Taking their DIY ethic to the highest possible degree, Nielsen sings and plays nearly everything–from guitars, to keyboards, to bass–while Lee provides drums, acoustic guitars, and piano, to name but a few weapons in their combined arsenal. Having wrote, performed, produced, and released their latest collaboration, entitled 003, themselves, the duo imbedded their unique fingerprint on all aspects of the project. To put the finishing touches on this latest effort, Oh No Not Stereo also enlisted Max Coane (Jack’s Mannequin, The Rocket Summer, The Bronx) to engineer, Neal Avron (Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, Anberlin) to mix the songs and Jim Wirt (Something Corporate, Incubus, Live) to add his studio expertise, while bringing along The Section Quartet for sophisticated strings in strategic spots. Nevertheless, the act still enrolls a touring bassist and guitarist on the road, to better transfer their studio accomplishments to concert stage in real life.

From the very get-go, with the gutsy guitar riff that announces 003’s opener, “Let’s Get It Started,” Oh No Not Stereo immediately separate themselves from other contemporary duos. These musicians are many times fast and edgy, yet always passionate and articulate. Nielsen and Lee have never seen an instrument they couldn’t master, and steadfastly refuse to ‘take it easy’ when playing live.

Whether in the studio or on stage, Oh No Not Stereo make big, bold, beautiful noise, which never fails to leave a huge and lasting impression–no matter how you experience their music.

With the release of their first full length album, “Stop Looking Like Music,” Hey Ocean! has been spreading their sound across southern BC; their shows serving as reminders to their fans (young and old alike) that there is still a place for music that makes you feel good. Drawing on influences in folk, jazz, funk, hip hop, pop, and more, the young band incorporates whimsically poetic lyrics, finely crafted pop and funky freeform jams. Playing packed club shows for up to 700 people, their own enthusiasm at live shows is matched only by that of the growing audiences who have come to know Hey Ocean! as one of the best shows vancouver has to offer. Passionate voices, pensive words, and frivolous fun keep this music honest and pure: from the heart, for the soul.

and you follow the moon.

“We can’t sit on the beach with an acoustic guitar forever!” proclaims Cisco Adler. “This is not a one-trick pony.”
His other half, Aaron Smith (a.k.a. Shwayze), closes his eyes and nods and offers, “We’ve already got that beach-time summer vibe, chilling during the day. Now we want some stuff for the clubs that bangs your ears out and you can dance to it. This is definitely an evolution from the first one.”
That first one, the self-titled Shwayze, ushered the unlikely duo to unlikely heights. A string of multiple hits (“Buzzin’,” “Corona and Lime”

) fueled by millions of Internet plays carried them to top ten album sales, landed them a coveted slot on the Vans Warped Tour, and turned them into reality television stars on MTV. In a wound-up world, Shwayze was a life-lesson in laid back lassitude, a coast-to-coast call to make every day a lazy day. And if success always breeds a bit of contempt, Let It Beat comes out swinging.

“It’s like, ‘All right, here it is!’” Shwayze says, laughing as he describes the challenge posed on the opening track, “Livin’ It Up.” “You guys said we couldn’t make another one. You thought we were gonna make the same thing. You didn’t think we were deep enough! Well here it is. And don’t be mad when your girl leaves with us.”
Featuring contributions from New Orleans hip-hop duo The Knux, Shwayze’s lifelong hero Snoop Dogg, Ric Ocasek from the Cars, and Darryl Jenifer, bassist for legendary D.C. punk band Bad Brains, Let It Beat is a fearless experiment held together by the controlled yet casual guidance of Adler’

s production.

“I made a conscious effort to beef the drums up and make it thump,” he says. “The last record had one pace, I wanted this one to have more dynamics and go up and down like a rollercoaster ride. It’s about letting your heart beat and letting the blood pump through your body. It’

s about not stopping the flow. Let it all flow and it will all turn out right.

