MUSIC FESTIVALS

MUSIC Summer music fests return with a recharged vengeance

by Mike Usinger

Mother Mother is one of the headliners for the inaugural edition of Ambleside Music Festival.

Congratulations, you made it— through a past couple of years that were unprecedented in our times, and during which you were never more aware of the power of live music. Having come through it all, you’re understandably beyond thrilled about the idea of gorging yourself.

Not on takeout and Net ix—you did enough of that in 2020 and 2021 to last nine lifetimes. Instead you’re all about getting out and seeing as much live music as possible. And there’s no better place to do that than festivals, which are not only back, but back with a recharged vengeance. In the coming summer months you can look forward to not only hanging out with friends and fellow music fans again, but doing so at outdoor concerts that have become as much a part of the city as the beaches of Kitsilano, the cobblestone streets of Gastown, and the majestic North Shore mountains.

See you in the front row.

TD VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL From Dave Brubeck’s hypnotic “Take Five” to elonious Monk’s smoky “Round Midnight” to Miles Davis’s groundbreaking “So What”, sometimes music says more than words ever will. To that end, we could spend a good couple of thousand words trying to sum up the sprawl of this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

Purists and adventurists will be thrilling to the likes of the Tord Gustavsen Trio, Brad Turner Quartet, and Immanuel Wilkins. ose for whom jazz will always mean the glory days of Blue Note and rainy nights in New York City are already looking forward to Jocelyn Gould and the Sunna Gunnlaugs Trio. And those for whom jazz is a state of mind rather than a strict label are stoked at the inclusion this year of Americana-oriented Lucinda Williams and Old Soul Rebel.

If you really want a one-stop primer on the range of talent and styles on o er at the 2022 edition of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, programmers Cole Schmidt and Jeremy Page have created a digital cheat sheet. Working with fellow jazz fans and associates, the duo has come up with a series of Spotify playlists that spotlight the over 700 artists and 200 shows that are part of this year’s festival. (Simply punch in “coastaljazzprog” on the streaming service). Music does indeed sometimes say more than words ever will.

Americana great Lucinda Williams plays the Vancouver jazz fest. Photo by Danny Clinch.

Important details: June 24 to July 3 at various locations; visit coastaljazz.ca for the full schedule and ticket info.

The Vancouver Folk Fest continues to broaden its reach with acts like the New Pornographers.

AMBLESIDE MUSIC FESTIVAL When introducing oneself to the world, it always pays to go big, and Ambleside Music Festival has done just that for its inaugural event. North American punk bands don’t come much bigger or more iconic that Southern California’s multi-platinum O spring. Fellow headliners Mother Mother and Marianas Trench, meanwhile, have both long been genuine alt-pop royalty in their hometown of Vancouver.

Great festivals are also o en all about the undercard, and Ambleside boasts one that includes neo-soul king St. Paul and the Broken Bones, indie-folk upstarts Walk O the Earth, art-pop chanteuse Hannah Georgas, and blues deconstructionists the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer.

And did we mention the setting, with Ambleside Park providing one of the most dramatic backdrops in all of the Lower Mainland? If you’re going to go, you go big, not to mention beautiful.

Important details: August 12-14 at Ambleside Park in West Van; go to amblesidefestival.com for the full schedule and ticket info.

VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL Looking back over the years, the Vancouver Folk Music Festival has always had a somewhat liberal de nition of what constitutes folk. Remember, if you will, D.O.A. playing the long-running fest back in 1988. And hiphop visionary Michael Franti taking part in 2008. Flash forward to today, and this year’s Vancouver Folk Music Festival has once again come up with a lineup that honours the past while looking toward the future.

Folks who understand the genre is more of a mindset than a label will be all-in on indie kingpins New Pornographers and postAmericana duo Shovels & Rope. Forwardthinking traditionalists meanwhile will nd themselves moved—profoundly—by the great Alejandro Escovedo, jazz-in uenced revisionist Allison Russell, and Finnish experimentalists VILDÁ.

Factor in the famous workshops, artisan market, Whistler Brewing beer garden, and scenic setting, and you’ve got a good idea why the Vancouver Folk Music Festival is one of the most-loved events of the West Coast summer.

Indie queen Haley Blais takes the main stage at Khatsahlano. Photo by Kyla Schnellert.

