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 ...