordie Smith _^=. Painting Pictures (www.ethancoIlister.ca) Ethan Collister is the paradigmatic troubadour: on his debut album Painting Pictures, Collister weaves folky guitar riffs, harmonica solos and jangling tambourines with rich lyrical imagery of sweeping seascapes and changing seasons. What makes Collister a worthy successor of his populist-folk progenitors is his undeniable gift for storytelling. On tracks like "Dust Blowin' in the Wind" and the psych-rock tinged "Lady of the Midnight Sun," Collister sings of the inescapable passage of time and bruising of hearts, of the necessary erosion of the provisional truths we cling to so desperately: "on the shore, you and I/we hold our hearts of stone/broken by the shallow sigh/of the wind as it blows." Confronting life's transience with a mixture of resignation and perseverance, Collister seems determined to capture this elusiveness, bouncing stylistically from the understated tenderness of "Venus" to the desperate theatricality of "The Hunter" in his efforts to do so. A compelling and dynamic debut album, Painting Pictures resonates with the realizations of a man who knows he once experienced the picturesque landscape, but is now only confronted with a blank canvas and his fading memories. Katherine Somody A Panegyric to the Things I Do.Not Understand (Gulcher) The freedom afforded by lo-fi's lack of a fully defined sound has helped a lot of bands; some things just thrive amidst layers of murk and muzz. Still, while trying to get a grip on a fairly difficult band whose entire catalogue seems- to consist of clutches of poorly recorded live takes, it can be pretty frustrating. Everything I'd heard from Magik Markers prior to this album was definitely promising, but difficult to really find a way into. The best tracks I'd heard moved from thin, quiet sections nurtured by Elisa Ambrogio's vocals to bracing fire squalls. If you could surrender yourself and embrace the dynamic, the music's peaks were pleasantly overwhelming, but it was quite a commitment. But it's all changed with this one. Now, every element of the MarJsers' sound is clear as day, and the clarity is blinding. Hearing every nuance of the free noise spewing out of Elisa's guitar only increases its power, and with Leah Quimby's bass and Pete Nolan's drums audible in the mix, their sound is fully realised. This is no-wave spew ala Confusion is Sex-era Sonic Youth bent through a psychedelic, free jazz lens. The .songs transition from searing guitar noise into whistling, light feedback, and the barest of rhythms, but manage to avoid sounding like an airless avant-garde wank. It is this fractured improvisational logic that stands as the album's greatest strength. Every time you think you're hearing a musical non-sequitur, they bring the fire and everything is acquitted. Taken as a whole, it might crack your skull open wider than you expected. I thought the title was needlessly pretentious, but look up that p-word and I think you'll be quite pleased. Or maybe you just knew it already. Either way, I'm really impressed. Dave Nichols b^=_ It's been so long since the Mints put anything out that people were beginning to wonder if they were still together at all. But the long-aWaited third album is finally here, and it's every bit as quirky and eccentric as anything the Mints have ever released. I don't really know what the term "dream pop" means, but the Mints make music that I don't understand either. Their songwriting is bizarre, musically as well as lyrically, containing wails, oompahs, beeps, whistling and rattles all strung across a confectionery rock-band backdrop. Drowaton is every bit as unusual as their previous endeavours, featuring songs about murderers, pumpkins, and the sound of rhino hooves stomping around. Even though it's hard to say what they're going on about, there's nothing about this band that isn't likable. They just seem so happy to be making music that they'can't control themselves. Maybe it's best not to understand so much as simply appreciate them for their unique sound amidst a world of derivative bands. Nothing is as refreshing as the dose of weirdness provided by the Starlight Mints. Jordie Smith &==? ' (Domino) Argentina's princess of electro-acoustics has again ventured forth to give us Son, the follow- up to 2004's critically acclaimed album, Tres Cosas. With album number four, Juana Molina has decided to let the strength of her vocals be the main driving force, and in turn has kept the instrumentation and" beats very minimal. Unfortunately, this approach is met by varying degrees of success. Much like its predecessors, Son still offers a blend of laid-back folk guitars, loops, and off-kilter electronics as a backdrop for Molina's delicate songs. Her instrumentation gives a good deal of warmth and texture to her relatively stripped- down compositions, but it feels like there's not enough of it. On the other hand, the soft warbles and squelches of analog electronics are a total plus, like on "Rio Seco" and "Yo No". Actually, this synth sound seems to draw strongly from Nuno Canavarro's brilliant 1988 album, Plux Quba, which is always a good thing. Where this album really doesn't fair so well is when Molina attempts to layer percussive vocal tracks in the absence of few real beats, much like the way Bjork did on her last effort. But unlike Bjork, Molina's vocal experiments can be a bit painful on the ears and come out a bit too scatlike for comfort. The somewhat jarring vocal- manipulation on "Un Beso Llega" is a prime example of this. What works best is when Molina keeps the vocals simple and stays away from all the fancy effects. In the end, this whole affair is a bit of a mixed bag with a few good nuggets here and there, but ultimately a bit of a let-down. BRock Thiessen (&**_ MSEEEmm Bottoms of Barrels (Team Love) It's more or less impossible to read anything about Omaha's Tilly and the Wall without a mention of how the drummerless band relies mostly on tap dancing to fulfill their rhythmic needs. I'm sure it's quite a sight live. On record, however, it's a different story. Jamie Williams' dancing shoes do have a distinctive sound, but if I didn't know any better, I would just as soon chalk up the percussive tone to production values. Unable to rely on—or perhaps free of the trappings of—the novelty of such a quirk, when it comes to releasing albums, all they've got to fall back on is the music. The aural .formula on Bottoms of Barrels follows largely in the footsteps of the band's much-celebrated 2004 debut, Wild like Children. The record's vocal performances are dominated by