F fLAt trACk AttACk

May 15, 2007
Vancouver’s Best Newsweekly
Free Every Other Tuesday
www.toothanddagger.com For CITY, LIFE, and CuLTurE
fLAt trACk
AttACk
Jackie wonG
learns that
the cool Girls
rollerDerby
F
ishnets, skulls, red and black kneehigh socks: rollerskating never looked
so badass.
The Terminal City Rollergirls are Vancouver’s newest roller derby league, resurrecting a sport last seen here in the 1930s, when
coed teams competed at UBC. Founded just
over one year ago, the league got its start
when a group of rollergirl firestarters posted
a Craigslist ad calling out for team members
– a move that garnered a flurry of enthusiastic responses.
“A woman I work with brought her new
roller skates to work and I flipped my wig,”
says Andrea Fraser, a.k.a. Andi Struction,
the captain of league team the Faster Pussycats. “I said, ‘Where did you get those skates?
Why do you have them? Where do you skate?
Aieeee!”
After the initial ad, word of the league
spread quickly. It’s now over 50 members
strong, and a hotbed of DIY athleticism and
entrepreneurial badditude.
CONTINUED ON P. 6
?
the cure,
BIODIESEL isn’t
a reaDer writes to
set us straiGht on last issue’s
feature.
P.4
Free Computer?
VancouVer’s FREEGEEK has a solution to the problem of e-waste.
REANNA ALDER learns their
secrets
P.9
CAMBIE COLLAPSE
cuttinG in anD uncoVerinG
the truth with
MICHAEL LAPOINTE P.3
Table of Contents
Vancouver’s Best Newsweekly
News
P. 2
Cambie Street, Closed for Business
Michael LaPointe finds 30 shops closed on
Features
P. 6
cambie, a big snarl of traffic, and nobody
who’ll take the blame.
May 15th, 2007
Vancouver Rollerderby
P. 9
Tooth and Dagger is published bi-weekly and distributed
on Tuesdays. The next issue will be available at all stockists
on May 29th, 2007.
P. 3
14 Days
Sean Orr’s famous wit illuminates a
P.4
News Editor Michael LaPointe michael@toothanddagger.
com
News Sean Orr · Features Reanna Alder , Jackie Wong ·
Life Duncan M. McHugh, Chris Eng ·Books Kat Siddle,
Music Curtis Woloschuk, Rob Peters
Sunday Morning Chowdown
Duncan McHugh finds himself nonplussed by
Occupational Hazards
Kat Siddle interviews author/musician/
journalist John Armstrong. He is grumpy.
Music
P. 10
the wait, and the fare, at Paul’s Place
Dancing with myself about architecture
Curtis Woloschuk has, for the last year been
keeping a secret from you.
P. 5
Thanks to all those listed above, and also: Aja Bond, Caroline
Walker, Dory Kornfeld, Jen Harvey, Jessica Rosciglione, Kalin
Harvey, Kat Siddle, Reanna Alder, and Quinn Omori. Michelle
Mayne
G33K!
Chris Eng is about to school you in Venture
P. 11
Bros. lore. You will come away feeling like
the world is more fun.
P. 8
If you wish to advertise with Tooth and Dagger:
advertising@toothanddagger.com or (778)885-7741
Our rates are really good right now, and you can get
a nice placement.
P. 8
Life
P. 5
Advertising
Books
Biomass my ass.
A reader finds last issue’s biodiesel feature a
little too optimistic.
FreeGeek
Reanna Alder meets the Free Geeks, who
teach linux, collect old computers, and are
looking for to start a nonprofit recycling
store. Busy, eh?
fortnight’s news, and then some.
Letters
Publisher Graeme Worthy graeme@toothanddagger.com
Creative Director Will Brown will@toothanddagger.com
Roller Derby
Jackie Wong interviews the first ladies of
Preview: In the House Festival
Reanna Alder hints at what will be inside
some living rooms in early June
Stop Calling it Circus Music
Rob Peters get’s the message from They Shoot
Horses’ Nut Brown
P. 12
Lightning Dust
Curtis Woloschuk finds out what the people
behind Black Mountain, Blood Meridian, and
Dream on Dreary are up to these days.
Cambie Street: Closed for Business
Contact
Abuse should be directed at the editor. Friendly
comments, backpats, salutations, and writing submissions
are also accepted:
editor@toothanddagger.com
Art, photo, fashion, and design submissions to the art
director:
art@toothanddagger.com
Stockists and Distributors please contact:
circulation@toothanddagger.com
toothanddagger.com
Cover
By Michael LaPointe
Cover Art, as well as the illustration for Lightning Dust
by Nicole Ondre
2 May 15, 2007 Tooth and Dagger
After more than fifteen years of steady business, Tomato Café is closing its doors on Cambie Street, and you don’t
have to look far to understand why. Construction of the
Canada Line, also known as the RAV, has severed Cambie
Village’s ties to pedestrian traffic. Christian Gaudreault,
owner of Tomato, is moving his restaurant to West Broadway in search of greener pastures. “After this long, I don’t
want to leave Cambie,” he says from the new location, “but
if there’s no access to the street, how can we manage?”
Tomato is far from being the only Cambie business to suf-
fer. Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson states, “There are over
thirty vacant storefronts now. Some have moved, many
have closed. It seems that every week there’s another closure.” The devastation of this once-vibrant commercial district has left the community wondering how the mess got
started.
The Canada Line is a subway system designed to connect downtown Vancouver to the airport. According to
the Minister of Transportation, Kevin Falcon, the RAV will
generate approximately 100,000 users every day at a total
projected cost of $1.9 billion.
Initially, it was proposed that the Cambie p. 3>>
News
+7
14
Days
Sean Orr
An extra week of news in Bizzaro BC is like a lifetime. I
can’t fit it all into one little
column without skipping
spitting bus drivers, astroturfing Liberals, skyrocketing convention centre
costs, corporate sponsorship
of Vancouver parks and rec
centres, MLAs voting to remove murals at the Legislature, Suzuki’s greenwashing
of the Vancouver Sun, and
a Three-hundred acre land
deal for Whistler area First
Nations as part of a bribe,
sorry, deal to host the 2010
Winter Games.
Then again, some things
never change. Gas prices
keep going up, The Province keeps complaining
about gas prices going up,
the Canucks lose, and some
government comes out with
a green plan that doesn’t
go near the root of climate
change (this time it’s the Tories). Those clowns in congress did it again. What a
bunch of clowns. How does
it keep up with the news
like that?
Sullivan promises free museums at Christmas, a Skyt r a i n d ow n B r o a d w ay,
prescription drugs for hardcore addicts, a cure for AIDS,
and peace on earth. Opposition city councillors accused
the mayor of taking credit for things he had little to
do with.
Critics also panned the
speech for being oddly specific at times: “Civil City
means mothers will not hesitate to send their children
on a bus by themselves to
the downtown eastside to
take piano lessons.” Oh
come on Sam, everyone
knows the mighty Piano
Teacher Cartel contributed
heftily to your campaign.
Is Sullivan losing control of
more than just his mind?
