Tis the season. And Kent Bendall from Budokan has graciously agreed to give the gift of music, with love from him, to you. His holiday mixes have been the stuff of legend for years and now we get to hear why. So sit back, pour yourself a spiced rum and eggnog, put another log on the TV and enjoy what will soon be your favourite holiday mix. If this don’t get sugar-plumbs dancing in your head, nothing will. Happy Holidays.

xmas mix by kxb

The Yobs – Another Christmas
The Shitbirds – Christmas Is Coming
Boss Martians – 3 Ghosts
Wool – Xmas It’s Christmas
Material Issue – Merry Christmas Will Do
The Len Price 3 – It’s Christmas Time Ebeneezer
Redd Kross – Super Sunny Christmas
International Language – Christmas Will Be Magic Again
Genuine Fakes – All I Want For Christmas Is You
The Figgs – Father Christmas
Blondie – We Three Kings
Bob Seger – Sock It To Me Santa
Imperial Drag – Please Leave Me Home For Christmas
Pointed Sticks – Power Pop Santa
Ash – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

Eight years ago the gals in Vancougar formed a band and quickly became the best of friends. Since then, every year at Christmas they’ve gotten together for ‘A Very Vancougar Christmas’ to exchange gifts and have FUN and be FESTIVE!

This year, Vancougar would like to invite all of you to join us in the first ever A Very Vancougar Christmas Show! They’ve asked some of their favourite all-female (or mainly female) kick ass rock n’ roll bands around town to help round out a killer night.

SAT DEC 10 at Pat’s Pub
Doors 8pm / Show 9pm

VANCOUGAR
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vancougar/17882027718
YUNG MUMS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yung-Mums/132517203483479
LOVE CUTS
http://lovecuts.bandcamp.com/album/love-cuts
WHAT’S HOT!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whats-Hot/263080113714636

And… in the spirit of giving we’ll be collecting donations for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre at the door in exchange for a discount of $1.00 per donated item off the cover charge.

Cover charge is $10 so bring 10 items and get in for free!!
Please see the following link for donation ideas:
http://dewc.ca/?page_id=33

Vancougar willl be preparing gift bags for all of you lovely people and giving them away all night. That’s right, you can win a gift bag full of band merch and goodies just for showing up!

See you there!

Hey Seattle.

The Ballantynes are making their 7″ release party a weekender. Chains of Love are coming, too. So you basically get two of the best bands outta Vancouver in years as an early Christmas present. Plus you get Sick Secrets and Boom City. For like $8. A pittance. Lucky you!

Vancouver’s staple indie label, Mint Records is turning 20 years old. To celebrate, they’re holding a big party and they’ve invited The Maxines to join in on the fun. It all happens Friday November 25th @ The Waldorf Hotel (1489 E Hastings)

The Maxines hit the stage at 8:30 pm. We’ll have copies of the 7″ for sale so make sure to come by the merch table and say hello.

Tickets: $12 in advance/$15 at the door
Doors: 8pm (come early for prizes)
See you there

Partial proceeds go to support Vancouver’s Safe Amplification Society.

There’s tons of fun cellphone clips circulating from The Ballantynes debut last Friday (check our favorites from the youtube channel), but The Futurists gave us all something special. No surprise there: it’s kinda what they do. Big thanks to Jashua Peter Grafstein for an amazing job.

13 Years of bringing Calgary the best in reggae and all its’ permutations. Unbelievable. As always, Al and Elijah have flown in a super heavyweight for a one-off show to mark the occasion. Last year? Jahtari. Before that? Sister Nancy. This year? Top Cat! Happy b-day you crazy fucks.

Thursday night at Talk’s Cheap in Victoria? Amazing. Cannot tell you how encouraging it is to have 50 people take the time to buy advance tickets and sell out a record store show. And 50 rad people who hung out, bought records, broke nothing, danced and kept things super posi.  It makes us want to do something like this again should the store be so gracious.

Friday night? Fucking stupendous. A heartfelt thanks to all you who sold out the Cobalt. The debut of The Ballantynes was pure magic. If you caught the buzz but missed the show, there’s a record release to be announced very soon. There’s a mixtape coming out very soon, too. Like both next week. The Maxines launched their debut single in fine style, making many a convert. The Shimmering Stars were wonderful, and The Tranzmitors brough it as only The Tranzmitors do.

Saturday: we learned how Olympians do it; dancing uncontrollably and taking no prisoners. Also, they sure could teach their northern neighbours a thing or two about how to Occupy, btw.

And yes, we somehow managed to get the Maxines single out in time for all of it. We’re talking Against All Odds here. They’re in places like Red Cat and Neptoon in Van, Rainy Day and K Recs distro in Oly, and soon to be in Talk’s Cheap. Zulu and Scratch later this week. They’ll also be available at the Mint 20th Anniversary Party at the Waldorf in a couple of weeks. And you know what? It’s a pretty rad single.

Or, just buy one right off the site. They come with nifty download codes, too!

We’ll get some Maxines videos from the weekend up to the You Tube channel soon. In the meantime, here’s Nardwuar vs. The Maxines!!!! xo.