Scruffmouth

It was a real pleasure to have Kevan Cameron (AKA Scruffmouth) on the show with us. As he admits in our interview with him that his work is somewhat reminiscent of RC's poetry. I agree. Very fun to listen to.
Watch his performance on our show or listen to the whole interview at the links at the bottom of this post.






Scruffmouth a.k.a. Kevan Cameron is a scribe, poet, and a performer. He was a member of the 2007 Vancouver Poetry Slam team and has been slamming, since 2004. In addition to slam poetry and spoken word, Scruffmouth is an avid writer, thinker, and dub poet. When he is not playing the beautiful game or involved in revolutionary activities, he may be working in the film industry or trying to find new ways to achieve creative freedom. Kevan Cameron graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2003 with a Bachelor’s Degree of General Studies. He turned down a lucrative offer to flip fries for a living in order to be a poet. It seems to be working out for him so far.
Watch his performance:



Listen to the whole show here:

WP_Jan30_08_Scruffmouthmp3.mp3
Free File Hosting

Tameem Barakat

Co-0p listeners will recognize this week's guest as one of the hosts of "No Apologies Necessary" - the show that follows right after Wax Poetic on Wednesday afternoons at 2:30pm.

Tameem Barakat is also front man for indy cult group Threat From Outer Space, with fellow band members Dennis Chan, Ryan Cranston, Matt Creed, Kristian Naso).

Listen to the whole interview here.

Threat From Outer Space is a Vancouver-based 5 piece which has evolved over 10 years into being one of Vancouver’s most hyped and unwavering live outfits, playing in every venue in its hometown, and crushing the Canadian hinterland with legendary nights to remember. Having criss-crossed the country more than Terry Fox, TFOS have got the grass roots infected like zombies. Their live show is a barn burning dance floor graveyard, the style mash up so groove-ridden, so Friday Night Lights, that there is actually no room for benchwarming. Its game time, baby, and those that sit, get hit. A decade deep, with music that has always straddled the genre divide, these boys bring the noise with a heavy blurring of hip hop, rock, jazz and funk. Its rock’n’roll with a melodic horn section, rugged breakbeats, razor lyrics and room shaking grooves. With a past body of work that has always pushed a consciousness and a message based approach, TFOS has refined its handiwork and brought forth their strongest songwriting to date.

Check out their MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/threatfromouterspace

Max Tell

Our guest this week was children's entertainer Max Tell, who talked about his participation in the upcoming 16th annual Vancouver Storyfest. (see below for festival details.

MAX TELL (Vancouver) is a writer of stories, singer of songs, and educator who has been performing his own stories and songs since 1986. He has performed at many festivals including The Vancouver International Children’s Festival, The Surrey Children’s Festival, The Vancouver Storytelling Festival, Bumbershoot (the Seattle Arts Festival) as well as storytelling festivals in Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia. He has a number of CDs and audio books to his credit. Max is also highly in demand as a storyteller and workshop leader in schools. www.maxtell.ca



Watch a video clip from the show here:

Listen to the show in its entirety here:

WP_Jan16_08_MaxTell.mp3

Vancouver Society of Storytelling
presents
STORYFEAST 2008
16th Annual Vancouver International Storytelling Festival
February 1-3, 2008
Heritage Hall (Main St. @ W. 15th)
Tickets at www.ticketstonight.ca or 604-231-7535
www.vancouverstorytelling.org

The Vancouver International Storytelling Festival celebrates its 16th year with “a feast of tales and tales of feasts”…a three-day-long cornucopia of performances by professional storytellers, on the theme of food for mind, body and soul. Local favourites like Pepe Danza, Melanie Ray and Lucia Frangione join international stars such as Theresa Amoon (France) and Licia Perea (US) to bring us stories told through words, music and dance. The festival’s new management team (artistic director Tim Perez and producer SG Lee) have put together a dynamic programme that features tellers from the Latin American community, and includes concerts and a cabaret, workshops for storytellers of all ages, special kids’ events and exciting story jams. Prepare to be surprised! Media contact: Melanie Thompson, 604-224-6201 or melaniethompson@shaw.ca

Co-op News: CFRO Finally Enters the 21st Century

Radio Station Offers Its Programmers Podcasting Capabilities

In the 8 or so years I've been co-hosting and producing Wax Poetic, the biggest thorn in my side has always been how difficult it was to record our show for our own archival purposes and to be able to thank our guests in some small way for participating in our show.
Until now, the only way to obtain copies of our show would be to either bring in a tape and tape it ourselves, or burn a CD from the station's logger computer database, which was not accessible from any outside computer via the internet.

