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Discorder
CITR-FM (Radio station : Vancouver, B.C.)
32 pages
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THAT MIGHT FILLED MAGAZINE FROM CITR 101.9 FM AUGUST '99 FREE iSSS The off Patrick Fillioim The off Pole Elevator Red Monkey & Ember Swift The Musings off Hancunt ...and MORE! house techno & SUNDAY AUGUST 29 WHISTLER, BC gOQfr MOBY MARTIN TIELLI (OF THE RHEOSTATICS) PRESENTS FARMER IN THE CITY BROWNING + MORE TBA FREE WILDERNESS CAMP ■ OUT! INFO: 729-1284 TOLL-FREE 1-877-9220622 [___E__E>- | FRIDAYJSEPTEMBER 3 I RICHARDS ON RICHARDS I ANANSfc Kelly wsnis Oh Susanna Hj*iij'l:|j:ll*l - v| UliCSraTREMY) preacnerszERO Features Elevator Red Monkey Pole The Silent Majority Patrick Fillion Ember Swift Out On Screen CiTR would like to extend super big thanks to Shane Lunny & Tony Dean tor their gracious donation of a Soundcraft mixing board and power supply! editrix: barbara andersen art director: robert horsman ad rep: maren hancock production manager: tristan winch graphic design/layout: rob h, tristan production: airton, joe c, julie c, andrea g, ann g, mike g, hancunt, christa m, anthony s, tim s, todd s, kirsten w photography & illustrations: chocolate baby, jason da silva, patrick fillion, rachel k. rocket,tobias van veen contributors: tania a, brady c, julie c, mike c, val c, bryce d, anna f, robin f, wendy f, steve g, John h, hancunt, blaine k, daryl k, John k, jamie m, janis mck, christa m, nardwuar, jason n, gabby r, evan s, erin s, tim s, spike, tobias v v, coreen w, kirsten w, quentin w, tristan w, nat x programme guide: anna friz charts: Julie colero atebook: barbara distribution: matt steffich us distribution: maren discorder on-line: trist-o-rama publisher: aaron nakama 9 11 12 14 16 18 19 dude, last month tobias van veen took some wicked pictures of neotropic@sonar and we forgot to credit him in the "centre" spread, we sure feel stupid now. Columns Vancouver Special 4 Interview Hell 7 7" 8 Kill Your Boyfriend 10 Grumpy Old Dog 10 Videophilter 19 Printed Matters 20 Louder Than A Bomb 20 Under Review 22 Real Live Action 24 Charts 27 On the Dial 28 Datebook 30 Comics Good Tasty (transcontinental) 2 7 Cover The art of Patrick Fillion, bowdlerized and stuck together by Rob. © "DiSCORDER" 1999 by the Student Radio Society of the University of British Columbia. All rights reserved. Circulation 12 000. Subscriptions, payable in advance, to Canadian residents are $ 15 for one year, to residents of the USA are $ 1 5 US; $24 CDN elsewhere. Single copies are $2 (to cover postage, of course). Please make cheques or money orders payable to DiSCORDER Magazine. DEADLINES: Copy deadline for the September issue is August 1 8th. Ad space is available until August 25th and can be booked by calling Maren 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 (Mac, preferably) or in type. As always, English is preferred. 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 ext. 0, or our news and sports lines at 822.3017 ext. 2. Fax us at 822.9364, e-mail us at: citrradio@mail.ams.ubc.ca, visit our web site at http://www.ams.ubc.ca/media/citr or just pick up a goddamn pen and write #233-6138 SUB Blvd., Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, CANADA. Printed In Canada Vancouver Special pppc? BY JANIS McKENZIE & CHRISTA MIN VARIOUS AR TISTS Dominic Radio (Transsiberian) In this age of Internet/TV convergence and all that, there's something about rodio that sounds almost charmingly old-fashioned, or at least retro Well, maybe not, but this double-CD compilation, with all its "broadcast announcements" and static interludes, got me feeling misty-eyed about the evenings I spent as a preteen twirling knobs on my dresser- sized garage-sale short-wave radio, listening to the spooky outerspace noises, that eerily relentless Co-ordinated Universal Time frequency, and people speaking urgently in foreign Ian- sorts provide Dominic Radio's 55 tracks, which range from 10-sec- ond sound bursts (C+) to lengthy Syd Barrett -y trippiness (Citroen and the Beans) to aggressive, whiplashy post-industrial whirling (Zero Squared) There's even a falling-down-drunk sounding cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" (July 4thToilet, taking just the right approach), a pretty instrumental where piano arpeggios are accompanied by something akin to the buzzing of bees (Jill Navy), and a lovely sweet/plaintive piece whose title is the perfect description: "Slovak Ice Cream Truck" (Godwin Peak) As if this weren't enough, there are moments with the jolly quality of '70s TV dating show music (mitch), as well as that Coordinated Universal Time thing (Slave 1 ) already mentioned In fact, there's surprisingly little here that's annoying, and an awful lot that's really good — quite an accomplishment for almost 2 1/2 hours of material (PO Box 144- 1472 Commercial Drive, Vancouver BC V5L 3X9 <transsiberian@ scratchrecords.com>) VARIOUS AR TISTS The basement suites: opus I (BasementSuiteJesus / Laconic Pop) From the way Christians are always trying to convert me, you'd think I had a "heathen" sign around my neck. This might ex plain why I approached this 24- song CD with some trepidation. Sure enough, the masterminds behind this compilation have aimed the first few songs directly at me: a sweet lo-fi indie pop song by Motorcycle, Freep's "Eucalyptus," where two truly lovely female voices harmonize in honour of a tree (and Jesus); and a pure, spare, hillbilly-tinged gospel entry from Mandy* Troxell, recorded in a California church There's noisier stuff here too, and even some gleefully snotty (and off-key) singing, as well as three "bonus 'archival' punk rawk" tracks (one of these performed by a band named after a Seinfeld character), as well as many triumphs of low-budget but high-quality recording. Opus I has its good and bad moments, and although part of this depends on the listener's feelings about religious content (and the sort of music, accompanied by electric guitar, you might hear in a church with a "forward-thinking" minister), I can't help thinking that this would have made a very good 8 to 10-song collection. While you have to admire the producers' attempts to be inclusive, it's a sad fact of life that there are some one-offs and side projects that are more fun for the participants than for the listener, and yes, there are a couple of those here (<e-mail: davenport@islandnet.com, or laconicpop@usa.net www islandnet com/~dvnport/ bsj/>). local demos! I'm trying to listen to every tope in the size 15 shoe box, so forgive me if some of these bands are no longer together, or if the demo that I have is from 1987. I know SWANK O'HARA has been around for a while I remember seeing this band play Shindig. I wouldn't say they were particularly swank, but their songs are nice and cause head bobbin', especially "No One Has a Clue but You " (<ohara_scarlett@ hotmail.com>) TEAM STRIKE FORCE sent me their new single "Bomb at the Party." It sounds like it belongs on a Teenage Shutdown compilation. The hit potential would be higher if only the singing sounded as good as the guitar melody, (ad- THE PROBES is the closest to punk that you'll get this month A guitar solo, a lot of "Yeah's and a loud snare. These are not necessarily bad things, well not in this band anyway. No stupid lyrics either, (no address) I know for a fact that this band is now defunct because that's what it said on the tape. SLOUGH OF DESPOND is an Emo outlet that contained members of Radio Berlin and Forcasts Farewell . Even though they're no longer to gether, I had to include them here because all the other bands are too happy. You can probably get a copy of the tape if you want (address unknown) My personal favourite of the month is CANADIAN and their tape The Music of Canada. I think they're actually from Germany or the Netherlands. They (it might even be one person) play Grade 3 Royal Conservatory type melodies on a big happy stringed instrument, (address unknown)* •n) THE KILTUFTERS is a pof> ska bond from Nanaimo. It could just be the recording, but the horns should be three times louder. Danceable songs none the less. (<kiltlifters@ hotmail.com>) (QJri/e lo £)iscoroer / we have the solution to any problem.* #233-6138 SUB Blvd. Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1 Canada • net a guarantee. WE'VE MOVED!!! ^____f§ OUR NEW LOCATION IS AT 726 RICHARDS ST (BETWEEN ROBSON & GEORGIA) GRAND OPENING SALE! Friday August 13 to Sunday August 15 Bugskull \Distracted Snowflake \Vol.2 CD EVERYTHING'S ON SALE! EVERYTHING'S ON SALE/l 723 Richards Street 604.687.6355 Murder City Devils Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts LP/CD I Coming Soon! Lonnie James - DEE-0 CD Jungle - Long Time, No See CD available at fine stores everywhere ^__^/'-(-S W2:i AUTO I |MMHAB1I@| KindieB In all stores 1-888-88-indie rm-frati 1 indiepool.com/automaticsliml ■'QlEjy ■ j (iLEJJl 7 mortalized epics that modulate with authenticity captivate with assertion, and emulate no one. Experience Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit1 and Smashing Pumpkins put through the blender and poured down your throat. check out... SKUNK ANANSIE "POST ORGASMIC CHILL" Produced by Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Jeff Buckley) Sonic Warfare fed through speakers. Absolutely Rivoting. - Q Magazine Skunk Anansie kicks your head in, then soothes you down. - Guitarist Sharp insigts, stadium sized choruses - Its the album of their career. - Heat Wjl^ Featuring On My Hotel TV, Secretly, and the I m<L electrifying first single CHARLIE BIG POTATO. | CATCH SKUNK ANANSIE LIVE! SUNDAY AUGUST 8TH AT THE STARFISH ROOM. www.samsCD.com /Seymour" • 568 Seymour Street, Vancouver • Victoria Eatons' Centre, Victoria • Surry Centre, Surry TAKE ACTION! A PUNK ROCK SAMPLER BENEFITTING THE FOUNDATION FIGHTING BLINDNESS (fcSUBCITYOl SCARED FALLING SICKNESS CHAKA M**NTSK* I] TAKE ACTION! ( = SC001-CD SAMPLER :IFTEEN FYP HECKLE ALGEBRA ONE KID DYNAMITE SCARED OF CHAKA AGAINST ALL AUTHORITY FALLING SICKNESS DILLINGER FOUR THE WEAKERTHANS UNERAL ORATION DAMNATION THE RABIES tJPBd Of VOU Ip/Cd/CS SPLIT 10W/MCD ' ^ir^V ^SUBCITYOT ,,Y WAS CREATED BY HOPELESS RECORDS TO RAISE SOCIAL AWARENESS AND FUNDING FOR NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS mm? m lonely kings what if? CD OUT N^^i^ ^^IO^ vinyl OUT MOW! — ww. y^ CDC? ^^(swm? io" eo-$6 hnp://www.fearlessrecords.com 13772 Goidenwesi St. #545, Westminster, CA 92683 coming soon... DYNAMITE BOY Atu Who are you? _1: Brian Minato, 36, bass a Sean Ashby, 32 go^ond ^ R<jper for Why not I****' that motter?l?l de ;S?a::!Mr!%ope"-oncerned,n1vtho^s ^ with 'Chrissy Sno- ^ *, ,n whot ways do Jhy ^n<J Front,ine G,n9er'u?a/°808 ^urn-machine factor Assembly* 808 dr Tr,pper, into the equation ho. ^^ ^ d Sean I pl°Yed 9«"ar , satelr,te member or taured with them as a sort^ot ^ ^ CDs ond I tour w.th bar ^ Grapes 0r Bri0n' VZ "e7oS°nd recorded with Sarah Ginger. I have to ^ ^ about p,ay,ng McLachlan since 99 . ^ bnng .. the in Sarah's band that I ve _ha( _nd an ack Tripper style is the -e ° spa ^ appreciation a^ P^'^Ldal. than the Y^feHowshovejnorep ^ ^ Tour dC_o Tder's oU about them- Do DiSCORDER readers j■ ^ _ t any other local^^ at their co«ect,onoM970Andwastha^,oP guitar goL Tm sometimes Payme ,pedal: Brian*. 1 wen, on the Int.maMJ ^ Uom ondvo^^^f^^^.ypedalsa.a Actually, !■«• ^9j 3 store in Fernie, BC small mom and pop used ^.^ and these songs? ing „ different Sean*. Well, m a guy o Y p(us we pu, than johnette Irom Concrete ^ k ^^'"d^ng 'out and changed the We just drugged n "_ arrangement Concrete Blonde song Brian*. I hadn't heard the C ^ ^ .. before Sean brought Hi Everyone preconceived nofons on ^ P ^ wHh echo repeats type o 9 ^ up established the 9'°^^ the chorus section w,*h a different vocal Une There ^ _ ,., o( and we were off ond nmnmg ^ ^ Qnd stamp pedals bemg "^ Another f.nely Shane*. I m a 27 yea ^ ^ beQch. outdoor sports and long w ^ pQr, of have been drummmg or Jock my parole since last ta«. ^ many , a merging of styles ^ p__ts styles. Who -e-s *he jo k ^ ^ •in jack «PP-^J/!; from psychedelic folks that you could g^ ._ one to country n Uft.igM *»"■'" we Noticed? i Shane - ! nly have ntWO pedals, . both 1990s IP but hope to ;cj more. :; Sean*. I love to p,ay i straight into 'the amp and often do when recording. 1 Live, it's the ore 'sounds at my the better. , ,„ a huge Ian of the 'electro- harmonix pedal, the 'big muK pie' 11 don't know if if* ,he Jack Tripper [Tonic Record, Discography:^^^^^^^^^^ Who are you? (names, ages, instruments played) We are Satina Saturnina — a hologram in a smoke-filled room... pulsating. The figure that is Satina strokes her Malibu Barbie and smiles. Two figures Hank her, stroking guitars. Who are these masked men? They are Satina droids. Where does Satina Saturnina originally hail from, and how did you end up in our little messed-up world? ^^^^^^^^ We dwelt in the realms of punk performance art on the shores of New Zealand. We were 1 hailed as 'the art-rock wonder kids' and 'marvelous cabaret for the hallucinogenicaliy inclined.' We performed in alternative bars, theatres and art galleries. One day, Satina Saturnina heard a voice calling from the bathroom. It was a kewpie doll. The doll had a message. She said*. 'Take flight on a mechanical bird ... take flight, Satina Saturninal' Satina left New Zealand and took the show on the road. Satina droid #1, Derek Champion, came too and they landed together in Canada. Satina's first show in Canada was as a duo in Music Waste 1998. They were quickly joined by Montreal guitar guru Scott Morgan, who became the band's first foreign Satina droid. Satina Saturnina now seeks* another droid with keyboard playing alignment. Given an unlimited budget, what props and/or paraphernalia would you incorporate into your live performance? Describe Satina's stage props/costumes. A giant powder puff cushion for Satina to write on as she presents a transmission live from the fifth ring of Saturn. The powder puff would be big, fluffy and soft. I like it ... it's ssnice. We would also like a huge see- through tub filled with glitter and a giant lollipop that we could stretch out into the audience so everyone could take a lick. Having a budget that allows for a multimedia performance is very nice. We love working with video. Strong visual presentation has always been part of Satina Saturnina shows. Performance art is often thought of as a 'difficult' genre because people always rave about our costumes and toys after our shows. Mmm ... an unlimited budget would be ssnice. Who had the best Barbies at Girlfeast? Are you friends with the Super Sluts from Space? Girlfeast was fun. This guy jumped up on stage during 'Steak Barbie' and put his arm around Satina's neck, chanting 'Barbie ... Barbie ...' Satina's hands were full*, she had Malibu in one hand tied to a stake, Salem style; a piece of synthetic meat — a latex steak — in the other. This guy (although a new and soon-to-be-devoted fan] was cramping her style, so she took the Barbie tied to the stake and gave him a jab right in the middle of his denim buns. He lurched forward in to the audience. Clap hands for Barbie, clap hands. We here at Thunderbird Radio Hell are .<_.— totally fascinated with the massive beehive hair and big-ass nose-ring so prominently displayed on your CD sleeve, not to mention the other pictures. Okay. Where did you get those pictures? Please explain to our readers the intricacies of the Satina Saturnina presentation. Satina doesn't have a pierced nose anymore. She let it heal over. It became horribly infected and the pain was excruciating. Later she learned it was because she had pierced it Which bit of the Angel gets turned on the most by rejection? People love rejection ... easy meat ... easy meet ... quick retreat ... fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The brain is the sexiest part of the body ... rejection is a state of mind ... angel brain ... angel food cake ... brain food ...I like it... it's ssnice. Ask yourself two questions and answer them. Do you have new material coming out? We recently got an 8-track recording studio. We like working at home. So we've been jamming, playing with our toys and new ideas. We are thinking or releasing 'Steak Barbie' with the reprise 'Fuck Barbie' as a 7" single. 'Steak Barbie' seems to be the hit pick with our audiences so we'll let them take her When are your next shows? We have a show coming up in fall as part of a performance art festival called 'Live at the end of the century.' This is being organised by the Grunt Gallery. The venue hasn't been confirmed. We are creating a 45 minute performance piece specifically for this event. So are you still offering us an unlimited budget? Dreams are free! I like it... it's ssnice. Discography: 1997 - 7" single 'Annabellee' b/w 'Doll Valley' 1998 - CD Clitoris Goddess (produced with an arts grant from the New Zealand Art Council) Contact: Victoria Singh 2123 E. Broadway Vancouver, BC V5N 1W8 604.255.3109 July 31, 1999, catch Satina Saturnina live on CiTR 101.9 fM as a part of our Loud and Queer radio sextravaganza! f m^auisffi After waiting for days for the fogginess in my brain to subside, I've come to the realization that it's just not going to happen. This is summer burnout, and all hopes of creating an interesting (or at least coherent) column are quite out of the question These days, I'm much more concerned with remembering which job I'm supposed to be at on whal day, and whether I've got any clean socks left. Skipping out on work to recuperate from unidentifiable ill- as any to get busy with the mad record action here at Top-Rock Central Station. Bring it on, baby I wish that my record player were a whole lot closer to my computer, because this new TENTACLES record is really much too short to sit put through A song per side is the way this ultra-star band has done it, and I wish there You mm BY JULIE COLERO gots your Lois, your gal from Sleater-Kinney (Carrie, maybe?), your Scott Evaporator, and some other rock guy whose name escapes me (why no liner notes, buddies?) — instant good-news street cred Do we love it? Sure, why not. "The Touch" is a rockin' girl-fronted song which reminds me a whole lot of Luscious Jackson circa In Search of Manny— definitely not a bad thing There're these really cute little howls going on, and you can just tell this was fun to record. The b-side, "Louie Louie Got Married," gives the mic to the misters and is an upbeat charmer Now, before you get all excited, the bad news: this band is rumoured to already be bles. So sad. Enjoy it while you can, kids (K, POBox 7154 Olympia, WA 98507) New to me is the PETTY CRIME self-titled 7" out on Slampt Dude, this rocks Layla (ex-Skinned Teen) leads this three-piece on a wild punk-rock lo-fi ride to your heart. There's chunky bass galore, plus fuzzed- out guitar to make your body swing to and fro. These kids've got the DIY ethic like there's no stopping, and it shows. There's a sense of haste and urgency to this release that'll make you want to program these five songs into your jukebox brain. If this is making less than any sense, I'll do you "all a favour and compare them — just the tiniest bit, thanks to a stolen riff — to Slant 6 . There you go. Oh, and if you haven't heard Skinned Teen, get on it (Slampt, PO box 54 Heaton, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE6 5YW, UK) What the ... ? Raging girl hardcore from just south of the border It's THE HAGGARD a new queercore group featuring sts from Cadallaca , and they are loud! Three songs of educated thrash are to be found on this here slab o' vinyl, songs sporting lines as cool as "America, if you were my girlfriend, I'd dump you on your ass " Mad props are going out to this brand new label, Heartcore, for budding up as something new on the queercore scene — this may be its first release, but there's more in the works. "Reclaim the Political Redefine Queer. Redefine Punk. Reclaim the Heart." How can you go wrong with a slogan like that? (Heartcore, Columbia University Station, PO Box 250636 New York, NY, 10025) For any of you who like your easy listening done pop-punk, check out the ME FIRST & THE GIMME GIMMES' In Your Barcalounger" 7" I certainly didn't need to hear James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" and "You've Got A Friend" done up in that pukey-punky style, but maybe you do ... (Alternative Tentacles, PO Box 419092, San Francisco, CA 94141-9092) If you're not getting enough cutesy pop in your musical diet these days, I would highly recommend a helping of THE POCONOS . This band is so cute it hurts to listen to the record twice. Equal parts silliness and sadness make up this six-song release, and I feel like I'm listening to an amalgamation of all things K Nothing original, that's for certain, but not bad on the whole. I like it when they do their Crabs y duets. (Jigsaw, PO Box 1440 Santa Cruz, CA 95061) I want more MATES OF STATE! On their split 7" shared wifh FIGHTER D , they sound like Rainer Maria would if they could sing in tune. This girl and guy are doing some serious vocal battling, kicking the crap out of all the others trying to get this sound down. This is super-cool pop with great harmonies and keyboards. It's like Joan of Arc with more girls and less abstraction. I like it a whole bunch. The Fighter D song is not nearly as memorable or interesting, but it's not exactly bad, either. La la, girl- fronted fuzz-pop, to the moon! (Omnibus, PO Box 4522 Davis, CA 95617) Anyone ever heard any Atom and his Package ? Yes? Good, then you'll be down with MATHLETE . No clue what I'm talking about? Right. Keyboards, programming, silliness, awkward vocals about nonsensical stuff. that's the ticket. This is music any nerd could make in his or her bedroom while giving the Casio some flavourful lovin'. (Ojet, 2055 Westheimer, # 1 65 Houston, TX 77098) If I wasn't something of a sickster right now, I would so be dancing around the living room to the new HUEVOS RANCHEROS "Wild Turkey Surprise!" 7". This gem of a single is courtesy of the good people at Mint Records, who like to ensure that stellar tuneage from all across this fine country is made available to us ordinary citizens How else could we rock this hard? Huevos Rancheros sound just as cool as they always do, and are here to prove to us all that they're about more than just bad beer commercials. Well done, boys! (Mint, PO Box 3613, Vancouver BC, V6B 3Y6) The prettiest (maybe a bad choice of words in this context) piece of wax to make it to me recently is the new release from local boys THE SUBWAY THUGS. I haven't enjoyed a picture disc this much since my dad bought me Disney's The Fox and the Hound back in the early '80s Not that the two sound anything alike, though ... The Subway Thugs rip it up. The gravel-voiced singer gives us an anthem for lost friends, and a couple of other high-energy songs. I like these guys because they're not unnecessarily crass. They spread the Oi! Street Punk message in what seems to me to be a very positive manner. (Oink! PO Box 27813 Washington, DC 20038- 7813) And back to bed go I. • staff picks SJNQUS 3296 Main St./17th 876.9233 we carry garage, oil, ska, hip hop, hardcore, emo, anarcho-punk LPs, 45s, CDs - New & Used TOP $ PAID FOR PUNK VINYL 100% CANADIAN OWNED AND OPERATED 5 STAGES • 2 OUTDOOR RAVES • 8000 PEOPLE • RAIN OR SHINE\ 10th Anniversary ^^^^^D SOCIAL C«l»6t SUNDAY AUGUST 8TH CATES PARK, NORTH VANCOUVE I FEATURING: KINNIE STARR • RAICES YU-PING CHEN • CHIEF LEONARD GEORGE • CHILDREN OF TAKAYA THIRD EYE TRIBE • KURDISTANI BAND • LOURDES PEREZ • SUBMISSION HOLD • CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE • SAILANI SHARMA • SALTWATER JUNE • ELIZABETH FISCHER & GYPSY FIRE • ART + REVOLUTION COLLECTIVE • SARA & TEGAN • KATHLEEN YEARWOOD • ONE AGAINST • LOS HIGOS DE LA CRISIS • BYATHREAD • RIGOR COLOMA • SQUAMISH NATION EAGLES0NG DANCERS SAWAGI TAIKO • BLOOD MUSIC PROJECT • CIRCUS + FIRE PERFORMANCE PLUS! FOLKINTHEBUSH , MALCOLM LOWRY STAGE , 2 DAYLIGHT RAVES, FILM & VIDEO TENT - special presentation of Loretta Todd's "Today Is A Good Day: Remembering Chief Dan George", Info Fair, Art Market, children's Area, Natural Food Kitchens. 