Georgia Straight Issue #2847 | June 2023

THE MILLENNIAL ERA

They grew up in a world on fire. Now they’re trying to put it out.

TD MAIN STAGE

DEAR ROUGE SABAI

FIONN KIMMORTAL LUDIC MISSY D

MIKEY JOSE RICECAKE: SUMMER SOLSTICE

HAYLEY WALLIS & THE BRIGHT FUTURES VAN LEFAN 樂凡

VANCOUVER CHINESE MUSIC ENSEMBLE

溫哥華中華樂團

PLUS: RACES EVERY 11 MINUTES CONCORD PACIFIC CHAMPION RACE SERIES

ARTISAN MARKETPLACE DR. SUN YAT-SEN CLASSICAL CHINESE GARDEN 中山公園

CHINATOWN PAVILION INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY PAVILION FOOD TRUCKS

PUBLIC ART PROGRAMMING

JUNE 24-25, 2023 |

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CONCORD PACIFIC PLACE, CREEKSIDE PARK, AND FALSE CREEK

Walter

10

MILLENNIAL POWER

How Vancouver's largest generation is re-imagining what's possible.

By Phoebe Fuller

>> Cover Artist Profile

@GeorgiaStraight

Rachel St. Clair | @rachelstclairart

Rachel St. Clair is an illustration and lettering artist. Originally from Scotland and now based in Vancouver, her work is vibrant, loud, just a little chaotic, and inspired by retro cartoon styles and nostalgia. She loves illustrating characters, creatures and objects that tell a visual, meaningful story with an “ugly cute” aesthetic and doodle patterns.

affordable housing needs more than empty homes tax

By V. S. Wells

The ABC-majority Vancouver city council raised eyebrows last month when it decided to scrap a planned increase to the empty homes tax from three to five per cent. The move, recommended by a staff report, cited “fairness and effectiveness” as reasons.

Council also voted to apply new exemptions retroactively—giving back $2.4 million from city coffers to developers with unsold empty units, and $3.8 million less in tax revenue overall. Critics say the move goes in the wrong direction, during a time of skyrocketing housing costs and spiralling affordability.

“We have a party running city council… that took money earmarked for housing, that is desperately needed, and decided to send it back to developers, for what amounts—in the world of developers—to petty cash,” Gabrielle Peters, a disabled writer and policy analyst, told the Straight in an interview. “But we could have built actual homes, for people who have no cash.”

Since its introduction in 2017, the tax has raised $115 million towards building affordable housing. Just over half of the $28.7 million raised in 2022 was designated to the Community Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) that provides non-profit housing developments with grants, so long as all homes are secured as social housing; $10.1 million was earmarked for “emerging priorities,” and $3.6 million went to staff working on affordable projects.

“In the grand scheme of things, it [$3.8 million] is a relatively small amount of money that will help keep the costs down... for those who are purchasing or occupying these buildings,” ABC Coun. Mike Klassen said, referring to an amount that would have paid workers’ salaries for a year or contributed to a significant chunk of a CHIP grant. (The three grants awarded in 2022 were between $4.8 and $6 million.)

At the time of print, the Mayor’s Office had not replied to questions about whether the funds would be replaced from another avenue.

“This is really about who has access and power at City Hall,” Clara Prager, campaign lead at Women Transforming Cities and responsible for their Watch Council program, told the Straight in a Zoom call. “Developers asked if they could get their money back, and they got it back… This shows us whose voices are being prioritized, and it brings us to the question, who is the city council here to serve?”

The discussion around empty homes tax is a microcosm of a bigger problem: there simply isn’t enough housing in the city, especially for low- and middle-income households.

For all the talk around developers and housing in Vancouver, not much of it actually gets built. Data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation shows that the City of Vancouver had around 4,000 new apartments beginning construction in 2022, compared to 15,000 in the rest of Metro Vancouver. In 2022 council approved 10,800 housing units—only about 18 per cent of which were social housing or below market-rate rentals—which will take several years to build and be liveable.

Between 2017 and 2022, 30 per cent of units approved were affordable to people earning below $80,000 per year—well below the city’s 48 per cent target, and not factoring inflation into account.

For many years, the proposed solution has been simply building more housing, hoping the free market will sort itself out. But Jennifer Bradshaw and Owen Brady, co-directors of Abundant Housing Vancouver (AHV), told the Straight that the city’s housing policies don’t reflect current reality.

“We need much more social housing, and the appro-

priate places to get revenue for that is not empty homes tax, which is a tiny per cent of all homes, but through things like property taxes,” Bradshaw said. “I find it a bit distracting from what really needs to happen.

“Tinkering with the empty homes tax,” she continues, “is going to have tiny, marginal effects, when we’re going to need big moves to get apartments, to get social housing, co-ops, all those desperately needed [types of] housing built.”

Vancouver’s property taxes are low: even a 10.7 per cent hike to the general purpose tax levy announced in March ended with taxes being 0.28 per cent, lower than they were in 2021 (0.29 per cent) due to decreases in fees going to other recipients.

Property tax here is less than half of what it is in any other major city in Canada. However, CACs—community amenity contributions, which developers pay to build new properties—are relatively high, varying from project to project. Brady said these costs get passed on to newcomers through higher new-build home prices and rents.

“We’re basically taxing newcomers to avoid having to pay for things that really should be paid for through property tax,” he explained. Social housing “should be paid for out of property taxes, because it’s a societal responsibility. Immigrants and migrants coming

AHV co-director Jennifer Bradshaw. Photo by Jon Healy.

here are not causing the need for social housing: we needed the social housing anyway.”

Currently, 52 per cent of Vancouver’s residential land hosts just 15 per cent of homes. The city’s ongoing “missing middle” plan aims to combat that with gentle density. A recent consultation found 77 per cent of respondents agreed multiplexes should be allowed in all low-density areas across the city.

Majorities also supported ensuring these homes were family-sized (64 per cent) and possible to purchase at below-market rates (58 per cent). The most recent proposal update recommends allowing three to six units per lot (up to eight if they are rentals) and exploring making one in six units “a below-market homeownership option.”

But multiple units (like laneways and basement suites) are already allowed on most single-family zoned land; they’re simply not built in large numbers, due to the costs associated with permits and building more square footage on lots.

Meanwhile, the rare areas of the city that are zoned for high-density see market-rate or luxury apartments being built, with small numbers of below-market rate

Who is the city council here to serve?

– Clara Prager

rentals included to satisfy city policy incentives—primarily adding housing that’s only attainable to high-income residents, with scraps for the less well-off.

On top of that, city reports say building lots of higher-density homes could place more strain on Vancouver’s sewage and infrastructure system. To Bradshaw, this is another sign that the city is shifting tax burdens from residents and homeowners—and the people most likely to vote in municipal elections—onto renters and people moving into the city.

“We aren’t charging property taxes high enough to maintain our current infrastructure, so again, we’re trying to use CACs charged on newcomers—who haven’t been using the infrastructure—to help

JAZZ FESTIVAL

JUNE 23 – JULY 2, 2023

renew and pay for existing infrastructure that needs upgrading,” she explained.

Affordable housing conversations don’t exist in a bubble. Decades of policy decisions at the municipal, provincial and federal levels have led to the current situation, where housing costs and rents soar while vacancy rates remain low.

Peters points to the cessation of social housing funding that happened under Jean Chrétien’s federal Liberals in 1994 as one issue. Responsibility was shifted onto provinces, which did not continue at anywhere near the same pace.

“The Canadian government removed itself from housing. If we had maintained the rate of building 16,000 non-market social housing [homes] annually… it would have resulted in 464,000 [homes] minimum in the last 29 years,” she said.

And that’s assuming the same rate; how could things have been different if the government had committed to building more homes during that time period?

Focusing on numbers of units, or approving social housing without interrogating whether those units are fit for purpose, moves activists’ goalposts from wanting good homes for all, to begging for (and appreciating) any kind

AROOJ

of housing, period. “The discourse around housing… [is] becoming narrower and narrower,” Peters said.

Ahead of the election, ABC promised to triple the number of housing starts and streamline permitting; increase social and supportive housing investments in line with inflation; and double the number of co-ops. There were no specific promises for secured rental homes, non-market homes, or social housing units.

The empty homes tax, as Bradshaw pointed out, is only a small part of the conversation around affordability and housing. But ABC’s willingness to bend on it indicates that the council may not be prioritizing helping those most in need. Changing zoning requirements to allow multiplexes or easing permitting laws may help a little, but in the long run these piecemeal policies will not affect the kind of big change that’s necessary to deal with a huge problem.

“Developers have always had a cozy relationship with City Hall,” Prager said. “What’s different about this situation is the urgency of the crisis we’re facing. The housing crisis is only getting worse… But rather than finding solutions to address the challenge, we’re doing the same thing as previous councils.” GS

LIDO PIMIENTA • BRANDEE YOUNGER

SONA JOBARTEH • PURA FÉ & JESSE ZUBOT

LITURGY • ISAIAH COLLIER & THE CHOSEN FEW

ZOH AMBA • JOE RAINEY • YU SU

NDUDUZO MAKHATHINI • JAMES BRANDON LEWIS

OSTARA PROJECT • MICHAEL KAESHAMMER

WHITE PEOPLE KILLED THEM

FARIDA AMADOU • VEDA HILLE

CIMAFUNK • WITCH PROPHET • BIG|BRAVE

CAROLINE DAVIS’ ALULA • JOANNA DUDA • STORRY

CAITY GYORGY • BREKKY BOY • MARY ANCHETA QUARTET

MALI OBOMSAWIN • KATE WYATT QUARTET • NIGHTCRAWLERS

kitchen workers suffer when temperatures soar

By Felicia Chiappetta and Madeline Dunnett

On a hot Saturday in July 2021, Damon was working in front of three deep fryers, one grill, two flat tops, and 10 burners in the kitchen of a busy restaurant in Langley. Outside, a heat dome stretched across the Lower Mainland, but Damon still had to go to work.

Customers had few options of places to go since many restaurants closed that day, so they flocked to the ones that were still open.

“The rush started at 11 in the morning, and it ended at close,” Damon, who asked us not to include his last name, told the Straight in an interview.

The kitchen had no air conditioning—a common situation for most commercial kitchens due to safety concerns around food particles being sucked into the machines, even though commercial kitchens can get up to 45 C or higher. At 47 C, the human body’s cells can begin to die. In the most extreme cases, organ failure can occur, which could ultimately lead to death.

According to a 2021 StatCan report, only 36 per cent of households in this province had any type of AC, even though that summer the BC Coroners Service reported over 600 deaths due to extreme heat. That kind of weather is only getting more common: BC warmed by 1.4 C between 1900 and 2013, more than the global average of 0.85 C.

After a record-breaking May heatwave, long-term forecasts and rapidly warming ocean temperatures suggest this summer is set to be similarly hot, dry, and dangerous. Despite its precarious and unregulated nature, indoor food service is rarely considered when discussing the human cost of extreme heat.

The Canadian Centre for Occupation-

al Health and Safety does not currently state a maximum temperature in which workers can refuse work—it is mainly left to the employer’s discretion.

“I didn’t feel supported by my employer at all,” Damon said.

According to Jen Kostuchuk, the climate-labour project coordinator with the non-profit Worker Solidarity Network, 88 per cent of workers reported they do not feel comfortable refusing unsafe work.

This finding comes from her year-long study, released this spring, in which she interviewed dozens of food service workers in BC—baristas, cooks, servers, dishwashers, drive-thru workers, and cashiers.

One food service worker told Kostuchuk, “[Employers] expect you to work harder and faster in the heat because it still needs to get done.”

Kostuchuk believes that although policies to protect workers during extreme heat should occur at the governmental level, it is ultimately up to the employer to implement them. One of those policies is more paid sick days.

“We’ve had workers who have said that they don’t take advantage of the five paid sick days because they’re fearful that their employer will get angry with

them,” Kostuchuk said. “On the flip side, we’ve heard from others who have said they’ve never taken advantage of the five paid sick days, because it’s five out of 365. How do they know which five will be most important?”

When Damon worked in landscaping and the outside temperature would reach 34 degrees, his employer’s policy dictated that the crews had to stop working for safety reasons. But commercial kitchens generally have nowhere near the same kind of heat protections.

During that hot Saturday in 2021, Damon’s manager had a heat stroke and nearly fainted. He took himself to the walk-in freezer and had to cool himself down for 45 minutes—an experience shared by many of the workers who spoke to Kostuchuk, who said they have had to find inventive ways to keep cool in sweltering work conditions.

“The night went on as usual, but just down a manager,” Damon said.

Dr. David McVea, a public health physician at the BC Centre for Disease Control in environmental health services, said that when the body radiates heat, the blood vessels expand like a balloon, allowing for the blood to reach the skin and release heat through the pores.

When you’re dehydrated, your heart works overtime trying to pump blood to your extremities. This doesn’t leave enough blood to travel to your brain. When key chemicals aren’t able to reach the brain, for example from excessive sweating, a person can feel light-headed

or faint.

“Your brain is being changed by the heat,” McVea explained.

Based on Kostuchuk’s research, 77 per cent of workers report that their workplace does not have adequate protective measures when it comes to environmental disasters.

The part-time nature of the food service industry means that workers like Damon have to cover costs of health care on their own, with the majority of their earnings going to transportation and rent.

“The cost of living is so high that you don’t want to say no [to a shift] in case you lose your job,” one of Kostuchuk’s interviewees shared.

Another asked “Why would we justify taking a day off when it means we don’t have as much money to survive?”

Damon stayed at that restaurant for nine months after his manager overheated, and currently works at another restaurant in Vancouver. He’s worked at other food establishments before, but ultimately left those due to employee safety concerns.

As the climate continues to warm, Kostuchuk hopes people will be mindful of their consumer habits when ordering food during extreme heat.

For food service workers who can’t stand the heat, the answer isn’t always getting out of the kitchen; it’s keeping the kitchen cool enough to remain open safely. GS

Jen Kostuchuk speaks at a Worker Solidarity Network rally. Photo by Harland Bird.

