Victoria Ska & Reggae Fest - Reminding the world of the importance of community, through music.

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Thursday afternoon in Victoria’s inner harbour: clear skies, cool breeze off the water, and all the funky beats a music fan could ask for. As the warm sounds of Trippycals, a band fronted by siblings from Mexico, kicked off the first day of Ska Fest 2026, I realized how much I’ve come to love the festival, and its commitment to being first and foremost a festival about community. Trippycals were followed up by Alpha Centauri, a Canadian MC by way of Zimbabwe with a smooth flow and an even smoother backing band, and the festival was officially underway.

Alpha Centauri doing the damn thing. Photo courtesy FOTO (Filter Out the Ordinary).

Now entering its 27th year, the festival is as much a part of the fabric of a Victoria summer as tourists downtown or Canada Day fireworks at the parliament buildings. And how could it not be? With some of the most affordable ticket prices for a festival anywhere, the free inner harbour shows on Wednesday and Thursday, and a killer lineup of musicians from around the world, Ska Fest has something for everyone. Watching the crowd on Friday during Melafrique's incredible set (I really dug them. If you get a chance to check them out, do it!) and then Clinton Fearon's excellent reggae jams, it was like looking at a cross-section of the city – old folks rocking out, parents with their kids, teenagers, that one guy with the stuffed monkey who I've seen at every single Ska Fest I've attended – music lovers of all stripes represented.

Against All Authority basking in the power of musical communion. Photo from FOTO (Filter Out The Ordinary).

Saturday night at the curling club, as the thunderous sounds of Five Alarm Funk washed over the crowd, looking at the people around me, sweaty, joyful, alive, some of them friends, some strangers, all of us joined together in a singular experience, it served as a strong reminder that events like this are important, especially in the sometimes dire times in which we live. Tanika Charles singing about relationships in her inimitable voice is a thing everyone can understand, an experience that resonates with everyone. The Black Seeds came all the way from New Zealand, half a world away, but their music bridges that distance with ease.

I had at least three people reach out directly to tell me how much they loved Tanika Charles’ performance. Photo from the big dawg, FOTO (Filter Out The Ordinary).

This then is my review of the 27th annual Victoria Ska and Reggae festival: in this, the year of our lord 2026, music is important, the arts are important, shared experiences are important, community is important. If you can look at the person next to you and realize they too are rocking out to the same damn song you are, then you have recognized in them and in yourself your shared humanity, a thing as important now as it's ever been.

I had a glorious time.

But did have you as glorious a time as Thomas Towers? Probably not. Photo courtesy FOTO (Filter Out The Ordinary).

5 Questions with Rags #94 - Tanika Charles or "One step back, two steps forward"

It's human nature to think your relationship with someone is special. Like, no one else could replicate what the exact thing, the energy, that two entities create between themselves. While I'm sure that Tanika Charles and her music has made many connections with many cities, I like to think that the relationship between the powerhouse vocalist and my hometown Victoria is something truly special, as she returns to Victoria this summer to hit the Victoria Ska & Reggae Fest stage. “I just feel like the vibes are so special,” Charles reflects on her connection to the city I love and call home. “It's like I've known everybody and I'm friends with everyone. And I always just feel so welcome there. I feel like I wanna move there sometimes. It's just such a vibe and everybody's so willing to listen to new artists and enjoy their music. I can't describe it.” I know this relationship started for a lot of people in our city when she first graced the Ska & Reggae Fest stage, playing for the Wailers, in 2022. She returns to the festival on June 26, now armed with songs from her unbelievably powerful album released last year, Reasons To Stay.

Soul is a music seeped in emotion and feeling, but it feels like there's something heavier here. Something heavier than anything Charles has put on album before. Heavier than your average good soul record. It's feeling is heavy like a great soul album. Reasons To Stay is a soul album alive with the weight of a deeply examined heart, balancing the need to get everything out, while simultaneously never giving out too much. It's a goal Charles took at aim at while putting this album together, and you can feel all over this record. “Normally the content I write about is love, heartache, heartbreak – we've all experienced that. I wanted to approach this record, I wanted to speak about love but on a deeper level, on a different level. Loving myself through trauma, through being a child. Having to take care of my younger brother and still having to regulate who I am, during a very dark time in our lives. It took me a really long time to even want to talk about those subjects.
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1. What’s the first album you remember buying with your own money?
Paula Abdul – Straight Up.

Do you still listen to it?
I don't. But I remember I rinsed that album. So much so that I dragged my younger brother and my best friend at the time to perform Straight Up at a talent show at school. I just thought Paula Abdul was the shit. (Editor's note: This is a correct opinion.)

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The Trash Gentlemen List - Vol. 3 - Duos

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When we came up with the prompt for this playlist, there was no parameters apart from “duos.” That was it. So when the Trash Gentlemen sat down for our playlist build session we quickly realized that we had approached the content build completely differently with one culling tracks from one-off collaborations between artists and the other selecting from established, official duos. It doesn't really matter how or why artists get together, just that they are together. Mutual creation is one of the great joys of human existence. Honestly, so is mutual curation, hence the existence of the Trash Gentleman Playlist. As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy or maybe something to remember while you're sitting back listening to this one. Or driving your car listening listening to this one. Or riding the bus listening to this one. Or battling the police in a standoff listening to this one.

