Last year I made the change from just writing about music to getting out there and playing music. (Actually, I’ve been playing music for quite a few years, but last year I joined an honest to goodness real rock band.) I’m sure I’ve mentioned this here before, I play trumpet in the Victoria rock band Versa. The band has been crazy productive these past few months.

First, in December we released a video for our new song “Lantern Season”. The title of the song comes from the Dresden Codak comic Lantern Season. The video had a bout of popularity when Dresden Codak and a few other internet comic forums gave us a shout out. Thanks comic fans for taking the time to watch and give us some us some amazing feedback!

Then on January 4th, we released our new Common Things EP. The EP features a radio edit (more trumpet!) of our song “Common Things” that originally appeared on our 2010 album The Decline And Fall Of…. In addition we have three new songs (“Love In Idleness”, “Lantern Season”, and “Flew The Coup” ) and remix of “Common Things” done by our friend Olav (Colin Liseth). You can take a listen to the EP version of “Common Things” below and you can download the entire release for free from our website here.

Last week we played a show at Lucky Bar with local bands Small Town Villains and Bloody Wilma. Both bands were great and the evening was a ton of fun. We gave CDs away to audience members who could keep up with our crazy time changes while bustin’ a move. I’m happy to report that some people out there do in fact have rhythm. Thanks to everyone who came out to the show! Our friend Adam from Magmazing Music joined us that night and took some great video of our set. Hopefully we’ll have that posted somewhere soon for you to see. Our friend Meg of Meg Super Photography was also at the show and has some excellent photos of the evening posted here and here.

Next up Versa maybe has a new video in the works, and we have a show at the Cambie in Nanaimo on Saturday March 3rd, and an all ages show here in Victoria in April. So basically, a lot of fun things are happening that will keep me from posting here regularly!

Enough of the shameless plugs, hopefully I’ll get some new photos and songs posted here soon. …Is February too late to put up my “Best of 2011″ list?

This post marks a couple of firsts for EhBSeasides: it’s the first interview for us, and it’s the first contribution by a guest writer. My friend Lucas Kitchen had the chance to chat with Max Kerman of the Arkells back in October 2010. Part of this conversation was published in CFUV‘s magazine Renegade Radio. Here’s the full interview:

Lucas Kitchen: What drives you guys to tour so much?

Max Kerman: We connect most when we play the songs live, and we really enjoy playing live. We get a lot of joy being able to travel from city to city, and trying to win people over. The band is at its best when we’re playing live.

LK: What have you learned about touring across the country, about touring in general?

MK: There’s a good attitude within the band about how seriously we take touring, I mean we have fun doing it, but the reason we have fun doing it is because we take it seriously, and because we do everything in our power to make sure the show is good because if the show is good then we’re going to feel good. Touring in Canada especially, you’re out driving 8 hours a day between cities so its tough to show up to a venue and play a half ass show. It’s something we try never to do because what’s the point otherwise? If you’re gonna be hauling all your gear somewhere and show up and not take it seriously and not put on an energetic show, then there wouldn’t be any point in doing it. I think the one thing we’ve learned is that you have to take every show seriously and try your best
every night.

LK: What have you learned about the country from criss-crossing it so many times?

MK: I find we always end up fueling up in the same spots ’cause our gauge gets low at the same points on every trip. There’s a gas station in Chamberlain Saskatchewan (which is between Regina and Saskatoon) which we always fill up at. There’s little truck stops we become used to. We found out there is no reception between Sault St Marie and Thunder Bay which is like 10 hours and kinda strange for people used to having their cell phones on them at all times. We’ve found that even if its not snowing, the Rocky Mountains can be terrifying because of fog. We’ve had a couple of really frightening experiences going down the mountain between Kamloops and Kelowna and not being able to see anything. We’re probably better drivers now because we’re used to each land formation that the country has to offer. The prairies can be pretty easy, but they can also get really slippery on the roads.

We’ve also gotten better at occupying our time on the road, listening to a podcast or an audio book. The guys have computers out and get into their movies and TV shows. The first couple of tours everyone was really excited and just kinda anxious the whole time but now its like I don’t mind getting in the van for a long period of time because I know I can send some emails, watch a movie, read a book, stuff that I like doing anyways.

LK: Anywhere you haven’t been yet that you’d like to go?

MK: In Canada we’ve been basically everywhere except for PEI which I’d love to see. We got to tour America this past summer with Tokyo Police Club and that was a great experience, they’re one of our favourite bands. Just getting to see other places around the world is something the band allows us to do, so that’s just really the next step, getting to see other cool places.

LK: How important is Hamilton to the band?

MK: The band was formed here and it’s the band’s home. Everyone comes from places just outside of Hamilton but we met in Hamilton. The band’s become such an important part of our lives and Hamilton is such a big part of that.

LK: Does a band lose a little part of who it is if it’s forced to relocate?