multi-part harmonies flowing over acoustic guitar or piano-driven numbers, while organs, strings, and horns provide some instrumental flourishes here and there. "Rainbows in the Dark" opens the album on a strong note, with a very tasteful set of horn lines following some errant harmonica notes and a jubilant "1-2-3-4!" By the midway point, Neely Jenkins, Kianna Alarid, and Derek Pressnall are all belting it out in unison. Track two, "Urgency," follows suit, albeit with a little distortion on the vocal three-way. "Bad Education"? Ditto. In fact, by the time you get to the sparse introduction to "Lost Girls," a mere four tracks in, the lone female voice is more than welcome. Similarly, "Love Soijg" gives Presnall's vocals—which come off a lot like the band's label boss, Conor Oberst—some much- needed space. Those tracks, though, are two of the album's novel moments, which is unfortunate, 22 June 2006 because the campfire sing-along action gets trying quite quickly. It's not only the vocals, however. The album is thick with warm-sounding instrumentation, but again, space is an issue. With some exceptions, for the most part I found myself wishing that the band would just let up once in a while and give their very catchy melodies some room to breathe. ~ If you're part of the segment of the music-listening population that now "forgoes full records in favour of an iPod set to shuffle, you'll probably get some decent mileage out of Bottoms of Barrels: it's largely a collection of very strong songs. Put side by side, however, the individual slices of tuneful indie pop just blend together. There's nary a "bad" song in the entire bunch, but working in tandem, they add up to a boring record. Quinn Omori t_.IJLJM.UiU,l_--..m^M- The Spell (Touch and Go Records) The Black Heart Procession's music has always been ideal for those feelings of loneliness you get from post break-up comedowns. With The Spell, Pall Jenkins and company are luckily still creating music for the lonely. This time around they've decided to play it safe, sticking to their sure-fire formula of gothic indie-rock. Perhaps this has much to do with the mixed reviews they received from their last full-length, the overly- ambitious Amore Del Tropico, which was a concept album and feature-length film based around the plot of an intriguing murder mystery. While The Spell generally still sounds as if it was recorded by the house band found at some lonesome Twin Peaks cabaret, there are bound to be a few whines and complaints about the few rockin' tracks from the old-school purists. Songs like "Not Just Words" and "GPS" don't rely on weeping saws or spooky pianos like the BHP songs of yore, but instead revolve around the rhythmic patterns of distorted guitars and fast-paced snare hits from a rock kit. Funnily enough though, these uncharacteristic rock songs are in fact the ones that sound the most inspired and realized, not the typical slow and brooding tracks, which even sound a bit by-the-numbers at times. The battle between these two categories of songs on The Spell makes it seem as if this is a band in need of a change. This possibly explains the sudden announcement that Pall Jenkins would once again be recording a Three Mile PHot album with former band mate, and half of Pinback, Armistead Burwell Smith IV. Identity crisis aside, this album is a satisfying one and will likely find a place on many stereos as the lonely ones pour themselves another nice strong scotch. BRock Thiessen The New Album (www.trikeabarid.com) On Saturdays, Steven Taylor and Wes G. Knight like to go down the most vomit-inducing slide at the local water park; drop by the art gallery for the most bizarre experimental performance art; play glitchy street fighter games at the most rundown Granville Street arcade; make fun of the yuppiest' of the people walking up Robson Street; go dancing at the dingiest possible Gastown club; and finish the night off at a campfire on Wreck Beach. Then they write an epic email about the whole experience to their buddy Alex Van der Meer in Holland, who writes some electronic beats about it. When the beats return, Taylor and Knight compose some live bits for voice, acoustic guitar and keyboard. Okay, so most of that's complete and utter speculation on my part, but from the diversity and quirkiness of their music, I wouldn't be surprised if it There's a little ink-jet printed insert that comes with Vancouver locals Trike's The New Album, which includes a string of Jumbled words: electropopaltfolkcanadiand utchcrunchcore. All things considered, this is actually a pretty good description of the band's output, not in its specificity but rather its A.D.D. quality. Singer Steven Taylor's folky vocals and the proliferation of clicks and beeps automatically bring to mind words like laptop folk, but it's not nearly that simple. They draw rhythms from hip hop, textured sounds from IDM and lyricisms from the best singer-songwriters. The album jumps around from track to track: "Biggest Schmuck" closes with a psyched-out outro, directly followed by "Sense of Well Being" a straight-up acoustic rock track with a thin veneer of vocal delay. "Bring the Shit Back" brings out the Beasties-style white boy hip hop. Trike (pronounced tri-key) even drops some math in "Soap Opera Atmosphere." Taylor's croonings and a well-tuned pop sensibility are the glue that holds what might otherwise be a disparate disc. The New Album shows definite potential for a further solidified sound in the future. Peter C. t VANCOUVER'S #1 NIGHTCLUB BEST MUSIC- BEST SOUND - BEST DJ'S CIRCLESQUARE * aumfSQUi mot bombs TUESDAY. JUNE 6 ##111 f-8lDA¥fJUN_ 9 SUNK ROCK w, tarn todgct j hue H#ck ■WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 AMPSTOCK WEDNESDAY. JUNE 14 iLMftf .!T¥ • OS/15 I MJtfltfGl WUHV - 06/21 _V»P«l*SI«Kw/l*_il«lli^t-M^2J|fU«l&1«ltfOIJ__l£- WEEKLY EVENTS T||_ BkKtrtHlU fri-ti C. NQAH,HiG_L RAY, DAI — -■_ JSWIMG-FIPOUT Oi CZECH - VllfVl RITCHIE J-SWING fTHi BEAT) fc DJ DAW Gftt on the VIP/Guest lift + Event/Party/Fundraiser bookings fc©4.64S.00&4 WWW.PLA2_iCIUI.IIET SSi GRAN VILLI SHEET Discorder 23 REAL HUAAIffimU HLWIIS. EbWK IM TRIPLE RECORD RELEASE WITH VANCOUGAR and the ka-mvesitexas) due td ndise complaints fRDM THE CDNflDS NEAB BY AND JACK flf BAILS (AND KNBWINB THEIR BIBHTS) DM THE PABT DF THE MBBBISSEY. BOD VANCOUVER! Yeah Yeah Yeahs Blood on the Wall Imaad Wasif April 24 Orpheum Theatre Black-clad balladeer Imaad Wasif began the show with his pretty but bleak meditations on isolation and heartache. Wasif's songs were mystical and Eastern-sounding (thanks to warbling back-up