Underground Music in Rain City

Did you ever wonder what the cool kids did at their house parties? You imagined it to be like a jam session in the living room where people were smoking cigarettes, and drinkin' Olde English straight from the bottle. People were making out, and a bear was playing the bass. In a back room the crazy guy spits his beer on people as they try to talk about bands you've never heard of before, and at the end of the night everyone takes their clothes off for a sweaty dance party. Is this what you pictured? Well if this is the case then you need to witness the new music video for The Boogieman Jordon Daniel's song 'No Axe To Grind' and all your realizations will be realized. Shot in a Vancouver house, with his Vancouver friends it's a real sharp video. Back in April of last year the first bar show I ever put on and promoted in this city had The Boogieman as the headlining act. Between him and the door girl was the reason we made some serious coin that night. She did...

So apparently counting down my top ten favourite shows of the year burnt me out on this blog, but it's time to pick it up again! Seeing as it mainly consists of copying and pasting old articles that I have written it shouldn't be too hard to keep it up. This time I bring you an interview I did with the singer from Joyce Collingwood that ran in The Skinny Magazine about a year ago, and I will do it justice by altering the last question about future plans to keep you in the know about their big plans for tomorrow night! Because I hate browsing the internet trying to find pictures of the band or posters of the upcoming gig, I'm just going to pull one out of my own personal collection. It's a shot of me and Juli. As you can see she is pretty bad ass, and I am not. But it's just so you get an idea of who I was speaking to. And on a side note: WOW, I've just read the opening paragraph of this interview for the first time in a long time, and wow. What was I think...

2. Thursday September 9th 2010, Man Man @ The Rickshaw Theatre.  I couldn't for the life of me find a jpg of the gig poster. I searched and searched and finally found one on flickr that was picture of the poster on a pole. But alas it was copywritten and I could not D/L it. Oh well, I saw lots of the posters on the street and I guess that is what mattered. In all truthfulness I was really burned out for this show. Real Problems had just come off our little tour and before I could get a days rest it was back to the fray, more live music! But it was totally worth it because Man Man is insane. The first band Let's Wrestle was british indie rock, that was nothing special. And by nothing special I mean you were better off to go to the Savoy next door and drink their $2 cans of beer. I didn't do this however because I think this was the only night The Rickshaw Theatre has ever offered Old Milwaukee on the drink menu, so I did a few of those. Not to mention I had to wor...

THIS SHIT IS LIKE THE 90s. 4. Friday March 19th 2010, Dangers @ La Casa Del Artista. I sucked at seeing bands this night. I was walking as fast as I could, but when I showed up I saw the dudes from Burning Ghats sweating it up on the sidewalk and knew I blew it. After talking with them I eventually went in, paid, hung out by myself and then took off to meet up with Johnny at his jam space. Beers, Anion, some dude was taking photos, more beers and some Cursed. I think we took just too long and guess what, boom missed Congress too. Bummer, but at least things are set up to see the out of town band Dangers, who had just months previous backed up a killer first album with an even better effort. In this genre you have to respect a band for doing that because it seems to happen so rarely. I enjoy too many bands who's first album is their best album.  And guess what? They tore the place a new one. The singer was the smallest dude with the biggest mouth. He took this stereotyp...

6. Saturday November 27th 2010, Native American Spearhead, Wolvozomberine & Glorywhore @ The Astoria. This show makes the list simply because it was so strange and hilarious. About a week or so before this gig I received a text message from my pal Dusty asking me if I was going to the Alexisonfire show. I replied, 'at the forum? Yuck.' So he informs me that he worked with a guy who told him that his band was going to be playing the Astoria with 3 Inches of Blood and Alexisonfire as an afterparty to the PNE Forum show. I looked into it and found a poster on the internet for this crazy show that he was talking about. The poster had both bands playing under pseudonyms, a couple of well placed logos, and all the ticket buying info on it. The next day I went out and bought 4 tickets, not knowing who they'd be for, but not worried in the least that I'd be stuck with any. Not to mention they were only $12. I instantly felt sorry for the suckers who probably shelled ou...

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...