MK: If a band loses its connection to where it’s been sleeping every night for the past 5 years it’s because they’re not sleeping there, it’s ’cause they’re on the road all the time, feeling a little lonely. I don’t think we’re at that point yet but I understand that bands don’t always have the same connection they once had to their home towns, just because the nature of being in a band is that you’re not at home. But that’s not a bad thing, it just shapes a man differently. Every band remembers their first gig and starting off playing awful shows and it’s one thing we haven’t forgotten. It feels like in recent memory that we were playing to nobody at the Casbah in Hamilton but still really liking it. It’s all part of the process of growing up as a band.

LK: I know that the band members all have degrees of one sort or another. What was the plan back then when you were at school, what were you thinking of doing when you were working towards those degrees? What would you have been doing if the band hadn’t popped up?

MK: I can’t speak for everyone, but I can say that I’m smart enough to surround myself with people much smarter than me. That’s the only thing I really got going for me is that I pick the best and the brightest to hang out with. I don’t know exactly what I’d be doing. We all have our own interests, journalism is something I think of few of us might get involved with, Mike is a really excellent graphic designer, Dan could be at law school, Tim is a fantastic recording engineer – we record a lot of our demos with Tim – and everyone could have gone to grad school. Everyone would be keeping busy, I’m sure of that.

LK: Where does the band name, Arkells, originate?

MK: Mike and I lived on Arkell street. For a period of time we were called Charlemagne but then we got a cease and desist order from an American singer/songwriter. When we started working with Dine Alone Records we had to tell them our dirty little secret that someone else had the name. We had about half an hour to change it because there was a deadline we had to meet about the promotion of our EP and we didn’t realize it was coming up so soon, and it was like “oh we’re just heading off to the printer, what’s the new band name?” Arkells had been kicking around for a while ’cause it kinda sounded like a 60s doo wop group. We could never fully decide because changing your name is kind of a painful process, not everyone in a band will completely agree on a name ’cause it’s just too tricky. But with half an hour we had to make an executive decision and so that was what it was gonna be.

LK: You’ve always been a band that enjoys hanging out after the show and talking with fans. Do you think that connection with your fans is important to build?

MK: When it comes down to it, we’re the biggest fanboys of our favourite bands and we’ve been lucky enough to have some really good experiences with Canadian bands. We opened up for Cuff the Duke and they were super kind to us and treated us really well. I’ve seen Joel Plaskett who’s probably my favourite songwriter in Canada and I’d go to his shows and stick around and he’s just as charming in person as he is on stage. I think there’s a real humbleness that a lot of Canadian musicians share. The fact that people are paying 20 bucks to come out to a show and buying a shirt, the least we can do is come hang out a bit if people want to talk. We’re really happy to do it, and people get a kick out of it as well.

LK: Jackson Square came out just over 2 years ago now and we’ve heard some new stuff at your last concert, is there a new album in the works?

MK: Yeah we’re just in the process of figuring out who we’re gonna do it with and then hopefully we’ll be recording in January or February. We’ve been practicing a lot in the last few weeks and getting really excited about the new stuff. The new stuff has been super fun to play live and it’s going to be a little prettier I think. I’m really excited and can’t wait to show people when its finished.

LK: One more anecdote for Victoria:

MK: We’ve always been pretty aware of having to try our best when it comes to playing live. I remember the Waking Eyes tour when we played Victoria, we came off of a Vancouver show that went really well, and then the club that we were playing at in Victoria had bumped our show earlier, and we got these ticket counts and we hadn’t sold too many tickets. So the whole band was feeling kinda bummed out after coming off this high at the Vancouver show: here we are in Victoria, we haven’t sold that many tickets, the show’s been bumped early ’cause they wanna get a band in later that’s gonna bring in a lot of people. I remember the first three or four songs of that show I wasn’t even really looking up which is uncharacteristic for all of us not to be engaging with the crowd. And
then I looked up four songs in and a really nice crowd had formed and people were getting into the music. The show was going really well and I was kicking myself because
we came in with a really bad attitude and by the end of the show it ended up being a wicked show. It taught us a lesson about not really caring about anything other than
putting on a really good show. Since then we’ve said, alright guys, we gotta bring it no matter what.

Meeting #4: Tuesday March 22nd 2011 at Talk’s Cheap

Album: The Meligrove Band, Planets Conspire

Tracks Played: “Everyone’s A Winner” and “Feversleep”

This is one of my all time favourite front to back records. I’d give anything to see the Meligrove Band live. I’d especially give anything to see them perform this album in its entirety. The story of how I came into possession of this album is kind of interesting.

The Meligrove Band have have some kind of curse on their heads. Currently three albums into their career, the band has had one hell of a bumpy ride to get to where they are now. Just before the release of their second album Planets Conspire they were signed to V2 Records (the label Richard Branson founded after he sold Virgin Records to EMI). The band was set to receive some well deserved world-wide attention when the label suddenly “restructured” and dropped all the artists on their roster. While a setback like this would ruin your average group, the Meligrove Band persevered and released their third album, Shimmering Lights, in 2010.