48 Page Festival Guide available July 24. FESTIVAL TICKETS $5-$20 PAY WHAT U CAN! atthe gate. GATES OPEN 11AM We encourage you to cycle, take transit or use our new & improved shuttle bus service. Shuttles leave Carnegie Centre © 11 am & Grandview Park © 11 am, 12:30 & 2 pm. Service between Phibbs Exchange & Cates runs 11-3 & 8-1 lpm. Bike convoys leave Grandview Park © 11 am & lpm. Return shuttles from Cates Park © 8 and 10:30pm. We are 100% volunteer produced. Call to volunteer 252-5184 Festival office 683-7123 WWW.ta0.Ca/~V0lcan0 I Au<jus-f ft December 1996 Mission: find something, anything to help and \fort myself through the insecurities, ignorance, and isolation of grade 10. Solution: Forever Again by Eric's Trip. Simple songs of love and loneliness holding my hand and pulling me into the world of indie rock. Production, lyrics, music, silence — every aspect of the album, from start to finish — June 1999 Mission: Meet the man behind Forever Again, Mr. Rick White. Now he's in his new band, his side-project cum main focus, the newly renamed Elevator (formerly Elevator to Hell, Elevator Through, or variations thereof). Solution: Elevator's tour van, a drizzly Friday afternoon on skid row, outside the Brickyard. While Mrs. White sits and smokes in the shotgun seat, I nervously confront Rick, armed with no more than a cheap microphone, a portable recorder, and years of listening experience ... DiSCORDER: So you don't mind everybody talking about the old band? No. It was rough at* first, because we just wanted to try to get started. But yet it's probably what helped get people [to start listening]. When you change your name, it seems like people don't know who you are anymore. [We did it] almost to show that it's just more of a title. It doesn't have to be this thing you can sell to corporations, with big logos everywhere. It's just a name. It has to evolve with the band. A lot of my favourite bands were kind of mysterious. They never got popular enough to have good documentaries and stuff. I think it's kind of neat when you can just imagine what a band's like, and not really know too much about them. Kind of like the Residents, you know? They're just this 'made' thing. But your songwriting has really changed, really evolved. You can see it in the lyrics. Especially from Eric's Trip. It just almost has to go with different relationships, whether it's friends or whatever, it's always a bit different from the last one. I find I'm less focused on my relations with another person, which [is something] Eric's Trip dealt a lot with ... for the first couple of albums anyway. Now we're focusing more on our journey through thought and our relation to the way the world's working. But it's done more in little stories. I try to write little stories that kind'of cryptically explain it, without being too jumbled. It's a lot more straightforward, and blunt almost, in Eric's Trip. Yeah, and focused on more petty things, but that just has to do with age, I guess. You always go through different things that you're thinking about, [things] you're obsessed with. And in a few years, you're always looking back and you're not thinking those things anymore, you're on to some new thoughts. It's kind of surprising, now that you're married to Tara [bassist for Elevator], you write more subtly about [the relationship]. Yeah, there is relation in >ut it's beyond, I'm sad. About things.' Because that seems more — even though I was older than in my teens — it seems more a young thing when you're focused mostly on the love aspect. But you get to a point where you realize [that] if you can find love you should keep it and not really worry about it [or] analyze it to death. There are other things to analyze that are more important. If you can just stay happy with someone, that's a comfortable way to be. So I really try not to dwell on bad vibes in songs anymore. I try to make some sort of solution, or a picture of it in my head so I can see it better. Were you going out with Julie [Doiron] before the band started? Yeah, I guess since just before Eric's Trip started. We were always hanging around. She was one of the first persons I'd met that I could jam with, or write songs with. So it was inspiring just to make a band that I could do that with. It was kind of exciting to just make songs. But as the years went on, it just gets kind of crazy and you need to switch directions somehow. We all started losing sight of the same plan. Me and Mark [Gaudet], we had a plan; Julie and Chris [Thompson] were on their own kind of vibes, and we never practiced as much. So since me and Mark were the two, we still had a couple, instead of just one and one and two. We just kept going. Were they more interested in the solo aspect? I'm really surprised they didn't try to do something more Eric's Triplike, or more full volume. It seems like we were the only ones, once Tara joined, that were still doing a band, a full band, in the style of a heavy, almost psychedelic journey that Eric's Trip was leading to. I always felt the songs that would have been on the next Eric's Trip record anyway were on Eerieconstellation, maybe with different words. Same type of idea. But I think I could just focus on it a bit better, the three of us being so close. Julie and Chris were living in different cities. It wasn't like creating with them anymore, it was just showing them: 'Here. Here's our new songs.' It would get kind of But, it seems like you guys are all still friends, almost like a big family. Yeah, we don't see them very often, but we're all still on good vibes. The last time Julie was here, she was mentioning that you and Chris played a show with her. We thought we might as well, finally. We hadn't talked to each other for so long that I felt like doing it. I just wanted to play a few shows. And without Mark it was better, almost, just so it didn't become this Eric's Trip thing. We did a set of all her songs, with us just being her back-up songs. Just a few Eric's Trip songs ... 'Girlfriend' and 'Lightly Feeling,' that's about it. On Vague Premonition, there is a definite softer side, [softer] than Eerieconstellation Well, with Eerieconstellation, we were more freaked out. It's kind of like that song, "Bad Thoughts Coming Down". It's really dark stuff hat d, that v thought we were being pulled into. We created, or, I felt I created, this hole or something. We put a wrench in our spokes, as they say, when we broke off Eric's Trip. A lot of stuff got fucked up: booking agents, stuff I v But I think we needed that as push. Because Eric's Trip broke up when we were starting to gel money, and starting to sell out clubs, it was getting stale. So what were you feeling, recording this new album? It was probably the most comfortable we ever felt. We know now. It was just totally the way we wanted it to be. We wanted almost to free ourselves from the hell that we thought we had created on Eerieconstellation. Even the last song is trying to make it to that door, to this new land. Is that what you're always thinking with the name, Elevator? Yeah. Well, it was all fate, too. We're really superstitious in everything we do. Everything we do is just fate, [even] when we write these songs or pick these names. You can analyze them and almost read the direction you're heading, without planning it. We just realized that having an Elevator to Hell, which wasn't supposed to be a band when I released that first album, we were just leading ourselves to [the elevator to hell]. On The Such we changed it to Elevator Through because we felt like we had gone through the door. And now we're just in this nature, we're in the woods. And I don't know where we'll go from here but it feels a lot more peaceful, just a positive way of recording. There isn't as much [of a] curse feeling on my back. We recorded together in Toronto, and we knew what we wanted, it For the future, do you know what you're going to be trying to do, or are you just still exploring? Still exploring. This tour will have a lot to do with what might happen this summer. I've got a tape with about 20, 25 demos, some of my more favourite ones. Almost through that tape [I] can get an idea [of] which direction [I] want to start writing in. Mark and Tara and I are talking about structures of albums. It's a neat process, but I never know what it's going to be like until it's How are you looking at life nowadays? Before, it seemed a lot about sadness, and girls. It went from weird thoughts about relationships, to weird thoughts about myself and my impression of the world. I feel it goes with age. I went through all these stages of being freaked out by stuff, and now I'm on my life long mission to try to be at peace and be happy. Die a happy, contented man. What's the best way to find peace and happiness? I don't know. For the most part, I end up using, not really apathy, but I try to close myself off from the stuff that's happening in the real world and live within my little four walls. I try to enjoy nature as much as I can, but mainly [1] just keep to my own and try to work stuff out, and n upset about stuff. 1 find there's way you can really stop most hough otget of it anyways, so if you can just live your life at peace somehow, that's a good Kill Your Boyfriend COMIC REVIEWS BY ROBIN Grumpy Old Dog GRANT MORRISON/ PHILLIP BOND Kill Your Boyfriend PETER MILUGAN/DUNCAN FEGREDO Girl (Vertigo) First off, a shameless plug If you like alternative comics and this column interests you, listen to my show, Onomatopoeia, Thursdays from 2-3 pm on CiTR 101 9 fM. One of the things I want to do with this column is bring; attention to long forgotten comics that are, nonetheless, good The title Kill Your Boyfriend isn't a.plea for you to find girl power but, rather, is taken from an offbeat one-shot romance comic written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Phillip Bond With his penchant for siphoning excite- Morrison has taken a cute Catholic school girl from her repressed and boring life ond exposes her for the brains and the femme fa- tale she really is. With some killing, stealing, kidnapping, bombing and all kinds of sex, he makes you root for a couple that is fun than Mickey and Mallory Knox And then there's the art of Phillip Bond, who takes this love/ crime spree and makes it so damn adorable Combine all that with a sneaky ending what can I say? I spent a year trying to find this comic before they reprinted it, finally finding it in San Jose. If that's not a testament to a good story I don't know what is Another great girl comic is Girl, a three issue mini series written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Duncan Fegredo . Each artist has an extensive history in comics and together they create a different and grittier story .of a Catholic school girl who hates her life, her family, and the lame-ass town she lives in When her father accidentally dies, she goes through a mental struggle. Did she kill him? Who is this girl who keeps showing up that looks exactly like her? As usual, Milligan dishes out imaginative and surreal plot twist after plot twist. The comic also has the dark humour that is perennially linked with Milligan's writing, which makes the main character's helplessness all too familiar Fegredo is true to form with his dense, thick and jagged lines that just add to the chaos. The dark colours help in capturing the feel of every no- found all over England The fluidity of his line also "manages to portray the mental and emotional turmoil of the protagonist, making her situation all the more real. Having said all that: yes, there is a happy ending, a completely out of ploce but strangely happy ending I promise each subsequent column will not be entirely devoted to girl comics. I just felt a semi-explanation of my title was in order. Oh yeah, I forgot the indie rock reference: bis wrote a song about Kill Your Boyfriend called, naturally, "Kill Your Boyfriend " • Robin's Top 5 Gay Comix 1. Potential by Ariel Schrag 2. Vellevision by Maurice Vellekoop 3. Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse 4. Gay Comix Anthology 5 Anything by David Kelly After taking a little holiday this June, leaving us with nothing but damp, the sun came out in July Summer finally arrived. It didn't take me long to regret the appearance of those golden rays I was sitting at my favourite patio, basking, when il happened — the only thing about summer that makes me cringe, twist in my seat, and pray for rain. Sitting in a family- mobile at fhe stoplight was a bearded man (I'd guess he was about 40). Reverberating from within his panty-blue Aerostar was the excruciating sqwaak of speed metal. The revival of metal — riffs built on speed wifh no sense of music, twitching, fumbling drums, and uninspired bass that impacts only your back teeth and never your soul — is bad enough. Metal is to be played in basements, warehouses, and sports arenas. It is something one should keep to oneself To subject the rest of us to the juvenile wankings that pass for the metal genre demonstrates a complete lack of respect. Metal hos no place in civil society. Until that point my afternoon had been quiet, punctuated only by the subtle background sounds of traffic, the odd blurb of horn BY BLAINE K boys, cruising in their shiny cars, who obviously have nothing better to do with themselves Maybe their need to broadcast their favourite song to the world is a demonstration of power and influence. I guess I'm just not cool enough to get it. Maybe their need to broadcast their favourite song to the world became despondent is a demonstration of power and when' realized that, in the influence. I guess I'm just not cool middle °f ,he£ £" ,ru\ ■ . ... summer day or the year, enough to get it. was wishinyg for _£ 'At least when the sky has opened vehicle windows are more likely to be rolled up. I don't mind watching the windows swell in and oul to the over- volumed tunes. As long as I don't have to suffer. Behind the bearded family- mobile guy were two other vehicles, each trying lo outperform the other. The stereo from the fancy red sports car was flinging the dulcet tones of Roger Whittaker off the buildings around us. The jeep, if you can believe it, was pounding the theme to Star Wars John Williams at his finest. I guess there's no accounting for taste. • or siren. I just didn't need to hear that. The guy in that van ruined any atmosphere those of us on the patio were enjoying. Even after the van had peeled away my ears were ringing. The only thing that salvaged the moment juxtaposition of lhat particular type of vehicle and that particular type of music. Something just didn't add up. To be fair, metal-lovers are not the only vandals of the public air space. We are frequently subjected to the musical preferences of others. Those silly ^□TTVBQVDHEflDWBK' WWW.KN0TTYB0Y.COM CATCH U1ATJH.UNDME VOLCANO A fBTIVAL-SUNDAY, AUPST8TH 0 L muBU @ HEMP SUMS & SAtOMS IN VfcNGHlYK, YICHS8A. Wf fHO, WHfSIlER, S0OKE, NtlSOH, WlUIAMS 0 LAKi. KAMIO^S. PfiWCt GHJfi&f. Af© fKJMf« M r mm boy mmma. salt spring island. o_ stop 8V ANYTIME KJR A UTflf ORtAO ACflOH @ K WW.KH0mBQY.OiM io August _•£ Where were all of you scxalled punk rockers when Red Monkey showed up on our doorstep? This amazingly funky punk band from Newcastle came to rock out with Submission Hold and was kind enough to take a minute (or 60) away from skateboarding to chat with over-excited me. Obsessive-fan ogling put behind me, I actually managed to have an excellent conversation with the band. New light was shed on many a topic, but one question still remains: Who is Kid Lemon? DiSCORDER: What is Red Monkey about, as opposed to the other bands you have been and are involved in? Pete: One thing about bands that me and Rachel have been in together [is that] all those bands are pretty much finished now. We did Avocado Baby around '92-93, then Pussycat Trash, then another band which .didn't do any records, and then we did Red Monkey. I'm still playing in a band called Milky Wimpshake at the moment, bul [the two bands] are very different. I spend most of my time doing Red Monkey just because everyone in the band is really committed to doing Red Monkey. It's something that we're very serious about. We've toured quite a lot for a band that's only been around two and a half years. Rachel: I was in Pussycat Trash and it was my first band that played many gigs, and it, for me, was a lot about getting up there and doing it, getting over all the fear and paranoia and insecurity that comes with [performance], whereas now I can build on that and actually get 'round to structuring arguments about what I want to say musically, and I'm really relaxed on stage generally. I'm much more interested in my musicianship. With Pussycat Trash, it was a really bratty, out of control kind of thing. In Not For Rent [an amazing book authored by Stacy Wakefield and Grrrt, published by Evil Twin and distributed by Active Distribution — ed.], the heading for the Slampt piece quotes Rachel as saying 'being a girl is always a direct action.' Is it as simple as just being a part of the community, or there more to it? Rachel: I think it works on many, many different levels, and every individual woman has to do what they feel they can do. My experience with punk is that it is generally a male community. The women that are in the community are very exceptional people, in that they've decided that they want to be a part of this. They've decided that they want to be a part of a male domain, so they've had to toughen themselves up in a lot of ways. I think, personally, I would like to see a lot of women making culture. People say to me, "you really move around on stage a lot, that's amazing." A lot of women on stage don't move around much. Then you think about it, and how many women have you really seen on stage, what do they tend to do? Women are just not comfortable up on stage, and part of the reason is that they don't see other women on that stage. The other thing is that I really want to hear women's voices, a variety of women's voices. I think Jen from Submission Hold is really amazing, because for her it's not just about women's politics, it's about other politics as well. Marc: If you're involved in the punk scene, there's the whole idea of women as the object of the gaze, of them putting on a performance. It's a very reactionary, conventional idea. It seems to me that it must be very difficult for a woman involved in any kind of alternative or subversive culture. How do you express yourself on stage? It seems like how you choose to express your enjoyment of the music or how you move around is much more problematic. Rachel: It is. It's much more difficult to rock out and not be thinking, "Is what I'm doing being perceived as trying to be sexy?" [Being sexy] is not a concern of mine, but I'm used to people thinking of me like that. It's difficult. There's this whole guilt thing involved with sexuality and women — I don't want to be perceived as trying to be sexual, I want my sexuality to be part of the whole thing that I am. I've been very impressed with some of the things you've written and sung in regards to being a woman, and your relationships with other women. In 'Missy,' you have the line, 'every girl I've ever hated, just a monster I created." That's hard for anyone to admit because as a female, you're brought up to do that. Rachel: Totally, and it does extend to yourself as well. When I started in bands, I just wanted to present my relationships with women as positive things, but then, as I got more into it, I realized that if I didn't deal with the more negative shit, then it would not get dealt with [but instead] get swept under the carpet. I think it's really important for me to explore my own relationship with myself and with other women, to try and work out what it's all about. I've read quotes from you all expressing your dislikes of punk and its stereotypes, and it seems that for a while there, 'punk' didn't want to let Slampt, your record label, in ... Pete: Definitely, in Britain there have been parts of the punk scene that haven't wanted to let Slampt in, but I think that's because of a misconception about what Slampt is. People who are involved in punk or any kind of alternative music, any kind that's not trying to be or doesn't care to be commercial, tend to be very suspicious of people [on the commercial side of things]. A lot of people in the punk scene, for a time, assumed that we were trying to do something commercial and populist. There's nothing that we've ever done that should indicate that, but we also don't put out records that sound like traditional, stereotypical punk. As regards to punk rock and our relationship to it, I've never regarded myself as anything other than a punk. I've always been disappointed by how narrow-minded, taste-wise, people are about punk. I've always thought of it as an attitude and not a musical style. Rachel: I think that the best setting for radical ideas is something that is challenging aesthetically as well. Punk shouldn't be a limited genre where you've got your three chords and you bash the hell out of them. Part of the problem of what punk has become is that it is an institution, and nobody wants to challenge that aesthetically or on an ideas-front. It's a safe ghetto for people who feel that they're a bit different from mainstream society. I feel it could be so much more. Pete: If you start tampering with the way punk rock sounds, people get paranoid that you're maybe trying to break out of the punk rock circuit as it exists in an economic or practical sense. I think the sectarian aspect of punk is very pragmatic, and in a lot of ways necessary. If there wasn't a concept of 'punk' as a sub-genre, we wouldn't be able to be here in the first place. I can't complain about the sectarian aspect entirely. There seems to be an emphasis on urgency, and getting the message out. [Slampt] did cassette releases, and you champion that aspect of the scene. Can you explain the no-fi/lo-fi/DlY scene that your bands were working in and with? Rachel: When Slampt started, we were really like, 'Why haven't we done this before?' Me and Pete had a four-track in our house, and that's why we started doing Avocado Baby. I was just learning how to play guitar, just thinking 'Oh, I want to get it all down really quickly.' Since I was 17, I've been doing fanzines, which are all about putting pen to paper and getting the ideas out to be shared with other people. Starting to do tapes was just a natural step on from that. It's so much about not having to have anybody's permission, you just do it. It's particularly real if you've recorded it, or photocopied it. Pete: Avocado Baby was the aural equivalent of a fanzine, in terms of the cut-and-paste aspect. The whole thing was very random and impromptu, very hastily put together. Marc: [Avocado Baby's] album even looks like a fanzine. Rachel: I hand-wrote and spray-painted on the fronts of all the Are you content with what your label is doing right now? Rachel: We've just put out Fast Connection #5 [Slampt's 'zine], but we're slowing down quite a lot as a label. We're trying to decide what we really want to do with it. All the records we've put out, we've really wanted to put out, but at the moment there's just not anything we want to put out. Rachel: There's also other stuff that we want to do. I want to publish books, so maybe things might not have such a musical bias. Pete: It was never supposed to have been a record label, really. It was more the idea of an umbrella for creative things. Will there be more art by Rachel? Pete: Slampt 58 will be a set of postcards, drawings by Rachel. Rachel: Because I did a degree in art, I feel quite ambivalent about it. It's like I gorged on it, and also was so disillusioned with the whole art world. It's taking me a really long time to get over that. I don't know if I want to do comic strips, because it's a weird way to work. I like writing, and I like drawing, but I don't want to push the two together. This is a bike punk show. What does Red Monkey have to do with 'bike punkery'? Rachel: There's this thing called Critical Mass, where a bunch of people on bicycles do something like go round a roundabout so that there's so many bikes on the roundabout that no cars can get on it. It's basically an anti-car, anti-consumer action. Just before we went away, we took part in a small action in Newcastle where we [occupied] a street and danced around to bongos and blew on whistles for three or four hours before the police stopped us. Pete: The point of the bike punk thing is really just saying that it's better to use the power and energy that you have in your own legs than to sit in a car all the time. It's highly relevant. It's better for the environment to use your own energy. It's cheap, and it doesn't pollute. Good exercise keeps you healthy. And, getting back to this 'what is punk?' thing, I can't think of anything more punk than riding a bike. [This is] another thing we've got in common with Submission Hold, it's something that they're heavily into. • ii ®^§S2S__H is generated a broadly felt impulse in music making. The might be seen as a continuation of this '•enerally speaking, modern electronic ns perfectly suited for dub. Indeed, one might without