Your brain is being changed by the heat.

– Dr. David McVea

BASS COAST THRIVES ON GOOD VIBES

By Kate Wilson

The West Coast music festival industry is not doing well.

In the past four months, several stalwarts on the calendar have shuttered. Constellation Festival—a promising upstart on the scene— has said its 2023 offering is “next-to-impossible to launch.” FVDED in the Park called the whole thing off. The Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which held court in Jericho Beach Park for more than 40 years, was “indefinitely cancelled” earlier this year, before clawing its way back.

COVID, organizers say, buried the industry. Now faced with rising production costs, wholesale staff turnover, inflation, and a Metro Vancouver population that can barely afford groceries, it’s little wonder large-scale events have failed to get bums in seats—or, rather, feet on grass.

But despite all that, Bass Coast festival is thriving. Nestled in Merritt’s Nicola Valley between a bend of the Coldwater River, the 15-year-old boutique electronic music event attracts 6,500 people each year to the inland desert to—as artist Gove Kidao puts it—“get silly to quite serious music.” Each of the four stages is designed with elaborate constructions, indiscriminately housing local and international performers. Giant installations, intimate panel discussions, and movement sessions are planned with meticulous attention to detail. Running in July, this year’s festival has been long sold out.

Like others, Bass Coast has been hit by the hangover of “unprecedented times”: its organizers reference the challenges of building new relationships, entering new negotiations, and navigating new prices. But what’s allowed the festival to continue to flourish, says co-founder Andrea Graham, is its attendees.

“I think the main reason that we are still going is because we have a very loyal community,” she tells the

Straight. “And without them, we wouldn’t have even made it through the pandemic. People moved their tickets to future years, and that allowed us to continue.”

That people-first mindset is baked into the DNA of the event. Not just a one-and-done summer rave, Bass Coast has spent more than a decade running mini-events throughout the year to showcase local artists and offer a rallying point for bass music fans. Even during COVID, Graham (who DJs under the moniker The Librarian), and her co-founder Liz Thomson (creator of art collective The Guild) organized live-streamed sets for long-time enthusiasts. The July festival might be the jewel of the events calendar, but the real Bass Coast, Graham suggests, is its creative community.

“I feel like Bass Coast is a way of life,” she says. “It’s definitely what we live and breathe year-round.”

Hussein Ahmed, a devout attendee of the festival, agrees. He’s been making the trip from Vancouver to Merritt every year since 2015, and has DJed the festival five times under his stage name, Handsome Tiger.

“I think a big part of what’s kept it going is just everyone’s mutual love for it,” he says. “There are a lot of diehard fans and artists that really do their best to … share what we have to offer here in BC.”

More than anything, Ahmed adds, what brings people back is “the vibe”: the intangible feeling of creativity and openness that weaves through the festival’s wacky landscape. Asked to distill its essence into something concrete, the closest the organizers can get is “respect.”

“One of our core values is called ‘room on the dancefloor,’ ” says Graham. “But what that really means is respect, and respect for people’s experience at the festival ... Open-mindedness—that distills back to respect. Creativity—everything, if you really break it down, comes back to that core.”

At the heart of the festival is a blend of seriousness and whimsy. The installations are often internationally exhibited art pieces, but like last year’s “portal potty” (which created a tripped-out chillout space in a tunnel leading out from the back of a toilet), they’re done with a tonguein-cheek smirk. The attendees bring an equal measure of both mentalities: flamboyant fashion, comedic signs, and out-there expressiveness, balanced with an understanding of the privilege of sharing the space with others.

“One of our other core values is ‘take your shoes off,’ ” says Thompson. “It’s just like walking into somebody’s house who you respect. You take your shoes off. And we expect that sort of care and respect at our music festival.”

“We don’t mean it literally, though,” Graham chimes in. “Please keep your shoes on because the rocks are dangerous. That’s the highest incidence of first aid we deal with—not wearing shoes.”

Respect isn’t just the foundation for creativity: it’s also a keystone for safety. And for a festival focused

Handsome Tiger at Bass Coast 2022.

Photo by Cameron Frazier.

on creating a space for considerate self-expression, it’s hardly surprising that consent culture and harm reduction are top of mind for the organizers. A women-run event, Bass Coast has a publicized plan that creates and normalizes access to information, supplies, actions, policies, and relationships that can reduce the risks associated with off-the-grid partying, including substance use.

“Stacy Forrester is our [harm-reduction] lead,” Thompson says. “She and our team find ways to weave that conversation into our contact points with people throughout the year. Education is the best prevention and best way to create respect.”

The same goes for drug testing. Recognizing that substance use is ubiquitous, the pair use technology including FTiR machines, fentanyl and benzo test strips, and reagent testing for on-site evaluations. They can also analyze any plant-based substances for anything that might make people get weird in the wrong ways.

“We are really glad to have that out in sight, because every city or town is faced with a poisoned drug supply, and more knowledge is your best way to make safe decisions moving forward,” says Thompson. “The nice thing about these repeated messages is, I think, people that have come to Bass Coast numerous times really embody that consent culture now, and you can see that people in the crowd almost teach other people about it.”

“You see attendees checking in on other people,” Graham agrees. “And they’re like, ‘How are you? Do you need some water? Are you okay?’ ”

Bass Coast’s community-first mentality might be a key draw for attendees, but it’s also a rallying point for those hand-picked for its roster. Over its tenure, the festival has invited back multiple DJs—about 30 percent this year have played the event before—as well as giving some up-andcomers their first big stage.

The pair is also dedicated to artists’ international growth. In 2019 and 2022, Graham and Thompson secured a streaming partnership with Boiler Room—a household name in underground dance music, which broadcasts shows live online. The sets by Graham DJing as The Librarian, and by Vancouver underground legend Max Ulis, have together garnered more than 55,000 views on YouTube. Hoping to extend that reach further, this year the co-founders have secured a new streaming partnership with a yet-to-be announced broadcaster, which they say will

– Andrea Graham

offer “a fun and slightly different vibe.”

“The West Coast of Canada has an identity that is unique, and so that comes through in the streams,” says Graham. “Part of it is showcasing our community to the world, but then also musically, Bass Coast has always been very much aligned with the musical direction of Europe. And so it’s a really great opportunity for our local Pacific Northwest artists that are worldclass to have a world-class platform.”

Ahmed agrees. This year, playing his unique blend of self-dubbed “decolonized bass music” for the first time on the festival’s main stage, the Anishinaabe Métis and North African DJ credits Bass Coast for providing a career-making platform for his work, and for supporting Indigenous creators. Ahmed is working with Bass Coast’s performance art director to include a choreographed live show that includes traditional dancing and regalia.

“It’s given me a little bit of a golden ticket, which I’m very appreciative of,” he says. “It has literally opened so many other doors for me in the electronic music scene—not just in Canada, but in North America in general. I think that’s a big part of the work that they’re doing, to showcase all artists from all walks of life.”

The beneficiaries of the festival’s platform aren’t just the musical performers. Each year, Bass Coast becomes the largest temporary collection of installation art in Canada. Across its 15-year history, the event has seen interactive pieces including an organ that blows bubbles, an enormous talking robot, a tent filled with taxidermied crow feet that could be pulled from the ceiling to reveal a person’s fortune, blacklight doodle walls, and giant mushrooms that light up in a sequence of colours that form a high-score game.

“A lot of people just wouldn’t be exhibiting if they weren’t exhibiting at the festival,” Thompson says. “It’s where they got their start. And it’s also where a

lot of artists met each other, and has led to collaborations that have turned into businesses in Vancouver, in Calgary, in Victoria, and Canada.”

There are many reasons Bass Coast continues to thrive in a hostile festival climate. The tangible, measurable logistics are one—15 years of experience have allowed the organizers to form deep relationships with suppliers, distributors, and operations managers that permitted them to negotiate a post-COVID crunch. Another is the legion of dedicated volunteers poised to help make sure the event runs smoothly, and that the entire festival site leaves no trace in the Merritt forest. That Bass Coast is both a boutique event—and that attendance is capped—helps keep demand high, as does the organizers’ dedication to year-round community events.

But it’s that vibe that brings attendees back again and again. It’s the dedication to fostering openness, the space for unjudged self-expression, and the delight of unexpected community encounters that leads returning revellers to dub the event “church.” While both the lineup and the art is important, it’s the feeling that Bass Coast offers, the organizers say, that means tickets sell out long before either is finalized.

“I think Bass Coast reminds us that we have this incredible and intense creativity that lives within all of us,” says Thompson. “And when you come to Bass Coast, I think you get really ignited. You get really connected with that deep creativity. And then our hope is that you go out after Bass Coast and share that creativity, and draw on that year-round in your own community.” GS

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MILLENNIAL POWer: THE generation shaping the city

By Phoebe Fuller

Tara Mahoney is a millennial—and she takes it seriously.

“I sometimes joke that my internal age is 27, because I still feel that way,” she laughs.

“I have two kids now and I have a completely different life. So that’s changed a lot, but there are parts of me that still feel an affinity to that period of time.”

The 39-year-old built her career on finding ways to get her generation more engaged in public life. She co-founded a non-profit in 2010 called Gen Why Media dedicated to youth civic engagement, researched millennial engagement in climate action for the David Suzuki Foundation, and now works at Simon Fraser University’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative.

During our Zoom conversation, she speaks with both the passion and exasperation of someone who has been advocating over a decade for a generation that once represented the youthful voice of the future. Now, those young voices have shifted from the aging millennials embittered by capitalism’s failures to gen-Zers, like me, who post on TikTok about destroying capitalism itself.

Millennials, in most definitions, were born between 1981 and 1996, making them around 26 to 42 today. Several factors define the generation in the public consciousness: coming of age with the rise of digital technology, entering the workforce during the 2008 financial crisis, and being accused of killing everything from retail stores to cable TV. Their baby boomer parents long held the majority of financial, political, and social power—but that may finally be changing.

The 2021 census revealed that, for the first time in history, millennials outnumber boomers in Metro Vancouver. While younger millennials are in their mid-20s, a lot of people still imagine the generation collectively as fresh-faced 20-somethings. To Mahoney, millennials’ connection to this period is more than pure nostalgia.

“Millennials haven’t had the opportunity, in a lot of cases, to grow in the same way or at the same pace as their boomer counterparts. So it feels like we’re kind of younger for longer,” she explains.

Millennials are now the largest voting bloc, the largest consumer base, and comprise the majority of the workforce. The majority of wealth is still held by their boomer parents, but this means the generation is poised to inherit the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history. We already see this happening with millennial homeowners whose parents help with their down payment. And while some make it work without help from family, many aren’t so fortunate.

“Most people in this city [and] in many cities can’t afford to buy a home, can’t afford to have kids in a lot of cases, and are often working precarious jobs or contract work,” Mahoney says.

Data indicates she’s right—millennials are living with their parents longer and getting married, buying homes, and having kids later, if at all. According to FP Canada, a financial planning non-profit, millennials are simultaneously the highest-educated generation and the most in debt. These financial challenges are exacerbated in a city like Vancouver, where the gap between the median income and property values is the widest in Canada by far.

Now that millennials are at the age where they really feel the burn of late-stage capitalism, they are more united in the fight against it, Mahoney says. “People are realizing you can’t do it alone. There’s no way that the rugged individualism of capitalism is going to work.”

To create change, millennials go beyond established methods. “There’s the formal political institutions like voting or running for office, showing up at political meetings,” Mahoney says. “But then there’s also starting companies that offer alternative ways of doing business … or doing community-level organizing around [things like] anti-pov-

erty or climate change … which is also super important, so we need all of it.”

I may not be a millennial, but I have a vested interest in what they might be up to in their potential rise to power. We live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, during a period of compounding crises that seem to multiply by the year—climate, housing, financial, toxic drugs, childcare, and on, and on, and on. My fellow gen-Zers and I are entering adulthood during the second recession this century, in the wake of an ongoing global pandemic, all while the planet seems to literally be on fire more often than not. Without much political or financial power of our own, we have to look to the generation above us to pave the way for a better future.

ONE SUCH MILLENNIAL trying to make a difference is Dylan Kruger—though he just barely squeaks into the demographic.

In 2018, the Delta native became the youngest councillor elected in the city’s history at only 23. (As a 23-year-old whose mom still pays her phone bill, this is mind-blowing to me). Now 27, Kruger tells me he was the second-youngest elected councillor when he won his seat again in 2022—the top spot still being his election four years earlier.

Kruger is part of a wave of young candidates who ran and won across BC municipalities in 2022. He says his fellow millennials are changing things, in politics and beyond.

“They’re doing things that nobody ever thought you could do in the cities that they live in,” he suggests. “And they’re succeeding, and becoming incredibly popular for doing so.”

It’s long been a trend for people around the age millennials are now to move from a city like Vancouver to a suburban counterpart like Delta to settle down,

Jade Ho (left) and Lillian Deeb of Vancouver Tenants Union. Photo by Phoebe Fuller.

buy a house, and start a family. But the delay of millennial milestones isn’t exclusive to Vancouver city limits.

“A lot of suburban cities like Delta are going to be in a bit of a crisis situation unless they actually really act on the housing supply,” Kruger says. “Our school population in Delta peaked in the mid-1980s and it’s been declining ever since.”

With a lack of affordable housing available, a suburb like Delta isn’t as attractive to young couples and families. And without school-age children driving the city’s growth, it’s harder to get funding, not only for schools, but for transit and infrastructure.

“Communities that grow get nice things,” Kruger says.

To facilitate growth, he believes we need to reimagine what we expect from suburban life.

“A lot of suburban communities were historically bedroom communities,” Kruger continues. “You sleep here, but you live in other parts of the city. But if we really want to attract young families back to places like Delta, how can we reinvigorate our downtown [spaces]… and create that sense of vitality that suburbs have traditionally not had?”

ADAM MILLS, ANOTHER barely-there millennial on the other side of the spectrum, is trying to do exactly that. Mills is 42 and a co-founder of Four Winds Brewing, a craft brewery tucked into an industrial area in North Delta. I make the half-hour journey from my Vancouver apartment to meet him there, and when I mention it’s actually my first time in

Delta he replies, “It’s not as far as you thought, right?”