tones emitted from a small electronic unit), and touched on dark, personal themes. His stage banter was cynically dark as well, and at times later on (when not acting as an extra musician for the night's headlining act), he could be seen on stage, crouching with his head tucked in, rocking back and forth. This guy's got issues, but he makes good music. Blood on the Wall love to rock: you can tell from the prevalence of brazen guitar chords and Miggy Littleton's extravagant drum fills. At different times throughout the set, I picked out heavy influence from the Pixies, Sonic Youth, 90's grunge and raucous post-punk. Each influence was skewed in some way, making the tunes just original enough to scrape by—and to the band's credit, they all added up to an interesting, if scattershot, performance. The stars of the evening, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, put on a completely immersive show. At the right moments (like the soft spots in "Cheated Hearts") tension and anticipation was stretched as taut as Karen O's tights, before being released in floods of light and sound. The crop-topped singer went all-out with her theatrics, doing bunny-hops and manic struts, or making gestures in slow-motion to complement crescendos in the music around her. Quiets, louds, pauses and 'transitions were all emphasized to draw the audience in, adding a whole other dimension of emotional appeal. This was a more- than-sufficient substitute for the lack of physical intimacy (a grand total of one lucky fan got to high-five the otherwise' distant Karen). Nick Zinner was only one man, but used a plethora of pedals, effects, and synths to set up several musicians' worth of shimmering harmonic accompaniments. Meanwhile, his sweet melodies, feral eruptions of distortion, and fuzzy, seductive chord progressions worked in tandem with Brian Chase's dense drumming style to exert expert control over mood and atmosphere. Stage banter was spare, so there were few distractions from the punch of "Gold Lion", the rolling stomp of "Phenomena", and "The Sweets", far more epic and grandiose than on record. Welcome surprises came in the form of "Black Tongue" and a cut from the band's debut EP, while "Maps" carried all the melodramatic weight everyone knew it would. Simon Foreman The Strokes May 17 Plaza of Nations Unable to find a date to take my other ticket to see the Strokes, I took my father. This was my third round seeing the handsome five-piece from New York. The first time was their Toronto debut, back when Julian Casablancas used to vomit out of nervousness before every gig. They stood totally still and played every song they knew. It took about forty minutes, and it was a great show. When I caught them again, this time in Mississauga the trendiest rock 'n roll city in the country the boys were drinking their way through the nerves of massive oncoming success. The release date of Room on Fire was two weeks away. Julian passed-out into the audience for a while. And that was a great show. But times have changed for the Strokes. Their audience, skeptical after Is ITiis It?, seemed perfectly satiated by the undeniable catchiness of Room on Fire. Only on their third and most recent record, First Impressions of Earth, from which they drew most of their set list, have they shown some growing pains and felt some backlash. No longer just singing about sleeping with girls or being pissed off because girls won't sleep with them, the .Strokes are out to prove that they can do everything other rock bands can. I count myself in the minority of people who consider First Impressions to be a good record, in spite of its shortcomings, but the gravitation away from the simple pop of their earlier repertoire requires a lot more versatility live than the Strokes seem capable of. While the band is infinitely more confident than when they began, even going so far as to actually walk around in some parts, and get on top of an amp or two during their typically rousing closer, "Take it or Leave It", they didn't seem overly proud of the new material or the way they played it, with a few notable exceptions. "You Only Live Once" reaffirmed Fab Moretti's drumming as some of the tightest currently out there, and "Juicebox" (a song I will defend against all critics) got the all-ages toes tapping. But the bulk of the First Impressions melodies seemed strangled by the sum of their parts. Blame is due to the Plaza of Nations, "this fucking weird greenhouse place," as Julian aptly puts it. The sound was cavernous, but the straightforward hooks of the Is This It? and Room on Fire melodies were strong enough to overcome it. They performed criminally few of the latter's songs, with "Reptilia" crowning the evening (still containing the Strokes' most potent hooks). So here I am, championing straightforward pop, but I'm comfortable with the Strokes in that position. They're everything pop music should be: drunk, aggressive, charming, and slutty. Only fit that they played at a casino venue, which is where I can see Casablancas singing in thirty years. He already performs like a drunk belting out the words to his own songs on the bar jukebox. And while the concert served to stress the relative weakness of First Impressions of Earth, they're still the only Strokes, and everyone knows it. That, frankly, made it a great show. My dad liked it, too. Mike LaPointe Mogwai May 24 Commodore Ballroom For the casual listener, the easy criticism of Mogwai is that, by and large, most of their songs sound the same. Now, before ye Mogwai faithful get up in arms about that statement, let me assure you that I don't agree. However, I do see where those people might get that idea: the whole quiet/ loud thing is getting a little tiresome. While the band's latest, Mr. Beast, does forgo some of the lengthy buildups that characterized their earlier work, it's still a Mogwai record. For that matter, it's not one of their stronger releases. As a live entity, however, the Scottish quintet is an entirely different machine. In my younger days, I _sed to be quite into judo. That might not seem like it has much to do with Mogwai, but I assure you it does. Watching them live is sort of like practicing some sort of competitive, high contact sport: nobody is there to kill one another, but you're always kept on your toes, and at times it's as if your senses are being assaulted. The lighting was used, not so much to illuminate the band, as it was to keep a disorienting sort of spell on the audience; swinging around in different, multi-coloured directions. The drums were a constant pounding, organs swelled