Tag: Vancouver

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Opinions

I moved from Vancouver to the East Coast for university

Montreal winter skyline. Photo by Saskia Wodarczak // The Concordian

Should I have thought it through a bit more?

I think that the top question I am asked when I tell someone I’m from Vancouver is: “So like, why are you here [Toronto or Montréal]…?” It has gotten to the point that I, myself, am not even sure. I frequently wonder if I was too hasty with my decision to move for school… Was my choice based on a whim, simply because I wanted to be independent?

I grew up a good seven minutes from the University of British Columbia (UBC), and I always thought that was where I would end up, not only for the convenience and how the name would look on future job applications. Two of my cousins went to UBC, as did my dad (who is now their archivist). Naturally, it was assumed that I would further my studies at UBC.

Upon contemplation, though, I realised that I had lived in Vancouver for 18 years and had done everything I needed to do in Vancouver for that period of my life. I had frequented the Aquarium, gone sledding at Grouse, and called the Island my second home. If I moved provinces, I would be independent… That intrigued me, especially since I’m an only child and have no family out East. 

So, I packed up my life, migrated east, and lived independently. I was entirely self-reliant and I loved it. It would be so hard for me to go back to Vancouver, simply because I have gotten used to my independence and know I would not be able to backtrack. 

I have only found two cons that came with moving away for school. First, my grandparents—I am either the youngest or the only grandchild on each side. I went from seeing my Nani and Opa two times a week, to seeing them both twice a year. I do not like that at all because I miss them the most. This one also became very apparent to me this past December: the harsh reality that my parents are ageing (I know they’re reading this right now and are probably feeling slightly insulted). Especially since I’m not there to see the progression of that, it is so much more apparent to me whenever I’m back. 

Second comes the change in energy from city to city. Going from the mountains and ocean on my doorstep, to looking out the window and only seeing a flat metropolis really took a toll on my mental health. The atmosphere and vibe of a new city can sometimes make (or break) an experience. I might’ve moved twice now for university, but since Montréal is much more similar to Vancouver, I’ve felt more at home. 

I love the independence and adventure of being a few provinces away, but sometimes, I’m mad at myself because I think that my decision to pursue this independence is selfish. It is hard to be completely happy somewhere else when, though by no means forced, there is a sense of familial obligation a ways away. What possessed me to move away from my family and a familiar city, not to mention a prestigious university? It can be quite a guilt trip sometimes. 

From time to time, I find myself feeling whimsical and dreaming about B.C., mentally driving down that precarious loop that turns Broadway into Lougheed, or speeding down south west Marine Drive. When anything to do with B.C. is mentioned in class, I perk up a bit. I know that I’ll never truly be home again, so it is bittersweet when I visit Vancouver, especially since I’m not totally sure where I’ll end up… Only time will tell.

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Opinions

Which coast is the best coast?

Graphic by Keven Vaillancourt @kindaokev

A local’s perspective on how to eat and explore your way through two of Canada’s biggest cities in 24 hours.

One of my friends told me that I’m going to keep moving east until I end up right back in Vancouver, and that isn’t too far-fetched. I have been constantly migrating east ever since the end of high school— first Toronto, and now Montréal.

As a proud Vancouverite, I know the city like the back of my hand. Seriously, you could plop me down in the middle of Sapperton and I’d know how to get home. The same goes for Toronto. 

Any local of any city has their go-to places and I am proud to have culminated my own lists for both Vancouver and Toronto. I’ve got a lot of food and to-do recommendations; so in honour of summer plans being made, here are my *local’s* recommendations in the two cities.

Up first is my home base, Vancouver—prefacing this with the fact that I grew up in Kitsilano, which is ten minutes away from the University of British Columbia, so these recommendations are in and around that area.

Start the day off on a sweet note at Grounds for Coffee for the best cinnamon buns in the world. My mum and I have been frequenting Grounds since I was a toddler, so that should speak volumes. Alternatively, head up to Blue Chip at UBC for a bite (make sure to grab one of their iconic cookies), and explore the UBC campus. It is genuinely the most beautiful Canadian campus in my opinion and always has something new to check out. 