It was while on tour to support this release that major disaster struck the band for a second time. Only a few dates into their December 2010 tour of the US, the band’s bus broke down and they were left stranded in Orlando, Florida. The band was forced to cancel the remainder of their US tour due to being thrown so far off the tour schedule, and then they were forced to cancel all their Canadian dates opening for Tokyo Police Club and the Arkells, as well as their European tour due to the financial burden of the mechanical costs.

I had a ticket to the Tokyo Police Club and Arkells show here in Victoria. I was pretty upset that I wouldn’t get the chance to finally see the Meligrove Band when I heard news of them being stranded. I was especially sad because at the time I was searching for a vinyl copy of Planets Conspire and I was planning on picking one up when they came to town. Since the record was released on a now defunct label, few copies of the vinyl were pressed and from what I’ve heard there’s no talk of a reissue. This wasn’t just an album I could order off the internet. Here’s where the magic of Facebook comes into play. One day the band posted on their Facebook page that they had unearthed some lost copies of Planets Conspire and that they would have them available at their bus repair fundraising show… in Toronto. I jumped on this news and sent a message to the band saying I was desperate for a copy and asked if they would be willing to ship a record out here. The bass player Michael Small emailed me back later that day, was super nice, and we worked out a deal via PayPal. Really, this was one of the most positive interactions I’ve ever had with a band.

Despite all the setbacks, the Meligrove Band is still working hard at making a go of it. Just a couple of days ago they posted on their Twitter feed “All done playing shows for 2011. Thanks everyone. Now we work on new songs. Tonight, though, we’ll go to the big @sheezer show in Toronto… “. They’re not quite out of the woods yet though. The band has the following message on their webpage:

“By now you probably know about the piles of money we lost fixing our bus and missing half a tour, stuck in Orlando for a week. This forced us to cancel Europe and US tours, including SXSW, and still threatens to for-real bankrupt us. So if you were thinking of grabbing some music and/or a t-shirt, today is the day. Or tomorrow, whenever. Thanks!!”

Want to help the band out? You can buy their merch here.

Also, here’s a great interview with the band about their bus misfortune.

Meeting #5: Tuesday May 3rd 2011 at Talk’s Cheap

This is the one meeting of Victoria Record Club that I’ve missed. I had a good excuse though: I was in Vancouver seeing the Pixies perform Doolittle in its entirety. When I asked Jeremy later what fun had transpired in my absence, he informed me that I didn’t miss much. The meeting was scheduled on the same night as a Canucks playoff game, and people had opted for sports instead of music. I guess the lesson learned from that night is that around these parts you have to schedule your record club meetings around hockey.

(I was lucky enough to see the Pixies perform again in Victoria two days later. You can find my photos from that night here.)

Meeting #6: Tuesday May 17th 2011 at Talk’s Cheap

Albums: PS I Love You, Starfield 7″ and PS I Love You and Diamond Rings, Leftovers 7″

Tracks played: “Butterflies and Boners” and “Leftovers”

The month of May gave the Victoria Record Club our quickest turnaround between meetings. There was a good reason: my friend, musician, author, and CBC radio host, Grant Lawrence was in town to promote his book Adventures In Solitude. (It’s a great book, I ended up reading it in a weekend because I couldn’t put it down. If interested, you can buy it here.) We invited Grant to join us while he was in town, and fortunately his schedule cooperated with the Canucks playoff schedule so we had a free day to meet with no hockey game to fret over.

I ended up bringing two 7″ records to the Record Club meeting this month. A couple of months earlier in March I saw Diamond Rings and PS I Love You perform at Sugar. I had seen Diamond Rings live before and knew how great his live show was, but I didn’t really know what to expect out of PS I Love You. The duo from Kingston Ontario released one of the best debuts I’ve heard in a while with their album Meet Me At The Muster Station. Listening to the album though, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the whole thing was created with just two musicians: Paul Saulnier on various guitars and Benjamin Nelson on drums. It instantly hit how great the duo was though when they opened their show at Sugar with “Butterflies and Boners” which has a pretty kickass finger tapped guitar solo. The band put out a 7″ with Diamond Rings in late 2010. This release included the song “Leftovers” which was a collaboration between the two groups. The show at Sugar ended with PS I Love You joining Diamond Rings on stage to perform this song. This was one of those great shows where I walked out being a much bigger fan of both bands.

Meeting #7

Ahh, the mysterious meeting #7. I searched all through my past Facebook events to see when this occurred. My conclusion: it never happened and we suck at keeping the numbers on our events straight. There you go kids, if you want to sound like you have street cred tell everyone that you were at the fabled Meeting #7 of Victoria Record Club.

Meeting #8: Wednesday July 6th 2011 at Smith’s Pub

Albums: Said The Whale, The Magician 7″ and Bruce Springsteen, Born In The USA and The Beatles, 1962-1966 and David Bowie, Changes One

Tracks played: “Camilo (The Magician)”, “Glory Days” and “Dancing In The Dark”, ???, ???

