5 Questions with Rags #60 - 2018 Kickoff Spectacular with Jim Vanderhorst (Rebel Cause Films)

A funny thing happened at Tall Tree this year. I was asked by no less than three separate people if I knew Jim from Rebel Cause Films. (The mighty Everyman was effusive in his praise of the good Mr. Vanderhorst.) Apparently, because I like bass music and live in Victoria, I MUST be know and work with Jim. I didn't know who he was, but I was familiar with some of his work – as is pretty much anyone on the west coast who digs bass music and/or attends festivals and parties fuelled by such music. His work capturing the diverse beauty of musical audiences is, frankly, unparalleled. Turns out he's one hell of an interesting cat as well. I figured someone so entrenched in this community that I think I'm becoming a viable part of (?), a guy who has so much experience and so many stories, would be the perfect homie to kick off 2018. So, in an effort to blast off another year of 5 Questions with Rags in style, I dug up a large portion of the guest questions that got asked over the last year and let this incredibly interesting human being tear through them like some kind of fascinating buzzsaw.

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1. Colin from Pigeon Hole – What's the most vegetable and why?

Potatoes because to take the amount of time needed to describe everything you can do with potatoes would feel like like the shrimp montage from Forrest Gump. There are just so many things you can with potatoes...scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, french fries, baked potatoes... Potatoes are so goddamned versatile that when there were no potatoes, Ireland collapsed and turned into a joke for hundreds of years.

2. Jennay Badger...What's your go-to album for a good cry/emotional cleaning out?

I would say my go-to is probably Underdogs by Matthew Good Band.

3. Mike Love...What will you do now, to make the world a little better?

I really want to help spread the message that fear doesn't help anyone. I want to figure out ways to help people move beyond listening to fear. I want to make narrative feature films and I want them to share the basic theme of overcoming fear. Fear of useless, of lack of value. Fear is what we needed to save us from jungle cats when we were primitive stone-age animals. Now fear only drives us to bad decisions.

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5 Questions with Rags #59 - Jennay Badger

Earlier this year a friend sent me a message that said “Check out this new, dope Neon Steve mix.” I put it on and it was decidedly awesome. But something didn't sound right. Turns out the fantastical futurefunkydisco mix was the work of one Jennay Badger, the release of her set from the first instalment of the quarterly party “Neon Steve & Friends.” A glaring example of my surprising musical ignorance, I've come to find out that Badger is a fixture in the Vancouver Island bass scene. Her masterful Djing skills have kept her appearing all over the place to deliver her tasty, funky delights and her even more masterful (?) dancing abilities led her to founding INFLUX Dance Troupe, the finest of dance troupes I've come across. “I created Influx after I had tried out for a couple of different dance troupes. I was, reading in between the lines, being called overweight. That really hurt me, really hit home. I decided that that wasn't going to stop me,” says Badger of the formation of my favourite dance crew. “I don't believe that a person's weight really identifies how strong of a dancer they are. I didn't want to sit there and do nothing about it. Jamie Gib and I got to talking, he's also on the bigger spectrum himself and tried dancing with a bunch of different groups himself. I've also noticed that almost no groups at all have taken on any men full time. We got to talking and while Influx started as my vision, Jamie helped me bring it to life.” Influx is the next step in the natural evolution of Badger's ever-growing prominence in the West Coast bass community. With that in mind I decided to eschew our traditional opening question and to just jump right into the heavy stuff.

1. If you could only choose Djing or dancing for the rest of your life, which would you hang onto?

Fuck you. <laughs> Some people might say, “First and foremost, you're a DJ,” but that's just because they don't know my dancing background. I've been dancing ever since I was a child. My mom used to take me to music festivals when I was literally 2 years old. She used to drive me all across Canada in a school bus that she made into a kitchen. So, it was a kitchen, my bedroom and my home, all in one. We did that until I was about 6. I'd go missing and I'd sneak up onto the stage and she'd turn around and I'd be up there. I remember one time I was about 6, I was up there with some big black Louisiana woman and her band. They were holding me in their arms while they were performing. So, I've always been into dancing. I couldn't afford to do dance class, but there was dance teacher in Campbell River who saw that I was really good at dancing, so she offered to have me come to the studio and do hip-hop classes every Sunday for free, which was fucking amazing. I'm super grateful for that.

Around 2007, my mom actually took me to my first rave, in Cowichan. My mom and my uncle lived on this property in Cowichan Bay. It was near a place called The Barn, it was really well-known in the scene here. That's where I started going when I was 11. My mom would keep an eye on me. I had to be home and in bed by 10, but my mom brought me because I loved dancing so much. I was just going for the dancing and eventually, when I was around 14 or 15, I started Djing. I was just around it all the time. I love Djing so much, but I love dancing so much. Through Djing, I get to express my more masculine side. I feel like I'm The Man up there. Dancing brings out a little more femininity in me. I don't love either Djing or dancing more than the other, they're both one for me.