Mills lived in Vancouver until returning to Delta, the community where he was raised, shortly after opening Four Winds with his brother in 2013.

“We kind of decided we would want to be the community brewery for the community that we grew up in, in the community that we’re gonna raise our kids in,” Mills says. “There’s also opportunity here to be involved in the next phase of placemaking.”

It’s a stereotype that millennials love craft beer, but in BC, it rings true. Mills tells me that when Four Winds first opened they were one of about 50 breweries in the province. Now, that number has jumped to over 220.

After a decade in business, the Mills family is expanding with an ambitious new 8,600-square-foot hospitality venture in the developing community of Southlands Tsawwassen. Expected to open in 2024, Four Winds Southlands is set to be a giant farm-to-table-esque restaurant and brewery that will, as Mills puts it, “use the land as much as we possibly can to inspire our food and beer.” That’s pretty much the most millennial thing I can imagine. And it’s the exact thing Kruger and Mills

think will breathe new life into their beloved suburb.

“Just establishing a few culinary destinations or hospitality destinations in the community helps anchor that cultural change,” Mills notes. “When more establishments open up, people aren’t longing for what they’ve missed in the city.”

MILLENNIALS WHO STILL enjoy city life are also reimagining their communities. Matthew Norris, a member of Lac La Ronge First Nation and president of the Urban Native Youth Association, is—you guessed it—also a millennial.

Like Kruger, 33-year-old Norris was one of the youngest candidates who ran for council in his city in 2022. But unlike Kruger, he didn’t win a seat. Norris tells me that when OneCity Vancouver first approached him to run, he was hesitant. As a (in his words) “relatively young” Indigenous person, Norris was a bit disenchanted with politics.

“When you don’t see your community represented in municipal politics or party structures or as elected officials, you’re inherently skeptical of those institutions,” he tells me on Zoom. “I certainly have been. And so a lot of my work has

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Delta’s Adam Mills. Photo by Alison Page.

been outside of those institutions, pushing for change from the outside.”

But after meeting with OneCity, he changed his tune.

“I saw a genuine commitment there to doing things differently, to push the envelope on Indigenous rights,” he says.

As an urban Indigenous millennial, Norris was in a unique position to represent two intersecting underserved communities.

“A lot of people my age have experienced a lot of the same kind of issues that, coming from the Indigenous community, are very similar in terms of lack of representation and lack of voice,” he offers.

Norris also highlights how Indigenous people and millennials (and young people in general) are disproportionately affected

by the same issues.

“You’re actually experiencing the impacts of poor decision making, like with the housing crisis, with climate change, with the growing impacts of systemic racism, and the opioid epidemic,” he notes. “And it’s affecting us now more than it ever has before.”

Now both groups, and those at their intersection, increasingly collaborate thanks to the education efforts of Indigenous activists. “Our values were always aligned, we just didn’t realize it,” says Norris. Despite not winning a position on council, Norris continues to push for change from the outside and encourages other young people to do the same. “When you look at … how voices get heard within our democratic institutions, either through public hearings or orga

SUNDAY, JULY 9TH

nizing, it’s very much structured against us,” he says. “And so I think there’s a responsibility on us to start organizing or face the consequences if not, but there’s also a responsibility on our institutions to better accommodate our voices.”

THE MILLENNIAL-DOMINATED Vancouver Tenants Union (VTU) isn’t holding its breath for institutions to start accommodating them. While it doesn’t have official collective bargaining power, the volunteer-run advocacy group organizes for the rights of tenants, renters, the unhoused, and anyone else with precarious housing.

To Lillian Deeb, a VTU organizer on the steering committee, this work is more important now than ever.

“I think we’re all very afraid of getting pushed out. It really feels like the city is trying to push you out all the time,” they say.

Beyond helping people combat illegal rent increases, renovictions, and landlord disputes, VTU pushes for a more community-oriented approach to city life. “It’s a place to manifest the different world that you want to see,” Deeb says. “You really get to imagine, ‘What is the city I want to live in? What is the neighbourhood I want to live in?’”

VTU is trying to turn this imagined future into reality. On May 25, the organization hosted its first community council at 105 Keefer St., the proposed site of a new luxury condo development the group has been advocating against since 2017. The first-of-its-kind community council was a grassroots effort to show solidarity against gentrification in Chinatown ahead of the city’s development permit board meeting on May 29.

“We want to delegitimize the city’s process, which is super-inaccessible,” Jade Ho, another VTU organizer, tells me before the event. “We want to have a say about what’s going on within our community.”

I arrive at the community council early and watch as hundreds of people fill Chinatown Memorial Plaza under the hot afternoon sun. Seniors sit in fold-out chairs, the oldest of whom is announced to be 107, while younger attendees line the perimeter.

Three VTU members, Ho included, stand at microphones and deliver the entire twohour council meeting in three languages: English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

“Just to show that this is possible, we can do things this way, we can prioritize people’s access,” Ho says.

The trio joke that when they started campaigning against 105 Keefer, they were known as the young people organizing with the seniors. “After seven years … we’re not that young anymore.”

Volunteers hand out red and green cards for everyone to use in the vote. When prompted about whether they are for or against the condo development, a sea of red fills the crowd.

Whether the outcome is acknowledged in any official capacity remains to be seen, but Deeb says recognition from the city would be an encouraging step.

“My experience engaging with the city … it’s actually very disempowering,” they say. “And so seeing a city where something like the community council … would be the decision, that would be a cool thing. I would love to see that.”

Millennials are poised to change the status quo—from the city to the suburbs, within formal institutions and outside of them. I finished all my interviews by asking people if they think millennials will actually follow through on this potential.

Kruger hesitates to make a solid prediction.

“I hope that with increased representation, and this generational shift that’s happening,” he suggests, “that we’re really going to blow up the way that we make our decisions and start making decisions that are reflective of the entire community’s needs, as opposed to the privileged few that won the housing lottery.”

To Norris, radical change requires radical action.

“I think we have a lot of power and opportunity as an age group to make change if we want to,” he says. “But it does require us to get involved. It does require systemic changes, and it does require some kind of energy and organizing. Ending on a high note, I know there is so much room to make a difference.”

For Ho, it’s their community work that keeps them going.

“I think hope is collectively generated,” Ho says. “That’s also a reason why we need to be engaged in collective organizing—so that we can feel the hopefulness of how we can move forward.”

I’ve decided to be hopeful, too. My path may look different from my own parents, and even from the millennials featured in this story. But if these are the people shaping Metro Vancouver, I look forward to the city’s future—and seeing what bold changes my generation can make when our time comes. GS

COOKSCAMP IS FOR CULINARY RESILIENCE

By William Johnson

Picture this: you’re walking in the woods with BC’s foremost foraging expert. You learn to collect ingredients that will be used for dinner later that night. An hour later you’ll take in a butchery demonstration from the owner of Vancouver’s most respected butcher shop—and then gorge on the meats you just saw get portioned.

Tomorrow you’ll watch how to clean a sturgeon and then complete a workshop on how to choose the right knives. Everyone around you is just like you—passionate about food and the people who make delicious dining possible. Are you dreaming?

It sounds like a foodie’s fantasy. In fact, it’s CooksCamp, a real and unrivalled celebration of gastronomy that will take place this September at North Arm Farm in Pemberton.

Hosted by the Chefs’ Table Society of BC (CTS), CooksCamp is designed to support the future and well-being of chefs. Taking place this year from September 6-8, the three-day affair features a mix of hands-on learning activities, rare cooking and feasting, and—for many attending culinary workers—a break from their chaotic day-to-day lives.

CooksCamp was initially inspired by a 2010 initiative called the Canadian Chefs

Congress, chef Robert Belcham tells the Straight over Zoom. Organized by culinary vets Rob Clark and Vikram Vij, the congress took place at Providence Farm in Duncan, and featured discussions on food policy and sustainability, plus activities like wine tastings, cook-offs, and communal meals.

“We had 150 chefs that had never really been together before all cooking for each other,” explains Belcham, a long-time CTS board member and former president. “Everybody who was there still talks about it to this day as being one of the pivotal points in their careers.”

With CooksCamp, the goal has been to recreate that feeling, he says. But while the focus of the congress was directly on ocean sustainability, CooksCamp centres on the sustainability of the chef as a career.

“We wanted to try to figure out a way

to support the people who love the industry and support the people who are really trying to make the industry better every day,” Belcham says.

The first CooksCamp was held virtually in 2021 with online talks on topics like work/life balance, mental health, and how to publish a cookbook.

“It was really great. But it wasn’t what we wanted to do,” Belcham shares. “We wanted to be able to break bread together, and be able to just hang out, talk to each other, and make conversation.”

Last year, the vision was made real. A total of 180 cooks—and cook-adjacent professionals—came together for two nights at basically the foot of Mount Currie. And many faced the same dilemma as chef Johnny Bridges when they arrived: a choice between setting up their tent or jumping right into the culinary action.

“There were so many talks happening when I arrived… that I was faced with the question of do I get my ducks in a row or do I go and see these two people speak?” recalls Bridges, who is vice-chair at CTS. He chose the speakers, who included people like Thomas Haas and farm owner and author Bill Jones.

Each night of the festival the meals carry special meaning. In 2022, the first dinner featured cooking by Indigenous chefs including chef Kil Tlaa’sgaa Brodie

Swanson (Haida), chef Paul Natrall (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), and chef Scott Jonathan Iserhoff (Mushkego Cree).

The 2023 opening night feast will be driven by Chinese culture, he reveals.

On night two of CooksCamp, guests are treated to what Bridges calls “the largest staff meal in Canada.” Staff meals are special group meals that an eatery serves its employees to not only satiate them but to foster camaraderie and teamwork. With nearly 200 attendees, CooksCamp achieved this feat on a massive scale. This year, they want to get bigger.

There are multiple reasons to grow the event, but raising money for a large-scale project is near the top of the list. Ticket and sponsor revenue are being immediately invested in the CTS Culinary Arts Centre—a planned physical culinary educational resource centre, accessible to all hospitality professionals of any level. Any profits from the camp will be used as “seed money to start to get the library actually off the ground,” Belcham shares.

The long-term hope is that this facility will also serve as a centre to share knowledge about cuisine from Indigenous, Japanese, Chinese, and South Asian cultures that contribute to the building of BC. “One of our ultimate goals is to build this culinary library,” Bridge emphasizes, “this hub for the community.” GS

Robert Belcham. Photo by Brad Kasselman.

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When cocktail culture starts to hurt Drink

By Mike Usinger

Painful as it is to write this, things have gotten so out of hand that it might finally be time to stop drinking. At a certain point you have to accept that it’s part of a lifestyle that’s killing you.

Where this finally hit home was on a recent gloriously sun-baked Saturday night just off Main Street in Mount Pleasant. As much fun as it might be crafting the perfect Margarita, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Yellow Bird, Horse’s Neck, Dark ’n’ Stormy, Harvey Wallbanger, Sex On the Beach, Monkey Fart, or A Lonely Island Lost in the Middle of a Foggy Sea at home, sometimes you need to get out and see people over drinks. And that’s where the trouble starts.

Somewhere along the way someone gambled that Vancouver folks not named Bob Rennie, Chip Wilson, or Michael Bublé will happily pay New York City prices for drinks when out for dinner. It was a smart wager.

To get where we’re going here, let’s use that sun-baked Saturday night as an example. We ended up at an East Side spot, which shall remain nameless here. It was as old-school charming as it was casual and funky, the clientele a mix of heavily inked Main Street post-hipsters, downtown-casual urban professionals, and Instagram addicts who don’t put anything in their mouth they haven’t posted a photo of first.

The music—gloriously heavy on vintage hip-hop—was nothing less than great, the mild shtick cool, the staff the kind of folks you’d want to hang out with at Coachella. Or, God willing, Squamish Constellation Festival. The food was more or less reasonably priced and, while it won’t land anyone on Chef’s Table, decent for what it was.

And then there were the drinks. Which, while not world-beating, were good. And also around $16 a pop. Round that up to $22 with tax and 20 percent tip, and you can see where this is all headed.

As they like to say at Los Angeles’ fabled Tiki Ti, the thing about a beer is that you can get one anywhere—including the mini-fridge next to the sofa—so why bother ordering one when you’re out? The same

goes for wine, which nine times out of 10— no matter how expensive the bottle—most of us can’t distinguish from Little Penguin in a blind taste test.

So the default when heading out for drinks is cocktails. Cocktails which, when there are two of you, start at $44 each round with everything figured in.

And you never stop at that first round, because there’s no point going out unless you’re ready to spend a few hours discussing the unending brilliance of Quentin Tarantino, the insane price of Dungeness crab at the local fish market, and all the places in the world—Laos!—you really need to see before you die.

Keep things low-key, and that means three drinks each, for a total of $132 before you’ve ordered anything resembling food (the dried lime wheels and assorted garnishes, including the tiny bamboo clothespins, don‘t count). Go hard in the paint with four or five rounds over a few hours, and you’re north of $200. Which is to say, unless you’re a member of the Lotusland Temperance League, every time you head out these days the bill is inevitably well over $200 for two people.

Spend time on a patio once a week for drinks at almost any place not named the Ivanhoe, and suddenly you’re spending $800 per month on cocktails.

Before you go picking up your pitchfork and cocktail swords, a quick bit of context.

There are places in Vancouver where you don’t go out for dinner, you go out for drinks. An insane amount of work on the back end goes into creating those drinks— months of sourcing innovative ingredients, experimenting with different liquors, tinctures, infusions, and shrubs, and creating hard-to-find cocktail building blocks (hello, pimento dram) from scratch.

Are those drinks worth paying a little more for? Absolutely. Sometimes it’s all about the experience of watching highly skilled artists at work, and soaking up the meticulously detailed atmosphere while making memories with friends.

But here’s where things get complicated. Some of the greatest drinks you’ll ever have in Vancouver are at restaurants where food is supposed to be the focus, even though the cocktail program is nothing less than killer. And so you end up paying big time on two fronts—food and drink—and perhaps happily so because a fantastically executed cocktail can be every bit as great as a goldstar appetizer, main, or dessert.

