West 4th Ave Khatsahlano Street Party – Ben’s Top 5 Acts to Catch!
Let’s talk about Vancouver for a bit. We should talk about Vancouver more… They have some great stuff going on over there. For the moment let’s talk about the West 4th Ave Khatsahlano Street Party! This has been a thing since 2011 and it’s a totally FREE event that features some potentially sick performances. I’ve taken the past few days to listen to the bands and artists that will be performing this year – so you don’t have to – although you should. For a complete performance list visit http://khatsahlano.com. The 2018 lineup features some big name Vancouver-ness such as Bif Naked and Slow. SO Bif Naked… To be honest I hadn’t heard of any of these bands when I found out about the festival and decided to write this – but I can honestly say the below are my TOP FIVE picks of Canadian artists / bands to check out at the 2018 edition of the Khatsahlano Street Party. If you live in Toronto like me, check them out online while laying in the grass and drinking herbal tea. #vancouverstyle
Leeroy Stagger
This Victoria born BC singer / songwriter has a majestic beard and a mountain sound to match. He’s got great swells and his lyrics are pleasantly defiant but above all from the heart. He’s been compared to Ryan Adams and John Hiatt.
Kitty and The Rooster
I’ve never heard of these manammals before. Not sure if they straight up perform in a chicken and cat suit – respectively – but I hope they do. In all seriousness this is what I love about Canadian Indie/punk? music – songs like Paid a Million Dollars keep a trueness to that ska punk Vancouver thing, great sound and anxiety about homeownership.
Elastic Stars
It’s rare to find a band that is 100% without a doubt doing their / his own thing. Elastic Stars is the brainchild of Colin Cowan, a noteworthy Canadian bass player. As I’m sure no one in Vancouver has access marijuana count yourselves lucky because seeing this band/art-project (probably “act”) after ripping on a joint would be a wild trip.
Actors
Actors is one of those bands that’s been referred to as post-post-punk or some pretentious thing. I don’t know if the band themselves actively classifies themselves like this… I sort of hope they don’t. This is the kind of music that is good enough not to warrant a definition. I think someone tried to classify Joy Division like that once – and in a similar vein, Actors is, well put together – probably pretty experimental rock music. They’ve even been compared to Joy Division… By me, just now. Supporting bands like this will help us all avoid another Nickelback situation Canada. Check out this video and feel worse about social media. But seriously – it’s good, you should share it.
Jasper Sloan Yip
So it’s the next day since I’d started writing this article. It honestly took a long ass time to settle on Jasper Sloan Yip as my final Khatsahlano Street Fair pick. The reason this took so long was sorting through a couple of other artists – naimly Tim the Mute and Circus in Flames – both of which were hard to ignore – so props to them respectively. I’m going to stick with JSY. His story and his album are both pretty inspiring. He incorporates a lot of different instruments throughout and has some very different songs so it should be interesting to see the presentation and performance. So… check him out!
Also check out the other two I mentioned if you have a chance – or just check them out on iTunes.
Support Canadian Artists! Have a great 4th West Ave Khatsahlano Street Party Van! Guys, I just realized how long that name is. Have a great Khatsahlano Party Day Van! – Better.
