Victorious Combinations

  For the past two years we have been playing music with my long time friend Daniel Clement on guitar. Dan and I have been friends since highschool, and shared our first band together back in the 80's in White Rock, B.C.  After many decades of creating independently we have rejoined forces to enhance the sound of Combine the Victorious. Isabelle and I have been writing together since 2005. We've had several successful song licenses to television and film over the years but we have always remained primarily a studio project. With Dan's addition on guitar our sound is more complete and we feel better represented when we play live. His influence has helped up find faster songs for the repertoire and accelerated the writing and recording process; we already have our next single (Danser Tout le Temps) recorded and ready for mastering and three more tunes are waiting in the wings for us to finish off. It's very fun and exciting. This year we've played more live shows th...

 We have been recording a new single this past month. It is a funny one that emerged quite naturally right before a rehearsal. I had been sorting through my overly large and needlessly over complicated Ableton Live set and hit a wrong scene and a basic four on the floor kick and hi hat pattern played. The scene had been set at 130 bpm though, which is much faster than most of the songs we play, so it set me to playing a simple octave sequence on A. It had a Kraftwerk-like charm.  When Isabelle and Dan (Daniel Clement is our new guitarist) arrived I played them the core elements and Dan quickly came up with the arpeggio guitar part, which later came to define the chorus. Isabelle left the room momentarily but when she returned she was singing in French! Why? dunno, but it all felt right. Danser tout le Temps was born! We jammed on it for a few rehearsals and even tried a super loose version of it at our last Cascade Room gig.  It wasn't fully realized at that point though...

  We are excited to be performing with our pals Rat Silo on Friday December 29th at the Princeton. Rat Silo is hosting the night and will be performing two sets starting from around 9pm.   Combine the V will hit the stage likely at 11:30 or so.  Quite looking forward to this gig. We habitually meet on Fridays for a pre-rehearsal pint at the Princeton as its only two blocks away from my studio.  It will be fun to try our material out on that stage. I am planning on bringing a sub-woofer to ensure our sound has a chance to impress! The live set is progressing rapidly. With Dan Clement 's addition to the band we are more prolific and the new material is a lot more up tempo. We shall be making a formal introduction to our new single "Danser Tout le Temps" this night. It's quite a cool dance track that has all three of us excited and singing in French! More on that imminently. If you are in Vancouver and looking for a party on Friday come down to the Princeton. I don...