and released, the bass rumbled, guitars squealed feedback and echoed trills swirled around the room. Then there were the loud parts. For each one of those gratuitous, epic climaxes, volume level was deadly: not just to the ears, but to your entire body. The crunchy low end was pushed to high enough decibel levels to make chest cavities rumble. The band pulled quite a bit from their latest, but also culled a fair amount of their set from older material. That being said, to me at least, it didn't really matter all that much. Maybe that plays into the hands of those foolish people who write off Mogwai because "all their songs sound the same,", but the individual songs really were much less important than the overall experience. "Ratts of the Capital" or "Auto-Rock"; the pieces didn't matter as much as the whole. By the time the band left the stage, in a hail of feedback and flashing lights, it really was like the end of some exhaustive judo practice. More specifically, it was like an hour and a half of practicing with someone much better than you; an hour and a half of getting your ass kicked, essentially. "Better" is not a judgment on the" band or audience as people. But, in the game of music, Mogwai was operating on a whole other level. They came. They pummeled us into submission (several times over). They won. Quinn Omori Joel Plaskett Emergency Matt Mays & El Torpedo May 5 Commodore Ballroom I haven't much to say about Matt Mays & El Torpedo, but if I've got to say something, it's that they seem to have a lot of fans. Moving on to the more important things: after a Matt Mays set that went on for way too long, the fans all cleared out and new people moved into see Canada's sweetheart and his band, the Joel Plaskett Emergency.. That's right, Joel Plaskett at the Commodore. No, not the Media Club like last time (when Joel was solo); the Commodore. As one would expect, the atmosphere was I intimate, especially due to the roar of the crowd—indifferent Matt Mays fans, perhaps—that was occasionally louder than the band's music. Despite this, an enthusiastic, Vancouver-loving Joel played on, wearing his traditional black jeans (the kind you wear from the day you graduate high school until the day you die), pointy shoes and vest, and demonstrating his slick dance moves. In fact, Joel seemed mysteriously yet pleasantly overenthusiastic, repeatedly claiming to be "overwhelmed" and even laughing at his own lyrics during "Extraordinary". As the show went on, Joel began to lose his voice—quite possibly as result of jet lag after flying to Vancouver directly from Australia—but he made up for his curbed vocals and noticeable lack of the usual hilarious Joel Plaskett banter by allowing his dancing feet t take over the show. Joel and the band brought back the old favourites, like the acoustic "Before You JLeave" and "light of the Moon", new favourites like "Love This Town", and successfully promoted his n DVD Make A Little Noise by playing a couple of new songs that can be found on the disc. One song, "Nowhere with You", can even be found on a certain television commercial, for a store with a name that starts with a Z and rhymes with "fellers". All in all, the show was entertaining despite its lack of the intimacy familiar to most Joel Plaskett Emergency fans. We can only hope that next time Joel comes to Vancouver, his show will be at a smaller venue, and won't be combined with that of another band. Please, no more Matt Mays fans at Joel Plaskett shows! Kimberley Day W 24 June 2006 CITR CHARTS! Strictly the dopest hits of May 1iiii§^ilf.§i-; g _■?§._ f__j.£„g»-! :_. !§lilllfl pi 05iS5g--8SS-5.-S :# Artist Tni! Label j 1 Sunset RuMown* SlimLplAmf.ireamsu} - -' .."■'• ' *"* ' Nb^&teft'Koshw 2 Islands* Return to the Sea Equator 3 I-risciJ* • - . , Phmr : . Kranky 4 IbkyoMceaub* A Lesson in Crime PaperBag 5 Run Cluto Rim" 5W.Vlte &0«i>a 6 TheLovelyFeathers* HindHindLsgs - Equator 8 FinalFantasy* HePoosCJouds Blocks Recording 9 The Rogers Sisters W bumble Tire, Too Pure 10 The Black Angels Passover Light In The Attic II Biiiidmg Odstles Out of .MatchsJfcks* i '* ' >„,^.^«, Worthv - 12 Windows V8* ' The Window Seat f|J|§ll Submerged 13 TteStffls* Wi_ite/<w/W ..Vldt' 14 Pretty Girls Make Graves Elan Vital Matador 15 GnarlsBarkley «iM« Domjtown/Atlantic 16 Mr. Plow* ChairmanPlow'sLittleRedBook Crusty 17 Jolie Hottaad SpringCim«'£a!iKfflFo« Anti 18 Beirut Gu-ffOrfastar BaDaBing! 19 Mecca Normal* The Observer Kill Rock Stars 20 ' Aphex Twin Chosen Lords Rephlex 21. iVy Shoot Horsi-s Don't They?* Boo Hoo Hoo Boo Kill Rock Stars 22 Bellrays Have A Little Faith Cheap Lullaby 23 Fiery Furnaces Bitter Tea Fat lKuin 24 Paper Moon* Broken Hearts Break Faster Every Day Endearing :# AJRTIST Title Label • 25 The Doers* WhatchaDoin? Red Cat 26 Billy And The Lost Boys* YetWhyNotSayWhatHappened? Lost 27 Rose Melberg Cast Away the Clouds Double Agent 28 Spank Rock Yoyoyoyo Big Dada 29 TlraMatningLips At War with the Mystics Warner 30 The Sword Age of Winters- Kemado 31 Dead Vampires We are the Dead Vampires Independent 32 Starlight Mints Drowaton Barsuk 33 Mono You Are There Temporary Residence 34 Kimya Dawson Remember That 1 love You K 35 Band of Horses Everything All the Time SubPop 36 Mudhoney Under a Billion Suns Sub Pop 37 Daniel Johnston Welcome to My World Independent 38 The Gotan Project 39 Om Lunatico Conference of the Birds XL Holy Mountain 40 Brian Eno and David Byrne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts Nonesuch 41 The Threat* Red Dawn Slanty Shanty 42 Danielson Ships Secretly Canadian 43 Shoplifting Body Stories Kill Rock Stars 44 Built to Spill You in Reverse Warner 45 Experimental Dental School 2 112 Creatures Cochon 46 Velvet Teen Gyzmkid 3$w^_Sips_k'' --Slowdance 47 Liars Drum's Not Dead Mute 48 Jesu Silver HydraHead 49 Jamie Lidell Multiply Editions Warp 50 Pink Mountaintops* Axis of Evol, Jagjaguwar/Scratch SPM MUSIC BIZ AND CITR 101.9 PRESENT BOOKING AND PROMOTING THE VANCOUVER MUSIC SCENE/ CONTACT 604 322 0102 WWW.SPIV1IV1USIC.BIZ FRIDAY, JUNE 9TH FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH FRIDAY, JUNE 30TH [SWEETtlCABTg fwWMSANIS ;"'uV'Oju'':': ":" :I3 [«' fl_fl___flft@yj!iB B.VDIFE-OLfiOD SSPg (333c«fi!iTil _J 3SJSTI i? FRIDAY, JUNE 16TH IRDC FRIDAY, JUNE 30TH THURSDAY, JUNE 8TH ^anthil _S_&g_a pwMnfa Ui ^IKINBIUIIH CAPE MAY EDMONTON BLOCK HEATER, LIONS IN THE STREET^. NOTCH HEZZAKYA WHITE LICORICE 1 DROWNING IN THE I MAIN STREAM FORCEFED ie\ NEXT HUNDRED YEAR* »j FOR KNOW ONE 1! MARBLE RYE |i__ __r citr wwwLiVEMysic*rae.coM chop shop ^^SWaF i^m anarchy tattoo i- _mj___yL^ \You can listen to CiTR online at www.citr.ca or on the air at 101.9 FM m Mwmmw&MmmE_f§w§MMF WBfXm n^^^^SWMMiMMMW,^ - 6am 7am Mil BBC •* 'P^oc^Cu^n' . BBC ^V^j&g^. BBC BBC. 8am Tana Radio Breakfast with the Browns Highbred Voices | Suburban Jungle ^^^fc,THE World News Cute Band AlertI iul S mmtY Edgf 9am ShookShook Third Time's The Gffjutjj 10am Afro Fill-In 11 Sweet ^^B^m Ska-T's Scenic Drive 11am Lions and Tigers ec,ec" and Bears... Morning Afbrr Show Anoize 12pm T R P^ Alt. Radio ■V'^FliMH'* ••* These are the Breaks (km) i< \ i ion Annihii *ito\ 111 1pm ^^^fe Show Parts Unknown filllll Fill-in ^^■0_f^^Mid\/.