The Ex live in Vancouver: review and photos, June 26 2026

Terrie and Kat by Allan MacInnis

That was great... my favourite reviews of last night were from Ed Hurrell and Nick Mitchum... Nick came to see Gord but hadn't heard of the Ex... Ed was blown away... "Now that's a band!" I pointed my phone and said, "Give'm a thumbs up, guys!" Their faces say more than I will...

Happy campers after the show

In fact, a few friends came, some directly on  my invite, and maybe my Straight article actually helped with this one... hope so... venue wasn't full but with competion from FIFA and Ak'Chamel it was all right! I woulda done more if I coulda.. run through the streets of the city like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers... "They're here! You must listen! You must go to this show!"

The band were very patient with my excesses and signed everything... except Terrie I think missed my Brass Unbound album... and I left the cover of my Kurdistan 7" in my bag (oops). Thought I'd lost it, even! They sold all their merch, including the Zea albums Arnold said he'd bring (they sold in Montreal)... no t-shirts... no setlists to steal, either, since they just played the songs in order off the album (I think), and one encore...  

Openers Grdina and Lillinger smoked it up but I realize that I'm a vulgarian, the oud is interesting and beautiful but I liked hearing Gord ROCK OUT most, which he did plenty of... Lillinger was so expressive (with his face as much as his drumming!) that he almost looked like someone (Bill Paxton, maybe?) playing a drummer in a 1983 movie about a punk band... they weren't a punk band but played with the intensity of a punk band... Grdina was like a hyper-intense John McLaughlin, jacked on steroids and stimulants circa Love Devotion Surrender (I don't know if John McLaughlin was ever jacked on steroids and stimulants and I doubt Gord was either but he PLAYED like he was, dig?)... laid down a few hooky loops, essentially basslines, and then built sheets of building intensity on top of them, pushing you upwards towards the ecstacy, like he wanted to make your brain ejaculate its contents onto the ceiling... I haven't seen him enough this year...

(Bob will have this from another angle, not sure what Terrie was doing, was part of the chorus of one song later in the night, Terrie doing this "tellya a secret" thing as he joined in...)

And The Ex was amazing, everything I'd hoped for... It's just as well I don't live in Europe, I'd see them every show, I would just go see the Ex and the New Model Army every gig and never see or do anything else... I did note, though, that the sound was better from the right side of the stage, at least up front: Terrie's monitor made his guitar anarchy too dominant on the left! I liked the rhythm a bit more dominant in my mix, so I eventually moved over, but Terrie's a real character... smiled through the night, goofed around with the audience, poking and prodding them and even deliberately (playfully) knocking over someone's beer that they had put on the stage; he even played his guitar on the edge of the stage (or with some sort of lid-like circular thing -- maybe part of a drum -- or with a metal camping cup, or with a drumstick or sometimes with the fingers of his right hand, but not in anything like a conventional fingerpicking way... almost more like a bassist... fascinating to watch)... earlier he giggled when I told him that if you watch the Youtube video of his last show in Vancouver, when he played here with Han Bennink and Brodie West, there's a fat man seated up front with a really terrible hairdo: "That's me!"

You were left wondering if Terrie is always this happy onstage... he bounced from foot to foot all night, smiling even when he had a guitar pick in his teeth... his guitar looked like it survived a war or three... I wonder how long he's had it? Had almost as much character as he does!

There were a couple of real characters in the audience, too, including a slightly aggro (but still jubilant) dude in a beret who had seen them in Seattle... he yells that at the band at the start of this clip... Kat is like "uh, okay, thanks"... but his enthusiasm was sincere and palpable... he woulda moshed if there'd been a moshpit... I was glad there wasn't (moshpits aren't rhyhmic enough for this kind of music) but I was happy there were people dancing besides me...! 

Shot another clip too, one of Arnold's songs... I think it's "Spider & Fly" but Bob is snoring on the couch here (he's crashing) as I type this... so I can't easily check... it was the song after "The Evidence."

They traded up their encore... my Straight article is wrong, they didn't do "Soon All Cities", they did "The Heart Conductor" off 27 Passports. Which is also great. The other error in the article is that Andy doesn't really play "bass", he plays guitar, but he is often doing bass parts ON his guitar, if that makes sense... I must investigate... I will investigate... Bob's photos are better than mine but we'll save'm for a magazine... I sure hope I get to see this band again...

Amazing night. At their current rate of performance in Vancouver, we can expect them again in 2061... hope they come back sooner than that! 

The Ex on Apocalyptic Floods, Cow Poop Deodorant (?) and NoMeansNo

The Ex by Susana Martens

Note: The following is an adjunct to the big feature in the Straight on The Ex last week, which you should read first! This is just "what I did with the outtakes" (but they are fun ones). 

(Added after the gig: I did do a couple of vids... here's "Wheel"... I'll let you find "Spider & Fly")

Songs by the Ex can sometimes take the form of impassioned, rhythmic, poetic rants. This is true both for the GW Sok years and the Arnold de Boer ones. In the case of Sok, take "Walt's Dizzyland", off 2001's Dizzy Spells. It takes on "quicksand Hollywood" and "slow-match fast food" (a slow match is like a cannon fuse, burning slowly and steadily, implying that fast food kills you cumulatively instead of all at once). The lyrics rail against falsification of reality forged by Disney and its effects on our minds, a phenomenon that, elsewhere on the album, is likened to the acts of a "money vulture... turning bullshit into culture." A sample lyric:

Everyone be seated, tell you a little story
"Once upon a time" it starts, then it chews the facts
With Mickey, Walt & Donald
Goofy cousin Ronald
They wanna swallow all your souls, as if they've inked a pact

Are we fucked, are we nice, are we ducks, are we mice, are we men, are we mean, are we living
Living in the dream-machine

Past lyricist/ vocalist of the Ex, G.W. Sok, when I asked about this song, re-read the words and observed: "it seems like this is sort of happening right now, also, but much worse than I expected. Disneyfication to the bone, but then the most dark version of it. Greedy scum in the White House, lying and cheating ALL the time, working their way towards the death of democracy. But still, I'm writing this with fingers crossed, hoping that somehow something good shall emerge soon. The world is pretty fucked up right now and we the people deserve so much better. much, much better."

