3 concert announcements from Bonfire Presents

[keither]

Hey all.

Here we go again! As we begin to ramp things up for August's 3rd Annual BONFIRE MUSIC FESTIVAL, we've got a few other tasty treats coming your way in the months ahead.

Let's get right to it!!!

Bonfire Music & Events Presents...

An exploration into 'Rocktronica' with Eastern Canada's finest musical export... Halifax, Nova Scotia's

THE JIMMY SWIFT BAND

JSB have been forging their own path in Canadian Music for the past six years. During this time their energetic and improvisational live show has helped the band develop a cult like following throughout the country. They have performed 200+ shows a year for the past three years - selling out venues and packing dance floors across North America. The JSB sound is so original that critics and fans have come up with a new genre to define it - Rocktronica.

Coming out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, JSB consists of Craig Mercer on guitar, vocals, and effects, Aaron Collier on keyboards and effects, Mike MacDougall on bass, and Nick Wombolt on drums. Each member brings their own strengths to a powerful sound which is greater than the sum of its parts. Their influences range from Daft Punk to Pink Floyd to Guns and Roses, and they meld aspects of these sounds together to create their original Rocktronica.

JSB are currently hitting the road and touring Canada in support of their third studio album, Weight of the World. "I feel like we have captured the energy of our live show on record for the first time", says Mercer. "I was unsure whether we could get the feeling of hearing the band live across in a studio setting, but i think we have done it with this album. I am looking forward to getting back on the road and sharing it with our fans."

So are we Craig... SO ARE WE!!!

With special guests, the progressive funk-rock of Vancouver legends

OMNIBOL

Friday July 13

The Fairview Pub

898 West Broadway

Doors at 9:00

Omnibol: 10:00 pm - 11:00 pm

The Jimmy Swift Band: 11:30 pm - 2:00 am

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The return of the 11-piece afro-beat assault from San Francisco, California

APHRODESIA

What a year 2006 has already been for Aphrodesia! Taking their intoxicating show international for the first time, the 11 piece San Francisco-based musical extravaganza went far off the beaten path and back to the roots of their music by touring West Africa for the entire month of February. The trip landed them in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria- where, over two incredible nights of playing with Femi Kuti, Aphrodesia made history by becoming the first American band ever to play the legendary New Africa Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria. Who is Aphrodesia? If you don’t know yet, you soon will.

Emerging in 2003 from the fertile San Francisco Bay Area music scene, Aphrodesia's highly original brand of ‘Super Aphro Beat’ and uncompromising political stance made them resist easy classification. In 2004, the band exploded into the national consciousness with the “Just Vote Tourâ€, a swing-state voter registration tour that took the band all the way to NYC and back in their vegetable oil-powered bus and landed the group on the cover of USA Today. The band’s debut CD, “Shackrobeat Vol. 1†(Flatbed Lamborghini), was picked as one of the best records of 2003 by the East Bay Express, and showstopping performances in 2004 and 2005 at the Aspen JazzFest, the Earthdance Festival, the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, the High Sierra Music Festival and many other festivals and venues won the group high praise. Meanwhile, the band opened for Steel Pulse in California and Colorado and shared festival stages with everyone from Willie Nelson to Ozomatli to Zap Mama. Aphrodesia's second CD, 2005’s "Front Lines" (Full Cut Records), was featured on National Public Radio, won rave reviews from media outlets from Global Rhythm Magazine to the Village Voice and broadened the band’s already wide appeal even further, setting the stage for their landmark trip to Africa.

Aphrodesia's extraordinary sonic stew encompasses touches of Afrobeat, Highlife, dub, funk, Caribbean spice and East African trance music, all with the captivating vocal stylings of Lara Maykovich as their focal point. After living in Ghana and Zimbabwe during 1997 and ’98, where she studied and performed with members of Akrowa Dance Ensemble of Ghana. the National Music and Dance Company of Zimbabwe and many others, Maykovich returned to Boulder, Colorado, where she sang with The Motet and performed with Boubacar Diabete. She met bassist Ezra Gale soon after moving to the Bay Area in 2002, and the pair then recruited a stellar supporting cast that now includes guitarists Chris Mulhauser and David Sartore, percussionist Paul Sonnabend, the horn section of Todd Grady, Liz Larson, Marcus Stephens and Sylvain Carton, the backing vocals of Maya Dorn and the inimitable rhythms of the drummer known only as Slapsaw.

Aphrodesia’s music carries with it a strong sense of social justice, and the band has been known to write their own politically-charged lyrics while updating Fela Kuti classics like ‘No Agreement’ and ‘Zombie’. But the band’s commitment to social change extends offstage as well. Having headlined numerous benefits for causes ranging from AIDS prevention to Tsunami Relief to anti-Iraq War organizations, Aphrodesia is devoted to 'walking the walk as well as talking the talk'. Believing that alternative energy is necessary both to protect our planet's environment and to reduce America's dangerous dependence on foreign oil, the band proudly travels in a vegetable-oil powered bus- meaning it’s one of the few groups of any stripe not sponsored by Chevron, Texaco, and co. It may be a small start, but the group believes that its actions, like its music, can have a huge effect.

With special guest, Vancouver's king of the phunky phat breaks & beats

DJ ROB RIZK

Friday July 20

The Media Club

695 Cambie (at Georgia Street) - Downtown Vancouver

Doors at 9:00

DJ Rob Rizk: 9:00 pm - 10:30 pm (and during set break)

Aphrodesia: 10:30 pm - 2:00 am (2 FULL SETS!!!)

$15 advance tickets available Wednesday June 20 at Zulu, Highlife, Red Cat & Scratch Records

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A very special BC Day Holiday weekend, 2-night run celebrating the birthday & the passing of The Grateful Dead's musical & spiritual leader... Jerry Garcia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JERRY!

Saturday August 4

The Fairview Pub

898 West Broadway

Doors at 8:30

WE MISS YOU JERRY!

Sunday August 5

The Fairview Pub

898 West Broadway

Doors at 8:30

Both nights featuring performances by

B-Rad & the Sugar Mags: 9:00 pm - 10:30 pm (acoustic Dead)

Mark Strachan & Friends: 11:00 pm - 2:00 am (2 sets of electric Dead)

Don't forget BME's many other shows coming at ya in the following months!

Friday June 22 - The Bottle & The Truth, Hot Buttered Rum & Headwater @ The Media Club

Saturday June 23 - Hot Buttered Rum @ The Waldorf Hotel

Thursday June 28 - The Grassroot Deviation, All Purpose & Kent McAlister & The Iron Choir & The Media Club

Friday June 29 - The Grassroot Deviation, Beluga & Baked Potato @ The Media Club

Thursday-Sunday August 16~19 - BONFIRE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007

YEEHA!!!

[Dougout]

Jimmy Swift tonite @ Fairview. Bumpity-bump