Archive for the 'Interview' Category

I finally took my first trip to New York, lets say it’s been a long time com­ing. It has been on my list for such a long time, and as a cre­ative per­son, it seems ridicu­lous that it has taken me so long to make it there.

I thought I knew what to expect, I’ve seen it in movies and TV shows (which we all know are safe to base our opin­ions on, right?), I’ve heard all about my friends expe­ri­ences, but in all the ways I pre­pared myself it’s really just a city that you need to expe­ri­ence and see for yourself.

As soon as I arrived I felt a sen­sa­tion that would be com­pa­ra­ble to walk­ing into a river with an incred­i­bly strong cur­rent that sucks you in and rushes you around. You might drown, but if you can keep afloat it takes you on a wild ride.

I was in total sen­sory over­load the first cou­ple days, I really wasn’t ready to intro­duce my cam­era to the city until I was able to fig­ure out how to focus on one thing at a time. It was really excit­ing to have so much to look at.

At the end of my week I returned to Van­cou­ver feel­ing like I just got off a roller coaster. But in a good way. Like when you get off the ride and just look for the end of the line to get back on again.

- Leigh Righton
Web­site / Twit­ter

I brought a new pair of sun­glasses with me that made the whole city orange, I became obsessed with shoot­ing every­thing through my sun­glasses. This is the first shot I tried this on.

This fel­lah was amaz­ing. He was sit­ting at the base of an Amer­i­can flag with his hair just a flow­ing in the wind. He was totally into what he was play­ing because when I approached him to ask if I could take some pho­tos, I was pretty much on top of him before he noticed me… I hope I didn’t inter­rupt his groove, man.

Another exam­ple of my sun­glasses obsession.

Yet another shot through my glasses, pho­tographed from the Brook­lyn side of the Brook­lyn bridge look­ing over to Man­hat­tan. You can see one of the two tow­ers being rebuilt. The day I took this shot, it also hap­pened to be the day they added the floor that made it the tallest build­ing in Man­hat­tan once again.

I shot the reflec­tion from a tinted back win­dow of a car parked on the street.

I took this por­trait after a com­edy night at the Knit­ting Fac­tory where Judah Fried­lan­der was the spe­cial guest. I love 30 Rock. It was a really out­stand­ing (free) night of com­edy with Han­ni­bal Buress as the host and Retta from Parks and Rec in the line-up… so good.

Check­ing out High Line park was some­thing that was sug­gested to me a num­ber of times by unre­lated peo­ple I met or knew in the city. It was a high­light of my ran­dom wan­der­ing NYC adven­tures. It’s a park built on a raised rail line above the streets in Man­hat­tan. The bill­board art instal­la­tion was a part of their com­mis­sioned works which cir­cu­late through. This par­tic­u­lar one ran up until May 7th.

Snapped this from the sub­way look­ing onto the plat­form.  No time to pull out the sun­glasses filter.

I thought this girl was super cute, I saw her get set up in front of a num­ber of pieces where she was sketch­ing them out.

I think I really started to like liv­ing here when I got into play­ing ball at Kits Beach in the spring of 2009. Play­ing ball and read­ing on the beach is basi­cally my dream vaca­tion except I don’t have to go any­where so it’s perfect.

I also really like my neigh­bour­hood. I live just off of Com­mer­cial Drive—among artists, grad­u­ate stu­dents, and other unde­sir­ables. I don’t know how to cook, so the crazy restau­rant den­sity nearby is help­ful. It also appears to be the only neigh­bor­hood with other black peo­ple. Most of all though, I appre­ci­ate that I’ve stum­bled on a great crew of friends on my block—an out­go­ing, thought­ful, spir­i­tual com­mu­nity that embrace me despite my transience.

- Shad, Issue 9 (the TRANSPLANT issue)

RSVP to our launch party on May 14th at Hip Hop Karaoke!

Photo by Leigh Righton

Tara Mahoney is one half of the Gen Why Media Project dream team, a “com­mu­nity build­ing project that uses pub­lic art, par­tic­i­pa­tory media, events and inter­gen­er­a­tional dia­logues to engage soci­ety in new forms of civic par­tic­i­pa­tion.” Given their com­mit­ment to com­mu­nity engage­ment, it makes per­fect sense they would be part of the force behind this Monday’s Reimag­ine CBC Cel­e­bra­tion. We talked to Tara about the event and why you should get involved in your pub­lic media.

Sad Mag: Hi Tara! Who are you and what do you do?

Tara Mahoney: I’m the co-founder and cre­ative direc­tor of the Gen Why Media Project. The GWMP is a com­mu­nity build­ing project that uses media, pub­lic art, events and inter­gen­er­a­tional dia­logue to engage soci­ety in new forms of pub­lic participation.

SM: Why did you get involved in the Reimag­ine CBC Cel­e­bra­tion?

TM: We strongly believe in pub­lic media. We need a non-commercial provider to conenct us with the rest of our coun­try, pro­mote democ­racy and explore knowl­edge about our­selves and our cul­ture, even if it’s not prof­itable. Com­mer­cial broad­caster can­not do that to the same extend as pub­lic media can. So that’s why when Open Media approached us about host­ing Reimag­ine CBC event, we were totally on board. It’s an honor to be a part of a move­ment that encour­ages peo­ple to come together in a cre­ative and gen­er­a­tive way around such a deeply Cana­dian institution.