At a recent party meeting
NPA councillor Peter Ladner managed to elect four
of his own supporters to the
NPA board leaving Sullivan
in a minority position. But
Steve Burgess reminds us
that “these are not opposition parties, remember. This
is one NPA councillor staging a power play against a
sitting NPA mayor”.
Now it seems Sullivan paid
city lobbyist Ken Dobell
$250 an hour of taxpayers
money to tutor him to be a
lobbyist. I’d rather the money go to teach him how to
be a mayor.
But Dobell is also Gordon
Campbell’s crony and could
face legal action. How could
special advisor to the premier, troubleshooter in
the forest industry, finance
chair for the Olympics,
member of the Convention
Centre board and 2010 Legacies Now and lobbyist for
the City of Vancouver possibly have any dual allegiances?
While the BC Rail corruption trial has uncovered
some startling allegations,
more notable are the accusations of fake radio show
call-ins and phony protesters. And then it was revealed by Defence lawyer
Michael Bolton that the solicitor general ‘intervened’.
Oh man, that would suck
being named after the guy
Now it seems Sullivan paid
city lobbyist Ken Dobell $250
an hour of taxpayers money to
tutor him to be a lobbyist. I’d
rather the money go to teach
him how to be a mayor.
from Office Space.
I know! We should give
these guys a raise! Despite
the fact that B.C.’s MLAs sit
fewer days in the legislature
than they have since 1972,
an “independent” handpicked panel recommends
they receive a 29% pay hike
and 54% for the premier.
While minimum wage and
welfare rates stay frozen.
Yet, a report titled The Vancouver Agreement Hotel
Analysis Project revealed
that Eighty-five per cent
of the SRO hotels charged
rates in excess of the $325
per month income assistance shelter allowance for
a single employable person.
Some hotels charged up to
$475 per month and only
230 rooms in the Downtown Eastside were actually available for under $400
per month.
The 54 hotels generated
11,269 emergency calls for
police, firefighters and paramedics in 2005.
Hotels were also rife with
welfare fraud, fire code violations, management
problems and rodent infestations.
Eighty per cent of the hotels had bedbugs. So Campbell buys 12 of them and
expects the homeless to
live in them. Reminds me
of Barbara Bush’s infamous
Superdome quote, “And so
many of the people in the
arena here, you know, were
underprivileged anyway, so
this is working very well for
them.
Speaking of Bush, George
Bush’s czar on homelessness
has seen Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. And he’s not
impressed. How fucking bad
does it have to get before
George W. Bush thinks we
have a problem? Although
I might have to agree with
him if he starts talking
about regime change.
>>Cambie cont’d
RAV be constructed along the Arbutus Street rail corridor.
Gregor Robertson says, “Arbutus was the logical, cost-effective choice for rapid transit out to Richmond. It seems crazy
to put billions into ripping up Cambie, a strip right through
the middle of the city, versus using a rail corridor that already exists.” The Cambie strip was chosen instead, says
Robertson, because “there was resistance on the west-side
to reinvigorating the Arbutus line, and the development
pressure that that would create. Cambie had a less organised, cohesive voice.”
Once Cambie became the site of the RAV, construction
developers InTransitBC proposed to build the line with a
bored tunnel method . Because the vast majority of bored
tunnel work occurs under the ground, this method minimises the amount of street disruption as well as environmental damage. “When the environmental assessment was
done on the RAV,” explains Robertson, “they approved it under the assumption that it would be bored tunnel.”
When InTransitBC began development, however, it was
decided that three-quarters of the project would be constructed with the cut-and-cover method. Cut-and-cover involves excavating a trench, building the tunnel within it,
and then covering it back up. This above-ground method is
responsible for the extreme disruption of traffic on Cambie. “I don’t know how they were allowed to use cut-andcover,” says Robertson. “I assume it was negotiated in the
secret dealings of the public-private partnership.”
Furthermore, Roberston claims that Cambie Village business owners signed leases under the impression that the
RAV would be constructed by bored tunnel. “The construction caught them all by surprise,” he says. “They assumed
that there wouldn’t be a major disruption. There has been,
and there will continue to be for a couple more years.”
As Gaudreault of Tomato says, “No business can wait for
years.”
In the meantime, the Cambie Village Business Association, a coalition of small businesses of which Gaudreault
was once chairman, is calling for government compensation. “These owners are bearing the cost,” says Robertson,
“and that’s not fair. There needs to be compensation. So far
the government has offered none.”
When confronted with reports of closures along the Cambie line, Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon replied,
“Businesses open and close every day. That’s what the marketplace is all about.” and insists that business will blossom once thousands of RAV riders are taken through the
Cambie corridor. Robertson, however, points out that “the
Canada Line stops at 25th and then at Broadway, nowhere
in-between.” Indeed, Gaudreault is abandoning his Cambie
location because he believes that “no one will stop in that
small corridor.”
“Clearly, the government is not even acknowledging
this major impact,” claims Robertson. Later this month,
he will introduce legislature to get property tax refunded for small business owners, an idea that came from the
Cambie Village Business Association. “Meanwhile, support those businesses and make some noise,” he says. “Let
them know that you think the small businesses deserve
respect and compensation for their sacrifice.”
For Christian Gaudreault, however, any compensation
would arrive too late. “We’ve been in that neighbourhood
for years,” he laments, “but now it’s time for me to humbly withdraw. I feel as though I’ve done all I can for the
strip.”
Tooth and Dagger May 15, 2007 3
Life
Sunday Morning
Chowdown
A B r u n c h R e vi e w
Paul’s Place
Omelettery
2211 Granville
Street
(at 6th Ave.)
604.737.2857
Duncan M. McHugh
I’ve heard people talk about Paul’s Place. I like omelettes and-apparently-this is the place in town to get
them.
The lineup was the first thing to bum me out. It took us
30 minutes to get a seat. Of course, Paul’s can’t really be
blamed for being too popular, but this was too much of
a hassle to deal with on a Sunday morning and an empty stomach.
An aside here: do breakfast places ever have little bars
or some sort of staging area where those waiting for a table can grab a drink and an appetizer, the way that dinner restaurants sometimes do? Even with my limited grasp
of restaurant management, I can tell this is a completely
impractical idea. Still, a cup of coffee and a piece of toast
would have gone a long way to making our wait more bearable.
Once we were finally seated, the service was snappy, given
how busy it was. Paul’s doesn’t have much to offer in terms
of atmosphere, but it wasn’t too noisy and this accommodated conversations nicely. The menu offered a ton of variety and options, which was nice as well.
I ordered the mushroom and cheese omelette, but for
a place that bills itself as an omelettery, I was a bit nonplussed. The eggs were bland and it had too much cheese.
I know that this might seem paradoxical, but it’s true: too
much cheese can happen, especially when dealing with
cream cheese. It overwhelmed the rest of the omelette.
The hash browns and toast were serviceable, but didn’t
pick up the slack left by the cheese-drowned omelette.
My friend had the huevos rancheros and French toast (that
half hour wait had left him ravenous). His meal looked great,
but he said that the eggs were the least exciting part.
Paul’s is an alright place, but as my mom used to say, “it’s
no great whoop.” If you need an omelette Monday to Friday and you’re in the neighbourhood, I say go for it, but if
you’re looking for something on a weekend, I’d head somewhere a little less popular and a little more tasty. Remember, the myriad of possibilities offered by the Granville
Island Public Market is only a 10 minute walk away.