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5 Questions with Rags #58 - Stevie Wise (The New Groovement, The Big Feelings)

If you are around the Canadian west coast pay any attention to the music scene around you, you've seen or heard the New Groovement around. The funk/jazz/soul/hip-hop is established a go-to for good time, big-sound live music 'round these parts. As a person who sees these sorts of things, I had seen TNG many times and then I showed up to White Eagle Hall here in Victoria one night and there was a new lady singing! The fuck was going on? Any fears I had of this new person screwing up the chemistry of this band I dig were quickly assuaged when I heard this new voice and saw her quietly commanding stage presence. I also came to learn the person behind this powerhouse voice was Steph Wisla. Since then that stage presence has gone from quietly commanding to powerfully radiant.

Joining an already established band was easier than one might have expected and Wisla just dropped right into the role. “I didn't have to do any of the grunt work from the beginning. They already had an award-winning album and stuff. It was great. I had been such a fan of the band too so it wasn't a completely new band to me. It was like, 'I'm finally living my dream of being in an awesome band.' It was a natural progression,” says Wisla of her easy transition into her role. The partnership seems to have been almost immediately beneficial as both Wisla and TNG seem to have a hard groove in 2017, both as powerful as ever. I sat down with the magnetic Wisla for a chat about the paranormal, people sharing names and that corrupter of youth – Hillary Duff.

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1. What was the first album you bought with your own money?

I was kind of spoiled. I don't know when I really bought something with my own money. <laugh> My first go-to is Avril Lavigne Let Go. That shit was ace.

Was or is?

Is. Always is. The next one, Hillary Duff, Metamorphosis, I think it was called. My parents went through it and listened to it before we were allowed to listen to it so they could censor it. And I clearly remember we weren't allowed to listen to 7 or 11, because they talked about partying. Which, now, 'Sorry mom, do here what I sing about on stage now?! Hillary Duff ain't got nothing on me!”

How did they even enforce that?

I don't know. We were all just scarred shitless to do anything wrong. We all had very guilty consciences. I have an older sister and a younger brother. We were all kind of like, “I don't wanna do anything wrong because I'll feel bad about it forever.” I remember they used a sharpie to scratch out the titles of 7 and 11 so we couldn't even know the names of them.

2. When's the last time you did something for the first time?

Atmosphere Gathering. And I wanna leave the rest blank. Sorry, mom.

What a great festival.

It was insane. I only went up for a day and a half and I don't regret it.

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5 Questions (And more!) with Rags #57 - AppleCat

I first saw AppleCat at Rifflandia in 2016, almost completely by accident – a beautiful, cosmically tremendous accident – and was taken in right away. Her mesmerizing, supple bass was more warming than anything else I'd ever heard that could be called “dubstep.” It made me groove and dance, but there was something else that I hadn't heard in my electronic music up until that point. It was soothing in a way that I hadn't experienced the genre before, oozing with new ideas and an energy that I hadn't felt in that setting. That night in the red-brick-embrace of Lucky Bar, I realized how few female/feminine Djs I had in my diet. I had got lazy and hadn't dug much. In such a male-dominated landscape, feminine voices often get drowned or pushed to the side. It takes sometimes takes energy to find this stuff on your own. So I started putting energy there. I started looking at festival rosters differently, started seeking out new voices in my bass adventures. AppleCat set that off inside of me. To top off my own journey with her music, she won over a whole new set of friends at this years Rifflandia. I was lucky enough to get some of her time in between her seemingly endless musical output, shows and her involvement with the incredible multi-platform media project Amplify Her, which you should 100% check out and support. (You'll notice a couple of extra questions on the docket today and that's because she answered my stuff so eloquently, it felt a shame to cut up her words.)

How did you get involved with Amplify Her? How has that process been? What's been the most surprising part of the experience for you?
I was the initial inspiration to the Documentary Amplify Her. I met the film's co-director Ian Mackenzie at Burning Man in 2012. He experienced me perform live for the first time and was apparently struck. What he experienced was a weaving, a tapestry of sound set to bring the audience on a journey from start to finish. He mentioned to me something about a film he wanted to make and the Dark Feminine's Unique offering to the world of music; and honestly I kind of shrugged it off. Clearly he was serious. Five years later the film, the graphic novel and the animation are being released and I am kind of awash in bewilderment - So where will this take me and the other Women involved in the film? I have absolutely no idea. With such vulnerable parts of my personal life exposed, I cannot help but feel bashful - yet more empowered than I have ever been. What would it mean to be transparent with our stories? and thus have our greatest wounds be transmuted to our greatest gifts. As David Bowie said, "I don't know where I'm going from here, but i promise it won't be boring"