The Record Club decided to switch things up a bit this month and rather than meet at the record store, we ended up crashing Jeremy’s DJ night at Smith’s Pub. The pub was surprisingly empty when I showed up, even for it being a Wednesday night. Record Club basically ended up taking over the place which proved to be lots of fun. Jeremy brought a ton of his vinyl out that night and I remember there being some pretty great things that I wouldn’t mind having in my collection. (I clearly remembered there being a Smashing Pumpkins album I coveted.) I brought a bag of my selections from my collection out that night too and told DJ Jeremy to pick whatever he wanted to play out of there. By the end of the night I had a few spins from my collection on the stereo, including my Said The Whale 7″ that I picked up at their Rifflandia 2009 show and my Bruce Springsteen Born In The USA album that I’m pretty sure I picked up at a thrift store for only 50 cents.

One of my good friends, and a fellow music lover, David moved out to Ottawa recently to do his PhD. With the move came the need for him to downsize his record collection. Thanks to him I added quite a few classic albums to my collection. Actually, most of the good old albums I have are thanks to him. Two of discs added to my collection thanks to David were the greatest hits collections of The Beatles, 1962-1966, and David Bowie, Changes One. I remember these two records being on the stereo at one point near the end of our Smith’s night, but since it was the end of the evening I have no recollection of what songs were played. It was that good of a night.

Meeting #9: Sunday August 7th 2011 at Andrea’s backyard

Album: Crosby Stills Nash Young, Deja Vu

Tracks played: “Helpless” and “Woodstock”

Record Club switched things up again in August when member Andrea offered up her backyard for a Sunday afternoon BBQ. Dogs, children, beers, various meats for grilling, speakers, turntables, and records were brought and a good time was had by all. We ended up chatting until well past sunset.

I was a bit lazy with my selection this time around. I again decided to bring a bag with a few selections in it. Just around sunset when it came time for my turn to put something on the stereo though I told the other members to choose what they wanted to hear. They chose well and put on “Helpless” from my Crosby Stills Nash Young album Deja Vu. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the summer than to have drinks, friends, and Neil Young.

Meeting #10: Tuesday October 18th 2011 at Studio 16 1/2

Album: The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hometowns

Tracks Played: “The Deathbridge In Lethbridge” and “Don’t Haunt This Place”

I was getting a little worried about Record Club by the end of this summer. We had become nomads, having meetings wherever we could, be it bars or backyards. We also had just marked the one year anniversary of the first Record Club meeting. This was too young of an idea to let it die off. Luckily Chris, owner of Studio 16 1/2 in Fan Tan Alley, stepped up and offered his place for our get together this month. The space seemed to fit our style, I’m hoping we can make Record Club a somewhat regular thing again. This gathering of Record Club was notable for another reason: Jeremy and I finally managed to drag our friend Tyson out to join us. (I’m not really exaggerating with that, I had to drive him there and everything.)

The album I brought this month was Hometowns by The Rural Alberta Advantage. I picked this one up just a week or so before the Record Club meeting when Tyson and I made a trip out to Ditch Records. I was rummaging through the selection of used vinyl new to the store when I came across it. Hometowns got a lot of play on my stereo this summer and so my reaction to this find was “who in their right mind would get rid of an album like this??”. I knew I had to give it a good home.

The last time that The Rural Alberta Advantage passed through town I made the mistake of agreeing to cover for a sick friend who was supposed to teach a stats class the next morning at 8:30am. I made the difficult decision to be a responsible instructor and actually prepare for the lecture and get a good night’s sleep instead of seeing the show. I instantly regretted my choice when I walked in the next morning to see a student sitting front row and center, wearing a Rural Alberta Advantage t-shirt that he bought at the show. After the class was over I asked the student how the concert was. His reply: “It was great! I met the band and they signed my shirt and everything!”. He then turned around to show me the autographs on the back of his shirt. That’s what I get for acting like a responsible adult.

Arriving at the festival.

Finding a breakfast joint in town with less than an hour wait on the morning of Live At Squamish Day 2 proved to be a bit of a challenge and my group arrived just outside the festival grounds right as Brasstronaut took the stage. I could hear the opening song, Slow Knots, finish right as we made it through security. I was a little annoyed that I missed that song (which happens to be my favourite Brasstronaut song). Watching Bryan play trumpet and bells at the same time at the end of Slow Knots blows my mind every time. It had been a while since I had last seen the band play (almost a year, in fact), and they had written some new material since then. The band mentioned that they were heading to the studio soon to start recording their next album (I’m really looking forward to that release), and they played a couple of these new songs in their set. Two of these new songs, “Opportunity” and “Hollow Trees”, were released on EP just last month. You can get the Opportunity EP for free on the band’s website.