Brunch served daily, 7am-3pm
Price: $14 (including coffee and tip)
Lineup: 30 minutes
Vegetarian options: plenty!
Soy milk: no
4 May 15, 2007 Tooth and Dagger
G33K!
Chris Eng
“Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Hiro!” “Claire!” “Or maybe
the senator...” “Okay, now you’re just being stupid.”
Whether or not this particular water cooler conversation seems familiar to you, the fact is: “favourite character” discussions (or arguments) have been a
fact of life for as long as ensemble TV shows have been
around. (Perhaps longer: “Capulets!” “Montagues!” “Idiot!” “Mouth-breather!”)
Less frequent are discussions about who your favourite
supporting cast members are, but in the case of the Venture Brothers it might be more relevant. It’s not that the
main cast members aren’t memorable enough – even in
a brilliantly-scripted cartoon parody of Jonny Quest, the
Hardy Boys and nearly every spy movie ever made, it’s
nearly impossible to take characters like henchwoman
Dr. Girlfriend (who sports a pink Jackie O outfit and posesses a surprisingly deep voice) and bodyguard Brock
Samson (about the manliest protagonist ever put to
screen) for granted – it’s just that the supporting cast
might be even more inspired. Judge for yourself:
Girl Hitler: More-or-less self-explanatory, this is the former villain turned freedom fighter who, you know, happens to share the same hair and moustache as Adolph.
Defining quote? “Mess with the girl, you get the Hitler!”
Dr. Henry Killinger: Imagine Henry Kissinger. Now imagine him in a black doctor’s uniform and tiny skull mask.
Give him a “magic murder bag.” You see where I’m going with this?
Jefferson Twilight: Member of the secret society The Order of the Triad and blaxploitation role-model who lives
to hunt “blaculas.” Fun fact: decapitating them is the
only way to kill them.
Catclops: A man with one cyclopean eye-socket in his
forehead, but instead of an eye there’s a cat’s head in it.
You either inherently get this or you don’t.
Molotov Cocktease: Brock’s on-again-off-again lover/
nemesis who wears a slinky leather catsuit, speaks in a
Russian accent and sometimes babysits the two young
wards, Hank and Dean, when Brock’s not around.
Now, having seen the light, I want you to try the initial conversation with Venture Brothers supporting cast
members substituted instead:
“Molotov Cocktease!” “Girl Hitler!” “Molotov Cocktease!” “Girl Hitler!” “Molotov Cocktease!” “Or maybe
Phantom Limb...” “Okay, now you’re just being stupid.”
See? Much more interesting. Bone up on Season 2 and
try it out at your water cooler today. (And incidentally,
Hiro is cooler than Claire. He’s got a sword.)
Venture Brothers, Season 2
(Turner)
NEWS:
- In news that might be “amazing” or “spectacular” but is
definitely weird, Spider-Man is coming to Broadway in a musical written by Bono and the Edge. I was going to insert a
joke here, but talking about Mysterio singing “Even Better
Than the Real Thing” seemed a little obscure and “Sandman Bloody Sandman” was too awful to contemplate using. So be thankful.
- China is getting its very own MySpace and in the tradition
of the English-language version it’s encouraging people to
spy on each other. Oh, hold on a sec’. It’s encouraging people to spy on each other for the government, not just randomly stalk people in their extended circles of friends and
collect random photos and bits of information until their
hard-drives are a jumbled, cluttered mess resembling the
inside of Kevin Spacey’s apartment in Se7en. Yeah, that’s
not as cool.
- In sort-of-related news, Dell will start shipping PCs with
Ubuntu Linux pre-loaded on them, and Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer has proclaimed that the iPhone will garner no market share. I mean, seriously – you can keep tightening your
grip and deluding yourself about the power of your space
station, Tarkin, but this is what it looks like when the star
systems start to slip through your fingers.
- And in a final story that will cause old school g33ks to try
to off themselves by choking on their polyhedral dice, it
was announced that both Dungeon and Dragon Magazines
will cease publication in August. Remember: they can take
away your gaming aids, kids, but they can never take away
your 12th level Paladin.
JUST RELEASED:
In case you thought that dinosaurs and World War II soldiers don’t mix, I want you to know that you’re wrong
and that the new DC Showcase collection of The War That
Time Forgot will prove it conclusively. If you’re running
out of cool things to stick on your notebook/car/pet/whatever, then be sure to pick up the AdHouse Sticker Pack,
containing sticky goodness from such artists as James Jean
and Paul Pope. Zombie killers can celebrate the release
of Resident Evil 4 for the PC and world conquerors can
get stoked about Catan for the Xbox Live Arcade. Fans of
brilliantly fucked-up cinema will enjoy the new five-disc
boxed set of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. And hey:
Spider-Man 3’s in theatres right now – go see it before it
gets turned into a musical.
Letters
Letters:
Biomass, my ass.
David Ravensbergen’s article on
biodiesel [Tooth and Dagger , April
24th] touches on some important issues surrounding alternative energies
and their application as a response
to global warming and the eventual decline of global oil production;
however, his assertion that “[t]he environmental benefits are undeniable”
is questionable. In fact, there are a
range of concerns raised by increasing biodiesel use, environmental, infrastructural and social.
A more ecologically sound fuel is
one that provides a net energy gain
while diminishing impacts on the
biosphere; biodiesel may do neither.
While the numbers are hotly contested on whether manufacturing and
processing biodiesel expends more
energy than it gains in the form of
usable fuel, it seems that the more
we consider the “life cycle” of biodiesel, from corn to car, the more likely it’s a losing proposition. Moreover,
while environmental benefits are visible to the consumer in the form of
reduced emissions, the overall impacts of biodiesel are somewhat disconcerting; many analysts consider
biodiesel’s diminished environmental impacts (anywhere from 5 to 20%
“less cost” than fossil fuels) simply a
result of inadequately developed indicators, such as “impacts on wa-
ter, eutrophication, acidification and
photochemical oxidant formation”
due to intensive (fossil-fuel-based) agricultural practices.
Furthermore, an attempt to embed biodiesel into North American
infrastructure would be costly, and
ultimately damaging to long-term
sustainability. The only way to produce such an infrastructure would be
to use existing fossil fuels to radically
reorient the supply chain, making it
profitable to be a farmer again. Noble
perhaps, if biodiesel is what its proponents claim, but at what cost? We
could be building libraries, schools,
hospitals, sustainable urban gardens
with the last of this energy. Or we
could build more automobile infrastructure.
And if, as Rogoza claims, “[t]here’s
lots of marginal land available to produce oil-based crops for renewable
fuels,” then why is the U.S. push toward ethanol (another biomass fuel)
causing Mexican tortilla prices to
skyrocket? According to some estimates, it would take the entire continental U.S. to provide enough corn
(or comparable biomass product) to
feed the American automobile fleet,
to say nothing of its heavy industry. If we choose our cars over human mouths, what volumes does this
speak of our culture’s ethical orientation?