electricity there could be no dub. Yet dub jst a matter of technique and technology, but of Mentation. In dub, music becomes as much a matter of layers 3 sequence of events. Psychedelic effects and mixing do we than embellish, they translate. Significantly, dub also helped Mpush the limits of acceptable sound in music, from the distinctive I distortions of the Space Echo to Lee Perry's often hilarious onomatopoeia. In this way, dub makes space between the sonically easy ond the sonically obscure. As Pole, Stefan Belke's music occupies this in-between zone. In Belke's case, the dub sentiment met invention in ihe form of broken technology, specifically a Waldorf 4 Pole-Filler. A gift from Sun Electric's Max Loderbauer and Tom Thiel, the erratic but rhythmical crackles spontaneously produced by this malfunctioning device have since become a distinctive sound in Belke's work. In addition to recording and touring as Pole, sound occupies mosl of Belke's time. Betke is also an engineer at Berlin's famous Dubplates ond Mastering, and is presently organizing a new •"■/ub-cenfered label called - Scrape. - Scrape's first release, a 12" by San Francisco's Kit Clayton, should be out soon. As I discovered, all this focused activity suits Betke's clear, good natured and fastidious personality perfectly. Equally careful with his words as outgoing, Betke not only spent a little thoughtful time with me in the basement of Sonar for this interview, but also later in the evening bought me a beer — a German import, no less. Cheers, Stefan! DiSCORDER: Would you say that for you, the music itself is more of a focus, or do you have a conceptual framework around which you work, and then the music comes out of that? No, the music is the main part, I think. Yeah, definitely. Since I was a child music has been the main concept-thing. Music can be a concept Oh, of course. But I thought that because your sound is very particular, that you had some ideas or questions that you were working with? I mean, I think that everyone who is trying to make serious music has some questions in their mind, things about theoretical questions, or so. I do too. It's not that I ask a question and then in the end I have a message — then I would do vocal music [laughter]. Do you identify with a tradition of music-makers that use non-musical sounds in their work, for example, with musique concrete composers, or Futurists like Russolo, or any more modern people like Oval? I think that I have nearly the same background. I know that Marcus Popp, for example, grew up with jazz music, and so, and experimental stuff. I grew up with experimental music and jazz too, like John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Fred Frith, Brian Eno — his early work was really important to me — Steve Reich, John Cage, these people. So, I'm definitely inspired by this kind of music. It's my tradition, and I want to continue with this. But, the way I do music is more basic; it's not that intellectual. I can think about my music in an intellectual way, but when I make music, I try to keep it as simple as possible and bring it down to the floor, to the ground. That's the reason for these deep basslines, for example, this very heavy bass to bring it down. But you are right, there is a concept behind all this: using crackles instead of drum loops is not only by accident. What lead you to use textured sound instead of drums? Just because I wanted to find a different way. Every day, when I listen to the radio or records, or something, I am definitely bored by traditional sounds and melodies. I've heard them a thousand times. They sound the same. It's mono-cultural — I don't like that. It also opens your music up and emphasizes its spatial quality. That's what really attracted me to it. And I find that, when listening, you don't fully recognize that drums aren't there, it's so very implied. It's as though you're taking advantage of that 'mono-cultural' background, of peoples' expectations. In the past you've said that 'instruments aren't important, it's the ideas and the way you use BY BRADY CRANFIELD PHOTOS BY TOBIAS VAN VEEN on them.' But wouldn't that your music is completely committed to technology, broj otherwise? In this sense, your couldn't exist without the technology yfl chosen to use? Let's say that Pole cannot exist without technology. TH right. But I would not say that an electronic instrumenj really the only thing with which I could do good or interestiil or different music — you can do it with nearly everything. ThB ly thing is, you must know what you do, and you must get theT idea first. My idea is using this electronic stuff; it's most flexible I without the need of other musicians. I can do it by myself, and that j is what I really like. Do you have training or experience with other instruments? I studied jazz piano, so I can play an instrument [laughter]. I believe that what you have is an instrument as well. I mean, I think that definitely the time has come where the studio itself, in mixing and production, should be fully considered an instrument; it's so involved in defining sound and characterizing It is an instrument. It's true. Tied to that, do you think that, in terms of popular culture, the time is right for music made with non-musical sounds? I hope so. That is what we are working for — for years now. And when I see that the people are getting more and more into this kind of music and buying more and more records like this, and that the music I do can get so popular — I mean, what means popular: I'm not playing in front of a thousand people. But it brings me to the point where I can play lots of gigs in lots of different cities all over the world and people come to see the shows. It's good. I think that the time has come for this kind of music. What do you think helped inform that? Is it because of advances in digital technology? Is computer music becoming more commonplace? Are more people just getting into it and fucking around? More and more people are doing it, and more and more are coming out with good music. For example, when Matador, well known as an indie rock label, starts signing projects like me: this is definitely a sign that people think differently now. Specifically in terms of music that uses noise, do you think that the same attributes that make electronic music so flexible help make a germane situation for the musical direction that you would follow: you use these 'other' sounds, these 'unwanted' sounds. I would say yes. Since you spend so much time mastering other peoples' work, cleaning it up and taking away all these unwanted sounds, these sounds that you might use, have you ever taken from these sounds, this garbage, and decided to do a project with it? No, I would never do this because when someone comes to hire me as a mastering engineer, I am working as a mastering engineer, and I must switch off what I think about music. Otherwise, I would do it in a completely different way than the artist wanted to do it. It's a good idea, but it's not a good idea for me [laughter]. There is a sense in which your music could be thought of in terms of using acoustic refuse, these things that people don't want in their records normally. Is it that you have a predilection for these sounds, or do you see, more specifically, your work almost forming a challenge to more conventional music and production techniques? Umm, that's a good question. I've never thought about this. Umm, It's difficult. Let's skip this question before I say something completely wrong [laughter]. But, I definitely enjoy this kind of noise. It's what I listen to when I listen to records. But, for me, it's different if I only understand about what is the reason for this noise, the concept behind it, and I talk about it, but I don't listen to it. I'm more on the side that, you can talk about it, but the first thing that you should do is listen to it without a I_ Au^iiS-f *i* THE DEFINITION OF HIP HOP: r*S047 S07-Z4641 "VANCITY'S PREMIER HIP HOP SHOP" CLOTHING * VINYL * MIXTAPES/CDS * VIDEOS * GRAFF SUPPLIES LOCATED AT 552 BEATTY ST. DWNTWN VANCITY (NEXT TO STADIUM SKYTRAIN) c£> The Pietasters •£_"> <*> "Awesome Mixtape #6" IN STORES AUGUST 23RD «2> "It's a mixture of sweet potato and barbed wire. A confection of soul and punk, all lightly spiced with ska, that melts in your mouth" See, CiTR 101.9 pro is doiNg this ThJNq COLLLECJ LOUD & QUEER: A radio . has CELEbratlON OF Sfvi tailor SEXUO.L DivErsiry. Irs happENiNq aLL day July 3IST. We at DiSCORDER COULdNT TES'lSt iNTEqrariNq SOME OF ThE COOL STUFF qENEratEd by Loud & QUeet into tkis "issue. TurN ThE PaqE FOr NON- hETErOSEXuaL bEhaviour.* » Qi'scUSSiON tOPtc: WKatJiS ThE siqNlFicai^CE OF DiSCORDER^ (fecisiON IO Put QLL ,.. thE OUEEr ;COMttNt \H o PTOMIW.NT but EXCLUSivE qhEttb' SECtiON'' SENd ESSpy*5,|o * I AIRHEAD. 533 6138 SUB B_vd VaMcOuVEr BC V&T m 13 H^SEElE The Silent Majority The Impact of Homosexism and Heterosexism on Bisexual History Welcome to my Bitch Rant I want to look at bisexual history. OK, I'm looking and looking but I can't see it very clearly. Few people are viewed historically as having been actually bisexual, when undoubtedly many more were going al it from bolh ends. Bisexual history has suffered in silence. Many people in history who may have wanted to live openly as bisexual couldn't, either for fear of discrimination from the gay community or fear of arrest from the dominant hetero community. Bisexuals were often forced to "choose," or to hide their bisexuality from both groups. This is sad, soggy, and sorry in light of the liberating effects an affirmation of bisexuality could have on future fornication. So, homosexism and heterosexism (standpoints which operate under the assumption thai one is either straight or gay) have had a huge impact on bisexual history. Got it? Homosexism and heterosexism are linked to rigid sex-role differentiation. Who/what you are sexually attracted to is perceived as being inextricably linked lo your "gender identity." For example, having tils, if I wanna get down to mowing some muff, others may view me as being less feminine for it; of being a "man" trapped in a woman's body. In order to experience an attraction to a female, you must have either the physical apparatus or psychological constitution of a male? I think not. The Invention of the term "Bisexual" For one thing, it was the homos and the heteros who conceptualized "bisexuality" in the first place, thus issuing it a historical location. It wasn't until the categories of heterosexual and homosexual were created in the nineteenth century that there were two specific sexual identities for one to remain suspended between. Although there was rigid gender definition — and normative, compulsory heterosexuality — before the late 19th Century, the things one did "in bed" were still jusl the things one did in bed, they were not the things that defined oneself. Foucault sums it up perfectly: We must not forget that the psychological, psychiatric, medical category of homosexuality was constituted from the moment it was characterized ... less by a type of sexual relations than by a certain quality of sexual sensibility, a certain way of inverting the masculine and feminine in oneself. Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy unto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite hod been a temporary aberration: the homosexual was now a species [43]. So this bitch rant about the impact of homo and heterosexism on bisexual history shall begin with the same time period that Foucault is referring to, the late 1800s. That's really where the history of "bisexuality," as a modern concept, begins. That was when Krafft- Ebing felt it necessary to develop rigid little categories so we all cowd know who we were according" to who/what we fucked. And may I say that finding material on "bisexuals" of any given period in history favourite being Marjorie Garber — the lack of information on bisexuality flies in the face of my happy mantra "everybody loves you when you're bi." Let's jump to my conclusion: The impact of homo/heterosexism has been to render bisexual history invisible. The Crack-Induced Equation: Sexual Practice = Gender Foucault's wise words also point to the historical linking of sexual practice with gender roles. Very important. In order to illustrate this, it would be useful to define some sexual categories, not only so that we can all operate with the same assumptions, but also to highlight the problem of attempting to define anything as complex as human sexuality. The following definitions are from a very standard 1985 Webster's Dictionary, "designed for home, office, and school": Bisexual: Having the organs ol bolh sexes Homosexual: Attraction between individuals ol the same sex Heterosexual: Directed towards the opposite sex What the fuck is with that shit? There is no mention of bisexuality as influencing sexual attraction (or direction) at all under the heading bisexual"; the definition provided instead is for the term "hermaphrodite." It is safe to say that this is due to the assumption that nd any male-female act is To be a true bisexual (according to Webster's) one cannot be male or female at all, but must be both at the same time. Homosexuality is defined in terms of an "attraction," whereas the definition for heterosexuality doesn't hint at exactly what has to be directed at the opposite sex. The meaning, however, is implicit. Introducing ... the Heterosexual! While we're getting our hands juicy deconstructing language, it would be pertinent to examine the term "heterosexual" a little more thoroughly. Heterosexuality as a concept arrived in 1892 courtesy of one Dr. James G. Kiernan, who defined heterosexuals as those who "experienced so-called male erotic attraction to females and so-called female erotic attraction to males." When the word first came into use, it was to describe "deviants" that we would actually define as bisexual nowadays. Krafft-Ebing as well devised a definition of heterosexuality which links it to bisexuality: to the form of "perversion" called "psychical hermaphrodism" — erotic desire for both sexes. Both views exemplify the strong linkage of sexuality with gender that still underlies much twentieth century sexology. Beginning with Krafft-Ebing, we can trace how the first appearances of the concept of bisexuality in psychoanalytic theory were introduced as a way of explaining the development of homosexuality in evolutionary terms. While psychoanalysts such as Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud accepted bisexuality as a separate sexual category, there were many who believed that there was "no such thing." The belief that bisexuality is a transition stage to homosexuality is still espoused by homosexists and heterosexists alike. We get many misconceptions from the aforementioned sexologists. Dr. James G. Kiernan also took the opportunity to define for us the prototypical homosexual, whom he described as one whose "general mental state was that of the opposite sex." Tell that to some radical dyke and stand back. Introducing. ..Biphobia! The modern biphobic assumption that bisexuals are indiscriminant "swingers" who have a hard time with monogamy comes from the concept that sex for pleasure — rather than for procreation — is somehow morally degenerate. Although Krafft-Ebing introduced the term heterosexual to refer to sexual impulses unrelated to procreation, the fact that heterosexual contact still had the potential for reproduction cleared it of most of the immoral implications, so that the mantle of "pervert" could rest solely on the shoulders of those "queers": faggots, dykes, and fence-sitters. One or the Other, Baby... Garber states that "the deep commitment of Western culture to the idea that there are only two sexes, exemplified in the limitations of language ... has led to a cultural resistance to openly intersexed individuals" [269]. This deep commitment to dualism is what lies behind biphobia, and thus the workings of homo/heterosexism to silence bisexual history. The inability to admit that one could be attracted to two genders throughout a life time seems to spring from the belief that a dual attraction constitutes a dual gender. One wonders how many intersexed people have been influenced to undergo surgery or sex-changes in order to become "one or the other" because of this single-minded assumption. As Garber points out, "bisexuality queers the pitch, messes up the neat double columns of figures: straight and gay" [270]. The belief that a person is either/or has been prevalent in much of jlations. Many of the major lity have been completely homosexis-t in their "scientific" approach. In many "scientific" surveys investigating same and opposite sex behavior, responses are classified as either heterosexual or, if people respond that they've had experiences — even a lone dick-suck in a sea of vaginal lity was not considered a distinct sexual category. One historical response to the problematic label "bisexual" has been to further "explain" bisexual behavior by categorizing it as transitional, historical, sequential, or concurrent [Garber, 20], with concurrent bisexuality often considered the only "true" form of bisexuality. To be a concurrent bisexual, and to many this is the only "real" bisexuality, one must be having relations with both male and female genders at the same time. Now, I am unsure as to whether this implies that the only legitimate sexual encounter is a menage a trois, or that one has to be alternating partners on a nightly basis ("Thursday? No, sorry John, that's Susie's night"). It is obvious that this rigid criterion gave rise to the biphobic belief that bisexuals are sex-craved horndogs incapable of monogamy. There is a vast body of literature detailing how a significant portion of the human family has experienced both heterosexual and homosexual attractions and behavior. Regardless, stupidity continues. Understandings of sexual orientation and sexual identity continue to be based on the assumption of monosexuality — that people make an exclusive heterosexual or homosexual "object choice." If we follow this runaway train down the track of narrow mindedness we arrive at the next stop: sexual deviancy. If we were/are socially pressured to be "one or the other," bisexuality appears anomalous; individuals who claim a bisexual identity are seen as psychologically maladjusted and unfit for social interaction. The end result is that the rigid, socially prescribed ideals of homo/heterosexism compliment each other as they close in to squeeze out bisexuality. Bisexuals: Lost in Time Although it is necessary to distinguish between those gay individuals who were forced into a bisexual "lifestyle" (for example, by the pressure, economic or otherwise, to marry) what pisses me off is how historians have to bend over backwards in order to document people who were "truly" bisexual. Bisexual history has been slapped with the double burden of heterocentric and homocentric appropriation of its characters and its literature — whether it's the reduction of sexuality to actual physical acts, or in the tendancy to emphasize homosexuality or heterosexuality in the search for a suffocating dichotomy. University of Victoria instructor and queer sexpert Karen Duder illustrates the problem of approaching people's sexual histories from the dualistic perspective that one is either "gay" or "straight": "The 'not said' and the 'not seen' may also be important conceptual tools in the history of bisexuality which, in an even more dramatic way than lesbian history, remains stuck in the quagmire of 'identity' and 'proof'" [4]. In insisting upon "genital contact and visible characteristic, queer history has largely excluded bisexuality, assuming instead that an individual's coexisting heterosexual and homosexual desires or acitivities are merely manifestations of the struggle to come to terms with a 'true' lesbian or gay sexual orientation" [Duder, 4]. Moreover, many decisions about who was or wasn't gay in history are made by judging a book by it's cover. If you didn't "look" gay (ie. exhibit physical traits of the opposite sex) how could you possibly be gay? If Alan Alda had died of AIDS in the mid-'80s instead of Rock Hudson, the world would have been much less shocked. This kind of gendered thinking has fed the homocentric belief that "feminine" lesbians are somehow not true lesbians. And what the fuck does a bisexual look like? Oh, I forgot, "it" looks like a fucking hermaphrodite. Bitter, bitter ... Can I have your bodagraph, please? Historians have acknowledged many bisexual women in the blues community, namely Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Alberta Hunter; however, some historians, like Lillian Faderman, take pains to imply that the women led a somewhat open bisexual life in order to enhance their sexual image. Total bullshit. It seems from the self-assured lyrics of all three singers that they were quite comfortable with their sexualities, and were gettin' jiggy with the ladies out of genuine desire. All three women had very sexy public personas, but perhaps the strength and comfort of having the means to support themselves without a man (economically, emotionally, and sexually) also contributed to their public sexual appeal. Confidence and comfort, combined with the pleasure of knowing that you're bending the rules (and getting away with it for the large part), are bound to translate into a sexy persona from the inside out. In an article titled "Breaking Out of the Dominant Paradigm: A New Look at Sexual Attraction," the authors suggest that "there are indications that individuals with a greater mix of feminine and masculine characteristics (both mental by Hancunt (with a little help from Marilyn Monho) and physical) are actually more arousing than those who fall closer to the stereotypes. The arts, it is suggested, have exploited this phenomenon" [Kaplan& Rogers, 71]. Despite the appeal of bisexuality, history isn't as fascinated with bisexuals as it is with those late celebrities, such as Rock Hudson, discovered to be gay. Little is mentioned of Marilyn Monroe's, Billie Holliday's, Janis Joplin's, or James Dean's bisexuality. Bisexuality is often viewed as a "phase" or an "act," as opposed to a natural expression of desire amongst the famous and the non-famous. Similarly, the fact that bisexuality is often considered "sexy" in our society is viewed as a motive to "act" bisexual, perhaps in order to cash in on some kind of Basic Instinct vibe. Tantalizing Taboos When we consider how transgression and taboo are such major erotic forces in Western society, fueling fantasies and cravings for the "forbidden," it is no wonder bisexuality is so provocative. It subverts the gendered understandings of sexuality which have been upheld by society and science. So, would it be pissy to say then that masculinity and femininity should be measured as separate spaces, not as opposite ends of a single line? That way, people could display behavior that is simultaneously male and female. But, if this is not considered taboo, would we be then taking the fun out of it? Hmm. At the very least, basing our conceptualizations of sexuality on the male/female dichotomy is not only gross oversimplification, it also serves as the basis for social control and discrimination. In a time when being gay or lesbian is no longer illegal (at least in Canada), bisexuality still signifies gender transgression. It is this crossing of yet another line — freely incorporating aspects of both male and female gender indentities — that is so titillating. Et Tu, Brute? In light of the general history of twentieth century North American sexuality, it is strange that bisexuals should experience discrimination on behalf of those who experience the same brand. Bisexuals faced intense discrimination from both homo- and heterosexuals with the advent of AIDS; the prevalent fear of the bisexual AIDS "carrier" has been widely documented. Before AIDS, there was (and still is) a view of bisexuals as vampires, feeding off the love of homosexuals, then leaving them high and dry for some heterosexual privilege. Fuck that. All the blame for the silent treatment of bisexual history cannot rest solely on the polar shoulders of homo/heterosexism, however. The fact that it takes so much and is so hard to qualify as a "true bisexual" means this: although most people at some point in their life have a same-sex sexual experience (just as most people at some point in their life have an opposite-sex experience) it doesn't matter. It's not enough to get you into Club Bi. Garber agrees: "One should realize that most bisexual behavior will occur without ever being labeled bisexual" [97]. Therefore you have to be a "fence-sitter"; right smack in the middle all the time to qualify as bisexual, and even then you're still not free from having your sexuality define your individuality. It's hard to balance your butt on such Finally, it is hard to define the impact of homo/heterosexism on bisexual history because, so far, that history ii practically non-existent due to homo/heterosexism. Many bisexuals themselves have chosen to remain in the shadows, most likely due to the homo/heterosexism that they experience in political activity. The Great Goddess Garber offers another reason for the lack of political activity on behalf of bisexuals: "Politics is the art and craft of opposition ... when a binary politics intersects with a binary notion of sexuality, there is no place for bisexuality, no place for that which destabilizes and disrupts" [80]. When I think about you (and you) I touch myself In light of the fact that masturbation is not thought to imply homosexuality (as one is, afler all, touching oneself, and that could be interpreted as an attraction to a same-sex body), the questions left to ponder are: Why are we hostile to the obvious fact that erotic life is all part of the same set of pleasures? Why limit ourselves to the only two socially condoned sexual categories? Wait! I have the answer: we are uncomfortable with ambiguity. We want clearly defined parameters. It is almost impossible to build solid hierarchies with circular bricks; squares are much more stable objects to stack things upon. I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Bi's Cream A social acknowledgment of bisexuality would necessarily be part of a larger social change, as this acknowledgment would mean questioning traditional beliefs about relationships between men and women. If our society began to take a celebratory view of bisexuality it would fuck the shit out of the anal, unmoving belief that the stuff of sexual relationships is equivalent to the stuff of gender. The singular fact that a potential fuck's gender may not be important to the bisexual attacks the core of a society which classifies sexual encounters in terms of gender. At the risk of assuming a bisexist stance let us state that we firmly believe bisexuality could be interpreted as a metaphor for ending all boundaries (sexual, racial, and so on) between people. Just as a radical lesbian politics — and lesbian separatism — was an essential part of the feminist movement in the '70s; a bisexual politics which refuses to operate according to a binary gender code should be an essential part of reifing feminism in the year 2000. Let's let our relationships to one another reach multidimensional realms — and fuck anything that Co-Authors Hancunt and Marilyn Monho discovered their bisexuality whilst attending a Reform Party Orgy in Bossano, Alberta. • Duder, Karen. "Public Acts and Private Languages: Bisexuality and the multiple discourses of Constance Grey Swartz." Unpublished manuscript. Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality Vol.1. Vintage Books: New York, 1990. Garber, Marjorie. Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Kaplan, Gisela T. & Lesley J. Rogers. "Breaking Out of the dominant Paradigm: A New Look at Sexual Attraction." Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 10(3/4). ARLING & CAMERON WE LOVE TO ROCK DUE TOUR August 9 Vancouver The Chameleon Double Dutch treat Ariing & Cameron performiL- musical recipe of recyclo-kitsch Esperanto club-pop live for the first time! PATRICK By Robin Fish_er 1 A ihen I first met Patrick Fillion all I could think aboul were \/\/ the three big yellow slickers I had lo place on his comic Y Y to hide il from curious youthful eyes. As a straight girl, of course his stuff isn't going to do anything for me. Bul, as a comic lover, I can't help but like his work because it is so well drawn. When I sat down to interview him he and his work had just been picked up by two websites (ironically, one of them is for straight girls). He was finally making enough money to devote all his time to his art and it was about time, too. DiSCORDER: So to start off, describe your history. How did you get into comics? Patrick: Growing up in Prince George, being the different kid, I never had lots of friends. I got into comics because it was a good way to get away from the nasty day-to-day life. I also saw that I really had a thing for drawing. I liked the medium and just the way of expressing yourself, to me it felt very free and honest. Was Affinity your first comic? Affinity? Actually, no. I started off in elementary school doing comic books in class, hence the name of my publishing company, Cluss Comics. As silly as that is, it stuck with me. Anyway, I was drawing X-Men just for the fun of it and letting the olher kids read it and then they all said to me at one point, "Well, why don't you do your own stuff? These characters are great, but if we really want to see the X- Men we'll go down to the comic store." So I started drawing my own characters and the first one I did was Camili-Cat. The book was called Magma Forces. I actually did 1 29 of these. They were all in pencil and they had 10 pages or so. How old -were you when you did that? I started off when I was 12 or 13. So you were doing Magma Forces? Well, when Magma Forces came along I was a teenager and I was starting lo discover my sexuality. Magma Forces became a sounding board for a lot of things. How? Were you drawing adult comics around then? I mean, you were only 12. Well, I drew my first naked man at 1 1 [laughs]. So go figure. Did you have hoards of drawings hidden away? Because when you're a kid you can't really show them to anyone. You know, it's funny because I used to leave pictures of women I had drawn lying around to fool my parents into thinking I wasn't gay. But as much as they were a sounding board, I still kept a lot of my adult pages out of my comics. I think the pages that never made it to print are the pages that were probably the most therapeutic. I was pretty hesitant, remembering too that I was still quite young. So I didn't really have the balls, I think, to put this stuff out in Prince George of all places. It isn't like gay books and things fill the library shelves there. Was coming out to your friends and family hard for you? Because it wasn't just you but your comics too. I really wanted to take the plunge and have more of my hardcore stuff published. That kind of meant coming out. When I moved to Vancouver I came out to my friends and it was a positive thing. That was what basically influenced my putting out the erotic gay comics. I told my parents after that and they were fairly okay with it, so coming out for me wasn't a terrible thing. And then Cube came along. Yeah, Cube came at a later point. I was doihg Affinity for awhile after I moved here in 1992, but it was going nowhere fast and I really wanted to try something a little more mainstream. That meant keeping sex out of it. I had women reading it, I had straight guys reading it, I had gay guys reading it, and they just took it for what it was: campy and, most importantly, fun. That was my main goal for Cube. I also didn't want it to be regarded as a "gay" book either. Sure, half the characters were gay, but I wanted readers to enjoy them for what they were. This was a book about human beings with nifty powers and shit going on some wild adventures. I think it worked. After Cube you went on to do the internet comic Satisfaction Guaranteed. How did that come about? Satisfaction Guaranteed was a custom-tailored job. I had done work for Canadian Male which was one of the first gay male porn magazines done in Canada. I had done some illustration work for them and the editor at Chisel had seen my work. It also happened that my good friend Nico, who had done Beatrix Dominatrix for Eros, was working for Chisel's mother company, Starnet, at the time. He approached the editor of Chisel and mentioned that I was interested in doing art for them, and that's how it came about. When I went and met with Chisel, they told me that they wanted a strip that would allow for a great variety of characters so that there would be something for everyone. Satisfaction Guaranteed seemed to suit that purpose. Who are some of your influences? Well, when I was growing up, the Uncanny X-Men were a big Could you relate to that? I could relate to the X-Men in a strange way because, if you read Uncanny X-Men, they're outcasts from humanity. On an interesting twisted parallel, homosexuality is not all that different from being a mutant, according to the comics' description [of] how society will shun you because you're different. They'll hate you and they don't FILLION ILLUSTRATIONS BY PATRICK FlLLION even know you and no matter what you do ... ... they'll stereotype you. • Yeah. Now I'm not saying everyone treats gays like this, but there are a few. My experiences growing up basically resembled this. Later on I guess I was looking for comics and art that wasn't so bubblegum-ish. That's when I discovered Daerick Gross and Bradley Parker's work. Who are they? Well Daerick Gross isn't known as much, but Bradley Parker has done a lot of gay porn, and they put their money together and did a book called Ninja Warriors. I didn't know they were gay, but their depictions of men were very sensual and I think that's what originally pulled me to them. Anyway, to make a long story short, Daerick Gross's work is exquisite. It's very polished and smooth. His men and his women are well-rounded and I think I evolved my Daerick Gross who did artists, I didn't even kno Before moving t I mean, in Princ if it existed ther Did that bother you? No, but it was cool to discover. I thought, "Wow, finally!" Because I love art work, these findings were a complete thrill. It's like George Quaintance from the '50s. His men were beautiful, but I didn't know who he was until '93 either. Despite all that, there are still a very finite amount of people doing erotic gay artwork like this. You were going to have a book published by Fantagraphics, but due to legal issues it didn't happen. I would've thought they would be leaping at a chance to have you on their roster because all they have is John Blackburn's Coley. And even that they don't consider [Coley] gay, they consider it "bi-appealing." To be honest, I don't consider it appealing at all. I think Fantagraphics felt that the gay market was a little risky because of the lack of other gay erotic comics out there. But the thing is, I've been getting a lot of response I've done for Chisel from Spain, Brazil and Frana few. My work in Canada has been really well n ■ion of that. Generally, it was 3. As far as established gay f Finland existed until 1993. George you didn't have that kind of stuff, and , I didn't know where to find it. e for the there's obviously a market for it, not only in North Arneri- I want to know how you feel about the negative response you get [to your work], because it is pornographic. I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to these things, but sometimes I'll read it and I can't help but think, "Whoa, Patrick, that's really graphic." For all the positive response you get, you also have the people screaming about how you're objectifying this and he's raping him, blah, blah, blah; as well as the slimy lecherous people going, "(slobber, slobber) I really, really, really liked that last scene you did." You know, it's funny because as soon as anyone mentions sex, people just freak. But you know, Stephen King can write about some psycho clown terrorizing children and murdering them in their beds, and it's perfectly fine. To me that is so abnormal. We're all people and we all enjoy having sex no matter what our preferences may be. So to me it's all about human nature and I think that the human form is really a beautiful thing. Its one of the truest forms of art, yet it's one of the first forms of art to get censored. You see, I kind of have a naTve approach to the whole "depicting sex" thing, because I'm having a good and honest time doing this. I'm not doing it because I'm some dirty disgusting lecherous individual. I'm pouring as much love into these characters and their situations as I would into a mainstream comic. I also think growing up in an environment that was constantly telling me that gay behaviour and sexual shouldn't exist, probably explains a little bit about why I'm depicting so many facets of gay sexuality. Your poor mother. [Laughs] You know, ironically enough, my parents were visiting from out-of-town and my dad looked at one of my issues of ZIP Magazine, a gay Montreal mag I do a regular Camili-Cat strip for. I was horrified. I thought, "Oh my god, he looked at this while I was away." And I came home and said, "Well, Dad, now you know what I do" and he said, "Patrick, we've always known what you did. Just because we don't necessarily enjoy the content doesn't mean we don't take an interest in your work." And I thought, "This is probably one of the most mature responses I've gotten." I would've expected a more explosive reaction from my own father. As far as responses on the net, I got one e-mail that said "Keep drawing and I'll keep jacking." I thought, all right, there are two ways to look at this, i could've been totally grossed out and played the priss or I could just say, "Well, if it's impressed you that much, it's flattery really." Now Patrick' future is busy ndeed. With the seco nd volume of Cube slated o come out ne xt year with Tom Young writing, it can only get better. If you v vant to see any of hi stuff on the internet check out <www.chi el.com> . You can get his comics at Little Sisters c r the ABC Book & Con ic Emporium. 17 ®^§5SB3Sj_ r £^ e^er swift fry Anna Friz briber Swift is a wacky music-playin' woman who is compared to Ani DiFranco more often than she ~can stomach. When I caught up with her on her cross-Canada lour, she confessed to wearing Y-front m briefs and being addicted to American candy, among other things .. in you describe yourself? jughs] Which portion of myself a DiSCORDER: So, Ember Swift: No [laughs] Which portion of myself are you interested in? Like rr Musically. I'm an independent artist [from] Toronto, running an independent endeavour with an independent label: multi-styled music, eclectic musician, jazz, folk, funk, punk, pop, crazy wacky music. It's a good description. Tell me about your first performance ever. I was ten. I had a rip in my leotards, my mother was mortified That's the one thing that she always remembers. That was my first solo performance, I sang a solo song for Christmas. A sign of things to come. I know! My mother was just beside herself: 'Oh! You sang beautifully, honey — but your leotards!' It's now characterized our relationship 'But your hair'- What motivates you to sing and to write songs, play music? I think it's very important to write about things that I absolutely believe in Honesty is the biggest moli- Do you consider yourself an activist? Absolutely I think music itself and musicians all have the power to be activists, and whichever platform you choose to stand on and stand off as you progress and grow as a person, I think it's all worthy, il all teaches you a lot about yourself. If you could play with anyone who was living or dead, who would that be? The people I'm playing with right now are pretty smokin', so I should say that right now we're touring in a trio act and I'm playing with Lyndell Montgomery on violin and bass and Sheryl Reed on drums. A lot of your songs talk about individuality but also a need to stand together, to find commonality even among people who are really different. So, in terms of the queer community, where do you think we're at as a community, and do you think things need to change? I'm stroking my goatee. I think that there are some really, really great people in the queer community that are doing some fantastic work, I really do There's also backlash in the community, there's people who don't want the change to happen, not because they don't want the queer community to progress, but because they're just people who don't want change. I think that definitely things are changing, and growing, and getting better There seems to be a growing openness, and even use of the word "queer" has been, in the last couple of years, making itself more widespread I think that we should celebrate the victories and challenge the problems head-on, and continue to keep our eyes open. And since you're also playing for Pride this weekend in Vancouver, do you think we stitl need Pride parades? I think Pride is great, it's a day of celebration and I think that people who see Pride as the one day of the year when they can walk out on the streets holding hands and smiling and feeling no fear, those people are missing the fact that it ought to be every day, and they're seeing it as their one day of freedom. Many people outside of the queer community also see that: 'Today is the gay day!' and, 'Outside of today, we don't have to see these people on the streets!' But, you know, if we could have more than one of these days every year it would be amazing.** Do you ever feel like you've been pigeonholed? In terms of being pigeonholed stylistically, no Most of the time people are really at a loss for where to put us stylistically. As a result, they put us into a thematic place: 'Oh, this feminist music Or queer music. [Or] to an aesthetic place where 'this is obviously punk music [because] oh, look at her hair.' But we're really style-jumpers — we're trying to do different things and look at music as a complete and open ground in which we have the right to tread. One of your songs on the new album ('Permanent Marker') is about eating disorders, referring to that socially reinforced body ideal. Even though a lot of women in the queer women's community — again, I'm using more blanket terms here — are pretty politicized, do you think that there are still stereotypes of beauty among queer women, and do you think that's a problem? I think that for some it is. There are still women in and out of the queer community who feel that they need to alter themselves, that they're not quite satisfactory in their skin at the moment, in the here and now. So that song is particularly about not feeling happy within your own skin, and people experience that in various ways That song is really about learning to see ourselves with our own eyes in a way that's accepting and with love. It's talking about someone that feels they're overweight, and somebody who has experienced eating disorders. It's a conversation between those two people, one of them being myself. It's a really intimate song for me." x h e ^>e N D U L U M RESTAURANT mmm, fr©h food wrap5, ftesh 3Qiieezed juta vesetarian 6 ve_an entree* breafek downed & operated by the students of UBC n the Student Union Building at UBC, 6138 SUB Blvd, Vancouver, BC Hours: Mon - Fri: 8am to 8pm Sat - Sun: 9am to 5pm David Bremner of Out On Screen by Erin DiSCORDER: Tell me a little bit about Out on Screen. Out on Screen is the name of the organization which produces Vancouver's Queer Film and Video Festival. What makes a film qualify for the Out on Screen Festival? Are there any regulations with regard to 'queer content' similar to CRTC regulations for CanCon? Anyone can submit their film to our festival, from any country, [it] can be in any format, and it should have queer content of some kind. It can be a straight director with queer content, it can be a queer director with very little queer content... it can be any mix of that We do try and keep a large number of our screening with Canadian content. There are no regulations, though. In your experience, what has the film industry's perception of queer films been? It's becoming a lot more friendly. I think there's a difference between gay films and queer films. We chose that word [queer] because we are a little bit more political. 'Queer' has a different connotation than 'gay' ... I think 'gay' is a lot more accepted these days. 'Queer' has a more political connotation, I think it's a lot more of an inclusive word too. There are a lot of gay films out there which have been very suc cessful — such as In and Out — which tend not to deal with very c< mixture of fun, political, and more topical stuff. What theatres are you going to be running in? We start on August 5th, our gala opening, and run until August 15th. The vi Emily Carr, Judge McGill at Robson Square, Pacific Cinematheque, Van East Cin. ;. We hav e the Blinding Light, as, Video In Studios, is at Famous Players but we turned them down because and the Grunt Gallery. We were offered v of the politics. In the past 11 years, has there been any opposition to the festival? There's always opposition to these types of things, from a minority of people. Mostly 'concerned citizens,' that kind of thing. Again, we're targeting a market, and within the film industry it's fairly progressive anyway. We have a fairly open-minded demographic. Can you tell me about any noteworthy film off the top of your head? We're opening with Better lhan Chocolate and that will open with a live performance by artists who are on the soundtrack. And the opening gala is also a fund-raiser for the Little Sister's Legal Defense Fund. The other opening feature is Trick by Jim Fall. It's got Tori Spelling in it! It's about these two guys who meet in a bar and decide to have sex, so they just walk around New York, trying to [find] some place to have sex, it's just over one night and at the end of it they've fallen in love. It's quite magical, it's a kind of fairy tale. Then we have Positively Queer Youth, a series of shorts all about youth. We have a real mix of new and old films We're premiering Bruce La Bruce's new film Skinflick. He's a Canadian director and will be in attendance We've got some programming about queers in the military — shorts, actually. We have parties as well. Tell me about the parties! The opening night party is at the Electrolush Lounge at Denman Station, and Out by 2 [on Friday, August 6th] is at a location yet to be announced. Do you find you have a queer or straight audience or a mixture of the two? It's a very good mixture. We also have Asian programmes, Jewish programmes, French-Canadian programmes, we cater to the deaf community, we have ESL interpretations, all of our venues are wheelchair accessible. We try and include as many people as possible. The festival is not just a promoting party to pat ourselves on the back. It's there to educate and enlighten. Otherwise it would be like preaching to Buddha. We want to reach out to other disenfranchised communities, to show that no matter what group they belong to, film is a viable medium for them to have a voice in and be recognized It can be very expensive, but you can also do something very effective without it being expensive. • Video Philter - lo-fi I the hi-fi, the Canucks were making their glorious run to the Stanley Cup, amateur hockey players suited up and brought Canada home an Olympic silver medal, and the gay and lesbian sectk Videomatica was a scant two shelves dominated by coming-out documentaries and titles such a: Song of the Loon. A half-decade later, the number of gay and lesbian titles available, not only a Videomatica but — gasp! — the "family" chains as well, ha: increased dramatically. Nestling up to the plethora o' documentaries outlining thi homosexual experience of thi past century is a wide variety o narrative films which explore nc only the revelation, but thi elation, of being gay. The same disclaimer attached to my previous foray into the lavender screening roo still along for the ride here BY TANIA BOLSKAYA There's a gay explosion out there, and I'm not talking about Boy George's waistline. When I last covered the gay and lesbian video beat, the year was 1994. We were all so j innocent back then - am not gay, I only wish I were. Having gay friends and being sympathetic to the struggles still faced by the community in no way makes me an expert on all things homo. However, as a film critic, even gay-themed films can be subjected to brutalizing scrutiny as works of art. In that light, I have delved back into the now full-wall-sized Videomatica gay and lesbian section to peruse a title or two you might want to pick up on your way down to Denman St. and those naked golden boys/girls. Making my job so much easier this time around was the relatively While an attempt to use the catalogue section entitled "gay and lesbian" revealed that the title was the only thing that's actually been entered so far, in the "New Releases" section, double-clicking on the "gay and lesbian" category actually calls forth five pages of videos to choose from (including a quick review, pictures of the front and back of the box, year made, stars, etc.) Always unwilling to stop at just one, I did my research this month in delectable double- deluxe double bills. First stop — Hollywoodland. As the yin and yang of recent gay titles, High Art and 6/7/y's Hollywood Screen Kiss provide all the drama and comedy of any good relationship, gay or straight. I must warn you, however, that this duo must be viewed in the order that I have mentioned them for maximum viewing pleasure. High Art, the moody story of a fresh young magazine editor who becomes drawn into the world of a heroin- addicted artist, has such an addictive intensity that it must not be wallowed in without respite. After the power of Ally Sheedy's performance as the exquisitely sad artist, Lucy, the breezy, bubbly charm of Sean P. Hayes (seen every week as Jack, the funniest character on TV's Will and Grace) is just the drug you need to bring you back up. Replacing High Art's earth tones and blacks with pastels and summer brights, Billy's Hollywood is the rare flick which gives you the feeling that these characters are people first, friends second, and gay somewhere in the mix. High Art's somewhat cliche .appointu the )spect of the movie; happily, Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss has one of the most honest and sweet finales of any film I've ever seen. As I can keep a secret, you'll just have to find out why for yourself. Jumping over into the wish- fulfillment category of gay cinema, I skipped through two independent comedies with similar school-chums-get-back- together plots: / Think I Do, a low- budget American project, and Different for Girls, a British offing. As I should have known, the British won out, hands (and pants) down. Bad acting, laboured writing, and an implausible ending made / Think I Do (described by Videomatica as akin to Four Weddings and a Funeral— I don't think I agree) a rather painful 90 minutes. For an hour and a half of thought- provoking giggles, Different for Girls is a delightful soiree in a video box. What would you do if your best friend from adolescence turned up in your life after 1 8 years and a sex-change operation? And if you found yourself strangely attracted to him/her? Such is the dilemma of the climactically gorgeous Rupert Graves, set to a smashing early '80s Brit-pop soundtrack (including a live onscreen performance by the Buzzcocks!) Without the space to glorify Rupert Graves' beauty properly, or to tell you in detail about all the swelligant titles you should be exploring for yourself, I will conclude by suggesting you keep an eye out for a queer pairing that debuted at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year. Already on the shelves is the superlative Gods and Monsters, which startlingly proves that Hollywood queens have all the fun and Brendan Fraser can actually act. Hopefully coming soon is Love is the Devil. Starring Derek Jacobi as queer artist Francis Bacon, this is as innovative and compelling a biography as I've seen in a very long time. Snappy bon mots and searing pain are combined for a sadomasochistic film romp. Consulting an actual boy who likes boys, former DiSCORDER editor Dylan Griffith, I received a list of must-see films for those on the ends of the Kinsey scale, and everyone in between: 1. My Own Private Idaho — an exquisite disaster 2. Torch Song Trilogy— but avoid looking at Matthew Broderick's hair ... if you can! 3. Gallipoli — tell me those boys aren't desperate to shag each other! 