New Found Glory - Records In My Life

The Districts on Records In My LIfe from Treefort Music fest

We caught up with Connor and Pat of the band The Districts while we were down in Boise for Treefort Music Fest. The 1/2 of the band told us about opening for The Rolling Stones, how they made their latest album Popular Manipulations as well as making some excellent music recommendations for us all to check out!

RIML: clipping.

RIML: Hannah Georgas

RIML: Flight Facilities

Records In My Life: Ty Segall

Northern Transmissions and Boutique Empire present another episode of Records In My Life, this week featuring the very diverse tastes of Ty Segall.  We caught up with Ty backstage at The Vogue theatre before his sold out show here in Vancouver.  He was quite rye and gave us a list of interesting freaks to check out.

Produced by Charles Brownstein
Video and editing by Mark Henning
Logo and animation: Susana Ramirez

Ty Segall speaks about the following albums:
Quasimoto - The Unseen
Amon Dool II - Wolf City
Roxy Music - Country Life
Dark Throne - F.O.A.D.
Daevid Allen - Bananamoon
Gong - Camembert Electrique

This episodes features the song "Candy Sam" from the Ty Segall album Emotional Mugger https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/emo...

Theme music: "Best Tonight" by Combine the Victorious https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/bes...

Records In My Life: Dan Deacon

This week's episode of Records In My Life features the very affable and informed Dan Deacon.  He joined us for a quick chat about the albums that shaped his tastes, opened his mind, and helped his music develop.   Filmed before soundcheck at the Cobalt Cabaret here in Vancouver, Dan was a real treat to talk music with.  From Stockhausen to Mr. Bungle, he covered a lot of ground, but stayed centred around his electronic tastes.

Produced and hosted by Charles Brownstein for northerntransmissions.com
Directed and edited by Mark Henning
Videography by Katharina Schulz and Mark Henning
Animations and logo by Susana Ramirez

Dan Deacon listed the following albums in his interview:
Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante
Eliane Radigue - Trilogie de la Mort
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Karlheinz Stockhousen/Mauricio Kagel - feat David Tudor

Music Credit:
This episode of Records In My Life features the song "Learning to Relax" from the Dan Deacon album "Gliss Riffer." https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/gli...

Theme music for RIML is "Best Tonight" by Combine the Victorious https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/bes...

Check out the entire Records In My Life series at this link! 

Our first Xmas Party!

We held our first xmas party at the Isabelle Dunlop Clothing Store on Thursday night, and it was a blast!  The Population Drops performed a tight showcase set in the front of the store and we all shared in a few festive drinks and amid Isabelle's fashion and the mysterious Jean Vercoe's art.

Big thankd to all our friends for coming down to celebrate a successful second year at Isabelle Dunlop Clothing.  It's been a great season so far, and it was fun to share a few laughs and stories with everyone.  Thanks to The Pop Drops for performing, Jean Vercoe for the art, Red Truck Brewery for the beer, and of  course Isabelle for hosting the party in her store!

Hope you're all having a good time this season and hope to see you soon!

Cheers and happy xmas!

Records in my Life: Hinds

Northern Transmissions and Boutique Empire present another episode of Records in my Life, this week featuring the band Hinds from Spain.

Filmed at Red Cat Records here in Vancouver, the band discusses the albums that inspired them, and play on their stereo as they tour the world. 

Big thanks to Hinds for making such a fun episode.

Host: Charles Brownstein

Camera: Susana Ramirez, Mark Henning
Opening graphics: Susana Ramirez
Diretor, editor: Mark Henning
Open theme song Best Tonight - Combine the Victorious

The Population Drops join Boutique Empire

Indie post-punk band The Population Drops have become the next member of the Boutique Empire artist's collective.  They have just finalized their new ep Find Another End which will a spring 2014 release.

A new video is nearing completion but to begin please watch the band's first video "Enough."

Combine the Victorious and Sex With Strangers play the Rio Theatre!

Both Combine the Victorious and Sex With Strangers shall be performing  after the Vancouver theatrical release of Katrin Bowen's comedy Random Acts of Romance this Thursday evening, November 14th.

After a successful festival circuit the locally shot and produced film Random Acts of Romance will be shown at the wonderful Rio Theatre (1660 E Broadway, Vancouver, BC) this Thursday night.  7PM.  Following the movie will be a meet and greet with the cast and crew  and then live performances from both Combine the Victorious (9:30) and Sex With Strangers (10:15).  

Tickets are only $10 in advance and $12 at the door.   It's absolutely going to be an amazingly fun night!  Facebook event

Art and Fashion June 1st

Fashion designer Isabelle Dunlop will be joining with artist Zofia Astrid on June 1st for a art show/ fashion pop up in Gastown, Vancouver.  A single night of paintings, fashion and music, held in the heart of Gastown: 33 Water Street. 