Important details: July 15 to 17 at Jericho Beach Park; visit thefestival.bc.ca for the full schedule and ticket info.

KHATSAHLANO STREET PARTY If there’s one thing that stands out from past Khatsahlano Street Party blowouts, it’s that 4th Avenue in Kits gets turned into what looks like a sea of beautiful humanity. And, a er a couple of years of lockdowns and self-isolation, that couldn’t look more inviting in 2022. is year’s headliners include DIY indie queen Hailey Blais (whose new single “Coolest Fucking Bitch in Town” somehow seems more like a statement of fact than bragging), and Actors (whose latest full-length, Acts of Worship, mixes nine-shades-of-black postpunk with neon-dazzled new wave).

As for the undercard, the 10th edition of Khatsahlano Street Party once again features a lovingly curated lineup of homegrown talent, the list ranging from garage-pop titans the Pack A.D. to theremin experimentalist Stephen Hamm to the nothing-less-thanlegendary Pointed Sticks.

Important details: July 9 on West 4th Avenue; go to khatsahlano.com for the full schedule.

Don Toliver has gone from having zero music experience to headlining FVDED in the Park. FVDED IN THE PARK Here’s something to tell your parents the next time they strongly suggest you pursue a career in law or medicine instead of music. As Eminem once said, you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it, which is how American DJ producer Illenium went from delivering sushi and coaching lacrosse to headlining Surrey’s endlessly loved FVDED in the Park.

Asked about a career that’s taken him from a Kelowna bedroom producer to Shambhala to a FVDED 2022 headliner, bass-obsessed Canadian Excision told Forbes recently, “Even a er you’ve made your dreams come true, there are always more dreams to work towards.”

Certi able rap legend Rick Ross once looked doomed to a life as a correctional o cer, while his fellow FVDED in the Park main draw Don Toliver had zero musical experience before jumping into the game in 2017 at the ripe old age of 23.

And....actually, you get the idea, so above all else expect to leave the return of FVDED in the Park nothing less than inspired. And committed, once again, to the idea that you can do anything you set your mind to....

Important details: July 8 and 9 at Holland Park in Surrey; visit fvdedinthepark.com for ticket prices and full lineup. g

MUSIC Zolas get unfashionable and go deep on Come Back

by Mike Usinger

Because it would be disingenuous, Zachary Gray isn’t going to argue that guitar-based pop music has never been more revolutionary or fashionable. But he will willingly suggest that, in some ways, he couldn’t be happier to be living in a time when hip-hop is king, and EDM rules the clubs and the charts. ere’s a reason for an energy that positively crackles over the line as he talks about the Zolas’ fourth studio album, Come Back to Life. Working for the rst time without longtime keyboardist and collaborator Tom Dobrzanski, Gray found himself in new territory during the writing process. And, at the same time, as he looked for a way forward along with drummer Cody Hiles and bassist Dwight Abell, he became obsessed with the past.

“Once Tom had o cially le the band, the three of us who were le realized it was a chance for us to make the kind of music that we’d always wanted to make,” Gray reminisces. “And that was essentially Britpop music. We thought it was hilarious that we wanted to make Britpop music when there was nothing less cool than that. At the moment it could not be less in style, and that makes us all the more excited to do it.”

Initial sessions for the record that would become Come Back to Life had the Zolas embracing their inner fans of legend like Oasis, Blur, Supergrass, and Suede.

“And then we moved studios and let

Ablaze

Scan to confess

The Georgia Straight

Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed. www.straight.com/confessions

I’ve become a dull person. I wish I had the resources to go nd what wakes me up as a human being but I don’t. I feel afraid to risk the stability I’ve acquired. But which decision will I regret when I’m 80? Will I curse myself for not saving enough money to live or will I regret not making my life worth living? I don’t think I can strike a balance to afford both.

Seriously

Don’t ask me to tell any dad jokes. I don’t know what those are.

I admit

I have not kept my end of the bargain. My best friend died four years ago. Before he passed I promised him i would live life to the fullest. It hasnt been easy. The pandemic hit, i then lost my job and then pretty much lost any motivation. But things are better now and last weekend i partied it up. I stayed up late. I danced to every song and shared the dance oor with some amazing people. I even got a girls number! Lol. So im making up for lost time. Its good to be back but i really miss my friend.