Except that—unless your name happens to be Mr. Creosote—you don’t have three appetizers, a main, and a dessert. But you might, on the nights the laughter is out of control and the storytelling great, have four or five cocktails. At which point, assuming Bob Rennie, Chip Wilson or Michael Bublé

isn’t paying, there’s a price to pay, and it’s usually a steep one.

What’s the point here? It certainly isn’t to suggest that whatever restaurant you happen to love needs to lower the price of its drinks—including the one off Main in Mount Pleasant, where last Saturday’s bill for two came to $240 for a couple of appetizers and a number of cocktails. The drinks were mostly great, the folks creating them both devoted and working hard. Still...

The service industry was hit harder than most during the pandemic, and today profit margins can be so slim many bars and restaurants are struggling to survive. If liquor sales are keeping the doors open, then make sure to order another round next time you’re out, whether you need it or not.

The larger issue here is that almost everyone in Vancouver is having a hard time of it. Historically low wages in this city don’t even come close to matching the cost of housing. Everything from grocery prices to concert tickets and the price of multiplex popcorn is out of control.

To even think about opening a restaurant is to start with insanely high rents for commercial spaces and endless and costly hurdles from City Hall and the province. Add in sky-high liquor taxes designed to keep the province drier than Dubai in August, and rocketing inflation adding stresses to the supply chain. Then the real work starts of carving out a devoted clientele in a city with no shortage of places to eat and drink.

So the service industry does what it can to survive, the real money-making often thanks to drinks, where two ounces of Jack or Absolut cost far less than the albacore tuna on the appetizer menu.

As for me, at some point one has to seriously weigh the cost of a good time. And sorry, having a good time without drinking isn’t an option. The solution? Truthfully, I’m not sure there is one. There’s a reason cocktail prices are what they are in this city, and that’s no-one’s fault but the one-percenters determined to wring every cent of profit out of every piece of land they own.

Is drinking in Vancouver killing not just me financially, but possibly you? Absolutely. Time to stop? Let’s have just one more round and talk about it. GS

Sometimes the only bad thing about a truly great cocktail is when the bill arrives.

cannibalism having its cool moment

By Angela Vannatter

Like many, I have been avidly consuming Yellowjackets this year. Loosely inspired by the events of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, the Showtime series documents a high school soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness. Finding themselves in the dead of winter in the North American woods (filmed right here in Vancouver, in reality), the teammates turn to cannibalism in order to survive.

From the opening scene of the pilot depicting a young girl being hunted for food by her teammates, I was instantly hooked. It was shocking—the idea that your own friends would consider eating you, let alone murdering you—yet I couldn’t get enough. And clearly, I wasn’t the only one.

Let’s get to the meat of it. After the first season of Yellowjackets came Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, causing international uproar about abominable (and real-life) cannibalistic subject matter. But that didn’t stop Evan Peters, who played the title role, from taking home a Golden Globe. Kourtney Kardashian even popularized eating her placenta back in 2013, bringing the concept of eating your own protein to the mainstream.

The question keeps coming up: why are we so fascinated with cannibalism? And why is the thought of eating each other so prevalent in pop culture right now?

It seems cannibalism doesn’t cross the mind unless we’re talking about humanity going belly-up.

We find ourselves in an era where anxieties about our present and future intrude on our thoughts every day. From climate change and housing to polarizing politics, it feels like we’re constantly in a state of conflict. Yellowjackets articulates this well, showcasing a group of girls who have to prove their value to each other so they don’t run the risk of being the next fear-driven feast.

In fact, Hozier’s latest single, “Eat Your Young,” touches on just that. As he sings, “Skinning the children for a war drum/Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns/It’s quicker and easier to eat your young,” the Irish musician offers a commentary on how our decisions cause us to devour each other.

There is an existential dread that follows millennials and gen-Zers as we look around at what we’ve inherited—trying to balance living responsibly with feeling alive. Amidst these daunting concerns for the world ahead, we’re also experiencing a reckoning of our own religious, familial, and physical traumas, navigating how to be functional humans who not only survive, but actually thrive.

If you were in the Christian school system vortex, you might remember being told as a kid that the “body of Christ is broken for you” and the “blood of Christ is shed for you.” Though the heart of this statement is more symbolic, the hint of cannibalism is something to chew on. If Jesus gave more than an arm and a leg for us to live fruitful lives, why do we keep hurting each other and our planet? Is transubstantiation the ground zero of our current cannibalism content kick?

Religion and cannibalism go hand-in-hand, even today. In The Last of Us, viewers watched Ellie try to escape a religious cult beginning to eat each other. Fed by the text of Revelation, and their own dead, the group chants, “When we are in need, He shall provide,” and boy did they bite right in.

On the other hand, singer-songwriter Ethel Cain created quite the name for herself in the alternative/indie scene for centring her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter, on love, growing up, and—you guessed it— cannibalism.

The record tells the tale of a girl who falls into a religious cult after leaving a toxic boyfriend. She escapes, only to be recaptured by her lover and eventually eaten by him. The album ends with the track “Stranger,” where Cain implores, “If I’m turning in your stomach, am I making you feel sick?” What a crescendo.

Let’s return to the main course. While we may not legitimately be under the threat of having to eat each other (yet), societal structures and oppressive ideologies sure do kill our spirits, gnawing away at our lust for life. Just like we’re gutted by the gore in Yellowjackets, my stomach also turns thinking about what might lie ahead.

While film, television, and music often dish up entertainment so you can escape your daily life, an appetite for cannibalism content is brewing, and we keep digging in. The act itself is unthinkable, just like many realities we face today.

Yellowjackets depicts a relationship among survivors. Though this soccer team may be stranded in the woods, we’re similarly in the trenches of the problems we, ourselves, have created right here at home—with the cost of living skyrocketing, an unregulated drug crisis murdering our neighbours, and the oft-dismissed climate emergency looming. We’re all starving for change.

With all this in mind, one thing is certain. In pop culture, cannibalism is cool—and, just like the trajectory of our future, it’s a lot to digest. GS

(IDEAS is for writers and other creatives to explore ideas in essay form that exist outside the news cycle. It can be anything— microcosmic, intergalactic, funny, esoteric, whatever. As long it has heart, has something to say, and is you being you.)

Yellowjackets, which kickstarted pop culture’s current fascination with eating one’s fellow human beings.

Know your local barber

Paul Donnici’s Riley Park business

Paulie’s Barbershop has been a space for community connection for close to a decade

> WHAT’S YOUR SENSE OF THE YOUTH’S HAIRSTYLES THESE DAYS?

We joke here, because it’s very uniform. We call it the TikTok Flop or the Meet Me at McDonald’s, which is, you know, all curly on top. I have a good friend, a high-school teacher, who told me that he got made fun of recently for having a side part.

> PAULIE’S HAS AN OLD-SCHOOL BARBERSHOP FEEL, LIKE YOU’D SEE IN NEW JERSEY OR WHEREVER. WAS THAT THE INTENTION ALL ALONG?

Yeah, absolutely. The part that I enjoy the most about my job are the clients that I think I know pretty well after cutting their hair every month for 10 years. I’m in a really unique position; I get a wide range of friendship situations that I wouldn’t get otherwise. I spend 30 to 40 minutes with these people every month, which is sometimes more than I see some of my closest friends. There aren’t a lot of places where you can do that.

> IS THAT WHY YOU GOT INTO THIS TRADE TO BEGIN WITH?

No, I would say that was an added bonus. I have a background as a bartender, so this was like a continuation of that. I definitely wanted to know how I could continue to work with people and have these interesting relationships, but not have to go to bed at 4:30 in the morning. Everybody likes coming to a community-based space. We’re about as small a business as you can get,

and I think people are happy to have a spot where they can run into their neighbours and that kind of thing. I really love it.

> WHAT ARE THE REGULAR TOPICS OF CONVERSATION?

Real estate is a hot topic. It’s a sensitive one because everybody’s coming at it from a different angle. You’ll get the guy who just purchased a $6 million home in the neighbourhood and then there’s the person who has to leave because their home doesn’t exist anymore.

> HOW MANY OF YOUR EXISTING CLIENTS HAVE MOVED ELSEWHERE AND ARE STILL COMING TO SEE YOU?

100 per cent of those that do [move] talk about how they’re going to come back. Maybe you don’t get every haircut here, but if you can make it work, it’s always great to see you. I don’t always remember them until I see them and it’s like, “Oh, I remember that face!” That happened yesterday with a guy who’d moved to Victoria. His hair was twice as long as it normally is when I saw him, and he’s like,” I knew I was coming to Vancouver, so I made sure to wait to get my haircut here.” That’s such a rad feeling because we definitely lose people to the suburbs all the time.

> DO YOU FEEL LIKE AN ANCHOR TENANT IN THE COMMUNITY?

[My wife] Molly sometimes makes fun of me, calling me a Z-list celebrity around

here. If you’re in the neighbourhood and you see someone between the ages of 20 to 50, there’s a good chance that I know them or have cut their hair.

> WELL YOU ALSO NAMED THE SHOP AFTER YOURSELF. WAS THAT AN INTENTIONAL WAY OF INTRODUCING YOURSELF, LIKE, “HEY LOOK AT ME!?” Well, no, not really. We liked the sound of having the name on there. My main intention with the name when we opened was that I wanted people to know that this was a micro business. It wasn’t part of a chain, and I’m the guy running it. We did look at a couple of other names, but I liked the way it sounded. I try to think of

Paulie’s as a group, a crew. And then, you know, I’m Paul.

> IT DOES SEEM SORT OF EGOLESS. I’m proud of the fact that I’m not the best barber in our shop. We would not be where we are now without the crazy talented crew that we’ve had pretty much all along. If I can’t do the cut myself, I can confidently give clients to my other people.

> SO THE TIKTOK FLOPS ARE ON POINT?

The TikTok Flops are on point. GS

@pauliesbarbershop is located at 4326 Main Street.

Paulie’s Barbershop owner Paul Donnici. Photo by Jon Healy.

> MUSIC TIME OUT

JUNE 2023

THE CURE June 2

Rogers Arena. Goth rock icons.

BLACK MUSIC MONTH FESTIVAL June 2-4

Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza. A tribute to Black Canadian women in hip-hop, featuring Michie Mee.

A BOOGIE WIT DA HOODIE June 10

Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre

New York rapper and singer.

CUB SPORT June 10

Biltmore Cabaret. Aussie pop band.

JP MAURICE June 10

Guilt & Co. Vancouver indie pop.

FIONN June 11

Biltmore Cabaret. Vancouver folk-pop duo celebrate the release of their new album, I Might Start Smoking.

LOUISE POST June 12

Wise Hall. Veruca Salt co-founder tours in support of debut solo album.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS June 12

Fox Cabaret. Minneapolis punks mark the 10th anniversary of their sophomore album, Home.

SAM TUDOR June 13

Fox Cabaret. “A gem, with a penchant for everything left field”.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE June 14-15

Commodore Ballroom. Seth Cohen’s fave band touring new album, Adult Alternative Airplay.

MURDER BY DEATH June 14

Rickshaw Theatre. Early aughts indie-Americana trailblazers, with Laura Jane Grace opening.

SEAL June 14

Orpheum Theatre. Renowned “Kiss from a Rose” singer on tour with frequent collaborator, Trevor Horn.

NOVEMBER ULTRA June 15

Biltmore Cabaret. Parisian singer garnering comparisons to Adele.

THE DIRTY NIL + DANIEL ROMANO’S OUTFIT

June 15

Rickshaw Theatre. Power rock and indie-psych unite on this Canadian co-headliner.

BLACK CULTURE CELEBRATION June 17

Sunset Beach Park. Rascalz, Kardinal Offishall, Maestro Fresh Wes, Choclair and more perform in honour of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary.

CLARK June 20

Hollywood Theatre. British experimental musician performs in support of new Thom Yorke-produced record.

SUMAC June 21

Fox Cabaret. Post-metal supergroup featuring Nick Yacyshyn.

OSEES June 22

Commodore Ballroom. Cali psych-rockers get at it with a new-old approach.

THICK June 23

Fortune Sound Club. Brooklyn pop punk, with opening support from local faves Bratboy.

LITURGY June 23

Fox Cabaret. Brooklyn black metal, with BIG|BRAVE and Farida Amadou.

DEAD QUIET June 24

Rickshaw Theatre. Stoner rockers conclude tour run at home, with support from local heavyweights NEEDS.

WHIPPED CREAM June 24

Harbour Event & Convention Centre. Electronic music project of acclaimed Vancouver Island DJ, Caroline Cecil.

BLINK-182 June 27

Rogers Arena. Mark, Tom, and Travis are back together!

NICKELBACK June 28

Rogers Arena. Vancouver’s own Canadian Music Hall of Famers.

BIF NAKED June 29

Rickshaw Theatre. Vancouver’s beloved punk icon comes home to celebrate the 25th anniversary of I BIFICUS. The Pack A.D. to open.

JONATHAN RICHMAN June 29

St. James Hall. Modern Lovers founder, with Tommy Larkin on drums.

LIGHTNING DUST June 29

Fox Cabaret . Amber Webber and Josh Wells are back with Nostalgia Kills.

JULY 2023

LE TIGRE July 3-4

Commodore Ballroom. Kathleen Hanna, JD Samson, and Johanna Fateman hit the road for the first time in nearly 20 years.

LISTINGS ARE A PUBLIC SERVICE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, BASED ON AVAILABLE SPACE AND EDITORIAL DISCRETION. SUBMIT EVENTS ONLINE USING THE EVENT-SUBMISSION FORM AT straight.com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.

Bif Naked. Photo by Karolina Turek.

> ARTS TIME OUT

JUNE 2023

FIRST SATURDAY OPEN STUDIOS June 3

Parker Street Studios First Saturday Open Studios is an opportunity to visit artists at work in their studios located throughout the Lower Mainland.

