Victorious Combinations

  We are playing another show in Vancouver, March 8th at the Red Gate on Main Street.  We are opening the night for a couple other very cool bands, The Van Rays especially have our interest! It'll be a fun night, Combine the Victorious shall be debuting three brand new unheard before songs as well as playing several of our favourites from our recent repertoire. Get tickets by clicking thru here

  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...

   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

I really like how they've used our song, Smoke and Choke in the intro of this short film, Jane Doe , by Katrin Bowen. MRH Listen to the full song on Spotify now

We are really excited to be the musical portion of this event, the Isabelle Dunlop Runway Show at the Fox Cabaret.  The night promises to be a blast, with the evening starting off with the fashion show to be closely followed by a showcase set by Combine the Victorious and a full headline set from the brilliant dance band Terrace.  A special shout out must go out to Leigh Grant for joining us on drums at this show.  He's been a true blessing on the kit, adding so much energy and good vibes.  we are really looking forward to this show! We'll be performing a brand new song at the show, as well as using our fantastic remix of Real Life Turns Me On for the fashion portion. And of course you can always catch up on all the Combine the Victorious music on  Spotify  if you're using that service. We highly recommend you check out the music of Terrace as well, they have a new album with a lot of great material on it!  Here's a new single from the ban...

Here's another new song from our forth-coming Autonomous album.  This one is sequenced as the album's closing track, a sweet way to say goodbye (before starting the whole thing over again!). We started writing Stop Givin Up On Love over four years ago.  It was titled If Not Love and was much slower, with a completely different chorus.  However the story behind the lyrics has remained pretty much  the same.  It's a song I wrote initially about my brother, who was going through a very rough patch, and in it's initial iteration was very slow and a little depressing sounding.  We put it away and hardly gave it a thought for years.  It was written in the same weekend as our song California, which also started out much slower than it's ended up. At around xmas last year I was going though all the various songs that we'd sketched, recorded, or finished, trying to get a feel for what was going to make up our album.   Because I've started writing an...

We are pleased to be a part of the opening of Vancouver Creatives Two which will be held at Make Gallery , starting June 4th until July 3rd 2015. A few months back Bastien and Virginie of VNB took a glorious portrait of Isabelle in her store, using an antique box camera.  We had a wonderful time meeting them and the shoot itself was quite illuminating.  As you can see from the poster above they have photographed several really interesting and inspiring people from around Vancouver, and it's quite an honour to be included in the exhibition. An added bonus to our meeting VNB is they have asked us to perform at the opening party!  Combine the Victorious will be playing two sets on June 4th amid all the stunning photos: 7:30 and 9:00.   Admission is free and the doors open from 6-10PM. Vancouver Creatives Two MAKE Gallery 257 E. 7th Ave Vancouver BC 6-10PM Live music at 7:30 and 9:00 Free admission, open to the public.   photograp...

We are getting closer and closer to finally finishing our new album.  Back on my birthday we had a listen through to nine out of the ten songs that'll be on the collection.  This little instagram clip is a tiny section from one of the last songs we'll be finishing, Recharge .  You can hear the guitar playing of our friend Don Harrison over the repurposed drumming of Jesse Smith (I grabbed song of his drumming from a song off our debut album The World Over and built a new groove over top).   It's quite an ambient and funky thing we've created and should fit in nicely between the more traditional dance rock tracks and the electro-disco vibe of the others.  Check out it. A video posted by Mark Henning (@boutiqueempire) on Mar 19, 2015 at 9:45pm PDT

Well, we've been working for months now and the album is finally taking shape!  So far we've decided on at least seven songs that will be for the vinyl version.  They are in no particular order: Stand in Front of Tanks It's Still On Hardly Spoken Caught Up to You California'15 Best Tonight Real Life Turns Me On Some of these songs we've written on our own but several have been collaborations with old friends and new.  We can list Ingrid Schroeder, Barry Flynn, Stefan Sigerson, Jordy Birch, Justin "Juice" Kadis, Misty Reid, Leigh Grant, Don Harrison amongst our writing partnerson this album.  It's been really interesting comparing the results of each collaboration, as the songs are all playing together quite nicely. I think we still have a couple really long and hard vocal sessions for the rest of the material we're considering, and there are still so many ideas that we've started in the past that have only reached an ver...