From there, hop on the 99 B-Line bus and get some sushi from Masa Sushi on Broadway—their Secret Garden Roll is definitely a must. If you aren’t in the mood for sushi, go to Sing Sing on Main Street and order an assortment of appetizers to nosh on. Dodge into a couple thrift stores or any of the hole-in-the-wall antique shops for some unique finds. 

For dinner, head over to Marcello Ristorante on Commercial Drive. Dubbed as Vancouver’s “Little Italy,” this area offers some pretty stellar Italian food, as well as some more thrift stores and parks. Wind down with some ice cream from Earnest Ice Cream on Quebec Street and East 2nd. They’ve always got the most unique flavours—such as whiskey hazelnut and London fog. 

That’s a pretty decent day spent in the main areas of Vancouver (excluding downtown, which is an entirely different world in and of itself ). 

Moving east to Toronto: home to big buildings and the best soup dumplings ever. These recommendations are mainly in and around the downtown neighbourhoods, with the exception of Roncesvalles. Start off your morning at Fran’s for some Toronto staple diner-style brekkie—I am partial to their College Street location. 

For lunch, head to Juicy Dumpling in Chinatown for the cheapest and best soup dumplings ever – I am forever grateful to my friend for introducing me to my now go-to. Explore the Chinatown area for some cool thrift stores and unique memorabilia finds. Or, go to Grillies on Dundas for an amazing pulled pork sandwich. 

Madras Kaapi on College is a haven for some South Indian style coffee; you can also check out the little stores in and around the area for some unique collectibles. My friend and I have spent hours there trying out the various pastries and food. Reunion Coffee Roasters in Roncesvalles is also great to grab a coffee and explore the picturesque little neighbourhood. I love poking around the main strip and wandering in the inside roads—I could easily spend all day there, especially since it’s the first place my Opa lived when he immigrated to Canada in ‘58.

Finally for dinner, check out Vivoli for some killer Italian food! After the surprise birthday party that my friends organized there for my 20th, it is forever a kindred spot for me. 

And there you have it! How to spend 24 hours in two of Canada’s biggest (and polar opposite) cities. 

Hopefully this awakened the tourist within!

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Sports

The “B.C. Boys:” Jack Vandenberg and Griffyn Bibbings

Griffyn Bibbings (left) and Jack Vandenberg (right) at the Concordia Gymnasium, 2023. Maria Bouabdo/ The Concordian

The rookies brought their positive vibes from Vancouver to Montreal

On July 27, 2022, Jack Vandenberg flew out from Vancouver to Montreal. The following day, Griffyn Bibbings followed, and the two were probably the only students at Concordia’s campus residence for the next few weeks.

The two British Columbians — Vandenberg, point guard from Central Vancouver, and Bibbings, forward from West Vancouver — bonded and started a friendship that earned them the nickname “B.C. Boys” from their teammates.

“When we got here, he was probably the first person I met,” Bibbings said about Vandenberg. “It was the morning after I landed, and because we’re both from B.C., we’re both on res [residence] as well. So we kind of do everything together. Our teammates just call us ‘B.C. Boys,’ and they just mean me and Jack.”

“Coaches have mentioned a few times, they don’t really see us without each other,” Vandenberg added. “Because we have a similar schedule apart from classes. It’s just practice, and then we go eat, and then we go back to the res [residence].”

Although the two rookies were both only 18 years old at the time, they didn’t feel that moving to a new city on their own was intimidating or particularly difficult to navigate.

“At no point was I just in my room not knowing a single person or not knowing what to do,” said Bibbings. “The morning after I got here, I met him [Vandenberg]. I probably met like 20 people on the first day. So it wasn’t really that hard.”

Vandenberg and Bibbings had the chance to meet the rest of the team at practice before playing exhibition games against NCAA teams in August.

They acknowledged that being part of a team can definitely make moving across the country a lot easier.

The “B.C. Boys” during the national anthem before a game. Kyran Thicke/ Concordia Athletics

“I feel like in our situation, it might be a little different than most,” Vandenberg explained. “Because when we came here we had the support of the coaches, teammates, like we already kind of had a friend group going into it with our teammates.”

Although the pair only met here last summer, they had played against each other in B.C. at some point, so they knew of each other.

