“You shouldn’t start telling a story if you don’t have a story to tell.” From his seat in the lunch room of Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre, Tuomas Holopainen leans forward and speaks into the digital audio recorder resting on the coffee table in fr
Bison members I spoke to agree that the closure of The Cobalt would (or is it will?) be a “huge blow” for the Vancouver music scene. “Bison has played The Cobalt probably about five times,” guitarist/ vocalist James Farwell tells me...
Interview with Vulvatron, Blothar, and Pustulus Maximus in Vancouver for GWAR: Eternal tour.
Swank sashayed out of Van this summer. How many gigs in how many nights?
6 gigs in 6 sweaty nights! It was like a military operation, but with booze.
Name clubs and the bands that you played with.
The Grateful Fed, Kelowna, The S...
"I remember one of the last times he saw me, he said, 'Please make sure everybody hears this music.'" Promise kept.
“We weren’t necessarily going for an animal name,” Bison BC co-guitarist/ co-vocalist James Farwell tells me when I ask about the name Bison. “We’d tossed around these Godawful made up words - ‘what looks good in a good metal fo...
Interview with RMRM done in October, 2012 by D'Arcy Briggs
Ska Fest: So first off, RMRM have become known as one of the region's best ska, reggae, and party bands. What were some of the original ideas behind the group and how would yo...
Interview with The Delirians done in June, 2012 by D'Arcy Briggs
Ska Fest: When and where did you guys meet? When did you decide to form the band?
Delirians: Most of us, like many other bands, grew up in the punk rock scene, ...
Interview with Dope Soda was done in June, 2012 by D'Arcy Briggs
Ska Fest: When and where do you guys meet? When did you decide to form the band?
Dope Soda: Well Dope Soda was a project I have been wanting to do for a v...
This is the Sleep Factory, Trish Shwart’s exhibition at Martin Batchelor Gallery that opened on November 7th, with a persuasive performance by the artist as a marketeer, and continues with a visual smorgasbord of parodies that explore the commodificatio
When I last interviewed Vancouver punks the Rebel Spell, I was surprised to discover that, long before the band had formed, their singer and principal lyricist Todd Serious knew the Subhumans’ Gerry Hannah. Stepha and Todd were living in ...
She’s been at it for 35 years, but Toni Blodgett’s love of jazz continues to fuel her band’s unique blend of what she calls “more traditional” music.
What it really means is her group has access to a vast repertoire of jazz tunes and has develo