5 Questions with Rags #72 - SIDEWAY

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I first found out about SIDEWAY (formerly Sidewaysounds) a couple summers ago when he laid down tunes on a old school bus that was transporting people from downtown Victoria to the top of Brown's Mountain for Tall Tree Music Festival. (Note: That old school bus is known as The Community Action Bus and it's usually doing more important things than transporting festival goers.)`I knew literally zero things about him or what kind of music I would hear on this journey, but I was quickly pulled out of my comfortable anti-social bubble at the back of the bus, into the midst of people, closer to the speakers. Dude had the two most important things I look for in a DJ - instantly recognizable taste and no genre allegiance. Turns out, on top of being a solid DJ he's also a damned-fine producer, creating some pretty smashing, forward-thinking bass music. “For me the tune has reach up and grab your attention, that's when you know you're onto something,” Sideway told me, talking about what in music is grabbing at him these days. “I like to browse SoundCloud for hours and just have it on in the background, and when a song grabs my attention I know its worth taking a closer look at which often leads me to brand new artist discoveries. Same goes for when I’m making music… I’m very hands on, just creating until something sounds interesting and grabs my attention and then building around that as inspiration. But it's all a very fluid process for me, my tastes have evolved many times over the years and I expect that will continue.” Probably get on the train now, because if current Sideway trends continue, whoa! You're gonna be glad you got on these sounds early!

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

Haha, okay this is going to sound super lame, but music was never really a big thing in our house growing up. Like, my parents didn’t really listen to anything except the odd ABBA album. Exposure for me was through friends and so the first impression made on me was Stan by Eminem. I think I was 12. I couldn't buy the album but my friends did and we had that shit on repeat just like every other kid. Another early favourite was Coolio – Gangsters Paradise. The last album I can remember buying on CD was Kid Kudi - Man on the Moon, used to rinse that out a bunch as well.

But when my cousin snuck me into my first club at 16, I fell in love with electronic music, or techno as it was referred to back then, and have really appreciated everything from minimal to trance to glitch hop to electro and dubstep. These days I favour a pretty bass-heavy, eclectic mix of tunes, basically anything that fits goes in my book.

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

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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 #45 - Father Funk

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Father Funk had been on my radar for a little over a year before his debut in Fractal Forest at Shambhala last summer. I was not surprised when he blew the faces off everyone in the Forest to start that Friday night with the Fractal Family. However, when one notoriously picky electronic-expert-listener friend was blown away by his set as well, I knew it was something special. You see, she had seemingly moved beyond the realm of easily accessible, hard rocking party sets and needed things to be more abstract, odd...I don't even really know with her sometimes. But here was Father Funk, coming right over the middle of the plate with heater after heater, accessible and funky as hell, smashing her selective ears apart. Luckily for her, her ears still work, despite the relentless Funk assault that was unleashed that night and, luckily for the rest of us in Canada, Father Funk seemingly found a new base that weekend. I caught up with the homie in the midst of his latest Canadian tour, to talk about Jimi Hendrix, good advice and the meaning of “Love.”

Come bust a move to Father Funk's Full Frontal Funk Fest with yours truly this Family Day weekend in Victoria at Upstairs Cabaret!

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

I think it was probably “All Killer, No Filler” by Sum 41.

Wow. Do you ever still listen to it?

Not really. I still regard it as a good album. I mean, I still listen to that sort of music but I like the ska and punk side of it. I listen to a lot of Mad Caddies, Streetlight Manifesto, Less Than Jake...bands like that. Sum 41 was more of a teen phase.

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

I guess, fairly often, being a DJ and going all over the world, being in different countries I've not been in. That's probably it. Oh, well I watched a hockey match last night for the first time. It was good. It wasn't a full-on professional game. My friend was having a bit of session with his local team.

Where's the last place that you went to that blew your mind with the energy they had for you?

I guess Kelowna the other weekend and them Big White (Whistler) the same weekend. I guess that was more people who didn't particularly know who I was. They were just enjoying the music I was playing. I think sometimes that's even nicer, I guess it's a bit more real when someone's responded to your music organically rather than because it's hyped up or whatever.

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5 Questions with Rags #11 - Dane Roberts (Victoria Ska Society)

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Dane is a fixture here at homebase in Victoria. He's responsible for bringing some of the most consistently fun, diverse concerts we get every year, and that's not even taking into consideration the annual Victoria Ska Fest, hands down the best week of music in the city every year. I've managed to catch him for a couple conversations here and there but never talked as long as we talked here. Brother is completely delightful and came through with thoughtful responses to my silly little questions. Much respect.

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1. What was the first album that you went out to buy with your own money?

It wasn’t my first album but I do remember one I liked in particular…we used to get tapes…I’m trying to remember…When I was 13 and 12…Jeez, that’s a really tough question. I do remember one significant purchase that even though I had bought albums far before that I can’t remember…I had a tape deck in my car with subs in high school and was always listening to cool music. I had a Datsun P210, ’77 Orange Datsun I used to drive to Cedar Hill Junior Secondary. I used to have a booster cushion because I was pretty short. My mom would say, “Sweetheart, remember your booster cushion.”

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