Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

Himalayan Bear | Ashley Shadow | David P. Smith
DOUBLE RECORD RELEASE PARTY
Doors: 8PM | Show: 9PM | All-Ages | ID Required for Alcohol Service
Purchase tickets at: https://www.victoriaeventcentre.ca
▪︎ Himalayan Bear – Factual Past
Himalayan Bear is the 15 year running project of Canadian musician Ryan Beattie. The band has changed lineups and sounds on every album, sometimes just Beattie with a solo electric guitar, sometimes a 7 piece fuzz driven tropical tinged rock band. The latest iteration comprises some of Beattie’s oldest friends and musical collaborators, featuring members of Lightning Dust, Bison BC and Chet. The album was made with Jesse Gander at Raincity Studios and was recorded almost entirely at once as a band “off the floor”.
Of the album Beattie says “The songs are all homages to the fictional muses or steadfast old friends who’ve convoyed with and inspired me through a life making music. It’s a box of old photos you find. The band is a group of some of my oldest friends, remustered in middle age to make a straightforward record drawing on some of our shared early musical influences. The memories assembled in the lyrics are subject to decay, they’re more of a fantasized recollection. The people playing on the album, we’ve been friends a long time, they’re actually the factual past to me.”
Contemporary fellow Canadian musician and friend of the band Ford Pier on the album:“Thunder rolls like lava out of a garage deep in the rainforest, glimpsed by fleeting flashes from the sky. The band plays like a choir. It projects. It shrieks like the machines that built the world excavating the moss and clay of eons as they shudder to life once more. The beats pace back and forth like a starved lion at a fence. There’s the bubble of mud and the snap of electricity and the smell of oil and a distant howl, savage and lonesome. Did you dream it? Press your fists into your eyes to watch the colours turn inside out before taking another pull; it’s going to be a long summer."
▪︎ Ashley Shadow winks at darkness, but she won’t lead you towards it. It’s easy to fall under the spell of Ashley’s haunting voice. The Vancouver, B.C.-based songwriter forged her own identity as a songwriter with 2016’s eponymous debut. Her sophomore effort, Only the End, maintains the moody introspection that is ingrained in Pacific Northwest life, but now comes armed with a palpable hope complementing her signature melancholy.
“I wanted to make a more upbeat album, something you could play with some friends over. Some of the songs I wrote were initially bummers, but when we went to record them we lightened them up.”Balancing a couple of jobs and navigating life and love in increasingly unstable times, the album was written over two years by Ashley at her apartment. Her confident vibrato above lightly distorted guitars mirrors the album’s theme of resilience, if not triumph, over adversity. There is comfort in these warm songs that endorse the realism of contented acceptance, rather than the naïve search for non-existent utopias.While the songs were conceived in contemplative solitude, Ashley invited some very capable collaborators for their journey into the studio.
Slow Me Down reunites Ashley with Bonnie Prince Billy for the first time on record since 2009. They intertwine joyful melodies, celebrating the perspective experience brings as they “outran the darkness and shook off the cold/taking back feeling from all it controlled.” In Grey, she sings, “Grey took over the sky/far too much to think about, don’t try.” However, any temptation to wallow is countered by Colin Cowan’s (Elastic Stars) buoyant French-pop bass line and a dancing pedal steel played by Paul Rigby (Neko Case). In For Love, shuffling drums by producer Joshua Wells (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) make good on the promise that “the storms will clear and birds will sing/be ready and willing for what it can bring.” Ryan Beattie (Himalayan Bear) lifts a guitar solo from Laurel Canyon in I Will Remember, its jangle answering her request to “come and show me through the darkest of nights.”Her first album saw Ashley take centre stage after more than a decade of gracing friends’ projects in a supporting role. The move to the front was a cautious one.“First record was, can I do a solo album? This time, I know what I’m doing. It’s way more clear.”It’s clear to anyone listening. It’s Only the End. If only all endings were so glorious.
▪︎ David P. Smith is an unflinchingly original songwriter, an accordionist, and pianist who in the past 18 years has released six full length recordings, numerous EPs, and led a variety of musical projects that have consistently defied convenient genre classifications. Deconstructing and reconstructing classic folk, hillbilly, and blues forms and incorporating an idiosyncratic and individualistic writing style he has created a body of work that is tragic and hilarious, profane, surreal, and occasionally profound.
You can find David’s music at https://davidpsmithmusic.bandcamp.com/
David is a visual artist and photographer, you can follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jackasspath/
David’s website https://www.davidpsmithmusic.com/