Bibbings played high-school basketball at Rockridge Secondary and club basketball with 3D Basketball Academy during the spring and summer time, while Vandenberg played at St. George’s School and DRIVE Basketball.

Like all student-athletes, the two basketball players missed some time due to COVID-19 shutdowns. But according to them, this time off really helped separate the players who had been practicing during the shutdowns from those who hadn’t. They both stayed active with their respective clubs, which held outdoor sessions.

“Before COVID… I wasn’t that recognized [or] that good,” Vandenberg said. “Then I started getting more recognition because I put in more work whenever, I guess, a lot of people were chilling out.”

Stingers’ head coach Rastko Popovic also appreciates how hard his rookie point guard has been working.

“At the point guard position it’s tougher,” Popovic said. “Because we do have two really good point guards on our team, but what I like about Jack a lot is he’s a competitor, he competes, he’s not afraid, and he works really hard.”

Popovic has also been impressed by his two players’ maturity and ability to adapt from a high school setting to university, while juggling basketball and school.

Bibbings is currently enrolled in sociology, while Vandenberg is studying psychology, but they’re both keeping their options open, as they’re not sure if they want to stick to those programs yet.

Another thing that has impressed Popovic is the duo’s work ethic.

“They want to get better everyday, they’re very coachable, they listen, they’re both going to keep improving and hopefully by next year they’ll be able to make bigger contributions to our team,” Popovic said.

But that’s not the only thing that matters. Popovic also looks at the kind of people he’s recruiting and what they’re like off the court, and it was all positive when it came to Bibbings and Vandenberg. 

“They’re very very good kids in general, they’re good people, and that’s important to us when we recruit players.”

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News

Concordia student delegation hits NASH82

NASH is a four-day conference held by the Canadian University Press (CUP), which offers various workshops and lectures to journalism students. Whether the subject was global reporting, Indigenous coverage, hate groups in Canada or the climate crisis, the idea behind the conference was to provide tools for students to report accurately on issues that affect their university communities, but also to make the most out of their own newspaper.

“I think the best part of this conference is getting your head filled with all these ideas – maybe it’s just a spark from what a speaker mentioned or a conversation with other journalists – and try to spread that back out into the student journalism landscape,” said Jacob Dubé, vice-president of CUP.

The old NASH tradition enforces the idea that journalism across universities should not be a competition – rather, a collaboration. Dubé mentioned there is something quite powerful about seeing a community of aspiring journalists together in the same room, helping one another.

Indeed, the theme of this year’s edition, hosted by The Ubyssey – the University of British Columbia’s independent student newspaper – was empower.

Keynote speakers included Garth Mullins, host and executive producer of the Crackdown Podcast, who opened the conference Thursday night with a talk on how to properly cover the drug and overdose crisis in Canada. The second guest speaker was Dr. Candis Callison, an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, who addressed the practices and role of reporting on the climate crisis. The final speaker was Anishinaabe comedian Ryan McMahon, who used the stage to confront the colonial narrative in the media and share his view on key qualities and skills future journalists should hold.

NASH is also an opportunity to host the John H. McDonald Awards for Excellence in Student Journalism during the last night of the conference. While The Concordian left without any awards, Ireland Compton, editor-in-chief at The Link, won best Indigenous reporting for her piece: Protest Denounces Federal Decision to Appeal Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

“To be recognized for the work that I’ve been doing is a really great feeling,” said Compton. “I think that we all deal with imposter syndrome from time to time, I know I do, and an award like this is a reminder to myself that I’m on the right track.”

The Link also won the best cover/layout of the year for their gender and sexuality issue, published last March.

 

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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Music

Mother Mother dances and cries

I wanted to ask Ryan Guldemond where his sleeves went, in the tone of an uncle that asks you if your knees are cold in your ripped jeans.

Vancouver indie-pop outfit reaches out to L’Astral’s crowd

A familiar riff breaks the chatter at L’Astral in the fourth quarter of Mother Mother’s set. The crowd roars like they hadn’t before on this Friday night; there was a noticeable jolt in the energy of the room. It was the opening of “Hayloft,” the single that defined the band’s presence as an alt-rock Vancouver heavyweight a decade ago.

Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin, the two supporting vocalists, began the electric hook: “My daddy’s got a gun, you better run.” The tune that tells the story of two lovers evading a crazed, armed father leverages it’s vivid simplicity and effervescent melody. There was a gripping imminence in the lyrics thoroughly encapsulated in the breakneck riffs which the frontman Ryan Guldemond, Molly’s brother, handled easily.

The song was released on Mother Mother’s 2008 album, O My Heart, to critical acclaim. While floating in pop-rock waters, the tape was anchored in Ryan’s incendiary confidence and unique melodies that landed the Vancouver band in a saltwater limelight. The lyrics were playful but vivid, the instrumentation was tight and textured. On the following album, Eureka, Mother Mother posted their portion of the pop-rock patch, with Ryan’s voice coating the project in a signature gloss. You could find them at the fringe of pop, tip-toeing between heaviness and more tender moments.

As Mother Mother progressed however, their tonal range became more restricted, moving their voice closer to the indie-pop centre. The band lost some of its shimmer in what could only have been a grasp at a wider audience, sacrificing their charming verses and hooks for lyrical platitudes.

Mother Mother opened with “I Must Cry Out Loud,” the first track on their newest record Dance and Cry, after which this tour is titled. Unfortunately, this album doesn’t travel into much deeper thematic waters than dancing and crying. Ryan traded the hoarse, unhingedness of “Hayloft” for a safer, more anthemic chant borrowing from the trite indie-pop formula epitomized by The Lumineers’s 2012 burden of a chart-topper, “Ho Hey.”

If they opened with the ‘cry,’ they followed up with the ‘dance,’ playing the title track on which the hook starts with “Dance, dance, dance / While you cry / Dance, dance, dance / As you try,” and ends with a repetition of the album’s title. The song has an Apple-commercial cleanliness that is as present in its sound as its lyrics. Not that there isn’t a relatable core to the cathartic idea of dancing while you cry, it would just be nice if the reason for it went further than an escape from a vague “valley of darkness.” “Bottom is a Rock” was a highlight from the new album, taking up the Sisyphytic cycle of life’s highs and lows. The melodies were similarly safe, but the rhythm and chords were satisfyingly heavy.

Sanitary lyrics fortunately came with crisp, rich sounds as the whole band was undeniably sharp. They meshed synths with tight basslines and strong lead guitar in a way that left no frequency unaccounted for. This was especially apparent when they covered “Creep” by Radiohead, with Molly delivering an excellent v

ocal performance. The band’s movement was comparably tight, Ryan’s super saiyan-esque spiked blonde hair and intense features had the audience captivated. During faster songs, they head-bopped, bounced and yelled the words in a way that was oh-so-respectful of me and my camera gear.

Mother Mother was very gracious with the audience, involving them in a way that showed their humility. “This shit is the best form of group therapy there is,” said Ryan. He went on to say how he wished he could sit down with the crowd and pass around a talking stick. Drummer Ali Siadat gave a speech in broken French about the band’s love for Montreal.

Mother Mother’s set was frustrating in its safeness, but seeing hardcore fans getting red in the face going word for word with Ryan, I knew those shoutouts were for them. The band connected with the captivated audience, despite their music becoming harder to spot in a crowd. Still, no moment that night came close to when “Hayloft” dropped, and L’Astral turned into Vancouver in 2008.

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Music

After a five-year break, Shad is back with his most complete album yet

Shad coiled the mic cord in his hand as the show went on, looking like a stage tech by the end of his set. Photo by Simon New

After a five-year break, Ontario MC is back with his most complete album yet

“If I’m honest, it’s not exactly what I wanted to do, but at the end of the day I have to do the thing that feels like I’m giving people something real. That’s what this was,” said Shadrach Kabango, a rapper known as Shad. He just released A Short Story About A War, his first album since taking five years off of music to host CBC’s flagship arts interview show, Q, then Hip-Hop Evolution, a Netflix docuseries produced by Russell Peters about the growth of today’s most popular genre.

