Mikala

It’s wild to think that Cabaret Voltaire - from up t’North in Sheffield, UK, no less - have been around since the early ’70s. And what a tremendous influence they’ve had on post-punk, electronica, EDM, and industrial… oh my gods. And yet strangely, they never really cracked past the bedroom walls of us weirdos. @cabaretvoltaireband were noodling and playing around with their stripped, Dada-esque, clanging industrial sounds and visions into the late ’70s and, of course, through the ’80s, until they eventually disbanded in ’94. So this “final” tour, a mere 30 years after their last North American run, came as a surprise and hugely welcome gift. When I was in my teens in Toronto, there was a rad radio station called CFNY. On Friday nights, DJ Chris Sheppard used to play live to air from a club called RPM, and I always remember him spinning “Sensoria” by Cabaret Voltaire later in the set. Sometimes it felt like that song went on forever and seemingly took up half of the Maxell XL-IIS cassettes I was taping it on, but I hadn’t realized how much my dark, dancey heart actually wanted to hear it again, and live. CV is anti-handbag-House electronica (the favoured flavour in Vancouver 🙄) - gritty, elemental, with eerie samples, perfect for the goth club and yet… it makes you move, and there was a different joy hearing “Do Right,” “SexMoneyFreaks,” growly “Yashar” et al, for the first time in person - remodeled, remade, remembered. If you look at them through the today-lens of EDM, the music may feel bare…but you gotta use your TARDIS to cast your ears back to a time when “electronica” wasn’t really a thing, and they influenced almost everyone after. Like, I need you to understand: Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Severed Heads, Human League, Killing Joke and many more *all* cite CV in their origin stories. We, the people, old and cranky, with canes and walkers, bad backs, carpal tunnel syndrome and shot knees, all gathered at the Pearl on a Wednesday night, owe them a debt of gratitude. I’m grateful to have seen these sonic crusaders for this first - and last - time. Worth hauling my poor, huddled mass out for, indeed. 🤘🏼

Welcome to a world of woe. A world so terrible, and devoid of scritches, burdened with residual anger over the previous day in which a treasured pig’s ear was heartlessly snatched (and by trickery no less!) and now we find ourselves here. The tiny feral has ISSUES, apparently. Many, many ongoing issues worth watching to the end for. Frustrated? Same kid, same. @weratedogs #dogs #maltesechihuahua #doggo #dogsofinstagram

HENRIETTA? And a fish? I have not been very well. Meds that I take to make it easier for me get physically better have been giving me profound side effects. Also, a week ago I fell getting off the bus and my ankle just gave way - again. Hypermobile ligaments and proprioception and core ain’t strong enough and I smashed down on my already-very-damaged knees. Sprained my left ankle this time, re-damaged both knees. And because I have a nervous system disorder, it amplifies pain and physical anxiety. And that physical anxiety and pain causes me to hold my body in a perpetual clench-mode. That freeze response then causes other things to not work. It’s nearly impossible to exercise. Or even walk. It’s a neverending trap. And I haven’t been sleeping; I haven’t been writing, and work is survival mode. But this morning at 6:45am I grabbed my cane to go to the water because if #sunriseatsunsetbeach could save me before during Covid perhaps it can save me again. I hobbled a little further than normal for some reason. That reason was a head and two big-ass puppy eyes: HENRY! There by the seawall, as if waiting to say hello. I GLEE’D! Always pure joy. I am never too jaded not to care that I have seals (and recently, WHALES) at the bottom of my street. But then? What? Could Henry actually be Henrietta? Because I GASPED: a larger male suddenly surfaced, one of only two times I’ve seen two in the bay - must be spring, knoworrimean?, and HE WENT IN FOR A SMOOCH! Ahhhhhhhhj! 🥺 Then, as the women always do, she got breakfast ready. She wrestled a fish (another first), tail all slapping about. See, nature always knows what I need. I am grateful for the sea and my friends within it. Because I needed that, I really fucking needed that. 🤘🏼💕

Ran into this awesome local, @danmanganmusic , at Matt Berninger last week. Both equally great (and vulnerable, honest) songwriters, and I always dig seeing musicians turning up for other musicians. If you don’t know Dan’s music, look/listen him up. Been listening since 2011-ish when I ran into him in Portland during MFNW, and have been cheering him on from the sidelines since…though (weirdly) rarely run into him in town, so this was a lovely surprise. A fine fella indeed! Thanks for the chats, Dan! 🤘🏼

