Inspired by images of Tahltan women blockading Shell in defense of the Sacred Headwaters in northern British Columbia, Rachelle wrote ‘My Country’.
She was invited to perform it for the Tahltan people at the Iskut Music Festival a year later, where we filmed this video.
One of the Klabona Keepers brought us up to the Headwaters, the birthplace of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers and a traditional Tahltan territory. This area is critically endangered by a number of industrial mega-projects which threaten all 3 watersheds, affecting an area larger than Ireland.
After January’s sold-out premiere, the dynamic women behind Vancouver noise band MYTHS are bringing back their original electronic opera, The Golden Dawn, for an exclusive two-night run at SFU Woodward’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
From their live show that includes elaborate and handmade costumes, visuals and lighting, they have transformed their live set into a story told in the multi-media form of theatre, dance and video. Pulling from far-reaching influences such as ballet and improvised dance, an obsession with the unknown and the cycles of ancient mythology, The Golden Dawn weaves a hyper saga through an extended and remixed set of songs, noise improvisations and distorted narratives.
Think Animal Collective meets high school play meets paganism meets utopian society. In short, this. will. be. rad.
Friday and Saturday, May 18-19, Vancouver’s second annual festival of Balinese music and dance, Gamelan Gita Asmara, floats across the stage at SFU Woodward’s (fenOMeniLL) Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre.
Plus Indonesian food and a pre-show talk!
Check out this promo video for a taste of Gamelan Gita Asmara.
We are very excited to announce a book launch and Shadow Jam with anarcho-surrealist author Ron Sakolsky. Ron and Eberhardt Press has just published his new book, Scratching the Tiger’s Belly, a new collection of rants, poems, manifestos and stories in the spirit of his last book, Swift Winds.
To celebrate, we’ll be hosting a co-created shadow jam with shadow puppets and live music accompanied by readings from Ron. Guests are invited to arrive early so that they can help to create puppets for the event.
7:00pm - Shadow Puppet crafting
8:00pm - Shadow Play!
Bring crafts for shadow puppets, acoustic instruments to play, wine to share, and your imagination.
The STAG (or Strathcona Art Gallery) is located in Vancouver at 826 East Pender St. (b/w Hawks and Campbell, through the metal gate, house in the back).
A video I did several years ago for GranvilleOnline.ca (now bcliving.ca) about the unusual, high-impact percussive orchestra ScrapArtsMusic, which comprises five performers on 145 invented instruments, all hand-crafted from salvaged materials and found objects plucked from the scrap yards, construction sites, Army/Navy surplus depots and “anywhere you find people” around Vancouver. 
ScrapArtsMusic performs all original music on one-of-a-kind instruments that both produce incredible sound and are dazzling to watch. Think Stomp but with a more home-grown Vancouver feel.
“In an odd but very accurate way, these are our very own Vancouver folk instruments,” says Gregory Kozak, ScrapArtsMusic’s co-creator, artistic director, lead performer and welder. “They’re made by materials from around Vancouver, by Vancouverites and created in Vancouver.” Love that!
The instruments-slash-“musical sculptures”—including the Thunder Sheets (seen in the video—and are so fun you’ll want your own!), B-52 drums, Ziggurat drums, Mini-Zig Traps and Whorlies—require tight choreography, high energy and a playfulness of performance.
Naming their influences as “limitless human potential, meteor showers, gothic cathedrals, body surfing [and] the choreography of treeplanting,” ScrapArtsMusic is sure to entertain.
Seeing 2Pac’s “California Love” video (see last post) made me start to think about the influential music videos of my teen years, which is when I did the bulk of my MTV viewing. In between episodes of “The Grind” and “The Real World” - oh and Jenny McCarthy’s show… what was that called again? - MTV would play these things called music videos (I don’t know if they play them anymore). “Yo MTV Raps!” was one of the better shows for videos so I saw a lot of East Coast/West Coast rivalry. But I also a lot of videos on VH1 - a particular favourite being “Pop Up Video” during which you’d get schooled on all manner of minute details about the making of the video and the band.
Here’s a list of the most influential and/or most played videos from my teen years, aka 1992-1999. Add your own in the comments below.
(Note: These were by no means my favourite songs or videos, just the ones that played most often or somehow became most indelibly etched in my subconscious. Keep in mind: I grew up in Indianapolis. Also keep in mind, it was the ’90s.)
1. 2Pac - “California Love”
2. Nirvana - “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
3. Toni Braxton - “You’re Makin Me High”
4. Blind Melon - “No Rain”
5. Soundgarden - “Black Hole Sun”
6. En Vogue - My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)
7. Blackstreet - No Diggity (ft. Dr. Dre, Queen Pen)
8. Boyz II Men - “Motown Philly”
9. TLC - “Baby-Baby-Baby”
10. Fiona Apple - “Criminal”
11. Nine Inch Nails - ”Closer”
12. The Beastie Boys - ”Sabotage”
Meanwhile… here’s a list from the Pitchfork staff of their picks for best ’90s videos.
The infamous letter from Dre to his then girlfriend now wife Nicole Threatt X-wife of NBA Player Sedale Threatt
Thanks to Kevin Quinlan for forwarding this on. I’m dubious of its verity but also delighted to imagine that my adult pilgrimages to the desert might have been foretold by my adolescent fascination with pop culture, however dystopian and simplistically tribalistic. (And… Chris Tucker haha)
Stef Lang takes the uprising of women internationally against the pressure that consumer culture creates for young women (and undoubtedly for young men as well) to the pop scene with this great, dancable song that could easily contend with the same hits that push the “look” she’s speaking out against. She gives the mainstream a tongue lashing in Paper Doll’s quick lyrics: “Living on a treadmill, skip my dinner / Work my body till I get thinner / Running with the girls across the nation / Caught up in a world of thin-spiration.”
Originally from the tiny town of Ladysmith, BC, Stef moved to Vancouver six years ago to pursue music. Currently, she’s on tour across Canada to support the release of her new EP, “Fighting Mirrors” which can be downloaded free from her website, and which has other songs speaking to the high stress, high speed consequences of modern consumer life.
More than 100 Canadian indie crafters and designers, live music, delicious food carts, wobbly pops, nice friendly folks and more return to the Croatian Cultural Centre (3250 Commercial Dr) for Make It! Vancouver, April 20-22, 2012!
When I walked in from the cold, loud, snotty streets of Gastown, they were playing Bob Dylan, and I knew I was where I needed to be. And I was warm. And I believed. Again.
Love love love her makeup in this; she’s like a little electro woodland clown marionet with the voice of a thousand winds whistling through the trees of an old growth forest.
