Main Stage

1:00 - All Purpose
1:55 - Sandy Scofield Trio
2:45 - Dope Poets Society
3:40 - Children of Takaya
4:30 - Doundounba
5:15 - Little People’s Parade
5:30 - Euphrates
6:15 - Keynote: Ward Churchill
6:50 - Clann Zu
7:45 - The Gossip
8:45 - CyberRaj

 

Ward Churchill

"From land issues to culture, government repression to genocide Ward Churchill has carved out a special place for himself in defending the rights of oppressed people, and exposing the dark side of past and current history, often forgotten, marginalized, or suppressed. These are achievements of inestimable value." - Noam Chomsky

Ward Churchill (Keetoowah Band Cherokee) is one of the most outspoken Native American activists and scholars in North America. In his lectures and numerous published works, he explores the themes of genocide in the Americas, historical and legal (re)interpretation of conquest and colonization, literary and cinematic criticism, and indigenist alternatives to the status quo. He is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado/ Boulder. He is also co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement, vice chair of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council and a past national spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

Churchill is one of the world’s foremost experts on indigenous peoples and their struggles in the Americas. In many of his works, he exposes the current state of Native America, tracking the effects, causes and consequences of 500 years of wars, broken treaties, duplicity, exploitation, environmental degredation, genocide and colonization – essentially “life in occupied America” (in the words of John Trudell).

“Whatever happens to us, ultimately happens to everyone else...It’s self preservation and survival for you, just like it is for us. So you need to take a look at our resistance, and you need to support our resistance, not because you think in some abstract way that our resistance is just and correct, but because our resistance is your resistance in the end. If we lose, you’re lost. To the extent that we win, you have a chance. Don’t do us any favors, do it for yourselves....Indian struggles for land, life and liberty, are the same everywhere. Every square inch of land that Indians can maintain control of, or regain control of, is one less inch of land the predatory process that consumes you, along with us, can affect.” - Ward Churchill, from the CD “Life In Occupied America”.

Churchill has also written extensively about the FBI and COINTELPRO, providing extensive analysis of the agency’s repression of the left. From the Communist Party in the 1950s, to the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement in the 60’s and 70’s, to the Central America solidarity movement in the 1980’s, to the recent war on terrorism, Churchill illustrates the continuity of the FBI’s systematic oppression. In his most recent book, “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality,” Churchill meticulously chronicles U.S. military campaigns – both domestic and foreign- from 1776-Present. In this book, Churchill demands that the American public shake off its collective unconscious and take responsibility for the criminality carried out in its name.

A prolific writer and lecturer, Churchill has authored, co-authored or edited more than 20 books, including “A Little Matter Of Genocide: Holocaust And Denial In The Americas”, “Since Predator Came: Notes From The Struggle For American Indian Liberation” and “The COINTELPRO Papers”.

We are incredibly honoured to present Ward Churchill as our Keynote Speaker for our 15th Anniversary Festival. Special thanks to First Nations Student Association at SFU for their support in bringing Churchill to Vancouver.

Dope Poets Society

Dope Poet Society is one of the most consistent and compelling groups ever to emerge from T.O.’s hip hop scene. Lead vocalist Professor D, is able to grab the mic anywhere and spit from his seemingly unlimited arsenal of lyrics. Belladonna delivers her rhymes with a unique flavour that is hard-hitting yet immensely poetic, and DJ Spinister holds down the crew by cutting & scratching self-produced beats. For their UTV performance they will bejoined by their affiliate The Red Menace. The Red Menace is a follower of Chuck D and Trotsky, Gil Scott- Heron and Huey P. Newton and is an MC whose mandate is to add his voice to the struggle.

The group have performed internationally in places such as Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Cuba (where lead vocalist D. Sajnani was featured on Cuban national TV and shared the stage with Fidel Castro). They regularly lend their name to political events, such as Coalition Against Police Brutality and the World Economic Forum (both in NYC), Days of Action student protests, Toronto anti-Iraq War rally and others. These hip hop heavyweights have opened for De La Soul and Dead Prez, performed onstage with Wyclef Jean & Brand Nubian and toured, recorded and performed with the great Public Enemy. Chuck D. has gone on record, citing the Dope Poet Society as the number one independent hip hop group in the world. They have released three critically acclaimed CD’s, including the 2001 EP “911 World Trade,” which was a response to the 9/11 attacks, and which attracted attention to the group’s strong anti-war stance. Their latest single “War On Terrorism” is a piercing critique of America’s war on Iraq, and is the perfect antithesis to all the bling-bling, misogynist hip hop ruling the charts.