HAPPY VALLEY To June 4 Firehall Arts Centre

Through text, song, multimedia and music, Happy Valley is a new performance piece that dissects the historic, political, and cultural context surrounding Hong Kong’s current democratic struggles.

REVOLVER FESTIVAL To June 4 The Cultch

Featuring 10 mainstage productions by Canadian multidisciplinary artists, this collection of playful, audacious, and genre-defying new works are created by emerging and mid-career artists.

WILD LIGHT June 8 to 17 Bez Art Hub

A battered family gets a second chance at life when they make the risky decision to become lighthouse keepers on the wild and wondrous Lucy Island, just off the coast of Prince Rupert, BC.

DIRTY LAUNDRY June 9 to 25 York Theatre

After 10 years of selling out festivals worldwide, the Briefs boys are back and ready to air their Dirty Laundry in this brand-new party cabaret.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY June 9 Vancouver Playhouse

Coastal City Ballet, established in 2011, closes its 2022-2023 season with the famous fairy tale “The Sleeping Beauty,” May 23 at The Vancouver Playhouse and June 9 at Surrey Arts Centre.

THE WRESTLECORE OF OZ June 9 Rickshaw

Theatre

An extraordinary tornado has ripped up Vancouver and transported your favourite wrestling heroes to an enchanted land where danger lurks around every corner.

11TH ANNUAL MID MAIN ART FAIR June 11

Heritage Hall

17 local established artists one day art sale all media including oil, acrylic, watercolour, print making, photos, etchings.

CHARLIE AND CHOCOLATE FACTORY MUSICAL

June 25 to 18 The Cultch

Join Charlie and the golden ticket winners on their journey to Wonka’s wonderfully weird candy factory. With captivating musical numbers and hilarious twists and turns, this musical will be a treat for the entire family.

ARCHIVE June 16 to 17 The Birdhouse

An evocative & nostalgic reclamation of trans lived experience by the multidisciplinary, non-binary drag collective, the Darlings, presented in partnership with Chimerik 似不像

TREAT SHOW COMEDY June 3, 10, 17, 24 China

Cloud Treat Show is the weekend comedy fireworks you know you want—and in truth, desperately need. Each Saturday, nine exceptional improvisers come together to put on a completely new comedy show just for YOU.

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL

June 23 to July 2 Granville Island

The 38th Vancouver International Jazz Festival kicks off summer in the city with over 140 free and ticketed performances of diverse programming over 10 days.

Therapy Gecko Live.

FOR YOU, LOVER June 24 The Cultch

An intimate, lavish, and glamorous one-night-only Burlesque experience designed as the perfect date night for lovers and friends alike.

CONCORD PACIFIC DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL

June 24 to 25 Concord Pacific Place, Creekside Park, and False Creek

Kick off summer at Concord Pacific Place, Creekside Park, and False Creek with the continent’s best racing, headliner music shows, cultural pavilions and demonstrations, local marketplace and food vendors, and family-friendly activities.

THERAPY GECKO LIVE June 27 Hollywood Theatre

After a sold out run of North American dates last year, multi-platform internet sensation Lyle Forever is bringing his beloved “Therapy Gecko” live show on the road again and around the world in 2023.

THE CRITICAL HIT SHOW June 28 Rio Theatre

The Critical Hit Show is one of the longest running comedy shows around. #DNDLive is an improvised adventure that takes its inspiration from tabletop role-playing games, fantasy film and TV, and (most importantly) you!

AMPLIFIED VOICES EXHIBITION To July 31

Italian Cultural Centre

“Amplified Voices” celebrates the creativity and raw storytelling told by our artists living with disabilities. By questioning the limits to space made for Disability culture, this exhibition navigates the stigma and barriers many artists face.

JULY 2023

35TH ANNUAL DANCING ON THE EDGE FESTIVA l

July 6 to 15 Firehall Arts Centre

The festival will include a presentation of over thirty extraordinary dance productions in live stage performances showcasing artists from across Canada.

LISTINGS ARE A PUBLIC SERVICE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, BASED ON AVAILABLE SPACE AND EDITORIAL DISCRETION. SUBMIT EVENTS ONLINE USING THE EVENT-SUBMISSION FORM AT straight.com/AddEvent. Events that don’t make it into the paper due to space constraints will appear on the website.

As you like it makes a fab Bard return

By Mike Usinger

In hindsight, the idea was a little out there, with director Daryl Cloran not exactly convinced he was crafting a hit with Bard on the Beach’s 2018 re-imagining of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It

Reached at his home base of Edmonton, where he heads up the Citadel Theatre, Cloran recalls plenty of scrambling with musical director Ben Elliott after they set out to combine the words of the Bard with the music of the Beatles.

“It wasn’t until our first audience that we knew we had something special,” he remembers. “Up until that point we were sort of building it on the fly. It was the idea of building the plane while you’re flying it. We were moving songs around, trying to figure things out in rehearsals. And it was such a busy, ridiculous rehearsal process that when we finally got it in front of an audience, and got the reaction that we did, that we went, ‘Oh! This is something really special!’ ”

That might be underselling things a little.

Working 25 Beatles songs into one of Shakespeare’s most-performed comedies, and set in the cellophane-flowers and marmalade-skies 60s, As You Like It became an instant smash when it debuted at Bard on the Beach in 2018. Once word got out, the fun didn’t stop on the West Coast, with Cloran taking the production on the

road to Edmonton, and later to Chicago and Milwaukee.

“The focus at the beginning was ‘Let’s just build a great show for Bard,’” Cloran reflects. “There was no talk ever of it going anywhere else. When it caught on at Bard, it was like ‘Oh, there’s really something here.’ So I brought it to the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, and then Chicago and Milwaukee wanted to do it because they’d seen it in Vancouver.

“That was a new thing for Bard,” he adds. “We had to start thinking about ‘How do we tour shows, and what would that even look like?’ It’s been a huge learning curve, but it’s been awesome because, so often, you spend so long on a show and then you only get one go.’ ”

A big reason As You Like It is returning to Bard on the Beach this year is that audiences have been clamouring for it since the first run.

The re-thinking of the play started with Cloran thinking about how the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” somehow captured the spirit of Shakespeare’s iconic work, which deals with romantic entanglements, banishments to a mythical forest, mistaken identity, and, um, wrestling.

“Narratively, ‘All You Need Is Love’ is the song that really connected things for me, because the play is so much about various forms of love,” the director opines. “It’s not

just the lovers that meet each other in the forest, but the love of a mother and her daughter, and things like love as loyalty. It’s a nice through-line.”

“And the more I listened to the Beatles music, the more I thought about the journey these naive lovers take,” he continues. “They go from singing songs like ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ to meeting these philosophical people in the forest who kind of mirror the eventual complexity of the Beatles’ songwriting. It’s like there’s a nice parallel between the play and the Beatles’ journey as songwriters.”

For the production, Cloran excised good chunks of Shakespeare’s text, replacing words with songs that not only serve as instantly relatable pop-culture touchstones, but also move the plot forward.

“If you’re going to cut a monologue, or a famous piece of Shakespearian text, it has to be supported with something that’s going to do the same thing musically,” Cloran says. “It’s not hard to figure out what to do when a character comes in and goes ‘A fool, a fool—a fool in the forest’—that he should soon afterwards sing ‘The Fool on the Hill’. That’s low-hanging fruit that works perfectly.

“But there was the pressure of making sure that, not only did we use the songs well in the story, but

Chelsea Rose and Oscar Derkx help capture an era in As You Like It. Photo by Emily Cooper.

also that it wasn’t just like a jukebox musical where we tell the story for a bit, pause for our favourite Beatles song, and then we pick up the story. Finally, there was the pressure of performing the Beatles’ songs well.”

That work is done by both a live on-stage band, and, of course, by the paisley-perfect cast, which hits the stage dressed like they’ve just arrived from a Painted Ship show in circa-67 Kitsilano. And if that’s all not awesome enough, there’s also pre-show wrestling, which, weirdly, was part of Shakespeare’s original version of As You Like It. For the Bard on the Beach production, the reference point is gloriously trashy 60s and 70s All-Star Wrestling, which—featuring characters like Bulldog Brown and Mr. X—took place locally at the PNE Gardens back in the day, as well as Saturday afternoons on BCTV.

“It’s a good leaping off for something that’s right there in the play—Shakespeare put the wrestling in there,” Cloran says. “The pre-show wrestling sets the tone nicely for the audience to be able to come in and see something happening as soon as they get there. It also sets up the world of the conflicts that follow. It’s a great way to get into the show.”

A show, he adds, that has evolved since it became a surprise hit across North America.

“It’s so great to be back where we started,” Cloran says. “But for people that saw it the first time there are some really great changes. Not only have we moved around a few songs and changed a little bit of the story, it’s also a brand new set. When we did it in 2018 it was in rep with Macbeth and so we had to build a set that worked for both of those shows. When we did it here in Edmonton, we were able to build the set that we’ve since toured around Chicago and Milwaukee. That set is coming to Bard and it’s full of big LED panels and flashing lights and the like. You’re getting a big sparkly musical.”

That the music is as timeless as the words of William Shakespeare is a blessing.

“People of almost any age have experience with at least some of the Beatles songs,” Cloran observes. “So this is definitely one of those musicals that sends you out of the theatre singing at the end— it’s like you really can’t help yourself.” GS

As You Like It is at Bard on the Beach in Vanier Park from June 8 to September 30.

Goblins makes sense of bloody macbeth

By Bridget Stringer-Holden

“Honestly, this is the first time I ever understood that damn play.”

That’s something Goblin: Macbeth co-creator Bruce Horak heard often from audience members after the Shakespeare adaptation’s initial run in Calgary.

“And it took some goblins to enlighten us,” Horak says in a phone interview with the Straight

The son of a high school English teacher, Horak considers himself lucky to have grown up with an understanding of Shakespeare.

“I think the first time I ever read [Macbeth] was in a comic book,” he says.

One of the lessons about Shakespeare’s work that stuck with him is that it’s a play for a reason—you have to get up and do it, it has to be performed.

“That’s really what the goblins do for the first time as they put on the play,” Horak says. “There really is an energy in the liveness of theatre that you can’t get anywhere else.”

At the beginning of Goblin: Macbeth, goblins encounter The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and decide to take over a theatre. They kidnap the lighting technician, get an audience, and start acting out Macbeth—the one with all the blood, of course.

“They find humans fascinating, they don’t understand theatre,” Horak explains. “They perform Shakespeare for the very first time to sort of figure out how humans do theatre, and why.”

Horak finds the goblins to be adorable creatures, and sees the idea of looking at humanity through the eyes of a monster intriguing.

“You see the monstrosity of humanity, especially in a show like Macbeth, which is all about ambition, and the dark side of human nature,” he says. “And goblins embodying that, you hear the verse for the first time...and I think it highlights the humanity that’s within all of us.”

Goblin: Macbeth will also be an interactive experience, although Horak assures that participation is voluntary and that no one is singled out—“par-

ticipation lite,” as he calls it.

“People often think that we’re choosing the victim, and that’s never the case,” he says. “It’s only ever to the level that you’re comfortable with.”

Rebecca Northan, who runs Spontaneous Theatre, is no stranger to involving audiences in her work. Northan and Horak started doing Shakespeare-in-thePark together, and have since mounted a variety of shows, including one that incorporated mask work. This is where they discovered the Hollywood-grade silicone masks used in Goblin: Macbeth

In February 2021, the artistic director of The Shakespeare Company shared with Northan how stressed he was because a two-person Macbeth show had dropped out at the last minute due to a COVID infection.

“And Rebecca made the cheeky comment, as she often does, ‘Well, it’s a good thing you know a bunch of improvisers, we can help you out’,” Horak says.

And thus, Goblin: Macbeth was created.

Even though they had mere weeks to pull together the unconventional interpretation of the Scottish play, Horak says that he and Northan joke that it’s really been 25 years in the making.

Musician and puppeteer Ellis Lalonde was brought on as the third goblin, and to provide the live music. Goblin: Macbeth ran twice in Calgary, and will now be featured in Vancouver’s iconic Bard on the Beach. Local actress and Bard veteran Colleen Wheeler will step into Northan’s role for the summer.

“Colleen brings a totally different vibe to it than Rebecca does,” Horak says. He highlights the improvisation element within each show, with audience interaction that creates moments of levity that aren’t as common with traditional renditions of Shakespeare.

“I had a playwriting teacher who once remarked that there are no original ideas,” Horak shares, noting that Macbeth itself is not original, nor is Macbeth in masks. “You will find yourself plagiarizing other people, but the important thing is that what you are about to say has been said before, but never in your voice. That moment in the theatre, that is totally authentic and will never happen again—there is no recording, it’s just there in the moment, and then it’s gone.”

That ephemerality is what Horak finds most rewarding, especially in a time where everything is broadcast and set in digital stone for all eternity.

“It’s getting to perform for live people—gather in a room and pass 90 minutes together, not thinking about the troubles of the world and being transported into a story,” he says. “You just can’t get that on Paramount+. And that’s something that the goblins come to understand through the course of the play—why should you gather together and tell the story?” GS

Goblin: Macbeth is at Bard on the Beach’s Howard Family Stage in Vanier Park from August 19 to September 30.

Goblin: Macbeth has goblins seeing the world through the Bard’s eyes. Photo by Terry Manzo.

QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL imagines bright futures

By Eleanor Tremeer

With everything the queer community has faced in recent months (and years), it can sometimes be hard to imagine a future in which we can express ourselves without fear of oppression. The Queer Arts Festival (QAF) wants to change that.

Returning to the Roundhouse for its 2023 programming, with exhibitions also taking place at the James Black Gallery and Chinatown’s SUM Gallery, the QAF has always curated its annual festival around a specific theme. Now, it seeks to unify the queer community by celebrating the differences inherent within it, exploring the ways in which we create space and imagining a future in which we can be fun, wild, and free.

“I wanted to do something slightly campier and cheekier,” says QAF artistic director Mark Takeshi McGregor. “Futurism has always been a cornerstone of the queer experience because it’s where we can envision our ideal selves. Through futurism we can create a world that doesn’t yet exist.”