There must a German word for “Seen them many, many times since 2001, and it’s always the same but I keep going and it’s still a joy every time because few bands work harder at their schtick in the name of keeping the energy cranked to 11.” Stammgastseligkeit? Vertrautheitsjubel? Throwback to September 18 2025, getting sweated on by Swedes. Don’t go changing, @thehives , you’re perfect (and I know you won’t, anyway). #thehives #howlinpelle #howlinpellealmqvist

Amazing and incredibly unique night last night lying barefoot in @bloedel_conservatory next to parrots and posies and about 100 others with headphones listening to former biologist and musician Tarun Nayar @modernbiology101 plug into the energy of plants (Orchids! Wild ginger! Hyacinths! Golden shrimp!) and with his colleague Chris create the most literally alive ambient music ever. This event was an enormous undertaking to get the City to agree to, and it was just so, so lovely. Birds flew overhead, Valentine the Macaw played his own bells, Gidget behind us was fascinated with all these human-shaped weirdos at night, humidity dropped on our foreheads… and we relaxed into the literal bioelectrical sounds of live plant energy, imagining ourselves as plants in the midst of photosynthesis. 🌱🌾🪻🪴🪷 (The music here, btw, is from another event as this one was a “silent” event and this is how a Dahlia sounds solo, then they build it, layer it into more wooshy music going with its flow.)

A flashback, this time to Sept 14. People ask me, is it still the Buzzcocks if Pete Shelley isn’t there? And the answer is kind of? Yes and no. I mean, Pete Shelley was ✨magic✨and you can’t clone a person, or group, or time like that. You just can’t. Pure pop-punk perfection. I had a chance to meet Pete once in Barcelona, and I nearly fell over giddy. Walked into him in a lounge at our hotel… such a sweetheart. So when I stepped onto the boat for the Boaty Weekender music cruise from Barcelona (again!) to Sardinia, and the first person I ran into was… @stevediggleofficial from the Buzzcocks..it was, like, “whaaaat?” The @the_official_buzzcocks of today are not the Buzzcocks of yesterday, and that’s cool. The band’s still fierce, go full throttle live, and they can party with the best of ‘em (ask any of the Boaty folks!🤣) . And quite honestly, it’s GREAT to hear any of those songs again live, plus the new ones. More power to ‘em, their dials are cranked to 11. Go see, great fun. Steve and I befriended each other on the Boaty cruise (see last pic, we both grew out our greys in Covid 🤣🤣), but I hadn’t seen ‘em since, so when they came through with the Descendants last year at the Commodore, yunno I had to thrash up front. Backstage, we reminisced about the cruise, exchanged hugs (hiiii @mani_perazzoli !) and had a laugh at the absolute absurdity of “The Buzzcocks on a Boat” experience (alongside a bonkers mix of twee janglers, like Belle & Sebastian, and my pals @mogwaiband and @thedjangos ). On the boat, it was early days for the band’s reformation and Steve, bless ‘im, reassured me that Pete had actually told him he should continue the band whether he was in it or not. And that’s what Steve is doing, at 70, giving it all he’s got, plus some. Buzzcocks’ new album “Attitude Adjustment” is out January 30th. Long may they continue to rock. 🤘🏼

11 Years today. David Bowie’s Birthday. But also now officially the longest I have been with any partner. And that’s what he is - a partner. Friend to dogs, babies, 101-year old grandmas, and adults, he is the best, most caring, empathetic, silly goof I have ever loved. Happy 11th Anniversary, @badwolfvince , I love you!

