Underground Music in Rain City

The time of year is upon us where you're supposed to look back and reflect upon the year that was. End of year, it is here, again. So I've decided to run down some of my favourite bands in this city that begin with the letter B. That makes sense right? Baptists - Badass hardcore with a live show that's not to be fucked with. Bison BC - Big time bangers bust out burly bovine music. Black Wizard - More bangers bash out some sick stoner groove metal with riffs for miles. Black Amps - Balls out and beefy rock n roll soup. Bring some bread for dipping. Black Mountain - What would a Vancouver best of list be without Black Mountain? Blacked Out - Originally from Banff these boozers booze it up with their brand of skate punk. B-Lines - Bus riding, upbeat, fast tempo garage rock with a singer who does not give a flying fuck. Burning Ghats - Brutal death metal that will beat your skull in while reaching break neck speeds. Blondewich - Babes playing beach music. Bone Daddie...

It had come to my attention that I hadn't posted anything in this blog for a long while. Strangely enough I've still been averaging over 200 views a month, so thank you to anyone who is reading my blog. After I realized people were still reading I decided it was high time to post some more stuff in here, and keep it recent. There are so many great and talented bands in this city that I can't even keep up. However one thing I know for sure is that Baptists and Congress are two of my favourites and this show was not to be missed. Osk opened up the evening, and if I knew then that I was going to be blogging about the show I would have done a better job of checking them out. Instead I sat at the bar catching up with an old friend that I hadn't seen in months. We had a lot to talk about, but I'll save you the grisly details. However from what I heard of Osk they were great. Crazy, fast tempo short songs. And towards the end when they slowed it down I was banging my...

It’s been over a year since the last installment of EarGoggles was released and creator, director, writer, editor and all around good guy Clayton Holmes has pulled out all the stops for the latest and sixth issue.  dm: Give me all the background info on EarGoggles. Clay: EarGoggles is more or less an excuse to play with my editing equipment and promote all the bands that I like. It was filmed at the Cobalt from June 2008 until the demise of the Cobalt in October of 2009. Since then, I’ve filmed at select shows and shot a few music videos. Paul Tryl, the singer for the Fight United, does all the cover art and there is usually a skateboarding segment, short film, photography profile and music video on each issue. dm: What are some of the hilights that people can look forward to seeing on EarGoggles 6? Clay: There are some pretty amazing bands on this issue. Bands people have actually heard of. I love OFF!, Toxic Holocaust, Fire Next ...

Yeah I'll admit it. Sometimes I suck at writing. Sometimes I write CD reviews without even listening to the CD. And to make matters worse I even submit them to magazines. I'm the worst. LIKELY RADS – Legends In Denim Independent The Likely Rads are the self-proclaimed best band in Vancouver and they have released a brand new tape. It is clearly a CD, but their insistence on referring to it as a tape had me attempting to play it in my tape player. Things went horribly wrong. After days of scratching my head and repeatedly hitting the play button as hard as I could I decided it was high time to put this CD in the CD player. What a row! They play fast, they yell, and drums are hit hard. Anger and hate are not spit from the mouth of Professor No Pants (self-proclaimed best singer in the city) but more so fun and lyrics about love and soft little bunnies and stuff. Professor No Pants is the self-proclaimed best lyricist in all of the city, but the undeclared best stripper, hence ...

I've been posting a lot about The Winston Campaign and my friend Mike lately. He took his life recently, and the scene that he loved and was a part of here in Vancouver has brought together some of his favourite bands to play a show in his honour and memory. It will be taking place at Pat's Pub this Saturday (July 23rd) and the show will begin at 9pm. Among a slideshow, and Winston Campaign tribute act the show will feature shortened sets by Impeders of Progress, Anion, The Belushis, Jones Bones and To The Nines, with all the proceeds going to a local charity. I wrote out some memories of Mike Woods on my other blog, but wanted to share one more story about him here. It was during the Olympics that we found ourselves at The Rickshaw Theatre watching a show. The Jolts had just wrapped up a great set, and DOA was rocking hard on stage. For some reason I talked Mike into taking off with me to check out another show across town. Some mutual friends of ours were putting it on a...

As promised here is Part 2 of the interview I did with The Winston Campaign. It was cool to look back at the unedited version of this because there was so much of it. I had to cut out a lot to fit it into the pages of Absolute Underground over 2 issues. This version gives you a way better look into what sounded like an unreal trip. It also gives you a much better view of how funny and real Mike Woods was. Telling it like it is was something he was very good at.  R.I.P. Mike, you were truly an original.   THE WINSTON CAMPAIGN 2 - From Riches Back To Rags.  The last Vancouver Vengeance article ended with The Winston Campaign trashing a high end green room in a Mexican night club with who they thought was the owner (Roberto) until they were rudely interrupted by seven large bouncers in bullet proof vests, and one angry Mexican in a suit. We’ll pick up the interview from there. Dan: So seven giant Mexican bouncers with bulletproof vests storm into the room with a li...