How long have been creating music? What has creating music taught you about yourself?
I have been writing songs and performing music since I was 17 and sneaking into bars to perform. Music is something that has always been with me, kept me grounded and never abandoned me even in times where it felt like everything else did. That said pre AppleCat it was a pretty solo venture, and for the most part I sang with my eyes closed, too scared to let anyone in. I have been performing as an electronic artist since early 2011. Stepping into my AppleCat project has allowed me the space to tell the deep primal sensual stories that live inside of all of us. It has taught me about the intimacy of tending to a crowd, the connection to the fans and loved ones that arises as I guide their experience (and they mine). It is absolutely integral to the person I have become. I would not be so attentive, inspired, creative, empathic and unabashedly myself should I have not taken this route.

1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money? Yes and I am inclined to lie, but wont. I remember it could be one of three CDs: the Sailor Moon soundtrack, Aqua - Aquarium, or The Crow soundtrack. That said, I am pretty sure it was the Sailor Moon Soundtrack, and yes I can still recall a fair amount of the song lyrics. (♪ fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight ♪......)

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5 Questions with Rags #56 - Makemdef (of Chuurch)

Justin 'Makemdef' MacLean came onto my radar as one half of the mighty CHUURCH. Their groovy, weird and driving 'Lean Bass' sank its hooks deep into my eardrums right away. My Shambhala crew came together and re-energized to their music when Chuurch had their Sunday 4am set moved up to Saturday at 8pm in the face of the threatening forest fires nearby. Watching Makemdef on stage pantomiming around like some kind of possessed bass priest, may be the greatest spectacle I've ever seen behind a set of decks. Turns out homie is a hella great hip-hop producer as well, working with some of Canada's finest like Snak the Ripper, Moka Only and Emotionz. Which really, considering the obvious and deep hip-hop influence in Chuurch's ysht, shouldn't come as a surprise. Last week Makemdef unleashed a pretty amazing beat-tape that any head should be putting in their ears. I was lucky enough to grab a few minutes of his valuable time where we definitely talked Chuurch, but managed to squeeze in a quick 5 Questions in which we cover breakfast sandwiches, his greatest fear and the glory that is Nas.

1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own body?

It was Nas God's Son. It blew my mind, I'd never heard anything like that before. My identity changed after hearing Nas, it was crazy.

2. I think that's the proper human response to really listening to Nas for the first time. <laugh> When is the last time you did something for the first time? (I don't normally comment on how people answer these things, but the enthusiasm in homie's voice for new experiences and new art and the quickness with which he answered this really made me smile and was frankly, just a tad inspiring.)

Oh man, every day. When I'm traveling I see and experience new things all of the time. I think the last time I saw something new, I saw the biggest metal sculpture that emits flame. That's a crazy thing to see. Different scenes everywhere. It's crazy how you can experience something for the first time, but also for the thousandth time. Every day I try to do something like that. There are some pretty significant ones - I wish I knew the very last new thing like that I experienced. Even just new scenes, like when you walk into a carnival or something. Oh! I saw a big bass carnival, this is cool. I was camped next to this giant carnival. There was something like 17 dancers wearing different masks, it felt like a huge circus. I was sitting there while they're getting geared up. It felt like I was going to fight alongside all these dance warriors. It was really neat, they were training around the campsite area. It felt very warrior-style. I'd never sat around a circus while people practiced. That was new and cool.

3. What's the last thing that made you seriously belly-laugh?

Probably some joke my girlfriend told me. She makes me laugh a lot. My girlfriend, final answer.

Photo by BEEDEE.&nbsp;

Photo by BEEDEE. 

4. What's your best memory of a teacher growing up?

<laughs> I had a grade 7 art teacher who used to have a little something extra in her thermos of orange juice. Thinking about that always makes me laugh. I went to this prototype high school in Nova Scotia for kids with attention deficit and stuff like that. There was only like 60 kids in the whole school. Kids from the ghetto and rich kids. Kids had ADD, ADHD, Tourette's or sometimes all three. Gym class would get a little crazy. It was cool.

5. You get two guest questions today. The first one comes from the legendary Z-Trip...What is your greatest fear?

Getting comfortable. For sure. That's a silent killer, that one.

6. The other question comes from the homie Flamingosis...If you could only eat one type of breakfast sandwich for every meal the rest of your life, what kind of breakfast sandwich would you eat?

That's deadly, I like that question. I don't eat pork, so I like just a straight-up regular breakfast sandwich. A little cheese and an English muffin and some egg. Totally down with that. I could live off that. In the morning, just basic like that.

You put any butter or mayo or ketchup or anything on that bad boy?

Nah. Just me and grease. Well, I'd go with some monterey jack cheese instead of regular cheese. A nice organic egg just taken out of the chicken coup.

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