Black Lips and Deerhunter prove you can never have too much of a good thing

By Jenny Charlesworth (Georgia Straight)

At the Commodore Ballroom, on Thursday, July 23




















photo: sarah bastin / Flickr

If you can make it through Groundhog Day without furiously chucking your remote at the TV during the painfully repetitive 1993 cult classic, then the Black Lips–Deerhunter double bill last Thursday night at the Commodore wouldn't have fazed you at all.

The pairing of the lo-fi Atlanta bands is a no-brainer as far as crowd-pleasers go, but you've got to ask yourself: how many times are these guys going to repeat this particular tour configuration. Isn't it a bit much to hit Vancouver three times in the span of two years on this seemingly never-ending Black Lips–Deerhunter package?

Whatever the reason—a wacky time loop or a secret love affair between Black Lips bassist Jared Swilley and Deerhunter lead singer Bradford Cox—it's a damn good thing that both sets of Pitchfork poster boys were in top form on this evening.

Thanks to the perfect mashup of colourful acid-flashback-inducing stage lights, shoegazing psych-pop, and rambunctious '60s-tinged flower-punk, debating how high the night registered on the déjà vu meter seemed like the last thing on anyone's mind. The packed room—an intriguing mix of squeaky-clean UBC students still trying to get their bearings after a harrowing stint tree-planting up north and beer-guzzling hipsters—was about as gung ho as Rosie O'Donnell in front of a stack of Burger King Double Whoppers.

While Deerhunter's opening set was more subdued than that of its spunky Vice-sanctioned counterparts, the quartet's experimental jams still managed to whip those front and centre into a reverb-loving frenzy. During hypnotic numbers like the far-out soundscape “Cryptograms” and the relaxed, Tropicália-tinged “Rainwater Cassette Exchange”, there was no sign that the crowd's members were anxious for the mayhem of the Black Lips—arguably the bigger draw of the evening.

But once the Lips arrived, the dance floor was a swarming mess of outreached arms and kicking legs, as overzealous crowd surfers rode the buck-wild throng to Black Lips anthems like “Starting Over”, “Sea of Blasphemy”, and “Not a Problem”. Given the group's highly publicized history of debauched show antics, it wasn't that surprising that the southern punks didn't seem concerned by the insane onslaught of stage divers throughout their set. What was baffling, though, was that the guys didn't pummel the dumb shlub who, after clawing his way on-stage, slow-danced like a sedated gorilla alongside some half-baked Aldo sales associate, all within steps of guitarist-vocalist Cole Alexander's mike stand. Perhaps the members of the foursome knew that its adoring fans would take care of them

And that's exactly what happened when a Good Samaritan took matters into his own hands and leapt on-stage, flinging the doucheface back into the throbbing masses below. As the night went on, the chaotic energy never let up, which was excellent news for best buds Black Lips and Deerhunter. Apparently, you can never have too much of a good thing.

Video impressions from the folk festival 2009

By now, some of the Vancouver Folk Festival highlights found their way to Youtube. For example, Great Lake Swimmers with their hit "Your Rocky Spine"




Or Geoff Berner, the Vancouverian "wunderkind" and enfant terrible of folk, with his song "My half-German girlfriend"




Finally, in comparison to Geoff Berner, the local facebook-mySpace-Twitter-shooting-star Dan Mangan's song "robot" is also about love but it's just cute.

Folk Fest

We had heard a lot about the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in advance, being the music event of the year, great atmosphere, unique location, cool people and everything ... so we wanted to experience that ourselves. Folk music is not to be confuses with what would be Volksmusik in German. You can find many definitions for original Folk Music like music transmitted by word of mouth, music of the lower classes, music with no known composer. At the Vancouver Folk Music Festival it is simply called "the people's music" and over the 32 years of its existance they tried to have music that is not too commercial/mainstream and there is matching the tradition of blending music and politics. All in all the music varied from folk (singer/songwriter with guitar), hip hop, pop, punk, jazz and klezmer.


some 30000 visitors were expected (10000 each day)


360° nice view

Because I wanted to have a real canadian experience and possibly get to know some more people I decided to volunteer for the three day event. My first choice was the lantern making comitee, second would have been little folks and third floater. Inbetween I was also offered to work in the performers lounge. Anyway that all did not work out and after all I ended up in Duncans Security Team G, the best Team of all! I had two 4-hour shifts with Duncan at the service gate, so I could benefit from his 10 years of Folk Fest experience. My last shift at the Backstage area was also great fun, we even got a massage and foof was delivered so we did not have to line up.


Securing the service gate was busy and fun

The great thing about volunteering is that you still have a lot of time to listen to music, sit/lie in the grass (hay) or wander around after or before your shifts. I got to see great concerts and the headlines each night were all great although most of them had aged quite a lot (Arrested Development, Proclaimers etc.) It was the oldest performer, Mavis Staples, age 70, who brought down the house Staples and closed out the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, 2009 on Sunday.

See you next year is what everybody said for goodbye. I would be awsome to return to Security Team G.

read more here


Geoff Berner with his Official Theme Song for the Vancouver/Whistler Olympic Games


Dinner


view from the beer garden


twilight


main stage with lantern passing by

Lets play Yoga - follow your bliss!