Up next on the Main Stage was Bend Sinister. This band needs to make it over to Vancouver Island again soon. They are one of the best live acts I’ve seen. Now that I think about it, I can’t even pinpoint what makes their shows so great. It’s not like they rely on any gimmicks (other than maybe Dan Moxon’s love of tie dye). They just have so much energy and the group is incredibly polished. I quickly learned from this set and Brasstronaut’s set that the theme of Live At Squamish Day 2 would be “we are working on new material, and here’s some of it”. The last update on the Bend Sinister website was back in July and it said that the band hopes to have some advance tracks from the new album out by the end of summer. Now that we’re halfway through fall, I can only hope that those tracks will appear any day now. I managed to get a couple of videos from Bend Sinister’s set, one is a new song (or at least, I think it’s new) that I don’t know the name of and the other is the song “CT” from their album Stories Of Brothers, Tales Of Lovers. (If you know the name of the mystery song, or can confirm that it’s a new one, please let me know!)

I left Bend Sinister’s set a bit early to catch the “mystery band” in the Live At Squamish lineup. Billed simply as “Panda Watch – a band from Vancouver”, this group drew quite the crowd. The members walked out on stage wearing panda heads, concealing their identities for as long as they could. OK, truth be told, with Twitter it wasn’t too much of a secret who this band was. Panda Watch turned out to be Said The Whale performing a set solely of new songs from their upcoming album. I really enjoyed what I heard from the group that day. The new songs show an evolution to their sound and I don’t know if it was because I was hearing them for the first time or what, but I think that the songs sounded more complex musically than what we’re used to hearing from Said The Whale. I wish I knew the names of the songs they performed, there was a couple that really stood out for me. One in particular that I liked was heavy with drums and seemed to have a bit of a prog rock influence. The new Said The Whale album is set to be released in March 2012, and it can’t come soon enough.

Panda Watch / Said The Whale

After Said The Whale earned thunderous cheers from the audience for their new material, I headed back to the Main Stage to see The Zolas. I’ve met Zach of the Zolas before and I’ve seen him perform with the Vancouver band Henry And The Nightcrawlers, but up until Live At Squamish I had always missed seeing the Zolas when they came to town. This is another band that needs to come to Victoria more often. (Fact: I say that about all bands I like, it just somehow seems like more opportunities are missed when the band is from somewhere as close as Vancouver.) The Zolas really brought their A game to their set. For the last song the band brought out their parents to join them singing backup and playing percussion. And of course it wouldn’t be a festival without members of We Are The City jumping on stage, and they were there too. (Seriously, who haven’t I seen We Are The City perform with?) The set closed with Zach pulling an epic rock star move by leaping off the bass drum (pictured below).

At this point in the festival I hit the wall. The Dudes always bring so much energy to their shows, but it was no match for my tiredness. I spent most of their set charging my phone and sitting down, but I did catch the last few songs. The most important thing I have to say about their set is “that’s a lot of beard”.

The Dudes

It’s a good thing I got a rest before Black Mountain. Otherwise, they might have destroyed me with their amazing rock and roll. Here’s how loud their set was: I could feel my sinus cavities vibrate. I’m always so torn when I see Black Mountain live. I love their music and watching Stephen McBean’s hair fly around is mesmerizing, but Amber Webber has the most subdued stage presence ever. The best part of their set for me, hands down, was “Let Spirits Ride”. It’s one of their strongest tracks on their latest release Wilderness Heart. Other than me internally yelling at Amber “why are you just standing there?!”, this was my favourite set from the entire festival.

As I mentioned before, I’m not the biggest fan of Metric. (I was obsessed with them ages ago, but it appears that I’ve moved on.) Metric’s sound is definitely suited to the large stage though and their hits sounded right at home over the huge speakers with an enormous crowd singing along. It was neat to see them play on both days of the festival. To see a stripped down set one day followed by the full Metric band the next was pretty cool. I’m glad they brought this unique experience to Squamish.

Like many people my age, one of the first CDs I bought was Weezer’s The Blue Album. While I haven’t enjoyed anything of theirs past The Green Album (OK, I might have also liked Maladroit, but that was where it stopped), I was still pretty excited to see Weezer perform. I saw Weezer in concert once before, way back in 2002 for the tour supporting Maladroit. The image I had in my head of the band performing live was frozen back at that concert so my initial reaction to their Live At Squamish set was “Holy crap! Since when did Rivers become such a rock star?!” There was such a difference between the shy awkward front man I saw almost ten years ago and the guy now who was running around on stage, jumping in the crowd to sing. I was relieved to see that their set heavily favoured their earlier material (excluding Pinkerton, of course) mixed with singles from their last few albums, and some really cool covers. One cover was Foster The People’s summer hit “Pumped Up Kicks”. The other cover they threw into their set was the one that really impressed me though – Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android”. Yes, they performed that six and a half minute epic and they totally pulled it off. (In my head I interpreted it as the band saying “Yes, we know we now write really horrible pop songs, but look at this – we still play difficult cool music!”. Well played Weezer, well played.) The set ended with all the members of the band gathered around the drum set wailing away.

Live At Squamish 2011 proved to be a lot of fun. My biggest complaints would be the few occasions that set start times deviated from the schedule and the generic festival food choices. The other annoyance was the video camera arm and stage hands on the main stage. They interfered with my sightlines more often than not, and I found that it really distracted from the performances. Those are all things I can deal with though, and Live At Squamish is definitely heading in the direction of doing more good than bad. I love that they book so many local acts, and the addition of the Green Couch stage this year was great. I also liked that the festival was moved away from the Labour Day long weekend. Travel (especially from Vancouver Island) is always a nightmare on a summer long weekend, and having the festival in the middle of August not only alleviated that travel stress, it provided another excuse to get out of the city during the summer. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Live At Squamish organizers have up their sleeves next year!