SM: How did  Open­Media and Leadnow.ca get involved? How do your orga­ni­za­tions fit together?

TM: OM and LN both exist to pro­mote civic engage­ment (in one way or another) and so do we. We have dif­fer­ent approaches and focuses but ulti­mately we are try­ing to accom­plish the same the goal, so it makes sense for us to join forces. Plus they are won­der­ful peo­ple and good friends.

SM: The CBC has such longevity as a Cana­dian insti­tu­tion. What makes it so beloved? How do they stay relevant?

TM: The CBC does many things very well and it has done a good job of inno­vat­ing with tech­nol­ogy — espe­cially with their radio offer­ings. I think the one thing that keeps them rel­e­vant is that they reflect our Cana­dian iden­tity back to us. They feel like a fam­ily mem­ber — a reli­able and trusted source of knowl­edge. That is a pro­found and strong foun­da­tion to build on.

SM: What are you most excited about with the Reimag­ine CBC Celebration?

TM: Hm, that’s a hard one. I’m really excited about every­thing, we have an amaz­ing group of par­tic­i­pants. It will be great to see Wade Davis speak and hear a story from Ivan, and Steve Pratt always daz­zles with his visions for inno­va­tion and the music will be great, it’s all exciting!

SM: What is your hope for the dia­logues gen­er­ated dur­ing the event?

TM: My hope for the dia­logues is that peo­ple walk away feel­ing good and pos­i­tive about how we can shape our pub­lic media together. I want peo­ple to feel like they have a stake in the CBC and respon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect it, while also imag­in­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties for the future.

SM: Do you have a vision for the future of the CBC?

TM: I think I’d be cool to see it be more open and inte­grated into com­mu­ni­ties so as to pro­mote more cul­tural pro­duc­tion. There is so much tal­ent in this coun­try, it’d be great to see the CBC as a plat­form that encour­ages and pro­motes crowd-sourced cul­tural innovation.

Get all the details on the Reimag­ine CBC Cel­e­bra­tion here!

Rachel Aberle and Adrian Glynn McMor­ran, by David Cooper

In 1974, Leonard Cohen was asked why his album New Skin for the Old Cer­e­mony was a fail­ure in North Amer­ica and the U.K. but a suc­cess in Europe. “Maybe it’s because they can’t under­stand my lyrics,” he replied. Both Cohen’s self-deprecating wit and the achingly sad poetry of his lyrics are on dis­play in Tracy Power’s play Chelsea Hotel, which is at Fire­hall Arts Cen­tre (280 E. Cor­dova St) until March 3. Chelsea Hotel adds inven­tive dance pieces and impres­sion­is­tic sto­ry­telling to Leonard Cohen’s clas­sic songs, often totally revamp­ing their musi­cal arrange­ments so fresh asso­ci­a­tions are cre­ated. The young cast scam­pers around a set made of paper filled with dis­carded poetry drafts, while adeptly switch­ing off on an astound­ing vari­ety of instru­ments. Adrian Glynn McMor­ran stars as the Writer, who acts out roman­tic regret and cre­ative strug­gle and sings beau­ti­fully. His solo turn, a wrench­ing ren­di­tion of Tonight Will Be Fine, is a show highlight.

The­atre­go­ers famil­iar with Cohen’s work will hear new and often faster paced ver­sions of his songs, such as a sexy cabaret-infused I’m Your Man and an ironic hard-rocking take on Amer­i­can Idol favorite Hal­lelu­jah. The cast’s voices are very, well, dif­fer­ent from Cohen’s self-admitted lim­ited range. Neo­phytes to Cohen will find Chelsea Hotel an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to Canada’s unof­fi­cial Poet Lau­re­ate. And any audi­ence should rel­ish the oppor­tu­nity to appre­ci­ate the depth and beauty of Cohen’s catalogue.

Rachel Aberle is a cast stand­out, play­ing a Sis­ter of Mercy — a com­bi­na­tion nun, nurse, and muse — with play­ful­ness and intel­li­gence. Sad­mag spoke to Rachel Aberle about Leonard Cohen’s cur­rent caché, want­ing to be a muse, and the state of the the­ater scene in Vancouver.

Sad Mag: How famil­iar were you with Cohen’s work before you started Chelsea Hotel? how did your rela­tion­ship to his work evolve as you were doing the play?

Rachel Aberle: To be hon­est, I wasn’t super famil­iar with Cohen prior to this sum­mer when I started to do some research for the audi­tions. I was famil­iar with Hal­lelu­jah, as I guess pretty much every­one in North Amer­ica is — but to be hon­est, the ver­sion I was famil­iar with first was the Jeff Buck­ley ver­sion — which I loved. I remem­ber when I finally heard a record­ing of Cohen singing Hal­lelu­jah think­ing, “This is awful! This guy can’t sing!” This was sev­eral years ago, in my late teens. The cast is all within about 10 years of each other in age, and we all talked about how Cohen’s voice was some­thing that put us off when we were younger, that it’s some­thing we’ve grown to appre­ci­ate as we’ve grown into adult­hood. Can’t remem­ber who, but one of the cast said at a talk-back that “Cohen’s not for kids,” and I think there’s some­thing to that.

