Archive for January, 2012

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver. With 28,304+ artists, boasting 131,429+ tracks, the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. With that massive library along with tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

I’m excited for this week’s playlist makers! I’ve heard nothing but great things about one of Vancouver’s newest bands: No Sinner. And since they’re playing a show at the Biltmore on Friday we asked them to put a playlist together of some of their favourite Vancouver music!

Also, their video for their song Boo Hoo Hoo was filmed at the Waldorf Hotel. It’s awesome, so click below to hear the playlist, check out the video and we’ll see you Friday at the Biltmore!

Salad of endive, apple, bacon, walnuts, croutons with a gorgonzola dressing

Running until February 5th, Feast Van is a culinary and social venture taking place at 16 of Vancouver’s east side restaurants. Feast Van was started by Joe Chaput, proprietor of Au Petit Chavignol and Les Amis du Fromage, as a way to raise money for the Strathcona Community Center Backpack Food Program. Throughout the 2 weeks of Feast Van, participating restaurants will be donating $1 from every fixed price 3 course meal towards the program. The objective of the program is to help feed children on the weekends when their school feeding programs don’t run. Children from both Seymour and Strathcona Elementary Schools receive backpacks each Friday afternoon. Here is what they receive in the bags.

Food each child takes home for the weekend

The idea is to help families maintain consistent and healthy nutrition for underprivileged inner city youth, which in turn helps their performance and overall health. The program currently feeds 300 children through its current structure and is always looking for volunteers and community sponsorships to help out. Feast Van serves to buttress the programs’ effort with both direct contributions and latently by raising awareness.

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Nicholson Road is an ongoing photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Vancouver Is Awesome will be featuring an image from the previous week, shot in one of the many ‘hoods around town in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the City of Vancouver. Metro Vancouver Is Awesome, and you should get out and explore it!

Every now and then I find myself presented with opportunities to see some pretty amazing places. This past week, that meant visiting the rooftop of Bing Thom Architects‘ Central City tower in Whalley/City Centre, Surrey.

Talk about an incredible view.. you could see everything from up there! Including Coquitlam’s Austin Heights neighourhood we visited just last week (the strip of bright lights near the top left of the photo).

A little closer to home, you can see Tom Binnie Park in the foreground just to the right of the skytrain. The park includes the BC Lions Practice Facility, an awesome new covered skate park, and the Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre (which is home to one of the largest digital artworks I’ve seen in the Metro – Urban Screen). By the way, the rec centre also served as the Games Preparation Centre for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, meaning Surrey earned the right to be called a Venue City.

But facts and tidbits aside, sometimes all I want to do is be still enjoy the view.

Honestly, when you live in Metro Vancouver, there really is no place like home!

Archives of the Nicholson Road project can be found HERE.

Wanderful is an ongoing feature where each week I throw a hypothetical dart at the Vancouver map and travel there – by foot or by transit, and attempt to capture some of the cool and interesting small details that make that particular neighborhood unique and special. From sidewalks to back alleys, gardens to graffiti, I’ll become a wandering tourist in my own backyard. Armed with only a camera and very little natural sense of direction, it’s an journey of modest proportions, and an opportunity to see more of what makes this city AWESOME!

Like many other Vancouverites these days, I’ve been holing up indoors, away from the endless rain and patches of snowy weather we’ve all been subjected to recently. But I badly needed to admit something to myself: I was going absolutely stir crazy within the confines of my apartment, and although I had decided to go on a bit of a Wanderful winter hiatus for a few months, when the sun poked it’s head out on Thursday, I couldn’t resist — a spur-of-the-moment impromptu photo wandering adventure was far too long overdue.

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The Bassment is a weekly article bringing you coverage of the best in Hip Hop and Electronic music from around Vancouver. Weekly interviews, event coverage, album and concert reviews that show how awesome our city’s electronic and hip hop scene really is.If you think there is someone or something that needs coverage in this city in regards to the Hip Hop / Electronic community then get in touch with us.

