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Mikala

@backstagerider

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Writer, editor, strategist, photog, gig geek, goth, pagan. This’ll hafta do until BackstageRider.com gets rebuilt. Views my own.🤘🏼🍉✊🏿🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🧡

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@kurtvile and the Violators were in town recently at a sold-out Commodore gig, and they were, per usual, fucking amazing. His new album “Philadelphia’s Been Good to Me” is a sweet, riffy tribute to the things he loves: family, home, and classic rock. Seen Kurt in 3 countries, maybe like 8 times over the past 14 years, partied at aftershows, got snuck into an SXSW gig by his brother @jellomanphilly, and rock up whenever he (and ride-or-die multi-instrumentalist @jessetrbo & Co.) plays. They’re cool.Enter Pixies to the story. I’ve known @blackfrancisofficial for about the same amount of time. Legend, fascinating, artistic, mensch. NOW enter Lou Barlow and @dinosaurjr. Y’all know that long, rugged story. Goodly times.Now come with me to my evidence board; it’s got pushpins, yarn and photos that connect Kurt Vile, Dinosaur Jr. and @pixiesofficial. ONCE YOU SEE THE SIGNS, THE SIGNS ARE EVERYWHERE, MAN! The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. are the pillars, holding up the whole cathedral of Alt-Rock Almighty. Charles and J Masics are neighbours in Mass. Kurt was at the studio during the recording of Dino’s Sweep It Into Space. Kurt and J drawl, while Lou told me once he thinks Charles Pixies’ voice is pure power. Last time I hung with Kurt, he was touring with Pixies. Both Kurt and Charles played at Dino’s 25th‑anniversary NYC residency, and Charles is playing at Lou’s 60th birthday bash in August. Kurt and Dino have shared rad engineer @john_agnello across 6 albums. Kurt and Dino share the same tour manager, @johnwilliammoloney. When Dino’s drummer Murph couldn’t make some shows, Athens drummer Kyle Spence stepped in. Now Kyle is a Violator with Kurt. Both Dino and Kurt toured with @stevegunnstevegunn …who was backstage in Vancouver with Kurt. Also backstage was Ryan Beattie (Himalayan Bear) - who opened up for Lou last month. And onnnnn it goes. Bands have cliques, but these three are adorably tight, and the folks around them are such decent folks. “We’re honorary Massholes,” Trbo joked. So what does that make me? Easy: Ridiculously grateful to have known all three for so long and to get to spin in their orbit. Love y’all. And Kurt, you rock. Case closed. 🤘🏼 by @backstagerider

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16 days ago

It was, in fact, a picture perfect Litha/Solstice weekend. Happy summer, everyone! 🌞🌻✨❤️ by @backstagerider

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a month ago

My longtime friend @loubarlow was in town Tuesday night at the @rickshawtheatre with his daughter Hannelore, on a short Western Canada roadtrip taking them from a ramble in Stanley Park and Vancouver, through Kelowna (“a place I had never heard of”) to Nelson and into Alberta and Saskatchewan. I’ve written a lot about Lou over the years, but today I’ll let the songs speak for themselves. 🤘🏼#loubarlow #sebadohofficial #sebadoh #dinosaurjr by @backstagerider

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a month ago

Weird to think I’ve known a band for nearly four decades. From teenland to adulthood, I graduated from fan to friend of the Grapes of Wrath via my usual path: loyalty, love and longevity. I’ve downed pints in pubs, smuggled members into Massey Hall, put away pitchers after Ontario Place shows, hung out at hotels, gotten shitfaced at the MuchMusic Awards, laughed in vans, gone to punk shows and traded music talk with the Grapes of Wrath’s drummer Chris Hooper, bassist brother Tom, and less frequently, Kevin Kane, for an aeon. (Scroll thru to the end for baby pics!) Context for non-Canucks: GOW are an acousti-rock band from Kelowna, BC (a small town recently named Canada’s first UNESCO City of Gastronomy. But when they formed? It was a K-hole and they sang about it on “Backward Town.”) They were/are hugely loved in this country for their hooky songs, impeccable harmonies, and 60s-style shimmery glint. But they don’t play often as a three-piece. Kevin lives on the East Coast, Tom on the West, and Chris travels the world as a nomad. So when I heard that they’d be in town for a full band reunion show at the Commodore Ballroom on May 23rd, co-headlining with 90s alt-poppers Limblifter, I squee’d myself. Their music is so deeply familiar to me, and their faces so familial, they’re like a second skin. But there are hazards to befriending musician types. You hear and hug them infinitely less often than you’d like, and jockey for one-on-one time against countless other mates at gigs. It just is what it is. To the songs: Honestly, the whole set was so….pretty. There’s so much gold in the Grapes - particularly on LPs Treehouse, Now and Again and These Days and they played them all. And “All the Things I Wasn’t”? Go listen to it right now, it’s perfect. I often riff on the notion of nostalgia. It gets a bad rap, and we get dismissed for wanting to be back in a place in time. But I wanna be back in a place with people. The Grapes of Wrath are warm and comfortable, like the big hugs I miss from my friends. ‘Cos we - musicians or otherwise - just don’t see each other enough IRL, yunno? Grapes of Wrath, I love you. Come back sooner. 🤘🏼💕 by @backstagerider