Similar in passion, but slghtly more cryptic in its phrasing, "In the Rain"  is the "most in-your-face song" on the band's newest album, according to present vocalist/ lyricist/ guitarist Arnold de Boer. It sounds like Fugazi, if Fugazi included a free-associating Dutchman pouring out a stream of invective in a two-and-a-half minute word-flood. It's a challenge to follow along, especally since the lyrics are not given on their bandcamp; you have to go to the album's back cover to read them. In part, the lyrics go:

In the rain, I saw sheep gathering on a hill
Lining up, forming letters, letters then words
That say: You Are Not the World

In the rain, I saw the blurbs, blubber-burbs
Puffed-faced, back-laced Camel-smoking bubbles
Scream against sunscreen
That the burning is a healing
Swallow bleach to tune in with the leader

In the rain, them flapping their lungs out
Driving their bloody bottom golf cart, escape
To the plastic gardens of Roundup glyphosate
In the rain, rubbing tons of cowshit
Into their armpits to keep their right arms straight
In the rain, carrying farmer millionaires on a fishing boat
Blocking the ferries that try to save the school kids
For a better future
Their future.

The lyric is inspired by a poem by Joost Oomen, "Dieren en Dingen in de Regen" ("Animals and Things in the Rain"), which you can track down online in the original Dutch and translate, but it won't help unpack the specific images in the song. For instance, what's this about rubbing cowshit into your armpits, to help keep your right arm straight? We assume that last is a reference to a fascist salute, which leads us briefly down a Google rabbithole, trying to see if Elon Musk--the most famous (apparent) Sieg Heiler in recent memory--had, say, any ventures involving cow manure bath products. I mean, one never knows. It was entertaining, but bore no relevant fruit, though we did find an Instagram video involving cowshit shampoo, which is apparently a thing somewhere. 

De Boer has been too busy with the band's tour of Canada to elaborate further, but he does note that "The Loss", https://theex.bandcamp.com/track/the-loss another apocalyptic song on the album, is about "jumping on the last boat when you're about to lose everything"--another image, as with "Monday Song" discussed last week, of a world that has been apocalyptically flooded due to climate change. Some of the lyrics:

What did the sinking start
I'm getting dressed, sackcloth and ash
The people all ask me who died
And I say it is you who are dead
It's time to rebuild the ark
So we'll never need to use it in the end

The song ends on de Boer chanting "loss loss loss' over and over again--a grim catharsis, but a powerful one.

The idea of loss is also evoked by the remarkable cover painting for If Your Mirror Breaks, by "Woeloem" Hessels, the pen name of Wim Hessels, a Dutch painter whose work also graced the cover of the Ex's 1990 EP Dead Fish; he appears to have been the father of Terrie Hessels, AKA Terrie Ex, the sole founding member of the band to be playing Friday's show (though Andy Moor and Katharina Bornefeld have both been in the band since the 1980s). The image on the cover shows, with considerable abstraction, someone howling in grief as they embrace a fallen loved one.

As noted last week, to prepare for the show, If Your Mirror Breaks is really the only album (and maybe a bit of 27 Passports) that needs knowing; the Ex will not be delving into their back catalogue, which is just as well, since trying to play catchup on their 45-year back catalogue would be a daunting thing.

In fact, the last time they were in town was a 1991 two-night stand in Vancouver, headlining at the Cruel Elephant and then sharing a Commodore bill with Nomeansno, whom the Ex remain enthusiastic about. On the topic of the legendary local punk band, who retired in 2015, drummer Katherina Bornefeld tells the Straight, "we became good friends, because both the members of Nomeansno and their crew were incredibly kind and generous people with a great sense of humour. And their audience loved us too! We had a brilliant time together. It was our first time in Canada and it was a fantastic experience".

Since that time, the Ex and Nomeansno played 30 gigs together, also including shows in Europe, Bornefeld says. Sadly--and somewhat ironically--Nomeansno co-founder (and current Dead Bob bandleader) John Wright, who turned me onto the Ex over 20 years ago, will not be able to be at the Friday show; he has noted on social media that he wishes he could be there, but he is bringing Dead Bob to Europe this week and will be playing a Fusion Festival in Germany when the Ex is at the Hollywood in Vancouver.

In fact, Dutch Nomeansno fans who are reading this should take heed: Dead Bob, Wright's new band, who do a sizeable number of Nomeansno covers during their set, will be touring through the Netherlands in late September of this year.

Has Bornefeld managed to check out Dead Bob yet? Nope! "I didn’t know anything about John’s recent project, but I’m glad to hear he’s still active. He's a great drummer!"

The Ex plays tonight at the Hollywood Theatre. https://www.coastaljazz.ca/event/the-ex-with-grdina-lillinger/ There is some uncertainty about start times but I would suggest arriving before 7, to be sure to catch openers Grdina/ Lillinger. 

The Ex in the Straight -- DO NOT MISS THIS BAND!!!