≫ COVID Safety Info ≪
▪︎ Due to COVID-19, there will be a limit of 80 tickets available for purchase. Tables will be seated in the venue once the whole group has arrived.
▪︎ Tickets should be purchased online in advance, through our website, to ensure availability. If space remains, additional tickets will be available at the door.
▪︎ The bar will provide table service. Instead of going up to the bar, a server will visit you to take orders and to clear empty glassware.
▪︎ Masks are required, except when seated at your table. If you do not have one, one will be provided for you.
▪︎ Unfortunately, we cannot allow mingling between tables or dancing. If you’re feeling the groove, we encourage you to shimmy in your seat!
▪︎ Beginning September 13th, in accordance with Provincial Health Order, all ticketholders will be required to show proof of vaccination at the door in order to attend. More information about the BC Vaccine Card is available at https://www2.gov.bc.ca/vaccinecard.html
Read the VEC's full Covid safety plan here:
https://victoriaeventcentre.ca/covid19/
In the event that public health restrictions prevent this event from going ahead, all tickets purchased for this event will automatically be valid for the next rescheduled date. Refunds will be made available as needed - please email victoriaeventcentre@gmail.com to arrange.

≫ Safer Spaces ≪
▪︎ At the VEC there is zero tolerance for any type of racist, sexist, ableist, fatphobic, transphobic or homophobic behaviour. By purchasing a ticket and attending this event, you agree to conduct yourself with the utmost respect for everyone at this event. In the event that you do not, you may be asked to leave without a refund.
▪︎ If you feel uncomfortable at any time, please let a VEC staff person know and we will try to support you in the best way possible.

≫ We're Livestreaming ! ≪
▪︎ The show will also be available as a livestream at facebook.com/VictoriaEventCentre and twitch.tv/victoriaeventcentre
▪︎ This livestream will be available without admission fee.
If you’re able to donate and support these artists and the venue so they can keep it happening, donate here:
▪︎ Credit Card: http://www.victoriaeventcentre.ca/donate/
▪︎ Etransfer (please put "Himalayan Bear | Ashley Shadow | David P. Smith" in the message line and the password as "livestream"): accounts@victoriaeventcentre.ca

≫ Land Acknowledgement ≪
▪︎ We would like to gratefully acknowledge that the territory on which this event takes place is on the traditional, stolen, unceded land of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples. We acknowledge the rich cultural history of the many peoples and rituals that have been affected by the ongoing process of dispossession and colonialism. We hold this understanding in our interactions and engagements with this land and its people.

≫ Accessibility ≪
▪︎ Our seating is a combination of high tables, bar stools, and cocktail tables with chairs. If you require assistance with this, please make a note when purchasing tickets or contact us at events@victoriaeventcentre.ca and VEC staff will do their best to accommodate.
▪︎ There are three multi-user, gender-inclusive bathrooms with stalls. One bathroom has a larger stall with its own sink and a grab bar (more details in the ‘Bathrooms’ section).
▪︎ The Victoria Event Centre currently does not have an operational elevator, and there is one long flight of stairs at the venue entrance. The only way into the VEC is up 27 wood stairs, 11″ deep, 6″ high. There are wooden 2.5” handrails 38” up the wall on each side of the staircase (54” apart, so not graspable on both sides at once. See further details in the ‘Getting Inside’ section)
▪︎ If you would like to attend the event but require assistance with accessing the space, please contact us at events@victoriaeventcentre.ca and VEC staff will do their best to accommodate.
▪︎ Inside the Victoria Event Centre there is a gender inclusive wheelchair accessible washroom that technically fits necessary size dimensions, but is missing a bar and a handrail beside the toilet.There are two stalls in the washroom, but only one of these has been renovated to meet 5'x5' wheelchair clearance.
▪︎ More detailed venue accessibility info is available at:http://www.victoriaeventcentre.ca/attendees/accessibility/