Any analysis of any alternative en-
ergy has to look at the whole picture,
meaning the environmental and social impacts, but also the long-term
cultural implications of our technological choices. When David explains that “[d]ependence on a single
source of energy is what sparked the
present crisis in the first place” he is
right on the money. The only problem is, we can’t just diversify our
energy portfolio and maintain our
current lifestyle: no amalgamation
of energy resources will supply anything near our current energy uses,
even assuming maximization of biomass and nuclear (at huge ecological and social cost). Our experiment
with oil will end, either by necessity
or choice, and our moves in the coming years will determine whether we
are remembered as a culture that
maintained its standard of living at
all costs, or admitted its mistake and
simplified. It’s time for us to power down: not just to drive less, but to
live without cars, not just to buy organic, but to know the person who
grew it, to think not about our lifestyles but about our lives.
Matt Thomson
Master’s of Arts in Planning Candidate, School of Community
and Regional Planning,University of British Columbia
GALLERY I
LAURA BABAK-NAGY
Say that to my Face!
Tooth and Dagger
would like to hear what
you think.
Letters should be under 300 words and
include contact details so we can confirm
your identity.
Please send them to:
editor@toothanddagger.com
GALLERYGACHET
I’m Finished With Horses: A Retrospective
May 4 - 27
GALLERY II
GRACE LAM
Growth
May 4 - 27
GALLERY I
INSIDE THE OUTSIDE
Clare Singleton, Jerry Stochansky, Tanis D.A. Laird
J. Peachy, Evelyn Brosseau, Carl Alessi
June 1 - 29, opens June 1, 7-10pm
CALL FOR PROPOSALS 2008
Deadline: July 15, 2007 for our 15th anniversary year
Check website for our June workshop for interested artists
gallery hours: wed-sun 12-6pm
88 east cordova • 604.687.2468
gallery@gachet.org • www.gachet.org
VOLUNTEER ORIENTATION
May 28, 7pm
Dust, Laura Babak
Readers’ Choice
Tooth and Dagger May 15, 2007 5
Feature
elbow Diplomacy
The Terminal City Rollergirls
Are reviving Flat Track Rollerderby
Whether you like it or not.
Continued from Page 1
by Jackie Wong
>>continued from cover
The Terminal City Rollergirls are part of
a growing number of urban leagues that
have sprung up, seemingly in the wake of
the reality TV show that followed the Austin, Texas, Lonestar Rollergirls – a bunch
of punkabilly hotties more reminiscent of
SuicideGirls than of the roller derbies of
the ‘30s. However, this revival has come
concurrently with the growth of a thriving burlesque scene, at least in Vancouver. With lots of black and red, crazy flirty
names and playful costuming, a shared
aesthetic exists between the two. However, derby isn’t about flirting and pasties;
it’s about kicking ass and taking names.
“It’s a pretty rough, full-contact sport,”
says Fraser. “Feisty, competitive girls are
attracted to roller derby, so that can fuel
some pretty intense rivalries. That, in
combination with a 5-foot-10, 185-pound
girl in a short skirt and fishnets trying to
knock you over, can add some spice to
your life.”
However, Fraser does point out that
there are rules and regulations in derby,
such as no hitting from behind, no tripping, no elbowing.
During the match, points are scored by
each team’s ‘jammer’, indicated by the
star on her helmet. She gets one point per
opponent lapped, and they don’t make it
easy.
“Each team thought of their own team
name. My team, the Faster Pussycats, is
named to pay homage to the old Russ
Meyer movies. Each girl picks her own
name, or sometimes a name is given to
them,” says Melinda Breda, a.k.a. Bella Fortuna, the Terminal City Rollergirls
vice-president.
Fraser goes on to add, “Our names are
combinations of nicknames, homage to
famous tough broads, innuendo, puns and
plays on words. Sexy/tough/scary will usu-
6 May 15, 2007 Tooth and Dagger
ally do the trick. Some of my faves are
Blanche Davidian, Bruise Lee and Judith
Priest,”
The high-impact, hard-loving ways of
the sport—ripped T-shirts, full-sleeve tats,
busty broads et al—suggests marked differences between the Rollergirls and
their Lulu-clad contemporaries. “Most
a 5-foot-10, 185pound girl in a short
skirt and fishnets
trying to knock you
over, can add some
spice to your life.
of our girls were skipping gym class in
high school so they could hang out in the
smoke pit.” says Fraser. “It’s not usually
the gym-class-soccer-team-good-girl type—
it’s the kind of girl that doesn’t like to be
told what do to or what to wear or what
to say. Way more fun than the minivan
majority.”
The counterculture ethos of the Rollergirls dominates on and off the track,
rendering a unique anti-sport league of
athletes. Lauren Fullwood, known as Dee
Linquent, cites “the moral, environmental
and endlessly growing cost of the Olympics” as one of the worst aspects of Vancouver. Such words are seldom heard
from a serious sportsperson.
Rare for many athletes, too, is the challenge of finding practice space—especially in a city rife with 2010 anticipation. “As
the Olympics get closer, it’s getting harder
to find indoor places to skate,” says Andi
Struction. For now, the Rollergirls practice
space and venues change with the seasons,
from New Westminster’s Royal City Curling Club in summer months to winters at
the Mount Pleasant Community Centre
and UBC’s Osborne Gym. Despite this inconvenience, the girls remain optimistic.
“We’re a bunch of feisty broads, so we’ll
keep trying,” says Fraser. “Derby or Die!”
Also, the Rollergirls cite the diversity of its members as one of its greatest strengths. ”It’s a sport where you see
women of all ages, sizes and ethnic backgrounds,” says Breda. “We range in age
from 19 to 43, I believe, and we have women from all professional backgrounds,
from nurses to graphic designers to TV
producers to photographers to stay at
home moms.”
In a league operated solely by its members, all responsibilities are shared, this includes: promotions, basic operations, and
organisation of special events. The apparent strength of the year-old Rollergirl community bodes well for it’s continuation
and growth.
“Every practice is different,” says Fraser. “Some days it’s like we’re playing in
the Stanley Cup finals and trying to flatten
each other like pancakes. And other days
it’s a big love-fest, and we’re hugging and
sharing our feelings.”
Between cans of whup-ass and buckets
of love, the Terminal City Rollergirls are
here to stay. Check out a match, and you’ll
learn a few things about humanity.
Feature
The Rules
(from the rollergirls event program)
Favorite fightin’ tunes
“Stooges, Ramones, Motorhead, Andrew W.K. And GG Allin: “Drink Fight
and Fuck.””
-Dee Linquent
“Mamma Said Knock You Out” by LL
Cool J kinda makes me want to choke
a bitch.”
-Andi Struction
”Nothin’ like “Eye of the Tiger” to
make me think Rocky and get pumped
up to get my game face on!”
-Bella Fortuna
Books
Occupational Hazards.
Wages
By John Armstrong
New Star Books
Interview with Vancouver’s John Armstrong
by Kat Siddle
When I tell local author John Armstrong that I just finished reading my press copy of his new memoir, Wages,
he is slightly surprised that I’ve read it at all. “You’re letting your side down,” he says, and warns me that they’ll
take away my press pass for doing so.
This cynicism is not unwarranted: after 15 years working as a journalist for the Vancouver Sun, Armstrong
knows altogether too much about how the media works.
“I think journalism is like laws and sausages,” he tells me.
