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Showing posts from 2010

Top Ten Shows of 2010 (Pt.2)

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8. Friday December 10th 2010, Bison, Haggatha & Weapon @ The Biltmore Cabaret. I had been waiting for this show for a long time. Originally it was supposed to happen on July 23rd with openers Congress and Baptists (what a line up!) but was rescheduled due to injury. On top of all this it had also been a long time since I'd seen Bison play. Aug 2009 at The Biltmore Cabaret to be exact, and that show was absolute mayhem. Unfortunately I missed the first band, it can be tough to get back from a long day of work, squeeze in a nap, make some dinner and take a big crunch before show time. At least I saw all of Weapon's set. I knew the drummer, and thankfully they rocked, so I wouldn't have to whisper white lies into his ear if our paths were to cross later in the evening. Weapon played slow stoner metal. Their guitarist brought some rad groovy licks to the plate, and the bassist looked like a mean bastard, but at the end of the day Weapon's true weapon was the man

Top Ten Shows of 2010. (Pt.1)

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10. Saturday June 5th 2010, The Rock Shot and Pop Art Show @ The Chapel.  Coming in hot at # 10. This show wins major points on atmosphere alone. There was too much going on to take in all the bands that played, and there were a lot of them. The upstairs portion of The Chapel featured all kinds of poster art, rock photography, a small stage, a bar, and even a room showcasing some of the coolest pieces in the art show; diorama art boxes by Mad Dog that all featured a more realistic and darker look at Vancouver. Downstairs was more spectacular rock photography supplied by tons of talented photographers from around the city. Great pictures, new and old and also another bar down there. All kinds of characters were milling about sipping drinks and studiously looking at all the great photos. There was seriously so much to see that it could have easily taken over an hour to take it all in. And then finally venturing into the main room where the stage was set up and band's were playi

My Top Ten shows in 2010. Honourable mentions.

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Over the next few days I'm going to lay out my Top Ten favourite shows that I attended over 2010. It's going to hurt to rack my brain as far back as January and February of this year, and some might get forgotten, but it's still worth a try. I'm going to write it across six blogs, two shows per blog, and I'll also try to find some media for the show, as in a youtube video, or some pictures or something.  One thing that I should mention is that I spent 2010 a lot more focused on my own band because Real Problems hit full stride this year, so this definitely prevented me from attending every show I would have liked to be at. I also tried not to put shows that my bands were apart of into the Top Ten, but it couldn't be avoided in one case. And that's also what I'm going to use this first blog for, the honourable mentions, or as I see it, the best shows that my bands were lucky enough to be on. I hit the road on two different occasions this year with my t

BISON bc!

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    I have collaborated with Dan And of Bison on a few different articles for both the Skinny Magazine and Absolute Underground, so two months ago when I was working on an article about how Vancouver musicians spent their summer vacation Dan was top of the list of people to harass. I asked for photos and gave out a word count of 200 words, so when he submitted well over 700 words I was slightly taken aback. The worst part about it all was that every word submitted was gold, so editing it down to the alloted 200 words was not going to be an option. Instead I went to the music editor of AU and begged him to give this piece its own page. In the end it didn't take any begging as Absolute Underground are BIG Bison fans, and the music editor was at the epic Sled Island show that Dan wrote about in his story, so everything worked out great. I'm a firm believer that letting these musicians write their own pieces can sometimes turn out a lot better than if I was to interview them myself

Diecember Fest

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   You need to get stoked on the bands from your city for the same reason you root for the Vancouver Canucks. So when a whole bunch of local bands are descending on a bigger venue that is usually saved for popular touring acts, you have to get out and support these types of shows so they can happen more than a few times a year. So be sure to hit up The Rickshaw Theatre on December 4th to see a bunch of great local metal bands tear up the big stage. Plus it's December, cold out, you may as well get in the pit.    Among the bands playing is Anion. I had the liberty of writing them a review for their cassette tape. Yes, cassette tape, and it was run in the pages of the Skinny Magazine. Anion Tape Review Find someone who thinks tapes aren’t cool and I’ll shove my Sony Walkman up his bum. Tapes are still rad and this Anion tape is no different. It’s red in colour and resembling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack cassette tape that I owned as a kid, but don’t worry, th

Teenage Bottlerocket, Cobra Skulls, The Tranzmitors & Isotopes @ The Red Room Nov. 15th

This show review was printed in the Skinny Magazine and in my opinion I thought it was some of my finer work that I submitted to them... Teenage Bottlerocket, Cobra Skulls, The Tranzmitors & Isotopes @ The Red Room Nov. 15th By: denis maile  An early show on a Sunday sounds like one for the kids. Unfortunately the kids were unable to attend as it was a no minors affair, but they probably had homework to do anyways. Stupid kids always leaving everything to the last minute. Vancouver’s own Isotopes opened up the night and this was one game that could not get rained out for the team of baseball loving punks. They threw spit-balls, slided into first and broke all kinds of rules as they played their brand of catchy punk rock leading off with a couple of great faster tunes. Then they played a slow one that slowed it down, we’ll call it a bunt, but then back to fast! I wasn’t keeping score, but I think they were ahead. A definite fly ball! Wait, that might be a bad thing, I’ll neve

UPTOWN RIOT: Sounds good to me.

