{"id":16299,"date":"2018-08-29T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16299"},"modified":"2018-08-28T10:59:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T17:59:48","slug":"blackwood-kings-pride-themselves-on-genre-jumbling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/08\/29\/blackwood-kings-pride-themselves-on-genre-jumbling\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackwood Kings pride themselves on genre jumbling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria\u2019s Blackwood Kings have always taken a very unique approach to playing reggae, dub, and ska. Ever since drummer Michael Luis, lead singer Chris Zielonka, and guitarist Noel Anstey went to school together, they knew the reggae scene was their cup of tea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were into all sorts of things,\u201d says Luis, \u201cwhether it was punk, or metal, or jazz, or hip hop. I think it was just from going to ska and reggae shows\u2014especially in Victoria, there\u2019s a good community behind the music, and it\u2019s a music with a really interesting history.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Victoria reggae\/dub\/ska band Blackwood Kings are working on a new release, set to come out early next year (photo by Clayton Ikuda).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Luis says that ska and reggae have interesting qualities in their musical makeup; he points to a specific instrument and what it brings to the overall sound as an example of how the genres are different from others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bass plays the melody, which I think is an unusual quality,\u201d he says, \u201cand it had a really great live community that we wanted to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the genres have no shortage of hardships to be overcome, most notably that they push even the most encompassing of boundaries. Luis says there are positives and negatives to all this.<\/p>\n

\u201cListeners who have an eclectic palate, who listen to punk, or jazz, or prog rock, or whatever, they think we\u2019re an interesting band,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the negative of doing that, though, is in trying to appeal to so many people, you then, by extension, appeal to nobody. We might be too reggae for someone who likes prog rock, and we might be too prog rock for someone who likes reggae. It\u2019s more self-deprecating. If I were a fan of diehard Jamaican reggae, I probably wouldn\u2019t like Blackwood Kings. We\u2019ll gladly admit that it\u2019s not an authentic reggae experience; it\u2019s our little version of the genre.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Luis says it\u2019s a challenge to\u00a0 <\/span>bring in lots of different ideas and have them sound cohesive.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one hand it\u2019s really cool, because you appeal to a very specific type of music fan,\u201d he says. \u201cOn the other hand, though, it\u2019s sometimes hard to find an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, the band has a new release coming out early next year; it was originally scheduled to be a five-song EP, but Blackwood Kings\u2019 creative juices are flowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be nine or 10 songs instead of just five,\u201d says Luis. \u201cIt will depend how it goes. But so far, we\u2019re ahead of schedule.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blackwood Kings
\n8 pm Thursday, September 6
\n$10, Copper Owl
\ncopperowl.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria\u2019s Blackwood Kings have always taken a very unique approach to playing reggae, dub, and ska. Ever since drummer Michael Luis, lead singer Chris Zielonka, and guitarist Noel Anstey went to school together, they knew the reggae scene was their cup of tea.\u00a0 \u201cWe were into all sorts of things,\u201d says Luis, \u201cwhether it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-august-29-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16301,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16299\/revisions\/16301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}