More of my photos from Day 2 can be found on my Flickr page.

Leaving the festival grounds.

Imaginary Cities

After a car ride, a ferry, a bus broken down on the highway (yes, the bus I happened to be on), a SkyTrain, dropping my bag off at a friend’s place, and one more bus, I made it to the festival grounds once again.

I started the day off with the All Fired Up workshop which featured the Burning Hell, Danny Michel, the Jason Wilson Band, and Imaginary Cities. This workshop might have been the best thing I saw all weekend; there were so many highlights in this short time. First off (in case I haven’t raved about them enough already), let’s talk about Imaginary Cities. I think they might take the crown for the best group I’ve discovered this year. The full band was here for this workshop, and they were joined by the other musicians on stage for most of their songs. The best for sure was their great, great cover of Cake’s song “Mexico”. The addition of the beautiful strings and baritone sax to Marti’s voice just pushed this version over the top for me. Luckily, I caught most of the song on video so you can hear it for yourself. This set was a great example of what a workshop should be like: you get the musicians from the other groups to join you and make a new version of what you’d normally play.

The Burning Hell

The Burning Hell is a band that I’ve been wanting to see for a long time, and they did not disappoint. The band has somewhat of a ragtag instrumentation with guitar, ukulele, strings, baritone sax, clarinet, bass, and drums. Most of their songs contain a bit of humour to them, and the song from the workshop that I have here, “Pirates”, is no exception. I hope this Peterborough-born, St. John’s-based band makes their way out west again soon.

Besides being known as a great guitar player, Danny Michel has gained notoriety as a lover of the environment. His song “Feather, Fur, and Fin” is a prime example of this. The workshop group had a lot of fun with this song, with Danny challenging the other musicians to make animal sounds on their instruments. Danny closed out the workshop with a Los Lobos cover where he got the whole audience to sing the band out. With no defined ending to the song, the large crowd just kept on going long after all the musicians had left the stage. If you go to Danny Michel’s Facebook page and dig back a bit, he has a video of this moment posted.

Danny Michel

Next up, my group decided to pay the beer gardens a visit. Here we were able to catch the From Sudan to East Van Workshop with Emmanuel Jal, the Fugitives, and C.R. Avery. In all honesty I didn’t pay too much attention to this set, but I do remember that the Fugitives and C.R. Avery joined forces on one song that had the crowd up and dancing like mad.

After spending enough time drinking we decided to procure some food stuffs from the amazing food court. I’ve been to my share of festivals and, hands down, the Vancouver Folk Fest wins for having the best selection of eats. Usually you’re stuck deciding between the lesser of the evils with burgers, fries, pizza, and hot dogs. Here it was crepes, dim sum, fresh roasted corn, tacos, Mediterranean BBQ, flatbread, Thai food, Indian food, and African delicacies. It was awesome to eat festival food and not feel gross afterwards.

Our bellies full, we headed over to Stage 3 in anticipation of the Kathryn Calder set. We were treated to a workshop that wasn’t listed in the programs that featured Elliott Brood and Pokey Lafarge & the South City Three. Having missed Elliott Brood’s concert set the night before as well as their early morning workshop, I was glad that I got the chance to see the group play. Back in July the band was prepping for the release of their new album (which was released on September 27th, 2011) and they played the old stand by favourites as well as a few new tracks. Rest assured there was lots of hand clapping and “hey! hey! hey!”s. Apologies for the crummy sound quality on the Elliott Brood video there – I was sitting right next to the speakers and I ended up muting the mic on my camera a bit too much to compensate. Pokey Lafarge & the South City Three was a great surprise. Maybe I was turned off by the somewhat hokey name, but the group was a lot of fun. Pokey Lafarge has the role of front man mastered and the band was tight. Plus, they had a guy that played the washboard – folk festival experience complete!

Pokey Lafarge & The South City Three

Up next on Stage 3 was the Kathryn Calder concert set. For some reason, she doesn’t play in Victoria too often, so this was actually the first time I had the chance to see her play her solo work. I was glad to finally see her perform. I may ruin some friendships for what I’m about to say next, but: I never really fell in love with Kathryn Calder’s solo work. I was a big fan of Immaculate Machine, and so many of my friends (boys, mostly) rave about her album Are You My Mother?, but I for some reason still haven’t given the album a good listen. Her set at the Vancouver Folk Festival was great though and I was totally won over by the fact that members of Meatdraw were in her backing band. I promise I’ll listen to Are You My Mother? a few times before I see her again (which just so happens to be on November 26th at Lucky Bar in Victoria).