\ <•> Powirchord Democracy Now . ~ tetf&t&m" Radio Zero zpm Reel to Real «* 3 pm • Rf.ooi) Let's Get Baked Career Fast Track ** Rumbletone Radio A Go Go Motor DADDY Rhym^ & Reasons CodtBiui IN Y\ Wl LA \lLMffli- Nardwuar Presents 4pm Saddle Native Solidarity News &$*# _ ■dill's unit Everything CiTR News ,: : Wenh l *>' BBQ Necessary Voices Project \„ ■PltHIv-i*f Retohtiov News 101 LbURa.MIRF.ZShOW . 1 Z>ASm 1ROPEZ W.I.N.G.S. •••'" 6pm Csjf^* Queer fm Son of Nite Dreems Uncommon Practice ■NprnoiiSK.. thcSonk ;; Saemy • The Canadian Way OurWau? „ AND mkd Sometimes WHY Blue Monday • TUpio. -TThfajr* „ /pm Wigflux Radio Exquisite Corpse African Rhythms wiDow Jugglers 8pm Rirvnc ..„,, \4lNIMO - Jukebox""* Blow 9pm the Jazz Show Folk Oasis . LtVE FRO^^feiDERBIRD Radio Max , Planet Lovetron Synaptic Sandvmcu * 1 10pm TRANCENDANCE •PLUTONIAN NlGHfS Caihsht in - 'JrHfi JRfiD in the Shadows 11pm Hans Kloss' Misery Hour ~^4ri&£ti TltoM*^" j~ .■■*• ffSfevrs FROM thf. - ' Basembs^^^^S 12am BBC Vengeance is Mine oi* . ^i^W*^_^ I Like the Scribbles lam hw&A 2am BBC BBC BBC The Vampire's Ball BBC ' 3 am 4am 5am L5n. I SUNDAY JANA RADIO (World) SHOOKSHOOK (World) ___J AFROBEAT (World) In two hours, I take the listener for a spin—musically—around the world; my passion is African music and music from the Diaspora. Afrobeat is where ■you can catch up on the latest -in the "World Music" scene and reminisce on the classic . collections. Don't miss it. <myafrobeat@yahoo.com> THE ROCKERS SHOW (Reggae) Reggae inna all styles and fashion. BLOOD ON THE SADDLE (Roots) Real cowshit-caught-in-yer-boots country. CHIPS WITH EVERYTHING (Pop) British pop music from all decades. International pop (Japanese, French, Swedish, British, US, etc.), 60s soundtracks and lounge. Book your jet-set holiday now! QUEER dlcated bisexual, and transexual communities of Vancouver. Lots of human interest features, background on current issues, and great music. RHYTHJVISIIVDIA (World) Rhythmsindia features a wide range of music from India, including popular music from the 1930s to the present, classical music, semi-classical music such as Ghazals and Bhajans, and also Qawwalis, pop, and regional language numbers. TRANCE1VDANCE (Dance) Join us in practicing the ancient art of rising above common thought and ideas as your host DJ Smiley Mike lays down the latest trance cuts to propel us into the domain of the mystical. <trancendance@hotmail.com> BREAKFAST WITH THE BROWNS (Edectic) Your favourite Brown-sters, James and Peter, offer a savoury blend of the familiar and exotic in a blend of aural delights! LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS...(Ecfectic) A mix of indie pop, indie rock, and pseudo underground hip hop, with your host, Jordie Sparkle. ALT. RADIO (Talk) Hosted by David B. PARTS UNKNOWN (Pop) Underground pop for the minuses with the occasional interview with your host, Chris. LET'S GET BAKED w/matt & dave (Eclectic) Vegan baking with "rock stars" like Sharp Like Knives, Whitey Houston, The Novaks and more. national radio service and part international network of information and action in support of indigenous peoples' survival and dignity. We are all volunteers committed to promoting Native self-detennination, culturally, economically, spiritually and otherwise. The show is self- sufficient, without government or corporate funding. W.I.N.G.S. (Talk) Womens International News Gathering Service. SON OF NITE DREEMS (Eclectic) UNCOIVIMON PRACTICE (Classical) WIGFLUX RADIO (Reggae) Listen to Selecta Krystabelle for your reggae education. THE JAZZ SHOW (Jazz) Vancouver's longest running primettme jazz program. Hosted by the ever-suave, Gavin Walter. June 5: Tonight our annual Jazz Festival preview for the full three hours with Gavin and co-host the Jazz Festival's eloquent media director John Orysik. June 12: Tonight celebrating the birthday of the amazing "Mr. Chameleon" Armando "Chick" Corea in an all-star concert date that features Corea on acoustic piano(solo and with a trio) with Miroslav Vitous on bass and the great Roy Haynes on drums. "Trio Music" is a gas! June 19: Two stars of this year's Jazz Festival play together here on "Time ForTyner". Pianist McCoy with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson in a great album accompanied by bassist Herbie Lewis and the late great Freddie Waites on drums. Solid stuff! June 26: Gavin Walker will take the night off to enjoy the Jazz Festival but the show will continue with a guest host. See you on July 3rd. VENGEANCE IS MINE (Punk) All the best the world of punk has to offer, in the Wee hours of the ■■■.■TUESDAY PACIFIC PICKIN' (Roots) Bluegrass, old-time music, and its derivatives with Arthur and the lovely Andrea Berman. HIGHBRED VOICES (World) THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM (Rock) Open your ears and prepare for a shock! A harmless note may make you a fan! Hear the menacing scourge that is Rock and Roll! Deadlier than the most dangerous criminal! <borntasixtynine@hotmail.com> MORNING AFTER SHOW (Eclectic) REEL TO REAL (Talk) Movie reviews and criticism. EN AVA1ST LA MUSIQUE (French) En Avant La Musique! se concentre sur le metissage des 26 June 2006 genres musicaux au sein d une francophonie ouverte a tous les courants. This program focuses on cross-cultural music and its influence on mostly Francophone musicians. WENER'S BARBEQUE (Sports) Join the sports department for their coverage of the T-Birds. FLEXYOURHEAD (Hardcore) Up the punx, down the emo! Keepin' it real since 1989, yo. Flexyourhead. SALARIO MINIMO (World) Salario Minimo, the best rock in Spanish show in Canada. CAUGHT IN THE RED (Rock) Trawling the trash heap of over 50 years' worth of rock n' roll debris. Digit! AURAL TENTACLES (Edectic) It could be punk, ethno, global, trance, spoken word, rock, the unusual and the weird, or it could be something different. Hosted by DJ Pierre. ■WEDNESDAY SUBURBAN JUNGLE (Eclectic) ANOIZE (Noise) Luke Meat irritates and educates through musical deconstruction. Recommended