On the shortest, darkest days of the end of the year, I flashback to a long, sunny summer weekend with my Northern BC sister, @amooseinmycabin , in Nanoose Bay, near Parksville. It’d been literal years since we’d seen each other in person, so a hot tub weekend in July with lots of alcohol, perfect weather, a sand castle competition, kite flying, catching up and the most delish vegan soft ice cream, was just what we both needed. Almost all of my besties live in other cities and that’s super fucking hard. But time away like this helps heal a person’s soul. Anita has a milestone birthday today, December 27, and I wish I could be there to celebrate with her but this was our early raising of glasses. Here’s to the good ones. They make everything better. Happy birthday, sister. ✨❤️🤘🏼

Deltron 3030’s self-titled album in 2000 was the mothafuckin’ bomb. How could it not be, considering it was a pivotal collab between (the most creative/talented human I know) Kid Koala, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Dan the Automator and countless others, including Damon Albarn, Prince Paul, Sean Lennon and, uh… him with the baritone from Crash Test Dummies. Today, they announced they’re celebrating with a 15-minute doc about the making of this classic (search “Making Deltron 3030” in YouTube), and are releasing a 4LP commemorative box set. So today, as I’m tryna get caught up on all my old posts, it seems like a fine time to throw back to July 18 at the Commodore Ballroom. I first saw Deltron 3030 in 2013, about six months after hanging with the kindest Kid Koala in Montreal. At that Commodore show, Koala threw me his AAA pass and I watched gobsmacked from the side stage. Got to watch Del teach himself to skateboard in the wings when he wasn’t on stage, and vibe with legends. Check out the last photo. Twelve years later, 2000 comes back 3030-style. An anniversary tour for *that* album, that fucking great album. So how happy was I? Giddy. And was the gig a bop? Always. Even with shoddy knees, I boogied down. Deltron Zero, a hero, SUCH a tremendous rapper. And to get a double dose of Kid Koala on turntables (as the opener and the main event) was a jam. I don’t know how he’s just so good at everything! And of course, I needed to recreate the first set of pics and remind Del of his early skateboarding training - stoned as hell, he broke into a big grin and laughed. Long live Deltron 3030, who, I should also add…are also working on a new album. Hell yeah. All. Systems. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 🤘🏼 @officialdeltron @delhiero @realkidkoala dantheautomator #deltron3030

And speaking of the @pixiesofficial , they still fucking rock, even though I’m writing about this gig like six months later because of Life, man. Of all the times I’ve seen my pal @charlespixie and gang, it felt really delicious to go deep on two albums, Trompe Le Monde & Bossanova, on June 26 at the Orpheum. Some edgy af tunes in there that rattled my cage in the goodest of ways, and I’ve seen my fair share of Pixies shows. They’re always tighter than wire, be it in the melodic, wavy Bossanova (Velouria! Dig for Fire!) set, or the gnarly punk fuzz awesome of the Trompe Le Monde stuff (U-Mass always). New bassist/artist Emma Richardson from Band of Skulls fit right in to round the square (and I just know she n’ Charles spend time on tour talking ART.) Plus, nobody can tell me Charles doesn’t have The Pipes, hoo boy. (Even Lou Barlow once told me how impressed he was at Charles’ vocal strength, when he sat in on some Dino Jr shows.) ‘Cos wow, does he have the pipes. Which is why this time, we didn’t get to hang — vocal cord protection was in full effect, he warned me. A bummer to miss a chat to be sure, but what a gift m, always, to hear him wallop out there. I look forward to friends touring more than they do, I think, because I genuinely miss them. But for them, it’s also work, and I gotta respect that. In fact, I was reminded of this in a text Charles once sent me years ago: “[I] am trying to maintain the energy required for this song and dance a routine at 58 years old! So basically I blow outta the show most nights and go to bed and avoid talking to people! I know it sounds incredibly anti-social, but the gig is good if you can get it. I got it. And I ain’t doing no warehouse clerk detail ever again!” No, we don’t want that. Even if it means you pulling a Tom Jones again. Rock on, Pixies, you do you. 🤘🏼#pixies #pixiesband #pixieslive #blackfrancis #frankblack

Everyone got photos with @kurtvile on his last tour stop in Van with the @pixies back in June at the Orph, and it was pretty damn cool of him to get in amongst the melee. But not everyone got that flash of recognition “oh hey!! How are you?” from that pretty damn cool dude remembering you from hanging out All. Those. Times. Over. All. Those. Years. We had a good natter and catch up once the crowd clamor died down and it was just us in the foyer. And man, did Vile & The Violators sound primo in that fancy hall. Shout out as always to @jessetrbo , who I’m sad I missed this summer, so c’mon back sharpish, friends! 🤘🏼#muchlatergram #catchingup