The first single, “Get U Home,” is an unapologetic ode to lust satisfaction… before you leave the club: “Take me in the bathroom/Take my clothes off/Make love to me up against the dirty wall/’Cause I can’t wait to get you home.” Let It Beat is never shy, never afraid to extol its own brand of virtue, it never apologizes, and, of course, you’

re always welcome to join.

“I’m definitely endorsing that behavior!” announces Adler, referring to the whole “dirty wall” scenario in “Get U Home.” “None of it is fantasy. We just live it and tell the story.”
“Our music is our lifestyle,” Shwayze says. “We’re not faking it.”
Shwayze was a juggernaut, an unexpected triumph from two beachcombing purveyors of pleasure and sunlight. It tapped into the hidden hedonist in us all, freeing indulgence from guilt for at least the length of a record. Let It Beat extends that day into night. It’s nothing less than a celebration of life. For every sarcastic wink, there’s that genuine gleaming grin at the thought of the next thrill. Let It Beat is not a fantasy; it’

s an invitation to a better reality.

“I’ve been a musician before I was anything else,” Adler says. “I was screaming for people to just listen to the music. But then at some point, I had to look inside and tell myself to just keep doing it and it eventually it’s gonna show people itself. That’s when it started working, amazingly enough. When you just let everything flow, it’s gonna flow in the right direction. When you start trying to control the flow, that’s when you dam it up.”
“It’s all a dream come true,” adds Shwayze. “We just want to keep on living the dream and keep on living it up.”

In 1997 the family moved back to Canada and almost immediately, nine year-old LIGHTS got her hands on a guitar. By eleven she’d learned a handful of chords, which she used to write her first song. Then, at thirteen she turned her attention to production. “I had so many more ideas than just the vocals and the guitar. I wanted to put a glockenspiel and strings and a bass and drums in there!”

As a teenager Lights spent much of her time writing songs up in her attic bedroom, which she dubbed Starry Night studios after her favorite Van Gogh painting. By eighteen LIGHTS had moved out of her parents’ house and was living in Toronto with only her pet tarantula Lance to keep her company. In this state of near-isolation LIGHTS finally found her signature sound- a merging of classic pop songwriting with deeply intimate yet universally appealing lyrics. She wrote “February Air,” a poignant ode to the chill of winter love, which became the first of four LIGHTS songs used by Old Navy in the company’s 2008 spring ad campaign.

Though her star was clearly on the rise, it was LIGHTS’ online profile that really solidified her fan base. Between the singer’s MySpace page (which to date has over eight million visits and fifteen million plays,) her personal web site iamlights.com and her passion for web-based fantasy games like World of Warcraft, the artist’s online identity is as evolved as your nerdiest teenage boy’s and this is something she’s very proud of. “There’s an entire world of people out there that play WoW and are talking about science fiction and they feel a little bit outcast, so if you can reach those people that’s sweet! Even my look is inspired by video game characters – it’s a cross between Laura Croft and Wonder Woman.”
In April 2008 LIGHTS released her eponymous EP. It contained six songs including “February Air,” which reached #3 on the MuchMusic countdown in Canada, as well as the epic “Drive My Soul,” which was an even bigger hit; the song was added to radio without being serviced, climbed all the way to #1 on Much Music, and spent over three months in the Top 20 on Hot AC radio. On the strength of her EP alone, LIGHTS won the 2009 Juno (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy Award) for New Artist of the Year, joining the ranks of Feist and Nelly Furtado.

The singer’s rapidly growing fan base was clamoring for live LIGHTS shows so she hit the road, playing countless sold out gigs in her home country, as well as numerous festival dates in the UK. In addition to touring extensively through the United States, this summer LIGHTS spent five weeks on the 2009 Vans Warped Tour and this fall will join Keane on their Canadian tour.

LIGHTS’ full-length debut, The Listening, will be released this fall. It includes a few songs already familiar to die-hard Lights fans, as well as plenty of new material including the first single, “Saviour,” a propulsive pop ballad that represents the essence of Lights. “My songs are spawned from moments of sadness or intense emotion,” the singer says. “‘Saviour’ is a big example of taking one of those really dark emotional situations and turning it into something positive. I just happened to get hit with a really dark sad night. The melody started coming together and the words started pouring out. I was crying when I wrote the first line of the chorus and it actually sounds kind of like crying. It’s a really, really powerful song for me.”

