The 2010 edition of Shindig the famous CiTR contest has ended last night with the victory of the Vancouver folk rock band The Oh Wells defeating favourites the WIZERDZ and the Crystal Swells. The Railway club was packed, full with people and the WIZERDZ but a great show with costumes and everything, there was even a Chinese dragon going around the club. The usual train was also circuling around. The public was energetic and the bands had great performances. Watch them when they play around town.

Wildlife is a power pop band with strong elements of rock and soul. I just found out about these guys and while I don’t know much about them, I am kind of hooked on their MySpace page right now. I think I’m going to have to buy their debut album “Strike Hard, Young Diamond” which went up on itunes yesterday.

Cold music. You can feel the sadness in the notes, traveling through a Tundra of emotions. This Canadian band based in Vancouver reminds me a lot of British bands from the 90s. But lets read some of the history of this band.
After a childhood spent on the land in the isolated Northwest Territories of Canada, the guitarist travelled to the metropolis of Toronto and became involved in projects ranging from jazz to metal to rap. After dealing with the roller-coaster frustrations of band politics, he went solo, and headed west to Vancouver to write his own music. He began performing using a looping device that would allow him to record, modify, loop and layer his acoustic guitar performance into a haunting moodiness evocative of a cold Northern landscape. With a rich, unique sound of his own that was already gaining an audience, he had no need for backing musicians.

Do you want to know who the best Victoria bands are according to 17 experts in the music industry?

Royal Canoe is a deadly band armed with falsettos, guitars, effects pedals, drums, basses, tambourines, shakers and a five-keyboard super-weapon. Royal Canoe play lyrically sharp pop songs that make people dance, sing along and weep.

Don´t miss The Deadwax Collective next Tuesday 16th on The Morning After Show at 11:30 AM on CiTR 101.9 FM Fundrive Party will include Jay Beck.
Dead Wax The space near the center of a vinyl record where the recorded songs end and the label-paper begins. It is the area of the vinyl record that contains no sonic information…..
Until the Collective meet up…

We’re making music that we enjoy
Featherz Edge has managed to create a unique and vibrant sound, clearly defining the group as a force to be reckoned with on the Vancouver music scene. “Featherz Edge has a loyal fan base in Vancouver and has a solid foundation built on professional players. With the right team, watch for them to take off.” – Todd Hancock: CFOX Vancouver B.C. Featherz Edge will be going in-studio with producer “GGGarth” Richardson (Rage Against the Machine, RHCP, Rise Against, …

The world premiere of the documentary Love Shines was screnned at the VIFF this Friday at 9:30 PM. If you missed the world premiere the film will screen Saturday October 9 at 3:30 PM at Vancity theatre and also on Friday 15 at the same theatre at 3:45PM. The theatre was full, the film is very personal and fans of Ron will love it. The screening had the presence of Ron Sexsmith, Bob Rock and the director Douglas Arrowsmith. Great to see so many people there.
I talked to Ron Sexsmith and the director of the film Douglas Arrowsmith for my radio show at CiTR 101.9 FM The Morning After Show about their documentary.The film has been shot in the course of 7 years by filmmaker Douglas Arrowsmith. The documentary focuses in the struggle of acclaimed Canadian singer songwriter Ron Sexsmith to make a successful record. Not that he has been unsuccessful as he is well regarded and every one of his albums had had great reviews, but I guess he is needing that commercial super hit that everybody sings along.

After years in the indie ‘underground’ & a few solo releases, Kwong teamed up with co-producer Sam Ryan to record the long-awaited, “The Year Of The Fish”

Quiet Kids live in Vancouver, though none of us are originally from here. There isn’t really a scene to speak of so it’s easy to say that we don’t sound like the scene. It’s harder to say what we do sound like. Mikey says that I should say that we sound like “your favorite band but on steroids.” It’s more like Elvis Costello and older Wintersleep and newer Thrice and a little Constantines and a lot like our friends’ musical projects. I hate to admit it, but we may even sound a little like The Killers, which is doubly brutal because none of us listen to them and they also have a singer who mostly sings.

When most kids their age were riffling through college textbooks and figuring out the path of least resistance towards some sort of stable income, these small town boys were riffling through their parents record collections, studying the messy emotion-fueled rock of Pavement and the fuzzy post-rock discography of Sonic Youth, dreaming of ways they could marry it all together. So far it hasn’t worn off, being the average age of 21, they still have their collective sights set on a future a little bit more shaky and unstable than the rest of their peers.

TofuMeat is indulgence in absurdity, comfort in sonance and sheer thrashing of life and limbs. They want to rock you into delirious ecstasy and make you dance like rabid hedonists…. If you like solid rock and roll with a little grit then check out their tracks, “Girl Listen”, “Uncomfortably Numb” and “Black Leather”.

What I really like about these guys is their stripped bare sound. It’s gritty, electric and echos like a memory of something important you had to say. I really like their song “The Words The World Is Made Of.”

These guys have to be one of the hottest bands in Toronto right now, every other person I talk to has mentioned them to me. Consisting of a DJ and a guitar player their sound is cutting edge, tight and exciting. With lyrics that make you think and a heavy groove you can’t help but fall into the soundscape they unleash upon you. I would love to see these guys live!

When filmmaker Jorge Pérez y Michel from México and my friend in Spain Jose Luis told me they liked a band called Japandroids from Vancouver I was not surprised. I knew my suspicions were right when I saw them at Shindig and thought these two guys were going to places. A powerful duo with a sonic sound. I think they have assimilated a lot of rock and that shows in their music, I though of a lot of bands while listening to their music, from the Strokes to Trans Am, from the British noise por of Ride or Jesus and Mary Chain to the New York Sonic Youthish bands. But their sound is direct, like a fist, just a guitar and vocals of Brain King and the drums and vocals of Dave Prowse.