The difficulty with the first scenario is that a) tapes cost money and b) the studio's recorders don't always work or have even been stolen before.
The second solution relied on one of us (translate: ME) to either come about an hour before or after our show (with CD in hand). The guest had to bring their own CDs and I had to try and keep track of it. Not a good system.
The computer is used alot so it meant often have to go in quite early to be able to sit down and do it.
Now it is possible for anyone - average listener included - to listen to our show at any time.
And it means that i can open up my laptop anywhere and pull the show off the internet, edit it down if necessary, then post it on this blog.
I experimented with last week's show featuring slam poet Chris Gilpin and it worked flawlessly.

You too can listen to it by following this link.

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/45241/WP_Jan9_08_ChrisGilpin.mp3

Finally we have an effective archive of all the great poets who grace our studio every week.
Truthfully, it leaves me a little sad to think of the ones we've lost to the ether.
But kudos to Co-op anyway, for putting this technology in place and firmly in the hands of the people.

Chris Gilpin

Had a great time in-studio with Chris, "aka Faust MacKenzie". Living up to his promise, there were actual donair-eating sound effects. And we have the pictures to prove it!

We like poets who bring food!!! We tried to get RC to eat one, but despite the fact that the lamb in the donair had been a vegetarian, he wouldn't try it. His loss!

Watch the video of "Donair Days" (Part 1) below, recorded live in-studio.

Raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Chris become involved in the theatre scene there at an early age. He held leads in a number of well-received plays in high school. His one-man, self-directed production of “Krapp’s Last Tape”, captured the highest award at the provincial one-act play competition. He was also given the distinction of “Excellence in Drama” as the top graduating dramatic student from the Edmonton Public School Board in 1994.

Chris completed a B.A. in Film Studies at the University of British Columbia. His graduating project, a 16mm short film called “Remembrance Dance”, was accepted as an official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival. He has worked in the film industry as both an editor of images, and an editor of screenplays. With credits on such films as “Better than Chocolate”, “It’s All Gone Pete Tong”, and the currently unreleased documentary “Growth Rings : Elder Woodsmen of the West Coast”.

Besides his work in film, Chris has continued to follow his interest in the fields of both writing and performing. His literary work has been published in vancouveReview, Forget Magazine, 42opus, The GIG, and others. He has qualified for the Vancouver Poetry Slam playoffs with his spoken word performances, and he continues to act. Some recent acting credits include a lead role in “The Spoon River Anthology”, and a supporting role in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”.

Listen to the whole show here (Quicktime Required):

http://www.filefreak.com/pfiles/45241/WP_Jan9_08_ChrisGilpin.mp3

A Year In Spoken Word Roundtable

We began the New Year with our traditional "Year In Spoken Word" and brought in some of the city's most influential spoken word organizers. We talked about the year's triumphs and challenges, as well as discussed what plans were in store for this new year.


Wax Poetic host RC Weslowski with Story Slam host Ivan Penaluna.


President of Vancouver Poetry House Sue McIntyre with Vancouver Poetry Slam Master Lisa Slater and Pandora's Collective founder Bonnie Nish.



Story Slam host Ivan Penaluna discusses how he plans to take the Story Slam to the "next level" this year with a venue and format change.


Sue McIntyre, Vancouver Poetry House president, spoke eloquently about the importance of inclusion in the local poetry community.


The group: RC Weslowski, Lisa Slater, Ivan Penaluna, Sue McIntyre, Bonnie Nish.