As we approach finishing our new album the thoughts of touring are arising.  We are currently looking for someone to help us book a west coast tour, as well as assistance with radio tracking and press. If you are interested in working with us, please contact me here: mark@combinethevictorious.com Thanks!  A couple more new tunes almost finished, getting close. Mark

We had an amazing start to the new year with our performance at eatART: Ascension 2015 .   A Sold Out party at their splendidly decorated warehouse in East Van; we played a 55 minute set right at midnight to 500 eager dancers! We even opened with Auld Lang Syne sung thru the vocoder.  A blinding time!  Big Cheers and thanks to everyone who organized the event, and bigger love to the well attired party people! ---- Recording tonight: c otup2u.     things are all bleedin' comin' together!  * *" Dondylion "

We have used our new instrumental as the backing music to a new clip promoting Isabelle's shop here in Vancouver.   Stand in Front of Tanks seems to go along with knitting wool! Isabelle Dunlop Clothing 4158 Main St, Vancouver Hours: Weds-Sunday 12-6 e-mail: isabelledunlop@gmail.com --- If you are in the mood for some new music, this Sunday Combine the Victorious will be performing at the Reef Restaurant just three doors down from the clothing store.  We will be trying out another new song as well as testing our set for the show at the Hindenburg on December 18th.   Happy Xmas! M

We will be performing live at The Reef, 4172 Main St, Vancouver, this coming Sunday, November 9th and the second Sunday of each month following.  We're going to be trying out new songs, as well as reworking tracks from our last releases.  Come in out of the rain and warm up at with us as we prepare songs for our next album.  It's a great vibe.

We are joining The Vaporettos on their debut show at the Backstage Lounge this Wednesday, March 26th.  Isabelle and I have written a brand new set that features two new songs and some very electrified versions of recent tracks. We'll be closing the night, so please join us early to catch The Salvos open.  Only 8 bucks! See you Wednesday at the Back Stage Lounge. fb invite

We had a great show on Sunday night performing at VALT2013 in the Centre for Digital Media.  The new five piece band, including Leigh Grant (former drummer of 90's alt rock band Pure ), sounded incredible.  I don't think we've sounded better in fact.  Here's just a few photos that have made their way to us from the show.  We had a digital media artist running extra images for us during the gig, which none of us actually saw while we were on stage, but in fact made for quite an interesting looking event! Thanks to Michelle Harding for sharing her photos with us!  

In the excitement of the past couple weeks with our live shows at the Rio Theatre and VALT2013 we almost missed our video Smoke and Choke passing 10 000 views on a music blog site called Totally Fuzzy last week. It's an interesting landmark, ten thousand views, and makes us wonder who is watching our clips, and from where!  You may enjoy all the videos they've collected on the site, click here for check it out . In the mean time, if you haven't seen the Stefan Sigerson directed video yet, please watch it in high definition via  the Boutique Empire Youtube channel.

Combine the Victorious is performing as part of VALT2013 (Vancouver Alternative Fashion Weekend) alongside Sex With Strangers, Dark Arps, House of Barnes, and featured designers: Maggie Fu, Avant-Afi, Boring Sidney Hats and Headresses, Mitmunk, Carolyn Bruce,and Laura Jackson.  Event starts at 6PM, Combine will be playing at 8:30.  577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver.  Tickets $20.   Event link here:   Facebook Event  

We just had a wonderful performance at the Rio Theatre here in Vancouver this past Thursday night. We were invited to perform the release party for Katrin Bowen 's comedy " Random Acts of Romance ". While it was a little different to be following a movie as an opening act, it turned into a very enjoyable experience! Combine the Victorious performed for the first time since 2007 as a five piece. Another first was Leigh Gran t, the original drummer from 90's alt rock band Pure, joined us to complete our sound. With Juice on Guitar, Misty on Bass, Leigh on Drums, me on keys and running Ableton, Isabelle even picked up a little keyboard for one new song:  we never sounded better. The set was succinct and powerful, very dance oriented and quite satisfying. Here are a few photos taken from Chuk Foto's instagram page. More will surface before the weekend's out I'm sure, but I really wanted to share some today, it was such a good night1 We play...

We are really excited about the pair of shows we have coming up next month.  The first is at the Rio Theatre on November 14th and the Second is part of the Vancouver Alternative Fashion Week on November 22nd. Thursday November 14th we will be performing the commercial release party for the comedy film "Random Acts of Romance"  directed by Katrin Bowen.  The movie has done really well at festivals over the past many months and they are now looking to give it a formal domestic release.  Even though we didn't get our song "Crumbling Hearts" completed on time to get it onto the soundtrack, Katrin has been a great supporter over the past year and has offered us this wonderful gig.  We checked out the Rio Theatre on Saturday and both Isabelle and I are really keen on playing there.  Nice big stage in a very comfortable theatre. Friday November 22nd Combine the Victorious will be a part of Vancouver Alternative Fashion week. We will be performing at the Centre...

We're taking a bit of time off writing and recording the new album so Isabelle can run her first ever Gastown Pop Up store.  She's taken over the Tait store at 330 W. Cordova St from Sept 1st thru Sept 5th.  We set up the shop on Saturday night and had a fun night with friends trying on her designs and rearranging the shop.  Check out Isabelle's blog to see her creations:   isabelledunlopblgospot.ca As an added spot of fun we are also going to be performing an in-store show, where we'll debut one new song and reinterpret a couple favorites off Crumbing Heart s .  It's been a unique learning experience to reduce the arrangements down to just an acoustic guitar, and even more fun to explore the sounds you can create using an iPhone for accompaniment.  Might be our most succinct sound yet!   If you are downtown Vancouver on Thursday night cram in with us (it's a nice cute little place) and share a glass of wine, look at the rema...