Photo by Geert Vandepoele, 2025

So my interview with former vocalist for The Ex, GW Sok, current vocalist for the Ex Arnold de Boer, and drummer (and only occasional vocalist) Katherina Bornefeld is NOW LIVE. If you love this band like I do, this is a shareable link. They haven't played here since 1991, I don't think...? It's a big deal that they are coming back!!!! 

 https://shrlnk.ca/s/Fiw94h5U  

Maybe more to come...?

Asian Persuasion All Stars in Montecristo Magazine, plus a note on my still not being Stephen Hamm

(rehearsal space shot by Allan MacInnis: L to R: Brooke, Melissa, Jose, back-of-Tamlah's head, Tim, and Tony)

So my Asian Persuasion All Stars piece went live today! 

The band members have been very appreciative. I didn't get to include a history of every member, and left out various details simply to meet my word count (which I did not end up doing, but there's always a question of how much over you'll be allowed to go).

Unmentioned by me, Ron Yamauchi had what the band described as a country song, "Take the Train Away", but having peered at the lyrics over Tamla's shoulder, I could make neither heads or tails of them: which train? To be honest, my mind went to Japanese Canadians being shipped out by train to internment camps in the interior of the province in the early 1940s, which would fit with the idea of writing on anti-racist themes, except Ron's not nowhere old enough for that to have been a childhood memory of his; if he were indeed writing about such a politically charged moment in Canadian history, he was doing so very obliquely. Which complicated matters: if I mentioned the song, I would have had to ask him to explain it, and then to explain it myself: a threat to the word count! 

I also made little mention, in the version that saw print, of Brooke Fujiyama's "Petrichor", which seemed clearly the least political song of the night, but my strongest impression relating to that song, was how walking to their studio, all I could smell was the East Van chicken rendering plant, whereas emerging, I was treated to that very rain-on-pavement smell that gives that song that title. It only lasted a block before the stench of chicken carcasses took over, but it was a very welcome aroma!

An early draft did have a paragraph about that song, but it got almost entirely axed (hadda chop something). 

And of course, I didn't really do justice at all to Norine Braun. She wasn't present at the one rehearsal I was able to attend, but the issue was again more one of word count: she's an accomplished singer songwriter in her own right, but her own work deserves more space than I would have been able to give, and including something more about her would have meant trimming something else out, which I did not want to have to do...  

If it's any consolation, there was someone even dearer to my heart who did not make the article: myself. Because at one point, I considered getting into an entertaining, longtime grievance I have had about being mistaken for Stephen Hamm, which actually made a "long draft". It had come up quite organically in the interviews, and seemed at least possibly relevant! But as you see, I am not in there, Hamm is not in there. If I'd been blogging it, it would have been!

The initial draft (over double the requested word count) took the time to set it up: both Tony Lee and Ron Yamauchi, I took pains to explain, were at the notorious Slow show at Expo 1986, the one that led to both singer Tom Anselmi and bassist Stephen Hamm dropping trou in disrespect of unpopular Socred Premier Bill Bennett, which caused the Expo peeps to panic and pull the plug, and further led to the remainder of the showcase getting cancelled (Tony recalled that Art Bergmann was scheduled to go on after Slow, but didn't). Yamauchi relates that  he had a press pass from the Peak at SFU, so he knows he was there, but he wasn't up front, chanting "Expo sucks" with rest of the crowd. By contrast, Soreheads singer Rob Elliott, now based in Toronto, got arrested, Lee told me. "It was supposed to be a whole two-week Expo, a local independent showcase, and then it got wacky, the whole thing got cancelled, and everyone was upset. Rob was sort of crazed and yelling, though he's kind of harmless. But they took him away, and when he was taking him away, his best friend Steve Bentley yelled out, 'Do you want me to tell your Mom?' So that was really fun!"

Telling that story (which I didn't end up doing, as you see) allowed me to at least set up the Hamm reference when we got to the bit about members of Asian Persuasion All Stars being mistaken for each other, because I got to explain that I was frequently mistaken for Hamm, and occasionally also taken for other men of onetime girth, including Ty Strangelhold, Alex Varty, Geoff Barton and the former guitarist from Aging Youth Gang. I don't think I look anything like any of these men; we belong to, maybe, the same rough category (large white males of a certain age), but that's not a matter of racism, I opined to Tim, but rather a tendency to file people of similar appearance into broad categories, which means occasionally reaching into the file for one person and pulling out another. I mean, sure, Eric and Tony don't look much alike either: 

But Hamm and I, at least in my mind, also are pretty easy to tell apart. He's about a foot taller than I am, for one thing. He has a moustache, which I don't. Tim Chan actually observed that Hamm and I do share more physical attributes than he and Eric and Tony, in part of the interview that did not get used, but in the end, I couldn't justify using any of this. Not even this charming photo:

Actually, the more I look at the thing, Tim's got a point: we do look a little alike. More than he and his bandmates do, anyhow. I still think there's something to it, really, this idea that we file people in categories, which sometimes means imperfectly identifying who is who; Eric and Tony are both drummers in independent local bands of Asian background, roughly of the same body type, so people getting them confused with each other at least COULD be some feature of categorical perception, of the same type that leads people to try to talk Theremins with me...? 

Actually, it seemed more plainly racist (as well as a much more severe failure of perception) that Tim would be mistaken for Tony or Eric, mind you, since he REALLY looks nothing like those two (and plays a different instrument, to boot). But it just wasn't worth taking up the wordcount. I decided it would suffice to represent Tim and Tony on the issue, and leave my own grievances out of it. 