for the strong. DEMOCRACY NOW (Talk) Independent news hosted by award-winning jounalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. RUMBLETONE RADIO (Rock) Primitive, fuzzed-out garage mayhem! MOTORDADDY (Rock) Cycle-riffic rawk and roll! NECESSARY VOICES (Talk) Socio-political,enviromental activist news .iiul -pohtii word milisuiiiamuHtfm ^4J&|§_mTIMESWHY ^^Op/Eclectic) First Wednesday of every month. BLUE MONDAY (Goth/Industrial) Vancouver's only industrial- electronic-retro-goth program. Music to schtomp to, hosted by JUICEBOX (Talk) U Developing your relational and individual sexual health, expressing diversity, celebrating queerness, and encouraging pleasure at all stages. Sexuality educators Julia and Alix will quench your search for responsible, progressive sexuality over your life span! <www.juiceboxradio.com> OPEN SECRETS (Talk) FOLK OASIS (Roots) Two hours of eclectic roots music. Don't own any Birkenstocks? Allergic to patchouli? C'mon in! A kumbaya-free zone since 1997. HANS KLOSS'lVflSERY HOUR (Hans Kloss) This is pretty much the best thing _______■THURSDAY SWEET 'N' HOT (Jazz) Sweet dance music and hot jazz from the 1920s, 30s, and40s. WE ALL FALL DOWN (Eclectic) Punk rock, indie pop, and whatever else I deem worthy. Hosted by a closet nerd. RHY1VIES & REASONS (Hip Hop) MY SCIENCE PROJECT (Talk) Zoom a little zoom on the My Science Project rocket ship, piloted by your host, Julia, as we navigate eccentric, underexposed, always relevant and plainly cool scientific research, technology, and poetry (submissions welcome). <myscienceprojectradio@yahoo. ca> PEDAL REVOLUTION (Talk) NUTHOUSE RADIO THEATRE (Drama) All-original Canadian radio drama and performance art written and performed live-to- air by our very own team of playwrights and voice actors. We also welcome you to get involved, . whether you are professional or inexperienced... EXQUISITE CORPSE (Experimented) Experimental, radio-art, sound collage, field recordings, etc. Recommended for the insane. LIVE FROM THUNDERBIRD RADIO HELL (Live Music) Live From Thunderbird Radio Hell showcases local talent...LIVE! Honestly, don't even ask about the technical side of this. June 8th: Wayside June 15th: Trike June 29th: The Basement SuUes, LAUGH PLANET LOVETRON (Dance/Electronic) Music inspired by Chocolate Thunder; Robert Robot drops electro past and present, hip hop and intergalactic funkmanship. <robertrobot@gmail.com> IN THE SHADOWS (Hip Hop) I UKE THE SCRIBBLES (Edectic) Beats mixed with audio from old films and clips from the internet. 10% discount for callers who are certified insane. Hosted by Chris D. THE VAMPIRE'S BALL (Gothl Industrial/Mettd) Dark, sinister music to soothe and/or move the Dragon's soul. Hosted by Drake. <thevampiresball@yahoo.ca> mmm SATURDAY THE SATURDAYFDGE (Boots) Studio guests, new releases, British comedy sketches, folk music calendar, and ticket giveaways. GEPERAIlONANNIIJnLATION (Pwk) A fine mix of streetpunk and old school hardcore backed by band interviews, guest speakers, and social commentary. - <www.streetpunkradio.com> <crashnburnradio@yahoo.ca> POWERCHORD (Metal) Vancouver's only true metal show; local demo tapes, imports, and other rarities. Gerald Rattlehead, Dwain, and Metal Ren do the di iTHEHIGHLIGHT IFRIDAY CUTE BAJND ALERT! (Edectic) SKA-T'S SCENIC DRIVE (Ska) Email requests to: djska_t@hotmail.com THESE ARE THE BREAKS (Hip Hop) Top notch crate digger DJ Avi Shack mixes underground hip hop, old school classics, and original breaks. RADIO ZERO (Edectic) NARDWUAR THE HUMAN SERVIETTE PRESENTS (Nardwuar) NEWS 101 (Talk) A volunteer-produced, student and community newscast featuring news, sports and arts. Reports by people like you. "BecometheMedia." THE CANADIAN WAY (Eclectic) Independent Canadian music from almost every genre imaginable covering the east coast to the left coast and all points in between: Yes, even Montreal! <thecanadianway@popstar.com> AFRICAN RHYTHMS (World) David "Love" Jones brings you the best new and old jazz, soul, Latin, samba, bossa and African music from around the world. <www.africanrhythmsradio. 3 honks, blues, and blues roots with your hosts Jim, Andy and Paul. THE LEO RAMIREZ SHOW (World') The best of music, news, sports, and commentary from around the local and international Latin American communities. OUR WAVE (World) News, arts, entertainment and music for the Russian community, local and abroad. SHADOW JUGGLERS (Dance/Electronic) An exciting chow of Drum n' Bass with DJs Jimungle & Bias on the ones and twos, plus guests. Listen for give-aways every week. Keep feelin da beatz. SYNAPTIC SANDWICH (IXmcelElectmnfclEdeetic) BEATS FROM THE BASEMENT (Hip Hop) ^ She is a proud Canadian of African descent, but it was a four year sabbatical abroad in Asia, New Zealand and Australia that awakened her to the realities of this world and helped Ebony put it all together and 'find herself'. As a young adult, Ebony worked for BC Ferries. It was then that she started to experience the pain of racism. Realizing there had to be more to life than that, she decided to grow in different dimensions by taking off on a four year sabbatical to experience other cultures overseas and across Canada. During her travels, while searching for a connection to her roots and African heritage, Ebony discovered a hidden gem—the Melanesians. Melanesia is a Greek word which when translated means "black islands". The label 'Melanesia' was first used to separate the peoples of this area by their skin tone. Indeed, the indigenous people of this area have her "dark" skin and "Afro" ("woory") hair, and they carry the traits of their African ancestors. Ebony rejoiced at this discovery and took much time to get close to these newly discovered relatives. Ebony is a graduate of Osaka International University in Japanese Language and Cultural Studies. She was also was privileged to learned ceramics from a reputable potter in the Kyoto region of Western Japan. Whilst in Japan she won an audition to co-host a commercial radio show in prime time; the show eventually won best in prime time amongst the 25 million-plus listeners in Western Japan, and was a regular on a popular TV show in Tokyo. She learned to produce in Sydney, Australia and since then has trained, filled-in and co-hosted several shows abroad and locally. Now back in North America, Ebony is devoted to enlightening the community with her experience and celebrates the beauty of her proud African heritage through music. She is the initiator and facilitator of AFROBEAT, an info-tainment Vancouver radio show that serves as the voice of all Afro-centric matters