This year, QAF will create that world, inviting artists both local and international to explore all the different ways they experience queerness and take up space, making the 2023 title—Queers in Space—a delightful double-entendre.

For McGregor, one of the most exciting prospects of curating Queers in Space was the opportunity to explore the “plurality of queerness” and examine the intersections of cultural identity that make us who we are. He sees this festival as an opportunity to reach across our divisions and reimagine queerness within the community’s “spectrum of perspectives”—and envision the future we can build together when we celebrate our uniqueness.

Which is why, the day after the opening party on June 17, the festival kicks off with Love After the End, a literary arts event produced in partnership with the Talking Stick Festival. Following in QAF’s history

of multidisciplinary art events, Love After the End is a literary event which spotlights the eponymous anthology of Indigenous fiction edited by Oji-Nêhiyaw author and scholar Joshua Whitehead.

“What I love about Love After the End is that it takes the Indigenous queer experience and projects them into the future,” says McGregor.

“It shows that there’s queer Indigeneity happening in the future and it’s strong.”

Just as the festival is all about imagining prospective utopias, the programming also reaches back to age-old traditions to find new meanings. This is the case for Preston Buffalo’s augmented-reality project.

Brought to life by QR codes, this exhibition will be installed in the Roundhouse for the duration of the festival, and tells the cosmic creation story of how the Cree people came from the Pleiades star cluster.

“It’s very rooted in Cree symbolism and iconography,” McGregor explains, “making it a fusion of tradition and future. It’s the natural extension of sci-fi.”

Queerness is often thought of as contemporary, perhaps because queer identity has, for so long, been ignored, shoved to the sidelines, and suppressed by Western heteronormative cultures. But queer people have always been here, and Queers in Space shines a light on the spaces where queerness has always existed, whether mainstream society recognized it or not.

Such is the case for Witch Prophet, a concert by Ayo Leilani that will be produced in partnership with the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

“Jazz actually has a lot of queer icons,” says McGregor “but they haven’t necessarily been recognized as such.” McGregor hopes that this partnership will inspire people to re-examine jazz from a queer perspective— one that has always been present within the medium.

“It shows that we’ve always been there,” he says. And of course, no queer festival in 2023 would be

complete without a reaction to current events. Also installed in the Roundhouse for the duration of the fest is bumfuzzled monachopsis, a visual arts exhibition curated by Zandi Dandizette.

“Zandi wanted to create a show that spoke to all the anti-trans legislation that’s happening in the States right now,” explains McGregor, “and to put trans artists front and centre.”

Featuring more than 20 artists, some local and some international, bumfuzzled monachopsis is, according to McGregor, powerful, vibrant, and visually rich. As with the festival’s other programming, intersectionality is key.

“We’re exploring how trans identities are expressed through intersectionality as well,” says McGregor. “How trans people take up their own space within an Indigenous context, within an Asian context, and the complexities that come with that.”

In the present day, the queer community can often feel divided by all the different identities that exist within it. But with Queers in Space, McGregor aims to prove that this diversity of experience is what makes us who we are—and it’s what makes our future so exciting to imagine.

“The beautiful thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet and it’s up to us to create,” McGregor says. “Queerness is made more complex by our intersectionalities, but that just makes it even more important for us to express our future potential, so we can build it for ourselves.” GS

Queers in Space will run from June 17 to 28, with exhibitions and events at the Roundhouse, the James Black Gallery, and the SUM Gallery. For the full programming schedule, visit queerartsfestival.com.

Mark Takeshi McGregor says QAF is about taking up space. Photo by Ben Siegl.

ARTS

culturally defined celebrates studio

By Bridget Stringer-Holden

Culturally Defined dance studio’s founder Chris Wong didn’t take his first dance class until he was 20 years old.

Wong moved to Canada from Hong Kong when he was 12. “It was definitely a situation where there’s a lot of, for lack of better words, teenage rage,” Wong says in a phone interview with the Straight. “So I got into martial arts, which was a good outlet for it, but in some ways it ignites it a little bit.”

Wong began taking weekly classes and immersing himself in street dance and hip-hop culture—particularly the ways dance can be used as a tool to bridge divides.

“It has to do with....people looking for ways to escape and resolve conflict that would usually be resolved with violence,” he explains. “A lot of the culture of dance

came from people just finding alternative ways to express themselves—that’s how dance battles came to be.”

Learning all of that helped Wong understand the conflict in his own life and how to channel that energy elsewhere.

“It went from a hobby to becoming something that I just basically needed to keep my life in balance,” he says, eventually making the leap from student to teacher.

While teaching, Wong discovered many newbies’ misconception that successful dancers needed to be young and have a lot of free time.

This led him to create his own company. It started as a place for younger semi-professional dancers, but five years ago it shifted to provide a space for everyday adults to pursue dance.

Wong changed the company’s name to Culturally Defined—operating out of spaces across Vancouver, without a home base of its own. “It’s cool because the

company and its demographic has kind of grown with me,” he says.

The studio provides a variety of classes that can easily fit into peoples’ schedules and let them approach learning in an accessible way.

“Adults learn different—we learn different from kids, it’s just the way it is,” Wong says. “We’re still very capable of learning—it’s just the methods and how we approach it.”

One program, signature progressive training, lasts four months and wraps up in a showcase. Recent shows include a Top Gun–themed performance, and another called “You Got Served.” This summer’s event will be a tribute to iconic Super Bowl Halftime performances.

Wong started searching for a permanent space about three years ago, and was set to sign a lease when COVID-19 hit. The team put everything on hold, but recently acquired a space in Mount Pleasant: Cul-

turally Defined’s first permanent home.

“Having this space, finally having a home for all our dancers, has been insane,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief. “From week one, we were all saying how weirdly comfortable we are. It feels like we’ve been here the whole time.”

The new studio is exactly as he envisioned it: covered in photos. “As you walk through, the entire space is basically highlighted with the history of everyone that’s been in the company,” he says.

The history of Culturally Defined, and its community, is on those walls—including people who have stayed with the company for the entire past decade of its existence. “It just helps remind me how much dance is meant to stay with us forever,” Wong says, smiling. GS

Culturally Defined’s showcase, “Culturally Defined presents Halftime Show,” takes place on June 17 and 18 at Fortune Sound Club.

By Yasmine Shemesh

Witch Prophet, the moniker of artist

Ayo Leilani, makes music inspired by her life. On the singer-songwriter’s last album, 2020’s DNA Activation, she dug into her identity as a queer, East African woman over a fusion of R&B, hip hop, and Ethio-jazz.

Leilani’s newest effort, Gateway Experience, channels energy into offsetting the anxiety that accompanies her longtime struggle with focal seizures, which includes symptoms like dizziness, déjà vu, and memory loss.

“It was an album for me to focus more on something to keep my mind busy and to possibly help me shift my health into a better realm,” she tells the Straight, speaking on the line from Caledon, where she lives, about 45-minutes north of Toronto.

A jumping off point came in 2021, when a report about the “Gateway Experience”, published by the CIA in 1983, was declassified and resurfaced online. The report detailed the US Army’s investigation into how to alter states of consciousness and transcend time and space. For Leilani, it felt like validation. “I’ve always believed in astral projection, other dimensions, psychic abilities, and the ability to heal oneself through thought or through sound,” she says. “I couldn’t prove that it was something that, you know, people have invested money into scientific research to figure out what was going on.”

Leilani frequently has lucid dreams and began reading up on it around Grade 7, when she started realizing what was happening. She learned about repetition, how it helps

By Chandler Walter

Mary Ancheta is no stranger to the stage.

Having previously performed as keyboardist for Vancouver artists Kimmortal, Amanda Sum, and Ashleigh Ball, Ancheta and her keys have been in front of many an audience, but always off to the side.

Which is why the upcoming Vancouver International Jazz Festival is such a special one for the now-bandleader of the Mary Ancheta Quartet.

“It’s certainly different,” Ancheta says in a phone interview with the Straight

the mind remember, and that repeating a sentence daily can slip it into the subconscious. On “Lucid”, the opening track to Gateway Experience, Leilani does just this as she sings a line—“This is a dream”—for nearly two minutes. It’s meant to help others have lucid dreams, she explains, a sort of trigger into a dreamlike state.

Delivered over what sounds like gently rolling waves, the mantra immediately casts a meditative spell on the listener.

In fact, Gateway Experience’s entire musical landscape—produced by Leilani’s wife and business partner, SUN SUN—has that kind of engulfing effect. Moving between textures of jazz, neo-soul, and trip-hop, alongside live trumpet and piano, it’s lush but minimal, and

absolutely gorgeous.

witch prophet transcending time and space mary ancheta quartet is having fun getting busy

When starting work on the album, Leilani was stuck on the idea that, sonically, it needed to align with the kind of dance music that was popular at the time. SUN SUN made some beats, but it didn’t prompt Leilani to write, which is unusual for her. Then, during a song camp that included Zaki Ibrahim and Junia T, they wrote “Dreaming”, which appears on the record. Twinkling and groovy, with intermittent lines of horn, it all fell into place: this was the sound.

Soon after, in the same session, came album highlight “I’m Scared”, a stirring ballad carried by keys and strings, something that the artist has never done before. Intimate lyrics like “Hold my hand/Take my heart/Keep me safe/In your arms” offer a glimpse into Leilani’s real life and the comforting power of love’s embrace.

She hopes that Gateway Experience allows people to further understand epilepsy and seizures, and that it also helps others to better express what they’re experiencing.

“Before I made this album and before I even realized what was happening was seizures, I didn’t know how to articulate it,” Leilani says. “I didn’t know what to say and how to say it to my doctor for them to listen to me. Even now, with the right vocabulary, it’s still hard to have doctors listen to me, as a Black queer woman—the medical industry, it’s always been pretty hard for me. But I hope it gives people a head start, whoever is dealing with the same thing. A head start with healing.” GS

“I’ve been supporting so many people—I love to support artists and people playing original music. I know it’s not easy.

I’m feeling really good about the songs and I’ve got a great crew with me, so it certainly makes it easier to do the job and hopefully to just have some fun, not to overthink things, and enjoy the music that we’ve created.”

Slated to perform as openers for BADBADNOTGOOD at this year’s Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Ancheta— alongside tenor saxophonist Dominic Conway, bassist Matt Reid, and drummer Trent Otter—will take to the Queen Elizabeth stage on June 29.

“We’re really, really excited to play at the Queen E. It’s my first time playing there,” Ancheta shares. “I’ve sat in the

audience many times. It’ll be a different experience from the other side.”

The hometown show won’t be the debut performance for the quartet, though, as, earlier in the month, it will be making stops at jazz festivals in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Ottawa.

“So I’ll have a little run up before that BADBADNOTGOOD show,” Ancheta says with a laugh.

Though that’s not to say that the group hasn’t been in front of a Vancouver audience yet.

“Maybe a month ago we did a practice, secret show. We play as MAQ [Mary Ancheta Quartet] but we billed it as

Witch Prophet performs on June 25 at the Georgia Street Stage as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

Ayo Leilani has always believed in astral projections and other dimensions. Photo by Francesca Nocera.

Mary Ancheta has learned to not overthink things. Photo by Wayne Hoecherl.

Marsupial Annual Quorum, and the poster was a bunch of marsupial heads playing instruments.”

The group played that secret show at Vancouver’s Tyrant Studios, a venue that Ancheta says deserves some recognition, and was the perfect place for MAQ to get in front of a crowd—albeit a smaller one than what’s expected in Vancouver later this month.

“There’s a different feeling when you get into a space with real people and onstage, you know, trying to feel that out, but in a lower key environment,” she says. “There are moments that don’t go as planned, but then you kind of just try to be present and make some music in the moment. I think that’s the exciting part. For me, I don’t need to plan every second of every note, you know, we just kind of go where the music takes us, at times.”

Ancheta’s phone call with the Straight marked something of a special occasion: a day prior she had picked up the seven-inch records for the Mary Ancheta Quartet’s debut album Level Up, which at the time of writing was one week away from its June 2 release.

Showcasing Ancheta’s influences like Squarepusher, the Meters, and Prince, Level Up pulls from jazz roots as well as the artist’s experience working in film and TV, including scoring Golden Delicious, the award-winning coming of age film that was a top pick at last year ’s edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

The album also includes “Gotta Get It”, a supercharged jazz and funk jam that debuted in late April.

“It’s definitely sinking in. We’re excited,” Ancheta says of the record’s upcoming release. “We did two separate [pressings], just to be difficult. So pretty exciting. I only just realized it [the release] has kind of been creeping up on me.”

While Level Up will be available for streaming on June 2, those hoping to snag a vinyl copy will need to either buy it at the June 29 show, which Ancheta considers “a kind of hometown EP release,” or afterwards on Bandcamp.

As for who Ancheta is hoping to check out at the jazz festival, she mentions ebonEmpress and Sun Ra Arkestra.

“I love the diversity of the programming,” Ancheta enthuses. GS

Mary Ancheta Quartet performs on June 29 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

everything EVERYWHERE all at once jazz fest

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival has showcased some of the world’s most exciting and innovative artists on its stages, and this year, its 38th edition, is no exception. Running from June 23 to July 2, the landmark event offers 140 shows—including over 50 free performances—at an array of venues across the city. Here are five top picks you won’t want to miss.