Through work­ing on the show I’ve come to appre­ci­ate him so much, not only in terms of music, but in terms of incred­i­ble poetry. I’ve always been a pretty lyrics dri­ven lis­tener, and for that you can’t get much bet­ter than Cohen. He was a poet before he was a song­writer, and it shows.

SM: Yeah, i think that’s one of the great things in the show. You can appre­ci­ate the lyrics as a cap­tive audience

?RA: that’s great to hear. It’s been a really inter­est­ing process to con­nect such poetic lan­guage to some kind of playable acting

SM: Were there any Leonard Cohen songs that you wish had been used in the play, or that you rehearsed and didn’t use?

RA: Those deci­sions were made before I came on board. We did change and add some of the poetry used in the piece — just cer­tain pieces get­ting moved around or short­ened or changed to other things that Tracey felt told the story and got the audi­ence on board faster and more effec­tively than what she had orig­i­nally cho­sen. Because my knowl­edge of Cohen was admit­tedly pretty low before the show, and because we use so many songs (27 to be pre­cise) there aren’t any that I wish were there that aren’t.

SM: Were the writer’s lines in between songs also snip­pets of cohen poetry?

RA: Yes. Every word spo­ken or sung in the show comes from Cohen.

?SM: OK, a cou­ple more Cohen questions…Do you have a favorite song? Or a favorite line from his lyrics?

RA: I love Tonight Will Be Fine. I think the cho­rus speaks to some­thing so pro­found and so hon­est about feel­ings that linger long after one might hope they would. More specif­i­cally the line “We swore to each other our love would surely last/You went right on lov­ing, and I went on a fast/Now I am too thin and your love is too vast.” I feel like I’ve been on both ends of that state­ment — prob­a­bly every­one has at some point. That feel­ing of regret, wish­ing you could feel things that you don’t, or that feel­ings you have could be matched, when they can’t.

I also think that Famous Blue Rain­coat is one of the most beau­ti­fully heart­break­ing songs I’ve ever heard. I’ve never lis­tened to a song that made me sad so repeatedly.

SM: What do you think Leonard Cohen means to Cana­di­ans of your gen­er­a­tion? How is it dif­fer­ent from how he’s viewed by baby boomers?

?RA: To be hon­est, I don’t think Leonard Cohen means much to most of our gen­er­a­tion, and I hope that changes. I won­der partly if it’s because so much of his music has been so widely cov­ered by other artists, but I know for many peo­ple our age that I’ve talked to about this show, the most com­mon response has been that they’re not that famil­iar with Leonard Cohen — which, prior to the show, was pretty much the case for me as well. I think a lot of peo­ple my age think of Cohen as some­one that their par­ents lis­ten to, that they weren’t that into when they were kids.

Hope­fully it’s like a lot of music that’s just too mature for younger audi­ences, and peo­ple start to give it a lis­ten now that they’re old enough to under­stand what the hell he’s talk­ing about. I feel like it’s the kind of music peo­ple in their twen­ties should be lis­ten­ing to all the time. One of my friend’s fathers saw the show and said after­wards that he was tear­ing up through most of the first act because it brought back so many mem­o­ries from his twen­ties. He said you don’t feel those incred­i­ble highs and lows for­ever. I think that’s prob­a­bly what it means to a lot of peo­ple my par­ents’ age — it’s a reminder of the later years of their youth. His lyrics cap­ture so per­fectly what incred­i­ble love and incred­i­ble loss mean, but at a deeper level that any­thing you feel at ado­les­cence. The love is vast because you’re old enough to feel like it actu­ally means some­thing real, and the loss is dev­as­tat­ing, because it feels like a much deeper invest­ment that’s come up dry.

SM: What instru­ments can you play? Did you have to learn any for the show?

?RA: Oh the instruments…

I played the cello reg­u­larly for about 11 years, but those years were between age 4 and 15… so a bit of it’s in the “rid­ing a bike” camp, in that I learned so young that some of that knowl­edge will never go way, but I also had been out of prac­tice for so long until about this time last year that my musi­cian­ship is def­i­nitely still a work in progress in my opinion.

I started play­ing the ukulele this sum­mer for the fun of it. I played the piano in high school, and actu­ally got to a pretty high level, but have been out of prac­tice so long that it’s really crum­bled back into a pretty rudi­men­tary skill

And the bass gui­tar, which I play in the show — I had never touched until our work­shops for the show in early Decem­ber. Our first day of rehearsal Steve said, “Rachel, how do you feel about play­ing bass on [First We Take] Man­hat­tan?” I said, “Well, I’m will­ing to try, but just so we’re all on the same page here, I’ve lit­er­ally never even tried before.” Steve paused for a sec­ond and then said, “Oh yeah. I think you’ll be fine.” I leave that to the audi­ence to judge. The more work I get in the­atre, the more I’m start­ing to feel like half of the bat­tle is decid­ing what you’re crazy enough to agree to try, and then deal­ing with the fall­out of that agreement.

SM: Have you done much musi­cal the­atre before?