A Short Story About A War is a concept album that was birthed from a poem Shad wrote about societal inequality. It’s a war metaphor in which snipers represent merciless capitalists, stone-throwers are everyday people, and the central character, the fool, doesn’t believe in the power of bullets. The violence in war stands for social inequality. “What do our governments and corporations do, here and abroad? Violence, really,” Shad said. The album was inspired by his time in Vancouver, where he got a master’s degree in liberal studies from Simon Fraser University. The city has the highest percentage of low-income households in Canada, while the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is the highest in the country, rising above $3,000, about $1,000 more than Toronto, the next highest city. “That’s where that story came from. My subconscious mind trying to grapple with what does it mean to live well in a place like this,” Shad said.

Shad interspersed heavier cuts from his new album with his classic, lighthearted tracks. Photo by Simon New

The album presents a bleak depiction of this war, concluding that fear is at the heart of the conflict. The main character defies this conflict. “There’s many different ways to participate in the violence and the tension that you’re feeling. And there’s an alternative, but it’s very difficult; this fool character,” Shad said. The fool comes to realize that violence stems from fear, and although the album is at times dark, this character leads the listener to look within themselves to find hope. It is a sprawling message packed tightly into a metaphor that is the perfect backbone to A Short Story About A War.

On Friday night, Shad put on a show that was exuberant as often as it was somber and reflective, mixing his new, heavy cuts with the material that got him to where he is. Thoughtful, slick and technically sharp rap that is all too often given the dreaded, trite label of “conscious.” “The bigger part of me loves entertaining people, loves giving people a certain style that they’ve come to know and enjoy with my music,” Shad said. That was certainly apparent when he brought freestyles, call-and-response and quick banter to Le Ministère.

Shad has won a number of awards including an Emmy and a Peabody Award for Hip-Hop Evolution, and snatched the 2011 Juno for Rap Recording of the Year from none other than Drake. As decorated as he is, Shad values consistency over any specific prize, particularly after his 2013 album, the last before his five-year break. “When I finished Flying Colours and that album was well received, for some reason that was significant to me. Because it felt like I wasn’t a fluke,” he said. With A Short Story About A War, he handles complex topics with succinct clarity, all while delivering top-shelf punchlines and metaphors inside of five-star flows. Shad is certainly not a fluke.

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Music

Japandroids live at Corona Theatre

Japandroids' Brian King rallying the Corona audience into a frenzy

Since the release of their 2012 sophomore opus, Celebration Rock, Japandroids have occupied a spot in the musical zeitgeist as one of Canada’s all-time greatest bands. These droids are manufactured in Vancouver, which is evident in the group’s repertoire of songs, which often namedrop geographical locations in British Columbia.

When Japandroids’ first chord rang across the stage of the Corona Theatre last week, the audience was instantly transfixed and didn’t divert their attention until the end of the 15-song set. The Vancouver natives kicked off their first Montreal performance in years with the title track off their latest release, Near to the Wild Heart of Life. Japandroids’ music operates on sheer kinetic energy, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that guitarist and vocalist Brian King’s vivacity on stage perfectly paralleled his playing and singing on the record.

Filling the venue to its absolute brim, the show was an amazing presentation of synergy formed between audience and performer. The crowd was moshing and singing along with untutored enthusiasm throughout the show. Such was the case for the performers themselves, who transferred this energy back and forth like wildfire. The energy was tossed to-and-fro from band to audience and vice-versa.

The Canadian icons were poised and confident.

King asked if anyone in the crowd was at the band’s Cabaret Mile-End show, which took place all the the way back in December 2012. A few zealous responses were scattered throughout the crowd. King devoted “Younger Us” to the dedicated few who attended that show.

The two fans fixed at the front of the crowd were sporting homemade “North East South West” baseball caps, which caught King’s eye. The titular song off the band’s latest effort, “Near to The Wild Heart Of Life,” was dedicated to those two, who seemed to be revitalized with new energy that somehow topped their initial gusto.

And of course, there had to be that one guy who, at every concert, yells out a request to play “Free Bird.” Not usually in the band’s lineup of songs, but the request caught the interest of King, who, for a brief moment, considered covering the song with his ill-prepared drummer, David Prowse, so that they could both botch the song together.

Japandroids rocking the night away.

The set ended on a particularly climactic note, with an especially stomping rendition of the band’s biggest anthem, “The House That Heaven Built.” There was no encore, but it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say everyone in attendance felt satisfied with King and Prowse’s performance.