in the Vancouver community and surroundings on CiTR 101.9 FM. She invites everyone to join her in providing a voice to tell the story of the people and to gain respect and visibility for her brothers and sisters. Ebony can be reached at myafrobeat@yahoo.com. ^ LEFIN! Discorder 27 PICK UP ON FOURTH AfBlIf Jake a dniK Hi yp jnusiG—! Zulu LADYHAWK Hey Caulston... it's me, Roccoi* ZuJu Records is pleased that Drag City is pleased and proud to intro- - duce the debut of Espers on ' the Drag Gify label. This Philly indie band has always had a loyal fan base and truly lives up to its critical acclaim as one of the most beautiful working bands in the world. Espers II finds the group at sextet size, with greater powers and capabilities than before. Still, the original spirit of the band, which rules Espers in everything they do, gives the band the freedom to reach for the spiritual and the fun at once, a spirit from which the music arises. The sound of Espers II was achieved using a mad variety of instruments, from your standard everyday Martin 6- string acoustic, Fender jazz bass and drum kit to more exotic implements such as doumbek, dholak and male & female larynx (which we assume are swung around in the air to produce a recorder-like sound?). Espers at-play tap into shared spaces with joy, a sense of humor and, naturally, wonder. The musical outcome is a friendly new sensation: as the record plays, it warms the room and dims the lights with dense yet agile atmospherics, allowing you, the listener, to relax, and revel in communion with the realities of our present day. Dig, friends. CD 16.98 VITAMINS FOR YOU The Legend of Bird's Hill CD » parts was screwed over I big time," Run the name check on this... An amazing record a la Tetefon tel aviv, Notwist, Postal Service. Schneider TM, Manitoba, blunderspublfk, pinback, The Junior Boys, Fennesz, my bloody valentine, mice parade, to rococo rot. mutek, introversion mitchell Akiyama, Boards of Canada, Ghislain Poirier, Joshua Treble The Beans Desormais Montag, Ben Folds, Aphex Twin, Giant Suns, Marumar, Greg Davis, Dntei, Alice In Chains, Royksopp, Steve Reich, Takagi Masakatsu, Music A.M., Slowdive, Tarwater, Manual, Lali Puna, Ms John Soda, Tied Tickled Trio, Nobukazu Takemura, Eric's Trip, Sloan, Greg MacPherson, Snailhouse, Woollen Stars, Kepler, Tim Hecker, SND, Wagon Christ, Venetian Snares, Cornelius, The Free Design French Paddleboat Console, Arovane, Bjork, Beck, -Neil Young. CD 16.98 JUANA MOLINA Son GO ••Tell me Carmen, am I really so dandy?" I Miccitinpan soap star turned singer-songwriter' Juana Molina is art incredible new voice fHat redefines , /norjern music With her wide saras scope thalgficom- passes breez -.• i,j musii iritluftiii.es dnicatea&e*, rronic?, Miici classic forkKB baroque folk rock balladry. Molina's practice is ons that is instantly unique and . Oisamily enchanting Utilizing basic arrangements of _uftaf key-, cymbals gongs, bombo leguero, and a oats Maiina's fourth full-length Son. was recorded entirely in Juana's house, thus infusing she charming . fracte wrtf13 profoundly enthralling intimacy Inspired 'by trip fragile birdsongs outside tier wnftkw, these . '•.-.■five ;;nci--- mesh together nicety' (like nature, according to SSefes) and ring with me ssme unity as Hick i Brakes putsjder classic Pinlc Moon F,»-..:iy. Son is '. hard to puttiown - pick yours up oo-.v. m<ASlA8i.SJUNES:h - CD 16.98 THY AND THE WALL Bottoms of Barrels CD Jessica found the feathers and gave them to Jen." Tap dancing as a percussive element is only one of the many incredibly celebratory twists that Omaha Nebraska's love-in kids Tilly and The Wall serve up on this, their second full length for Conor Oberst s Team Love label. Bottoms of the Barrels is one of those records that sounds good with your eyes closed - in fact, we recommend that you attempt to listen to the entire record in our store with your eyes firmly shut. This way Tilly can score the strange animations that dance through your head. Tilly and The Wall offer an instant catharsis that is rare in today's indie-rock circles - get to the bottom of their barrel pronto! CD 16.98 VETIVER To Find Me Gone CD •'Qandy, sweet Sandy, Oiet's cruise the dunes." Of course Vetiver is the masterwork of celebrated out-folk troubadour Andy Cabic, who is best known for runnin' with the pack of big league players including Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and Brightblack. His debut was a pastoral fantasy record Jhat featured some stellar contributions from members Of My Bloody Valentine and Mazzy Star, among other San Fran freaks. For this next installment of his heady outsider ramblings, Cabic has synthesized his longstanding admiration for classic "60s West Coast summer ballads while furtively furthering his delicate take on the free-folk genre. That said, this record isn't afraid to rock out a bit as well as to strip Andy's compositions down to their bare essentials (including some gorgeous slide guitar work) thus presenting Cable's bold sonic vision in its rawest form yet! To Find Me Gone has all the hallmarks of a modern classic - this is clearly the music of our time. Recommended. CD 16.98 SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE The Sun Awakens CD ""Tell Heathcfflf his days at the Hotel I tend/ Ever, wandered u hat the actual physical changes made to a soundwave are as it's played 'lpnp{0$8 distortion pedal? Is the signal simply ampli- fieA-to-ipSKit where its width expands to include-all sorts of noise and dissonance' Perhaps distortion ts the result of the soundwave Breaking into millions ot other smaller soundwaves that when taken together create % dense, in oMuzzy chaos Perhaps soundwaves arc like electricity when released and when distorted' bolt tikf a million screaming wild horses' 'J' Heartless Six Organs of Admittance's Bet _%&$&_ is definitely aaautftofrty on bliss rock and distorted guitar Iteafr outs Renowned, within guitar circles for Ims Incredible finger-picking style ano avant-psyoh' ■coRBjositJpns, Chasny's follow up to last year _ epic' School of The Flower .release dials in _ more fipnjfied jamrny guitar tuzz fury ihat '.ikes fhe current lefocus: ing oi body-rcck/ns'/ciisrevi /alifin to a much higher level Chasny is ai the lop r>i hi? nmne - his ra-jn inspired drones vt avveson-k AVAILABLE JUNE 13"' CAMERA OBSCURA Left Get Out Of This Country CD iiY A/hen I fell in love with VV Gloria, I fell out a window." Merge Records released Camera Obscura s U.S. debut, II Achievers Please Try Harder in the winter of 2004. Indie pop fans across North America quickly became hooked