?RA: I’ve done a bit. I was one of those kids in high school that was really into musi­cal the­atre, and then I sort of drifted away from it when I went to uni­ver­sity, and then to the­atre school. I’d pretty much stopped think­ing of myself as a musi­cal the­atre per­former. Then in the last year all the shows I’ve wound up doing, while they haven’t all been full musi­cals, they have been full of music, and have required me to sing.

SM: What was it like grow­ing up immersed in the the­atre world? Did you always know you wanted to be an actor, or did you ever have phases of rebelling and want­ing to go into busi­ness or some­thing bour­geois like that?

RA: I had bouts of think­ing that maybe I wanted to be a writer, and for a time even a lawyer — I don’t think they came from a place of rebel­lion how­ever (and you couldn’t really call becom­ing a writer bour­geois). Grow­ing up with a Dad who was in the­atre taught me from a young age that it was a pos­si­bil­ity — that the idea of try­ing to pur­sue a career in the­atre (while maybe still insane) wasn’t impos­si­ble. Peo­ple did it. Hav­ing that knowl­edge meant that I never went through the phase of think­ing “Well, yeah, I want to be an actor, but nobody actu­ally does that… so what am I going to do for real?”

?SM: And I bet a lot of your peers did go through that phase, right?

RA: Yeah — I mean when I think of the peo­ple I went to high school with who I did the­atre with, I don’t think many of them are doing it any more. And to be fair, for some of them it was never some­thing that they wanted to pur­sue after high school — but I do won­der how many more young peo­ple might con­sider going into the­atre, or music, or any artis­tic field for that mat­ter, if it dawned on them that it was a viable option.

SM: How do you feel about the cur­rent state of the the­atre scene in Vancouver?

?RA: That is a tough ques­tion to answer. I guess what I would say is that I know for sure that I’ve been incred­i­bly lucky with the oppor­tu­ni­ties that I’ve had, not only because oppor­tu­ni­ties are scant (and that’s true of the­atre any­where), but also because the projects I’ve got­ten to work on have all been very ful­fill­ing, and very dif­fer­ent from each other, and have all involved incred­i­ble peo­ple. Of course I wish there was more fund­ing — that should go with­out say­ing but unfor­tu­nately we need to keep say­ing it, and keep say­ing it, and then say it some more. And I wish I could fig­ure out what would get the aver­age Van­cou­verite more inter­ested in see­ing plays.

There is so much to do in this city. I get why on a sunny day peo­ple want to go to third beach, and I get why on a rainy day peo­ple are more inter­ested in going up on a moun­tain where it’s snow­ing and rid­ing boards and skis back down the moun­tain. What I wish for is a way to make peo­ple who are inter­ested in those things also inter­ested in sit­ting down and watch­ing some fan­tas­tic sto­ry­telling. I would like to fig­ure out a way to build the the­atre into the recre­ational vocab­u­lary of this city … I’m just not sure how.

SM: In Chelsea Hotel you play a muse. Have you ever been a muse? Or had a muse?

RA: (laughs) If I’ve ever been a muse, nobody told me. In terms of hav­ing a muse, I’ve def­i­nitely wrote some things based on or about peo­ple that have come in and out of my life — and I’ve def­i­nitely used rela­tion­ships I’ve had with peo­ple as a way to con­nect with mate­r­ial I’ve worked on as an actor.

SM: Is it strange singing the same songs over and over again? Do you start mak­ing up your own ver­sions of the songs?

?RA: It hasn’t seemed strange yet, and I think part of that is that the mate­r­ial is so rich that there are a lot of new things to find every day. I have an unfor­tu­nate habit of replac­ing words with other words com­pletely sub­con­sciously, and have def­i­nitely sang the words, “Sup­pose that he froze when the wind took his NOSE,” instead of, “CLOTHES” a few times in rehearsal, and once while rehears­ing Take this Waltz I sang “I’ll bury my soul in a sand­wich” rather than “bury my soul in a scrap­book.” But inten­tion­ally? No, I’m happy with the mate­r­ial so far

SM: (laughs) Sand­wich!

RA: I know, I always think that if those were the lyrics it would mean that she dealt with the break up by eat­ing her feelings.

?SM: It’s a good Freudian slip, some­thing to sing when you are hungry.

?RA: Right?

SM: Right!

Chelsea Hotel
Fire­hall Arts Cen­tre (280 East Cor­dova)
Now until March 3rd, 2012
$25 reg­u­lar, $20 stu­dents and seniors
Ticket info here

On Mon­day night, Vancouver’s swag­ger­ing funk-rap group Pan­ther and the Supafly will be play­ing live instru­men­tal ver­sions of hip-hop clas­sics while karaoke hope­fuls get live on the mic. If you’ve never been to For­tune Sound Club’s Hip-Hop Karaoke, widely con­sid­ered to be Vancouver’s best Mon­day night out, this is an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to check it out. And if you’re already a Hip-Hop Karaoke fan, you shouldn’t miss the chance to see the night go unplugged like Jay-Z and the Roots on MTV. Pan­ther and the Supafly will also be rock­ing tracks from their debut EP “Nikazi.”

Sad Mag’s explo­ration of the com­plex moti­va­tions of Hip-Hop Karaoke per­form­ers con­tin­ues here:

Tim Mortensen

Shmuel Mar­mostein: What got you into Hip-Hop Karaoke?

