Category Archives: Real Live Action

Apollo Ghosts

with B-Lines, Watermelon and Diane.
May 10th @ The Rickshaw.

by Fraser Dobbs

Death is a hard subject to prepare for, even when you know it’s a long way away. When Apollo Ghosts frontman Adrian Teacher announced in December that the band weren’t going to be around forever, it never really sunk in that the day when the band wouldn’t play sold-out shows for grinning pop junkies might come. And, even though their final show at the Rickshaw was more wake than funeral, it was still tough to see one of Vancouver’s brightest call it quits.

Diane | | photo by Steve Louie

Diane | | photo by Steve Louie

  Diane played a strong collection of post-punk goodness to start the night. Discordant guitar licks and some startlingly crunchy bass tones backed up alternating vocal duties. Drummer Ben Goldberg’s habit of reassuring his band mates between songs was endearing, and the trio found their confidence again towards the end of their set.

Watermelon | | photo by Steve Louie

Watermelon | | photo by Steve Louie

  Watermelon were a more cohesive ensemble than I remember, and a lot more fun as a result. Songs definitely leaned on the pop side of rock ‘n’ roll, but unique influences and interesting sound choices made for a surprise hit. A little bit shoegaze guitar waves, a little bit ’80s stadium rock, their songs clicked just right on the Rickshaw’s stage.
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METZ

with White Lung, and Cindy Lee.
May 3 @ The Biltmore.

by Fraser Dobbs

Metz | | photo by Arnaud de Grave

Metz | | photo by Arnaud de Grave

Rock is dead, long live rock. Despite whatever downtrend good, loud music has been on over the last few years, you wouldn’t know it stepping into the Biltmore on this Friday night. In a crowd where “chillwave” was a dirty word, every Vancouverite with tinnitus and a closet obsession with overdriven amplifiers was eagerly waiting for METZ.

Cindy Lee | | photo by Arnaud de Grave

Cindy Lee | | photo by Arnaud de Grave

  Cindy Lee was not, perhaps, the most obvious choice to start off the evening. While normally a full-on band, ex-Women guitarist Patrick Flegel was alone on stage playing no-wave alt-blues, dressed in drag and owning it. The problem was coherency: Cindy Lee might have made sense with a drummer, but the lone guitar felt disjointed, moving jarringly from riff to riff like a jam session just getting started. Given Flegel’s songwriting history, it’d be easy to write his set off as an out-of-place art piece, but what’s more likely is simply that Cindy Lee is out of its element as a solo affair.
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Safe Amp’s Grand Opening Fundraiser

with Cascadia, Village, Fake Tears, Chris-a-Riffic, PUPS, Chung Antique, and Collapsing Opposites
April 27 @ SASSstorino's

by Chris Yee

It’s been four long years of scrounging and cajoling, but all-ages advocates Safe Amplification Site Society (Safe Amp or S.A.S.S.) now has a place to call home, physically. Astorino’s has been hosting Safe Amp’s programming since March, after the organization signed a rental agreement entitling it to the space up to nine days out of every month. It was only on April 27, though, that Safe Amp threw an official opening party for their new — albeit temporary — venue.

Collapsing Opposites | | photo by Audrey Alexandrescu

Collapsing Opposites | | photo by Audrey Alexandrescu

  Appropriately enough, Collapsing Opposites kicked off the night’s festivities; frontman Ryan McCormick is also a Safe Amp co-founder. Collapsing Opposites made the best of a muffled P.A., and McCormick conveyed a muted excitement on stage, admitting he was feeling under the weather.

Chris-a-riffic | | photo by Audrey Alexandrescu

Chris-a-riffic | | photo by Audrey Alexandrescu

  Next, one-man spoken word and keyboard sensation Chris-a-Riffic, was even more excited about the new venue. “Utopia is here, where the grass grows inside,” he remarked gushingly, pointing out a vine growing through a crack in the wall. Chris-a-Riffic was more than a spectacle. His set was a marvel of participation, be it bantering with the audience or leading call-and-response clapping sessions. Alas, the exuberant family man had to bid farewell fairly quickly, along with most of the tot-toting folks in attendance.
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The Thermals

with Peace
April 26 @ Fortune Sound Club

by Evan Brow

It was a testament to Fortune Sound Club that, over the course of the night, the space transformed into whatever it needed to be. At first it was your typical dimly lit nightclub, a place for beer, friends, and the potential of an unexpected hook-up. Then it had the buzz of something big, a few more people around, a band with solid talent flooding your eardrums. Then it felt like the height of the late-’70s British punk scene, your London dive bar where noise, flesh, and electricity dominate your body.

  Peace played their part as the very subdued opening band. No big introduction. No crazed energy. The band was definitely up against a “win ‘em over” crowd, a collection of people standing as if in the middle of an alien abduction. At the end of each song, a simple “thanks” by lead singer Dan Geddes acted in lieu of a transition, at which point the band members would, in odd synchronization, each drink from their Stella Artois rested somewhere on the ground. A simple “that’s it” by Geddes signified their set was over. And like that, they were gone. Peace knew their role in tickling the crowd with the taste of punk rock, leaving electricity lingering in the air for the Thermals to grasp and make sweet love to. Their set was at its peak when the band played “Tattoo” off their latest album The World Is Too Much With Us, a lengthy, build-up kind of song that displayed the band’s stellar handiwork and collective, contained chaos. If only the crowd was more into it.
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Koban

with Animal Bodies, Watermelon, and Freak Heat Waves. April 20 @ Pat’s Pub

by Jonathan Kew

The cover of Koban’s debut LP, Null, features a submissive figure writhing under the weight of manifold cords: a victim of some industrial nightmare, the symbols of which drive onto, into, and over the human body, threatening total erasure. It’s a beautiful analogue for the techno-macabre of their post-punk. However, the release party for Null, held on Record Store Night at Pat’s Pub, was nevertheless host to a series of gregarious, inviting performances—all still imparting a sense of their respective, heavy affects.

