The Trash Gentlemen List - Vol. 5 - BreakOut West 2026

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This year in Victoria, fall was shaping up to be a weird one. See, there was this big festival – that we're not gonna name here – that used to take place every September and now that festival is gone. How were all the music homies going to reconnect after the summer? What is this new world where we don't come together to celebrate the end of summer, the start of fall and share in our love of music? Luckily for the denizens of the west coast music community, BreakOut West decided to take over Victoria for the first weekend of October and give us that proper communion space. When people are gathering to celebrate music, you know your Trash Gentlemen have got to be there. And be there we did. Not only did we get to connect with some incredible folks doing Big Things in the music scene (One of us more than the other, to be sure) but we got to take in an incredibly array of homegrown and international music spanning a dizzying array of genres and vibes. This instalment of The List celebrates the diverse musical community BreakOut West brought together. All the sounds here are different – country, metal, experimental jazz, rap, soul – but they're all connected by capital-Q Quality. Tap in and find something new for your ears.

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Mawu – Jairus Sharif

A new addition to BreakOut West and the Western Canadian Music Awards was The Meridian Prize. If you are aware of the Polaris Music Prize, then it’s similar in way that it celebrates the accomplishment of an album. The difference between the two prizes is that the Meridian Prize focuses on Western Canada, compared to the Polaris Prize that covers the whole country. It’s a fantastic addition as Western Canada has been the birthplace of so many incredible albums. The inaugural winner of the 2026 Meridian Prize was Calgary’s Jairus Sharif. His award-winning album, Basis of Unity, blends avant-garde jazz with ambient tones. For his performance, he played an improvised version of the album, which gave tastes of all the tracks. The whole performance moved me, but Mawu caught my attention. From the growing synth to moments of different sounds, whether they be drums, bells, or saxophone segments. I got the feeling of “Hope” when listening to this song and found myself tearing up to the project. That right there is what makes an award-winning album; an album that can make you feel things you didn’t know was possible.

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The Recommendation Suites, Vol.1/#1 - Station Model Violence "Station Model Violence"

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The Recommendation Suites Vol. 1/#1

This series is culled from recommendations given to me by friends, family, acquaintances, coworkers, fellow music dorks and casual fans alike. The only really prerequisite I give when fielding these recommendations is that it must be from this calendar year. All genres are welcome in the Recommendation Suites.

The album: Station Model Violence – Station Model Violence

The recommender: Daniel Makabe. Guitar player. Retired Wrestling Genius. Coffee enjoyer. Past answerer of 5 Questions with Rags.

This album is, quite frankly, fucking relentless. It's energy frantic and kinetic. Station Model Violence moves and moves and moves but not in a way that I often move – the effect is at times dizzying, terrifying and exhilarating. Often all three at once.

These songs move so relentlessly. (Less than 50 words in and I've used “relentless” twice. It really is the word that my mind keeps coming back to on every listen.) There's a joyousness that leaks and eventually bursts from these songs, but it's joyous that quickly feels poisonous, almost suffocating, every time because there is it leaves so little room to breathe. Take “Two Eyes For An Eye” - almost dirge-like, the song chokes out the listener with a plodding, methodical momentum, droning vocals and the most nakedly violent lyrics on the record. Instead of that methodical momentum continuing up to rising action, everything just kind of falls away, like stepping off a cliff, with only pulsing, looping guitar noises suspending you in the air. (Falling off a cliff is a feeling that permeates this album. There's even a song called “Cliffs.”) At first this feels like a reprieve from the earlier terror, but it moves like an inescapable fog. And a hot, stifling fog at that, not one of those nice early morning fall fogs that refresh the lungs. This is just an example. Every reprieve from the assault on this record ends up feeling like poison right into the ear canal.

There are little bits of sound, sonic flourishes that delight my ears in amongst the endless, thumping rage of this record. The saxophone at the end of opening track “Learn To Hate” is falling onto a cloud at the end of a death drop off a cliff. (Hey, it's that damned cliff again!) The weird noises at the beginning and end of “Drip Away” - what the fuck am I hearing? Are they fucked up bagpipes? Is someone playing a saw? Is it just cool guitar pedals doing their sound-mutating thing?

I'm glad I haven't been trying to put this into whatever genre box it technically belongs in. I don't really know about sub-genres of music, especially in rock. I don't have the patience to learn and really don't care. All I know is what is good and what I like. Station Model Violence is a really fucking good album and I like it a lot. It feels like a possible masterpiece of whatever genre it belongs on. The guitar tones are varied, piercing and excellent. The drumming is thunderous and very, very cool. I'm not entirely sure what's happening lyrically, but whatever is going on, it's brooding and passionate and affecting. I can't really tell you what these songs are ultimately about but there are numerous moments that catch me each listen. “I can taste the sun, I can taste the sun, I can taste the sun...” The guy singing kinda reminds me of Frank's mortician friend in Always Sunny In Philadelphia, so that's kinda fun too.