Tim Mortensen: I was at a Nice ‘n Smooth show here wear­ing a Gang Starr t-shirt, and they pulled me on stage.It was right after Guru died and they were pour­ing out orange juice on stage, it was crazy! A friend of mine who knew about HHK saw that and sug­gested we per­form DWYCK, the song Nice n’ Smooth were doing.

SM: What was your favorite song that you performed?

TM: Half­time by Nas, on Hal­loween. It was one of the hard­est songs I’ve ever done. It was fun because I was dressed as b-boy priest in gold chains.

SM: What about by another performer?

TM: A Busta Rhymes song by local MC Kaboom Atomic, he did it perfectly.

SM: That’s hard! How much do you usu­ally practice?

TM: It depends on the song. For some of them I’ve already liked the song for a while, so it’s eas­ier. I usu­ally prac­tice the song 15–20 times. I always rap over the vocal, and then I switch to the instru­men­tal, which is a lot harder! For the Nas one, I did it 30 times or more.

SM: What do you love about per­form­ing here?

TM: The good vibe, and the fun I always have at the night itself. It’s a priv­i­lege to per­form. You do it once or twice and you get addicted. It’s great expe­ri­ence if you want to be a per­former because you have the spot­light on you. And I love hip-hop, so I get to do what I love.

Chad Iver­son, event orga­nizer and co-founder

Shmuel Mar­mostein: What made you start the Hip-Hop Karaoke night?

Chad Iver­son: Paul [Gibson-Tigh, the other founder and orga­nizer] told me about the HHK night in Toronto, and said we should do it here. It was just a drunken con­ver­sa­tion on Third Beach, and I though hhk sounded like the illest idea.

SM: What was your favorite song that you performed?

CI: Earl by Earl Sweat­shirt, or the one I just did, Tried by 12 by East Flat­bush Project. I love that song and I’ve been want­ing to do it for­ever. It’s an under­ground classic.

SM: It was awe­some, you killed it! What about by some­one else?

CI: That’s a really hard question…maybe Kyprios doing Passin’ me by at the one-year anniver­sary show?

SM: How much do you usu­ally prac­tice before performing?

CI: Way too much. If you take a look at my lastfm site, all my top songs lis­tened to are ones I’ve performed!

SM: What do you love about per­form­ing here?

CI: The ego boost. It feels good! It’s a rush being on stage. I’m also pay­ing homage to a genre of music and a cul­ture I love. I never thought I would be run­ning a hip hop night in Van­cou­ver, that’s for sure.

SM: How has putting on this night changed your life?

CI: Well, this night has made For­tune a sec­ond home. I do pro­mo­tion here and I’ve learned a lot about, I don’t want to use the term, the “club­bing scene.” It’s a poten­tial career changer. The changes have all been pos­i­tive, definitely.

Hip-Hop Karaoke: Pan­ther and the Supafly

For­tune Sound Club (147 E Pen­der St)

$4 cover before 10:30PM, $8 after

Full details on Face­book

Usu­ally we com­ment on things that make us un-sad, but there’s a fight going on between the Rio and the LCLB that’s mak­ing us sad and mad. For­tu­nately, the Rio’s Cor­rine Lea is not back­ing down, which is mak­ing us glad. As does rhyming but I digress.

On Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 26, the Rio was sup­posed to be cel­e­brat­ing their suc­cess in achiev­ing a liquor license, an achieve­ment which was an inte­gral part of con­tin­u­ing as a viable busi­ness.  Instead, the event became a fundraiser to off­set their losses and fund future resis­tance to the restric­tions out on the Rio due to that very license.

Lea has had to can­cel film screen­ings as venues clas­si­fied as “movie the­atres” can­not serve alco­hol. Lea main­tains they are a multi-media venue and so are mis­clas­si­fied. She also notes that her license only runs from 6pm to 1am, and she is not insist­ing that liquor be served at screen­ings, only that screen­ings be able to take place. After they screen the “Rocky Hor­ror Picture-less Show” on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 27th, when the sound­track will play and the film enacted by a  shadow cast, they don’t have any­thing sched­uled until Feb­ru­ary 4th. “As far as the blank days go, we’re just going to scram­ble and try to fig­ure out what to do. We might have an open mic night every night or a karaoke night…If the gov­ern­ment were to reverse their deci­sion I could have movies in those slots like that.” She snaps her fin­gers with the type of gusto required when going up against said government.

Since being told about the caveat on her license, there have been many state­ments issued — by Lea, by Solic­i­tor Gen­eral Shirley Bond, and by Liquor Con­trol and Licens­ing Branch gen­eral man­ager Karen Ayers — but lit­tle con­struc­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion seems to be hap­pen­ing.  Ayers has made many com­ments in the media about the var­i­ous rea­sons the Rio is in this predica­ment and not, say, Roger’s Arena. Ayers touts pub­lic safety and notes the arena’s secu­rity as a rea­son for venue’s such as that being licensed. Lea notes that she was never given the option to increase secu­rity as a means to secure the licens­ing she needs.

