Victorious Combinations

 Well we had a decently busy year, with our biggest show to date back in June opening for Images In Vogue and a mini tour to Manitoba in August, three shows in November and hopefully a lot more in 2025.  We've decided to complete writing and recording a batch of new material to combine with a few of our previously released singles to make a full length album. Vinyl is being considered this time, which would be a first for us, as we've really only pressed CDs of our first album The World Over and done very limited runs of CD-Rs for other releases just to promote.  The first of the new songs is now complete with a couple more started in the demo stages. Hopefully we'll have four songs done by New Year's Eve!  Stay tuned and I'll drop previews of the songs on this blog and our soundcloud page. Really want to make as great an album as we can and I'm feeling as though we'll have the material to make it memorable!

 We are pleased to announce we are joining our friends The Aleatonics this Saturday night at Lana Lou's  We are the second act so I predict we will hit stage around 9:30 or so.  It's always fun at Lana Lou's and we will be playing our new single Awkward Connector.

Cheers to the appreciative crowd Monday night at the Biltmore. It was a pleasure to play there in support of the End Violence Against Women day.We hope to play it again next year!  Thanks and see you at Lana Lou's on Saturday night!  I think we are on at 9:30

 We are pleased to be included as part of this party to End Violence Against Women on Monday November 25th. We are told we go on stage around 9PM. It's a great venue and I'm pleased we shall be performing on it once again (the last time was likely 2008 or 2009! Come on out and have dance with us, as it's all for a good cause!

  We are quite excited about our new single " Awkward Connector ." This is a song where the original idea came from Daniel Clement , guitarist, and we worked on it over the summer. We did try playing it live a few times while we were in Manitoba but it never felt like we had it totally finished. November 1st we are releasing it into the world with hopes it will find us new friends!  Featuring Isabelle 's vocals once again with Dan's lush guitars filling in many of the spaces. The synths were a fun addition as I explored a few of the new virtual analog synths I'd purchased this past year. Several of the sounds are multiple layers of synths to complete the sonic palette.  Once again our friend Greg Hanberry came into the studio to add a conga part to the song. His congas have really become integral to the Combine the Victorious sound over the past two years. He's now played on at least five of our songs!  To complete the release we asked our frequent artist col...

  BE24038 Released today, Sept 20th, 2024. the gorgeous  MetronomiX Remix of our classic song " Glasgow ". Remix produced by Vancouver Drum and Bass master MetronomiX, though he's gone full R&B Electronic on this mix. Give it a listen, it might make your night!  Click thru to listen on: Spotify Apple Music Amazon Music Tidal Bandcamp

 Excited to share the MetronomiX remix of Glasgow this week. On Friday we'll drop it on all the streaming sites. You can listen today on Bandcamp if you'd like. Glasgow - MetronomiX Remix by Combine the Victorious

 We are excited to be the headlining act on this evening of music. Gabba Productions has put this lineup together with our pals Rat Silo  (includes former members of seminal band Sons of Freedom) and from Seattle, The Nightcry . After our successful Manitoba tour we are raring to get back on stage and recapture the magic!  Joining us on November 2nd is our friend and conga player Greg Hanberry. He's played a few shows with us in the past year, including the wonderful Rickshaw Theatre show opening for Images In Vogu e, and every time we have him on stage with us the vibes increase tenfold! We have a brand new song to  perform, "Awkward Connector" along with other unreleased songs on the evening. You can get your tickets thru showpass.com Click through for tickets. 

 We had a lot of fun this past week. After performing in Squamish at the slightly hard to find Trickster's Hideout with Zombie Roof, Isabelle and I celebrated our 24th anniversary the day later and then jumped in a minivan to play three more shows in Manitoba. With Daniel Clement offering additional driving support the whole event was quite enjoyable. Big thank you's to everyone who offered us a bed to stay in,  you hosting made it all work.    We would like to give a special shout out to Steve, Lyall, Gary, Elaine and Michael, and Terry and Helen for their generosity and kindness. Manitoba treated us very nicely once again. Good to know. Now please follow us on Spotify or Apple Music or where ever you may stream.  Thanks for reading  Mark

  We are excited to be playing our first show in Squamish on August 9th 2024 at Trickster's Hideout.  Combine the Victorious shall be opening for our friends Zombie Roof, a very old school rock and roll unit from Squamish. Set times are 9Pm for Combine and 10 PM for Zombie Roof, who shall be performing an extensive collection of songs spanning their thirty year plus existence.  Facebook event link

  We are happy to announce a new remix from our friend Adam Percy of the west coast electronic duo Avro. Adam has created another fun track for us, this time digging deep into the Gallic nature of our song Danser tout le temps and offering us a fresh and amusing take that should get the dancefloor moving. The track is schedule for release on August 1st 2024 and will be available worldwide on whichever streaming site you prefer.  LISTEN on SPOTIFY LISTEN on APPLE MUSIC

  Weare excited to announce we are performing a series of shows this coming August in western Canada. With the first of these shows being in Squamish, British Columbia at Trickster's Hideout with our friends Zombie Roof , August 9th.  Then we drive to Manitoba to take in a little prairie sunshine and perform in Gimli, Manitoba at the SHip and Plough. August 15th.  The next night we are doing a house concert at the same place we performed last year (thank you Micheal and Elaine) on the Friday August 16th.  Finally we are going to be playing in Brandon, Manitoba on the Saturday August 17th at the Monkeyhouse IIII, a secret party venue in the city.