So Ron, Brooke, Norine, that's my defense: yes, I wrote less about you than I might have, but I also cut MYSELF out of the story! (And a perfectly charming Slow/ Expo 86 anecdote to boot, which people would have enjoyed -- Tony sure got a chuckle out of telling me the "Do you want me to tell your Mom?" thing).

Hope people dig it anyhow!

See y'all Friday at the Fox! (Tickets here, Skaboom! video here). 

Oh, and China Syndrome plays Victoria the next night, at the Mint, by the by!

Gig tip: See The Ex (the homework is easy): one of my top five bucket list bands, playing Vancouver this month!

So I will have something upcoming on The Ex, playing the Hollywood July 26th -- yes, the same night as Ak'Chamel, which is unfortunate, since these are two bands that will have overlapping fanbases, but I gather the Hollywood set is going to be an early show, and that Ak'Chamel will start late, so there is, in fact, time to do both gigs, maybe? Just a bit of a commute between them! 

For my money, if I have to pick between one of the two, I'd pick The Ex; they haven't played Vancouver, I think, since their May of 1991 show with Nomeansno at the Commodore. Ak'Chamel will be back sooner than The Ex! 

And the homework on this is easy: check out If Your Mirror Breaks -- especially the global-warming themed "Monday Song," for starters. If it sinks, just buy a ticket and trust me. (Gord Grdina is opening, too, with Christian Lillinger, so that's another good reason to go). That album will make up 90% or so of their setlist, so that's really all you need to go on. 

If you need more words, however, I can offer a few: friends on social media were likening the songs by The Ex that I posted to The Fall and late-phase Captain Beefheart, and I can hear what they mean, and don't mind using the names of those bands as touchstones for people who don't know what to expect or why they should investigate. But the differences are more significant than the similarities. I actually know The Ex quite a bit better than I do The Fall, admire them more, care more, and find that besides some superficial sonic similarities -- think the Beefheart comparison in particular is misguided, if you really get down to it. Like,  sure, you could put "Listen to the Painters" on a playlist with "Run Paint Run Run" and it would be amazing. But Beefheart was never as democratic with his poetry as The Ex, had, god bless'im, elitist and obscurantist tendencies (which maybe could be said of Mark E. Smith too?). Beefheart and Smith set out to create a cult mystique around themselves, to draw you into their influence and command your attention; I don't think either artist would ever be as heart-on-sleeve topical as The Ex get on "Monday Song", for instance. Sure, The Ex has poetry and artfulness and so forth in abundance, they also just want to be understood, want to be responsible world citizens, want to work "for the people" rather than for their own cult status, which (bless'em, y'know, but still) is more than one could say for Beefheart or Mark E. Smith... I like and listen to The Fall and love some Beefheart and wholeheartedly agree that a squid eating dough in a polyetheline bag is fast and bulbous, and I can drop that into conversation at random and sometimes do, but on the other hand, that's just a nonsense phrase for Beefheart cultists to use to signify their elite status and/ or maybe entertain themselves and or bond in their status with other people who get the joke, which ultimately is kind of... not that interesting, you know? You don't want to go away and contemplate the speed or bulbousness of that squid. There is nothing to learn from it, no deeper emotional level to access. It's just entertaining bullshit -- VERY entertaining bullshit, GREAT entertaining bullshit, and I have nothing AGAINST entertaining bullshit, some of my best friends (musically speaking) are entertaining bullshit... 80% of my record collection is entertaining bullshit...

...but The Ex is much more than that. They write in a way that resonates with me morally, intellectually, and aesthetically in a way the more exclusionary, culty, individualistic tendencies of The Fall, or Beefheart do. There, I said it. ">", you know? 

Still, it's not a bad "sounds like" comparison point, if you are a noob to their music and want something to go on as a starting point. Sonic Youth might get mentioned (believe they recorded with them, tho' I don't recall liking that EP much -- a Fishtank thing). More relevant are Ethiopian jazz (they recorded with Getatchew Mekuria) and European free jazz (they've played with Han Bennink, say). Maybe Crass for the early stuff (but they are less direct). Hell, let's even mention Nomeansno, who they shared bills with? They have a bit more in common "morally" with Nomeansno, I guess... but sonically not so much... 

Really, The Ex sounds like The Ex. 

And The Ex, I am told, is not a band that delves into their back catalogue for the purposes of live shows, so as wonderful as some of their old songs are, you don't have to go back to 1979 to master their upcoming setlist; you can basically just focus on their current album, and maybe "Soon All Cities" and/ or "The Heart Conductor" off 27 Passports. Those two songs have been on recent setlists, as well, so we might expect them here. Much as I'd love to hear, I dunno, "The Prism Song" or "Town of Stone" or "Blueprints for a Blackout" or... I have a dozen songs from their back catalogue I'm deeply attached to, but the band DOES NOT DO THOSE SONGS, they don't have hits that they wheel out from past decades (they've been around since 1979!!!). So basically there are two albums you need to know (you could also throw in Catch My Shoe, if you like, which was their first LP with Arnold as lead vocalist, back in 2010. I doubt they will reach even that far back...!). 

...though if you do WANT an old release of theirs to explore, bearing in mind that it's not going to matter to the show, maybe start with (I think) their first with Steve Albini, Turn. That's a marvelous album, one I think anyone who likes artful prosocial punk should know, but it's not, like, homework or anything. 

And if you want another song they will play in Vancouver, note that I'm really excited to hear off If Your Mirror Breaks, "Wheel" is my other favourite; I always love the songs Katherina sings. 

Tickets here!  