“There was no desire to make another How Far Our Bodies Go,” explains the band’s frontman Chris Farren explains, referencing the band’s 2007 breakthrough release. “We don’t just want ourselves as a band to grow musically, but for the listener to grow and search out new music, too.” That’s exactly what the group—which also includes bassist Derek Perry, guitarist Casey Lee and drummer Sean Stevenson—aimed to accomplish with It’s Great To Be Alive… and it seems to be working. “It’s amazing to see the encouragement and response we get; we’re playing songs from our hearts and when someone you’ve never met can relate to those feelings, it’s an incredible experience,” Farren continues. “I know when I write lyrics, I’m trying to explain a feeling I want someone else to understand.”

In order to capture their creative vision for It’s Great To Be Alive the band packed up their van and headed to the cornfields of Omaha, Nebraska, where they spent two weeks tracking the album at ARC Studios with producer A.J. Mogis (Bright Eyes, Cursive). Although this might seem like an unconventional choice for a band who have toured with decidedly more aggressive peers such as Against Me! and the Riverboat Gamblers, Fake Problems were so prepared going into the studio they didn’t have to worry about getting bogged down with technicalities. “We knew exactly what order we wanted the record to be in and what auxiliary instruments we wanted to use on the songs,” Farren explains adding that Perry arranged the strings, Look Mexico’s Matt Agrella arranged the horns—and at one point the band even enlisted the help of a seven-piece horn section comprised of University of Nebraska students and teachers. The result is an album that combines the band’s punk rock roots with elements of folk and indie rock to create a unique amalgam of music that’s as distinctive as Farren’s soulful tenor. “I’m definitely influenced by my musical surroundings, so there was never any decision to make ‘this’ or ‘that’ kind of song,” the band’s frontman explains, listing everyone from alt-country crooners like Ryan Adams to troubadours like Bob Dylan and rock revivalists such as the Hold Steady as influences this time around.

“We write songs that we would want to hear from other artists,” he elaborates. “We make music that we want to listen to, so it just wouldn’t make sense to keep doing the same thing over and over again. From the sinister shuffle of “You’re A Serpent, You’re a She-Snake” to orchestral ballads like “Tabernacle Song” and intricately layered anthems like “There Are Times,” It’s Great To Be Alive is less of a traditional album and more of a sonic journey that refuses to be limited by genre constraints. “We’re making plans to start playing shows with a horn section and a touring cellist,” Farren explains when asked how the band plans on recreating these songs live. “I love the dynamic and differences between a simple rock and roll set as well as a full orchestral production.” Lyrically, It’s Great To Be Alive’s parallels the musical progression the band have achieved with this collection of songs as well. “The last record was about being afraid to die, so this one deals with appreciating life and examining who you are and who you want to become,” Farren explains. However despite the positive nature of the album, songs like “Level With The Devil” and “The Heaven & Hell Cotillion” have a sinister edge to them. “You can’t make a decision without exploring all of the goods and all of the evils; I’d say a lot of the lyrics deal with exploring the evils in my life and facing them,” Farren continues. “I don’t believe you can really appreciate life until you are the person you want to be, doing what you want to do with confidence.” Ultimately, with It’s Great To Be Alive Fake Problems themselves don’t know quite where they fit in, but they’re confident enough in themselves to know that’s a blessing rather than a curse. “It’s art, it shouldn’t be about what cool club you fit in with,” Farren summarizes. “If our music is going to be appreciated, I’d like it to be because of our songs.”