Kathryn Calder

The last set I saw at the festival was the Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans Band concert. I saw Jim and the Weakerthans play in Victoria back in February. The attendance at that concert was not the greatest, and I was glad to see so many people turn up for their set at the Folk Fest. Unfortunately, I thought the Folk Fest crowd was horrible. First, maybe some background information will be useful to set the scene. Back in October 2010 Jim Bryson released an excellent album called The Falcon Lake Incident. His backing band on this album was the Weakerthans (minus John K. Samson). The performance at the Folk Fest was advertised as Jim Bryson and the Weakertans Band playing songs off of The Falcon Lake Incident as well as some older Jim Bryson tracks. Having a full rock and roll band backing him up meant that the songs from The Falcon Lake Incident were maybe a bit more upbeat than Jim’s back catalogue, and so I don’t think the crowd knew quite what to expect. There was a group of people standing up at the front of the crowd (who may or may not have been myself and my friends) who right as the band came on stage got yelled at by the crowd behind them to sit down. Normally I’m one to complain about an audience being too rowdy, but this was the exact opposite extreme of that. Here was a group pulling some rock star moves on stage and everyone was perfectly happy to nap on the lawn. No one wanted to get up and dance. Imagine that – no dancers at a folk festival!! The second strike the crowd earned against them was when between songs some guy at the back yelled out “Play “Tournament Of Hearts!”". (“Tournament Of Hearts” is a song by the Weakerthans – not Jim Bryson – from their latest album Reunion Tour.) Given the information I wrote about how this set was advertised, this was almost the equivalent of being the jerk who yells out “Freebird!” at a show. I was starting to get grumpy about people ruining the experience, but fortunately Jim asked everyone to get up for the last couple of songs (thank you!) and that changed everything. It ended up being a grand ol’ time. The Weakerthans have been playing together for more than ten years and it’s not much of an understatement to say that they’re at the top of their game right now. The band mixes well with Jim Bryson, and while I can see him going a different direction on his next album, I would not complain if we saw another collaboration between Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans. The set ended with each member slowly dropping out of the last song and walking off. It was an excellent way to end my 2011 Vancouver Folk Fest experience.

My photos of Day 3 at the Vancouver Folk Fest can be found here.

Justin Townes Earle

After a nice relaxing acoustic workshop to start the day, we decided to hit the beer gardens. Unlike all too many of the large festivals, the gardens at the Vancouver Folk Fest came with a great view of the stage and prices were kept reasonable. From our camp in the drinking area we saw the Changes in Latitude workshop which featured Joel Plaskett, Elliott Brood, and the Fugitives. It was great to hang out at the tables while still having clear sound and sightlines to the musical action still going on.

Jim Bryson

I had time to see one last thing on Day 2 before I needed to catch the ferry home, so I left my friends to enjoy their malted and hopped beverages and I headed over to Stage 3. Here I saw Imaginary Cities play the last two songs in their concert set with the full band. The group sounded great and I was glad I’d get another chance to see them on Day 3.

Imaginary Cities

Unfortunately I missed the rest of the action for the day which included a workshop with Dustin Bentall, and the entire lineup on the Peak Stage that night (Danny Michel, The Burning Hell, Buck 65, and Elliott Brood). I was particularly choked about having to miss Buck 65 as I also didn’t get the chance to see his one other appearance at the festival, and it has been far too long since I’ve seen him perform. The word from my friends is that I missed out on a most excellent evening.

Imaginary Cities

My photos of Day 2 at the Vancouver Folk Fest can be found here.

Imaginary Cities

I arrived at Jericho Beach Park for the 2011 Vancouver Folk Fest at the tail end of Gillian Welch’s set. I wasn’t familiar with her Americana folk, but the large crowd already gathered at the Festival seemed to LOVE her. (Now that I’m home and reading a bit on Gillian Welch, I see that she had a hand in putting together the amazing soundtrack for the movie O Brother Where Art Thou – cool!)

MCs Lana Gay and Tariq Hussain

Next we were treated to a tweener set by Imaginary Cities. (For those unaware, a tweener is an act that plays between larger acts. They serve as the entertainment during gear changeovers. They are usually lesser known acts and are usually performed as stripped down sets with easy to set up acoustic instruments.) Though the band usually performs as a five piece, the songwriting duties in Imaginary Cities are shared by Rusty Matyas and Marti Sorbit. True to the tweener form, this set was just Marti and Rusty and an acoustic guitar. The duo played selections from their Polaris Long Listed self-titled album Imaginary Cities, and sneaked in a great cover of the song “Mexico” by Cake.

Joel Plaskett

Closing out the first night of the festival was Joel Plaskett. Ever-changing his lineup of backing musicians, this time the group was billed as the Joel Plaskett Emergency. I was excited for this, I hadn’t seen the Emergency configuration (which usually plays more of the rock songs in Joel’s massive catalog) in years. The Vancouver Folk Fest version of the Joel Plaskett Emergency was a trio: Joel on guitar with a bass and drums backing him. The group played a mixture of new and old songs, which was fitting given his recently released greatest hits and b-sides collection called Emergencys, False Alarms, Shipwrecks, Castaways, Fragile Creatures, Special Features, Demons and Demonstrations: 1999-2010. The highlight of the evening for me was the closing song “Extraordinary”. I have a great video of the performance from that night that looks amazing, but sounds horrible due to some off-key singing from the crowd ringing loud and clear over everything else. I’ll spare the internet from having to hear that, and you’ll just have to trust me on how great the song was. (OK fine, it was my off-key singing. Still, no one wants to hear that.)