Last Saturday Anja, Rabea and I went to the Vancouver Yogathon & Blissfest, an anual fundraising event to raise money forcamp moomba, a summer camp for children with HIV/AIDS. After having difficulties to find the Thunderbird stadium in the labyrinth of UBC we were overwhelmed and infected by the energy and bliss of about 2000 participants. Before the actual Yoga programm there was nice Yoga Rock from Scatterheart and a marketplace for all kinds of products connected to Yoga (or not).
The programm was led by Eoin Finn according to his Facebook page a "yogi, writer, surfer, blissologist and ocean worshipper" and a star in the Vancouver Yoga community. He was supported by a team of eight other Yoga teachers including Bernie, Semperviva Yin expert, and Rebecca, the power flow lady. They took turns in describing poses that combined Yin elements, Hatha and Vinyasa Power flow.
The sun was burning on us all day and after an hour of Yoga it was really difficult to focus. We drank litres of water and the provided cereal bars gave back some energy. We still needed cooling of in the ocean at Spanish banks afterwards.


Welcome speech by mayor Gregor Robertson


Scatterhearts singer Jesse Enright showing off :-)


bowing to the sun and whatever else.


Feel the Bliss?

Vertigo Comics

Dank der Nähe zum sehr gut sortierten Comicshop, genaugenommen: “THE Comicshop”, teste ich zur Zeit verschiedene Comicserien, vor allem von Vertigo. Bereits heute ein Klassiker ist Sandman, zu dem ich die mir noch fehlenden Folgen nachlese. Ebenfalls preisgekrönt ist die Serie “Fables” bei der aus Märchen bekannte Figuren und Fabelwesen im heutigen New York Asyl suchen mussten. In der ersten Folge geht es darum, wie der “Böse Wolf” als Detektiv das mysteriöse Verschwinden von Rosenrot untersucht. Bemerkenswert an der erst vor einiger Zeit gestarteten Serie “Scalped” ist laut Einleitung dass sie auch ohne Elfen und Fabelwesen ein Erfolg geworden sei. “Natives” ist das Stichwort, allerdings haben diese nichts mit den von Karl May bekannten Indianern zu tun... Garth Ennis (Preacher): “a neo-western/political/historical/Native/ultra-violent/black comedy crime story, to be precise.” oder wie es im Klappentext heisst: “a gripping mix of Sopranos-style organised crime drama and current Native American culture”.

Canada Day and Jazz Festival

Canada Day on Granville Island


Jazz Festival on Granville Island


Jazz at David Lam Park


view from Yaletown to Granville Island

Alaska Cruise

This years summer vacation took us to a very isolated destination, Southeast Alaska. This southern tail (panhandle) of the 49th US State can basically only be reached by plane or by ship and we decided to go on our first cruise. The Inside Passage takes travellers along a series of passages between the mainland and the coastal islands. Departing from Vancouver our cruiseship, the Norwegian Sun, passed the sunshine coast (we waved to Duncan in Roberts Creek) and after one night and one day of travelling we arrived at our first port Ketchikan, Alaska.



Ketchikan is the southernmost city of Alaska. According to our "advisors" from the ship there is not much to do in Ketchikan apart from booking one of their adventurous and expensive tours, that included fly-fishing, exploring the back country with a jet boat or visiting the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. We did not want to spend all our money on the first trip so we tried to find out what to do in Katchikan on our own. First we went "downtown", which has a lot of souvenir shops and restaurants to supply the cruise ship loads that invade them every week. We decided to check out the Totem Heritage Centre that explained a lot about Totem Pole making and the living culture of Southeast Alaska's Native Americans. Right next to the Heritage centre we also visited the Deer Mountain Tribal Hatchery and Eagle Center, that specializes on raising king and silver salmon as well as steelhead trout. They raise and release over 350,000 fish each year, drastically enhancing their chance to survive the first year. After one year they are released to the nearby stream to which they will come back to spawn a few years later. Later we just strolled around the Harbour, saw a wild Eagle from about 50 feet distance (for free) sitting on a fence and found a nice coffee shop. Ketchikan is a very nice little town where you can spend a day learning a lot about Alaska, its people and its culture.


Ketchikan, Creek Street


Ketchikans second income after tourism: fishing


Ketchikan

Our next port was Juneau the capital of Alaska with its current governor Sarah Palin. In Juneau we decided to book a bus tour offered by the cruiseline because we wanted to see some of the surroundings, especially the Mendenhall glacier. First we visited the Glacier Gardens where you had a fantastic view on the Juneau valley and we were driven around the old growth forest in Golf carts.


Juneau valley


busy port of Juneau, still 4 cruiseships without us

The next stop was the Mendenhall Glacier which extends from the Juneau Icefield, its source, to Mendenhall Lake and ultimately the Mendenhall River. I have seen glaciers in Switzerland even skied on them but standing in front of this river of ice was still awsome. We even got to see two more glaciers that day when we did a little excursion with the cruise ship.


Mendenhall Glacier and Mendenhall Lake


Mendenhall glacier


Dawes glacier

Dawes Glacier is at the head of Endicott Arm, a steep waterway south of Juneau that runs 30 miles into the coastal mountains. The active glacier calves immense amounts of ice into the fjord. The face of the glacier is as high as a 33-story building.

Skagway was our final destination. During the Klondike gold rush Skagways population reached 30,000, composed largely of American prospectors. Today it attracks tourists wirh the White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge railroad and numerous other activities. Our choice for the stay was a trip to the nearby town of Haines and a hike in the temperal rainforest along the ocean. We booked the trip from the ship but were the only ones, we had our personal hiking guide. We enjoyed being away from the crowds for a while and after the hike our guide showed around Haines a bit more, a really interesting little place to visit.


Downtown Skagway


Here the hiking trail ended at the beach


Haines


One of the beautiful sunsets we had all along the trip.

See more photos here.