Derek Miller
The Dirty Looks
Arbor
I try to balance the good and bad in my reviews, even if I'm not into the style. I don't like saying it, but the sophomore album from Ontario's Derek Miller thoroughly sucks. It sounds like a bar band...
Lay it On Me
Self-distributed
Waa-BOOM! With an album title ripped from frontman Ryan Hoben’s muscleman tattoos, indiefolkrocksters Minto punch it open with sludgy dirge, “New Bones” – formerly a chooglin’ alt-country number i...
The Japandroids are a two piece guitar wailing, drum pounding, singing machine, (do droids get angry when you call them machines?) and ‘Lullaby Death Jams’ is their recipe for a good time. It’s made up of five interestingly good track...
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...
There were moments of giddy transcendence a few weeks back when this very magazine held its official Launch Party featuring a host of Vancouver talent, among them a long-standing (but largely overlooked punk band) named Aging Youth Gang, wh...
THE BLACK HALOS
We Are Not Alone
Acetate
God bless Billy Hopeless & the Halos. They’ve earned their entry into that category that bands like Motörhead, AC/DC, & The Ramones (the Holy Trinity of Rock) fit into – you always know wh...
Lovers of art and poetry will converge at two creative events in April in celebration of Poetry Month. These ekphrastic events – ekphrastic meaning a conversation between two pieces of art – will take place at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and t
Victoria’s Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra recently played Upstairs Cabaret here in their hometown of Victoria with locals Compassion Gorilla and Carousels opening up. There was a strong sense of community and no shortage of dancing at the ...
I’ve always thought that someone should rhyme “Erik Estrada” with “vagina dentata” in a song, and it occurred to me, when I came late and awestruck to the solo output of songwriter and Nomeansno/Hanson Brothers guitarist Tom Holli...
White Lung/Abe Vigoda/Vivian Girls
Biltmore Cabaret
April 29th 2009
One unassuming day last summer, I went to the Astoria to see a girl band that was on a label I really love – In The Red. They were called the Vivian Girls, and they ...
For the second year in a row in downtown Kingston, Spring Reverb brought a whirlwind of kinetic energy from June 1 to 4, ringing in the new month with music, mayhem and magic with its 2023 edition. We sent photographer Virginia Meeks to capture it all, an