Joel Plaskett

My photos of Day 1 at the Vancouver Folk Fest can be found here.

The backing band was looking sharp in their matching white shirts, skinny ties, and grey pants. The group played a mixture of new and old songs, and Hannah mentioned that her next order of business was to head off to Toronto to record her next album. (She’s been giving updates on Facebook and Twitter over the past few weeks on the album’s progress. Check in there if you’d like to keep up to date.) The crowd seemed to be pretty shy and sat on the grass for most of the set. I don’t know if this was because most of them seemed to fall into the category of “awkward overwhelmed first year student”, but people seemed to perk up and even dance for the catchier favourites like “Bang Bang You’re Dead” and “Dancefloor”.

My photos from the day can be found here. Also, I managed to catch the closing song “All I Need” on video. Check it out below… NOW!

Here’s the setlist from that afternoon:

SATURDAY

Royal Athletic Park

1:00 Sunhawk – Another Victoria group playing the festival, and another I’ve been told that has a killer live act.

1:30 Vince Vaccaro – You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Vince Vaccaro on stage doing just a set of his work. I’ve seen him tons of times in the audience at shows around town, and just as many times I’ve seen him jump on stage to sing or play guitar or do percussion to back up a friend. Huh.

2:40 Jets Overhead – It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jets Overhead, and it will be great to finally hear songs off their latest album.

3:20 Library Voices – Again, a great live band. They’ll bring lots of energy.

4:00 Awolnation – SAIL! Joking aside, people with varying tastes in music have all told me that they like this band and that they put on one heck of a show.

4:45 Hollerado – I know for a fact that these guys put on a killer live show. Be prepared to be showered in confetti.

5:25 Cold War Kids – They do that song Audience that you probably heard on the radio a bajillion times last year. Great, now that song is stuck in my head. Guess I’ll have to go to the set to hear it and get it out of there.

7:10 City and Colour – There’s something that falls a bit flat for me with Dallas Green’s records, but I saw City and Colour at Sasquatch this year and really enjoyed the live show.

Night Stages

8:30 Beekeeper @ VEC – Beekeeperuses rhythms a bit more quirky than what your average indie band uses. If you like your music a little weird, go to this show. Oh, and Beekeeper is fronted by the flippy haired guitar player of Hey Ocean, so that’s a bonus.

9:30 The Belle Game @ VEC – Big things are in the future for this band. In fact, just this week they opened up for the 2010 Polaris Prize winners, Karkwa. The group is just wrapping up putting together their first album and they’re in the Top 20 for the Peak Performance Project this year.

9:30 Olenka @ Metro Theatre – My Ontario friends have raved to me about this act. They tend to have good taste in music, so I’ll believe them on this one.

10:30 Suuns @ Metro Theatre – Admittedly I’ve heard mixed reviews of their live show but their album, Zeroes QC, is one of the most interesting things I’ve heard in the past year.

10:30 Hawk and Steel @ Wood Hall – A new Victoria group, composed of five guys who are no strangers to the scene. This is one of their first shows, get in on the ground level.

11:30 Acres of Lions @ VEC – Hopefully Acres of Lions will get a reaction (a reaction!) from the crowd. Seriously though, their song “Reaction” has got to be the catchiest thing I’ve heard all summer.

11:30 Old Man Luedecke @ Wood Hall – Banjo pickin’, knee slappin’ times. Even if you’re currently employed, singing along to the song “I Quit My Job” is a lot of fun.

12:30 J Mascis @ Alix Goolden – It’s J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Need I say more?

12:30 The Pack AD @ Metro Theatre – I was disappointed in the turnout for their last show in Victoria. Hopefully the success of their new single “Sirens” will help improve the turnout for this one.

12:30 Royal Wood @ Wood Hall – Another handsome singer-songwriter. This one plays the piano though and wears a suit. Royal Wood recorded an album of cover songs, including a cover of Foster The People’s hit “Pumped Up Kicks”, and the album is only available for purchase at stops on the tour.

SUNDAY

Royal Athletic Park

1:30 Kuba Oms – I knew that Kuba Oms was in the Top 20 of the Peak Performance Project in 2009 and 2010. What I didn’t know is that he’s from Victoria and years ago he used to hang in the same circles as then unknown Nelly Furtado. For some reason I’m intrigued by this.

2:40 Gomez – You may best know this English band from having provided songs for TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and House.

4:00 Blackalicious – The highlight of my weekend would be if I could hear Blackalicious perform “Alphabet Aerobics”.

7:10 De La Soul – Some old school hip hop sounds like a good way to wrap up the weekend.