Conover Tavern

I wrote the articles on this page for Conover Tavern, a North Carolina client of WordJack Media. These were fun to write – for instance, a blog post the history of the lunch box, and a blog post about some of America’s most famous restaurants.

Robinson Veterinary Clinic

I wrote the articles on this page for Robinson Veterinary Clinic, a North Carolina client of WordJack Media.

Need an event venue? Little Mountain Gallery has August and September openings

The Georgia Straight, August 10 2012

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The Georgia Straight, August 1 2012

Run For Change Gets Downtown Eastsiders on the Move

The Vancouver Courier, April 18 2012

Occupy Xmas campaign extends Buy Nothing Day to holiday shopping season

The Georgia Straight, December 1 2011

Music Waste descending on Vancouver next week

If you haven’t booked off work June 1st to the 5th yet you may be shit out of luck because someone else at your work probably already has. They were smart enough to already anticipate the hungover exhaustion that accompanies Music Waste, when local music affecionados spend their nights running across the Downtown East Side from venue to venue, hoping to catch their favourite bands in between discovering new acts, interspersed with the occasional art gallery, or maybe stand up comedy. All this excitement and stress for a mere $15 wrist band.

Kasha Marciniak, one of the festival’s eight chair members, sums it up best: “$15 for over 150 musicians and artists breaks down to what, 10 cents apiece? It’s the best way to learn about the Vancouver independent scene in five days.”

The event’s been going on since 1994, first run by Terminal City, a now defunct Vancouver magazine, then later taken over by Only, the Vancouver magazine-turned blog. Now it’s  under the wing of the Pigeon Factory Cultural Foundation, which also puts on the annual Victory Square Block Party at the end of August.

The chairs did a marathon session in choosing the roster,  half a day listening to between 350 and 400 musical acts in deciding the 110 that are playing this year’s festival. Then for each show bands with draw are paired on a bill with bands that haven’t had the opportunity yet to make a name for themselves.

Nearly every single act is from town, minus a handful coming in from Victoria, Edmonton and Kelowna. While this is partly due to funds, chair Dustin Bromley stresses that there is so much homegrown talent that they don’t really need to look beyond city limits.

“It’d be different if we were charging $90 for tickets but I don’t think Music Waste will ever become that,” said Bromley.

This year Marciniak is looking forward to the all ages venues that have been added, like Lanalou’s. Up until now there has been the demand, without the spot to hold shows. She’s hoping to gauge reactions amongst minors to see if it will play a bigger role in future years.

“We’re still learning how to incorporate more bands for $15 passes without corporate sponsorship,” said Bromley.

Go Your Own Waste, which started in 2007,  is a vital part of the Music Waste experience. Because of the lack of venues and resources, Music Waste organizers encourage people to put on their own shows at the same time, and Music Waste will include it in its schedule it, as long as the show follows three tenets: Must abide to $5 at the door, accept Music Waste passes, and the door has to be paid out to the bands.

“If we could have 20 shows going a night that would be great, and we’d gladly promote it,” said Bromley.

To help you decide where you need to be and when, the Music Waste  has a full schedule listed on their website (musicwaste.tumblr.com), and they just released their first iPhone app, available in the iTunes store.