on Camera Obscura s lovely, enchanting melodies and undeniable hooks, especially after Merge reissued Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi in the fall of 2004, Next, in the fall of 2005, Camera Obscura traveled to Stockholm to begin work on a new album with acclaimed producer Jari Haapaiainen. Influenced by a wide variety ot heroes - from Jimmy Webb to Lloyd Cole, from Connie Francis to Skeeter Davis, from the Supremes to Oavid Lynch - lead singer/songwriter Traceyanne Campell and crew assembled a remarkable batch of new songs. Decidely upbeat, optimistic and catchy at times ("H Loots Could Kill", "Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken"), while also beautifully romantic, quiet and reflective at others ("Country Mite", "Dory Previn'). the new album - Let's Get (tat Of This Country - is the sound of a wonderful young band just hitting their stride. Good, good. AVAILABLE JUNE 6™ CD 16.98 BORIS Pink CD "That's when Julian I reached for his revolver." Boris appears to be the sort of band for which anything is possible - anything amazing, that is. Their records are so hotly anticipated that it was way back when people were just starting to dig their Hick Drake cover parody release Akuma Ho Uta that we heard of the stoner rock fury that is Pink! Combining the best of all their various modes - f eedbackin', atom smashing experimental noise, and dreamy Shjur Ros- esque odes,- this release is destined to be the one that earns Boris the North American fanbase they truly deserve. If you are looking for a more blessed-out take on the currerf jjterier rock scene, then Boris' Pink is certain f o be yfi$r hue of coot. CDIftJHj AN AFFAIR FOR GOOD MUSIC,... TWWAUfflra-AftaKfradMtesOffCD MSStON OF BURMA- The OWrterati CD Stl^ASWIB-Le3ringS«^s2CD N8CAH P. HNSDN-The Baby & The Satellite CD n___il_U_~WKtVM^Xke'imVB THE ROBOT ATE ME - Good Watt CD SOMC YOUTH-Rather Ripped eoftP SMOG-R«* Bottom faserCW /■_. BWffl~fiara45ai>siil»Ei{&a^^ of Demons CMP eftHABDZIUCH-&iangi«staCW - CHARAUulffilDes-A Vintage Burden CB 0 h fl^p^i^ffteOt-MsfnniiS^ lyttoe inrabaVI? ye'ufjavel^j-:""- mads love ih>^'vfl1d'yofl.v)ib )«9^k^ ^S^^"spro^&Hig^ifrtr3e.arf sf ^ protreabon You and your lover become | - like biids thaisoai on the warm »Jtfl ot ecstas? that it '"i. >' the, > coned cypresses anc rusty arbutuses Hpre^yo'jr voices •. ill jom in song vim tfose of the tour memttfrsofVtncouvprsfiewe'-trockmsehine Ladyhawk Driven -by delectation you give your euphoric chants to Duffy flamy, Ryan and Sean respei ft till / to fuel thpir tkiod of hard rock stean wfrdi .. heroically sai't towards tne mother* Soon tusic will rail down on.. the earth ana quench your naked bodies as th'S is as close to per feet pitrinca'fofi as"one can possibly get and arv wicked scum that ■vou have pit ked up along the «#t will become Vie trim we now call Sad Eyes/Blue Eyes' We unnot get o'f their cloud so b°- '. Ladyhawk! CD 14.98 LOSCIL Plume CD "Jley Sadie, now your Daddy son .' ' riftre!"Whensometimes-Bestroirar drummer Scott Morgan dons h.s electron*, i ih r o„ yob can be sure mat some serious softwaie science is about to be dropped Previous Loscil albuirjr have been enchantingly aqueous - aj§iS|S/0s, in warm te^^^B^ before commencing cod refresfemo shower, of crystalline droplets. Plume heats thin__ up considerably, with a greater quo -"te&flf live-instrument input creating surprisingl/ gaseous-results. ' Diffused it may be but this is still the ambient dub par excellence tha' LoscB fans have „nm» to expel t They wilt breathe rt jn deeply and exhale slowly, with a great deal of s_ti faction CD16.lCo VANCOUGAR Losin'ltCD it ft fl elissa, meet me in my space at I Vlmy place." Many folks dream about Vancouver having a really cool- ..' music scene... some folks go about actually making really cool music Vancougar have quorum to kick as s and we invite you to be the some witness to this {h/aiiaon debut release on So atch-Records Featuring the killer iine-up of CCRose (Tie Cinch Pink Mountaintops), basssMtecca Stewart, fce^f .' . boardist Megan Johnson, and smger/faftarist Eden Finedaysthigj- power four pwcf^HS already dropped the gaunfiatigening for Gris Gris, Drunk Horse Quintron and others. Their sounrite fresh, no ; ' nonsense, pure fiowef pop that seunds-like a row between «je Modem Lovers and The Ronettes --but cbances aw that it ypu re part of the scene, you knew that already jSupport yei»,loca! ladies ; and lose it with Vancougar I CD 12.98 THEH»rrEDSTia(S VfaitUrf^orTteReal Finafiy tssuedMjpey Shithead s Sudden Deatft rec Jid label. Bj__b_ NtaitlfStiek- Waiting For IWttfajfc.- Thing culls together the best materials I from their ihre_ singles and multitude of demos as well as the TV' ; . affii radjr>watift$ B» folntrt Sticks W6feJfcifiBPd'ioj9arlv t97Sv '' amJ9i«r^becameabigfjartotmPHnae^eHrMjp(.nl^e*wav8- _ seen, ift Va icotwer glggifig wftfi bandf like BAA. Sis SubtttHnass and Ihe Dishiags Thev had a fun. quirky style that they combined " with pure pop genius Following a couple of classic singles, fhey -" signed to Stiff Recoids and fte;; to Engtend to i ecord an'aibuifi.; '. Thi ough bad iuck and bad oroduetion tbe album was never ■. • released. Ihat would fall to Vancouver's Quintessence Record^ _ v/fio released the Mi Rock production of the PerfectVoJ in 1951. On tfit's CD you get fo hear one of ihe very bj I ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^___i_i_____^iB m*****
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Discorder CITR-FM (Radio station : Vancouver, B.C.) 2006-06-01
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Page Metadata
Item Metadata
Title | Discorder |
Creator |
CITR-FM (Radio station : Vancouver, B.C.) |
Publisher | Vancouver : Student Radio Society of the University of British Columbia |
Date Issued | 2006-06-01 |
Extent | 28 pages |
Subject |
Rock music--Periodicals |
Genre |
Periodicals |
Type |
Text |
FileFormat | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Identifier | ML3533.8 D472 ML3533_8_D472_2006_06 |
Collection |
Discorder |
Source | Original Format: Student Radio Society of University of British Columbia |
Date Available | 2015-03-11 |
Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
Rights | Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these recordings must be obtained from CiTR-FM: http://www.citr.ca |
CatalogueRecord | http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=1190017 |
AIPUUID | b143e924-4b75-4739-8d2a-3354956a8ae0 |
DOI | 10.14288/1.0050067 |
AggregatedSourceRepository | CONTENTdm |
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