“You should never see either one being made. I don’t read
newspapers anymore, ever.”
In certain circles, Armstrong is probably better known
as a musician than as journalist. Under the name Buck
Cherry, Armstrong sang and played lead guitar for the
Modernettes, a popular local punk band. In 2001, he
chronicled this “misspent youth” in Guilty of Everything,
a relentlessly entertaining memoir of the Vancouver punk
scene in the late 70s and 80s. In Wages, his second volume
of acerbic true tales, Armstrong focuses on the other, less
fun side of life: shift-work, petty bosses, and punch-clocks.
Many people blog and write about this very subject, but
Wages might just be the darkest and most bilious meditation on work. At it’s best, the book comes across like a
compelling-yet-disturbing bar story told by a guy who’s
had a bit too much, but who’s just getting started. Arm-
strong’s writing is vivid, propelling the reader through a
series of terrible jobs with equal parts humour and anger.
Each job has its own particular soul-killing power: one position saw Armstrong beheading live chickens on an assembly line for eight hours a day, the lopped-off heads
collecting in a tub near his feet.
Wages was written in a stint of unemployment just after Armstrong ended his lucrative but deeply unhappy career as a journalist. Although about a third of his book
is devoted to detailing the bleakest aspects of his time at
the newspaper, I still felt compelled to ask him about it.
“I don’t know if I got to practice journalism,” he says. “I
think there’s a world of difference between the ideal of
journalism and the daily practice of it. There’s probably
places where you get to perform the pure art, but it’s so
inextricably bound up now with advertising and share val-
one position saw Armstrong
beheading live chickens on
an assembly line for eight
hours a day, the lopped-off
heads collecting in a tub
near his feet.
Preview:
The In the House Festival, around Commercial Drive.
For those looking to ease into festival
season this year, In the House promises to
be one of the most intimate and unusual
public events of the summer.
The two day multi-arts festival features
music, theatre, dance, spoken word, puppets, storytelling, burlesque, and more.
And it all takes place in the living rooms
and backyards of a cluster of houses
around the 1100 block of Semlin Drive.
Myriam Steinberg, the festival’s artistic
director, says In the House is an “outside
the box solution” to the dwindling availability of performance venues in Vancouver.
The setting, Steinberg explains, creates
a “warm atmosphere” and fosters community. She says performers love “being able
to feed off the [energy of the] audience.
That’s hard to do when you’re six feet
higher than them.”
The festival, in it’s fourth year, is the
annual culmination of a regular series
of themed performance events. Upcoming monthly shows include “Cabaret des
baguettes,” “History of Vancouver,” and
“Film Meets life.”
Somehow, Steinberg says, “there are always the exact right number of people for
each house.”
The exception is the festival’s Sexy Vari-
8 May 15, 2007 Tooth and Dagger
ety Show, from which they’ve had to turn
people away; Steinberg expects it will sell
out again this year.
Other festival highlights include a dance
program that runs the gamut, from popping by Nelson “Dedos” Garcia, to flamenco by ¡Jaleo! and swing by Lucy Falkner
and Léo Newman, as well as a Sunday afternoon blues session, and traditional
Vietnamese musicians Khac Chi.
Steinberg says she’s looking forward to
the grand finale, “The Land of No Return,”
a storytelling extravaganza headed up by
her sister, Naomi. The latter Steinberg is
an accomplished teller who recently traveled to Israel and Palestine.
Last year’s story-finale, “Gawain, Ragnall
and the Green Knight,” featured audience
participation, stilt walkers, puppets, and
fire, and this year’s finale promises to be
equally spectacular.
In the House’s Saturday afternoon features a children’s show, but Steinberg encourages people to bring kids along to all
events. “I think it’s important that kids
start young,” she remarks.
In the House runs June 2nd and 3rd. Tickets available at
Highlife Records and online: inthehousefestival.com
ues.” When I ask him if he’d like to perform journalism
as an art form, without commercial pressures, he laughs.
“It’s too late for that. When I was young and keen maybe,
but I’m not young and keen anymore.”
The funny thing is, Armstrong still loves writing. He’s always been creative, but prior to working as a journalist,
songwriting and music were his chief outlets. He cites financial difficulty as his muse: “It wasn’t until I had to
write prose for a dollar that I did” he explains, “and if I
hadn’t made a dollar, I don’t know if I would have started
writing.” So what made him think he’d be able to churn
out words as a freelancer? “It didn’t seem very hard! And
it turns out it wasn’t. Well, doing it passably well didn’t
seem like a great stretch.”
When I ask him if he thinks it’s possible for someone
to love their job, he’s doubtful. Armstrong is a lonely figure in a culture that constantly insists that people follow
their bliss and make a living from their dreams. But his
cynicism comes from learned experience and a realistic
outlook. “I don’t know many people who love their jobs.
Some people say, “I love my job” and they’re the same
ones that say “I love people.” Well, how could you love
people, in general? I think they might be telling the truth,
but I don’t want to sit next to them on a long bus trip.”
Life
Free Geek, making old computers new
again
By Reanna Alder
D
avid Repa and Ifny LaChance,
along with the rest of the folks at
Free Geek Vancouver, want to give
you a free computer.
All it will cost to participate in
their “adoption program” is 24 volunteer hours.
During that time you will help to refurbish six computers. At the end of it, you walk away with number six, a souped-up “Freekbox” outfitted with the
latest version of Ubuntu (a user-friendly distribution of Linux, the open source operating system).
That’s the plan, anyway.
All they need now is a building. “All the energy is
there,” says Repa. “Our storage facility is starting to
reach capacity.”
Back in November of last year Repa, 29, quit his
11 year long stint in auto recycling to devote himself full-time to getting the first Canadian Free
Geek of the ground. The original Free Geek of Portland, Oregon, served as a model.
LaChance, 32, a local bike activist, was already familiar with the Free Geek concept and jumped on
board.
“We’re dealing with a very large surplus of [discarded] computers [... and] a lot of people who are
desperate to connect and have the same things that
a lot of people take for granted,” LaChance says.
“We take the two problems and put them together.”
The Vancouver group shares its Portland parent’s
slogan: “Helping the needy get nerdy since the beginning of the 3rd millennium.”
But finding a location is proving more challengDavid and Ifney with their new data-wiper machine, it cleans and sanitizes hard drives.
ing than Repa and LaChance expected. Real estate
agents and landowners seem reluctant to take Free
documentaries like Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured
Geek seriously.
Landscapes and GOOD magazine’s video on YouTube,
“[People] need to learn that non-profit doesn’t mean no
technology users are starting to see images of the devastamoney,” Repa says. “Free Geek [Portland] runs a half a miltion caused by electronics “recycling” in India, China, and
lion dollar budget.”
other developing countries.
“What would be ideal,” Repa explains, “is a land owner
According to the Basel Action Network, a non-profit
that is into charitable causes. You say ‘look, can you give
committed to bringing the developing world into complius three months for free just to get rolling, and I guaranance with the Basel Convention, “Canada and the USA are
tee you it’s going to pay off.’”
the only developed countries in the world that have failed
Still, Repa says, “even though we don’t have a buildto control export of hazardous electronic waste to develing yet, we’ve affected people’s lives. I was filling out a
oping countries.”
grant application and one question said ‘What’s one maWe have also failed to demand that electronics manufacjor lesson you’ve learned in this venture so far?’ It was a
turers take responsibility for the end-of-life recycling of
very simple answer, I wrote: ‘you don’t need a building to
the products they produce.
build community.’”