Hot Plate
Boldy James & Rome Streetz – Manhunt

This song was a late addition for me, mostly because it only released on 27 February 2026. However, this album hit me so hard that one of the tracks needed to find a place on this duos list. Boldy James, Detroit’s wordsmith, joining forces with New York’s Rome Streetz, feels like something we don’t deserve but we are very happy to receive. This isn’t the first time the two have worked together, especially since the two have very strong ties to the Griselda Records universe, but a full project from the two was unheard of until now. The project is incredible and it also includes a solo song from each of them. Hot Plate, one of the first official tracks on the project, stands out. Running at just over 2 minutes, Boldy and Rome go bar for bar throughout this very Griselda influenced beat. The two are lyrical geniuses, so you already know there is absolute heat when it comes to the picture these two paint on this song. Now I’m not greedy, but after this project, I need more. The chemistry from these two is on a whole other level and hopefully a tour of some sort comes from this.

I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells

I can’t believe White Blood Cells turns 25 this year. I remember someone leaving this album for me in my auto-downloads on Audiogalaxy (IYKYK) and being enraptured pretty quickly. On an album that’s basically no-skips, I can’t tell you exactly why “I’m Find It Harder To Be A Gentleman” was the first song that came to mind when I sat down with the DUOS prompt. I even gave the album a full re-listen before I put my selection in stone, just to make sure. But there it was, standing tall, at the end of my first full run-through of White Blood Cells in approximately a decade. Lyrically, the song definitely hasn’t aged entirely well. It’s rotten with woe-is-me views of relationships held by many a loser. Lousy with the infantile notion of CHIVALRY. But in the end it’s a just a helluva blues rock song written by a young guy who seems to have aged pretty well in the intervening years. I actually find it easier to be a gentlemen every day as I age, so maybe this song just makes me nostalgic for a time of the unearned selfishness youth.

Also, I really hope Meg White is having a good day, wherever she is.

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From the Front Row - Pro Wrestling Holland (PWH) - Rotterdam, NL - 14.03.2026

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I just got back from my honeymoon in Europe with my wife. As soon as we booked the tickets last summer, I started looking for some indie wrestling for us to see in one of the cities we were visiting and the promotion I kept coming back to was Pro Wrestling Holland (PWH). Luckily for us and our love of independent wrestling, PWH announced they were running a show in Rotterdam while we were scheduled to be in Amsterdam. Let me tell you friends, it was more than worth the day-trip to Rotterdam to see Pro Wrestling Holland in all its glory. What a fucking time.

You can absolutely cover up holes on in-ring product with great production and you can cover up lack of production with great in-ring product, but the sweetest space - shockingly! - is when an indie promotion has a high level of production that matches their incredibly high standard of in-ring action. And that sweet spot is exactly where PWH is. From the first entrance to the last bell, PWH delivered on seemingly every level I can think of as a guy who frequents small wrestling shows and has pretty strong opinions about what I like and don't like. (Saying this knowing that I am amenable to a much wider swath of what wrestling has to offer than a lot of my wrestling friends.)

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From the Front Row - 365 Pro Wrestling Recape - 27.02.2026

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I know that there are no guaranteed of 365 shows. You get a Front Row ticket or general admission ticket and it’s first come, first serve for seats. There are very few people who come and sit in the front row for every single Victoria show 365 throws, but the Front Row Crew does. At any given Victoria show, there is a group of crew members who will be there, cheering and buying things (Beer, shirts, 50/50 tickets). We’re almost always the first ones in the door, to get the SAME SEATS WE SIT IN EVERY SINGLE SHOW. So we were a tad rattled when we were once again the first people through the doors only to find that seats had been blocked off the middle of the row we call our wrestling home. Like, we still had seats and it was all fine in the end, but we weren’t able to sit together and it started our night on a pretty sour note. And while we got some good wrestling, the overall show was one of the most lacking 365 shows I’ve ever been witness to. It was a show where mic-time was equal to in-ring time. This one was NOT one for the sickos, as we say.

Katlin Smith vs Eddie Osbourne (c) – 365 Pro Wrestling Championship
Eddie comes out to a chorus of boos and “No More Beer” chants, fully embracing his heelness now. Katlin, a beloved member of the 365 family, came out fired up for this one. Before the bell rang Eddie once again pointed to the audience to pre-emptively blame us for the violence he was about to inflict. And inflict violence Eddie did. Osbourne hit Smith with deadlift jackknife powerbomb that hurt me watching it. Then he hit Smith with some chops that echoed through the halls of Valhalla. Katlin fought hard and got more offence in on the big man that anticipated, including a fucking lovely top rope clothesline. But in the end, Osbourne was just too overwhelming, finishing off Smith with his driver. Luckily for Smith, Eddie wasn’t in the mood to do that thing he does when he continues delivering drivers after the match ends.

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