This isn't music I'd probably ever hear – let alone listen to multiple times through – if left to my own devices. Getting acquainted with Station Model Violence has felt very much like learning about, and ending up making friends with, someone you were kinda scared of when you first met. We might be on different paths, coming at life from very different ways, but we're cool now. “What? Who? Station Model Violence? That's the homie.”

I don’t think the vocalist in Station Model Violence has as dry a mouth as this guy though.

5 Questions with Rags #95 - Steven Bradley or "It's not hard to understand, just follow this simple plan"

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You always learn new things when you interview someone. Sometimes you even learn something incredible and shocking. If you don't learn something new, you're probably not a very good interviewer. But luckily, I am great interviewer, and as such, chatting in the First Met Hall in Victoria on the night where he would later win the 365 Combat Championship, Steven Bradley gave me two truly incredible and shocking facts.“I do not get free Old Spice,” says Bradley about his turn as a real-life Old Spice model. 'I do not get free Old Spice,' these words echo in my ears like a gunshot, months after this conversation took place. Bradley is far less concerned than I about the lost possibility of free Old Spice, quickly shifting the over to the overall positivity of the experience. “It was very strange. It was a very cool little side-quest I got to do. I was just at work and I saw an Instagram thing for a casting call for guys with good hair. I had already starting doing the mullet and I had the mustache going, so I thought, 'Yeah, I think I can do that.' It was so much fun and then seeing it and having people be like, 'Dude, I saw you in a commercial!'”

And after that, Bradley immediately drops another, far more shocking, truth bomb: “I’d never watched a match until January of 2022.” What the fuck, man. How was it possible that this hoss, this guy who was a 365 fan-favourite the moment he stepped into the ring, had seen his first wrestling match only four years ago?! “Almost every single person you see on the independent scene is like, 'I watched wrestling as a little kid. My dad took me to shows. I got to see all these superstars in the early 2000s.' I started watching wrestling in 2022, three months before I started training. My friends were watching AEW and they said, “We watch AEW on Wednesdays, wanna come watch? I watched it for two weeks and thought, 'Yeah I can do this. Those guys are athletic, freak athletes for sure, but they don’t look like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant or Brock Lesnar. They look more normal.'”

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The Trash Gentlemen List - Vol. 4 - SummerJam

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Sure, all seasons have music that fits them best, but we don't think any season has such a specific feel to the music that defines it like summer. And even though the feel of summer is specific, the sounds of summer are varied and expansive. Often connected to core sense memories, summer music is at once highly personal and widely communal, connecting us to ourselves and other people through sonic rapprochement. There's airy sense of fun, well-being and comfort that connects all our favourite summertime essentials we've included on this list and we hope that listening to this list brings you all of those feelings and more. Hopefully something on here connects and finds its way to your own summer playlists.

Sublime – Garden Grove

As an elder millennial male on the west coast, Sublime is just a part of my DNA, for better or worse. (I maintain that Sublime would be much less easy to make fun of if it wasn’t for the existence of ‘Date Rape’ and ‘Wrong Way.’ Ehhhh, maybe ‘Caress Me Down’ too. Okay, I may need to re-evaluate this theory after I finish writing this piece. But I digress…) I’m onboard for Sublime jokes all year around. They’re an incredibly fun, and easy, band to make fun of. The great Josh Gondelman once called Sublime a “Blacklight Che Guevara poster that you listen to.” But their importance in the millennial music pantheon is real. They exposed a lot of people to music they wouldn’t have otherwise heard. For all his faults, Nowell was an incredible songwriter, able to mine his personal depths and sing his findings in his unmistakably passionate voice. All this (possibly ill-conceived) Sublime-apologism aside, that held-string opening and simple drum beat into that unmistakable bass line usually signals the start of summer to me. This is not music I listen if the sun is not out. “Garden Grove,” like the self-titled album it comes from, has been a part of my lazy summers for close to three decades now and I don’t think it’s going to stop being part of the season any year soon.

Jerry Champion - It’s Summertime

There was a video series on a channel that shall no longer be named, where they would invite artists to play music from their vinyl collective. One of these episodes featured DāM FunK, and while every selection he made ended up being Shazam’d and saved, this song was an easy choice for this playlist topic. Originally released by Jerry & The Champions in 1984, only to later be re-released by Jerry Champion in 2000, It’s Summertime has a mesmerizing groove that draws listeners in. The guitar solo that comes in from time to time is next level and it’s a perfect way to break up the track's repetitive aspects. It pains me to know we can’t go back in time, but the 80s had the summer season on lock when it came to music.

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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).