Stolen Bicycles Gang… August 17

Stolen Bicycles Gang
with the Public or the Press, and the Bloggers
at Hoko’s, August 17, 2007
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

You Say Party! We Say… seriously, making fun of their name is so passé. We all know it sucks. Everyone on The Internet is having a field day with it among their reviews of Lose All Time (the consensus: it’s not very good). Anyways, they played a “secret” show ten minutes away from my house. A secret leaked to all the hundreds of people on Franklyn Currie’s mailing list, and those people smart enough to realize there was a reason that YSP’s members had all RSVP’d on Facebook. I knew about it, but I also knew the Bloggers were playing at Hoko’s. I could spend a couple dollars on coffee and watch dance-punk with some school-mates, or I could pay $16 for a round bus trip to Vancouver, run a kilometre and a half, and pay another $7 to be just in time to see a show with only three bands.

B-Lines – Demo

B-Lines
Demo Tape
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

B-Lines songs average sixty-six seconds each, which leaves just under eighty-five minutes of blank tape to play once the five songs are over. Why would someone release a cassette in this day and age? There’s a tape renaissance in the works; like vinyl, tapes fight disposability by forcing the listener to actually interact (when was the last time you rewound an mp3?) with their purchase. Unlike vinyl, cassettes can hold a lot of music and are dirt cheap to make. Hopefully having that explained to you has got you to dust off your old tape deck in preparation.

Cajun Dance Party… July 18

Cajun Dance Party
with jakobinarina
at the Luminaire, July 18, 2007
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Hunting for shows to go to in London, I couldn’t surf the internet for five minutes without wading waist-deep into the hype that surrounds Cajun Dance Party, who as far as I can tell, are only popular because they’re just fresh out of high school. With this many rave reviews I had to check them out. The final date of their UK tour was smack in the middle of my trip, so I made a note of it, not bothering to buy an £8 ticket.

Tin Pan Alley Festival… July 15

Tin Pan Alley Festival 2007
with Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Help She Can’t Swim, Future of the Left, We Start Fires, Bolt Action Five, Sunset Cinema Club, the People’s Revolutionary Choir, 35 Seconds, Post War Years, and Herra Hidro
on Denmark Street, London, July 15, 2007
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Disclaimer: the following is taken from notes of various scribblousness, taken in various states of sobriety, and as such, may not be totally reliable. I think that I at least have all the bands right, but various details may be mixed up.

Scrounging the internet a couple weeks before heading for the UK I found this free festival on my first weekend in London. I spent the morning of in Greenwich with my family doing very little, and around one (the festival allegedly started at eleven, but I doubt showing up that early would yield any decent music) found my way to a tube station. The underground is like the SkyTrain, had it been built over a hundred and fifty years, and planned out well with a good, easy to use system (although the collapse of the company in charge is front page news). Of course, when the tube first opened, Vancouver had a temporarily inflated population of 30 000 thanks to a gold rush.

All Purpose Voltage Heroes… June 15

All Purpose Voltage Heroes
with TAXES and Schuul
at the McCallum Activity Centre, June 15, 2007
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak‘

Eighteen bands couldn’t play this show, and there were at least half a dozen shows happening in the Fraser Valley that night, including two in Chilliwack. Attendance was unsurprisingly pathetic.

Blueprints of Tomorow [sic]

Blueprints of Tomorow [sic]
Demo
Reviewed by Stephen Jersak

Blueprints of Tomorow [sic] managed to get their demo passed along to me for review, although by the time I got it I had heard enough about it that I could have memorized it. The CD starts with Supernatural Reality, which was “originally written for a school rap competition in grade 10 which I got 3rd place for.” Honestly, I’m surprised that a sixteen year old possesses this level of literacy. Included here are excerpts from the lyrics, as presented in the “enhanced” content.