Shfestival Weekend with Balkan Shmalkan and Friends

Did anyone do anything with the press release for this show? Truth is, I'm tired as hell of writing about bands, especially for no pay, no offense to anyone; hell, I'm even missing shows by fave local bands, I'm so burnt out: like, the Tranzmitors and Night Court were the opening acts for the Clorox Girls tonight, and *I was not there*. 

But if you're looking for something SUPER FUN to do this weekend, here's the press release for the Balkan Shmalkan Shfestival (I somehow would prefer that as Shmestival but it makes no sense). I might even catch some of this myself! Note that the first night, Like Whatever, who we much enjoyed opening for the Young Fresh Fellows, are playing... I haven't caught anyone else on the bill, I don't think!

Here is a clip from a recent Balkan Shmalkan show! (Does the choral vocal remind anyone else, weirdly, of spaghetti westerns?).

Commence press release... 

East Vancouver - Balkan Shmalkan has been a fan favourite in the traditional, punk, and funk music scenes for over ten years, and while Vancouver gears up to host the world this summer, SHFESTIVAL is here to prove that the beautiful game isn't the only thing worth showing up for. This 3-day event offers something for everyone, and in the spirit of the band's new album title, ensures there is "No Trumpet Left Behind".

June 12 Funk and Punk Night, Sub in your cleats for dancing shoes. A raucous party with notorious funky punk acts Shakter, Babyface Brass, Mooshy Face, Like Whatever, and an unhinged set of tuba bangers by Balkan Shmalkan.

Grandview Legion, 2205 Commercial Drive, 7pm–midnight, $30 for the night or $50 weekend pass.

June 13 Balkan Night, A different kind of beautiful game. Featuring local dancer legends Nada and Mihajlo from Gradina Dancers, virtuoso Balalaika player Denys Kinchev, Sindikat Sina Roza (Seattle), Bučan Bučan (Victoria), and a feisty set of Balkan Shmalkan's traditional repertoire. Grandview Legion, 2205 Commercial Drive, 7:00PM–midnight, $30 for the night or $50 weekend pass.

June 14 Daytime Park Hang, The cooldown lap. Come bask in the afterglow, nurse headaches, and toss around ideas for next year. Trout Lake, North End Dock, 3360 Victoria Drive, 1:00 - 3:00PM, FREE.

Tickets: simpletix.com/e/shfestival-tickets-268075 

Performer Information

Balkan Shmalkan’s funky brass dance beats are rooted in the aural traditions of the Roma and Klezmorim of Eastern Europe and blended with a mixture of pop, funk, and jazz. They are a spectacle unlike any other; a colourful, vibrant and celebrative group that sings in 5 languages including Serbian, Romani, and Italian. https://shmalkan.bandcamp.com

Babyface Brass is a Vancouver-based street jazz and party band known for high-energy busking, blending jazz, New Orleans second line, funk, and hip-hop. Active for over 14 years, the ensemble features horns, drums, and tap dancers ("From the Soul"). https://babyfacebrass.com

Mooshy Face is a punk band from Vancouver, Canada. Focusing on being mooshy, alcohol, aliens, and alcohol, Mooshy Face strives to be one of the bands singing about these things. The three-piece band, encourages their friends and fans to come together and be frans instead. https://mooshyface.bandcamp.com

Like Whatever brings a crushing and infectious pop-punk/rock experience with saxophone inspired by The Cure, Wet Leg, Prince, David Bowie, Paramore, and Avril Lavigne. Like Whatever creates and produces all of its own video content, having released their first single and bombastic original music video ‘Hater Blockers’ during Summer 2024. https://www.likewhateverband.com/

Shakter - Premiere performance of Live PA "dance party, dance party, dance party... sorta cerebral." https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568983553197

Denys Kinchev is a Ukrainian virtuoso balalaika artist, composer, and arranger known for modernizing the instrument by blending folk, classical, and jazz. His "Balalaika Acoustic Show" uses advanced techniques like tapping, slapping, and finger-style to create a unique, energetic sound. https://denyskinchev.com

Bučan Bučan (Victoria, BC) combines traditional Eastern European Balkan Brass songs with a high-energy dance party. They find their sound from Romania, Serbia, Romani, Turkey, old Macedonia and surrounding areas. With a cadre of brass instruments, clarinet and violin, they add bass and drums to create a modern old-world sound. https://bucanbucan.com

Balkan Traditional Dance Lesson with Nada & Mihajlo from Gradina Dance Club. Nada and Mihajlo are core members of the Gradina Serbian/Balkan dance group in Vancouver. Mihajlo, from Ruski Krstur, is recognized as an expert of Serbian and Balkan folk dances. He has toured and performed throughout Europe and is always excited to share the magic of this captivating dance form with newcomers.

Sindikat Sina Roza is Seattle’s only dedicated Balkan brass band, founded in 2024 to bring high-energy, participatory folk music to the Pacific Northwest. The band plays raucous, soulful, and dance-focused music inspired by Balkan Romani traditions, with a commitment to anti-fascist, anti-capitalist values and cultural respect. https://sinarozabrass.band/home

Not Without Hope review: a massive continuity error, plus sharks and sandwiches and hypothermia

Joe Carnahan has made a few great films, especially The Grey. If you forgive that film taking liberties with the behaviour of wolves, it's gripping, thematically dense, and rich in character detail; if you're partial to outdoor ordeal films (as I am), it's kind of essential viewing. It's the only movie of his I've loved, but I've liked enough of his films that I did a "top Joe Carnahan movies" post awhile back, taking in my five favourite films of his, and sticking The Rip in the #6 slot. 

