Fridays at Maxx Fish used to mean Top 40 dance tunes and mainstream hip-hop straight from the turntables, but events tonight and next Friday show a different direction for the basement bar in the heart of Whistler Village.
Vancouver jazz quartet The Apollo Programme takes the stage tonight promising a diverse set of everything from traditional jazz to prog rock. And next week’s Naked City Sessions will be an evening of live original electronica created onstage by Vancouver producer duo Almeida/Tennant and accompanied by dynamic visuals and go-go dancers.
Who: The Apollo Programme
When: Friday, Jan. 30
Tickets: $5
Apollo Programme bassist Cory Curtis will be a familiar face to anyone who has stopped by one of La Bocca’s chill-out Liquid Jazz Thursday evenings.
But when Curtis takes the stage downstairs at the Fish tonight it will be as part of a quartet of his fellow Capilano College music students for a wild night of improv-fuelled anything goes.
The band draws influences from a mixed bag of everything progressive: the progressive time signatures of stand-up bass master Dave Holland to the driving prog rock of the 1970s.
"There’s a good chance we’re going to cover some Yes, some Rush, some ELO," says Curtis.
The band is even known to rock out the odd surf guitar tune.
"We can, that’s the thing," says Curtis. We throw it all in. Sometimes we play surf, some times we do straight ahead jazz, some times we do really rock-edged jazz, sometimes we bang out a Led Zeppelin cover. It all depends on what the crowd wants."
Catch The Apollo Programme tonight at Maxx Fish. For more information call 604-905-0636.
Who: Almeida/Tennant
What: Naked City Sessions
When: Friday, Feb. 6
Tickets: $10-$15
Next Friday’s Naked City Sessions at Maxx Fish promises to be less a performance than a multi-sensory experience.
Vancouver producer team Ricardo Almeida and John Tennant will create their driving brand of progressive tech-house music live onstage without the use of computers or turntables. Warming up the evening will be Vancouver underground DJ James Allen and Whistler’s own master of the house track DJ Milton.
The aural experience will be accompanied by visuals from a trio of projectors, a magician, a tarot card reader, a crew of go-go dancers, a hot-rocks massage therapist and a fire-dancing performance outside the club.
Plans are also in the works for models to circulate during the evening, body painted with a sky-scraper motif – hence the reference to the "Naked City," and the reason Almeida/Tennant’s performance is billed the Naked City Sessions.
Advance tickets for the event are $10, available exclusively at Bestsellers, with the price raising to $15 at the door. The six VIP booths in the club will also be open for bookings for parties of six to eight people for $100 - $200.
For more information call 604-938-1235.