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2 months ago

I FUCKING KNEW IT. Knew I needed to trust my gut went it punched me and said: “Mikala, you *get and understand* the @sleaford_mods; you lived in London, you know what he’s on about.” BUT YET, the last time I saw them at the Commodore a couple years back, the show didn’t connect. Granted, it was just after Coachella, and the air was definitely out of the tires. I went home deflated myself. But when the Pearl gig came up, the belly started rumbling: “Take the chance, dipshit. Go again.” Thank you, dear internal workings! What a stellar gig. Visceral, rapid-fire-machine-gun social commentary and flames from the (zero hyperbole) *incomparable* Jason Williamson, flanked by a man I adore without ever having met, Andrew Fearn. (Fearn fulfills the role of making the music, pressing play on the MacBook, and then bouncing along behind like a happy counterpoint to his angry neighbour, and it is perfect.) They mess with your head, the Sleaford Mods do. You either get ‘em or you don’t. But there is no-one like them. The music’s a bop. The new LP, The Demise of Planet X, has a definite pov, and the vocal collabs (whom we were asked to applaud as if they were in the room with us) add flair to the Speaker’s Corner shouting. Sleaford Mods are super weird but also super magnetic: Jason’s an unstoppable force, who literally spits bars and sweats out bottles of water faster than he drinks them. He spars with demons, politicians, warmongers, cnuts, and the ghosts that freak you out at night. A mosh pit erupted behind us. D’yer think they knew that under all that is actual poetry? I loved literally everything in the set off the Demise, and UK Grim, Tied up in Nottz, Jobseeker, and Tweet Tweet Tweet made my black heart happy. But a cover of Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls? GTFO, Sleaford Mods, ILY. And in between, smiles to each other, apologies for drowning us in spittle (meh, I have enough rockstar DNA on me to clone a badass band), and they messaged this am to thank me for coming, n’ shared one of my photos. I knew the Sleaford Mods were great, I just needed the shows to catch up with that. You either get ‘em or you don’t, and I’m glad to get ‘em back. 🤘🏼 by @backstagerider

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2 months ago

The early ’90s was a rad time for indie music. Fueled by mixed-tapes, used CDs from the record store I worked at, weekly music mags and recos from mates, my ears were expanding in all directions…including towards @themercuryrev and @theafghanwhigs.I fell in love with sonic adventurers/weirdos Mercury Rev around 1991 for their debut Yerself is Steam. Met ‘em in ‘92 following a press conf, and reconnected with genius guitarist and great fella Grasshopper over the years. (Peep my feed a few back for when they were at the Fox recently. This time, at the Commodore on May 16, I got a G’hopper hug, a friendly smooch and some pro-Sabres playoff hockey banter.🤣)Meanwhile, the Afghan Whigs were different: messy, bluesy motel-vibe rock. Their fourth album/toxic masterpiece “Gentlemen” came out in 1993 and ripped my head clean open. So the next year, after shooting their gig in Toronto at Lee’s Palace, I found myself bundled in the back seat of a van heading to the Town Inn to debauch with the band. Good times! This was a fond party memory until ‘98 when I went again to see them. I’d had knee surgery, and sat perched on the stage between sets. A roadie barked at me: “Get up, you lazy bitch!” What. The. Fck?! Spent the rest of the gig devastated, mentally drafting a retort I never got to deliver. AF, if you read this: the company you kept was a cnut.)Anyway.Here we are, 32-ish years later and now both are on tour together. Praise be! Rev played in the fog as a four-piece — keyboardist Marion didn’t make it over the border. But Jonathan, @mercuryrevvd , remarkable multi-instrumentalist @jessetchandler on keyboards, saxophone, flute, and whatever the moment called for, plus masterful drummer Joe Magistro nailed it: The set felt rich, expansive, lived-in. And then The Whigs! I hobbled around the room on bad knees and sprained ankle (just like ‘98!), pinballing off pockets of friends, screaming out the lyrics “My Enemy” with two local musician mates, and beamed as Greg Dulli belted for the rafters and the band workhorsed a four-decade-spanning setlist. Nostalgia’s too bucolic a word for what I felt. This scratched ALL the itches. Just gimme indie rock! 🤘🏼 by @backstagerider

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2 months ago

Vancouver, it was fantastic to be back again! Thanks to everyone who came out to the Commodore Ballroom last night!Seattle, we’ll see you tonight at The Showbox as part of @theafghanwhigs 40 year anniversary tour!- The Rev📸 @backstagerider / Mikala Folb#mercuryrev #mercuryrevtour #allisdream #allisdream25 by @backstagerider