Canadian lawmakers are finally stepping in. This FebruHe estimates that over 100 people have become involved
ary, the province of British Columbia passed legislation,
with Free Geek since the group’s inception in November
that will come into effect in August, making it illegal to
of last year.
throw out many forms of e-waste, including computers
In addition to monthly meetings and an active mailing
and entertainment electronics (this is already illegal in Allist, Free Geek hosts “Windowless Wednesday” Linux clinberta).
ics, movie nights, and other events at various locations,
Included in the new electronics stewardship plan are
including Spartacus Books, SPEC and Video In. All events
regulations against exporting e-waste to non-OEPC or nonare, of course, free and open to the public.
EU member countries, and the use of prison labour.
A recycling fee – about $45 for a desktop computer –
The e-waste buzz
will be charged to the consumer at purchase. Much of the
Location troubles aside, Repa couldn’t have picked
volume will be handled byEncorp, the same company that
a more opportune moment. E-waste is big news. With
handles our glass bottles and tetra packs.
But Free Geek is poised to reuse the refuse
before it heads to the smelter. And if their application for charitable status is successful,
they will have the advantage of being able to
offer tax receipts to individual and corporate
donors in exchange for second-hand hardware.
Open source community values
Although there are other non-profits in the
Lower Mainland who refurbish and redistribute donated computer hardware to the needy
(including the Electronics Recycling Association and Computers for Schools), what sets
Free Geek apart is their commitment to the
open source ethos.
On a practical level, “You couldn’t use older
hardware with a Microsoft product, it would
just be a slow dog,” Repa maintains that. “A
lot of other charities that give out computers
use Windows ‘98, or Windows 2000. They either have to charge for the computers, or give
out obsolete operating systems.”
For those wary of Linux, Repa says open
source has come a long way. “I just sent
a Linux box to my folks back in Ontario.
They’re in they’re 60s, and they love it. It’s
completely stable, there’s no viruses, no spyware, nothing. [...] I figure they’re a good litmus test of how Ubuntu is doing.”
But open source software is more than just
a convenient way for Free Geek to avoid paying licensing fees and make better use of old
hardware. LaChance believes that planned obsolescence
represents a “cynical relationship” between companies
and consumers. She says that the use of open source represents a strong stance against proprietary hardware and
Digital Rights Management. “If you don’t want to be promoting the ideologies of a lot of these companies then it’s
important not to use their products.”
Reduce, reuse
In addition to the adoption program, the center will offer a build program for the more ambitious, a variety of
free workshops, and a thrift store selling second hand
parts and accessories. “Last year [Free Geek Portland] did
just under a quarter million in thrift store sales,” Repa
notes.
What that means is a lot of keyboards, mice, and monitors getting a second chance, and fewer coming off the
shelves at Future Shop.
Now all you have to figure out is what to do with your
broken and obsolete cell phones, pagers, PDAs, MP3 players, stereos, digital cameras, calculators, clock radios, video game systems, TVs, VCRs, walkmans, discmans, ghetto
blasters and tamagochis.
Tooth and Dagger May 15, 2007 9
Music
Dancing with myself about architecture
Burn, calendar, burn!
Curtis Woloschuk
Late last January, I found myself suffering
a not uncommon bout of insomnia. As usual, I addressed it by navigating through MP3
blogs in the hope that the persistent buzz
would lull me to sleep. It was around 3am
that I darkened the doorstep of You Ain’t
No Picasso. Front and centre on the website
was “Corazon” – a song slated for inclusion
on the first of a series of monthly EPs to be
self-recorded and released by indie combo
Bishop Allen. Never one to let a novel concept (or conceptual novel, for that matter)
leave me unmoved, I exclaimed, “An EP a
month for an entire year? This I gotta hear.”
and magicked payment details to an apartment in Brooklyn.
Of course, I already possessed a passing
knowledge of Bishop Allen. Four months
earlier, I’d seen the band’s singer/guitarist
Justin Rice act in Andrew Bujalski’s superb
Mutual Appreciation. While most of the film
was steeped in social awkwardness, strained
conversations and skin-crawling anxiety, it
mustered one moment imbued with immediacy and abandon. That occurred when list-
10 May 15, 2007 Tooth and Dagger
less, laconic singer/guitarist Alan (Rice) took
to a NYC stage and was utterly transfigured
as he spat and jittered his way through the
convulsive “Quarter to Three” (from Bishop
Allen’s debut, Charm School).
Upon further examination, “Corazon” revealed itself to be more than just a melodic
curiosity. In actual fact, the track was an exemplary piece of autobiographical songwriting that enchantingly documented Rice and
bandmate Christian Rudder’s discovery of
an abandoned piano. (“Since they cancelled
music class, you’ve been a refugee.”) As Rice
toyed with the unfamiliar instrument, he
uncovered new sounds and songs. (“I was
caught, I was stuck; And my thoughts kept
on deepening the rut; Until your first chord
struck... You’ve given me another chance
to learn.”) The songwriting partners soon
found themselves in the throes of unprecedented inspiration.
Writing at a pace that traditional modes of
music distribution couldn’t keep up with,
Rice and Rudder opted to take on the audacious monthly EP project. Simply writing,
recording and releasing upwards of fifty
songs in a year would intimidate anyone
this side of Stephin Merritt or Rob Pollard.
Yet, Bishop Allen further challenged themselves by pledging to become a better, if not
altogether different, band with each EP instalment.
Witnessing Rice and Rudder mature musically was a listening experience unlike
any other I’d ever been privy to. Every four
weeks, you could hear the untrained musicians building upon the experiences of
previous efforts. The tentative, basic piano
lines of January became full-fledged ivorytinkling by October. They learned banjo in
March and ukulele in April. Flourishes of
strings, horns, Wurlitzer and glockenspiel
began to appear more regularly and with
greater assurance. At the microphone, the
routinely clever Rice developed into a top
flight lyricist as he crafted countless entrancing narratives and cast himself as a
myriad of protagonists.
While Rice’s skilful wordplay remained
a constant, Bishop Allen’s dozen discs saw
them exploring every musical avenue at
their disposal. “Click Click Click” (July)
highlighted the group’s deft pop sensibility. “Like Castanets” (September) seemed
like an exotic keepsake carted back from
a foreign sojourn. Delicate “Butterfly Nets”
(May) had the twee-o-meter redlining, and
“St. Ivan’s Day School” (October) drunkenly swung and staggered. Ethereal fare such
as “Flight 180” (April) evidenced the heights
Bishop Allen were capable of ascending to.
On December’s closing “Calendar,” Rice
intones, “All that I’ve done is written right
here.” As impressive as their 2006 body of
work might be, the EPs were but the beginning for Bishop Allen. Dead Oceans will release Bishop Allen and the Broken String
on July 24. The band’s sophomore album
will feature new songs such as “Rain”, as
well as “definitive” versions of nine of the
EP tracks.
