In the ring: Blank Vinyl Project’s 2024 battle of the bands

Soundcheck at the Biltmore Cabaret; six bands wait their turn to set up, milling around the empty venue for a couple hours before doors. Some of them have played venues like this for years. For others, it’s their first time.

This is Versus, Blank Vinyl Project’s (BVP) annual battle of the bands, which asks the question, “What if we gave a bunch of musicians clubs and knives and made them fight?” and then dials it down a little because that would be against AMS bylaws. In the end, BVP settled on a showcase event — six bands, fifteen-minute sets and a crowd of music lovers to vote on the best one at the end of the night.

In early September, BVP sent a call out to Vancouver bands inviting them to submit their music for consideration. Six would be chosen to face off at the Biltmore, with the winner receiving a guaranteed spot at Goosehunt, BVP’s annual student-run music festival.

The BVP team had the Biltmore in mind from the start: the venue hosted Versus last year and it has the capacity for the crowd sizes that executives expected. BVP wanted to take advantage of higher engagement at the start of term “so that the bands would be able to get the attention that they deserve,” said BVP VP Admin Jayden Emslie.

“We were really glad to see the crowd that showed up,” said Emslie. “There were a lot of people who are really engaged in the music community, people that we recognized from all over and not just BVP, which was nice.”

Around 8:30 p.m., BVP executive Apolline De Schaetzen took the stage and introduced the format of the night, the Biltmore, BVP and the voting system which had showgoers rate each band on a scale of 1–5. Now, with logistics out of the way and the crowd howling for blood music, it was time to battle!

First to the ring: Belt!

As guitarist Julian Bailey draped a leather belt around the mic stand, De Schaetzen read a cue card explaining the name’s origin in a faulty clasp and some improvised fastening at the band’s first show.

Belt’s music is fast and technical, prog rock with some jazz influence on bassist Jack Davis’s part especially. His bass lines were rarely simple progressions, instead they danced around melodically with Bailey often holding down rhythm on guitar. This added a layer of complexity to Belt’s music, but the intricacy of the bass sometimes hurt the groove slightly.

“[Belt] is very grounded in rock,” said Bailey. “My dad was always listening to grunge rock music, like Pearl Jam and Rush. I just fell in love with those bands. And then meeting Jack, who comes from such a jazz influence — it really clicked and kind of transformed the band.”

Now Belt is split between Vancouver and their hometown on the Sunshine Coast.

“I’d say me and [Bailey] are kind of, at this point, somewhat the core of Belt,” said Davis. The pair recently moved to Vancouver for school, while Belt’s vocalist and drummer remained on the Coast. “We’re kind of still together but it is kind of like floating in the air a little bit at this moment,” Davis said.

Climbing the cage, it’s Lizzy Dissolved!

Started in January by guitarist Nick Provenzano and guitarist and vocalist Levi Robson, Lizzy Dissolved’s music is “indie, garage rock and a bit of progressive rock … motivated by the idea of getting people to dance,” said Provenzano.

By the time Lizzy Dissolved got into their set, the inevitable mid-show mosh pit was well in the making. Their music is psychedelic and rhythmic, with long, intricate guitar solos breaking up Robson’s fast-paced vocals.

“The energy was amazing,” Robson said. “When you’re on stage… sometimes the energy’s not there. But that was not the case here.”

Lizzy Dissolved began with a one-off collaboration between Robson and Provenzano.

“I was in the cab to the Montreal airport, and I got a call from Levi saying, ‘I’m playing a solo set at The Astoria in like two days. You want to play guitar with me?’”

After releasing two singles earlier this year, Lizzy Dissolved hit the venue circuit hard, with no plans of slowing down.

Our next challenger! Laylo!

Laylo is a local artist who describes herself as “angry pop.” Welcoming her and her band to the stage, De Schaetzen recounted their first meeting at an open mic when Laylo asked to borrow her guitar. Laylo is a former BVP member herself, and even helped organize a previous Versus.

“It was so exciting to actually play [Versus] and be on the other side of it,” she said. “I found all my friends, really, through BVP.”

Laylo’s music is dreamy and mellow, in the vein of Clairo and Steve Lacy. The short set times of a showcase like Versus can cause some tonal whiplash, but Laylo and her band transitioned nicely from Lizzy Dissolved’s frenetic songs to their slower jams.

“I was a bit nervous that my genre of music is not as rock, or punk,” said Laylo. “[But] I think it worked just fine. Like, my song ‘Peach Pie’ is this mellow love song and I saw people head banging to it,” she laughed.

Now Laylo is now focusing on playing shows and working on a new single due for next January.

Chopping Spree enters the fray!

Chopping Spree burst onstage ready to fuse some jazz. The five-piece band formed in the summer of this year by a group of UBC-affiliated musicians.

“We’ve come so far in the [two or three months] that we’ve been together as a band,” said guitarist Junny Chen. “Everything is just flowing together so well and the chemistry is incredible.”

In Chen’s words, Chopping Spree “brought jazz to the mosh pit.” Their style, heavier and more metal-influenced than some of their jazz fusion inspirations, struck a balance between erratic melodies and chugging chords.

“I think each one of us comes from very different and unique [musical] backgrounds,” said saxophonist Kyler Young. “I really appreciate the different directions everybody’s minds go in rehearsal.”

A highlight of Chopping Spree’s set was their faithful and intricate rendition of the notorious Juan Tizo/Duke Ellington standard “Caravan,” complete with solos for each instrument. It was enthralling to see a jazz band with no vocalist so completely capture the audience’s attention.

According to Young, bassist Geoff Petines only joined Chopping Spree about two weeks before the show at the Biltmore.

“We were out of a bassist by the time we got into Versus,” he said. “And I’m at a [UBC Jazz Club] jam session and there’s this crazy bassist … We got in contact with him and it just worked out really well … He saved us, genuinely, and we wouldn’t be here without him.”

Now Chopping Spree is devoted to writing and recording a set of originals and an EP before drummer Eddie Naranjo moves away on exchange.

Hope Slide from the top rope!

Hope Slide brought another change of tempo to the battle. What started as a solo project by vocalist and guitarist Calvin Jay has grown into a six-person ensemble complete with a pianist and two violinists. Their music is slow and sometimes languid, blending elements of shoegaze, rock and folk.

Hope Slide’s set, like Laylo’s, gave the audience a break from moshing. People began to sway, staring dreamily at the stage as violins danced around a droning guitar. The songs were long and made the short set feel all the tighter — Hope Slide’s music didn’t lend itself to the showcase format like some of the other acts’ did.

The band released their first single earlier this year and is gearing up to release an EP next spring.

Muppet Boys with a steel chair!

The crunching garage rock of Muppet Boys brought the mosh pit back to close out this year’s Versus. Their music is heavy and mostly fast-paced, a classic hardcore three-piece broken up by energetic call and response vocals between the bassist and guitarist.

The audience seemed to have something to prove. Though midnight was rolling around and the crowd was thinning, Muppet Boys managed to get them all moving as fast as they had earlier in the night.

Versus champion 2024!

Like Commodus on Russell Crowe, it was time to pass judgment. A hush rippled through the Biltmore as audience members scanned QR codes and filled out ballots. When the votes were in, Chopping Spree came out on top. They took the stage for an encore and went home triumphant, with the coveted guaranteed spot at this year’s Goosehunt music festival under their belt. A bloodless match, but well-fought.

Two Ubyssey editors are members of Hope Slide, but were not involved in the writing or editing of the band’s section.