Nico Vega represents a modern day saint. A warrior that has led us to a more fulfilling, lighter way of being. She represents people and unity. She fights for all of us and teaches us to fight for each other. She is an idea that has evolved into a message and she fuels us in our bellies. She is the person we are all capable of being, but she holds the bar high above our head so that we must reach to be better human beings. We all have honesty inside of us, we all know how to love, we are all made of the same flesh, and we are all stuck here together. Nico Vega reminds us that we can learn to fuse these ideas together and grow more solid as a unit of man. Alone we are lost, we fail, we grieve, we search, we struggle, we feel small. Together we are solid, found, loved, and powerful. We are our own greatest natural resource. Our ego falls away when we listen to each other. It is when we stop believing that we can learn from one another that we stop learning altogether. Only then are we alone. We are no different from each other; the same flesh, the same pain, the same love, the same heart. Our greatness is no threat. The more beautiful we are individually, the more powerful we are together. It is our Ego that betrays and lies and tells us that we are threatened when we are not.

You are a part of our family and we will always make music to communicate our love and gratitude for you. If you come to our show, throw your hands up so we can feel you… you will feel us.

Simon Neil is the main singer, though all three band members contribute to vocal duties. The band are known for using complex and interwoven guitar riffs, unusual time signatures and chord sequences and melodies that often change throughout songs, and for their energetic live performances.

Of their formation, lead vocalist and keyboardist Tony Beliveau says, “I wanted a trio and my brother Mike and I have such a strong connection and we understand each other musically and emotionally so well; he was my obvious choice.” Add to the sibling synergy the perfect drummer, Jason Morris, and the Crash Kings come together. This is Jason’s third band experience with siblings.

“I knew what I was getting into,” smirks Jason. “…The other two bands with brothers made for a good intro. Brothers have a much closer relationship and are much quicker to fight than strangers or friends who get into a room together to make music. At the same time things move faster because brothers tend to think similarly and ideas get out more quickly.”

When siblings and music collide it makes for what we so casually call “undeniable chemistry.” At times volatile, yes, but no fistfights…at least not on stage. Channeling their passion, they create music so powerful it’s almost a crime—a crime that has been aided and abetted by nothing other than fate itself. Two brothers and one hard-hitting drummer come together to form an ivory-driven power trio firmly rooted in right here and right now; this is Crash Kings.

The Crash Kings’ radical new sound is huge to say the least. Of their vision, Tony is quick to point out, “We wanted to create a band that once and for all could be ‘The Big Rock Sound’ without guitar.” One might wonder…rock without guitar, how is that possible? Well, the Crash Kings have gotten a bit innovative in their quest to create rock with just keys, bass, and drums. With tube overdrive and multiple amps Mike’s bass brings heaviness to the band’s sound. On top of that Tony plays a clavinet (a keyboard with guitar strings), which has been customized with a large whammy bar allowing him to bend notes like a guitar producing an entirely new sound. Having these two very unique elements makes the Crash Kings’ music feel raw and full at the same time.

In a few short months after coming together this current yet timeless band was quick to draw the attention of Linda Perry, who immediately wanted to sign them to her label, Custard. Linda’s first encounter with lead singer Tony was during a chance meeting in a restaurant (he was her waiter!). She nailed him as a musician/front man and without hearing a note, encouraged him to take his music and career to the next level. When asked about his brother’s and Linda’s serendipitous meeting, Mike says, “Linda Perry is a true inspiration. A huge success but truly humble and one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met.”

Once Linda and Custard were on board, the band showcased their talent for head of Universal Motown, Sylvia Rhone, who led Crash Kings to Dave Sardy. Sardy produced their self-titled debut on Custard/Universal Motown, which they rocked on their first national tour opening for none other than Chris Cornell. Not a bad start for a rock band with no guitar player.

According to producer Dave Sardy and anyone who hears their eponymous release, Tony, Mike and Jason certainly achieve their aims. Says Sardy, “The Crash Kings are the missing link between Queen and Rage Against the Machine.”

“Dave Sardy is a sonic genius,” boasts Tony. “That’s why we wanted to make our debut with him—incredible sounds. We share the East Coast connection with Dave – we’re Boston, he’s New York. He’s like our older brother. We respect him so much and he respects our musicianship. It made it easy for us to record with him.”