Pluviophile

On rainy days like this I love opening the windows and blinds to watch and listen to the rain. The awed hush it brings to the environment, the muted and potentially electric light in the sky, the smell. It’s the greatest feeling in the world for me. Somehow I become more awake, alert, keen. I breathe deeply and my body relaxes.

Visit to post a Confession

The white basket made Zachary Gray’s ride less cool than Britpop. Photo by Conor Cunningham. ourselves completely go for what sounded like Britpop songs with production elements stolen from other types of music that were happening in the same era in the same part of the world,” Gray notes. “So whenever we had an electronic element we’d try to steal a sound from the Prodigy or from Primal Scream or the Happy Mondays. And that was super fun. I felt like we hit a sound that no one’s doing right now.’” e Zolas have every reason to be not only happy but thrilled with Come Back to Life, a record that nods lovingly to a fabled mid-’90s golden age of British music, but somehow still feels vitally fresh and current. ings kick o with the fantastically druggy and deliciously bass-bombed double shot that is “Violence On is Planet” and “Yung Dicaprio”. e Zolas gleefully unleash the champagnesupernova guitars for “Miles Away” and “I Feel the Transition”, but sound just as comfortable heading for the dance oor with an electro thumper like “Reality Winner”.

Laughing, Gray suggests that a good elevator pitch for the album would be “somewhere between the Trainspotting and Romeo + Juliet soundtracks”. Consider that a heads up that while he understands the simple brilliance of “Wonderwall”, he also has unending love for the atmospheric adventurousness of acts like Tricky, Massive Attack, and Portishead.

“At the beginning of 2019 I went around telling people that I was trying to write the next ‘Wonderwall’,” the singer says with a laugh. “ at was 50 percent as a joke— actually more than 50 percent as a joke because no one was asking for the next ‘Wonderwall’. And that would have been an impossible task anyway. But that was my mission, and that informed things. I didn’t think that I would actually do it, but then we wrote ‘Miles Away’, and it was like ‘ is is as close as I’m going to get.’

“I’ve always loved the Gorillaz and anything that Damon Albarn does,” Gray continues. “And any time you can steal loops and dub beats you’re going to end up in that direction, especially if you sing over them in a breathy way. So ‘Violence on is Planet’ has a real Gorillaz vibe to me. I’ve always believed that sort of ripping o people you admire is one of the most fun ways to write music.”

If there’s a way that the Zolas truly make things their own on Come Back to Life it’s the lyrics. Instead of revisiting a time of bucket hats, cigarettes, and alcohol, and girls who want boys who like boys to be girls, Gray decided that there were issues—some as important as they are heavy—that he wanted to deal with. On that front the Zolas tackle everything from global wealth inequality (“I Feel the Transition”) to Canada’s historic mistreatment of its Indigenous communities (“Wreck Beach/Totem Park”) to real estate prices that have driven young creatives out of Vancouver (“Bombs Away”).

Gray is perhaps at his most devastating on “PrEP”, a dark-wave blast of guitar techno inspired by a Reddit thread where users revisited what it was like to live through the ‘80s AIDS epidemic. But as much as the Zolas aren’t afraid to go deep on Come Back to Life, what ultimately stands out is that the band sounds every bit as thrilled to be alive and making music as Blur on “Song 2”. And, while that might sound like hyperbole, it’s anything but.

“ at whole Britpop movement was one of the most exciting eras of music in my lifetime,” Gray says lovingly. “And I don’t hear it these days. For me, the golden rule is ‘Make the music the world needs to hear.’ Actually, that’s too altruistic-sounding. It’s more ‘Make the music that would fuck you up if you heard it for the rst time.’”

Guitar-music may be in one of its dormant periods, he acknowledges, but that’s nothing new. From Elvis Presley taking the throne in the ’50s, to the White Stripes making the world forget about techno and raprock in 2000, popular music has always been marked by palace revolutions. And, typically, things get most quiet before the storm.

“We’re in a world that’s so pop-focused, and where pop music is so uncool,” Grey says. “And it’s kind of wonderful to think about how few people love guitar music. It’s like a little subculture—just like it was back in the beginning. And that kind of makes it awesome again.” g