Who: Mindil Beach Markets
When: Saturday, July 17, 8 p.m.
Where: Oceanport Hotel (Squamish)
Cost: $10 in advance, $12 at the door
A typical day at the beach usually involves a few staples: a cooler of chilled, illicit wobbly pops (a.k.a. beers), the scent of sunblock, a good book and some laidback tunes you can unwind to. So it makes sense that a reggae rock group, Mindil Beach Markets, has been tapped to headline Squamish's upcoming Beach Bum's Ball. They'll be playing original "everyman anthems" like Drink Up and Working Man Blues.
In fact, summer seems to be this band's season to shine.
"I haven't really sat down and thought about it too much, but I think our music does kind of have a real summertime vibe to it," Rod Campbell said with a laugh. "But hopefully we'll have some songs you can listen to in the winter, too."
The five-person group hails from Victoria and features front men Daniel Kingsbury "DK" and Pat Codere on guitars and vocals, Matt Posnikoff on bass and guitars, Campbell on keys and vocals and Cam Ainslie on drums.
Late last week, the band was in the midst of gearing up for back-to-back nightly performances as part of the annual Victoria Ska Festival, which featured Fishbone as a headliner. They were to play alongside two very well known groups from New Zealand, The Black Seeds and Katchafire, who coincidentally just played to a packed house at the GLC.
"Those are basically the number one and two reggae bands in New Zealand right now, so we're super stoked," Campbell said. He added that Mindil Beach Markets would like to travel to New Zealand to tour some day.
Just over a year and a half ago, the five joined musical forces and started Mindil Beach Markets with a very loose vision in mind. All from the Sunshine Coast, these musicians kept crossing paths on projects before finally setting up shop in Victoria.
"We kind of went into it not really having a sound that we wanted to make," Campbell explained. "We all come from really different musical backgrounds and really have our own influences and it kind of just came to be what it is."
Campbell and Ainslie are classically trained pianists, though Ainslie briefly dabbled in what Campbell calls "semi-screamo." DK came from a more reggae and folk-inspired background, while Codere and Posnikoff are self-taught musicians who were more into the '90s grunge scene. A motley crew, indeed. But their diverse musical tastes make their road trip game of "Pass the Pod (iPod)," very interesting.
They work collaboratively and independently on writing tracks, bringing any works in progress to the table to get feedback and suggestions from their band mates. And more often than not, the finished product ends up far different than the originator imagined.
They named the group after an Australian community, a place that one of their members called home for a while.
"We couldn't decide on anything and (Codere) had this song called Mindil Beach Market, and I loved the song and think a lot of us did - it's a love song," Campbell explained. "And that name sort of just really struck a chord with us, no pun intended."
Though the group is still in its infancy, they've already played alongside some pretty established West Coast groups: Hey Ocean, Current Swell, Wassabi Collective and Goodbye Beatdown.
"It's pretty exciting to be able to play with these big bands. We actually just opened for Nazareth the other day, which is kind of crazy," Campbell laughed. "...There were a lot of people there and it was a different crowd than we're used to playing to, but the people liked it!"
Members of Mindil Beach Markets seem to be adapting to the somewhat frantic touring lifestyle pretty well, so far.
"It is a big adjustment. A few of the guys have had to totally leave their jobs, which is big because now the band has to start paying for their food and that kind of thing. It takes a lot of organization just to go play three shows on the road in a row.
"So it's going well," Campbell reflected. "We all get along really well; we're in one, giant five-man marriage, basically."
They're working hard on their first album, which should be released in early September. They also have plenty of gigs lined up for the summer, including this upcoming show in Squamish.
Dubbed The Beach Bum's Ball, the show is the second monthly themed concert organized by the Oceanport Hotel and SquamishMusicLive.com.
"Throughout the summer the bands chosen to perform as part of this collaboration will have a reggae feel to keep in sync with the summer season," organizer Paul Hudson explained in an e-mail. "Moving into the fall we have booked more funk and world-influenced music into the mix. Regardless of music style, the main focus of these themed concerts is to make you want to dance non-stop till the lights come on."
In a relatively short time, Mindil Beach Markets has gained a reputation for putting on a solid, upbeat and high-energy live show.
"We've tried to - in the past and today, as well - bring some guest musicians on stage. We've got a couple of horn players that are going to play with us today, and we've done this thing with this... really talented scratch DJ from the Sunshine Coast."
But first and foremost, they're having fun on stage, which is something the audience can clearly see.
"It's nice when people are rockin' out to their own shit, so to speak."
And this probably won't be the last we see of the Mindil Beach crew - they're hoping to come back to join in the LIVE at Squamish action over the Labour Day weekend, performing on the SERF stage. Anyone interested in checking out this weekend's show can get a sneak preview of their sound by visiting www.mindilbeachmarkets.com/freemusic.
