 GPS, Backup Cameras, Automatic Brakes...who needs that when there's Soapbox Derby!? Despite the fancy gadgets and distractions that technology has to offer, flying down Stave Lake Road fueled only by gravity, the Soapbox Derby is a long time Mission tradition that still fulfills the need for speed and excitement. Being there, amongst the hay-baled lined roads and cheering on the grinning kids coming down the hill, there is a sense of family and comradery in the air. No matter how old this tradition is, the smiles on everyone's faces proves that good family fun never goes out of style.
  CIVL's Battle of the Bands series just completed it’s 5th season, and it’s second in conjunction with the formerly CRFC Radiometres funded Fraser Valley Music Awards (FVMAs) project. The awards themselves were originally conceived of as an addition to the original #CIVLBattle of the bands series, itself brought to us by the CRFC Radiometers program grant to hold CIVL’s first ever On Air Fundraising Drive in 2012-2013. Unique to the 2017 event is the fact that CIVL had no major financial funders or partners, and assumed the entirety of expense for this initiative, following a 2016 year when Radiometers funded the project with $50,000. CIVL did team up this year with Abbyfest, a multicultural festival that’s operated for over a decade in Abbotsford to reflect the diversity and richness of culture in the Fraser Valley. This event included a headlining arena performance in the evening on the same stage as the daytime FVMA proceedings, featuring Glass Tiger, Chilliwack and Sass Jordan. This year, CIVL had 42 diverse acts nominated in 13 musical categories. Approximately 2000 attendees visited the Abbotsford Centre for Abbyfest celebrations throughout the day from 10 am to 4 pm, with Fraser Valley Music Awards performances and presentations beginning just after noon. In addition to recognizing winners in 15 category, prizes have been allocated for the following: 1. The Stage in Mission, $4,800 in local gigs over the course of the next year to FVMA winners and nominees: Future Father Figures, Dear Father, Blessed, Pest Synapse, JD Miner, Hubbo, Casinos, Kenneth Kraylie, David Gogo, Steve Kozak, James Buddy Rogers and Patrick Jolicoeur 2. Vancouver’s NIMBUS School of Recording and Media offered 12 hours of studio recording/mixing, overseen by one of their professional supervisors to TestTubeBaby 3. Hope, BC based Connect Media is offering a winner social media management for two months + $400 towards advertising to Hubbo from the Hip Hop Category 4. 200 x 12” 140g Vinyl, Full Colour jackets and labels, dust sleeves and shrink wrap will be printed for a split release between You Say Party’s Stephen Carl O’Shea and Abbotsford’s The Sylvia Platters 5. Cassiar Media offered a free professional music video production package for the band Casinos. For this year’s #CIVLBattle, the second annual Dakota Leslie Memorial Live Performance of the Year Award, CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy made a surprise announcement, that each of the 5 performers present for the final round would receive a cash prize. Each of Western Jaguar, The WhiskeyJays, Corey Primus and Ben Cottrill will receive $250 cash, while the Molten Blues Band took home the $750 grand prize. This years’ #CIVLBattle featured events in Abbotsford, Mission, Aldergrove, and for the first time, Chilliwack as well. The following nominees also performed: Alexandra Salvador singing the national anthem, Brander Raven McDonald, Jada Klein, Ria Jade, Hope and Mamarudegyal MTHC, Kristin Witko, Little Evening, Dear Father , and Charlie Nam.
In addition to the above, CIVL took out a full page in Exclaim!, Canada’s only free monthly national music publication, as seen above.
This year, in addition to local aficionados like CIVL music director Audrey MacDonald and host Rabia Kamboj, Wide Mouth Mason singer/songwriter Shaun Verreault, Pat Steward (The Odds, Bryan Adams, Matthew Good), and Polaris Prize Grand Juror/CHUO-FM Ottawa station manager Erin Flynn all adjudicated submissions. Even Nashville, TN resident Steve Dawson weighed in on this years’ submissions. Many will remember him leading the Black Hen Houseband when Henhouse Studios was in Vancouver just a couple years ago. CIVL is incredibly pleased that the FVMA’s offered local musicians the opportunity to be heard and reviewed by successful, established musicians and music industry personnel across the continent. All in all, 20 nominees had an Abbotsford connection to the Fraser Valley, while 6 Langley Sites brought home nominations, 4 Chilliwackians , and 3 each went to Maple Ridgers , Burnabyites and Missionites (who all, incidentally, tie in the category for least exciting venery). Two nominees are Surrey based, and one each hail from Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam and Lake Errock . Only 10 2017 nominees were also nominated in 2016, and only two category winners (Saint Soldier, Hip Hop - Abb/Harpdog Brown, Blues - Surrey) repeated. 147 unique artists (representing ~500 individual musicians) applied for an FVMA, and 90 unique acts (~250 musicians) have been nominated over 18 months between this and the original Fraser Valley Music Awards. This year, CIVL also recognized a number of categories focused on bringing more diversity to the awards, and promoting inclusion to the music community as a whole. Asking artists to self identify their genre as well as their intersectionalities as community members, awards were made to recognize Excellence in Performance from artists who identify as the following: Queer Artist, Female Artist, Youth Artist and First Nations Artist. In all, CIVL contributed over $10,500 directly to artists in advertising, prizes, and cold hard cash, in addition to the approximately $10,000 of in-kind contributions solicited for prizes. CIVL’s goal is to continue growing the FVMA’s through BCGaming community grant funding, currently in process, but in the meantime, is ecstatic to promote the work it continues to do in connecting artists from throughout the Fraser Valley, and bringing them together to promote the wonderful work they do, while supporting their efforts moving towards the future. |
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