4. Orlando — Quentin Crisp as Queen Liz the first; need I say 5. Trevor — It's a short that was at the film festival a few years ago as part of a gay shorts compilation; Videomatica has if. 6. Jeff Stryker: Powertool — do you have a workshop? 7. Another Country — Rupert Everett giving wealthy, good- looking, witty paedophiles a documentary on gay Hollywood. 9. The Life and Times of Harvey Milk — he was ugly, but what a guy! 10. Stand by Me — watching River Phoenix in this film has been known to confirm nagging suspicions in 11/12 year-old souls/bodies. 1 1. Romeo & Juliet— Leo, Leo, Leo, looking fine everywhere, plus Harold Perrineau as a queer Mercutio doing a fabulous drag number. 1 2 Bound— unparalleled excellence in mafia lesbian thrillers. 13 Cabaret — you know why. 14. The Wizard of Oz — watch with e a-flami it again with eyes a 15. Priscilla, Queen of My Pants — er, the Desert. « Happiness by Miyu When your mother died, you wept be- has forgotten his face. Y< her a potted plant and a Printed Matters! BY KIRSTEN WEISENBERGER PAUL QUARRINGTON The Spirit Cabinet (Random House) STAN ROGAL The Long Drive Home (Insomniac Press) Paul Quarrington is an entertainer He hunkers down above his flashlight, pulls the sleeping bag over his head and makes us feel like there is something else out there, until we can't get back to sleep and have to turn the lights on and look under the bed His latest novel, The Spirit Cabinet, made me giddy It is creepy and weird, like ghost stories during a squirmy, sugar-fueled slumber party. I was left with an impish secret, hard to define to those not initiated. But I'll try to nail down The Spirit Cabinet, and let you in on the mystery as best I can Let's start with a middle- aged couple, Jurgen and Rudolfo, Jurgen is a magician and Rudolfo is an animal tamer Let's throw in a little glam, a rags- to-riches saga leading to the rococo Liberace lifestyle, and, of course, Las Vegas. Then infuse the tale with the small gap in human experience, that "what if" which renders true magic (versus mere slight of hand) a possibility And finally, let us incorporate thot scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark is opened and all the ghosties come out and swirl around. Maybe, now, we are coming a little closer to The Spirit Cabinet If I describe the plot, you have to all promise me that you can still believe it contains serious literary merit. Somehow, two Germanic body building performers, clad in seqqined cowboy outfits and conversing in pretentious Euro phrase, are capable of inducing empathy Rudolfo and Jurgen, at the peak of their success on the Las Vegas casino scene, experience a rift when Jurgen purchases some remnants of Harry Houdini's collection of arcana and magical paraphernalia Jurgen proceeds to cloister himself in the Grotto beneath Das Haus, and sets about learning the secrets of true magic Meanwhile, Rudolfo is abandoned, and pines for his lover. While Jurgen becomes increasingly disembodied, beatified into a sublime essence, Rudolfo cannot understand what is happening to his other half and wanders their palatial home, bereft. The Spirit Cabinet overlaps, text spliced beyond the technique of mere foreshadowing. Each chapter cuts vertically through Jurgen and Rudolfo's lives, intermingling youth with the apex of their success and the details of their dwindling relationship. Quarrington cuts and pastes his novel into an organically three- dimensional plot structure. As Jurgen's magical capabiliti intrude on the miraculous, < feel the concrete whole of Quarrington's plot crack appropriately. The result: delightfully effective shards of light peer out of the text. Quarrington manages to be operatic without an ounce of pretension. The Spirit Cabinet broaches all the huge themes: lost love, success, mega success, failure, and the nature of dedication to art Still, it feels as Rogal's novel The Long Drive mostly occurring on Conadion if these huge them -•s are Home. Here we encounter a tale turf with a liberal sprinkling of incidental to the plot Th e Spirit about disparate travelers local place names ond Cabinet introduces huge ideas converging on a roadside Canadian trivia, why are most backwater. Unfortunately, it left of the characters carrying guns? me at that motel in Magog, We know they're bad people up Quebec, on the unused bed, to no good, but liberal gun toting drinking tepid cola and numbing unravels all of Rogal's deliberate <#___!! my road weary eyes in search Canadiona Further, it is hugely of a made-for-TV movie of the obvious that The Long Drive co «7'-/.v week Home is reaching out to other ^rm^f/l 1 just can't understand what audiences, overseas and south is so new about a road novel, of the border. There is a lot of SiLf//_fcj sex, violence and suspense, exposition, covering geography (gigte^v especially when it isn't very well- written. 1 can read the some Raymond Chandler short and cultural details with which the average Canadian reader is more than familiar. It makes me story over and over again. feel, well, like 1 was not Rogal's rehashing the same plot and chosen audience. And that hurts elements, and be thrilled silly The Long Drive Home is over Chandler's use of ambitious: ambitious to be language. Rogal attempts the discovered outside Canada, and same linguistic tension and perhaps also ambitious in its w sparse prose, but falls short. Indeed, The Long Drive Home lacks that literary edge It would make an intriguing film, but is attempt at clean, hard boiled prose. Wait for the late night made-for-TV version. It should possess all of the eerie shadows an awkward novel and tension, the quiet car sounds The novel's premise is and road conversation which the *m appealing, however. Several novel lacks. Even the guns might ^^Hf characters, some on the road. offer requisite shock value given ^J_# some in Toronto, are some visuals of the Canadian If unknowingly intertwined; all shield and lots of bilingual road converge in a final droma in the signs. Maybe then, with the Magog, Quebec motel parking wooden dialogue converted into gently, and sincerely, a id then lot. Each individual is a little flesh, we will really understand .knocks them down all in fun, corrupt and partly responsible Rogal's observation that gun- using sheer melodrarr a. But for the final showdown, but no toting bad people are not don't be fooled. Jurgt n and one character is fully aware of exclusive to the American Rudolfo may be buffoons, but the inter-relatedness of his or her landscape, that even we their saga is genuine. Let t break actions Canadians may be in some way your heart; you'll be okay. What 1 want to know is this*. implicated in that showdown at My second foray intc brand since The Long Road Home is a a sleepy motel in Magog, new Canadian writ ng i i Stan consciously Canadian novel, Quebec.*" Louder Than A Bomb I find the contradictory relationship between mainstream Black culture and queer brothers and sisters both fascinating and deeply disturbing. I mean, it has been said a million times that the general homophobia of the Black community is most clearly articulated in forms of popular cultural expression such as rap music. The music reflects what the people are thinking, or rather what they have been told to think No (sub) culture, however, exists in a vacuum. Any minority culture inevitably assimilates and reflects many of the central cultural tenets and attitudes of the majority Since we are constantly bombarded with images and cultural iconography which serve to reinforce notions of agency and power based on the White Supremacist Patriarchy's repressive hierarchies, agency becomes associated with patriarchal notions of masculinity. In this zero-sum game, power is necessarily seen as "power over" rather than "empowerment". The only way to assume a powerful role is to dominate an other, the justification for this domination is simply difference. Since the structure of the greater society is mirrored within SQ the Black community, it is those who are perceived as different who are targeted, those who do not fit in to the sexual identities assigned by the system. People are afraid of homosexuality because we have been socialized to associate difference with degradation rather than understanding difference for difference. What we must realize is that by using difference as a basis for degradation we are replicating oppressive hierarchies. Even among political radicals the tacit acceptance of notions of power based on an oppressive and dominating notion of masculinity often go unexamined. For example, Eldridge Cleaver's scathing attack on James Baldwin in which, through some very twisted logic, he arrives at the conclusion that queers have betrayed their race and are the agents of the enemy; Public Enemy's pathetically homophobic "Meet the G That Killed Me", or rapper and activist KRS One's violent assault on members of PM Dawn. What is often overlooked or denied by these people is the fact that many of the artists and musicians whose work has influenced contemporary artists were queer. The am biguous sexualities of many giants in the history of blues, jazz and soul music go almost completely unexamined. Shit, the most sampled man on the planet, James Brown, has sucked his fair share of dick. There's a huge blind spot when it comes to the achievements of queer sisters and brothers, simply because acknowledging their value as members of the community threatens the very basis on which one's value is judged: the adherence to patriarchal standards. The challenge then, in particular for straight brothers and sisters, is to recognize and examine the implications of their own socialization, and question their complicity in oppressive patriarchy: to represent the best of the Black freedom struggle by remaining in contact with the humanity of each and every member of the human family This means questioning homophobia, mi-' sogyny and patriarchal sensibilities, classism, and questioning the sense that somehow by reproducing the same kind of stereotypes one becomes powerful. One can pose and posture in the same form of power that is being used against pay August 4th Mount Pleasant (t-rex with a 12 string) Team Strike Force (college rock without all that learnin') Minovia August 11th Vit-Vit Records Presents! Julie Doiron (ex-Eric's Trip) The Wooden Stan- Nine Miles to Morgan (emo core from Calgary) August 18th Young and Sexy (yes, on both accounts) Bossanova (lounge music without the lounge) Palace Flophouse August 28th Endearing Records Presents! Endearing Recording Artists: The Salteens (pop music) The Vancouver Knights (pop music) Arch (also pop music) Plus Endearing guests! Railway Club 579 Dunsmuir (at Seymour) Au$u${ ft \Tvm^ TRICKY WOO SOMETIMES I CRY ♦ CO IN STORES* SI2 BY MilL ORDER UVE -RU6UST12 -STRRFISH ROOM DONT FORGET ABOUT THESE GREAT RECORDS! CHORE TAKE MY MASK AiVD BREATHE ra tn » mw MAYOR McCA WELCOME TO McCALAND EL£VATOH THROUGH VAGUE PBEMONITION .(PMDrVtVwk think smiley, think small. Guy Smiley s 3rd full length release. /^R\ S^^T^iCmT" Available in August '99. \jjJ oy>4°:fnT • $12.00ppd smallmanrecords I E[gg3l@2Ii Under Review ALBUMS • ZINES • RECORDED MEDIA 2 LONE SWORDSMEN Stay Down (Matador /Warp) Starting off the beginning of the album sounding like a melodic, more involved version of Pole without the bass but with all the crackles, Andrew Weatherall and Tenniswood create a haunting, ambienl dub collection that strikes at the heart of all that is good about ambient. The tracks are short yet interesting, ranging from the German Basic Channel- sounding "Ivy and Lead" (with its violin strings ond singing notes reminiscent of an old episode of The Avengers) to the quirky, withheld breaks of "We Change The Frequency," a song which borders upon Drexicya-styled electro. At the time of this writing, the Andrew Weatherall show here in Vancouver has been cancelled, which is unfortunate — I was looking forward to seeing Weatherall lay down equally ambient-electro tracks. For now, the album will have to do, and it does in a fine fashion, working into the dub tentacles of subconscious aural stimulation. Some people ask what makes a good album, why some forms of musik get the kudos and others don't Well, this is it: beats that "groove," bul beats thai are also intelligent, that process sound information on different levels then just the basic boom-cha of rave kulture or the sex-focus of cheesy club crap Of course, this album is on the ambient tip and is not a premiere example of "dance music" per se, but it satisfies the cavernous ear like Swayzak and Boards of Canada and is a mind-trip into the fantasies of ambience, electro and techno with a quirk and groove settling into the nooks and crannies of the spiraled sound. Tobias BIS Social Dancing (Grand Royal) I'm sure it comes as no surprise to many of you that I'm reviewing the new bis record The surprise is that I don't love it as much as I probably should When did these kids get so polished? When I saw them last year I was heap- big impressed with the new songs they played. These songs sound good on the record, too, but they're few and far between. The song titles are going to crap ("I'm A Slut" — go go Mandal), and the lyrics kinda suck, too. Most of the album has the standard happy/dancey feel to it, but so much of it is just too slick. Sci-Fi Steven's voice has gotten really good,and his songs are definitely the best on the album, but Manda Rin and John Disco miss the fun- punk marker by a mile. There's a _2 Ku.rip.iri-ft super-stinky track on here called "Detour" that all fans must avoid like the plague: a slow, r&b type track with wispy girl vocals and some pathetic rap by John Ugh. So now I've successfully turned all of you off of bis That was not exactly the point. I'm just showing that I've learned how not to gush uncontrollably about things that I like, instead pointing out the good and the bad. There are good bits to this record, at least five songs that are as good as, if not better than, the old bis stuff As long as I can dance to the disco beat, I am still a fan of the Teen-C Nation. Any new members? Julie Colero BLACK STAR UNER Bengali Bantam Youth Experience (WEA) According to a sticker on the cover of this CD, the london Evening Standard (with stunning originality) describes this as "the future of Rock'n'Roll," while Company Magazine reckons it's "a funky electro masterpiece." These opinions alone will cause most discerning purchasers to recoil like a vampire at a garlic convention, but you may also like to know that this is world music for people who don't like world music, blended with techno for people who don't like to dance. Lots of people will buy this disc, not all of them complete morons, I suppose. Cafe owners, for example, could use this as an adequate replacement for their worn out Gipsy Kings albums, giving us yet another reason to eat at Quentin Wright CAPTAIN BEEFHEAR T & HIS MAGIC BAND Grow Fins Vol. I 2IP (Revenant) Me? I love Captain Beefheart! John Peel used to play it to me, back when I were a lad, nigh on 20 years ago. I remember: curious but inexplicable it was. Actually, I can't quite remember it, probably because it was too complicated for a young "punk." However, I can't quite forget it, either. The first time I bought some Captain Beefheart, it was the cheapest available recording: the title had been changed from the original, the cover was minimal, the sound was dismal. Well, the awful sound discouraged me, but there was something about a song named "Grown So Ugly" that twisted my mind A little later (about 7 years ago), my sedative- hungry neighbour mumbled, "I have some Captain Beefheart." I loved if I am now the proud owner of Grow Fins Vol.1. Shopping for this in 1999 was easy because I knew I'd like it It's not what I expected, though The material is from the far-out, brilliant, and ultimately world re-configuring Trout Mask Replica sessions and before, but it's relatively straightforward There are lots of familiar titles, but all are attached to previously unreleased demos, live takes and covers Moreover, it sounds p-e- r-f-e-c-t on vinyl. It's sho' crazy, it's mo' funky, and this time, the quality is delicious! Rate of decay: it's worth the cash just for the early '66 "I'm So Glad" demo. DJ-DK THE CHAMBER STRINGS Gospel Morning (Bobsled) This album is a beautiful throwback to soulful rock and roll from the past with harmonies, pianos, horns and, above all, great songs and great hooks. The brainchild of twenty-something Kevin Junior, who apprenticed with the late Epic Soundtracks, the Chamber Strings evokes a simpler time, when music still had the power to change the world on all levels. Mature songwriting and complete arrangements are deftly complemented by tales of love lost and found, which ultimately result in a final package that will leave you with a smile on your face and a longing in your heart Steve Guimond D.B.S. Some Boys Got It, Most Men Don't (New Disorder) They ain't young highschoolers no more Despite growing up, it seems Vancouver punk-pop quartet d.b.s. still rocks with the same exuberance they showed on their 1993 debut tape Catch 22. This effort, their fifth full-length (not including the split album with Anti- Flag), sees the band tighter, angrier and rocking with wilder abandon than ever before Think older Seaweed meets older Pennywise, with the Seaweed nounced. This album is definitely more emo rock than hardcore This album, their first for San Fran's New Disorder, shows a bright future for the label. This album may never get the recognition of, say, Seaweed's Four or Time's Up, but it is displaying a potential new direction for Vancouver pop-punk to take. Many tracks sound like they were done live off the floor, yet still sound very clean and professional. Moreover, the album doesn't get stuck in the common punk rut (as well as d b.s.'s past problem) of the-twenty-songs-in-under-a-half- hour-syndrome, which is nice for a change. There are some good feedback-driven improvisarional epics, contrasted by a few very short speed-thrash tracks and some semi-slow, heartbreaking punk ballads It all rings in at a smidge over 40 minutes (good value) and selections could just as easily be found on a mix tape at work as on a boom box at a skate park I really dig the muted horns on "And Then I Awoke" and "Apology." Punk needs more horns sections on tunes that cannot be filed under "ska," such as Mike Chilton LABRADFORD E luxo so (Kranky) This fifth album finds Labradford's Robert Donne, Mark Nelson and Carter Brown getting closer to an absolute sound. They have progressed from the drone-based work of their earliest recordings to a greater realized, significantly more musical product It's not that they've changed so much as gotten better within themselves. It's clear that Nelson's Pan American dub experiments have also been wisely introduced into the Labradford formula. The result is an even deeper, more picturesque sense of atmosphere than before. Sounds and patterns emerge with a slow, careful drifting quality, unfolding across the stereo field, yet nothing is overworked or too heavy with processing. Live strings, piano and dulcimer augment guitar, bass guitar, synthesizers, tape loops and samples, with occa- crete elements. This is true headphone music. Brady Cranfield LUNG LEG Maid to Minx (Southern) When Scottish lassies invade our shores, trouble ensues ... Lung Leg, queens of the one-minute pop song, return with a new lineup (there's a boy!), and a new idea: longer songs! This idea works really well on songs like the title track, a very smooth tune for all of you who love laid-back bass and female harmonies. There's considerably more singing (as opposed to silly screams and yelps) on this album, and it comes off sounding great The lyrics are still a bit daft at times, as is evidenced by the track about going to clubs, dancing, and taking too many drugs ("Disco Biscuits"), in which people keep passing out or having their teeth fall out on the dance floor. This is a killer-fun album for summer. Believe the hype! Julie Colero BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS Destiny: Rare Ska Sides from Studio One (Heartbeat) If you've never heard early Bob Marley then be prepared. It's sort of like hearing early Beatles — more pop-'50s-ish songs than original compositions. What is interesting about these unreleased tracks, besides the sort of "get these because you've never heard them before" beauty, is their direct reference to another Studio One - the Studio One of Germany's Mike Ink . Ink creates dub-minimalism, a genre basing its roots from Jamaica but its style and philosophy from minimal techno, centering around the German city of Cologne and artists such as Maurizio , Pole, and Thomas Brinkmann Ink's Studio One series of 10 records is a direct tribute to this very Studio One where Bob Marley recorded; and, as far as I can tell, a direct tribute to this very recording session. Throughout the tracks of Marley's Studio One sessions are the early reggae repeating guitar wahs and deep, jumpy bass that would characterize dub-reggae in the late 1960s. Thirty years later, these same basic structures would be stripped, fed into drum machines, and manufactured in Germany by Mike Ink. What I am saying is that