Bassist Mike Beliveau named the Crash Kings. “I came up with the name because we are all very absent minded and accident prone which makes for great Rock and Roll.” Great Rock and Roll? Presumptuous? No – not when you hear tracks like “1985” and “Raincoat.” Along with “Mountain Man” these and all their songs showcase the elements all great Rock and Roll bands share in common—a distinctive singer with undeniable appeal, a rhythm section that makes you move, and songs that are at once familiar yet simultaneously incomparable.

When asked about how they write songs, it’s not surprising to find out most of their tunes start from keyboardist/lead vocalist Tony Beliveau. But for rock that can be at times quite intense, it is a surprise to find out where he starts. “I visualize a place where I feel complete peace – usually a place of natural beauty, immersed in nature. Songs like “Mountain Man” and “Come Away” came out of me being out in nature. Most of the songs start with a chorus. When I find a strong chorus, I start building the song, writing verses and eventually a ‘middle eight’ comes. Then Mike, Jason and I work out the arrangement. It’s really important for us to make every verse, every bridge, every part of every song as important as its chorus.

For a band this electric and this hard-hitting, it’s surprising how often nature crops up. Drummer Jason Morris states, “We are like a seed that’s been planted that we hope will grow into a huge, beautiful forest…” Mike echoes this sentiment saying, “Our hope is that in the next three years we will take our music all over the world.”

With a quick glimpse into their history, their connection to nature doesn’t seem as aberrant. Tony and Mike have been skiing since Tony was 4 years old and Mike was 2! With this knowledge it becomes obvious why their music is saturated with the same thrill and excitement that’s elicited when racing through trees and down mountains. Being the avid skiers that they are, Crash Kings collaborated with the renowned ‘Warren Miller Films’. The next Warren Miller project, which is due out this fall, features Crash Kings making their way down the slopes of Vail (filmed impromptu on a day off between gigs on tour) against the soundtrack of “Mountain Man.”

Highly tuneful, very aggressive, hard-hitting rock. Crash Kings take the three-man-band concept to their own unique level, quite often surpassing guitar-driven bands. Tony Beliveau’s vocals soar above the band’s aural grandeur. His brother, bassist Mike Beliveau locks in with Jason Morris’ powerhouse drumming, driving the deeply personal, keyboard-born compositions straight to the heart. Their live audiences are always moved and always move to their groove, smiling the “knowing smile” of those who know real rock when they hear it – or more importantly, when they feel it. Their seed planted, now their sonic forest starts to grow into the biggest sound possible without guitar.

Taking their DIY ethic to the highest possible degree, Nielsen sings and plays nearly everything–from guitars, to keyboards, to bass–while Lee provides drums, acoustic guitars, and piano, to name but a few weapons in their combined arsenal. Having wrote, performed, produced, and released their latest collaboration, entitled 003, themselves, the duo imbedded their unique fingerprint on all aspects of the project. To put the finishing touches on this latest effort, Oh No Not Stereo also enlisted Max Coane (Jack’s Mannequin, The Rocket Summer, The Bronx) to engineer, Neal Avron (Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, Anberlin) to mix the songs and Jim Wirt (Something Corporate, Incubus, Live) to add his studio expertise, while bringing along The Section Quartet for sophisticated strings in strategic spots. Nevertheless, the act still enrolls a touring bassist and guitarist on the road, to better transfer their studio accomplishments to concert stage in real life.

From the very get-go, with the gutsy guitar riff that announces 003’s opener, “Let’s Get It Started,” Oh No Not Stereo immediately separate themselves from other contemporary duos. These musicians are many times fast and edgy, yet always passionate and articulate. Nielsen and Lee have never seen an instrument they couldn’t master, and steadfastly refuse to ‘take it easy’ when playing live.

Whether in the studio or on stage, Oh No Not Stereo make big, bold, beautiful noise, which never fails to leave a huge and lasting impression–no matter how you experience their music.