wrongWrong Wave 2014

Thursday October 16 at The Fox Cabaret
July Fourth Toilet – Death Prizm – Late Spring
$10 at door, or buy festival pass
Doors: 7:30

Friday October 17th at the Western Front
the grain of the voice an evening with Frog Eyes – Nicholas Kgrovich – Eden Veaudry
$8 at door, or buy festival pass
Doors: 7:30

Saturday October 18th at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre at SFU Woodwards
Mecca Normal – Fake Tears
$5 at door, or buy festival pass
Doors: 7:30

This year’s festival of artists who rock and rockers that art, spans three nights at three venues, kicking off at The Fox Cabaret on Thursday October 16th to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Vancouver art rock legends, July Fourth Toilet with local acts Death Prizm and Late Spring.

WWJ4wideflatWith its first performance in 1994, July Fourth Toilet have made it their mandate to never perform the same show twice. Show themes for this multi-piece, multi-instrumental co-ed bargain basement technicolor variety revue have included thirty second songs and medleys, as well as tributes to tea, candy, Davy Jones and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, “Their Satanic Majesties Request”, September 11th, 2012, a 25th Anniversary Show after only a year of being around, and legendary songwriter Paul Williams (with Paul Williams enjoying the show from ten feet away). Named by Gregg Turkington and John Singer of the anarchic and confrontationally comedic two piece Zip Code Rapists, July Fourth Toilet ritualistically combines and transcends pop song craft, versatile musicianship, performance, non-musicians, and pure improvisation to create their unique and inimitable sound and persona.

They’ve had 80 members ranging from the ages of 8 to 80 over the years. Their second album “July Fourth Toilet Presents Balls Boogie Featuring Me and Bobby McGee Plus: Kentucky Whore and Many Others!” got Julian Cope’s vinyl award for June, 2009.

latespringpic

Late Spring was formed in 2013 by local art school grads turned rockers. They are Casey (formerly of Kick Evrything), Nik, Ryan, and Nat Mutter. Their sound combines raw and dirty with melodic dream pop elements. They are recording their first single this autumn.

death prizm tornado

Death Prizm is 777 arcs of light (rainbows) across a Desert sky. Navajo prints,in the lazy afternoon, “L.A. crime drama-watching” readers,thinkers and lovers, all over the world. Rejoice. Experimental tape loop and synthesizer origins have evolved into a million pin-pricks of blood; Cascading into a river of cacophonous guitar,cello,abandoned mattresses,and deathbed crooning. Hailing outta’ “Substance Abuse” country…

This isn’t Post-Rock; This is post-Music.

Death Prizm
Megan Johnson: Bass, Werner Thomas: Vocals, Jay Hehn: Drums
Leanne Chapman: Cello / Keyboards, S Chalmers: Guitar

Venue: Fox Cabaret 2321 Main Street
Doors: 7.30
TIX: 10$ at door or eventbrite, festival pass $20 at eventbrite

Friday October 17th, Western Front, the grain of the voice

edenveaudryFriday night at the Western Front features three local musical acts, each drawing out myriad qualities of the voice in song; Frog Eyes, Nicholas Kgrovich, and Eden Veaudry.

Frog Eyes was formed in 2001 by Carey Mercer with his wife, Melanie Campbell. Mercer sings with a range in breadth and intensity framed and lifted by his image rich lyrics of loss, and the potential of revolutionary movements, among others. Lyrics, for Mercer, sit atop of the music to help interpret the sounds. It has been an epic year for Mercer: he released his sixth record, Carey’s Cold Spring, a beautiful and harrowing work, now on Toronto-based label Paper Bag Records. As well, he published his first collection of prose, Clouds of Evil, all while battling throat cancer. Back in good health, Mercer and Frog Eyes began touring the record this past summer. Mercer’s latest performance in Seattle was a chamber string ensemble backed version of Frog Eyes songs arranged by composer Jherek Bischoff, highlighting the versatility of Mercer’s writing and the strength of his voice.