  Operating with hypnotic repetition, Freak Heat Waves’ considerate melodies were transformed by Pat’s throbbing amplification into nigh-monomaniacal treatises. Songs resolved into epiphanic release or thoughtful deviation, but always interestingly and elusively drifting. Dreamlike tangents waited to transform in their throbbing hum. Capturing both the dreary and the innervating, they established a disposition that fit the night well.
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Ok Vancouver Ok

with Loose Tights, and Half Chinese
April 20 @ The New Red Gate

by Dave Snider

Half Chinese | | photo by Jon Vincent

This night marked the release of Food Shelter Water, the eight full-length release from local lo-fi pop experts, Ok Vancouver Ok. Beginning not-so-subtly, experimental rock trio Half Chinese blasted through a short set of tracks that were scrappy but dynamic. Lyrics frequently took a backseat to musical arrangements that were often fierce and frantic, but still relaxed at times, successfully fusing the catchiness of Pavement or Guided By Voices with the technical prowess, tension, and noise worship of Mission of Burma. Half Chinese were all kinds of awesome and their set was an excellent way to start the night.

Loose Tights | | photo by Jon Vincent

  Next were local surf-punks Loose Tights. With original and intricate guitar parts, they bashed through their set with musical arrangements and a triple vocal attack reminiscent of early Sleater Kinney. There’s nothing quite like sincere, aggressive music with a message, and Loose Tights played that in spades. Their socially conscious lyrics about feminism and organized labour were well articulated and a great fit for their complex music.
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The Passenger

with Von Bingen, Aerosol Constellations, and C. Diab. April 19 @ The New Red Gate

by Fraser Dobbs

Although it’s still below the radar for many, the new Red Gate has quickly become a vibrant gallery, studio, and venue, even if all the trimmings aren’t quite in place yet. Though the namesake red gates are gone from the front of their new home on the East Side, the experimental show put together late-late on a Friday night had all of the collective’s charm at full brightness.

C. Diab | | photo by Steve Louie

  A room full of slightly-drunk music nerds sat down to C.Diab’s set, but a room full of quiet explorers stood up at the end of it. Caton Diab’s sonorous exploration of solitude, tranquility, and natural beauty was as brilliantly optimistic as it was haunting. Relying solely on a bowed acoustic guitar, a loop pedal, and a few basic effects, Diab cultivated a rich and deeply emotional experience from massive legato chord changes and cavernous, reverb-slicked sustain.
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Tough Lovers

with We Need Surgery, and Elizabeth
April 11 @ The Biltmore

by Tristan Koster

There’s something about combining summer, beer, and rock ’n’ roll that makes for a perfect day. Maybe I was wishing more for summer, but the beer and music were covered at the Vancouver stop of Unsigned, a series of five dollar shows taking place across Canada that support indie musicians as well as various local charities. In this case all profits went to Music B.C. and many a beer were consumed for charity. A feel good-vibe pervaded the night and enthusiastic, though not overly-abundant, crowd.

Elizabeth opened the night with their intense old school punk styling and grungy-good looks. They’ve been fairly quiet since their 2011 album Hazards, Horrors and Liabilities, but snuck in some new material, which got me excited for their future. The crowd was having fun, but there was a lot of awkward head nodding and feet shuffling. It culminated in a painfully contrived stage rush, but they still got points for featuring a melodica, and playing with a lot of heart.
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Secret Pyramid

with Waters, and Anju Singh
April 6 @ The Remington Gallery

Real Live Review by Fraser Dobbs

Secret Pyramid | photo by Steve Louie


  For the last of its three-show tenure as a temporary hub for drone and noise, the Remington art gallery was a shelter for those escaping a rainy night and the persecution of having missed out on Nick Cave tickets. Even with a phenomenal lineup, it was disheartening to see so few new faces at an event that should have been at the centre of every experimental music fan’s calendar. Maybe Nick Cave tickets weren’t as rare as we thought.

  Anju Singh is nothing if not prolific. The curator of the recent re-launch of the Vancouver Noise Fest has never played the same show twice, preferring instead to keep her audience off-guard and uncomfortable. This time, with longtime collaborator Graham Christofferson, the two unleashed a torrent of white noise and not much else. Despite an impressive rig with two massive amp cabs behind them, the bass and guitar combo didn’t prove to be much more than the sum of their parts: unlimited distortion, the occasional tangible chord change, and static. It might have been just what the noise nerds in the audience were after, but caught the rest of the mellow space off-kilter.
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Doom

Rapid Loss, Koszmar, and E.O.P.
April 2 @ The Astoria

Real Live Review by Arnaud De Grave

It was a 19-plus show, which pretty much defeats the whole idea of a punk show. What would happen if I was 40 with a 16-year-old who wants to show him or her the good stuff? Nonetheless the show was sold-out and the Astoria was full with an array of ages, sporting an array of punk-ish outfits. Punk is not dead after all.

E.O.P. | | photo by Arnaud De Grave

  Openers E.O.P. pretty much annihilated the pub, with two singers sharing mic duty from the moshpit. Everybody had a high level of energy and the drummer was pounding his kit like his life depended on it. It might have. He later commented that they were not metal, but punk-grindcore, a common misconception.
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