What's in Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what's sitting beside the Heinz Ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

On the grill

Kathryn Calder

Who are you?

I am a songwriter and a singer/synth player. I’m in the New Pornographers and I also write and record solo albums under my name. I’m a big fan of melody, weird sounds, and thinking about how strange life is! Come on over for tea!

First concert

Aside from classical music recitals, which we went to sometimes, the first concert I remember wanting to go to and buying a ticket for was Weird Al Yankovic in Victoria, at the Royal Theatre. My dad took me and a friend, I was in Grade 7. We were so excited for the show. I was especially looking forward to “The White Stuff”, which was not only a New Kids on the Block parody but also about my favourite cookie, the Oreo. The start of the concert kept getting pushed back though, and it turned out that Weird Al had a fever that night and we weren’t sure if he would be able to go on. About half an hour late, Weird Al finally bounded on-stage and performed an amazing, incredibly high-energy set, complete with many, many costume changes. Even to this day, when I’m not feeling well before a show, I sometimes think about that concert and think, “If Weird Al can roll around on the ground in a Madonna-style cone bra singing ‘Like a Surgeon’ with a fever, I can surely play my set!”

Life-changing concert

I have always been music-obsessed, but I remember seeing Elliott Smith at the Key Arena in Seattle when I was 18, at the Bumbershoot music festival, and although I only got to see a handful of songs before we had to go, I felt like I had discovered my people and my kind of music.

Top three records

The Velvet Underground and Nico  When I first heard this album when I was a teenager, it was again, much like my experience at the Elliott Smith concert, a feeling of finding my people and my music. The Velvet Underground had such a casual, cool, messed-up vibe and they had this great mix of melody and weirdness that was new to me, which I loved.

Joni Mitchell Blue  I mean, I know it’s a famous album, but it bears repeating because it’s an amazing album by an amazing woman. Her lyrics, her songs, her voice, her emotions that shine through, everything about this album is perfect.

PJ Harvey Let England Shake  I could include so many more albums on this list, but I want to include a newer album. This one came out in 2011 and it’s still one of the darkest, most haunting albums I’ve heard in a long time. Her voice, her lyrics, the slightly dissonant instrumentation, the subject matter. It’s a powerful one.

All-time favourite video

Anything directed by Tom Scharpling. I might be biased, but the New Pornographers video he and his team made for our song “Moves” still makes me laugh. I’m played by one of my favourite musicians/people, Ted Leo, which was a real career highlight for me.

What’s in your fridge?

Fifteen jars of mustard.  I keep thinking I need mustard, so I keep buying it, and sometimes we have bands come and visit to record at our studio, and THEY bring mustard. So now our top shelf of our fridge is almost all mustard jars. So if you’ve run out of mustard, you know who you can call!

Two Kefir Yogurts.  I recently bought this, wanting to have something to help my digestion, so I bought two containers of kefir yogurt, but it made my breath just so unbearably horrible I thought I had something wrong with me. I figured it must be the new yogurt, so I stopped eating it, and sure enough after a few days my breath was back to normal again. Good news for everyone!

Ice-cream sandwiches.  We are obsessed with ice-cream sandwiches at our house. So good! We get big boxes of them and put them in our freezer to eat when we feel like snacking.

Kathryn Calder's latest solo album is self-titled.

Follow Mike Usinger on Twitter at @mikeusinger.