Going on right now at Ayden gallery until February 5th is Dedos’ Day of The Dead exposition. Dedos a member of the well know AA crew is a multi medium artist who many of us know for his murals and street art. Ayden gallery which is known for finding some of the most unique and talented artists in the city has once again presented a show for the masses. The art work ranging from aerosol on walls, acrylics on canvas and colour pencil also include artists such as Scott Suemes and Kaput. I checked out the show on opening night and asked Dedos to answer a few questions about the show.

Dedos – Acrylic

Explain your ideas behind your latest show at Ayden gallery in Vancouver?

I tend to believe that most people know what a Mexican day of the dead theme is,  i tried to capture even a slight impression of the feeling I received being in Mexico when we lived there for a year or so, plus we added a bit of word play.

“Day of the Dedos- the Art of dying while living”, well first off,  I wanted people to get my name pronounced correctly so by re-enforcing the beginning part “Day of the….,” people expect the word “Dead” after it and when they see my name they’ll know how its supposed to sound.  Dead -os is mucho better than Dee Dos.  I got that alot growing up.

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		Print Matters is a celebration of the printed form and all the awesome local people who bring it to you: literary journals, publishers, magazines, hand presses, and independent booksellers.
		This week we share a drink and conversation with Clélie Rich and talk about Room magazine, collective changes, and the Roomies.

Room magazine is “Canada’s oldest literary journal by and about women”. The first issue came out under the name A Room of One’s Own, a pull quote from Virginia Woolf’s 1929 essay by the same name, and the famous quote, “It is necessary to have five hundred [pounds] a year and a room with a lock on the door if you are to write fiction or poetry” is still found on each issue’s cover.

Entering its 35th year in publication, Room  has come a long way from its roots as “A Feminist Journal of Literature and Criticism” to its current, more inclusive, “A Space of Your Own” where their loyal readers find the finest emerging women’s writing 4 times a year.  Clélie Rich knows Room because over the past two decades she’s twice been a member of the Growing Room Collective, the group of volunteers who handle all the editorial, production, and administration of Room.  I spoke with Clélie about the benefits of working in a collective, the editing process, and how Room has changed over the years.

Photos by C. Kwan

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LOCATION: Stawamus Chief (Click here for map) The other day my Scottish husband said, “where did summer go?” and it made me think about how much I actually enjoy that season. After spending so much time in Scotland, we got used to just flat out not having summer. Ever. A year and a half here and we’ve turned into spoiled weather-brats. I have to say it, I miss the sun. I miss going out without a coat. I miss my Birks! Thinking about sun made me think of the best time I had last summer and that was our stroll up The Chief. I’d known of it my whole life but had never done the trek. It was all it was cut out to be and more. So, I’m thinking about summer and of sweaty, smiley hikes and flipping through the Unplugged Flickr Pool and there it is. My mind described photographically! This image filled me with joy and it was just so timely. It also reminded me that I’ve got a handful of rolls of film to get developed from right around the time that this was made! Adventure, thoughtfulness, calm and the future are what I see in this image and these things are so much of what summer means to me. Thanks to your September-self for making this image, Thomas and for the reminder to get that film processed!

There was a lot of amazing photography in the pool this week folks, please keep posting and spreading the word about the Unplugged Flickr Pickr.

It’s that point in your consciousness where you can feel at one with nature, escaping the trappings of the day-to-day to an almost dream-like place where nothing else seems to exist besides you and your natural surroundings. It is our opinion here at VIA that Vancouver holds a unique place in the civilized world in that reaching this state often requires no more effort than simply pulling off to the side of the road, pocketing your keys and taking a few steps into the forest

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

So as I was driving in to work this morning, the grill of my car killed a few snow flakes along the way. Sorry snow, but you belong up on the mountains where we can enjoy sliding over you with long planks strapped to our feets. Just like our Daily Flickr Pickr pool member Billy Jaye, who, according to today’s photo choice, did just that this morning. I’m sure you took good care of him though, which is the complete opposite of what I did to you this morning. Again, I’m sorry. ;)

Enjoy Magical Mystery Tour by Billy Jaye

John