you can hear fhe same riffs and bass structures in this Bob Marley recording as in Ink's Studio One records ... a direct, one-to-one copy in some parts, though the newer version is stripped down and changed into an aural exploration of the electronic. This has made the album worth it: to see how over 40 years, an idea can change and carry to different peoples and generations while still remaining essentially the same. Tobias NECESSARY EVILS The Sicko Inside Me (In The Red) Think you've got that perfect hangover cure? Then you haven't listened to New York City's answer to a thousand little jackham- mers drilling into your brain, driving away the haze of last night's scotch and soda binge. These guys provide one helluva garage rock racket, and seeing as that this band was formed out of the ashes of the triple-guitar screech of Fireworks and fhe primal pound of the Beguiled , it's easy to understand why. From the intense feedback workouts of "Glory Hole" to the howl and moan of "Girl" (which owes a great debt to fellow garage terrors, the Cheater Slicks ), to the rockabilly tinged "Drag Pow Wow Drag" (which puts the band's Cramps influence through the ringer), this is one disc that would not look out of place in the medicine cabinet. Forget the Motrin and Tylenol, the Necessary Evils have got the cure for what ails you, guaranteed. Bryce Dunn (INTERNATIONAL) NOISE CONSPIRACY The First Conspiracy (G-7 Welcoming Committee) What happens when everyone's favorite Swedish hardcore band (ie. Refused) calls it quits? Let me let you all in on the Conspiracy — It's frontman Dennis' other revolutionary musical outlet, but this one is a lot... funkier Think Make-Up . Think Delta 72 Now, instead of lan's strangulated yelps, add Dennis' frightening screams. Singing about "politics and action and madness," the Noise Conspiracy rips shit up in a very accessible way. You can dance to this record, and you can learn from it too! Julie Colero ORBITAL The Middle of Nowhere (fffr/London) As secretary of the Orbital Fan Club (a title I selected myself because I felt that "Grand High Potentate" was a little gaudy), you can doggone betcha I've read thousands of letters and cards addressed to "our boys." Now I've made a new enemy — the Mailman! He has bags under his arms (and under his eyes) from the loads. So, in order to take the pressure off him I want to here and now publicly answer some of the most asked questions he brings. Ready? Firstly, they are NOT brothers, although there's a legend going around which I just made up to the effect that Phil and Bill are Siamese twins and because they were joined at the feet their parents thought they were a dance team. Secondly: Yes, both of them dig girls, but neither one is married or anything as drastic as that! -I think you'll dig this bunch of goodies as much as I did. Well, I've got to get back to the mailbox now, it's loaded again! Quentin Wright POI DOG PONDERING Natural Thing (plate-tec-tonic/Tommy Boy) As their name implies, this band is an enigma. Poi Dog Pondering has been together for almost fifteen years and this is the umpteenth album, but one still does not know really what to expect from this collective Poi Dog Pondering hailed from the same musical circles as the Mekons and the Go- Betweens , so usually one has expected their sound to be similar — alternative rock meets world music meets some (if not lots) of country flavour. But with their newest album, the Poi Dogs spin the tables and opt for a more disco-meets-dance- pop sound. My jaw dropped. This wasn't the PDP I once knew. This is fucking disco music! Sure, it's thinly-veiled disco-pop, and yeah, there was the odd world beat pause, but didn't we have enough of this disco shit in the '70s? I was really pissed off at first. But wait ... it's infectious disco music! I got up and danced. I looked like a goof. I didn't care. When the album ended, I spun it again. I skipped the few non- disco tunes and jumped and danced some more. My neighbour spied me spazzing to this album through my living room window. I let him in. We proceeded to spazz out together to Natural Thing. Life is good with the new disco Poi Dogs. Mike Chilton KELLY RUSSELL AND THE PLANKS Smashed Hits (Alice/Pigeon Inlet) VARIOUS ARTISTS Cover Story: 15 Newfoundland Bands Steal 15 Newfoundland Classics {Alice/No) Newfoundland may be our youngest province, but damn, its musical culture is light-years head of the rest of the country, as far as I'm concerned. The standard argument among Newfies and non-Newfies alike is: What is the land a half-hour ahead of the rest of us better at (and currently better-known for) — traditional Celtic music or progressive alterna-pop? Well, I have two albums here which definitely won't settle fhe argument, but will, instead, raise First off, we have the new album from Kelly Russell and the Planks , who were formerly just the Planks, and before that, the Plankerton Band Confused yet? This group is made up of the trio who normally make up the rock band Drive — Sean Panting (lead vocal/guitar), Chris Batstone (bass) and Adam Staple (drums) — plus old-school Celtic fiddler (and near living legend) Kelly Russell. They take many old reels and jigs, from past Celtic fiddle legends like Rufus Guinchard, and give them a modern rock flair. From the traditional- sounding "Suzanna Perry" and "Diane's Happiness," to the moody rock of" 100 Feet to Go," to the weird amalgamation of folk and alterna-rock on such tunes as "The Rushes," the sound, although unique, couldn't come from any band that isn't from Newfoundland. With the exception of two slower songs, which could be used as an opportunity for a breather, these tunes could get a kitchen party going and keep it going. Kelly Russell and the Planks' sound is comparable to fellow Newfies Rawlin'i Cross (whose accordionist, Geoff Panting — Sean's brother — makes a guest appearance on "Running the Goat"), both wistful for the past yet gunning for the future. This album and a bottle of screech could keep you parrying until dawn, Newfie- style! Next, we have a compilation, also released by the Planks/Drive guys (with the help of Halifax's No Records), with the premise of Newfie bands covering Newfie bands. Cover Story features up- and-coming Newfoundland rock bands like Spunk, Fur- Packed Action , Drive, and Trimmed Naval Beef doing songs by such rock/pop legends as Great Big Sea, Dog Meat BBQ, Bung and (my personal fave) Thomas Trio and the Red Albino As can be expected from a cover album, most of these bands attempt to make each of their covers their own special version Some succeed, others don't. However, the overall quality of Newfoundland music is revealed twofold on this album: first, there is no bad cover song on this album-second, one realizes how great these songs were in the first place when one — especially one who is familiar with most of them, such as myself — hears them given new life on this CD. Even though this album is totally different from the Planks' new album, its unifying quality is that this album is also a great kitchen party album. It, too, could keep things going well past the witching hour. Mike Chilton SCARED OF CHAKA Tired of You (Sub City) VARIOUS ARTISTS Return of the Read Menace (G-7 Welcoming Committee) Giving money to social causes is cool. It sure beats the hell out of lining the pockets of record corn- bums give the majors a boot in the ass, while giving a much- needed shot in the arm to a number of "do-gooder" organisations. Punk label Hopeless Records has set up Sub City in order to release works by political bands like Fifteen and Scared of Chaka . Proceeds from Scared of Chaka's Tired of You will go to various youth shelters in New Mexico and, while the politics are worth paying for, the music ain't bad either. At times sounding somewhat garage-oriented, Scared of Chaka play pretty decent punk rock. Besides, they all dress like revo- camera so you have to give 'em props. At the same time, Winnipeg's G7 Welcoming Committee (no strangers to leftist activity) have released the follow-up to the Better Read than Dead album that served to benefit AK Press. AK Press is a San Francisco based anarchist collective that publishes books and spoken word albums. And they need the money. Lots. The nice kids at G-7 know this so they've included absolute gems by artists like Ron Hawkins, Atom and His Package, and Endeavor, among many others. Local favourites Submission Hold contributes an amazing track and Propagandhi even does a cover of "Hard Times" by the Cro-Mags. If anything, you should buy it for the new Weakerthans track, "Ringing of Revolution," 'cuz it's really god-damned good. Forget Tom Waits, Return ofthe Read Menace has album of the year written all over it. Twenty-five songs that'll make you laugh, cry, dance and throw bricks. Yeehaw. But remember, a CD is only the beginning. Gibby Peach CHRIS SPEED Deviantics (Songlines) Chris Speed 's second album for Vancouver's Songlines label features the same stand up players as his first: Speed on tenor sax and clarinet, Cuong Vu on trumpet, Skuli Sverrisson on electric bass, and the amazing Jim Black on drums and melodica To be expected, there is plenty of smart, spirited playing here, drawing from a wide range of influences, from ion, Balkan andn, to drum and bass. Although I prefer the more abstract, ambient and textured parts, once things get going, these guys can rock out nicely, with little self-indulgence. Overall, Deviantics has a loose, good- natured live feel and is generally accessible. Unfortunately, I fear that this same "live" quality also betrays Deviantics: this music would probably be better enjoyed truly live, perhaps particularly for listeners not already familiar with avant jazz. Recordings can be replayed and studied, of course, but they still do not posses the same physical and immediate impact as an actual live event. However, this isn't a blanket negative statement that weighs evenly in all situations. For example, some music loses its other music almost needs to be recorded to stand out. In any case, a recording is significantly different from a live performance; I wouldn't privilege one over the other. But, in my opinion, improvisational music especially walks a fine line. This is not to put Speed and friends unduly down. Deviantics is a genuinely fine record lead by an already experienced young talent. Brady Cranfield KATHERINE WHALEN'S JAZZ SQUAD Katherine Whalen's Jazz (Mammoth) If you've heard the Squirrel Nut Zippers (one of the only bands marketed as "swing" that doesn't make me want to drown them in diarrhea every time I hear them) then you would be familiar with the husky, moist Whalen. Her debut solo record ing i a fin effort, Holliday whilst maintaining her own sound: bouncy, happy, and, unlike Holliday, devoid of pathos and pain. Sexy when she wants to be and sweet all the time, Whalen's versions of "Deed I Do," "Sugar," "My Baby Just Cares for Me" and 8 other standards (and one original) are fresh and fun. The dixie sound of Whalen's band is reminiscent without descending into the white-guy/bow tie cheese that sometimes happens when contemporary bands try to go for a distinctly nostalgic feel. Hancunt TRICKY WOO Sometimes I Cry (Sonic Unyon) Can somebody please tell me what is going on over in Montreal right now? Where are all these killer bands coming from? You've got the Spaceshits , the Kamikazes, Smash-Up Derby, and Tricky Woo — damn! On their third release the Woo have shed some of the soul from last year's The Enemy Is Real and bared more fangs than Dracula in a blood donor clinic. Lyrically, there's a more "psychedelic" quality to songs like "Fly The Orient" ("I'm not a man, I'm a coastline/ and you can sail me you can fly"), and "Tails Of A Sunray" ("I burned my eyes on the tails of a sunray") and also the cover art which features a guy with cobras for arms inside the belly of a raven with devil tails (what have these guys been smoking?). Lots of rock riffage going on here too, bringing to mind mid-sixties Who, the MCS, and AC/DC on tracks like "Let The Goodtimes Roll," "Sad Eyed Woman," and "Hypnotic Persuasion." These guys on a bill with the Quadrajets and the Fireballs Of Freedom could do some serious damage. Bryce Dunn WOODEN STARS The Moon (Matlock) Wooden Stars is not a band you can pigeon-hole, as their first two albums proved. Those releases were eclectic, experimental, and quite eccentric. So when I heard The Moon was more accessible, and yes, even smoothingly beautiful pop, I had to check it out, even though I wasn't a huge fan of the band. That all changed when I heard this album. Maybe it's because the band hung out so much with too-mellow-for-words Julie Doiron during the making of her last album (who returns the band's guest spot on her album with back-up vocals on three tracks), but the change in the Stars' was, for me, to a heavenly sound. Right from the open- ing notes of "Outlaws," Wooden Stars exuded a mellow confidence which made me feel right at home. Sparse guitars and vocals throughout the album create a type of soft rock with jazz sensibilities, with a little dash of alterna-pop big dollop of streetwise urgency that tells the listener it is oka* to take some time out for youi self in this hectic world. Check out the only instrumental, "Romantic Machinery" (you can just hear it clunk along), and see if I'm wrong. Yeah, I know this description might make the average Wooden Stars fan cringe nay, might make the average college-rock geekoid contemplate something drastic — but I don't care, 'cause it's the truth. Mark my words: this album uld easily land the Stars on Jazz Fest circuit, if the band your more interesting CD pu chases. Not a 30 second re nted to do il. Mike Chilton Spike VARIOUS ARTISTS Short Music for Short People (Fat Wreck Chords) This time, Fat Mike has outdone himself in the gimmick department: one hundred and one songs by 10 different punk bands (get this) all clocking in at 30 seconds or less each (actually, this 100+ song idea has been done before — check out any album by Victoria's late, great Mexican Power Authority). Okay, a couple of songs go a few seconds over. But, to prove my point, soon after I put this CD on, I sneezed and missed the first two songs! Musically, there is a broad representation of punk, pop- punk, ska, and some uncategorisable sounds — the type of stuff one would expect there is representation of bands from such diverse countries as Spain, Israel, Japan and Australia. Even the odd Canadian contribution shows up. If you buy this album just to get a previously unreleased song from your favourite group (some songs are previously re- it may not be your wisest purchase, but it may be one of VARIOUS ARTISTS Crusty Comp. Vol. 1 : Crusty is As Crusty Does (Crusty) It's kinda funny that this compilation uses a takeoff of Forrest Gump for both its title art, especially when sider that s required to understand this music. The weird Vancouver trend of goof-punk (or maybe simpleton-punk might be a more apt description) is showcased in all its glory on this first local compilation by Crusty Records. Even though the music ain't all that intelligent, damn, is it ever fun! Crusty Comp Volume 1 features 28 brand new tunes by 28 different local bands There are some new bands like Subway Thugs and Ziggy's Fix alongside older bands like Aging Youth Gang (alarmingly appropriate name, under the circumstances). Overall, a solid representation of most of Vancouver's pop-punk/hard rock community. This compilation is a must-buy if you are a fan of this sector of the local music scene ... SUPPORT LOCAL MUSICIANS, DAMMIT! Mike Chilton KiLLRopic StarS TheR^plikarits ^ 'SLICKaPHONICS' LP/CD ( ON SRC) Deerhoof _m*m 'HOLDrPAWS' CD L distributed by ( a SPLIT REL3r--.SE) A for a catalog write to: KRS PMB U18 120 NE State Ave, • Olympia, Wii, ?8501 www.killrockstqra.com Real Live Action HENRY KUCHARZYK AND PETER HANNAN Phhlk: a program of new digital music Thursday, June 17 Performance Works This concert was supposed to have some relationship to the avant-garde Ten years ago groups like 808 State and Negativland were creating pop electronica that was substantially more fresh than anything heard tonight It is customary to expect some degree of innovation from government-subsidized composers If this show had been put on by teen-agers instead of federally funded, musically educated adults, it would have been endearing In Raven's Highway Kucharazyk maintained a digital wall of sound while Hannan improvised on electronic recorder: no score, no composed coordination between the players. With nothing in the computer-generated sounds to imply directions for the soloist, Hannon could not bounce ideas off of his digital accompaniment in any constructive manner. Aspiring young musicians, learning their instruments, call this enjoyable, common practice "wanking" and consider it inappropriate for public view. These composers offered expensive, tax-paid gadgetry: a marvel of engineering, unaccompanied by aesthetic ingenuity. Other pieces included drumbeats identical to goth disco, interspersed among sections of fuzz, bleeps, and clicks. The program emulated both antiquated pop and roughly equal measure. The computer sound expose came to a head in the cadenzalike duet from S/'/;song 17hr. Hannan played the "Lightning," a variation of the radio drum, recently developed by Don Buchla. Kucharzyk worked a Theremin, generating the classic, ominous whistle sound that has become a standard soundtrack feature. There was no score or audible logic to the music, but the players themselves looked impressive, like Composers with a capital C; their sharp, intelligent eyes and concise motions could easily intimidate However, all that visual authenticity and computer wizardry cannot negate the blaring necessity for composers to prioritize composition — the combination of associative sounds - - over technology. The alternation among pop and "experimental" sounds heard tonight resulted in a pastiche lacking any consummation of such disparate elements. Popular and serious music mesh poorly, as do 24 Aa$ii6*-M sharply differing sounds tends to drain the power of the individual idiom. Very few of the attempts to graft Chinese, Indian, or Gamelan sounds to Western music have worked out memorably. Dance music does not have this problem because its coherence revolves among the common beat denominator: very little can clutter a pop pulse in obscurity Art music is less resilient, and anything that doesn't clarify its direction obscures it completely. Though the music was negligible, listeners could have done worse Vancouver Pro Musica booked a fine room, complete with colored spotlights, and cannot be faulted for the programming because they are in the business of taking chances, which is attractive in a macho sort of way. The event would have been fine if listeners were not expected to pay attention as if listening closely would somehow pay off. Fake art often operates as a perfectly palatable background. If patrons could talk, drink, and play darts, it would have been a great show. John Keillor THE GOURDS Friday, June 18 Tractor Tavern, Seattle The Gourds is one of the best bands to come out of the musical hotbed of Austin, Texas in years, buf sadly too few have heard the news. Seattle, however, with its ever-growing ND/ alt-country scene, has embraced these guys in a big way. The SRO crowd was treated to opener Mike Nicolai, formerly of Austin, now resident in the Emerald City. Sparse vocals and just a hint of early Lou Reed made for a great appetizer. Next up was bland local country-rawk outfit, The Penningtones They were a B-version of the circa-1976 Eagles, right down to hair and wardrobe. And for the main course, a big ol' gumbo of berserk bluegrass, croonin' country, and southern rawk that had everybody dancin', drinkin' and hollerin' well into Saturday. Think the Band meeting Captain Beefhear t and the Pogues in a dark alley somewhere along the waterfront. Bookending the group were their two writers and singers. Kevin Russell crooned on mandolin and guitar with a sweet, Levon Helms style baritone. On the other end of the stage, t Jin r Smith nged with a sandpaper vi and twitchiness to suit. Anchoring them were a snap accordion IVE REVIEWS player and drummer, and a new member who rates a special mention Max Johnston (dobro, mando, fiddle, guitar) has a fine musical pedigree, having done stints with Wilco and Uncle Tupelo, and he's Michelle Shocked ' s brother to boot Best couple hours I ever spent in that establishment. The only thing missing was their infamous cover of Snoop Dogg ' s "Gin and Juice" done hoedown-style. Next Gourds sighting will be in early September at the Bumbershoot festival Drag yerselves across the border for some real Southern rock, until we're lucky enough to get a Gourds gumbo up here. Val Cormier SKULL SKATES™ ART OPENING: "GRAPHIC WORKS BY THE BOY" JESSE'S GIRL SUCK Wednesday, June 23 Brickyard For those attending the gallery showing of "Graphic Works by the Boy" at the Brickyard, the writing is on the walls. Stuck to the walls and hanging from the ceiling were 75 freaks, monster- driven hot-rods, corporate war machines and cutesy cartoons gone mad. Each piece is a single image drawn in black marker on white vinyl board, cut out and outlined to shape. Called a cartoon style, the work could be a combination of the styles of Matt Groening and Ted Harris, with a little Robert Williams thrown in. A design of the Boy himself shows the artist drawing with chalk on the ground, his eyes bound by a belt, and arrows protruding from his skull in 3 directions. A recurring theme of the work is war mongering. One wall was hung with tanks, guns and futuristic killing machines bearing various corporate logos. Other pieces were laden with the symbols of North American pop-culture: a TV with sharp teeth, a bomb wearing a tie, a smiling marker sniffing another marker, a Schmoo-type character smoking a cigarette. The show was sponsored by Skull Skates and attended by the usual skater-punk crowd: lots of rock n' roll revelers covered in dangerous tattoos Strolling onto stage first was Slick — a five piece band o' bohemians providing free-flowing instrumental jams a la Beastie Boys. While Slick's music may seem an odd complement to a roomful of Mike Ness es and Betty Page s, it actually provided the ideal atmosphere for mingling and checking out graphic art and body art alike. Slick's lost song, "Hot Pants Breakdown," was dedicated to the ubiquitous man in the red leather jacket and ended in a frenzy of dueling drum chops (Slick has two drummers) that left the bike couriers crying for more. After a quick T-shirt and artwork giveaway, Jesse's Girl took the slage and launched into a set of hard-hitting power pop songs. Jesse's Girl used a standard mix of guitar/guitar/bass/ drums (and some trumpet, too) to produce some not-so-standard dynamics, changes and vocal harmonies. They played "Ferro Caril," " 1 /4 inch speaker," and "Dangerous Liaisons" to the delight of the partisan crowd. Some of their songs were reminiscent of Frank Black's early stuff, while others had a more punk-a- billy flavour. By the end of their The drink specials had taken their toll and everyone shuffled out the door with smiles on their Jamie Maclaren & Jason Neve WADE WAVE Wednesday, June 23 Sugar Refiner y Now hear this! Now, here, this! It's all about right here, right now. Sure NYC, London, San Francisco, Montreal, and LA have cool music scenes, but Vancouver has an under-appreciated hipness of its own, a coolness not found on the Georgia Straight's "What's Hot" list. This particular Wednesday evening's coolness was billed as Wade Wave, a musical melange hosted by low-key local Wade Thomas. In a town where any guy with two turntables and an opposable thumb is a DJ, Thomas stands out with his refreshing takes on the DJ schtick. This evening the radiophile introduced us to his unique musical blending via the Ambience oozed its way from Thomas' large collection of radios into the whole space. In this way, Thomas introduced us to his unique musical blending and a number of his talented associates. Thomas provided a rich musical backdrop to the mellow scene. Friends joined him throughout the night, from urban cowpoke Andrew Power on guitar to the flamboyant Lady K freestyling her b-live message on the mike. The result was as hep as any happening in the Village. With his homemade radio transmitter Thomas reassured us that Big Brother doesn't control the airwaves, and with his understated talent for positive-vibe creation he proved that being a DJ doesn't have to mean being a wanker. The night had all necessary ingredients of an ultra-hip urban scene: intimacy, spontaneity, and genuine creativity. Right