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The Other Press was on hand for all four days of
Vancouver’s biggest independent music festival. Here is a
break down of what we loved on each of the days. There °
is definitely some solid talent moving on up here in the
west. Keep an eye out for some of the bands mentioned,
they could well be the next big thing.

Wednesday:

I started off the evening at eight 0’ clock at the Roxy,
where I caught The Art of Dying, who wins the prize for
most amusing band description in the pamphlet: “There is
no guarantee in life: death. The beginning is simply prey
for the end. The art of dying is your life to live.” Whoa,
that’s deep, deep as an outdoor lavatory, which brings to
mind a simile for what they sounded like. Well, at least the
levels were good. For a minute there I thought I was listen-
ing to the radio. But whatever, they will probably be
famous someday.

Next stop was the Buffalo club, where I had the pleas-
ure of watching Jennifer Galt. Unfortunately, there wasn’t
much pleasure in /istening to her. She played some poppy
three-chord compositions, which might have sounded
alright if it weren’t for her benign back-up band. She had a
really nice voice though, powerful too. She could stop traf-
fic with them pipes.

Counting Heartbeats

 

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Jonathen Inc.

By 9:50 I found myself at the Media Club, one of my
favorite venues in town. The band was a local outfit called
Counting Heartbeats. I am glad to say they did not dis-
appoint. The dynamic five-piece post-rock-meets-country-
meets-slowcore outfit stirred heartstrings, and encouraged
feet to begin tapping. They manipulated their keyboard,
electric piano, and guitars to squeeze out strange and won-
derful sounds, all the while affecting an enthusiastic audi-
ence with their feel good/feel sad melodies. The amount
of vocals and instrument switching made them seem more
like three bands than one. Fortunately, they all sounded
good.

No No Spots

 

» NEW MUSIC WEST

Festival Showcases Local Up and Comers

Iain W. Reeve & Brady Ehler, Musical Masochists

      

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The tail end of the evening reared its ugly head with
Blinded at the Piccadilly Pub. They were a boring alterna-
rock band with an emo “edge.” After a song and a half, I
moved on.

I ended the evening at the Lamplighter, where I caught
the art rock duo, Voltage. I’m sure most people would lis-
ten to them for ten seconds, and just shake their heads.
But, I was bobbing my head, because I love that shit. The
drummer was a wizard, the guitar player was a chick with
pig-tails. She cranked the bass all the way up, and the treble
all the way down. She wasn’t so much playing guitar as
manipulating distortion, but she did it well.

Thursday:

Having spent much of Wednesday running from club
to club in a mad fury, hardly seeing more than a few songs
by any one band, I decided on Thursday night to park my
firm but yielding behind at one of everyone’s favourite
Vancouver venues: Richard’s on Richards. The proposed
lineup promised a solid night of emerging Canadian talent.

Just as we arrived home town team Jonathan Inc. was
about half way through their set. The skillful drive of
Glenn D’Cruze on drums and the clever and subtle key-
board stylings of the lovely Michelle Grunert were perfect
accentuations for the twangy and often surprisingly rocky
Rickenbacker guitar strums of leadman Jonathan
Anderson. A strong performance from middle to finish.

Second up was, and I have little trouble saying this, my
favourite surprise of the festival. Hailing from Edmonton,
Storyboard is a four peace of delightfully awkward look-
ing kids who can totally bring the house down. Combining
the best aspects of post-rock giants like Sigur Ros and
Mogwai, with falsetto vocal styling reminiscent of the
aforementioned Sigur Ros as well as Pilate and Radiohead,
and some straight multilayered rock a-la Broken Social
Scene. Lengthy, dynamic, thick arrangements line a set that
does not stop attacking till they say good night.

Following them was an equally strong band of an
entirely, different. style, Pop-folk-rock foot.tapers, Paper