My opin­ion, and the opin­ion of groups like CAMRA, is that the province and the fed­eral gov­ern­ment are main­tain­ing pro­hi­bi­tion era statutes. I would add that even the LCLB’s ratio­nal­iza­tions seem out­dated, not to men­tion incon­sis­tent. It would bet­ter serve pub­lic safety to ban alco­hol at vio­lent sport­ing events than at the movies. I’d def­i­nitely put my money on not see­ing see any post-event riots at the Rio, screen­ings or oth­er­wise. While Ayers has been answer­ing objec­tions one at a time, there are easy fixes to these, which Lea is more than will­ing to put into place. For exam­ple, wor­ry­ing about minors hav­ing liquor in the dark could be assuaged if the Rio doesn’t serve alco­hol dur­ing film screen­ings. Lea notes she sim­ply wants to serve liquor at events, not movies.

Bond has issued a state­ment, picked up by sev­eral out­lets, that her office is “aware of the chal­lenges,” are “con­sid­er­ing what changes may be appro­pri­ate” and they “look for­ward to hav­ing more to say about this in the near future.” While this may sig­nal progress, the lack of specifics are wor­ri­some to Lea. As of Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 29th, Lea has yet to hear from the Solic­i­tor General’s office or the LCLB on any options she might have going for­ward. The Rio is con­sult­ing with the British Colum­bia Civil Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion as to whether their civil lib­er­ties have been curtailed.

The Rio is sched­uled to host films from the Van­cou­ver Island Film Fes­ti­val, which begins Feb­ru­ary 10th. This is just one effect the Rio oper­at­ing with­out screen­ings will have, and rep­re­sents a real dead­line for action. The Rio sup­ports a vari­ety of com­mu­ni­ties beyond film – music, com­edy, bur­lesque, dance and more – by being a unique and acces­si­ble venue. It also rep­re­sents a part of Van­cou­ver his­tory, as the Tyee points out, an archi­tec­tural and cin­e­matic his­tory that is being demolished.

Thus it’s not sur­pris­ing that peo­ple are rais­ing their voices not just in the street forums (which is what I call cof­fee shops and face­book com­ments), but in the press (sim­ply Google “the Rio The­atre Van­cou­ver” for a flood of sto­ries) and among politi­cians (Jenny Kwan and Heather Deal are both speak­ing out on the Rio’s behalf). It even tran­scends polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, with Leo Knight,  “Law and Order” opin­ion colum­nist, to agree on an issue with a Vision Coun­cilor “for the first time in liv­ing history.”

This issue is hot, not only because the Rio and Lea are so sup­port­ive of and beloved by Vancouver’s arts com­mu­nity but because, espe­cially to that same arts com­mu­nity, it rep­re­sents major issues in Van­cou­ver and BC. It’s a hard place to suc­ceed as a small busi­ness, and is full of demol­ished unique cul­tural venues, archaic liquor and pub­lic safety laws and a gen­eral dis­re­gard for what access to arts does for a com­mu­nity both socially and eco­nom­i­cally. The story at the Rio has become a point of ref­er­ence  the chang­ing of BC liquor dis­tri­b­u­tion, but it’s truly a point of ref­er­ence for the inter­sec­tion of arts, busi­ness and government.

On a pos­i­tive note, the Rio fundraiser née cel­e­bra­tion was a suc­cess. “We had 200 peo­ple attend  – it was a beau­ti­ful event. Pan­dora and the Lock­smiths made for a really classy evening with a lit­tle bit of tease. On a per­sonal level I found it really uplift­ing to see every­one face to face. It was really great to per­son­ally go around and thank peo­ple. It was a real good night for peo­ple to talk about the issue,” says Lea, sound­ing hope­ful despite her los­ing thou­sands of dol­lars every day her the­atre is closed.  MLA’s Jenny Kwan and Shane Simp­son were in atten­dance, as was Leonard Schein, the pres­i­dent of Fes­ti­val Cinemas.

Along with the return (kind of) of gam­ing based arts fund­ing, the con­tro­versy and sup­port the Rio’s lat­est bat­tle has drawn may her­ald change. But to win, Lea needs our sup­port. Here’s how you can help: raise your voice and write to your MLA, the Solic­i­tor Gen­eral and the LCLB; on Jan­u­ary 31 Heather Deal is pre­sent­ing a motion at City Hall to have the movie ban removed, and you can come and speak for the Rio; and sup­port the Rio finan­cially by attend­ing their amaz­ing upcom­ing LIVE events. Find the addresses and emails, up to date info, FAQs and next steps on Rio’s Face­book group.

The Rio may not be screen­ing movies right now – but there’s still amaz­ing events com­ing up. Let’s wrap up this chap­ter of the ongo­ing saga with a few events com­ing up. You can check out full details online includ­ing advance tick­ets, but Lea had a few extra tid­bits to share with Sad Mag readers.

Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 4: Patrick Mal­iha presents the Legion of Stand-Up Come­di­ans
Tick­ets: $10 Doors: 7pm Show: 8pm

“This is a really excit­ing night because Patrick Mal­iha is a well known come­dian about town and always puts on an excel­lent event. Gra­ham Clark will be a spe­cial guest, which is amaz­ing, peo­ple love Gra­ham Clark. He’s added some­thing like 23 bur­lesque dancers last minute, so it’s going to be fabulous.”

Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 10: Tongue N’ Cheek: Sex, Dance and Spo­ken Word
Tick­ets: $12 advance $15 door Doors: 8pm Show: 9pm

“We’re very excited about this show because it fea­tures my four favourite bur­lesque dancers in town, [Sweet Soul Burlesque’s Crys­tal Pre­cious, Lola Frost, Lit­tle Miss Risk and Cherry On Top].  This is kind of my baby, this par­tic­u­lar show, because I’m com­bin­ing two of my favourite things, bur­lesque and spo­ken word. C.R. Avery, Mike McGee and Jamie DeWolf are three really pow­er­ful spo­ken word artists and we’re get­ting them to col­lab­o­rate, it’s not ‘here’s a dance, here’s a poem’, we’re get­ting them to work together. [Plus] there’s 8 local poets who will be com­pet­ing in the Dirty Haiku con­test. … It’s com­ing up on Valentine’s Day week­end so it’s a good date night.

Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 14: The 2nd Annual Sweet Heart Ser­e­nade
Tick­ets: $10 advance, $14 at the door Doors: 8pm Show: 8:30pm

“Last year we attached it with a movie, and we had planned to show Shake­speare in Love but with the predica­ment we find our­selves in, we are not going to be allowed show it with a movie. So, now it will just be live music but it will be a spe­cial night because we’ve hand picked per­form­ers from some really great bands in town. It’s a more stripped down, inti­mate per­for­mance which makes it per­fect for a date night. It’s adults over so they can have some wine to enjoy dur­ing the evening.”

Other events com­ing up:

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 9: David Choi with Spe­cial Guests (Gen­eral Admission/All Ages Show)
Tick­ets $20 Doors:8 pm Show: 9pm

Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 12: The Rio The­atre & NightHeat Present: Chali 2na MC
Doors: 8pm Tick­ets: $18 + S/C advance

Friday, Feb­ru­ary 24: Com­edy Fest: Marc Maron (WTF) with David Cross and Bob Odenkirk
Show: 7pm Tick­ets: http://comedyfest.com/show/wtf-marc-maron

The near­est beach may only be a few blocks from my seat at Gastown’s Nel­son the Seag­ull, but with mid-January hang­ing heavy over Van­cou­ver, noth­ing feels so far away as sum­mer. How­ever, as I start to chat with Jody Glenham—local musi­cian and lead singer of newly minted surf rock combo Plea­sure Cruise—our con­ver­sa­tion turns away from the drea­ri­ness of winter.

Instead, in the hours before Plea­sure Cruise’s PuSh Fes­ti­val Club PuSh per­for­mance, which will find the band along­side local insti­tu­tions like Bend Sin­is­ter and CBC Radio 3 per­son­al­ity Lisa Chris­tiansen, we end up dis­cussing (maybe per­versely, over hot cof­fee) the hazy warmth of low-fi gui­tars, the excite­ment of new hori­zons for the still-nascent project, and redis­cov­er­ing the fun of performance

Plea­sure Cruise, which Glen­ham describes as “the Ramones meets the Ronettes,” came together, rather by chance, in the sum­mer of 2011. “Dustin [Brom­ley] and Quinn [Omori] were look­ing for a female singer. At the time, I had an injured hand, so I wasn’t play­ing. And the way they were look­ing for a singer was on Twit­ter. They were actu­ally tweet­ing back and forth, and I hap­pen to fol­low both of them.” Glen­ham stops and jokes: “So I was on the inside track. And I half jok­ingly tweeted back at them ‘I sing, just saying.’”

Before the night was out, Glen­ham had a series of “bed­room demos” in her inbox; a col­lec­tion of sweet, sum­mer pop songs fea­tur­ing Quinn Omori—Shindig vet­eran, music jour­nal­ist, and pro­pri­etor of From Blown Speak­ers—on vocals. From those hyper­me­di­ated begin­nings, the trio (now a four­some with the addi­tion of bassist Kyle Bourcier) began tak­ing steps in the oppo­site direc­tion, towards a low-fi, sun-drenched aes­thetic, rem­i­nis­cent of con­tem­po­rary acts like Best Coast and Cults, and for Glen­ham, the 50s’ pop and girl group revival of the 1990s.

“I think our first band prac­tice was actu­ally on the beach,” Glen­ham recalls. “I just started join­ing them dur­ing their Third Beach after­noons and talk­ing with them, and that started click­ing. So we decided to get into a jam space with no idea what to expect.” This rough-shod hap­pen­stance, the kind that only sum­mer after­noons can offer, is imme­di­ately appar­ent on the band’s first EP, Busi­ness, or…, which jan­gles and echoes through tracks like “Sum­mer Fling” and throw­back piece “I Really Wanna Know.”

In a city where sun is scarce, Plea­sure Cruise has quickly become a bright spot, catch­ing the eager atten­tion of fans and jour­nal­ists alike. Before they had even played their first show, Wes­t­En­der had chris­tened the combo “Vancouver’s newest super­group” and sin­gled them out as one of five acts to watch for in 2011, along­side 2011 Polaris Prize longlist nom­i­nees Yukon Blonde and 2012 Polaris short­lis­ters, The Pack A.D.

