Hey everybody! Earlier in the week I mentioned that we took a couple of videos from last Saturday’s Needles//Pins and Juvenile Hall show at The Astoria. Well here they are in all their grainy glory!

Needles//Pins – Tiny Little Tear

Juvenile Hall – Eat Shit and Die

Also, don’t forget that we have a YouTube channel with a bunch more videos from local bands like Defektors, B-Lines and White Lung!

I don’t know how in the sweet Jesus Juvenile Hall stayed off our radar for this long, but here they are in their full awesomeness thanks to two Ryans and a Dylan. Oh, and we’re working on a little interview too!

…if by “mellowing out” you mean “continuing to blow speakers and minds with a more vicious punk rock frenzy than was heard even six months ago.”

Part of getting a back on the horse with a site like this is tracking down old favourites and seeing what everyone has been up to. White Lung, as it turns out, are still running this town. Check out their video for “Loose Heels” from their just-released LP It’s the Evil on Deranged Records.

Hey everybody! Remember back in November when we wrote our review on The Belle Game’s first EP Inventing Letters? Well those kids have been super busy lately and one of their newest projects is a wonderful little video for Shoulders & Turns, directed by Jeffrey Zablotny. So have a look!

As we prepare to take over the world again, check THIS out!

Last night Chez Explosivo/Toshiba hosted Nachopalooza 2010 where one of our lovely guests hipped me to a local band I had never heard before! Well here they are, Aunts and Uncles, and gosh are they great! Formed in 2009 and comprised of members from SSRIs, Like Animals Again, The Barcelona Chair and Friends From School, Aunts and Uncles are definitely one of our bands to watch in 2010. Head on over to their MySpace page to hear a handful of songs and watch more videos!

Aunts and Uncles play Little Mountain Studios on February 27th and The Purple Crab on March 6th.

For those interested in Channels 3×4 check THIS out:

Hey everybody! Last night we hit up two different shows, one at Little Mountain Studios and one at The Rickshaw. As much as we would have liked to have seen all of the bands who played, we did managed to catch sets by ok vancouver ok, Commander Riker aka Jarrett Evan Samson and Adrian Teacher, The Rain and the Sidewalk, B-Lines, Defektors and some jackass band from Oakland called Nobunny. Here’s some videos we took!

First up, ok vancouver ok performing “A Volcano”(?) with Adrian Teacher (Apollo Ghosts) and Beshele Caron (Greenbelt Collective). This is a pre-show practice demo that we were fortunate to have arrived early enough to see. I don’t think the microphone is even turned on. Go Jeff!

Next, Jarrett Evan Samson and Adrian Teacher as Commander Riker doing the original “Star Trek Theme Song”! Edit: Apparently it’s the Next Generation theme song. I should have know that! I’m a geek too!

Now here’s site favourites B-Lines performing “Social Retards” at The Rickshaw!

And finally, our kids Defektors serving up a track that we don’t know the name of. Anyone? Edit: The track is called “Black Hole”. Thanks Jerome!

Ta-daa! Sorry we didn’t get any video for The Rain and the Sidewalk’s set (I got distracted) or Nobunny (because they’re stupid).

For every one good MC there are ten MC’s that should really just put the microphone down. That’s a hard thing to come to terms with when discussing Vancouver hip-hop. Sure, Vancouver locals The Rascalz really lit a fire under Canadian rap back in 1997 with their album Cash Crop but has Van City produced a decent MC since then?

Enter Anami Vice in late 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

Ho-ley crap is this review ever late! I actually forgot to do it until I saw the folder still sitting way at the bottom of my desktop this afternoon. Anyway, let’s do a little review!

First up, Rose Melberg‘s set. I didn’t really know a lot about Rose Melberg before I saw her performance but I have to say that I was absolutely charmed and blown away. I hear this is the standard reaction to hearing Ms. Melberg and I can definitely see why. Her self-professed goal from the outset was to pull everybody down in order to have Chris-a-Riffic build them back up again, however this turned out be a little misleading. Her folksy songs aren’t at all depressing, but quietly understated with thoughtful and introspective lyrics. At the time I remember thinking that if Elliott Smith been born a somewhat happier girl (and not come to an unfortunate and untimely end), Rose Melberg would be the result. Check out this video I took of Rose performing “I Don’t Believe in the Sun” by Magnetic Fields! The picture is absolutely god-awful, but the sound is pretty good!

Second up was Chris-a-Riffic! Like with Rose, I hadn’t ever seen Chris-a-Riffic before and I’m kinda embarrassed to say that I didn’t really get his songs before I saw them performed live. As I’m probably the only person in Vancouver that hasn’t seen a Chris-a-Riffic show, it probably goes without saying that his performance on the night was a wonderful and eclectic, chaotic and good natured free-for-all that included lots of banging of keyboards, crowd interaction and altogether feel-good times. A personal highlight for me was to hear his cover of Apollo Ghosts‘ Shadow Boxing Bruce Lee. Thank goodness Scott Bell was there to record the performance for Geographing Records for an upcoming release. In the meantime, though, you can check out the video we took of Chris performing the Apollo Ghosts cover! Again, the video sucks, but the audio is decent.

If you watched the videos above, you can probably tell that November 8th was a wonderful evening. The folks who run The Shed are a super accommodating bunch, Chris and Rose were very gracious about letting us take a bit of video, and even though the place was jam packed, everyone had a really great time.