Victorious Combinations

Next gig Combine the Victorious will be performing at the commercial release party for Katrin Bowen's Random Acts of Romance comedy on November 14th at the Rio Theatre here in Vancouver.  We are working  our a fantastic new set that will include two brand new songs!  The new album is really taking shape, and the band is starting to sound very good once again (taking all that time off this past summer had dulled our playing a bit, but we're getting it back quite rapidly!)  It should also be mentioned that we've actually rehearsed a few times now with Leigh Grant (the original drummer from Mark's prior band Pure).  It's going to be a great night, not only will the audience get to watch a truly funny comedy, but we'll be sharing the stage will long time pals Sex With Strangers too!  Check out the fb event from the link above.  See you there!

Hey, we have a really busy week ahead of us and just wanted to share a few of the things going on! Tomorrow night we'll be performing live on the radio up at SFU on Sound Therapy Radio on CJSF  90.1FM.  The show is on at 7PM pacific time.  We'll be debuting our new song Hardly Spoken live on air,  plus two other favorites from Crumbling Hearts and some conversation about our new line up and what's coming up! If you miss that we are also appearing on Co-op radio 100.1FM at 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon.  I want to reveal our new amazing remix for Smoke and Choke as well as the other songs that will be included on our Rec:13 sampler for the show on May30th. Then we finally get to perform live on stage!  Thursday night is lining up to be our best show to date. We've got a new video to debut ( Smoke and Choke ), a fantastic set filled with four new songs, special effects and lighting lined up, and of course a brilliant line up to share the stage with t...

We shall be performing tonight over in New Westminster as part of the Change of Frequency festival.   Combine the Victorious will be on around 8:30 and we'll be debuting two new songs, one of them written specifically for the event.  It's titled Brotherhood and was written about our departed friend Todd Simko who left us last year.  The other is the song we revealed earlier this week called Hardly Spoken .   The four of us are sounding exceptionally great and really looking forward to this one. We checked out the Columbia Theatre last night and I have to say it's a lovely venue, with great sight lines, acoustics and a cool stage.  Quite looking forward to sharing our music in such a venerable space! Hope you can join us, and then stay for the Pure / Guilty About Girls set (which shall contain all of us with the added bonus of having Leigh Grant join us for a very authentic rendition of Denial) .  Lots of talent on stage tonight, and it's all to be...

Our dear friend Todd Simko died last year and in his memory his wife Minna has fulfilled one of his dreams to put live music back into an ignored venue in New Westminster - The Columbia .  The music festival is titled "A Change of Frequency" and its proceeds will go to assisting Mental Health.  There is going to be two evening full of music, May 10th and 11th.   Combine the Victorious is included on the bill for the Saturday night, May 11th .  There promises to be several wonderful moments in this event, and we're all looking forward to performing (though Juice has the heaviest load of everyone!  Not only will he be playing with Combine on our new material but he's promises to also play guitar with Pure as well as drumming with Fine Times all on Saturday night!) We've got a new song titled Brotherhood that I"m really looking forward to playing on the night.  The whole thing is going to be great, just check out the poster that the inimitable  Rob E...

27 Apr 2010 We just spent this past weekend shooting a video for the new Guilty About Girls song, Candy Candy .   It's turned out quite well.   Been learning Final Cut Pro; how to edit video.  It's very fun.  Here's the final cut, Jordy and I are both excited about it and I like how great Isabelle looks in this video! Things are getting busy these days.  Between playing shows with Guilty About Girls and Combine the Victorious it's hard to find time to work on new music.  Looking forward to the Seattle show.   Plus CtV is playing our first out of town gig ever on May 22nd in Brandon with The Invisible Men  (home town heartthrobs I'm informed).  Seems as though there are many things on the fire these days.  Exciting times again. I think we may have informally begun our third album.  Strangely compelling titles emerged the other night.  It's probably going to take ...

24 Mar 2010 The First Boutique Empire compilation: I've been putting together a compilation for Boutique Empire.  We now are the proud partners in Boutique Empire: Rec'10 .   It features 10 different bands, with new singles form Guilty About Girls " Candy Candy ", Combine the Victorious and a remastered version of New City Anthem from Sex With Strangers .  Also in the mix is Ingrid Schroeder (London), Gilles Zolty (Saskatoon) and Marc Wild (Vancouver) as well as a new single from Ten Suns (Vancouver) who Isabelle and I saw for the first time last night and they were brilliant.  Additionally there are songs from our new friends Chiwawa (Montreal) and Piper Davis (Calgary) and a remix from Lurch of the CtV song The Hours . Things are busy.  I'm playing a show with Jordy Birch this Friday in Victoria as Guilty About Girls and Isabelle just got back from Sex With Strangers' first appearance at SXSW.  We're also still trying to book...

27 Aug 2008 Updates - August 27-2008 Hi - just writing to say that we're trying to finish up the songs for the EP but have had a very exciting idea to get one of our friends to help us complete the last song.  We've asked Ingrid Schroeder to see if she could add her amazing voice to our song: Please .  There is a wonderful breakdown in the song that we both feel she could enhance with her sultry vocals and we're waiting to see if she's into a collaboration.  Fingers crossed because I just know it would sound incredible.  Please is over the top right now.  Probably going to be the best song on the ep.  It's very changed from our initial demo that we posted back in January.  More dramatic and orchestral sounding.  Now I'm thinking that's the way we want to go for the next record! Back in Style is almost done, we're re-singing our lead parts and I've changed the mix quite a bit as well.  A bit harder sounding and the...

10 Jun 2008 Todd Simko to play with Combine the Victorious It's with great delight that I can announce that Mr. Todd Simko (former guitarist from Pure ) has agreed to perform with us on our July 18th show at the Biltmore Cabaret . He has also done us the honour of playing on our latest track Decay . Those guitars are all from the master himself! In addition to Todd we also shall have the pleasure of Kevin Jones (The February March) joining us on the drums as well. It shall be a more stripped down show, we're looking at restructuring some of the older songs to be playable with just bass, guitar and drums. Isabelle and I want to try out a more intimate club style on this gig. Other big news is that our label, Boutique Empire , is off the ground and proudly presenting this upcoming showcase. The roster includes Combine the Victorious , Guilty About Girls (Jordy Birch's new group) and of course, Sex With Strangers . SWS will be unveiling the new ...