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UPTOWN RIOT Interview w/ Paymon – Vocalist/Guitarist & Conrad – Bassist By: Denis Maile Uptown Riot has been kickin’ it around the Vancouver scene off and on for over two years now, and have shared stages with the UK Subs, Snfu, Mad Sin, and The Briggs. The solid frontline of Paymon and Conrad have had a string of drummers (5 in all) and are now back with drummer numero uno, coming full circle and feeling confident with the line-up they have locked in. I met up with them at an undisclosed location that sold cheap jugs of beer and meat on a stick. Paymon had won big on the black jack table the night before so the beers flowed freely. Before we got too smashed we discussed some important things like bowling, the lack of toilet paper in Edmonton and more bowling. dm: How’d you come up with the band name? Conrad: I hated it at first. We had a huge list of band names, and that was one of them. Right away I was like, nope that’s a horrible name, NEXT! I don’t know how it came abou

CONGRESS TONIGHT!

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Congress plays the Grand Opening of The Waldorf tonight (how many grand openings is that place going to have?) with Nu Sensae. Here is a review I did for their demo that ran in the pages of Absolute Underground. CONGRESS – Demo Independent Congress is made up of ex-members of 3 Inches of Blood, Pride Tiger and Jaws, but may not really hold any of those bands as an influence. The opening track ‘H-Bomb’ starts with a funky drumbeat, distorted bass and crunchy guitar, then the deathly vocals of Jamie Hooper (former singer of 3IOB) kick in with fierce intensity. It’s good to hear him back behind the microphone and with songs titles like ‘Sybian Fuck Unit 7X’ and ‘Rotten Snake Corpse’ you know he doesn’t disappoint in the lyrical department either. The music may be metal at heart, but has rock drumming that keeps it honest. The lack of double bass or blast beats doesn’t steal any of the evil tendencies this music still portrays. And the tempo is all over the map, slow, fast AND mid,

Raised By SLUSH.

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Here is an old show review from Dec 08 that was posted in The Skinny Magazine. Be sure to catch Raised By Apes and Slush performing live @ Funky Winkerbeans this Friday Nov. 12th!  Raised By Apes, Cambridge, Slush, and The Remedials  The Cobalt, Fri Dec. 12th After pouring rain all day, the clouds parted, and made way for an unstoppable evening of punk rock. It was the Canadian release show for the Punk Rock Concoction Vol. 3 compilation CD, which features both Raised by Apes and Cambridge as the lone Canadian bands on the disc. There was a free copy for everyone in the bar, and who doesn’t like party favours? As always the sound at The Cobalt was good no matter where you stood, and all the bands brought a festive cheer that would have even had Ebenezer Scrooge downing some rum and eggnogs. With feet planted firmly on stage the evening began with The Remedials shooting through their two minute punk blasts in the vein of a Ramonesesque, or Schreeching Weasely sound. They are a 3 p

Gimme more: The Ramores.

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Can you smell that? It’s October. The month of goblins, tiny chocolate bars, illegal fireworks, missing fingers, fake blood and stupid kids demanding candy because they are wearing a stupid piece of cardboard on their stupid face with two stupid eyeholes cut out of it. And what would October be without the punk rock cover band? They surface every year around this time, put on a costume and pretend to be someone else, just like those stupid little kids. The only difference? These bags of bones are much more talented than the greedy grub standing at your front door waiting for a handout. My interviewee is none other than Joey Ramore, lead vocalist of The Ramores: the finest Ramones tribute band around. But because that doesn’t pay the bills, The Ramores occasionally have been known to dress up in black denim and perform original songs as The Jolts.   dm: How did you come up with the name The Ramores? Joey Ramore: It was a running joke between Ricky (original guitar player) and I befo

Introduction...

I have decided to start a blog based solely on the underground local music scene in Vancouver. Between writing for Absolute Underground and The Skinny Magazine I find myself writing on this topic all the time anyway, so I might as well continue on with my endless mission to promote various shows and bands in the local scene. Sometimes my articles never go to print, so this will be a great place to post them. Sometimes my articles do go to print, but later down the line they are still relevant. So I will be digging up old interviews (and possibly reviews) and posting them here. Other than that I will try to review/photograph most shows that I attend and even do a few interviews here and there when I find the time, which shouldn't be too difficult as it seems like The Skinny Magazine has hit a large speed bump and Absolute Underground only comes out every other month. So the main focus of the blog will be punk, hardcore and metal bands around the city and surrounding areas, a