Probably The Rip has fallen in my estimation, based on subsequent reflection and a few somewhat scathing reviews I read after I wrote that piece, but the top 5 (The Grey, The A-Team, Wheelman -- which he didn't actually direct -- Boss Level and Narc) still remain up there in my estimation as some of the best genre exercises of recent years.  

I'm not going to try to assign a slot to Not Without Hope, however. It's mostly quite well made, has some gripping visuals, and is engaging (a punnier writer would say "immersive") while it lasts, but it's also sorely lacking the writerly flair, rich human detail, and thematic punch that make The Grey so re-watchable. It really and truly is about a group of men who go fishing, get caught in a storm, endure a nautical disaster, and have to fight for survival, all of which is interesting enough on its own, I suppose...

...But that's also exactly all you get. There is one -- count'em one -- moment that achieves something beyond telling its meat-and-potatoes survival-at-sea story, where the surviving men witness a cache of their sandwiches float from under their capsized boat to the surface, bobbing just out of reach in the waves, just as a few sharks start to circle the boat. The men's hunger resonates off the sharks' hunger and made me briefly laugh aloud; it's the most poetic and maybe profound moment in the film. 

Was there anything else to take away from this movie? I guess I didn't realize that being an athlete could be a liability in the face of hypothermia, but I am, shall we say, marked safe from the dangers of having an athletic build. So I'm not sure the information is useful; in fact, based on the behaviour of the men in the film, I feel like I have, generally, a better understanding of hypothermia than they did. Surely these four men should have spent every moment they could in a group hug, to share and preserve body warmth. Didn't they see Shoot to Kill? 

Otherwise, Not Without Hope achieves very little beyond relaying what happens. Maybe this is because it is based on a true story -- people were hampered in taking liberties, out of respect for the families and such? Maybe there was a faith that the story would be gripping enough without much need for artistic license...? I dunno. 

But the one thing that makes me wonder whether the filmmakers really cared about the movie is a glaring continuity error. We see the men through the first night that they are lost at sea, when visibility at night (in a storm) is made much of; we take in the second day (which is when the shark scene takes place -- clearly in daylight); we have a cut to a night shot of men on a boat looking for them, again remarking on poor visibility, and another night shot involving the men's family's, suggesting that we are now into the second night of their being lost at sea. Then we are back to daylight stuff, with both dialogue and intertitles confirming that this is 24 hours after the accident, not the 36+ that the second nigbt scene suggests. Eventually we *do* get to a second night in the water, but the earlier, out-of-sequence night shots are never explained or excused; they're just a massive continuity error in the middle of the film, glaring and undeniable (we hit rewind to review that we hadn't missed anything; we had not). 

How an error like that actually survives not just a theatrical run but a home video release is beyond me. It's akin to the endless legs Godzilla must have had to wade out over a bottomless trench in that otherwise remarkable recent Japanese Godzilla film, whatever the hell it was called (Godzilla Minus One?). It lessens whatever respect I may have had for the film; I can't even say, with a mistake like that so glaringly obvious, that "at least it was well made." 

Mostly well-made, I guess. 

Ah well. I guess I no longer have much interest in following the films of Joe Carnahan.    

RIP Exu Nazares

I'd been Facebook friends with Exu Nazares for a couple of years by the time I actually got to know him a bit. Not sure how we connected on Facebook, but some of the best stories in my Godspeed You! Black Emperor story came from him, related to his time in the Ashe Gallery. It was kind of insane that I'd spent decades wondering about that space, only to discover that two of the people who ran it had, when I wrote that story, been known to me for years.

The Straight story I wrote about him came next. And a crazy number of t-shirt orders. Which I hope were actually helpful -- they're delightful shirts, but I hope the money from them was meaningful? (Because of course now I'm second-guessing whether they distracted him from completing his graphic novel; the last couple of shirt designs I was going to buy, I told him not to even worry about -- I paid for the shirts but said he should just focus on his book). 

No idea what the state of his graphic memoir is. I believe there are completed chunks, but is there enough to salvage a book? In our last exchanges, he was sending me morbid promotional one-pagers for it, gruesome and hilarious stuff modeled off the advertisements in the back of horror comic books. Here's one he posted publicly back in April:

And now he's passed (either Thursday night or Friday morning, not clear technically which). I didn't get to know him very well, but enough to know that he was a neat cat. Condolences to his partner and surviving family. 

Gonna wear one of his t-shirts today...

Interpreting Backrooms: a Jungian Labyrinth -- plus Bleak Week at the Park

I have never read a book by Carl Jung. Hell, I've only read bits and pieces of Joseph Campbell. But if I were going to do a serious look at Backrooms, I'd probably start looking into how Jung (and Campbell) read the story of the labyrinth. Is the minotaur the shadow? What if the hero's journey were an inward one, into the pathways of the mind? 

Habits, loops. "Neural pathways of least resistance." The thing about Backrooms is, the first time you watch it, you are just gripped, engaged with the experience, as mystified as the characters are about what they are discovering; you feel it cohering, but how? Why? You'd have to be a sharper, faster analyst than I to be able to lucidly spell it all out; I doubt many could, on first viewing. The second time you watch it, you realize that there are decoder rings given to you throughout and the film is very, very cohesive, meaningful, applicable to your life, even. The therapy session at the beginning of the film is so thematically expressive that it gets repeated almost verbatim by the session's patient, later on, in the backrooms. 

If you cannot find yourself in these monologues, you probably won't engage on the deepest levels with this film. You are actually meant, I think, to apply the ideas of the film to your life. It seems maybe worth doing, maybe even profound? (Or profoundly depressing? That last moment is kind of grim). 

