Victorious Combinations

We are really excited to be playing the Fox Cabaret this Thursday night.  We'll be opening the night for headliners Sex With Strangers album release party.  Also on the bill is a favourite band of ours ACTORS and War Baby.  2321 Main Street, doors at 8.  Combine the Victorious is on a 8:30, plus it is a FREE SHOW!  So there are no reasons not to attend.  It will be a great night of music, without a doubt. Isabelle and I are keen to try out a brand new song for this show.  We both feel as though it might be the first single from our next album and there's nothing like playing a song live to get a feeling for how it works.  Of course we'll also be performing some of our strongest songs off the Crumbling Hearts ep as well, though we've given each of them a little special update to make everything feel fresh and exciting. If you are reading this and possess a camera capable of taking decent video footage we'd love for you to come down and film the...

Thursday, May 29th 2014 at the Fox Cabaret, 2321 Main Street Vancouver. We'll be opening for Sex With Strangers who are celebrating their fifth full length release " You Know Something We Don't? " Also on the bill are Actors, War Baby and Combine the Victorious.  We'll be opening, so please make sure to get down there for 8:30.  Plus, the added bonus for this event, it is FREE! Doors at 8PM Combine the Victorious 8:30 War Baby 9:15 Actors 10 Sex With Strangers  11 This is going to be an amazing night, get there early because it's going to be packed! fb event.

Just wanted to say what a great time we had performing as part of A Change of Frequency this past Friday at the Chapel Arts.  The whole night was a pleasure, with several good bands, a lovely atmosphere and all falling on our pal Todd Simko's birthday (May 2nd).  Todd would have been 48 this year. This was the second show Isabelle and I have played as a duo again and it went really well.  Our set opened with our version of the Calvin Harris song " Feel So Close " and then  progressed through an updated version of Crumbling Hearts, California, an electricfied version of Brotherhood that I think we're going to include on the upcoming album, and closed with Glasgow .  The response was incredible from the audience and I think it may have been the best we've ever performed a couple of those songs. After our set our friend Jordy Birch played a couple stripped down Guilty About Girls songs (and I snuck onto stage to accompany him on the drums). The rest of the ...

I had a lot of fun this past Friday in Bank Vault Studio with former Pure bandmates Jordy Birch and Leigh Grant .  It was the first time since 1994 when we were recording Generation Six Pack that the three of us have all been together in a recording studio!  Leigh came downtown to put down some drum tracks on four Combine the Victorious songs with Jordy helping out with production. The day began as it must, in a music shop.  We picked up a rental kit from Tom Lee after a nice perusal of the Steinway piano room upstairs.  It's an understatement to say it's pretty nice playing on a nine foot grand!  Anyway, we grabbed a kit and went to the Bank Vault and quickly set up.  Leigh is probably even better than he was back in Pure days, he locked in with the songs effortlessly and has really given everything a great burst of energy.  After hearing a couple of these songs for almost a year with programmed drums it was liberating to hear a human take on the...

I've just spent the past week working on a new song called The Best Tonight .  It was built on the back of another song we wrote last year called Overtime .  Recently we'd cut a version of Overtime with Jordy Birch producing, and even though he pushed us to get a great vocal performance, after the glow of studio excitement faded the song just seemed to lacking something.  The recording was great but the song itself seemed to lack that little spark it needed to make it important. So, while I was attempting to "fix" the original song a new song started to appear from the work, a better song actually.   The Best Tonight is kind of a story song, our story.  It happened quite naturally, and was initially effortless to get down on tape.  However, like so many other tracks in our history, under the sober light of day I felt a bit uncomfortable with the very literal vibe to the lyrics and we set about trying to rewrite them.  It's taken all week but I thin...

Isabelle and I are feverishly working to complete the recording of our next full length album.  So far we've compiled over thirty five different song ideas, but more keep arriving with each session.  This past week we played out first show as a duo since we got back from Europe in 2012.  It went extremely well, though of course the energy was different from when the band performed as a four or five piece.  The extra room sonically allowed us to really explore the electronic side of our sound, and of course inspired another way to present our material. As it looks right now we'll be including a few re-imagined songs from previous releases amid the new material, all to be put onto vinyl for the final release.  We've been speaking with Boutique Empire artists Robert Edmonds about the art work and we're quite excited to see what he creates for the album. So much to do!  Gotta get back into the studio. Thx for reading Mark

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