LIDO PIMIENTA

At the Georgia Street Stage on June 24

The work of Colombian-born, Toronto-based Lido Pimienta boldly explores politics of gender, race, and identity as she combines Afro-Colombian musical styles like Cumbia and avant-garde electronica with her beautifully ecstatic singing voice. The Polaris Prize winner’s artistic vision, paired with her endless talents—Pimienta is also an exhibiting visual artist, has scored the New York City Ballet, and hosts her own CBC variety show, LidoTV—make her an absolute force, and a Jazz Festival performance not to miss. –Yasmine Shemesh

NIGHTCRAWLERS

At Ocean Artworks on June 24

If there ever was a Vancouver jazz supergroup, this would be it. Led by acclaimed drummer Jesse Cahill, the quintet features some of the local scene’s most prominent players: Cory Weeds, Dave Sikula, Chris Gestrin, and Jack Duncan. The combo lends to a soulful and swaggering musical experience, as Nightcrawlers take sonic cues from great organ bands of the past like Big John Patton and Booker T. and the M.G.’s. –YS

SUN RA ARKESTRA

At Performance Works on Granville Island on June 24 With melodious saxophone, energetic moves, and harmonious voices, Sun Ra Arkestra takes the stage. The iconic jazz group is known for its Ellingtonian big band swing, and recently received a 2022 Grammy nomination for its album, Swirling. The group was formed in the mid-’50s by Afrofuturism pioneer, Sun Ra. His cosmic musical experimentation influenced many artists, and today’s 13-piece unit carries the late Ra’s legacy through jazz, dancing, chanting, and Afro-pageantry. Sun Ra Arkestra has been led by original member and multi-instrumentalist Marshall Allen

Vancouver Jazz fest evolves

> AS PANDEMIC-ERA NAVIGATIONS have gone, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival has been more successful than many on the West Coast. While many major festivals continue to struggle, some even shutting down, the long-running celebration returns this year for its 38th edition.

In an interview with the Straight, artistic director Nina Horvath suggested that there was never any doubt the festival would be going ahead in 2023, with government pandemic-relief funding helping immensely.

since ’95. You need further life accomplishments? He turned 99 years old on May 25. –Bridget Stringer-Holden

AROOJ AFTAB, VIJAY IYER, SHAHZAD ISMAILY

At the Vancouver Playhouse on June 26

Arooj Aftab’s soulful singing earned her the first Grammy received by a Pakistani, which she won in 2022 for Best Global Music Performance. Now, the New-York based artist has released a collaborative album with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and pianist Vijay Iyer, following their debut as a trio in 2018. Love in Exile weaves piano, bass and distinguished vocals together into a mesmerizing performance. –BSH

BADBADNOTGOOD

At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on June 29 Fusing ’70s soul-jazz, alternative hip-hop, and experimental electronica, BADBADNOTGOOD redefines what it means to be a crossover band—the musically adventurous trio is truly in a category all its own. On its latest album, 2021’s Talk Memory, BBNG improvised in the studio and came out with a vibrant and virtuosic psychedelic journey that earned a nomination for the Polaris Prize. The group’s expansive approach has made them sought-after collaborators with like-minded innovators from Kendrick Lamar and Ghostface Killah to Kaytranada and Thundercat.–YS GS

“We always knew we could put on a festival this year,” she says. “It was just a question of what size it would be.”

Challenges included the loss of the fest’s long-time title sponsor TD Bank, as well as the reality that the pandemic changed entertainment consumption patterns. As many organization have noted, people got more comfortable staring at TV screens than going out and taking a chance on the arts, including live music.

The response to that reality has been a scaled-down Vancouver International Jazz Festival for 2023. But it’s also a festival that continues to evolve, with Horvath excited about centralized programming on Granville Island

where a Roamer Pass gets you access to shows at Performance Works, Ocean Artworks, and the Revue Stage.

“I think the programming this year is, as always, really strong across the board,” Horvath says. “I think it’s super-focused and distilled and there are really exciting things to see. The fact that we’ve brought in a new venue, the Revue Stage, on Granville Island, has changed the whole approach to how people can interact with the whole festival. You can show up at the Island at 2 in the afternoon, stay there, and listen to eight different shows until 1 in the morning. That’s really cool.”

- Mike Usinger

Lido Pimienta brings her poignant and powerful art to Vancouver this month. Photo by Ada Navarro Aguilera.

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It’s not the crowd that’s the concert problem, it’s you

By Chandler Walter

Mitski leaps to and fro across the stage of Deer Lake Park. The sun is setting on a cool summer night, and her infamous door looms as a backdrop to the acrobatic performance she somehow manages, even while belting out hauntingly cryptic lyrics. As the colours shift on stage, so too do they in the tiny rectangles of the hundreds of phones held aloft to record the artist’s every move. It looks as though about one in three zoomers have been holding their phone skyward for the past hour. You see all this, the endless sea of screens, and you think: what is wrong with this crowd?

The National is finishing up its set. It’s a cold, rainy night at the PNE Amphitheatre, and the audience is a perfect reflection of the dreary clouds overhead. Black and grey coats sway together listlessly as the steady thrum of the band launches into the final song. A rogue teen tries to sing along off-tune, but is quickly silenced by the glares of those who surround him. You see all this, feeling as though any sudden movement would be cause for arrest, and you think: what is wrong with this crowd?

The Airborne Toxic Event is midway through its set at the Commodore Ballroom. There’s an electricity in the air, and as the band launches into a high-energy rendition of “All I Ever Wanted,” a few bold folks at the front of the crowd put up their arms, bend their knees, and bounce enthusiastically to the beat of the lovelorn

ballad. The vast majority of the room, however, merely nods along, a slight tilt of the head the only acknowledgement of the emotion blasting out before them. You see all this, amazed that cool stoicism has outweighed the joys of dancing, and you think: what is wrong with this crowd?

Taylor Swift just took to the stage. You’re high up in the nosebleeds of a sold-out American stadium, so high up that you can barely make out the pinprick of colour that is the artist herself. Thankfully, there’s a huge screen capturing her every move, and that’s where all eyes at this level of stratosphere are staring. The roar from below is enough to rupture an eardrum, and as the biggest artist of a generation launches into the first song, her amplified voice is drowned out by the enthusiastic karaoke of 50,000+ voices all singing, screaming, screeching in unison. You see all this, shocked that you paid thousands of dollars just to hear the teens beside you scream their lungs out, and you think:

what is wrong with this crowd?

Leith Ross is playing at the Hollywood Theatre as part of their first-ever tour. It’s actually the very day that their new album, To Learn, has come out, and the mood is joyous—so much so that members of the crowd have been shouting, in the interim between songs, statements like “We love you Leith!” to which the performer bashfully thanks them. You see all this, the uninhibited yells from the audience, and you think: what is wrong with this crowd?

PUP has been absolutely bringing down the house at the Vogue Theatre. There are mosh pits, crowd surfing, a frenetic cacophony of sweat and chaos. People are pushing and shoving their way into the pit, their way to the front, their way to the bar. Any sense of personal space is gone when you’re in proximity to the stage. You see all this, the reckless abandon and flying elbows, and you think: what is wrong with this crowd?

…You get where we’re going with this. Great artists draw crowds of all ages and attitudes. What is suitable for one show might be wildly inappropriate at another (even if most are, we’ll admit, generally

sad indie rock). Obviously don’t try to start a mosh pit at The National, and don’t expect respectful silence at a PUP show.

Sure, the line gets a little blurry somewhere in between, and there are always going to be some people behaving “badly” at shows; but to pin the onus of that behaviour on an entire demographic, generation, or genre, especially if you’re actually the odd one out, is to miss the point entirely of why different musical stylings and performance experiences exist.

And, lastly, Phoebe Bridgers is standing centre stage at the Orpheum. They’re seated tickets, but the entire audience is on its feet. As she speaks into her microphone between songs, Bridgers commands the undivided attention of every soul in the room. That is, every soul that is not somehow still waiting in the seemingly infinite merch lineup, which snakes its way up three levels of stairs on one end and nearly out the northward exit doors on the other. You see this as you step out to the washroom to get some air, and you think: oh shit. Guess I’d better get in line. GS

Ask yourself this: Do you really need to watch a live show through a phone? Photo by Grish Petrosyan.

There are always going to be people behaving ‘Badly’.

vancity calling: how rascalz made history

By Yasmine Shemesh

In the early ’90s, the Vancouver Art Gallery was a central hangout for young hip-hop heads and skateboarders in the city. As Rascalz’s co-founder Red1 remembers it, everyone would play music on their boom boxes and skate around at the landmark on Georgia and Howe. The two cultures, he tells the Straight, meshed together easily.

“The energy is the same and the expression is almost the same,” Red1 says, on Zoom from Toronto. “You’re doing it on a board, some guys are doing the mic. But the individuality and originality—there was some synergy there.”

Skateboarding was what Red1 and Rascalz producer DJ Kemo first connected over when they met at their East Vancouver high school in 1990, their bond solidified soon after through shared interests in hip-hop and its local pockets. Vancouver’s scene had been slowly growing underground. In the late ’80s, Maximus Clean was reportedly the first to broadcast hip-hop in the province through his SFU radio show, Soul Sonic Shocks. Emcees like Craig Crush and EQ, a group comprised of the Incredible Ease and Quaze, were the leaders of an exciting pack of emerging artists.

UBC played a vital role as a driver, too: there was Sound War, a battle held at the Student Union Building on campus that attracted aspiring rappers, dancers, and graffiti artists from across the Lower Mainland. The Krispy Bisket Show, a weekly hip-hop radio program hosted by DJ Kilocee on CiTR, regularly featured local artists. And later came Elements, a CiTR-based magazine edited by DJs Jay Swing and Flipout, for which Kemo wrote record reviews.

“Mixtapes, local college radio, co-op radio, and some showcase-type events—those were our outlets,” Kemo adds, on the line from Vancouver.

Red1 continues: “Being a young teenager, seeing all that, you wanted to be a part of it.”

Red1 was also fuelled by what was happening in New York, as hip-hop was blowing up through boroughs from the Bronx to Queens, and would go to sleep at night with his Walkman headphones on as he listened to cassettes of A Tribe Called Quest, EPMD, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy.

“You know, hearing scratching for the first time and being like, ‘Yo, what’s that?’ It was just this dope new energy, and you related to it and it spoke your language,” he says.

Kemo was initially drawn to breakdancing. He recalls how, by the mid-’80s, both the city and the Island had healthy, vibrant scenes. The kids—including legendary Red Dragons skateboarder Rob “Sluggo” Boyse, who got his start as a well-respected dancer and gymnast—were, he describes, “just crazy.”

It was still a small community and all very locally-based, adds Red1. “Everybody knew everybody. Everybody was helping everybody get in.”

As the Rascalz assembled, each member embodied multiple aspects of the culture: Misfit and Red1 rhymed, Kemo produced and did graffiti—as did Dedos, part of the infamous AA Crew and frequent Elements cover illustrator, who also breakdanced alongside Zebroc.

“I think we all really inspired each other,” Kemo says.

The group mostly hung out at his house after school, where they’d make beats, write raps, and put their music together. They also watched a lot of RapCity, courtesy of Kemo’s brother who’d stay up late to record the MuchMusic specialty show.

“We were definitely students of the game,” Red1 says. “Not being in a mega-city like Toronto or New York—or Cali—at the time, we felt so far removed from where things were going on. There wasn’t hip-hop around you 24/7. So, anything you could get your hands on, you really studied. You felt it deep in your soul, in your bones.”

THE RASCALZ RELEASED their debut album, Really Livin’, independently in 1992, and it got picked up the following year by Sony. Charged with the exhilarating energy of nascent hip-hop innovation and their roster of influences, all masterfully arranged by Kemo, with boom-bap rhythms and the deft and chilled lyrical cadences of Red1 and Misfit, Rascalz crafted something that was heavy-hitting, playful, and totally unique.

Red1 still remembers the first time he heard Rascalz on Z95.3, which, back then, was the pinnacle of Top 40 radio in Vancouver.

“I was sitting outside my house and, off our Really Livin’ album, they played one of our songs,” he smiles. “Those are milestone moments where, literally, you felt like, ‘Okay, we made it! Our song’s on Z95.3!’ Or, ‘Okay, we made it, our video’s playing on MuchMusic!’ Because we didn’t know much beyond that. Zed was the top tier thing for the city, Much was the top tier thing for the country. And, you know, we weren’t really thinking past that. That was the end all, be all.”

By the time Rascalz released their 1997 sophomore effort, Cash Crop, hip-hop was one of the most popular styles of music in the world—and certainly one of the most commercially successful. That same year saw era-defining releases from acts like Missy Elliott, Puff Daddy, and the Notorious B.I.G., with the posthumous “Mo Money Mo Problems”. But despite being home to prominent artists like Rascalz, Michie Mee, and Maestro Fresh Wes, the Canadian music industry largely ignored its own talent.

Frustration at such lack of visibility reached a boiling point in 1998, when the Junos named Cash Crop as Best Rap Recording, with the award presented during

The early days. Photo courtesy of Rascalz.

the non-televised portion of the ceremony. While honoured to be nominated—it exceeded any of their own expectations, Red1 notes—Rascalz refused to accept the award.

“We felt like hip-hop deserved to be on that main stage and get its due props, just like any other form of music,” Red1 says. “We were not doing that for us because we were just being brats—we really wanted hip-hop to get the platform it deserved. We were doing that to help push the culture along.”

THE STAND RASCALZ took against the dismissal shook the industry to its core and forever changed it. The Best Rap Recording category was moved to the Juno’s main ceremony in 1999, which Rascalz won again—this time, for “Northern Touch”, a collaboration with Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, Checkmate, and Thrust. They also performed it live on the broadcast. The song was later added to Cash Crop. Originally, though, it was meant for Kemo and Jay Swing’s mixtape.

Kemo made the beat, inspired by EPMD’s “Get the Bozak”, which sampled a funk-soul track by the BT Express called “Everything Good to You Ain’t Always Good for You”. Red1 and Misfit wrote their verses, as did Checkmate. Then, the group’s manager, Sol Guy, suggested they invite some colleagues from Toronto and make it a posse cut.

“According to Kardinal,” Red1 remembers, “they were all in the studio—we weren’t there, we were in Vancouver this time—and they were all trying to figure out what the hook was. And Choclair, he was a big fan of Biggie. So he was just like, ‘We notorious! Ain’t nobody can bang with us!’ And then they were like, ‘Rascalz, Checkmate, Kardinal, and Thrust! Choclair comin’ down with the Northern Touch!’ And then Kardi said, ‘I’m gonna lay out the hook,’ those guys laid down their verses, and the rest is history.”

