Underground Music in Rain City

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

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

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

    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

   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

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