Friends


The Backstage Rider would like to thank the following rocktacular people. You are encouraged to make with the clicking and visit these fine musical peoples’ sites:

Timbre Concert Productions – Promoters of tremendous awesomeosity. And lots of great indie/alternative Western Canada gigs. Big thanks to Erin, my fave promoter in the city.

Sealed With a Kiss Presents – Another of Vancouver’s fab concert promoters with some pretty stupidlygood bands that’ve come through. Thanks Chris!

Robert Edmonds
Robert Edmonds, robe.ca

Boutique Empire – label/co-op home of Sex With Strangers, Combine the Victorious, Guilty About Girls and more really cool Vancouverites. Mark and Isabelle are so into the music it’s kind of tremendous.

Robert Edmonds/Evoke – need a stupidly awesome gig poster? Fine art? Design? Rob’s yer man.

Bright Photos – Brittney Kwasney works magic through a lens. My right hand when I feel like rocking out  instead of clicking.

Zulu Records – I spent 7 years at a record store. And the world needs more independent record stores, if only for their character. And independent record store clerks. You are a dying breed and I salute you, even if a friend is trying to coin the phrase “Being Zulu’d” after she was corrected by an in-store dude who was fixing her pronunciation of Sufjan Stevens

Thanks also to the following musicians or bands who’ve been friends or family:

Martin and Kimberlee McCarrick – amazing musicians and my UK brother and sister. I love them not just for the dinners, or the PeaMonsters or the Garlic & Shots and not just because Martin has played with Robert Smith, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Throwing Muses, Therapy? and half of the 4AD roster. It is because they are forged from the metals found only on Mount Awesome.

Mike Doughty
With Mike Doughty

Chris Hooper – former drummer with the Grapes of Wrath, who started me off on a dangerous obsession with drummers and who, despite his grumpiness about the city then, helped inspire me to move to Vancouver and has been my friend and drinking partner for 18 years.

Mike Doughty – purveyor of the wittiest small rock this side of Brooklyn (and beyond) and former Soul Cougher. My thanks to MD for unknowingly inspiring me to write reams of paper and for the fun bits inbetween all the awkward bits.

Lou Barlow and Me

Lou Barlow – through Sebadoh, then Folk Implosion, then solo, then New Folk Implosion, then Sebadoh, then solo and then Dinosaur Jr, Lou has been a mate of mine since 1993 across international waters. He knows how to rock both loudly and softly and is a phenomenal songwriter and dear friend.

Nervous Wreckords/Louis XIV – 70s rock always sounds better when played by sharp-dressed men. And because I love the friendship I’ve forged with Brian Karscig. And because he and I have both drunk-texted each other.

Dean Wareham
With Dean Wareham

Dean and Britta – for the effortless and quiet cool that is Dean Wareham, who knows our long-running “joke” about Tim Hortons and doughnuts, and his equally sexy wife, Britta. Together they make lovely lush music.

54-40 – One Gun Added On To The One Gun. Our 25th Anniversary project never happened, it’s been a long history…and then there’s the tattoo.

..and Duran Duran – John Taylor since 1984, whom I have interviewed twice, and met repeatedly. Not friends but as constant as taxes. \m/

3 responses to “Friends”

  1. Hey Mika-
    I am the first! Ha!
    Thanks for the kind words. I must say though, I think you caught me at a bad time, hence the “grumpiness”…or maybe not.
    Anyway, 18 years of drinkin’? How old were you?!
    ch

  2. Amazeballz! Loved every part of this experience! You have the gift of drawing us in on your adventures and make us sad when it’s time to go home. I look forward to seeing your future endevors, chickie 🙂

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