Aboubacar Camara & Doundounba

Aboubacar Camara is a performer native to Guinea, on the Western coast of Africa. He spent 16 years performing and training with professional dance troupes, touring Africa and Europe, before being invited by Juno award-winner Alpha Yaya Diallo to join the latter’s group in Canada as a dancer, choreographer, and musician.

He now leads his own group, Doundounba, who perform West African amasumbou music - a mingling of musical traditions - including ancient Guinean rhythms and popular West African dance-driven melodies of mandeng guitar. Their instrumentation is equally diverse, incorporating the balafon (xylophone), djembe, doun doun (bass drum), kirin(slit log drum played with sticks), and gongoma (gourd) alongside electric guitars and bass and a drum kit.

Many of Aboubacar’s original lyrics promote qualities such as kindness, unity and joy; and others make inquiries into the human condition and the challenges that face a diverse society. This range and excellence in African music make Doundounba’s sound standout in the World Music community. Their compelling presentation and the vibrant atmosphere they create make this group one you won’t want to miss!

Euphrates

“A cultural heritage will always travel with refugees and, in Canada, young Iraqis are finding inspiration in their musical roots. A new group, Euphrates, is trying to educate Canadians about Iraq by way of musical fusion. Hip hop and rap are blended with ancient Iraqi tunes to shatter imagined Arab stereotypes.” – BBC

Born in the United Arab Emirates, and having lived half of their lives in Montreal, these hip hop heads of Iraqi origin communicate their life experiences through their music. Blending Middle Eastern melodies with hard polyrhythmic drums, Euphrates found a formula that spoke to their people. The result was their first single entitled, “The Letter” the group’s response to the first Gulf War in the form of an audio letter to the president of the U.S. Euphrates is not only the voice of a young generation of Arabs, but of all disenfranchised youth.

Recently they have been featured on CBC television and radio, in numerous print publications, and have been working hard in the Montreal underground hip hop scene. In collaboration with The 9th Majesty Family, a collective of Montreal hip hop artists, the members of Euphrates have been bringing their sounds, ideas, and politics to the forefront of the movement. Their full length album “A Bend In the River” was released in 2003, and is a scathing political commentary on post-911 anti-Arab racism and the effects and consequences of both wars against the people of Iraq. This album goes beyond simply being “an album,” it is in fact, an audio protest, one which represents the group’s political analysis in a succinct fashion. We’re honoured to have the opportunity to work with and present this powerful and important musical force at our 15th Anniversary. www.euphrates.ca

Children of Takaya

Tsleil-Waututh Nation Annual Performance

For the past 15 years, Under The Volcano has been honoured to have members of the George family attend the Festival. We are very pleased to, again, have their participation at our annual event which takes place on the traditional territory of their Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Our relationship with the Nation began in 1990, when Chief Dan George’s son, Bobby George, was invited to be a speaker by the Festival’s founder Irwin Oostindie. In 1993, Chief Leonard George presented us with a welcoming address and went on to become a festival mainstay.

Children Of Takaya perform their traditional dances and songs, and this is a vital opportunity for settlers in their traditional territories to access their vibrant Coast Salish heritage. Vancouver and suburban municipalities are very young, but the land which these settlers occupy has been used by the Tsleil-Waututh (Peoples of the Inlet) for thousands of years. We extend our gratitude to the members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation for allowing us use of their lands at Whey-ah-Wichen (Cates Park) and for their continuing support of the Festival.

Clann Zú

Clann Zú was born in 1999 in Australia, coming together from various musical backgrounds - punk, rock, folk, electronic & classical- and armed with a desire to make music without boundaries. The band createS beautiful, dark melodies ranging from the intimate and sparse to the huge and dramatic, while the bilingual vocals (Irish and English) of Waterford-born Declan de Barra are intense and passionate. His lyrical themes run from dispossession, cultural reclamation and resistance, to hopelessness and desperation.