here in Vancouver - - imagine that. Wendy Fletcher SUMMERFEST 1999 Thursday, June 24 The Cultch Somewhere between a karaoke and an open mic improv, this neighbourhood Live Aid showcased dozens of local performers, both amateur and professional, to raise cash for the BC Cancer Fund Each act was allotted 5 minutes, which meant that the rank amateurs fared well against the more slick artists — you barely had time to start wishing they'd get off the stage before they did just that. In fact, almost everything seen tonight was worthy of its time on stage. Moreover, the whole thing was admirably compered by Nigel Connerbund (the British sex expert). Although it would be unfair to single out any one performer as having kicked ass more than the others, Michelle Keobke connected with both buttocks with her beautiful rendition of "Vergin Tutto Amor" (opera, or didn't you know?) Further kudos to Michelle for coming back on for Campbell Massie's subversive rendering of "Oh Canada." The organizers of this event deserve a pat on the head for managing to scrape together so much talent, delivering the most entertaining evening at the Cultch in ages. Quentin Wright GROOVIE GHOULIES MAOW TONICS COME ONS Saturday, June 26 Brickyard Wowie-zowie, Vancouver's neat. We have so many excellent bands and this bill showcased three of 'em. I'll get to the Come Ons later. For now, I'm gonna talk about the Tonics. They blazed through their garage-y set, sounding more "Canadian" than Bryan Adams could ever dream of. They even ripped through a cover of the Littlest Hobo theme song. You can't beat that with a bamboo cane. Maow followed the Tonics and started things off with a cover of Hank Williams Jr. s "All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin' Over Tonight." Wowie-zowie, Maow's a treat. I wish they'd play more. And the Groovie Ghoulies Well ... do I need to give an explanation? As can be expected, their set left the crowd bobbin' their heads to pure, unadulterated garage punk. But the highlight of the evening wasn't the Ghoulies. Vancouver's newest supergroup, the Come Ons , set a pace that any band would have difficulty keeping up with. Playing their first-ever show, they showed the poise of a seasoned, tight-knit outfit. They were ga- raged-out to the max and, if their first show is any indicator, they'll be pleasing crowds for a long time to come. In summary, this show was incredible. I left with an ear-to-ear shit-eating grin, and my teeth have been brown ever Gibby Peach BOREDOMS Tuesday,June 29 Richard's on Richar ds Boredoms : boogie noiSe, awesome-good, rumbling jammy- throb; three full drum kits (so good), bass guitar (and about 70 effects pedals), guitar, the spectacle within a catastrophe that is Yamatsuka Eye, and a lot of effects gear. There was less chaos, more boogie this time around (which is good, although I can always listen to more free noise). The set was very jammy, almost one long song, with plenty of bass to go with the drums and even a few post-Steve Howe prog guitar noodles. Eye is the James Brown of noise: a- scamperin' and groovin', goofin' and wigglin', enjoyin' himself. Inspirational. T.S. MONK SEXTET WITH NNENNA FREELON THE RUSSEL MALONE QUARTET Thursday, July 1 Vogue The Russel Malone Quartet opened the show. The guitarist, who rapidly gained visibility and praise playing in Diana Kralls' trio, led a four- Anthony Wonsey, bassist Richie Goods, and drummer Donald Edwards. The music was great, although a little to chops-y, if ya know what I mean. Malone is capable of much more subtlety, as exhibited on his recordings and in his live shows with Krall, and I would have liked to have seen him apply it a bit more that night. Just being picky. Otherwise they totally smoked because they're all total motherfuckers (that means really good, like shit-hot). T.S. Monk is about as subtle as headbanger poetry, but he usually manages to deliver a good show, resting largely on the strengths of his sextet. The horn section of Willie Williams on tenor sax, Bobby Porcelli on alto sax, and Don Sicler on trumpet was a bit disappointing: when playing off each other they lacked the punch that was achieved during solos. Porcelli sounded particularly sweet on ballads. Within the rhythm section, the stand out player was not Monk, but bass player Gary Wang. Wang's playing exhibits a grace, maturity, and depth suprising for a musician only 25 years old. Piano player Ray Gallen did not make too much of an impression until after the arrival of Ms. Nnenna Freelon a third of the way into the set, when the vocalist, the bassist and the pianist performed as a trio. Freelon was great. Her voice has a gorgeous tone, and she slipped in between the standards with commanding knowledge and colour. Her scatting ability was remarkable: she managed to get beyond hookiness and please the crowd. Thankfully, Monk kept his infamous verbal ramblings to a surprising minimum Having sat through several monologues at previous Monk performances, I was greatly relieved. Hancunt w/Rhythm Chemist SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS EL VEZ Sunday, July 4 Sonar Nice to see a big crowd out on a Sunday evening, hope it bodes well for more live shows in the future at this dance venue Interesting blend of American cultures on this Independence Day. El Vez, "The Mexican Elvis," opened with his usual high-energy blend of schtick, politics, dancing, and costume changes. The Elvettes and his backing Memphis Mariachis were in fine form, looking and sounding mighty good midway through a grueling summer tour. It was a fairly generic show, though, for those used to themes like "Merry Mexmas," "Revolutionary" or "Gospel." The only sly acknowledgment of the U.S. national holiday was a wave of a Canadian flag near the end of the North Carolina's SCOTS rocked hard through a long set. The beehived bass player certainly looked a lot happier this show; last trip up to Vancouver she'd been suffering through an injured foot and the theft of some gear. They ran through hits like "Banana Puddin'," "Camel Walk," "Biscuit Eater," "Sheik's Watk," "My House Has Wheels," "Chicken Shit Farmer," and "Eight Piece Box." It was lotsa fun, and anybody who was lucky enough to have seen the B-52's in the early '80s would have noticed a lot of similarities. Keep an eye out for these hillbillies! Val Cormier APPLES IN STEREO DRESSY BESSY THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Friday, July 9 Starfish Room Mm v That good listenin'. I've never seen a show before that influenced what people wore. Snappy yet casual attire was the fashion for the Mountain Goats as well as a number of persons in the audience. Dressy Bessy appeared next. I'd heard good comments about them before the show'd begun. The music was interesting to begin with but I soon became more interested in what the singer's T-shirt said on it. Boo, Doug, boo ... Apples in Ster eo, sharing a number of members with Dressy Bessy, sounded rather similar and, therefore, uninteresting to me (this might have been different had the Mountain Goats appeared between sets to break things up). Doug Jines LOOPER IQU Sunday, July 11 Starfish Room If, for some strange reason, the Province had covered this show, the front-page headline would probably have read "Looper or Blooper?" Poor sound, poor showmanship and many technical glitches meant that this was a disappointing performance. Things weren't always so bad. IQU put in a solid performance on their last live date with the headliners. Hailing from Olympia, IQU is a young chainsmoking trio who alternately sample, play guitar, pound organ and wave theremin over heavy stand-up bass and manufactured beats. Their first song — featuring eerie theremin and reverberating organ — sounded something like a dub remix of Mercury Rev's "Holes." Other songs either concentrated more on the frontman's ample guitar skills or on the keyboardist's understated melodies. One constant throughout was the bass player's booty-shaking. By the end of their short set, IQU had smoked an entire pack of cigarettes and drawn the undivided attention of the appreciative crowd. They finished with a guitar frenzy worthy of Ira Kaplan's attention, and then announced they were off to play Yo Yo A Go Go. If IQU was the appetite-whetting hors d'oeuvre, then Looper was meant to be the special du jour. The crowd — hungry for some of Looper's patented mix of samples, keyboards and looped beats — gathered close to the multimedia stage. Their set began with "the treehouse," and three of four screens showed the laughing faces of wee lads and lassies while the last screen showed nature stills. Each subsequent song followed the same basic formula: a barely audible narrative accompanied by some stills and a short film — all dripping with the sweet taste of nostalgia and innocence. As good as Karn's films were, they could not mask the poor sound and Stuart's many mumblings and grumblings. Songs like "ballad of ray suzuki," "burning flies" and "impossible things #2" (with its live typewriter) shone in spite of it all, but it was obvious from the get-go that Looper was playing with one foot out the door. The disenchanted Scots played their set and then sneaked out the back. The gracious crowd, perhaps in an attempt to console the sulking band, called for an encore, but only received a roadie and some bright lights in return. The $15 ticket price might have been better spent on the magical Looper CD and some old home movies. Jamie Maclaren WILL OLDHAM ANOMOANON JOEL R.L PHELPS AND THE DOWNER TRIO Saturday, July 10 Breakroom (Seattle) Despite Will Oldham s some- times cliched lyrics and the triple forte that the band seemed to play at no matter what was happening in the song, Oldham's voice pushed through his handlebar moustache and made the fringe on his cut-offs quiver. I had hoped that Oldham would play alone, but with all his pseudonyms, his affinty for Les Pauls, and the solos that always seem to go along with them it's hard to tell who he'll decide to be. Anomoanon felt like a big old family reunion. Beer, radio songs and sing-alongs. What I really came to see, what was worth almost getting killed by guns and somnolence on the highway, was Joel R.L Phelps and the Downer Trio. Their set was perfect musical diplomacy: restrained or urgent, but never at the wrong time. Between Phelps' throat, Robert Mercer's fingers and William Herzog's wrists, they are the most brilliant, beautiful, breath-stealing men I have ever ... Ever. Christa Min BRATMOBILE GOTHBLINS (standing in for the EVAPORATORS) TENNESSEE TWIN Sunday, July 11 Picadilly Pub As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, this show was the first-ever Evaporators gig to be performed sans-Nardwuar. And it didn't suck. Let me explain: "Are the Evaporators going to play?" seemed to be the question of the evening, as rumours flew on flitty little beer-wings all around the Pic Pub. Where was our buddy? What was up? As it turns out, Nardwuar was in hospital due to health problems, but the show went on. Tennessee Twin took to the stage with mighty cowboy flair and won the crowd over quickly with their enthusiasm. I am down with accordions in every way, shape, and form, and this four-piece with boot-stompin' skills galore made me quite happy. Ne> up * the Gothblins , and they fuckin' (excuse the strong language, but it's true) rocked the house! The metal antics of John and Dave just ripped the place up, and things couldn't have been much cooler, until ... What's this? The Gothblins had a guest singer! Alaric, good buddy of those of us "on the up and up" at CiTR, was ready to fillin for Nardwuar in the Evaporators' time of need! Alaric, a goth-opera wonder, sang a tune of his own and two Evaporators classics (I don't think Nardwuar ever did that suggestive thing with his hips when he sang "Hump the Dog," though). Dave sang "I'm Your Buddy" and dedicated it to Nardwuar, and then the Wolfe sisters rounded off the all-star tribute with a charmingly chaotic version of "Welcome to My Castle." This performance would surely have made Nardwuar And finally, what everyone and her kid sister had been waiting for — Bratmobile ! This reunion tour has had people coming out in hordes to check out the reincarnated riot grrrl antics of Allison, Molly and Erin. The sound mangled Allison's vocals, but she did manage to convey the basic gist of things. She was bouncing and dancing like the best of them, and helped to give me an idea of why everyone's so ga-ga for this band. When asked to do an encore, Allison declined, saying that they didn't know how to play any more songs. Now that's punk rock. Julie Colero MARINE RESEARCH TIGHT BROS. FROM W AY BACK WHEN MAKE-UP Sunday, July 18 Washington Hall, Seattle Okay, so I missed Yo Yo. End of the world, right? Wrong Red Monkey came to me, and I went to Marine Research . My life is good. This concert warranted a day off work and a long car ride down to Seattle. I missed out on any chances to see Heavenly when they were together (I was probably about 13 when they came to over here last, a bit too hung up on Digital Underground or Nirvana to know twee goodness), and didn't want to miss Marine Research. Seeing the Make-Up sounded like a good idea, too. My paranoia about missing a single second of the action got us to the hall very, very early. I got a chance to check out the Seattle all-ages scene at its best: lots of ultra-cool looking kids hanging out around the front, waiting for the action. Marine Research played quite early, and slowly got the audience into the swing of things Amelia and Cathy have got their harmonies down pat, and new drummer DJ fits in quite nicely with the others. The band played songs from its new album, an album which most of the audience probably had not heard yet. The crowd seemed to take to the band quickly, and it seems that the performance was greatly enjoyed by I was outside when the Tight Bros, played, but can honestly say I didn't miss anything Those guys are so loud, I could hear them from around the block! They were super-tight (as were their t- shirts, attests my eye-witness), and the singer sounded just like the AC/DC guy. Dude. Last time I saw the Make-Up, I was kind of non-plussed. This time, they taught me a thing or two about their world. Maybe the crowd makes all the difference, as this bunch was all over Ian and his baby-making antics. The Make-Up looked and sounded very good, and made even crowd-conscious me said "yeah!" ning was topped off to Taco Bell and lots TERROR OF TINY TOWN KEMEON BIG RIG SWEETIES SUNDAY. AUGUST 8 SKUNK ANANSIE TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 KIMMIE GOOD TIME CLUBSTERS TREVOR WORLD THURSDAY, AUGUST 12 TRICKY WOO SPITFIRES MOONEY SUZUKI FRIDAY. AUGUST 13 LUMA NEW BIG SHOES ROSCOE P. COLTRANE SATURDAY. AUGUST 14 PAN MIDGE OCEAN 3 WEDNESDAY. AUGUST 18 CAPTAIN TRACTOR THURSDAY. AUGUST 19 GLIMMER ONE-900 TEMPLAR FRIDAY. AUGUST 20 REAL MCKENZIES SATURDAY. AUGUST 21 SHELLAC SILKWORM THURSDAY. AUGUST 26 STAR COLLECTOR MT. PLEASANT 00BERBAND FRIDAY. AUGUST 27 VERBEENA „. E^gSSUSS Our annual directory, chock full of contact numbers and addresses of Bands and the businesses that support them, will be in the September issue. The deadline for entries is August 15, 1999. YOU ARE A (Check one): BAND/MUSICIAN PROMOTER RECORD LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR _ LIVE MUSIC VENUE MANAGER/ AGENT STUDIO ZINE OTHER (elaborate below) NAME: DESCRIPTION (15 words or less): CONTACT(S):. ADDRESS PHONE: EMAIL: _ URL: _ FAX: FILL THIS OUT AND MAIL/FAX ITTO US BEFORE August 15,1999 ' 233-6138 SUB Blvd., Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 fax: 604.822.9364 CiTR's annual battle of the bands starts sooner than we'd all like to think! receive W»» SWIW I YkT 111 Ctftoh KtfKftf KoOc&V-tAJt Feel free to call Julie with any questions you may have: 822-8733 CiTR charts }W THE CHARTS WORK . The monthly charts are compiled based on the number of times a CD/LP ("long vinyl"), 7" ("short vinyl"), or demo tape ("indie home jobs") on CiTR's playlist was played by our djs during the previous month (ie, "August" charts reflect airplay over July). Weekly charts can be received via e-mail. Send mail to "majordomo@unixg.ubc.ca" with the WHArSBHNC, HAYHJON lUI.VHM ■^.iliiMiI»m'l»fflil^li_» august 99 long uinyl august 99 short uinyl 1 tricky woo sometimes i cry sonic unyon 1 the novas the crusher norton 2 various artists return of the reod menace ak press/g-7 2 jackson phibes old devil moon reanimator 3 wooden stars the moon matlock 3 n. case/whiskeytown split bloodshot 4 pizzicato five playboy & playgirl matador 4 the sonics house party norton 5 sci fi witch doctor enter the now phat phunk 5 harry dean stanton you don't miss your water rx remedy 6 cibo matto stereo type a warner 6 the catheters the kids know how to rock empty 7 negativland/chumbawambaabcs of anarchism seeland 7 los infernos the outlaw alt. tentacles 8 moby play v2 8 meridian 1520 sonorous envelope brentwood estates 9 red monkey difficult is easy slampt 9 the make-up/lung leg split southern 10 mark chocolate covered bad things catsup 10 huevos rancheros wild turkey surprise! mint 11 chicklet wanderlust satellite 11 tricky woo ten tons bittersweet 12 the planet smasher life of the party stomp 12 holly golightly listen kill rock stars 13 ibrahim ferrer buena vista social club... nonesuch 13 readymade the block alone endearing 14 chemical brothers surrender astralwerks 14 marine research s/t k 15 d.b.s. some boys got it... new disorder 15 the essex green s/t sudden shame 16 the donnas ...get skintight lookout! 16 sackville/handsome family split 17 barry adamson murky world of... mute 17 quixotic s/t ixor stix 18 julie doiron will you still love me? tree 18 the hellacopters down right blue sub pop 19 nobukazu takemurc scope thrill jockey 19 the disgusteens nothing personal longshot 20 third eye tribe wub-suffer independent 20 the users sick of you raw 21 skavenjah 22 os mutantes 23 david kristian little monsters stomp everything is possible! luaka bop beneath the valley of the... alien8 24 saturnhead saturnhead, California vast Barbara and Christa went to Yo Yo and 25 scanner lauwarm instrumental sulphur spent way too much time gossiping. Our 26 man or astroman? eeviac touch and go printer decided it didn't want to play 28 rachels selenography quarterstick nice on the last night of production; 29 buttless chaps tumblewire lonesome cow... fortunately, our homies at the Ubyssey 30 to rococo rot the amateur view mute were nice enough to let us use theirs. 31 tight bros... runnin' thru my bones krs Tristan risked death via a certain 32 stacey earle simple gearle gearle uncooked grain product. Hancunt 33 various artists crusty is as crusty does crusty edited her essay about 50 times. Viva 34 clover honey s/t independent journalism! 35 ani difranco & utah phillips fellow workers righteous babe august 99 indie home jobs 1 radio berlin distance 2 the radio kinder surprise 3 swank o'hara no one has a clue (but you) 4 team strike force bomb at the party 5 Victorian pork uhoh 6 reverberators el perro loco 7 clover honey talk about me 8 full sketch soundtrack 9 les saints ta mere 10 skavengers i won't forget you 11 siobhan duvall i 12 adri mischievous elves 13 david lester the light changed... 14 space kid machine gun 15 sharp kid teenage hooligan 16 Canadian music of Canada 17 rye catchers things in the way 18 nagasaki fondu nobody 19 new electric riot teenage blues 20 salteens nice day what we listened to behead the prophet nxlxsxlx * autechre * jason traeger * comet gain * dif juz * guided by voices lee "scratch" perry * dysentery/falling sickness * patrik fitzgerald * fugazi * lung leg * c average scanner * rezillos * v/a four dots * black halos hudson falcons * beltones * los lobos * the birthday party * fantastic plastic machine * lydia lunch & roland s. howard * britney spears * gang starr the bodies * johnny cash * us bombs ducky boys pavement * kingpins (live! on ska-t's scene-ik drive!) * hans kloss misery hour (of course) ^ooJUasiu Comic jdasilva@eciad.bc.ca> fJly $ason r0a 6/foa (en route) On The Dia YOUR ON-AIR GUIDE TO CiTR 101.9 FM SUNDAYS AREYOUSBHOUS7MUSIC&30 AM- 12:00PM All of time is measured by its art. This show presents the most recent new music from around the world. Ears open. THEROCKERSSHOW 12KJ0-3.-00PM Reggae inno all styles ond fashion. BLOOD ON THE SADDLE 3:00- 5:00PM Reakowshikaughf-in-yer- boots country UPGLOSS& CIGARETTES alt. 5:00- 6:00PM British pop music Irom all decades SAINT TROPEZ alt. 5:00-6:00PM International pop [Japanese, French, Swedish, British, US, etc.], '60s soundtracks and lounge Book your jet set holiday nowl QUEER FM 6KW-8.-00PM Dedicated to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual communities of Vancouver and listened lo by everyone. Lots of human interest features, background on current issues and great music from musicians of all sexual preferences and gender identities. HELLO INCH A 8:00-9:00PM GEETANJAU 9:00-10:00PM Geetanjali features a wide range of music from India, including classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic, popular music from Indian movies from rhe 1930's lo the 1990's, semi- classical music such as Ghazals and Bho|ans, and also Quawwalis, elc. THESHOWlOdOPM-1:00AM Strictly Hip Hop — Strictly Underground — Strictly Vinyl With your hosts Check mate, Flip Out _ J Swing on the 1 & 2's THE CHILL-OUT ROOM 1:00- 4.-0QAMDJCIutchspinsh,r>hop...DJ Decter spins techno So chill out wilh us. Have a nice day MONDAYS BLUEGRASSFOR BREAKFAST6K>0- 8:00AM Back in September. BREAKFAST WITH THE BROWNS &15-11:00AM Yourfavouritebrown- slers, James and Peter, offer a savoury blend of the familiar and exotic in a blend of aural delights! Tune in and enjoy eoch weekly brown plate special. Instrumental, trance, lounge and ambi- BLUE MONDAY all. 11:00AM- 1:00PM Vancouver's only indus trial-electron ic-retro-gotti program. Music to schlomp to, hosted by Coreen THE ETHER TABU alt. 11:00AM- 1:00PM II a collective of Belgian satanists ever put reverb on a flock of geese, I'll find it and play all 28 minutes! Dark ambienl and experimental and noisy stuff. Barbara listens to too much old vinyl. SOUPE DU JOUR 1:00-3:OOPM Feeling a little French-impaired? Francophone music from around the globe, sans Celine Dion. LICORICE ALLSORTS 3:00-4:OOPM EV1VS.GOOD4K)0-5*OOPM Who will triumph? Hardcore/punk from beyond the grave BIRDWATCHERS 5: 00-6:00PM Join the Sports department for their eye on Ihe T-birds. POLYFILLERalt.6:00-7:30PM LADY DEATHSTRIKE alt. 6:00- 7:30PM PIRATE RADIO 7:30-9*00PM For merly "Love Sucks," now ot a new THE JAZZ SHOW 9KX) PM-11O0AM Vancouver's longest running prime time jazz program. Hosled by the ever-suave Gavin Waker. Features at 11 Aug 2: Pianist Red Garland leads a quintet lhat includes John Coltrane: High Pressure Aug 9: New star alto saxophonist Greg Osby Banned in New york. Aug 16: Underrated trumpeter/composer Charles Tolliver and his big band Music Inc : Impact. Aug 23: Legendary organist Roosevelt 'Baby Face' Willette. Stop and listen. Aug 30*. The Individualism ol Gil Evans VENGEANCE IS MINE 12:00- 4:00AM Hasted by Trevor. Ifs punk rock, baby! Gone from the charts but not from our hearts — tank fucking Christ. TUESDAYS X-l 6-00-8-OOAM WORLD HEAT 8:00-9:30AM THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM 9:30- 11:30AM Tamd trasfnock, sleazy surf ond pukatin' punk provide the perfect scissor kick to your head every Tuesdaymom.Thefe'snosecond chance when Kungfu is used for evil with drunken fist Bryce. IGlyaoir TRAGIC ANIMAL STORIES 11:30AM-1:00PM Talesofpuppy love gone awry, and of baby ducks crossing the street, all backed up by a sad soundtrack of various indiefock bands for your awn enjoyment ond education. Cry in your beer, please. ECHOES FROM THE SUGAR CUBE FACTORY l:0O-2:O0PM BELT OUTTHE BLUES 2:00-3:30PM Music for families and little people. THE SUPPERY SLOT alt. 3:30- 5:00PM SKINTIGHT BUFFOONERY alt. 3:30-5:00PM BBC WORLDNEWS SERVICE 5:00- RADIO ACTIVE 5:30-6:00PM Activism, issues and fucking up the corporate powers that be. FLEX YOUR HEAD 6*00-8KX)PM Hardcore and punk rock since 1989. http: //flexyourhead. vancouverhardcore.com/ RADIO ELLINIKATHIKO 8:00- 10:00PM Greek radio filling in for La Bomba for the summer. WITCHDOCTOR HIGHBALL alt. 10H)0PM-12:00AM Noise, ambient, electronic, hip hop, free jozz, Christian better living LPs, the occasional amateur radio play, whatever. _S AUiju^f-f** VENUS FLYTRAP'S LOVE DEN alt. 10:00PM- 12:00AM Join Greg in the love den for a cocktail. We'll hear retro stuff, groovy jazz, and thicker stuff too. See you here... and bring some ice AURAL TENTACLES 12:00AM- 3:00AM Warning: This show is moody and unpredictable. It encourages insomnia and may prove lo be hazardous lo your health. Ambient, ethnic, funk, pop, dance, punk, electronic, synth, blues, and unusual rock. WEST COAST POPPIN' 3:00- 6:00AM 100% west coast rop. Huge giveaways, with your host like no other Shawn Powers. WEDNESDAYS SUBURBAN JUNGLE 7:00-9:00AM A perfect blend of the sublime and absurd, with your refined and exotic hosts Jack Velvet and Carmen Ghia. SPIKE'S MUSICAL PINS AND NEEDLES 9:00-10:00AM Spike spins Canadian tunes accompanied by spotlights on locol artists. Weekly "Vintage Vancouver" segment takes a look back at this city's musical past. REBEL JAZZ 10:O0-12:00PM BABYLON AFTERNOON 12:00- 200PM BLACK NOISE 2:0O-3:OOPM Filling in for Clinton. Essays, poetry, social commentary, and conscious music from a Black radical perspective. If you can't take the heat listen to Z95. MOTORDADDY3K)0-5*OOPM "eat, sleep, ride, listen to Motordaddy, repeat.' RACHEL'S SONG 5: 10-6:0OPM Info on health and ihe environment. From recycling and conservation projects to diet, health, and consumption and suslainability in the urban context. SOLID STATE 6:00 -7:30PM Featuring the latest in techno, trance, acid and progressive house. Spotlights on local artists, ticket giveaways, & live performances. Hosted by M-Parh. AND SOMETIMES WH Yah. 7:30- 9:00PM sleater-kinney,low,sushi... ihese are a few of our faveotavrit things. BY THE WAY alt. 7:30-9:OOPM Let's give alternative media a chance - VIVA VINYL! 