Asked why she thinks Plea­sure Cruise’s par­tic­u­lar brand of “sum­mer beach music” seems to have con­nected so quickly with lis­ten­ers, Glen­ham offers a fairly sim­ple and extremely con­vinc­ing answer: “It’s fun! Doing your own solo stuff, you can get caught up in being so seri­ous all the time, and this is just so fun! I think peo­ple rec­og­nize that and respond to it in a gen­uine way.”

I have to agree. There’s some­thing about Plea­sure Cruise that recalls the do-it-yourself, do-as-you-will punk her­itage on which Van­cou­ver sits; that com­pul­sion to make music that just works, and to do it joy­fully, along­side friends. And that’s exactly what Plea­sure Cruise does—a jour­nal­ist, a singer-songwriter, and a for­mer punk musi­cian mak­ing slap-happy surf rock that audi­ences love.

The com­ing months, Glen­ham says, include a pos­si­ble vinyl release, some poten­tial fes­ti­val dates, and sink­ing “fish­ing lines” into record label inboxes. But for the most part, the future of Plea­sure Cruise seems to be as indul­gently casual as its past. In Glenham’s words: “what are you plan­ning? I’m plan­ning on doing what­ever the uni­verse hands me.”

You can down­load Plea­sure Cruise’s debut EP Busi­ness or… for free on Band­camp. The band will be play­ing Feb­ru­ary 3rd at Lucky Bar in Vic­to­ria and Feb­ru­ary 14th at The Biltmore.

Mar­i­anela Ramos Capelo pulls up the leg of her jeans to show her right ankle. “Excuse my hairy leg,” she cau­tions, as she reveals a 3-inch tat­too: one con­tin­u­ous line that forms the out­line of a dog pulled length-wise. “It’s a line draw­ing of a weiner dog. It’s based on a Picasso draw­ing,” she explains. Picasso’s sim­ple sketch was a love let­ter to a Daschund named Lump; Capelo’s ren­di­tion is a trib­ute to her child­hood pet: “He was my best buddy grow­ing up. The best mem­o­ries that I have with my fam­ily are with that dog there. He was amaz­ing. That was the first one.”

Photo: Mar­i­anela Ramos Capelo

Capelo has three tat­toos: she has another on her left wrist, and a third on her left bicep. She tells me the story behind each one, and then reveals that a year ago, she had no tat­toos. It’s pos­si­ble, then, that the year-long art project she just com­pleted might have swayed her to get a lit­tle ink.

Nearly every­day since Sep­tem­ber 2010, Capelo, a 22-year-old com­mu­ni­ca­tion arts stu­dent, has been ask­ing strangers about their tat­toos. In the hopes of over­com­ing and under­stand­ing her shy­ness, she chal­lenged her­self to talk to 365 strangers. Capelo approached peo­ple in cafés, on cam­pus and on Com­mer­cial Drive, where she lives, ask­ing them to show her a tat­too and tell her the story behind it. With an iPhone and a smile, she found 420 peo­ple who let her take a photo of their body art and share the gen­e­sis story on her blog, A Stranger A Day (astrangeraday.tumblr.com).

In July, she cap­tured a vividly coloured por­trait of Karma that stretched from a man’s armpit to his hip (he got it just for art’s sake). Last Octo­ber, she pho­tographed a dot of ink below a woman’s eye (the stranger wanted to remem­ber the tears she had shared with her hus­band). The tat­toos vary, but Capelo dis­cov­ered “some­thing really beau­ti­ful” in the rela­tion­ship all the strangers had with the art on their skin. “It’s hard to get some­one to say some­thing pos­i­tive about their bod­ies,” she says. Not very many peo­ple say, ‘Oh look at my nose! Look at my fin­gers!’ But with tat­toos, it’s very easy.”

On Octo­ber 24, she posted her final photo, and cried. “I was done! I was just really happy. But that was about 30 sec­onds and then it was onto the show.” Less than two weeks later, she and three friends drew about 200 Van­cou­verites to a tiny, nar­row art gallery on East Geor­gia Street to show the com­plete work. It was almost impos­si­ble to walk through the room and take in the images and sto­ries; the gallery was packed with bod­ies. Atten­dees were wait­ing out­side before the show even started at 7 p.m., many of whom were the inked strangers from her web­site. They’d heard about the one-night exhibit on CBC Radio or read about it on the blog Van­cou­ver is Awe­some and came to see their pic­ture on the walls. “It was really cool,” the artist says. “One of my main goals of the show was to reach out to the strangers, and for them to see what they were a part of, because it was all about them.”

Each stranger’s tat­too gave Capelo a doc­u­ment of a mean­ing­ful encounter. “A few strangers came by and I couldn’t remem­ber their faces. But they would show me their tat­too and I would say, ‘I remem­ber every­thing about you now!’ And I would. I would remem­ber where they were and who they were with.” As Capelo has learned, tattoos—or even pic­tures of them—make indeli­ble mem­o­ries and mem­o­ries indeli­ble. When a per­son gets a tat­too, she says, they’re choos­ing to put a story or image on them for the rest of their lives. No mat­ter the cir­cum­stances of get­ting the tat­too, good or bad, “It’s a mem­ory they don’t regret.”