Weekend Update

So, besides Lee's wake at Antisocial tonight, there are a couple of rad events happening around town. I'm going to go ahead and post them all in one post, because frankly I've had a tough week.

!!! Last weekend was purely rapturous. I never want to hear a bad word spoken again about uptight scenesters in Vancouver with their arms crossed looking too cool to enjoy anything. I don't want to hear about ironically detached hipsters or music nerds too cynical to move their feet. Elaine Corden from the Westender (sorry, can't link to the actual article) described the night perfectly:

"The effect of the group on the audience was nothing short of a spell. While some enthusiasts up front started off the show shaking their moneymakers, the guileless dancing spread throughout the room like an airborne disease, with even the most conscientious fun-objectors twitching their hips by the end of the show. As the music got more abstract (drum machines, baritone sax, plenty of hand claps), the audience became more relieved of its inhibitions. Indeed, when Offer, er... offered up the ol' chestnut "You Are the Only One Here!", it seemed like a fresh commandment rather than a tired self-help cliche.
I've never seen an audience go off quite like this, but I have, in recent weeks, noticed both local and touring bands seeming to confront the unspeakable darkness of War-on-Terror hopelessness with a shameless devotion to letting their freak flags fly. It seems someone - or many someones - has hit on the idea that if the world is going to end, it don't matter if you sing like a loon, form 20-piece marching bands to play lopsided rock songs, or do you crazy-ass living-room boogie onstage in front of a thousand people. Joy and abandon may be all we have left as the drumbeat of the apocalypse comes ever nearer. You may not be able to stop it, but you can sure as hell dance to it."
-Elaine Corden

(Sorry for the huge quote, but she just totally captured how I felt that night, what with the death of Lee the night before, and the death of my girlfriend's grandmother from cancer that same night, she captured the cathartic release of energy in a mad mad world).

I'll be heading down to the Lamplighter tonight after the wake and I'm gonna sing my guts out. I even wrote a little ditty about guns. Sorry, I know. A lot of the gun thing is media hype, and I'm just contributing to it, and now its even an election issue, but it is all I can think about. I'm in this concept band called The Openers wherein they have open practices, 2 actually, and we write some songs and play and just have fun. There are two drummers; Bernice Jang and Mr. Plow; two bassists, Sarah Jane Truman from the Doers and Jen; a nice fellow named Matt on guitar, and Joel Tong of Black Rice, myself, and Lyndsay all on vocal/tambourine duty.

They Shoot Horses Don't They?, The Robosexuals, and Mohawk Lodge will also be playing Ben Lai's birthday show. Ben Lai by the way is the guy who hosts Shindig! which by the way wrapped up last Tuesday with Romance taking the coveted prize, followed by Fun100 and the Weather. They Shoot Horses are a carnival of awesomeness; a full fledged mediaeval party punk freak fest. Robosexuals take a more angular approach to the same party by incorporating some post punk math and Jello Biafra type ramblings. Mohawk Lodge are just nice. They are sort of the chill out room after the freak fest, where the kids gather round the campfire and reflect on the night's procedings.
Also tonight is Les Ramsay at Goon Pack. Les is a strathcona skater and a member of The Lifetime Collective. He is good peoples.

If this is all too last minute for you, then go to Silkhaus tomorrow night for Pride Tiger, Hard Drugs, and The People Verses. Haven't seen any of these bands before, but Pride Tiger has some promising pedigree with Bobby and Sunny from Three Inches of Blood, and Mapee from S.T.R.E.E.T.S.. But Popsheep assure us that "Pride Tiger doesn't sound like those bands at all, instead they play rock inspired by 70's garage and psych rock and a variety of other sources."

On Tuesday, if i don't do a separate post on this, is the Sound Document Xmas Party with You Say Party! We Say Die!, Cadeaux, Bontempi, and DJ Grant Lawrence (of CBC Radio 3), at Richard's On Richards. This independent music & art sale is a collection of Vancouver record labels, fashion designers and visual artists who will be selling goods at wholesale prices. Booths by Ache Records, White Whale, Sound Document, Devil May Wear, Andy Dixon, Dani Vachon and more.

So have fun this weekend, but remember to be safe. No mouthing off any dumb jocks okay?