Of course, the aesthetics are gripping, too. Is that Kubrickian perspective? It seems close to it at times. And the set design is fascinating and the sound design is superb. I was able to close my eyes for one bit and just dig the music, during Clark's early explorations. You can enjoy the film just as an immersive experience, if that's what you're seeking. But thinking about what it all means... it really, really helps to see it a second time.

Some tips. If you are in Vancouver, see it at the Park. Don't pay too much attention to the decor on the way in. Just forget all about it and beeline for the theatre; but allow yourself some time afterwards to explore, because they've done something fun. Of course, one of the film's executive producers, Osgood Perkins, is involved with the Park, so there's a reason, maybe, why the theatre has some special features...? (Or is this happening in the Cineplexes, too?). 

Backrooms is the most exciting cinematic adventure I've had since Beau is Afraid, and I think (since I don't have a Jewish mom, let alone the mommy issues of the protagonist and presumed filmmaker of Beau is Afraid) the more important film, the, dare I say, better film; Beau is Afraid is audacious and fascinating, but it's not especially useful (maybe in the same way Jung trumps Freud?). You can't take its lessons and apply them to your life, I don't think. It might help you to complain about things, maybe offer you some catharsis at best, but Backrooms is actually a useful film, a work of art worth thinking about. There are takeaways, besides a queasy feeling. 

So. Go see it, then go see it again, both times at the Park. You'll be glad you did! Erika enjoyed it, too!

Oh, does Chiwetel Ejiofor remind anyone else, in his line deliveries, a bit of Ben Gazarra, or was that just my seeing the trailer for the film Husbands before Backrooms, tonight...?

Because speaking of Gazarra (and Cassavetes, and Falk), also at the Park, there's this Bleak Week thing coming up, and screenings of Husbands, as well as Bergman's noirish surrealist Hour of the Wolf, and some other films I want Erika and myself to see, starting in late June: The Virgin Suicides, Grave of the Fireflies, In a Glass Cage, The Deer Hunter, The Celebration, Nightcrawler, Christian F.... Park listings here and festival passes here. 

And speaking of Ari Aster, the (shorter) 147-minute-long cut of Midsommar is coming up at the Rio, too. I got nothing against Ari Aster, I just think that's his best film (though I prefer the longer cut, myself). 

From Kier-La Janisse to Isobel Campbell (literally)

Isobel Campbell at the Pearl, by Allan MacInnis

That was an odd but interesting day, which went from assembling a second Kier-La Janisse interview as a companion to the VIFF piece in the Straight (see previous post) to seeing her in person at the VIFF Centre. She had good news for me: she had found a book I was looking for -- Yuletide Terror, which I'd hoped to buy a copy of for my Christmas-centric friend David M.; intitially she believed she didn't have any, but it turned out she'd been sent two, so I got one for myself as well, though I am by no means as versed in Christmas horror cinema as M. is (I also snagged a Truth & Soul and a Cockfight book; actually, I got two of the latter, one for Bob. Spectacular Optical books are all terrific presentations, if you don't have one: I also have the Satanic Panic title, which I believe is out of print. 

There was more good news: though I only sat in it briefly, having somewhere else to be, the studio theatre has improved since last I was there (Tom wasn't bullshitting me). The seats are still connected to each other in a kind of bleacher-like setup, but they are more comfortable to sit in, at least in the short term. The crowd was decent in size, considering, so it would have been fun to do a show-of-hands ("How many of you people are here because of the article in the Georgia Straight?") but I did not presume to make my voice heard on this matter. I hope a few people came because of my article!

I never know the net effect of what I do. Sometimes it feels like it's not very much.  

Beforehand, in the lobby, at the table Kier-La had set up, I chatted briefly with someone who wished to remain anonymous (or at least unphotographed), who said her brother Steve had been the head grip on the shoot for the film; she was buying a copy of Truth & Soul for him, and got Kier-La to inscribe it "to Steve". He's probably findable in the nearly-unreadable fonts on the blu-ray, but he is not mentioned on the IMDB or elsewhere. Also, I seem to have accidentally deleted the photo I took of a production still she held up, wherein both Steve and Robert Downey appeared on set. Kier-La said, "There you go, Allan, you have someone you can ask about what drugs were used on the set" (one of the questions I'd put to her that she couldn't answer), but I don't actually care about this, personally -- I was just trying to come up with entertaining interview questions. Still, I was happy Steve was getting a book. 

A previous version of this post said I'd lost my image of the production still that the woman showed with her brother and Robert Downey Sr. during the shoot, but there it is! I hadn't deleted it after all (and the woman, whoever she was, never got in touch). 

I did ask Kier-La some questions about her name, because David M. had expressed curiosity if she named herself after Udo Kier ("That's what he thought, too!" she said -- she had Udo has a guest at a Cinemuerte many years ago). But it turns out, it was her parents who named her thus; it's not a self-appellation. We didn't get to talk much about that, though, since she had to present on the film. (There was a bit more but we'll leave that maybe for a future interview or something). 

Kier-La was great -- one of those spontaneous presentations of information that can only be done by someone who truly knows their stuff; nothing memorized, nothing rehearsed, and the only thing written was a section from the book Truth & Soul about a turd of God, which had some connection to a dream Carl Jung had, or something like that? I didn't take notes, and my wife is sleeping in the bedroom, so you'll just have to go buy the book to get the inside details, though I do not recall Kier-La mentioning if perhaps Downey KNEW of this dream of Jung's before coming up with the motif of Greaser's constipation. He doesn't seem the type to deliberately work an obscure Jung reference into a film! (But I'm sure he'd have been entertained to read it, had he lived to see the book published). 