“Touch”, which speaks to Canadian hip-hop’s resilience, was groundbreaking. In heavy rotation on MuchMusic and radio across North America, it was the first Canadian hip-hop song to ever reach the Top 100, climbing to No. 41. It also deepened the connection between Vancouver and Toronto’s scenes.

“Everybody really liked and respected everyone for their talent and for what they were doing,” Red1 says. “You had this community, because it was hip-hop

and not everybody was doing it, and you had that in common.”

Now, “Touch” endures as one of the most important songs in Canadian music history. During OVO Fest last summer, which featured Rascalz on a star-studded lineup, Drake introduced the song as the country’s real national anthem.

“It was just cool to see,” Red1 smiles. “People really took to that song. Most people don’t even think that’s a Rascalz song, they think it’s just a song with a bunch of Canadian artists on it. And, to me, that’s even dope, you know what I’m saying?

’Cause that’s really what it is. It’s our song, but it’s not our song. It’s everybody’s song. And it’s a Canadian hip-hop anthem.”

After “Touch”, hip-hop finally began to receive the recognition and respect it long deserved in Canada. There was a significant rise in urban radio stations around the country, the first being Toronto’s Flow 93.5. Vancouver’s the Beat 94.5, launched in early 2002, was the second. Flipout

and Jay Swing both had gigs there. The Beat helped give a larger platform to local artists, while also being the place where international acts would do interviews when their tours landed in the city.

“It was flourishing,” Red1 recalls. “Hiphop, it was growing. And being there when there was none of this going on, to see it all happening in front of you, it was just, again, so exciting and so energizing.”

Rascalz continued to drop hits, like “Can’t Relate”, “Crazy World”, “Movie Star”, and “Top of the World”—the latter, one of their most loved, featuring k-os and Barrington Levy (who, Red1 recalls, came into the studio, took a drag of a cigarette, and recorded his whole part in one take). Over the “Dance Hall Rock” via R. Dean Taylor’s “Indiana Wants Me” sample, Levy sings out the nickname for Vancouver the group coined: Vancity.

Red1 remembers all the times Rascalz would perform in Toronto, which everyone called T-Dot. So, one day, they decided to give Vancouver a tag of its own.

“There was no other Vancity nothing—and no one referred to Vancouver as Vancity, and I didn’t get it from the bank,” he laughs. “It just came. These days, when I see Vancity all over the place and I hear people call it Vancity, I just sit back and smile like a proud papa.”

Over the next few years, artists like Swollen Members—another landmark Vancouver crew—and Moka Only helped to push the local scene out even further, as did hard-hustling DJs: Kemo is the pro-

ducer behind some of Canada’s biggest hip-hop hits, including Kardinal Offishall’s “Dangerous” and, alongside Concise, Swollen Members’ “Fuel Injected”.

If there is a Vancouver sound, Red1 considers, maybe it’s not really having one. “A lot of people now, they make music and a lot of it is premeditated. They’re trying to do a certain thing or trying to come up with a certain sound. But I think that was a cool part about us: we were always trying to find something different or something weird like that. We weren’t trying to emulate nothing as far as like, that’s a hit, let’s make our version of that. It was more like, let’s try to make some dope shit that don’t sound like nobody, that is super original.”

IT’S AN ATTITUDE that’s remained with the local hip-hop scene, which, today, is home to a diverse range of young artists like Teon Gibbs, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, NADUH, and Boslen—who features Rascalz on his 2021 song, “Note to the City”. Red1 thinks his hometown is in good hands. A lot of folks are caught up with what’s going on in Toronto, he says, but one of the best parts about being an artist in Vancouver is the firewall of the northwest: it allows for creatives to experiment with their craft without being surrounded by outside noise.

A generation-spanning lineup performs at the second annual Black Culture Celebration this month, which honours the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. Rascalz are headlining with the “Northern Touch” crew—including Offishall, Choclair, and Checkmate—and Maestro Fresh Wes is taking the stage, too. It’s set to be a historic day for the city, and one that celebrates Vancouver’s legacy and future in hip-hop.

It also prompts Red1 to remember one of the key moments where it all began for him.

“If there was anybody in Canada that really made me feel like, yo, you could do this, it was Maestro. He’d always show so much love and support, and just watching him do his thing always brings me back to the first time we met. He pulled up to our high school, to John Oliver, on his first tour when ‘Backbone Slide’ was the biggest thing in the world, and took the time to say what’s up and talk to me.”

Red1 smiles. “I got nothing but love and respect for all those guys.” GS

Rascalz perform at Sunset Beach Park on June 17 as part of Black Culture Celebration.

Misfit, Red1, and DJ Kemo. Photo courtesy of Rascalz.

we all really inspired each other.

– DJ Kemo

FRANKIIE GOES INTO THE WILD with Dreams

By Gregory Adams

Vancouver’s ever-expanding sprawl of condo and highrise development was stifling FRANKIIE keyboardist-vocalist Nashlyn Lloyd’s spirit during COVID lockdowns.

“I was living in an apartment near Main and Broadway during the pandemic, surrounded by cars. It was also one of those newer, sterile kind of buildings, but honestly, I was feeling really overwhelmed by Vancouver developments, in general,” Lloyd tells the Straight, though this feeling is relatable to any Mount Pleasant resident still navigating the ongoing construction of the Broadway Subway Project.

Regardless, the songwriter set out to overcome her encroached conditions through a dream-pop protest called “Garden”.

Found on FRANKIIE’s sophomore full-length, Between Dreams, the spaciously strummed “Garden” belies its claustrophobic origins. On it, Lloyd and co-founding vocalist-guitarist Francesca Carbonneau’s vibratos entwine to seek out a far-off “natural beauty so divine,” capped with an escapist mantra: “No more urban towers/find me in the flowers.”

“Garden” isn’t necessarily a call-out on developers; Lloyd just knew she needed a breather from city living.

“I’m a nature-loving gal, so I was really yearning to get out of that box,” she says. “I needed to connect a little bit more with the green stuff.”

The green stuff, it turns out, was the lush, grassy landscape of the Lloyd family’s cabin up in Powell River. While Lloyd and Carbonneau explain over Zoom that the writing of Between Dreams began in a “mouldy” East Van basement, a good chunk of the record was crafted during a bucolic retreat on the Sunshine Coast.

“It’s right next door to my grandpa’s. I’ve been going up there my whole life,” Lloyd says. “There was lightness out there that we were able to bring to the songs.”

Furthering the theme, Between Dreams’ reverb-gilded “Crystal Eyes” reflects on Lloyd’s cat Tofu freely wandering the property.

“He’s this symbol of the space,” Carbonneau suggests, adding that the lyrics to “Crystal Eyes” incorporate lines from a poem Lloyd’s mother had previously written about Tofu’s adventuring. The guitarist adds of their muse: “He’s so happy [out in the wilderness]. He gets all these burrs in his hair, just this wild little thing. It’s really fun to see.”

Shaking up the scenery was just one of many fluid aspects to Between Dreams As its album title suggests, the collection reflects a transitional state for FRANKIIE. While building off the breezy folk rock and paisley psychedelia of the band’s 2019 debut full-length, Forget Your Head, FRANKIIE’s lineup is looking pretty different these days.

Shortly after a trip to Texas’ South by Southwest festival was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, long-time drummer Zoe Fuhr made her exit from the project. After losing their backbeat, Carbonneau and Lloyd were uncertain about FRANKIIE’s next step. But one night they experimented with writing overtop a drum loop they found on YouTube and felt recharged. They brought a drum machine they dubbed “Chad” to the cabin, but recruited fleshand-blood percussionist Trevor Stöddärt to play drums on the recordings.

Funnily enough, after the band finally made it to SXSW in 2022, bassist Vickie Sieczka revealed she’d be bowing out to focus on graphic design. FRANKIIE then recruited friend and veteran solo musician Jody Glenham midway through the making of Between Dreams, with both bassists appearing on the album.

While FRANKIIE ultimately rebounded, the turnover affected its founders.

“It’s emotionally challenging when people come and go,” Lloyd admits, though she nevertheless empathizes with her former bandmates’ respective exits. “It can feel stressful if you have other priorities in your life. I’m not one to force somebody to stick in a situation that they don’t want to be in. So, if you’re ready to go, then go. We’re still friends.”

FRANKIIE’s evolution is alluded to on “Golden Days”, Between Dreams’ closing rocker. Equal parts nostalgic and forward-thinking, it pays homage to bonds built with band members past and present. Ahead of a late-album guitar soloing from Carbonneau, the FRANKIIE founders duet again to sing of the journey so far: “Without each other, we wouldn’t have seen it.”

While Between Dreams marked a profound change for FRANKIIE, the flux of life continues. Lloyd was nine months pregnant when they tracked the album and they have a brand new fan in her son, Mars (“He loves our music, probably because he heard it in utero”).

More recently, Carbonneau has moved to Los Angeles.

Near the end of the interview, the guitarist picks up her laptop, walks off onto her patio, and reveals a distant, sun-kissed look at the Silver Lake reservoir. Like that cabin out in Powell River, the lightness of the Golden State could prove inspirational. Lloyd wonders, though, how best to approach the next batch of FRANKIIE tunes with her songwriting partner.

“I think the challenge is going to be writing, when we get back into that cycle. Are we going to be able to do that through Zoom? Or do I have to come to LA a bunch?”

The keyboardist pauses for the briefest of moments. “Wouldn’t be upset about that,” she says through a wry smile. “I would love to come to LA.” GS

Between Dreams is out June 2 via Paper Bag.

FRANKIIE’s Between Dreams marks a change of seasons. Photo by Zachary Vague.

Chelsea Rose and Oscar Derkx

Photo: Emily Cooper

savage love gross memories aren’t impossible to scrub away

by Dan Savage

Dear Readers: We’re rerunning some very early columns while I recover from shoulder surgery. This column is from February 1999—the “Hey, Faggot” days—and doesn’t appear in the online archives.

> HEY, FAGGOT: I feel dirty. Not dirt that can be wiped away with a Wet Nap, but two-cans-of-Ajax kind of dirty. Alas, no matter how hard I scrub, I can’t get the memory of this man off of me. The urge to grab an SOS pad and scrub my nether regions is almost irresistible. Long story short: I spent the last year ass-over-teakettle for an older man who never made me feel very good about myself. At the time I thought I loved him, but now the mention of his name makes me wish I were one of those aliens on V who can shimmy out of their fake human skin.

This is a man who refers to a certain male movie star, whom he met 20 years ago in an acting class, as “Robin.” This is a man who—IN ALL SERIOUSNESS— gives that speech about how he’s a loner, so please don’t fall in love with him. This man questioned every positive step I made in my life, in an attempt to keep me in obsessive crazy love with his rickety frame. I’m furious with myself for letting it go on as long as it did, and for ignoring

the broken hip, butterscotch pudding, and adult diaper jokes my friends threw at me in an attempt to bring me to my senses.

Do not label me “bitter”—that’s too easy. What I need from you is an answer to a simple question. I know that not even Dan Savage can turn back time. I mean, if Cher can’t, you can’t… but I ask you, Dan, is there any way you can un-sleep with someone?

Filthy in New York

Hey, FINY: Because it only takes three to four weeks for your skin, your epidermis, to replace itself completely. Like those aliens in V, you’re constantly wiggling out of your human skin—only the process is a bit more subtle and hard to see. But for all intents and purposes, a month after this sorry affair ended, the skin covering your body never touched the skin covering his. You never even shook hands.

As for the rest of your body—vaginal canal, esophagus, stomach lining, rectum, and any other organs and orifices that came in contact with his organs or ejaculate—it’ll take more time for the cells comprising those tissues and organs to regenerate and replace themselves. But rest assured: you will, in time, have brand new everythings. The life cycles of various cells range from

months to years, but soon enough you’re going to be a whole new woman, FINY, a woman who never touched that creep. So, there’s no need to take an SOS pad to your nether regions, as soon they won’t be the nether regions he touched. They’ll be new and improved nethers.

> HEY, FAGGOT: No one should take advice from a homosexual. I have a gay uncle who always said I was his favourite relative, which was understandable since I loved him while others in our family wanted him to go away. My fiancé and I met him one morning for coffee. When my fiancé left, my uncle advised me not to marry him: because in my uncle’s opinion, my fiancé—with whom he’d had one cup of coffee!—was a homosexual, and our marriage would surely fail. I never intend to speak to my uncle again. But I know he will see this because he reads your column.

I want him to know that my fiancé told me that he experimented with homosexuality in college, plus a few flings afterward, but he stopped a year before we met.

When my fiancé heard what my uncle said, he said that one of the main reasons he abandoned what he calls “the brown lifestyle” were all the envious old queens bitter at being denied the fulfillment only normal people can have. I used to believe in live and let live, but now I understand that straights have to defend decency against the homosexual forces that would sabotage it. And we should never take advice from people like you and my uncle, who are on the wrong side in this war. About to be Traditionally Wed

Hey, ATW: Here’s your letter, and while I won’t presume to offer advice to you, an engaged breeder, I have some for your uncle, one homosexual to another.

When your niece divorces the sorry-ass fag she’s about to marry—which is inevitable—don’t let her back in your life. She may have been nicer to you than other family members, but apparently, she held you in just as much contempt.

So, like most gay men, you can spot ‘em, and when you sat down for coffee with your niece’s fiancé, you spotted one. You could have kept your mouth shut and played it safe, letting her marry the big homo. But you didn’t want to see your niece hurt, so you felt compelled to warn her. You did the right thing.

Your niece, naïve and inexperienced, doesn’t know most gay men “successfully” have sex with women before coming out, and that it isn’t that difficult a thing to do, especially if one fantasizes about “the brown lifestyle” as one plows away. Additionally, it probably hasn’t occurred to her that the reason celibacy comes so easily to her fiancé is that he doesn’t desire her. If he were a straight guy, he wouldn’t want to wait 10 minutes to get at her pussy.

When your niece dumps this cocksucker or gets dumped by him—which will hopefully happen before they start a “real” family—she’s going to come crawling back to you for sympathy and advice. And when she does, promise me you’ll tell her to suck your dick. GS

Send questions to questions@savagelove.net. Listen to Dan on the Savage Lovecast.

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