Nicholas Krgovich is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with NO KIDS, GIGI, P:ANO and MOUNT EERIE. He has been releasing records under various monikers since P:ANO’s acclaimed chamber pop debut “When It’s Dark And It’s Summer” in 2002, and most recently to the singular pop dreams released under his full legal name NICHOLAS KRGOVICH. With songs that owe as much to the Great American Songbook as to perennial favourites like Sade, Prefab Sprout and The Blue Nile, Krgovich creates a dreamland where palm trees cast impossibly long shadows, courtyard swimming pools glow at night, and washed-up movie stars haunt the streets looking for love. His local release on JAZ records last year, Who Cares? draws out the delicate beauty of his singing voice and the power of the song laid bare, accompanied by sparse guitar and piano. He has a brand new album,On Sunset, out 9/23 on Krgovich’s own NK World Service and Tin Angel.

Eden VeaudryEden Veaudry‘s practice incorporates textiles, video, drawing and sound. Recent exhibitions and performances include Conference On the Wave at CSA Space in Vancouver (2014), Shape Painter at the Audio Foundation in Auckland NZ (2013) and Joining the Periphery at VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver (2012). Veaudry will perform new sound and video work. Her sound explorations are concerned mainly with the limits of the modulated voice through pedals, which she meets visually through images of her apartment and studio, containers and objects of her life and work, abstracted through layers of video processing.

Venue: Western Front 303 East 8th Avenue
Doors: 7.30, show at 8 pm
TIX: $8 at door or eventbrite, all festival pass $20 at Eventbrite

Wrong Wave 2014 wraps up on Saturday October 18th with two acts to the power of two, at the Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre at SFU Woodwards co-presented by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement.

meccanormal photo by Sean RaggettMecca Normal is described by music writer Douglas Wolk as“Arguably the greatest rock band without a rhythm section ever, the duo of acid-voiced singer Jean Smith and guitar hero David Lester must be seen to be believed.”

Jean Smith and David Lester formed Mecca Normal in 1984 with the express interest in changing the world. Writer Jean Smith turned her zine Smarten UP! -a How to Change the World Publication- into a record label to release the first Mecca Normal record in 1986.

Mecca Normal have and continue to influence and advocate changing the world through poetry, music, art, film and literature with thirty years on the scene and thirteen records under their belts. Mecca Normal is known as a fore-runner and inspiration to the riot grrrl movement in the 90s. As part of the regional D-I-Y scene at that time, Mecca Normal co-founded the Black Wedge – anti-authoritarian poets and minimalist musicians “setting wild hearts free, spreading the damn difficult word of how to combine poetry with activist resistance culture”.

In 2010 Smith and Lester launched The Black Dot Museum of Political Art with a four-person exhibit in Olympia.

Much anticipated is Mecca Normal‘s 2014 Fall release, “Empathy for the Evil” on M’lady’s Records, produced by KRAMER and recorded in Miami by Rat Bastard, out September 30th.

Fake Tears

Fake Tears is a synth pop duo from Vancouver, with veterans Larissa Loyva (Kellarissa; p:ano) and Elisha Rembold (Lost Lovers Brigade; Shimmering Stars). They have been singing and playing their respective MicroKorgs together for 3 years, drawing inspiration from the beach, matters of the heart, night clubs, and robots.

Venue: SFU Woodwards Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, 149 West Hastings, Rm 2555

Doors: 7.30

TIX: $5 at door or at eventbrite, all festival pass $20 at Eventbrite

About Wrong Wave:
www.helenpittgallery.org/exhibitions/past/archived-events/wrong-wave-festival/

Wrong Wave began back in the 1980s at the original Helen Pitt Gallery and was revived in 2010 by Unit/Pitt (formerly the Helen Pitt Gallery) Director Keith Higgins. The festival celebrates the long Vancouver tradition of Art Rock; artists who rock, and rockers who make art.

Wrong Wave 2014: Art Rock? Reprise features the drawing on three posters by three artists in the festival’s featured acts; Jean Smith of Mecca Normal, Robert Dayton of July Fourth Toilet, and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes.

check www.facebook.com/wrongwave2014 and www.unitpitt.ca for further details and updates

Tickets available at doors and at EventBrite

Programmer: Sydney Hermant
[email protected]
778-991-6333