I also wondered if the explosion of Greaser's Palace was a nod to Zabriskie Point, of two years' previous. I'm pretty sure it must have been (though there are no slow motion clips of exploded detritus floating around afterwards, which would have been too on-the-nose, I guess).

I did not stay for the screening, but raced off down the street to catch Isobel Campbell. Stephen McBean did an opening set, doing a solo version of Pink Mountaintops, briefly bringing Campbell out to do (I guess) an Amber Webber part (Kevin Howes tells me on FB that Pink Mountaintops is always just McBean and whomever he chooses to work with?). I have lost some interest in Black Mountain, having stopped really connecting with their recorded output from roughly their third album on, but I enjoyed McBean's set a lot, even danced around a bit. There is apparently (also via Kevin) a McBean-and-Webber only Black Mountain variant soon to tour through town...?

Then Isobel Campbell came out, with a small band, and did one of the quietest sets of live music I have seen: not in terms of volume, but in terms of the minimalism of her presentation. Many songs, she stood more or less still, one hand jammed deep in the pocket of her jeans, eyes closed as she sang, sometimes swaying a little, but not much more. Her voice was transfixing, of course, and the songs drew heavily on her collaborations with the late Mark Lanegan, with various of her band members taking up Lanegan's parts. There was very little stage patter, though often it was delivered with a personable smile and a chuckle, as when two of her band sat on the floor (for "The National Bird of India") and she joked about how tall she felt now. 

The audience was small; I recognized only local concert fixtures Brian and Douglas in the sparse crowd. I appreciated how attentive they all were, however; there was very little of that ubiquitous Vancouver chatter that can sometimes ruin a quiet set (as with Robyn Hitchcock when he opened for the Psychedelic Furs, or Carla Bozulich when she opened for Thee Silver Mt. Zion, or Wreckless Eric, when he last headlined here, at a gig at the Astoria so disrespectful of his performance that he hasn't come back since). I was struck by the wish for the ability to travel to an alternate dimension, where I'd given advance press to the show, and got to see a) what the audience would have been like then and b) if they would have been louder and less respectful? Maybe it was just as well it was just a gathering of "those who knew". Maybe press would have only helped ruin it?

I think the people who came last night all very much knew what kind of music Isobel Campbell made, and comported themselves appropriately. 

Less minimal in her presentation, Evie Sands took the stage to support Campbell somewhere around the mid-point of her set, singing lead on a few of the Lanegan songs, like "Come Undone." Sands has a fascinating career, which I knew nothing of before last night, having come close to mainstream megastardom at a few points, but having it taken from her by unfortunate circumstance. She was the first person to record a couple of songs that became big hits (including one we all know, "Angel of the Morning"), but for one reason or another, it was other people's versions of those songs that drew the fame and wealth (see her Wiki, or go here). She's 79 now, and still a solid, engaging performer, but at one point, was greeted by a female voice calling out from the audience, "Who are you, honey?" And she took a minute to answer. Maybe there was a thought there, too, in her mind, of an alternate universe in which people knew her name, recognized her face. Someone there last night surely did, but it wasn't me. I texted David M. (who had gotten all excited when James Mastro was supporting Alejandro Escovedo; he knew who Mastro was, more than Escovedo!). But he didn't know who Evie Sands was, either.

So that was interesting -- a story I did not know, some of which I read on my phone while the band was performing (!). Sands brought a bit of liveliness to the night -- she's more of a "performer" than Campbell, though her voice is less gorgeous. This is her version of "Angel of the Morning", if you're curious (just a studio version; it wasn't played last night. I like how her voice quavers on the word "dawn"; there's more vulnerability here than the Juice Newton version, for example). We were lucky to have seen her. But I did not buy the album of hers on the merch table, nor did I stick around to get things signed (I did bring records, including The Boy With the Arab Strap and two later Campbell albums, but both my wife and I have been tired this week, and I elected to just come home without even trying. Maybe they came out? I ultimately decided I'd rather be home early). 

Mind you, if I had Campbell's albums with Mark Lanegan on vinyl -- if they had been issued thus, or were on the merch table -- I would have probably stuck around; they're my favourite items in her discography (I have three of them, but only on CD, and I seldom bother asking for people to sign CDs). The setlist I believe was the same as this one, and as you see, many of these are off those albums, without it being noted by Setlist FM, including a cover of Townes van Zandt's "The Snake Song" and "You Won't Let Me Down Again", both evening high points. Musically, I liked that rootsy stuff, and the near-psychedelic first quarter of the set, better than the more R&B-oriented last half.  

Maybe the slightly sad quality to Campbell's stage presence owes to missing Mark? 

But I don't have much else to say. Campbell did only one Belle and Sebastian song that I recognized, "Is It Wicked Not to Care". She did one song written by Jeffrey Lee Pierce, "Free to Walk", because he and Lanegan were "best buddies," I think was the phrase she used. Interestingly, there is a duet between Nick Cave and Debbie Harry doing that song, which in my mind connects with the only time I saw Mark Lanegan perform, opening for Nick Cave (where the two did a duet of "The Weeping Song").

It was a very low-bullshit night, where if you came to the Pearl to bask in the aura of celebrity or see a dynamic performance or such, you probably left disappointed, but if you came to listen to music being performed beautifully, you were probably intensely satisfied. I would place myself somewhere in the middle; I probably would have enjoyed the night more if there had been seats, though it would have interfered with the few songs I did kinda dance to. It did seem a gig that would have been more appropriate to a seated venue. I wonder how many people were in the house -- maybe 100, tops? Maybe not even that. 

Someone should really reissue those Campbell-Lanegan albums on vinyl.