I head to Vancouver Island to profile a few bands that I’ve become familiar with recently, in hopes that you too, will enjoy the fruits of their toe tapping labour.  Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Victoria music scene was taking major strides with studios, promoters, and all sorts of artists alike, putting their Western Canadian touches on their own respective genres.  Today I introduce a few to you.

Starting us off is Neon Steve, a high energy house artist who’s made a name for himself beyond his hometown of Victoria.  He’s a 9 year vet of Shambalah and has played in many other outdoor festivals including Burning Man, ADE, Breakfest, BeatHerder & Envision, and played in 15 countries worldwide.  He has been looked at to remix some of Dance music’s biggest name like Grand Theft, Zeds Dead, and the Stanton Warriors to name a few.

Last year he collaborated with Marten Horger on a track called “You Don’t” which quickly got worldwide acclaim and ultimately got him a deal with Tchami’s Confession Label, and the song “You Don’t” was featured as song of the month in MIXMAG. Listen here:

What’s he been up to lately?  Well, not even 1 hour ago he dropped the new Pleasenations Vol.12 on sounds cloud, what do you think?

Another Band from Victoria on the up and up these days is Wise Youngblood.  A band whos music is a blend of 70’s rock, southern blues, with a touch of that greasy, grungy western panache were so familiar with out here.

The 4 piece band consists of Kyle Stephen – Vocals, Andrew Harper – Guitar, David Buchanon – Bass, and Myles Nowik – Drums.  With Comments like  “These young men are dreamers. And they have the loud and proud, hard rock chops to make their dream significant beyond itself. You’ve got to respect that.” – DC Larson, Iowa, USA… It’s easy to see why their following keeps growing bigger and bigger.  Here’s a song called “Pyromaniac”, Harper’s vocals are the star of this song, with fantastic tempo changes from verse to chorus back to verse.  What do you think?

All of Wise Youngbloods music is available on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/127F9XEA80qkaAd8mPJ7Lk
And follow them on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/wise_youngblood/?hl=en