Whittling more than 50 candidates down
to nine selections let some of favourites on
the cutting room floor. Conspicuous by their
absence are made-for-a-mixtape “Queen
of the Rummage Sale” (February), morefun-than-a-snowball-fight “Winter Coat”
(March), shout-along “The Same Fire” (June),
bittersweet “The Envy of the Bees” (November), fists-in-the-air “Last Chance America”
(December) and droves of other worthy candidates.
Fret not, fair readers. All of the EPs remain
available for purchase at www.bishopallen.
com. I can honestly say that my year has
been better for having known each and every one of them.
HEY KIDS! I have surplus copies of Bishop Allen’s July, September
and November EPs to give away. Simply answer: “Who played temp
Mitchell in Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha?” The first three people to
get to curtisw@toothanddagger.com with the correct response receive a shiny four-song platter.
Music
Lightning Dust
Stop calling it circus music.
They Shoot Horses’ Nut Brown lays down the law.
by Rob Peters
By Curtis Woloschuk
If “a thousand shades of grey” is a
given, it follows that musical darkness would also come in countless variations. Amber Webber and
Joshua Wells have already traipsed
through rock’s shadows with the
likes of Black Mountain, Blood Meridian, Dream on Dreary and a score
of other projects. With their sombre
new endeavour, Lightning Dust, set
to be officially unveiled, one wonders: What permutations of darkness are left for them to plunder?
“Melodrama,” offers Wells with a
grin. “We wanted to make our music more theatrical than ‘band music’... A little more staged.” Would
he go so far as to call it rock opera?
“It’s hardly rock,” he counters. “It’s
more just opera.” Wells is somewhat of an authority on such matters: He was once a boy soprano in
Toronto.
Meanwhile, Webber’s CV includes a childhood stint in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat. For her part, she suggests that Lightning Dust embodies an element of cabaret. “I just
love singing that style,” she says.
“We kind of want to keep this project out of the typical night club.
It would be nice to just play art
shows and events. I love going to
those special little nights where
there’s something other than music going on.”
If Lightning Dust’s aspirations
seem modest, examine the project’s humble origins. In 2005, the
pair created a six-song EP as a
Christmas present for friends and
family. When they found themselves “poor and needing something to occupy (their) time” last
summer, they decided to record
a full album in an extra room of
their home.
“From the very start, we just
went for something really spare,”
says Wells. While the arrangements were restrained, the instrumentation proved more daring:
Wells abandoned his drum kit in
favour of keyboards and vocalist
Webber uncharacteristically slung
on a six-string. Their homebound
experimentation culminated in
what Webber proudly describes as
a “midnight album.”
Opening track “Listened On” immediately establishes a funereal
tone. Delicately strummed guitar
is augmented by synths that alternate between bubbling warmth
and gurgling menace. Elsewhere,
“Castles and Caves” offers evocative lyrics laced with minimalist
piano. Those familiar with Webber’s voice know that she possesses pipes more mournful than
a church organ. Here, her otherworldly vocals afford Lightning
Dust’s songs a spectral beauty.
On the dirge “Breathe,” a droning
electric guitar surges as she wails,
“Please don’t forget me.” That
seems highly unlikely. This music
could haunt a listener for days.
Lightning Dust’s self-titled debut will be released by Jagjaguwar
(also home to Black Mountain) on
June 19. All told, a North American release is a welcome, if a somewhat unexpected, affirmation for
the project. “We had no intention
of doing anything with (the record)
originally,” says Wells, who has
nothing but praise for Jagjaguwar.
“They didn’t have to put it out.
They wanted to.”
With a June tour still on the horizon, the challenge immediately
facing Lightning Dust is an opening slot for The Black Angels (at
Richard’s on May 25). A bill with
firebrand psyche rockers seems a
far cry from the subdued jazz clubs
and soft seaters Webber and Wells
feel their music is ideally suited
for. “That should be a bit out of
our element,” accepts Wells. However, the seasoned performers are
far from daunted. “In terms of being nervous, we’ve made fools of
ourselves in front of vast numbers
of people,” he gamely philosophizes. “We’re open to just about anything.”
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They are shown here with their home-made remedy for pimples on the end of the nose
Listening to They Shoot Horses, Don’t They feels
a little like that day your parents left you alone
at the carnival during an apocalyptic parade of
clowns. There’s a vaguely happy-sounding tuba
bouncing in the distance, but you can’t help feeling a little anxious.
If the name of the eight-piece Vancouver art
rock band sounds familiar, it’s because the
group’s moniker shares the title of a book, a Sydney Pollack movie, and an Apostle of Hustle song.
But lead singer Josh “Nut Brown” Neelands
doesn’t like talking about names much. (I had
to search around to find his real name, and he’s
vowed to never again speak of the band name in
interviews.) Instead, he and his band would prefer to redefine the word weird.
Known for frenetic, arty, and, well, “weird” live
shows, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They features a
distinctive horn section that has drawn comparisons to gypsy, circus, and carnival music. That
said, it’s a lot faster, a lot more abstract and a lot
more art rocky.
The result is something strangely fierce, dissonant and vaguely uplifting. After all, a band
with a prominent horn section can only sound so
menacing. It might best be described as disorientingly exhilarating, like those days you wake up
after a dream that wasn’t quite a nightmare, but
close enough to make you think about all that
stuff that resides somewhere in your head.
Nut Brown, who earned his nickname from a
killer tan, is hesitant to categorize his music as
circus, carnival or anything else. He said he’d like
listeners to have active imaginations when they
listen, and feels these definitions can limit what
people hear in music.
“I hope everybody walks away with something
completely different,” he says, over a gigantic
piece of chocolate cake. “One guy sees faces melting and eyeballs falling out of sockets, and another sees neon flowers blooming. Good music is
different for different people.”
However, Nut Brown is also able to offer an ex-
planation for why the comparisons to gypsy and
circus music keep coming up.
“I like chromatic scales,” Nut Brown says.
“Sometimes they are used in those music forms.
There is also a certain energy that runs through
those types of music that could be likened to the
way we play our songs. We get into it; There’s
none of that detached nonchalant coolness you
may find in the rock-and-roll world.”
Nut Brown is one of only two founding members left in the band, which began four years ago
while he was in media studies at Emily Carr. Now
two full albums in, he hopes it’s going to be a
long-term project.
“This is music I could get old doing,” he says.
“In 20 years I feel like I’ll probably be sitting
down and doing it, with a croaky old voice, yelling and screaming. It could get grouchy. It might
slow down a bit, but we’ll always try and be as
fast as possible.”
The band’s second album on Kill Rock Stars,
Pick Up Sticks, is scheduled for release on June
5th. Nut Brown says to expect a similar sound to
2006’s Boo Hoo Hoo Boo, but with more polish,
focus, and attention to song structure.
“There’s also a couple of sexy-time songs on the
album,” Nut Brown says. “But it’s not like hotsexy, but more kind of scary-sexy.”
He elaborates: “They Shoot Horses is a savage,
desperate place where there is very little time
for sweet nothings,” he says. “I did manage to
squeeze in the lyric ‘Love is the best thing in the
world’ on the last album, but of course, that is
coming from a sad and lonely place. It’s probably
not exactly romantic love.”