We took advantage of the great evening to put together a few live videos for our songs from the Rickshaw show. In the case of I Really Like Your Style , the video looked better than the audio we recorded, so I opted to cut together a performance style video with the studio music to back it. Thankfully everything lined up nicely so it wasn't even an ordeal to do! Have a look and let us know what you think. We've had a lot of great response to I Really Like Your Style since we released it last October and I'm hoping people will like it even more now with a video to accompany the song.    Camera operators - Benn McGuire and Jean Vercoe Editor - Mark Henning Music originally from the Boutique Empire release "I Really Like Your Style" [BE23033] Produced, recorded and mixed at Boutique Empire Studio by Mark Henning Lead vocals - Isabelle Dunlop Guitar, backing vocals - Daniel Clement Bass, sequencing, backing vocals -Mark Henning Congas, backing vocals - Greg Ha...

 It would be an understatement to say we had a good time at our show last weekend. The show was sold out and the audience was incredible, supportive, appreciative, dancing, singing, cheering! We could not have asked for a better night. Thanks again to Images In Vogue for asking us to be a part of the show and to the wonderful folks at the Rickshaw Theatre for taking care of us.  Here are the final two songs we performed that evening, our latest song Goodbye Bad Times and a favorite of ours to close the show We Are Not Alone.  Please check them out! Goodbye Bad Times - Live at the Rickshaw We Are Not Alone - Live at the Rickshaw

 We are excited to release our new single "Goodbye Bad Times" tomorrow! We've opted to release it as a double single with a radio edit just to give a little bit more. Running order on is: Goodbye Bad Times Danser tout le temps (Bonsoir Paris mix) Goodbye Bad Times (radio edits) We need to give a big shout out to our favorite conga player and secret soul singer Greg Hanberry who features dramatically in the climax of the final chorus! Greg has been rehearsing with us for the past several months in preparation of our show with Images In Vogue . As we developed the recording for Goodbye Bad Times he heard an outro rant (his work) - so I said just show me. He did a one off and we were all blown away! Makes the whole song burst open. Please check out his own band The Motibulator .   We will post links tomorrow when the song goes up on Apple Music and Spotify etc.  Where do you listen? 

  We are excited to release our next single "goodbye Bad Times".  This is a continuation of our songwriting with Daniel Clement, and I think offers up one of our happiest choruses in ages!   Release date is set for June 7th, 2024,  just a day before we perform as the opening act for Images In Vogue here in Vancouver at the Rickshaw Theatre. Please check your preferred streaming service (or our bandcamp if you would care to support us more directly) next Friday! Listen today on soundcloud or bandcamp .

 We are almost ready to release our next single, this time the very upbeat Goodbye Bad Times. I think it's easy to hear the impact that Daniel Clement has made on the band's sound, as this one is about a quirky and fun as anything we've ever done: possible even more so!  Have a listen today on exclusively on Soundcloud , or come hear it live on June 8th at the Rickshaw when we perform it as part of our set opening for the legendary Images In Vogue! 

 We have two new songs we are finishing off simultaneously. I've mentioned Goodbye Bad Times already but the second song has a working title of Space and Time. Unlike the optimistic hooks of Goodbye Bad Times, Space and Time is an apologetically romantic song. We are opting for a very restrained sound as well, acoustic guitar and piano with Isabelle's voice  Space is Time is a song born of a story. The three of us were inspired by world events and started creating a tale of a forgotten woman, ignored by her husband, potentially a powerful oligarch, or political man. The woman is to be removed from the situation by a hitman. The hitch of course is the hitman falls in love with his target and must resolve his own internal crisis. It's not something we've done before but I am hopeful we can get an animated video to accompany this song. It'd make a nice short movie! We are rehearsing solidly for our upcoming show at the Rickshaw, opening for Images in Vogue. I'm exc...

 Isabelle, Daniel and I have been working on several new songs. The first to be finished is our latest collaboration "Goodbye Bad Times."  We performed it live for the very first time this past Thursday night at The Cascade Room and all were pleasantly surprised at how well it was received!  Once again we've asked our brilliant friend, the artist Robert Edmonds, to create a cover for the song and I'm intrigued to see what it inspires.  This idea was born of a late night jam Isabelle and I had after a band rehearsal night. We'd gone for a late dinner and returned to the studio a bit intoxicated and just started playing around with the instruments We sent Dan a voice memo sometime in the wee hours and forgot about it. In his own remarkable fashion Dan then showed up to our next rehearsal with a fully thought out guitar part with changes and chorus ideas. We were working on Danser tout le temps pretty hard at this point so we noted it but set it aside for a month or...