7"s new and old, local cassettes and demos. FOLK OASIS fcOO-10:30PM Featuring the latest local and international releases in folk/roots/world music, phone interviews, in-studioguestsand more. Requests always welcomed! STRAIGHT OUTTA JALLUNDHAR 10:30PM-12*OOAM LetDJsJindwa and Bindwa immerse you in radioactive Bhungra! "Chakkh de phulay." Listen to all our favourite Punjabi tunes — remixes and originals. HANSKLOSSMISERYHOUR 12:00- 4:00AM Mix of most depressing, unheard and unlistenable melodies, tunes and voices. THURSDAYS FIRST FLOOR 3:00-6:00AM 6:30-8:30AM REEL MUSIC 8:30-10:00AM Soundtracks and classical. FILIBUSTER alt. 10:00-11:30AM Port accordion-tinged musical meanderings, part experiemental weirdness, with a little bad hill blood thrown in for good measure. STAND AND BE CUNTED alt. 10:00-11:30AM DJHancunturges women to gel down with their cunts while listening to women in jazz, funk, rap, soul, worldbeat, disco and beyond. CANADIAN LUNCH 11:30AM- 1:00PM FromTofinoloGander, Baffin Island lo Portage La Prairie. The al Canadia* soundtrack for your midday snockl SIEVE&MKE 1KW-2KX3PM Crashing the boys' club in the pit. Hard and fast, heavy and slow. Listen to it, baby, (hardcore). ONOMATOPOEIA 2:00-3:00PM Comix comix comix oh yeah and some music. With Robin and Jules. RHYMES AND REASONS alt. 3*00- 5:00PM CULTURE CAVITY SEARCH 5:00- 5:30PM SHAPE UP alt. 5:30-6:00PM REELS TO REEL alt. 5:30-6:OOPM Movie reviews and criticism. OUT FOR KICKS 6*>0-7:30PM No Birkenstocks, nothing politically correct. We don't get paid so you're damn right we have fun with it. Hosted by Chris B. ONAIRWITHGREASEDHAIR 7:30- 9:00PM Roots of rock & roll. UVE FROM THUNDERBIRD RADIO HELL 9:00-11:00PM Local muzak from 9. live bandz from 10-11. COCKED AND READY aft. 11:00PM- 1:00AM NOCTURNALTRANSMISSIONSalt. 11:00PM-1:00AM You adjust the lighting, DJ Satyricon mixes the sounds. Radio that could only happen after the sun's gone down. Songs and soundscapes for the naked city. PLUTONIAN NIGHTS 1:00- 4:00AM Late night vinyl. Occasional skips. Cheers. FRIDAYS SHADOW AT DAWN 6:00- 8:00AM with DJ Galosh CAUGHTINTHERED8: 00-1&00AM Trawling the trash heap of over 50 years worth of real rock V roll debris. Stick out yo' can. SKA-TSSCENE-IKDRM! 10:00AM- 12:00PM E-mail your requests to Djska T@hotmail.com THESE ARE THE BREAKS 12:00- 2:00PM DJ Splice brings you a flipped up, freaked out, full-on, funktified, sample heavy beat-lain trip, focusing on anything with breakbeats. Versatile at any style. UTTU TWIN STARS 2.-00-3:30PM Underground, experimental, indie and women. Jacuzzi space rock at its finest. NARDWUAR THE HUMAN SERVIETTE PRESENTS ... 3:30-4:00PM NOIZ4:00-5:00PM seMed. BBC WORLDSERVICE 5*00-5:30PM FAR EAST SIDE SOUNDS alt. 6:00- 900PM AFRICAN RHYTHMS alt. 6:00- 9:00PM David "Love" Jones brings you the best new and old jazz, soul, Latin, samba, bossa & African music from around the world. HOMEBASS 9:00PM- 12:00AM Hosted by DJ Noah: techno, but also some trance, acid, tribal, etc. Guest DJ's, interviews, retrospectives, giveaways, and more. SHIT MIX alt 12:00-3:OOAM No beatmatching. No crossfading. No indiefascism. No No Phish. Just a mix. SATURDAYS THE MORNING AFTER alt. 3:00- 8:00AM GET TO THE CHORUS alt. 6:00- 8:00AM THE SATURDAY EDGE 8:00AM- 12:00PM Studio guests, new releases, British comedy sketches, folk music calendar, and ticket giveaways. 8-9AM: African/World roots. 9AM 12PM: Celtic music and performances. ALAM MAZEKA 12:00- 1:00PM Arabic music. POWERCHORD 1:00-3:00PM Vancouver's only true metal show; local demo tapes, imports and other rarities. Gerald Raltlehead and Metal Ron do the damage. LUCKY SCRATCH 3:00-5:OOPM From backwoods delta low-down slide to urban harp honks, blues tunesters and crooners in the blue degree. Blues and blues roots with your hosts Anna and Barry. RADIO FREE AMERICA 6:00- 8:00PM Extraordinary political research guaranteed to make you ihink. Originally broadcast on KFJC (Los Altos, Cal.) GROOVE JUMPING alt. 10:00- 1:00AM PIPEDREAMS alt. 10:00-1:00 AM SOUL TREE alt. 1:00 -4:30AM From doo-wop to hip hop, from the electric to the eclectic, host Michael Ingram goes beyond the call of gospel and takes soul music to the nth degree. EARWAX alt. 1:00- 4:30AM "noiz terror mindfuck hardcore like punk/ beatz drop dem headz rock inna junglist mashup/distort da source full force with needlz on wax/my chaos runs rampant when I free da jazz..." Out. -Guy Smiley REGGAE LINKUP 4:30-8:30AM Hardcore dancehall reggae that will make your mitochondria quake. Hosled by Sister B. CiTR LOL.9 TM $4tifitL*y ftiMy 3fl k cpeeir radi© eweot celebrating seiyal diversity 10:30-11:00am 11-00-12:00pm 12:00-1:00pm 1:00-2:00pm 2:00-3:00pm 3:00-3:30pm 3:30-4:30pm 4:30-5:00pm 5:00-6:00pm 6:00-7:00pm 7:00-8:00pm 8:00-9:00pm 9:00-10:30pm 10:30-11:00pm 11:00-12:00am 12:00-1:00am 1:004:00am Kickoff - a brief history of Vancouver Pride, and info about this year's line-up Short Features Halfbreeds, Homos and Other Heroes - a two- spirited perspective TransTalk The Bi-onic Man Queer Film & Video - a round table discussion with programmers and guests from Out On Screen Interview with Ember Swift Queer Noiz - audio art by non-heterosexuals Two-Spirited Storytelling - with Gordon DeFresne Hearsay - Spoken word, for those literary types Raunchy Bisexual Stuff-with DJ Hancunt Straight FM - Heather and Craig do the flip side Onomatopoeia - Yes, there are queer comix Dykes on Mykes - with live guest Kathy O'Neil Live and Queer - Satina Saturnina Queer Roots of House - with DJ Tobias Nardwuar vs. Dan Savage Earwax - queer underground sounds onGlMOMffl Datebook WHAT'S HAPPENING IN AUGUST SAT 31 Asad Rizvi@Sonar; Black Halos, Catheters, Cuckoos@Piccadilly; Artporn or Pornorr?@Blinding Light SUN 1 Robert Walter's 20th Congress@Chameleon; Brian Gee@Sonar MON 2 Jar@Starfish TUE 3 Mixmaster Mike@Sonar; Mr. Sa/esman/@Blinding Light; Hot Baud Rally (feat. Error 404, Manu Fortis, Akashic)@Columbia; Cereal Porn, Hurt, Silvertongue@Starfish WED 4 The New Deal@Chameleon; Mr. Sa/esmon@Blinding Light; SMAQu-2, Bloodmusic@Brickyard; Secret Three@Sugar Refinery THU 5 Sex In Sweden, Pet Fairies, Vancouver's Shame@Piccadilly; Moby@Richard's; Fritz Lang's Metropolis w/Eye of Newt Collective@Blinding Light; Hot Baud Rally (feat. 75 Million Changs, Einsturzende nasenbluten, Miss X)@Columbia; Shawn Meehan, Sam, My Blue Heavy@Starfish FRI 6 Lowbrows@Marine Club; Rock Against Prisons@Heritage Hall; Chai-Man Cheng@Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden; Jar, Random Damage, G.R.A.V.E.L.©Starfish; Zumpano, Come Ons@Brickyard SAT 7 Tonics, July 4th Toilet, Radio@Piccadilly; Brian Springer's Spin w/ The Mark Twain Company^Blinding Light; Terror of a Tiny Town, Hemeon, Big Rig Sweeties@Starfish SUN 8 Big Red, Daisy Dukes@Piccadilly; Skunk Anansie@Starfish; 23rd Annual Prisoners' Justice Day Memorial Rally@Vancouver Pre-Trial Centre; Under the Volcano (see Special Events)@Cates Park MON 9 Arling & Cameron@Chameleon TUE 10 Jimmy Cliff@Rage, Guy Debord's The Society ofthe Spectac/e@Blinding Light; Kimmie, Good Time Clubsters, Trevor World@Starfish WED 11 1 lth Annual Vancouver Queer Film & Video Festival@Blinding Light THU 12 Tricky Woo, Spitfires, Mooney Suzuki@Starfish; Curiosity Shop, Velveteens@Piccadilly; BY08@Blinding Light FRI 13 New Big Shoes, Luma@Starfish; ASZA@Dr. Sun Yat- SUBMISSIONS TO DATEBOOK ARE FREE! F0 HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, FAX ALL THE RELEVANT INFO (WHO, WHERE, WHEN) TO 822.9364, ATTENTION "DATEBOOK." DEADLINE FOR THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE IS AUGUST 18th! TUE 31 Transgressive Chicks: Linda Feesey + Kika 7norne@Blinding Light WED 1 Transgressive Chicks: Linda Feesey + Kika 77iorne@Blinding Light THU 2 Charlie Chaplin's City Lights w/Eye of Newt Collective@Blinding Light Sen Garden; Deadcats, Tonics@Brickyard SAT 14 Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour^Blinding Light; Pan, Midge, Ocean 3@Starfish; Satsuma, Run Chico Run@Brickyard SUN 15 Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour@Blinding Light MON 16 T-Model Ford, Paul "Wine" Jones@Yale TUE 1 7 Gutter Punks, Street V7ews@Blinding Light WED 18 Gutter Punks, Streel Views@Blinding Light; Captain Tractor@Starfish THU 19 JP5, Custom Made Scare, Fatal Flying Guilloteens@Piccadilly; The Organization Man: The End of Society As We Know //©Blinding Light; Glimmer, One-900, Templar@Starfish FRI 20 Fireballs of Freedom, Fiends, Countdowns, Tonics@Piccadilly; Dido@Sonar; Zolty@Marine Club; Yu-Ping Chen@Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden; Stripped & Teased: Tales from Vegas Women@Blinding Light; Real McKenzies@Starfish SAT 21 Shellac, Silkworm@Starfish; Lazy Cowgirls, Von Zippers, Johnny Legend, Hell Caminos@Piccadilly SUN 22 Stripped & Teased: Tales From Vegas Women@Blinding Light MON 23 Moth: A Live Multimedia Dance Performance@Blinding Light TUE 24 Mof/i@Blinding Light WED 25 Mof/i@Blinding Light THU 26 Salteens, Solarbaby, Lavish@Piccadilly; Herbaliser, Roots Manuva@Sonar; Freeze-Dried Angst@Sugar Refinery; Star Collector, Mt. Pleasant, Ooberband@Starfish FRI 27 Dragons, Spitfires, Weaklings, RC5, Jet Set@Brickyard; Dick N Jane@Marine Club; Silk Road@Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden; Braineater Deluxe@Brickyard; Verbeena@Starfish SAT 28 Smugglers@Piccadilly; Mo(f)@Blinding Light; The Retards are Winning@Good Jacket; Buttless Chaps@Sugar Refinery SUN 29 Motri@Blinding Light MON 30 Rearrange your sock drawers or something VENUES • BARS • THEATRES • RESTAURANTS • RECORD STORES Amsterdam Cafe 302 West Cordova (Gas Town) 683 7200 Anza Club 3 W. 8th (Mount Pleasant) 876 7128 Arts Hotline 684 2787 Astoria Hotel 769 East Hastings 254 3636 Bassix 217 W. Hastings (at Cambie) 689 7734 Backstage Lounge 1585 Johnston (Granville Island) 687 1354 Black Dog Video 3451 Cambie 873 6958 Black Sheep Books 2742 W. 4th (at MacDonald) 732 5087 Blinding Light 36 Powell St. 878 3366 Boomtown #102-1252 Burrard (at Davie) 893 8696 The Brickyard 315 Carrall St 685 3978 Cafe Deux Soleils 2096 Commercial (the Drive) 254 1195 Cambie 515 Seymour 684 7757 Caprice Theatre 965 Granville (Granville Mall) 683 6099 Celebrities 1022 Davie (at Burrard) 689 3180 Cellar Jazz Cafe 3611 W. Broadway (downstairs) 738 1959 Chameleon Urban Lounge 801 W. Georgia (Downtown) 669 0806 Chan Centre 6265 Crescent Rd. (UBC) CiTR 101.9fM 233-6138 SUB Blvd 822-3017 Club Vesuvius 1176 Granville (downtown) 688 8701 CN Imax Theatre 999 Canada Place 682 4629 Columbia Hotel 303 Columbia (at Cordova) 683 3757 Commodore Lanes 838 Granville (Granville Mall) 681 1531 CNB Skate and Snow 3712 Robson 682 5345 Cordova Cafe 307 Cordova (Gastown) 683 5637 Croatian Cultural Centre 3250 Commercial (al 17th) 879 0154 Crosstown Music 518 W Pender 683 8774 Denman Place Cinema 1030 Denman (V\fest End) 683 2201 Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden Main Hall 578 Carrall St. 662 3207 DV8 515 Davie (downtown) 682 4388 Fifth Avenue Cinemas 2110 Burrard (at 5th) 734 7469 Firehall Arts Centre 80 E. Cordova (at Main) 689 0926 F.W.U.H. Beatty 552 Beatty 687 7464 Frederic Wood Theatre (UBC) Garage Pub 2889 E. Hastings (downtown) The Good Jacket 225 E. Broadway (at Main) The Grind Gallery 4124 Main (Ml. Pleasant) Hollywood Theatre 3123 W. Broadway (Kitsilano) Hot Jazz Society 2120 Main (Mt. Pleasant) Hush Records 221 Abbott Street Jericho Arts Centre 1600 Discovery (Pt. Grey) Jupiter Cafe & Billiards 1216 Bute (near Denman St) La Quena 1111 Commercial (the Drive) The Lotus Club 455 Abbott (Gaslown) Luv-A-Fair 1275 Seymour (downtown) Medialuna 1926 W. Broadway Minoru Pavillion 7191 Granville (Richmond) Moon Base Gallery 231 Carrall St. (Gastown) Naam Restaurant 2724 W 4th (Kitsilano) Neptoon Records 5750 Fraser St. Orpheum Theatre Smithe & Seymour (downtown) Pacific Cinematheque 1131 Howe (downtown) Palladium 1250 Richards (downtown) Paradise 27 Church (New Westminster) Paradise Cinema 919 Granville (Granville Mall) Park Theatre 3440 Cambie (South Vancouver) Piccadilly Pub 630 W. Pender (at Seymour) Pitt Gallery 317 W. Hastings (downtown) Plaza Theatre 881 Granville (Granville Mall) Puff/Beatstreet 4326 Main (at 27th Ave) Puff #14-712 Robson (al Granville) Purple Onion 15 Water St. (Gastown) Queen Elizabeth Theatre Hamilton & Georgia Raffels Lounge 1221 Granville (downtown) The Rage 750 Pacific Blvd. South (Plaza of Nations) Railway Club 579 Dunsmuir (at Seymour) 822 2678 822 9364 872 5665 322 6057 738 3211 873 4131 662 7017 224 8007 606 6665 251 6626 685 7777 685 3288 608 0913 738 7151 324 1229 665 3050 688 3456 688 2648 525 0371 681 1732 876 2747 682 3221 681 6740 685 7050 708 9804 684 PUFF 602 9442 665 3050 473 1593 685 5585 681 1625 Richard's on Richards 1036 Richards (downtown) 687 6794 Ride On 2255 West Broadway; 2-712 Robson (Upstairs) 738-7734 Ridge Cinema 3131 Arbutus (at 16th Ave.) 738 6311 Scrape Records 17 W. Broadway (near Main) 877 1676 Scratch Records 726 Richards (NEW LOCATON!) 687 0499 Seylynn Hall 605 Mountain Hwy (North Van) Shadbolt Centre for the Arts 6450 Deer Lake Ave. (Bby) 291 6864 Singles Going Steady 3296 Main (at 17th) 876 9233 Sonar 66 Water (Gastown) 683 6695 Starfish Room 1055 Homer (downtown) 682 4171 Starlight Cinema 935 Denman (West End) 689 0096 Station Street Arts Centre 930 Station (off Main) 688 3312 Sugar Refinery 1115 Granville (downtown) 683 2004 Theatre E 254 E. Hastings (Chinatown) 681 8915 Thunderbird Ent. Centre 120 W. 16th St. (N. Van) 988 2473 Tribeca 536 Seymour 688 8385 Tru Valu Vintage Robson (downstairs) 685 5403 Vancouver E. Cultural Centre 1895 Venables (at Victoria) 254 9578 Vancouver Little Theatre 3102 Main (Mt. Pleasant) 876 4165 Vancouver Press Club 2215 Granville (S.Granville) 738 7015 Varsity Theatre 4375 W. 10th (Point Grey) 222 2235 Vert/Futuristic Flavours 1020 Granville (downtown) 872 2999 Video In Studios 1965 Main (Mt. Pleasant) 872 8337 Vinyl Rekkids 76 W. Cordova (Gastown) 689 3326 Vogue Theatre 918 Granville (Granville Mall) 331 7909 Waterfront Theatre 1405 Anderson (Granville Is.) 685 6217 Western Front 303 E. 8th Ave (near Main) 876 9343 Wett Bar 1320 Richards (downtown) 230 6278 Whip Gallery 209 E. 6th Ave (at Main) 874 4687 W.I.S.E. Hall 1882Adanac (the Drive) 254 5858 Women In Print 3566 W 4th (Kitsilano) 732 4128 Yale Blues Pub 1300 Granville (downtown) 6819253 Zulu Records 1869 W. 4th (Kitsilano) 738 3232 .0 AUcjWrf ■*(_ "is** PLAYING IN AUGUST: ARTPORN OR PORNART? 3//f MR. SALESMAN! 3/4 EYE OF NEWT COLLECTIVE WITH METROPOLIS 5 BRIAN SPRINGER S SPIN * MARK TWAIN COMPANY 6-8 ) guy peborps SOCIETY OE THE SPECTACLE to QUEER E/LM & WEO TEST if / BY08 (BRING YOUR OWN FILM) /2 BARB/E NATION: an unauthorhep tour /3-/S GUTTER PUNKS * street views vipeos 17/t8 TILE ORGANIZATION MAN 19 STRIPPED & TEASED: tales from vegas women 20-22 SHIRKA URECHKO'S MOTH, live multimepia pance 24-29 TRANSGRESS/I/E CHICKS: linpa feesey* kika worm 31/1 UNOiy|l)UND EXPERIMENTAL OBSCURE ^WT 6 NIGHTS A WEEK CAFFEINE. BAKED GOODS . MORE ALL DAV Check out '75$ 0jitl Live eveiy Satuida\f ajteinoon Open mic evety ^huisdiiy Visit Our Website www.bluntbros.com phone: (604) 68-BLUNT (604)682-5868 1 317 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6B1H6 BC TEL MOBILITY] AT THE PACIFIC NATIONAL EXHIBITION Aug. 25, 7 & 9:30pm Aug. 26,7 & 9:30pm Aug. 27,7pm 9:30pm Aug. 28,7pm 9:30pm Nightly in Dal Richards Orchestra & guests 3DEEP featuring Joshua Morrow (The Young & Restless), Eddie Cibrian (Sunset Beach) & CJ Huyer Michael Buble The Gospel Experience featuring Circle of Voices & Cloud 9 Bocephus King Sh&ri Ulrich Rumba Calzada Oscar Lopez Bobby Bruce "Nearly Neil" Neil Diamond Tribute Farmer's Daughter 1 Blues Mae Moore Barney Bentall D-Cru v.i.p atea Concerts are included your s6 Fair admission Aug. 29,7 & 9:30pm Flashback 99 Featuring sixties mania, the Honeycones, Laura Gillespie, and the Curvette Dance Team Aug. 30,6:30pm Bobbi Smith 7pm Lyndia Scott 9:30pm Lisa Brokop Aug. 31,7pm Zubot & Dawson 9:30pm Roy Forbes Sept 1,7pm Pure 9:30pm By Divine Right Sept 2,7pm Tiller's Folly with the Sabir Sisters & Irish Dancers 9:30pm The Barra MacNeils Sept 3,7pm Disco Divas 9:30pm Wunderbread Sept 4,7pm BabeGurr 9:30pm Amy Sky Sept 5,7pm Rob Best's World Jive Big Band 9:30pm Ache Brasil Sept 6,7pm Lee Aaron 9:30pm Trooper BCTEL 22 Mobility The Vancouver Sun j mmm wmm ■ zoom in with zulu get a close up on these great new releases! BLACK BOX RECORDER England Made Me CD '>;.*" Combining the dark brood- iflBMBM ing moodiness ot Mazzy ^i_____5_55__i# Star with the smart hooks ot clever pop stars such as PJ Harvey, this sophomore release trom UK's Black Box Recorder sent Shockwaves through the Zulu offices at first listen! Comprised ot members ot The Auteurs and the Jesus _ Mary Chain, this may be the sleeper release ot the year with its near perfect blend ot otherworldly sounds, deep bass, strings and bouncy beats. Add to the mix an Arab Strap-like worldview and things really start to simmer, CD 16.98 DOWN BY LAW Fly The Flag CIV LP The Timex ot Punk Rock, Down By Law take a licking and keep on ticking! Godfathers of California power- punk-pop, Dave Smalley & Co. return with another landmark hardcore blast, featuring emotive lyrics, hooks galore and a melodious mastery ot the three-minute summer anthem. A banner release, the punk pennant. Fry the Flag'! (AVMUSLEAUGUST4IH) CD 16.98 LP 14.98 NEW ON nWVLLJOCKEY! BROKEBACK Field Recordings From... cd/lp ||ougM Usite-sr. SUPERCHUNK Come Pick Me Up CD 0 of the bands that helped to write the sound style of the 1990's, North GUIDED BY VOICES Do The Collapse CD •ulma': Mill continues to grow, improve and point the way. Over the years becoming more pop that punk, the Jim O'Rourke produced Come Pick Me Up smartly plays all of Superchunk s favourite cards, from sing along rockers to happy/sad power ballads, plus a tew new ones, strings and horns. Gosh, where would we be without them? CD 16.98 DEMOLITION DOLi RODS TLA CD '' I ooser than the Royal Trux." "More bombastic than Lthe exploding showman Jon Spencer." "Wild, as in rocking the wilderness, man." "Definitely sexier than Nashville Pussy." The accolades are still rolling in for this Doll Rod's new blast of charnel body movin' garage noise. People cannot stop discussing the matter Why? Because its very good, and because good things usually stir up some debate. Of course some may think, "This is pure shit," well, that's just the other side of the debate. Why not do something reckless — drop what your doing right now. and join the rumpus over this cross-dressing, shock rocking good thing now! CD 16.98 *ome records you listen Oothers you romance! Boy is it easy to get smitten with these Guided by Voices, because they just keep on givin', baby! Gifted songwriter that he is. Robert Pollard always has something to give — hey he's written more songs than McCartney and Lemon combined! Featuring 16 brilliant pop nuggets, with a new Ric Ocasek enhanced sound, Do the Collapse is prime GBV. from "Teenage FBI" to "Surgical Focus" or Strumpet Eye", we love it (AVAIABUE AUGUST 4TH) CD 16.98 Various Artists RETURN OF THE GREVIOUS ANGEL: A Tribute to Gram Parsons co tribute to this great alt-country pioneer. Featuring Wilco, Lucinda Williams. Beck. Gillian Welch, Elvis Costello and more, this cast of luminaries revisit the splendour of Gram Parsons' gilded palace of song. A must have for all tans of Parsons' timeless melancholic twangs, as well as a great starting point for those wishing to unravel the roots of today's budding countrified rock scene! Enjoy. CD 16.98 U-ZK) Royal Astronomy CD One of modern electronic music's oddball wizards, easily trades knocks with'his peers, and helps set the standard for everyone else. Maybe not as ui dictable as Aphex Twin or as goofy as Squarepusher. Paradinas knows, how to uniquely string sounds together while keeping the beats big and rolling. Come enjoy the distortions of this telescope. CD 16.98 GET UP KIDS Red Letter Day CD-EP/10" m: ■ **_» s' gorgeous te-specific bass meditations prove this Tortoise mainstay to be a budding Ry Cooder. Featuring Josh Abran Mazurek. John Herndon, John McEntire and Mary Hansen, this subtle, beautiful record leaves us wanting more. And if more is what you're after, we've decided to have 15% OFF all Thrill Jockey titles through August. Started by Bettina Richards, this great Chicago base- label helped establish such highly regarded bands as Tortoise. Sea and Cake, Freakwater and Traits Am Pop music has not been the same since, thank goodness, but most of all, thanks to our pal Bettina CD 16.98 LP 14.98 w*%s**»* Iore top shelf, charming melodic punk rock from these young er Equal parts Si Sunny Day Real Estate, these Kids come across as good old hardcore before it went totally metal or got too mathematical. Good work done right, this late summer surprise is a welcome small oasis in an otherwise Fat landscape. Keep it real. CD-EP 12.98 10" 9.98 Various Artists SQUADRON CD Gaz th iaze upon the new CELESTIAL stars! Celestial Records Ethat is. Spearheaded by tlfe phenomenal success of wiz- ard-tumtablist DJ Hive and the latest bomb MC Pheonix Orion, this LA hip-hop label's profile has steadily increased with each converted boom box player. Features Alien Ifation. Self-Jupiter, DJ Rhettmatic (Beat Junkies) Daddy Kev. Supernatural and more. (AVAAABLE AUGUST 4TH) CD 9.98 JUUE DOIRON InStore Weckiesday August 11th @ 4:30 PM An exclusive appearance from this Sappy Records artist. Come one, come all, as Julie and her band THE WOODEN STARS hold court at Zulu! bmg these titles tito focus: APPENDIX OUT Daylight Saving CD/IP -a nice journey into the alt-country Palace. DAVID GRUBBS Aperture CD -2 long drones from this modern composer. EDITH FROST Love Is Real CD-EP -on Drag City, a new American songwriter a la Smog. DUDE OF LIFE Under the Sound Umbrella CD - solo outings from this Phish dude. VANDALS Sweating to the Oldies CD/2LP (reissue) -old school punk, you'll be surprised when your remember the words. OCTANT ShockNoPar CD/LP -the new indie-wave sounds on Up Records MARINE RESEARCH Parallel Horizontal CD-EP -a teaser from these Heavenly popsters TRANSAM Who Do We Think You Are CD -ultra limited edition UK only disc, once its gone, its gone. IQU w/MIRANDA JULY Girls on Dates 12" -a cool collaboration from these two K Records bright spots. SOUTHERNING One Piece In Four Parts CD (ex-Jessamine!) -mini-moog workouts from this Faust inspired rocker. MC5 '66 Breakout CD/LP -revisit the sound of revolution! GAY DAD Joy CD-EP Pts.1+2 -no longer a secret, these are the new heirs to the British pop throne. ARSONISTS As the World Bums CD/LP -critical new hip-hop on Matador. ATIVIN Summing the Approach CD-EP -great low key moody rock with atmospnere. SKYLAB SkylabNo.2 CD ELECTRONIC Late At Night CD-EP Pts.1+2 PET SHOP BOYS I Don't Know What You Want CD-EP Pts.1+2 1869 W 4th Ave. Vancouver BC V6J 1M4 tel 738.3232 STORE HOURS Mon to Wed 10:30-7:00 Thurs and Fri 10:30-9:00 Sat 9:30-6:30 Sun 12:00-6:00
Periodicals
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Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Vancouver : Student Radio Society of the University of British Columbia
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Original Format: Student Radio Society of University of British Columbia
Rock music--Periodicals
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