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2 months ago

It’s wild to think that Cabaret Voltaire - from up t’North in Sheffield, UK, no less - have been around since the early ’70s. And what a tremendous influence they’ve had on post-punk, electronica, EDM, and industrial… oh my gods. And yet strangely, they never really cracked past the bedroom walls of us weirdos. @cabaretvoltaireband were noodling and playing around with their stripped, Dada-esque, clanging industrial sounds and visions into the late ’70s and, of course, through the ’80s, until they eventually disbanded in ’94. So this “final” tour, a mere 30 years after their last North American run, came as a surprise and hugely welcome gift. When I was in my teens in Toronto, there was a rad radio station called CFNY. On Friday nights, DJ Chris Sheppard used to play live to air from a club called RPM, and I always remember him spinning “Sensoria” by Cabaret Voltaire later in the set. Sometimes it felt like that song went on forever and seemingly took up half of the Maxell XL-IIS cassettes I was taping it on, but I hadn’t realized how much my dark, dancey heart actually wanted to hear it again, and live. CV is anti-handbag-House electronica (the favoured flavour in Vancouver 🙄) - gritty, elemental, with eerie samples, perfect for the goth club and yet… it makes you move, and there was a different joy hearing “Do Right,” “SexMoneyFreaks,” growly “Yashar” et al, for the first time in person - remodeled, remade, remembered. If you look at them through the today-lens of EDM, the music may feel bare…but you gotta use your TARDIS to cast your ears back to a time when “electronica” wasn’t really a thing, and they influenced almost everyone after. Like, I need you to understand: Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Severed Heads, Human League, Killing Joke and many more *all* cite CV in their origin stories. We, the people, old and cranky, with canes and walkers, bad backs, carpal tunnel syndrome and shot knees, all gathered at the Pearl on a Wednesday night, owe them a debt of gratitude. I’m grateful to have seen these sonic crusaders for this first - and last - time. Worth hauling my poor, huddled mass out for, indeed. 🤘🏼 by @backstagerider

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3 months ago

Welcome to a world of woe. A world so terrible, and devoid of scritches, burdened with residual anger over the previous day in which a treasured pig’s ear was heartlessly snatched (and by trickery no less!) and now we find ourselves here. The tiny feral has ISSUES, apparently. Many, many ongoing issues - including a brief interruption in the conversation by a bird - worth watching to the end for. Frustrated? Same kid, same. @weratedogs #dogs #maltesechihuahua #doggo #dogsofinstagram by @backstagerider

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3 months ago

HENRIETTA? And a fish? I have not been very well. Meds that I take to make it easier for me get physically better have been giving me profound side effects. Also, a week ago I fell getting off the bus and my ankle just gave way - again. Hypermobile ligaments and proprioception and core ain’t strong enough and I smashed down on my already-very-damaged knees. Sprained my left ankle this time, re-damaged both knees. And because I have a nervous system disorder, it amplifies pain and physical anxiety. And that physical anxiety and pain causes me to hold my body in a perpetual clench-mode. That freeze response then causes other things to not work. It’s nearly impossible to exercise. Or even walk. It’s a neverending trap. And I haven’t been sleeping; I haven’t been writing, and work is survival mode. But this morning at 6:45am I grabbed my cane to go to the water because if #sunriseatsunsetbeach could save me before during Covid perhaps it can save me again. I hobbled a little further than normal for some reason.That reason was a head and two big-ass puppy eyes: HENRY! There by the seawall, as if waiting to say hello. I GLEE’D! Always pure joy. I am never too jaded not to care that I have seals (and recently, WHALES) at the bottom of my street. But then? What? Could Henry actually be Henrietta? Because I GASPED: a larger male suddenly surfaced, one of only two times I’ve seen two in the bay - must be spring, knoworrimean?, and HE WENT IN FOR A SMOOCH! Ahhhhhhhhj! 🥺Then, as the women always do, she got breakfast ready. She wrestled a fish (another first), tail all slapping about. See, nature always knows what I need. I am grateful for the sea and my friends within it. Because I needed that, I really fucking needed that. 🤘🏼💕 by @backstagerider

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3 months ago

Ran into this awesome local, @danmanganmusic, at Matt Berninger last week. Both equally great (and vulnerable, honest) songwriters, and I always dig seeing musicians turning up for other musicians. If you don’t know Dan’s music, look/listen him up. Been listening since 2011-ish when I ran into him in Portland during MFNW, and have been cheering him on from the sidelines since…though (weirdly) rarely run into him in town, so this was a lovely surprise. A fine fella indeed! Thanks for the chats, Dan! 🤘🏼 by @backstagerider

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4 months ago

There must a German word for “Seen them many, many times since 2001, and it’s always the same but I keep going and it’s still a joy every time because few bands work harder at their schtick in the name of keeping the energy cranked to 11.” Stammgastseligkeit?Vertrautheitsjubel?Throwback to September 18 2025, getting sweated on by Swedes. Don’t go changing, @thehives, you’re perfect (and I know you won’t, anyway). #thehives #howlinpelle #howlinpellealmqvist by @backstagerider

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5 months ago