   We are pleased to announce we shall be performing once again at the Cascade Room on April 25th. Show starts after 9pm and we will be playing two sets on the evening. Come and join us and hear a couple of the new songs we've been working on! A warm up for our show opening for Images In Vogue in June!  The Cascade Room  2616 Main Street Vancouver, BC V5T 3E6 604-709-8650

 We are very excited about our new single "danser tout le temps".  It is our first time going back to the dance rock sound we started out with in a long time. With Dan Clement's influence I think our sound has gotten a lot more lively and we are pushing up the tempo to match. Danser is the result of our collaborations and it is plain to hear the difference.  Listen anywhere you want it is streaming now! click thru It is a small note that the mix on Spotify and YouTube are slightly different.We made a funny intro to the song on the first demo where we added in a big crowd sound effect and Isabelle gave a Bonsoir Paris! into the mic. Our watch the video , which has been very well received I'm happy to say. Thanks for reading, lots of music on go these days. Looking forward to June 8th at the Rickshaw! 

We have set up our new song " Danser tout le temps " to be available for streaming or purchase on our respective Soundcloud and Bandcamp pages.    Please click through to either if you are a patron.    Soundcloud Bandcamp     The single will be released  onto all streaming platforms on March 1, 2024.

 We are extremely happy to release this new single. It reflects the change in sound we've developed since adding Daniel Clement on guitar. Danser tout le temps is a fun exploration into disco, This video is our first collaboration with Vancouver artist Jean Vercoe , who was the camera operator on the night. We invited a handful of friends to come down to the Boutique Empire studio in East Van. to help us film a video for the song. My reasoning was that we'd look better on camera if we were actually playing our instruments and singing rather than just acting, plus having an audience tends to pull a performance out of you. Big thanks to Minna, Phoebe, Shephanie, Cindy, Sean, Mike and Matt for having fun with us.  Video filmed and edited at Boutique Empire Studio Produced by Boutique Empire Camera Operator - Jean Vercoe Directer, editor - Mark R Henning Music produced by Mark R Henning Recorded and mixed at Boutique Empire Studio, Vancouver, Canada Words and music - Combine...

 We are very pleased to announce we will be opening for Images In Vogue on June 8th at the mighty  Rickshaw Theatre.  Images In Vogue were the first Vancouver band i ever saw. It might have even predated seeing The Police at the Coliseum, certainly the venue was different. Back in the early eighties, I was still in highschool, but Images In Vogue has a song that was on the radio and even on late night video shows. I don't remember if I saw their stuff on Much Music.  The cool news was this synth band was playing an all ages place call the Soft Rock Cafe. It was a curious venue, that if memory serves me right, was a bakery in the front and then in behind the counter there was a big room with a small stage in the back. I'd love to see pictures again if anyone has any.  The night was really fun, I'm sure it was Dan, Callan and I, and we drove into Vancouver from White Rock. The place was busy when we got there and I recall seeing a whole bunch of Sequential Circuit...

 We filmed an in studio performance of our next single "Danser tout le temps" with some friends last week. Our good friend and artist Sean McFarland, also know as Jean Vercoe within the painting world, brought out his gear and we played our song a bunch of times in front or our friends. Never ones to stop at the simple of course we set up the lights in a way that I knew would allow me to do some drastic post effects too. Plus we all have strong recollections of the eighties and backlighting was always a cool trick in those days.  Here are a couple  frames I've grabbed while editing. I am very impressed with how good the image is, Sean pulled off a few tricks for us!     Danser tout le temps- video Sean McFarland Danser tout le temps- video Sean McFarland Danser tout le temps - video Sean McFarland We are getting close to done on this video, it will go up on YouTube first!

  Robert Edmonds original art and layout We return to the Cascade Room on Robbie Burns Night, January 25th.  Show starts approximately 9PM Come early for the Robbie Burns night celebrations and join us for some music and dancing!  Reservations are recommended.  The Cascade Room , 2616 Main Street, Vancouver

 We had a fun night in the Boutique Empire studio on Monday evening, when Sean McFarland (aka Jean Vercoe) took to the camera and filmed us performing live in the studio our new single "Danser Tour le Temps."  In effort to give the video a little more authenticity we actually played our parts to a small group for friends who heard it for the first time. A little bit of dancing and fun was had by all! Tonight Isabelle and I had the chance to have a first look at the footage and cut together a rough edit to start building our next video. It is turning out really well and big thanks to everyone who came out on that rainy Monday night to help us celebrate our new single. Progress is being made, the video is looking good and the song is set for mastering.  We shall be setting the release date very soon! Here's just a quick glance at one of the shots we liked from the video.