It's always really weird when you hear that a friend has died. It's somewhat surreal and I never really know what to say. Mike was truly an original dude, and we shared the same sense of humour and anti social tendencies. But he was a crazy smart guy, and we had a lot of good times together. One of those good times was when I invited him and Dan over to my place to drink beer and interview them for Absolute Underground. They had an insane story about how they went to Mexico to play with NOFX, and it ended up being so good we couldn't fit it all in one issue. After I heard that Mike died I looked it up and sure enough there was an unedited long version, so I'm gonna post that here, with Part 2 to follow in the next day or two.  R.I.P. Mike Woods.  The Winston Campaign - From Rags to Riches I got together with Mike and Dan from The Winston Campaign and 18 beers and 3 doobies later had quite the epic story on my hands. AU: So you two have always been ...

When I first started this blog I assumed I would use it to review all the shows I went to see. I was the proud new owner of a digital camera (that I hardly know how to use) so there was really no excuse. Unfortunately I got lazy and just ended up using this blog to post my older material and unedited things that I submitted to magazines. Until now! Hopefully this will start a trend of show reviews, and who knows, maybe I'll even start bringing my camera to shows again. For now I'll just steal pictures off of Facebook that I find of the shows I attend leaving the picture taking to the professionals. So we arrived to The Rickshaw around 10:15pm and paid our $5 cover charge. It was The Rickshaw theater's 2nd year anniversary, and customer appreciation show, so cheap cover and beer! It was close to 2 years ago that I had a band play on that stage and it is safe to say the venue has come a long way since its humble beginnings. I bumped into some friends in the lobby and was...

I haven't written a blog in ages. I haven't written anything in ages. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I've been writing so much music lately, but either way it's time to get on the rock n roll journalist thing again, and what a better place to start than rock n roll avenue. Here's a CD review that ran in the recent pages of Absolute Underground. I wrote it a while back, but it couldn't fit into that issue, and was pushed to this one. So even though I haven't written anything in ages it's still nice to have something in the mag. Pick up the new issue of Absolute Underground at Funky Winkerbeans! BLISTERIN’ BARNACLES – Rock n Roll Avenue Independent Thousands of thundering typhoons! Blisterin’ Barnacles! Naming your band after a curse word spit from the drunken mouth of Captain Haddock is hilarious. I never understood how him and Tin Tin were such good friends. He was a drunken lout, and Tin Tin carried a tiny white dog everywhere he...

When writing an article for a zine you have only two things to worry about. Deadline and word counts. When I interviewed Jord, the new singer of freshly reformed Circle The Wagons, I was WAY over word count and had to chop a lot of good stuff. Thankfully my blog has no word count, so break out your reading glasses and prepare to read it all folks!  And be sure to catch Circle The Wagons playing with Dayglo Abortions @ Funky Winkerbeans on Thursday April 14th for their tour kick off, gonna be a great show. Circle The Wagons – Not Dizzy Yet. By: Denis Maile Denis - When did Circle The Wagons form? Jordan - To the best of my knowledge, the band was formed in 2001. Back history and such should be directed to someone who was in the band at that time. I was 15 years old then, and too busy splitting my time between youth group and masturbation to document any kind of local scene. Denis - And when did they break up? Jordan - The last show was in June of 2006, in Fernie of ...

This is an interview that ran in the Skinny Magazine in July 2009. Jesse's solo CD was a really great listen and summertime album, so I've revisited this interview because he has a new EP out, and a release show coming. All the info you need to hear the music, and attend the show are at the bottom, but first here's the interview.  Jesse from CAMBRIDGE unplugs. By: Denis Maile Upon hearing that Jesse Lebourdais, vocalist/guitarist from Vancouver punk band Cambridge, had released an acoustic CD it struck some interest in my gut. Upon hearing the actual songs on his myspace had me quick to realize that Jesse’s musical talents stretched much further than punk rock. The songs I heard went from upbeat and punky tunes to more somber arrangements featuring piano. There was even a folky bluegrass song, where I’m pretty sure I heard a squeeze box. Basically what I’m trying to say is that there is a colourful range of instruments, song styles and summer anthems. It was high time ...

When it comes to heavy music in this city, no band has bigger buzz right now than Black Wizard. And all you have to do is attend one of their live shows to realize all the attention is fully garnered. They've got the sickest groovy riffs, the steadiest of drums, and a definite wild side. When I heard via Facebook that one of their guitarists Johnny was quitting the band it was apparent that I would need to be attending his last show. Who knows when they'd have their feet back on the ground, so this show was going to have to get me my Black Wizard fix for the next while. The show was at the Interurban Gallery, and the place was packed. Black Wizard had pulled their van into the venue. It was like something out of the 80s. I should have been proudly displaying my long hair, but kept it hidden under a hat and hood trying my best to be interurban. There were a few girls prancing about and a lot of people were flying their hipster flags high. I couldn't care less, as I came fo...