“The band work so well together it is frightening. They are sickeningly talented. I reckon they create the same level of intensity and violence of sound that Godspeed You Black Emperor do, but in an entirely different manner. Clann Zú rake strips from your soul.”
-Beat Magazine, Melbourne

After the release of their self-titled EP in 2001, Clann Zú relocated to Dublin in early 2002 to complete their debut album Rua. After Rua’s release, which garnered them rave reviews internationally, the band spent the year playing shows around Ireland, and then re-released the album in Canada on G7 Welcoming Committee Records. In 2003, the band returned to Australia to write their second album, the recently released masterpiece “Black Coats & Bandages,” also released by G7. Clann Zú are the rarest of bands: refusing to follow the path of least resistance, they instead charge forward with their politics firmly in hand. In this case “quiet really is the new loud”, and this is, in fact, a soundtrack for the revolution. We welcome the band to our Mainstage – one member travelling all the way from Ireland, and the rest from Australia.

CyberRaj

CyberRaj is the result of a desire to bridge electronic-based music with classical Indian music. Paul Pahal’s history with the Anokha and Outcaste crews out of the UK have made him a leading figure in the Asian Underground scene in Vancouver. The other half of CyberRaj, Stefan Cihelka, began his Tabla studies in 1993 under the guidance of the great Ustad Allarakha Khan and his two sons, and has focused the last ten years of his life on the study of North Indian Classical Music and the art of Tabla. Pahal and Stefan met while Pahal was producing shows in Vancouver for DJ’s and musicians from the UK, US and India.

CyberRaj is a collective or ‘Massive’, with Paul and Stefan being the main musicians, and others joining them for particular performances. For their performance at UTV, they have the pleasure of adding Sheinagh Anderson as vocalist. Sheinagh has a wide palette of vocal styles from around the world and has toured internationally with Cirque Du Soleil. She has also been nominated for a Jessie Award for her work in a theatrical production entitled Tales of the Ramayana. We are excited to have CyberRaj as the closing act on our Mainstage!

All Purpose

All Purpose is about rhythm and unity. These funky felines play original groove-BASSed music for moveMEANT. The band contains a rhythmatic blend of organic street beats, two warm, round, tasty five string basses, purr-cussion, woodwind details, magical sounds and sweet vocal harmonies. BAssfuly blessed, All Purpose is “true to we” music from the heart.

 

 

Sandy Scofield

Sandy Scofield is a Metis (of Saulteaux and Cree descent) artist/composer whose most recent release, “Ketwam,” won the 2003 Western Canadian Music Award in Aboriginal music, and Best Folk Album and Best Production in the 2003 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. Sandy has performed at events such as the Vancouver and Winnipeg Folk Music Festivals, Edmonton’s Dreamspeakers International Aboriginal Festival, Seattle’s Bumbershoot and the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards at Toronto’s Skydome, and has opened for artists such as Buffy Ste. Marie and Buckwheat Zydeco.

As a singer-songwriter, Sandy is a complex person who, at one moment, can sing delicate, satiny pop creating a cracked and broke-down scenario, and in another can boldly harness robust rhythm, blues and rock. Like a transforming trickster, Sandy uses melody and beautiful harmonies to carry weighty messages. Today she’ll be joined by Kym Gouche & Brenda Hanson.

The Gossip

For those not in the know, you better get ready to shake some serious ass when this band hits the stage. The Gossip are a swaggering throw down of hip-shakingly blooze punk fix, a party band for the revolution, a queer-positive call to arms - by way of the delta. They shank punk rock’s formalized cliche like a bar-room brawl. With their splashy, lusty percussion, their lone, downtuned guitar-howl and Beth Ditto’s pipes that hint more at sixties soul songstresses than the icons of Riot Girl, the band transcends elementary roots riot garage and injects it with a hefty helpin’ of Arkansas-bred gospel.

Although the trio’s inception in Searcy, Arkansas occurred five years ago, their musical pasts run deep - age four for Ditto, to be exact. “My brother played drums,” she drawls, “and I’d go stand in front of the drums and sing a song, just a madeup song. My mother realized that I was singing completely in key. She said that if I was gonna sing, she’d help me do it right.” Shortly thereafter Ditto started singing in choirs. Church choirs. School choirs. After Ditto happened upon feminism along with drummer Kathy Mendonca, they hooked up with guitarist Nathan Howdeshell, and The Gossip was born. “I had a really vague idea of what feminism was, but just knew that I wasn’t gonna wear dresses and play the flute.”

Revered in music scenes all over North America and Europe, and having released two critically acclaimed and much-beloved albums (the latest being “Movement” on Kill Rock Stars), we know that getting the Gossip for UTV was a coup! You can thank us by busting a serious move.