Photos by Erin Walker

Categories
Music

The History of Gunpowder

This eclectic band has burlesque dancers to accompany them on stage

The members of The History of Gunpowder aren’t afraid to take risks. Not only is their music a mix of swamp pirate blues and growling vocals, but they have an ostrich as their mascot. The five-piece band has been touring Montreal to promote their most recent album, Stained Glass, Rye and Wax, which was released last May.

Alex James Morison, the singer-songwriter, composer, manager, sound engineer and creator of the band, said they’ve recently added a new and exciting element to their live performances: burlesque dancers. According to Morison, this makes their shows more visually appealing.“We want someone to come into our show and not want to have a cigarette the whole time, and not want to get a drink the whole time, and not be able to take their eyes off the stage the entire set,” he said.

Morison initially started the band in Vancouver five years ago. He is now the only remaining original member and has gone through more than 24 different musicians. It was when he moved to Montreal two years ago that he felt the band really came together. Quinn Dennehy, a childhood friend of Morison plays drums. Henri Rabalais, the synthesizer and keyboard player, was one of Morison’s first acquaintances in Montreal. Both Stephan Krims, the upright and electric bass player, and Aleksi Campagne, the violinist and backup vocalist, joined the band a year ago during Morison’s search for more players in his band. These musicians are the first to have stayed in the group longer than four or five months, said Morison, adding they are also amazing people to work with. “They’re my brothers. They’re the best bandmates I’ve ever had, definitely,” said Morison.

Bandmates of The History of Gunpowder. Photo by Elizabeth Louise

The talent of his fellow musicians blows Morison away. “My violin player, Aleksi, is just a monster,” said Morison. “I give him so much time just to solo. He’s been playing folk music his whole life and studied jazz in Paris. Quinn is just like a punk and funk guy, but I make him play things he’s not used to playing. And it’s just a really good line-up of people.”

Four burlesque artists were added to the band’s live shows in November. Out of the seven songs in their set the burlesque dancers join in for four of them. There is Jessica Rae, who isn’t only a burlesque artist but also a performance artist. “She makes puppets, so she’s making puppets just for this routine,” said Morison. They also have Aria Delanoche, who Morison said is one of the most beautiful and sexy burlesque artists in the city. Fifi Fantome also performs at their shows and, according to Morison, is a mime and circus burlesque freak who is also a wonderful lady. Finally, there’s Sugar Vixen, who Morison said is kind of the rock and roll girl of burlesque. “She’s is all tatted up and crazy,” he said. Having burlesque artists in their shows has been great so far, said Morison. “It’s been wonderful. [It] shakes things up, gives the audience something beautiful to look at,” he said. “All the girls are great to collaborate with. It really lights up the performance and gives it a new importance.”

The History of Gunpowder will be performing with the burlesque artists at the ShazamFest Winter Carnival in West Barnston, Quebec on Jan. 28. They will share the stage with the band Old Time Honey. Dennehy, the drummer, is the man behind the band’s strange yet alluring ostrich mascot. The ostrich started out as something nonsensical but later became an emotional outlet for Morison. “I think it’s become an icon for me to direct certain feelings towards,” said Morison. “Some of my songs are about the bastards that exist. There are a lot of bastards, and it’s good to put a face to them so you can direct things to them.”

Adding new and interesting elements to their live shows is one of the ways the band works to achieve success in the music industry. “Nothing happens to you unless you make it happen to you,” said Morison. “The cold truth is you’ve got to work hard for [success] and that’s it. There’s no other way around it.”

Burlesque dancer, Jessica Rae. Photo by Tzeitel Puig Andreu

The band’s full-length album is set to come out in May or June 2017. “It’s a monster of an album. It’s going to be the longest piece I’ve ever done,” said Morison. Morison said he really pushed himself musically when creating this album. “There’s a lot of different things I’ve never done before on it—like harp, I’ve never really composed with harp before,” he said, adding he plans to get an all-female backup vocal group to work with him. “I’m doing a lot of new things with this record and exploring new ways of writing songs. I think it’s going to be the best stuff we’ve ever done. It’s going to be a big deal, I think.”

Morison said the band has plans to tour their new album parts of Canada, including Quebec and Ontario as well as Europe. Until then, expect the unexpected from The History of Gunpowder. You never know who, or what, they will come up with next.

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