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They play May 18th at the Lamplighter for their CD
release party with The Doers and Hank and Lily. They also play an all ages show
on May 19th at Hoko Karaoke Bar.
Tooth and Dagger May 15, 2007 11
Tooth and Dagger up and coming • send your events to: listings@toothanddagger.com
FILM
MUSIC
Know yr Bike Rides.
Sat, June 2nd
Buffy Sing Along
I’m betting you’ve never seen a movie quite
Come SInG with a theatre full of Buffy fans
Blim (17th and Main), 8 – 11 PM
to that most amazing hour of television, the
$5–10 sliding
Buffy musical episode “once More With
thu, May 24th
Feeling”
Cory from Happy Bat Cinema calls this par-
Evil film School: Shatner 2!
Incubus
ticular episode “ The Best 40 Minutes of TV
Shatner plays Marc, the pure-hearted hero
Ever Made .“
of this epic tale good versus evil on an is-
Pacific Cinematheque (1131 Howe), 1pm
land inhabited by demons. also, the film is
Sun, May 20th
Bizarro film-o-rama: Vanishing Point
entirely in Esperanto. 7:30pm
the Intruder
like it
The famous car chase movie, referenced
Shatner is a charismatic racist who drifts
Wed, May 16th
feist, Chad VanGaalen
tue, May 22nd
JAPANtHEr
enormously in Grindhouse.
into town and quickly turns neighbor against
Orpheum
We have heard that there will be dancing
The Gaff (684 E. Hastings St.), 8pm
neighbor in the wake of court ordered school
thu, May 17th
Deep Dark Woods
these reports as yet unconfirmed.
$5.00!
integration . 9:15 PM
fri, May 25
Second friday
10pm
thu, May 24th
Blind Beast
Blim (17th and Main), 8 – 11 PM
Railway Club
Pirate Critical Mass
Margaret Charles Chopper Collec-
$5–10 sliding
Largest monthly bike gathering in the
tive
city. So nice in the summer.
Post-apocalyptic art freak-bike ride
This Month’s Theme is Pirate. arrr!
Second Friday of every month
Art Gallery, 6pm
Science World Gazebo, 6:30pm
Every other thursday
third friday
Midnight Mass
Ladies’ fixed-Gear ride
Held on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the
Vancouver’s new all-lady bike ride. all
fri, May 18th
they Shoot Horses, Don’t they? Album release Party
They Shoot Horses are celebrating the release of their new record Pick up Sticks, and
they’ll be joined by their good friends Hank
and Lily and the doers.
(see article page 11.)
The Lamplighter
the Choir Practice CD release!
The Choir Practice scheduled their Cd release for exactly the same day as They Shoot
The Lamplighter
$6-7
This is a wonderfully bizarre tale of the exploration of the senses. It starts out with a
Sun, May 27th
Hanzo the razor: Sword of Justice
Deer Lake Park
blind sculptor (Michio) kidnapping a beauti-
a ruthless samurai cop uses unusual tor-
Wed, May 23rd
Lavender Diamond
ful model to fully explore her “perfect” body
ture techniques and his huge dong to de-
to create a masterpiece. The focus of the art-
feat evil!
Toured with the decembrists, which means,
ist and model gradually shifts from the ten-
Bizarro Film-o-rama: The Gaff (684 E. Hast-
month. ride at Midnight.
type of bikes welcome, but bring your
you should probably expect librarians to be
sion of the imprisonment to the imprison-
ings St.), 8pm
Grandview Park, 11:45pm
fixie if you have one!
$5.00!
tuesdays
Third Friday of every month
Hey fixie
Science World Gazebo, 7pm
Wed, May 23rd
Bjork
in attendance.
ment of the senses. as aki (the model) loses
Richard’s On Richards, 8pm
her sense of sight, she and Michio search for
$14
Fixed Gear Bike Meet, come to practice
ever more intense forms of tactile communi-
fri, May 25
tricks, or just hang out.
cation including beatings, stabbings and the
Horses. I suspect a conspiracy, Victoria Vic-
the Black Angels , VietNam
Lightning Dust
toria and The Greenbelt Collective are obvi-
read Curtis’s piece on page 11, to find out
ously in on it, as they’re playing too.
why you should come early and not miss the
The Railway
Lightning dust
tour De fours
Richard’s On Richards
ies, and teach you some knitting basics, like
red Cat records declares:
some wednesday this month.
freegeek: Windowless Wednesday
Collapsing Opposites w/ Chris-a-riffic,
Free and open source software can offer
Plus you’ll get to walk away with a pair of
..sounds like a genius mixture of Walter Car-
fanshaw, Maps
community-oriented, nutritious and deli-
your very own needles and a ball of yarn!
los and the Human League. .
a quadruple bill of some of the nicest musi-
cious alternatives. Set your computer free.
Location: TBA
Visit freegeekvancouver.org
Material fee: $5 (If you don’t have your own
sat, may 28th
set of 3-6mm straight needles and a ball of
Open Studios #2-252 E. 1st. 9pm
$7
Sat, May 19th
Bobby Conn, Canned Hamm
Bobby Conn has to be amazing because he’s
Science World Gazebo, 7pm
demented climax (I’m not telling...).
cians around. If you havn’t been to Hoko’s
this might be a good time to combine a yam
roll and live music.
Womyn on Wheels
ladies fix your bike night at ocb
Hoko Karaoke (362 Powell), 8pm
COMMUNITY
WORKSHOPS
the fourth MONDAY of every month
casting on, knitting, purling and binding off.
“practice” yarn)
Suggested donation is $30.
No one will be turned away.
fri, May 30th
Our Community Bikes (3283 Main)
thu, June 7th
Greenbelt Collective
6- 9pm
Learn to fix your bike
most infamous Vancouver acts evar.
The Aforementionned Conspiracy contin-
5-10 dollars
Introduction to bicycle mechanics course.
The Media Club, 9pm
ues.
this is a trans-inclusive space.
bring your bike and a snack.
$15 advance
The Media Club
gonna be sharing the stage with one of the
mon, may 21th
Seamrippers Craft Social
Rizome (317 E. Broadway), 7-10pm
Whether you are a novice or a pro, grab your
thu, June 7th
hand craft project and come and join us for a
Everyone welcome! Paper, pens, enve-
Brickhouse, 8-10
lopes, typewriters, dictionaries, tea, cook-
Free!
ies and encouragement provided. address-
tue, may 27st
es required.
Seamrippers Craft Social
Whether you are a novice or a pro, grab your
hand craft project and come and join us for a
beer or cup of tea.
First Thursday of the Month
Our Community Bikes (3283 Main) 6p.m
Seamrippers: Beginners knitting
Letter Writing Club
beer or cup of tea.
The first thursday of each month
sat, may 26th
Free!
$40, register early if possible.
This workshop will serve you tea and cook-
TooTh and dagger
• stockists
• photographers
editor@toothanddagger.com
is always looking for
someone to talk to:
• advertisers
• illustrators
art@toothanddagger.com
• distributors
• newshounds
advertising@toothanddagger.com
• writers
• volunteers
circulation@toothanddagger.com
Regional Assembly of Text, 7pm
3934 Main
free!!
toothanddagger.com