PREVUE // VENUE CLOSING
Farewell to Elevation Room Wed, Feb 27 (8 pm) With The Joe, Doug Hoyer, Ghost Cousin, Tyler Butler Elevation Room, admission by donation
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urs is a city plagued with a shortage of venues, and we're about to lose another. Elevation Room, a relatively new upstart in the city, found in the basement of Transcend's Jasper location, is shuttering. Rather, Transcend is leaving the location to focus on its other spaces, and with it goes the underground venue. As a space, it seemed a rare overlap of perks: Elevation Room was both all-ages and licensed, didn't charge artists to use the space, only started taking a tiny cut of the door (to pay for the sound guy) recently and, Joe Gurba notes, it had the upstairs café to let people converse, while music played below. "People come to shows for two reasons: they want to experience art, and they want to experience fellowship, I guess," Gurba, who'd been booking the room, offers. "And so the two usually conflict, because if you're trying to talk to someone and music's playing, or rather you're trying to listen to music and someone's talking ... that problem didn't exist at the Elevation Room. People could talk upstairs and get their
drinks upstairs, and that whole part could happen up there. And downstairs people could watch shows." Gurba notes the financial viability of the space wasn't an issue; after a booming debut and a somewhat shaky summer, it had settled into a comfortable rhythm of well-attended shows. He chalks the slow summer up to his own booking, relying on Wunderbar regulars more than crafting a new audience around the space. "Elevation Room didn't have time to cultivate its own community that just came to shows because it was there," he says. "Whereas Wunderbar totally had that, and I was booking the kinds of bands that would play there. So if I was a person who had to choose between going to two shows, I'm going to go to the place I feel familar with, that's in my neighbourhood." Once he started drawing in acts less frequently seen, Gurba saw his audiences grow in accordance. Will another space spring up in the aftermath of Elevation Room? Possibly, though Gurba notes that even if it does, it'll likely be under a new name. "I think the key to live music, and why it's important, is that it actually exists in time and space," he says. "I approach this very philosophically: I think we're alienated from one-an-
Elevation Room: off to the great venue depository in the sky // Meaghan Baxter
other by capitalism. I think we have to access nature through our wages, and our wages are in the hands of other people, and things aren't obviously as bad as they were in Victorian England, but we do have to compete with one another. And I think that art is this really magical place, much like education or religion or anything else that can escape the relationship of money: if you can be in a place where you can connect with other humans, without that as a me-
diator, but just as two human beings experiencing art in the same place at the same time, then you are alleviating this alienation. "What I think is that community is the only real morality, in my opinion," he continues. "In my opinion, all things that are conducive to community are morally good. And live music is very conducive to that. That's why, for me, it very much exists in space. So if you move the space, change the name, you make it a new space. "
To give the space that was Elevation Room a proper send off, Gurba's giving it a farewell hurrah: its final show will include sets by Ghost Cousin, Tyler Butler, Doug Hoyer and Gurba himself. "It's all people who've worked to make that place possible," he says. "All those people have done something at some point to keep that place going in its downstairs capacity. If any of the baristas played, I'd get them too." PAUL BLINOV
// PAUL@VUEWEEKLY.COM
PREVUE // METAL
Maximum Cavalera Tour Sat, Feb 23 (8 pm) With Soulfly, Incite, Lody Kong Starlite Room, $27.50
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n some families, declaring your aspiration to be in a metal band and pursuing that career may be shrugged off as a pipe dream, but not in the Cavalera household. There, metal is a way of life, and there was no question that Max Cavalera's sons would follow in the footsteps of dear old dad. "We are metal to the bone in this house," states Max over the phone before the first day of the Maximum Cavalera tour featuring his everchanging outfit Soulfy along with his stepson Richie's band Incite and Lody Kong, featuring his sons Igor and Zyon. "There's metal coming from all the rooms, and all we talk about from morning to night is music and projects we are doing, so it's a completely different family structure than the regular, typical family ... it's kind of chaotic, but I wouldn't do it any other way." Exuding pride for his brood of up-andcoming musicians, Max notes his son Zyon will be manning the drums for Soulfly once again on this tour—a position he's taken over since the band's former drummer, David Kinkade, departed earlier in 2012. Max's sons also
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joined him in the studio during the recording of Soulfly's last album Enslaved for the track "Revengeance," a tribute to Max's stepson Dana Wells, who died in 1997. While this tour is a dream come true of sorts for Max, who admits he always hoped his children would grow up to be musicians, he continually reiterates to them to just have fun and enjoy what they do— no pressure. "Enjoy music for the sake of music and that by itself should be rewarding. We don't make a lot of money doing this, but it's something we love to do; we have a passion for it," he adds. "If they really love it, they should go on, and it's going to be hard. There's tough things on the way, but the rewards are really great ... if they work hard, it will pay off later." MEAGHAN BAXTER //
MEAGHAN@VUEWEEKLY.
Proud papa
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