Squamish Valley Music Festival Band of the Day: The Chantrelles
Like Christmas when it gets to be the end of November, and Easter when the trees start to sprout leaves after a long winter, it’s starting to feel like it’s almost here. Just so there’s no confusion, we’re not talking the night when the fat bearded guy stuffs himself down the chimney or when a white rabbit breaks into the house to strew chocolate offspring and rainbow coloured eggs everywhere.
No, we’re talking about the Squamish Valley Music Festival, taking place August 8-10 at the Logger Sports Grounds and Hendrickson Fields. In anticipation of the big day, we’re spending the next few weeks rounding up local artists who’ll be playing this year’s event, and getting them to answer some important questions.
Like who they’ll be cueing up on the iPod for the Sea to Sky drive to the site, what they’ll be making sure to pack to make it through their set, the all-time dream festival lineup, and who they plan to stalk backstage. And that’s just the start of our probing. Read on, but not before you pick up your Squamish Valley Music Festival ticket. The last thing you want to miss is today’s featured local artist....
Hailing from Victoria, B.C., the eight-piece outfit known as The Chantrelles craft retro funk-soul tunes guaranteed to get your ass shaking on the sunny fields of Squamish. Frontwoman Chance Lovett dishes on her high-school music tastes, the horrors of the heat, and why you should always take a nap, even when the world is burning down around you.
Sea to Sky Playlist:
Theesatisfaction "Queens"
One of the best shows I’ve seen in years. man oh man, don’t even get me started!
Himalayan Bear "Hard Times"
One of my favourite live acts for sure.
Slam Dunk "Bleacher Lovin"
Listen to it, its a real club banger. If the club was your car, of course.
The Allman Brothers "Melissa"
Duh.
Kanye West "Bound 2"
Although he sounds like a total nutbag on Yeezus, "Bound 2" is pretty bangin’.
Otis Redding "Cigarettes and Coffee"
My favourite song by my favourite man.
Beyoncé "Love On Top"
It's a great feat in musical history and I feel as though we should just go ahead and bow down.
Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul "Shockin Female MCs"
If I could rap, I would. I'd be so insane. I’d wear neon track suits and a weave down to my bum and gold nails that were so long I wouldn’t be able to do normal, everyday tasks. if only I wasn’t so awfully, unforgivably terrible at rapping things would be different...
Kendrick Lamar "Money Tree"
Our sax players name is Andrew Bishop but we’ve taken to calling him “The Bish”, so this song is a perfect fit to van and his life. (YA BISH!)
Talking Heads "This Must Be The Place"
In my opinion, one of the best songs ever written.
For private headphone times, there's a whole other party that only I'm invited to. This playlist includes tasty licks from some tasty '90s and '00s bands. Let's put it this way: I was quite fond of Celine Dion, Billy Talent, and System Of A Down in my teen years, and things haven’t really changed since then.
Outdoor essentials:
- Squeeze breeze
- Dad juice (of the premium Albertan variety)
- Pocket change for cheese burgs
- Friends (or strangers) to lend ears to my complaints about the heat—because those complaints are a-plenty, LEMME TELL YA!
We'd Love to Hang With:
Really? Seriously? Is this an actual question? Have you ever seen Josh Homme? Why don’t you just go ahead and Google him then come back at me on the whole, “who I want to meet”.
First Festival Experience:
First festival would have been Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark. Oh boy, don’t I sound bougie!? Whatever, It was incredible.
You know those cartons of apple juice you can buy at the grocery store for like two bucks? Well imagine those cartons being filled with wine and sold at the same price cuz that's Roskilde for ya. All the wine, all the time.
I saw a trillion bands: The Who, Rocky Erikson, Grizzly Bear, Beirut. I literally saw and did all the possible things. There were quite a few notable highlights, including when the Red Cross got involved due to the flooding from the torrential rain, or the time I had to voluntarily pee my pants or risk death.
Though those were memorable, there is one memory to rule them all: the last day.
We had just spent the entire day wasting our last kroner (which, just a heads up, are Denmark’s fucked up currency that allow you to spend $182 dollars with what looks like a goddamned quarter) on a day filled with boxes of wine and cheap cigarettes. We galavanted, we ran, we danced, but as the fireworks blasted out over the last show, we knew we had to grab our stuff from the camp to get back into town.
As the Basement Jaxx rang out with their hot summer jam, "Where’s Your Head At", we ran towards our camp site, which as we neared revealed itself to be engulfed in flames. See, as it turns out, the last day of the festival is the day vagrants run around pillaging campsites and lighting them on fire, who knew? The whole fucking camp site was in flames, like, I mean the whole goddamned thing. All the festival volunteers, who’d done their job titles proud by getting completely fucked up for the last seven days, were running around with fucking water bottles trying to put out the seven-foot-high flames. My friend and I got back to our tent which, miraculously, was not yet on fire and started to gather our stuff. But see, the thing about running around in the sun drinking cartons of red wine is that it makes ya a little sleepy.
So, after such a long day of general 19-year-old fuckery, we decided taking a quick cat nap in the middle of our burning tent city was both a smart decision and the only decision to be had. So, my final and most memorable moment of Roskilde Festival 2007 was laying next to my best friend in a tent in the middle of fire and chaos. Drunk on boxes of red wine and high on cheap cigarettes, straining to stay awake just enough to keep my feet wiggling and visible out the bottom of the tent so that the pyros passing by would know that our tent wasn’t quite yet ready to go up.
Moral of the story? If you feel like a nap, have a fucking nap.
As Stellar As This Year’s Squamish Bill is, What’s Your Fantasy Fest Line-up?
Theesatisfaction are literally one of the best things going right now. When I saw them, I sort of “came to” and realized I was completely misguided on where exactly the “cool” bar was set. Game over, they win everything.
I'm also a big fan of David Bowie. I probably shouldn’t see him though cuz I’d just die. Same with Beyoncé, if I ever saw her I’d just be overcome with excitement and lose control of body. I’d wind up blacking out and rushing the stage which would ultimately end my arrest. So, no Bowie and no Beyoncé; what about Open Relationship and Iceberg Ferg, then? Yah, I love them, and I don’t run the risk of death or arrest with them.
What's Your Official Rider Request?
Let’s get real here, if there are no chips, I'm not coming. I basically live for sour cream and onion Old Dutch chips. Oh, and some serious air conditioning. Heat will be the death of me. I’m retiring in Alaska.
Trivia time: What’s Squamish’s official slogan?
“Squamish Music Festival, really close to Whistler.”
The Festival takes place at Hendrickson Fields & Logger Sports Ground. Quick—what’s your favourite logger sport?
I like birling. I have no actual clue what it is, but the name reminds me of burly, which makes me think of burly men. HUNKS! Hunks whirling around their burly birly things. Dig.
The Chantrelles play the Squamish Valley Music Festival’s Market Square stage on Friday (August 9) at 3:50 p.m.
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