Following up the Vancouver Art Expo, Zofia will be showing a full catalog, with new and original art for purchase, as well as hand-painted canvas prints.

Isabelle will be displaying her latest designs, refurbished  jackets, as well a long time staples from her well loved woolen collection. (private afternoon fittings are available for Isabelle by appointment only.  Please contact her at isabelledunlop@gmail.com)

DJ sets from Combine the Victorious will fill the loft with the latest in electronic music. 

Doors at 6PM to 9PM. 

 For more information on the art please contact zofia.astrid@yahoo.ca

Fashion and Music for Memories

 Fashion and Music for Memories

In proud support of Alzheimer's Society of BC, Wednesday October 12th Isabelle Dunlop will be holding a fashion show / pop up shop with very special musical guests Peak Performance Project finalists: Jasper Sloan Yip and Sex With Strangers at the Waldorf Hotel.

Proceeds from the door shall all go towards Alzheimer Society British Columbia. 

Doors at 7PM
special set from Jasper Sloan Yip at 8PM 
Isabelle Dunlop fashion show at 9PM 
Sex With Strangers perform at 10PM. 
DJ sets from Combine the Victorious between sets.
  
There will be a pop up shop set up during the evening as well, so those who are intrigued by Isabelle's clothing can grab something for themselves on the night.

Poster design by Rob Edmonds.

About a Girl - the story of a theme song

In the summer of 2007 we, as in Combine the Victorious, were one of two bands with a song being considered for the theme to a new television series called "About a Girl." It was pretty cool. The music supervisor told us that she'd pitched over 300 other songs first to the two networks before they found our song "Blue Kitchen." We never knew heard the other song that was under consideration, but feel lucky to have landed the spot!

The only hitch was we had to condense a three minute song down to 15 seconds!

Obviously only the essence was required, so we chose to try and fit an entire chorus into the intro sequence. The song had been recorded at 115bpm originally and in the course of working on it we'd decided to speed it up to 117bpm. That was the cut that the producers were listening to. Their idea was to have a very rapid intro sequence with quick cuts of each of the characters flashing rapidly on the screen while Blue Kitchen played. Seemed easy except we couldn't even get to the end of the chorus before time was out, never mind have an intro or outro. We're talking 15 seconds here right?

So we tried speeding it up. All the way to 130 bpm, which I have to say sounded pretty shit. I mailed the production supervisor three or four different cuts at various speeds until we agreed upon 126bpm. Still quite a leap, but the song maintained some semblance to the original. Next came agreeing on the mix.

Rumour has it that everyone signed off on the 126 bpm version, liked the intro and outro hits and were generally happy... until the following Monday morning when a new co-producer heard the theme song for the first time and queried, "Is there any reason why they're singing about a Blue Kitchen in the middle of the chorus?" Fair enough really, except that the title of the song was actually Blue Kitchen so we were a bit wary of changing it. However I suggested we could alter the lyric from "here in blue kitchen today" to "here in our kitchen today." I mean, I didn't really have to be in a BLUE kitchen if it meant losing the deal. Right?

So we re-sang the sped up chorus and tried to insert "everything's alright, everything's okay, everyone if here in our kitchen today." After all the months working on the song it was like pulling a tumor out of my brain to not sing the original lyric over and over again. Took me almost two bloody hours. Then it was Isabelle's turn. I forewarned her that if may be quite a challenge to sing the altered words, but she came in, did three or four takes and was done: no problem at all. And I even used one of the early takes for her double. Frustrating.

We sent that version off and felt pretty good about our work-around. However, this one was met by a "can we have one without the word 'kitchen" in it at all?" Hmph.... that was a hard one to even try. There was more than one never sent e-mail composed that afternoon, however I was ever so lucky as to receive a very clever idea from Manny Pereira, the production supervisor. He has obvious musical ability because he made the observation, "isn't the music in the section right before the chorus kinda the same thing? Couldn't we use those lyrics over the chorus music?" It was the perfect solution. In fact it improved the whole thing dramatically.

Now the lyrics went:

"we're coming to your floor,
knocking on your door,
always room for more.
everything's alright..."

(this isn't the actual opening credit, just an audio clip of the opening edit - I wanted to only load the song but it wouldn't let me -had to make it a video! you'll get the idea.)



...seemed rather fitting for a tv theme song. I started laughing as I mixed it down because it seemed so stupidly perfect. I was imagining "Friends" or something, it was really quite sweet. They were in fact very happy with that and we started the paper work. (Thanks again to Sarah Webster down at SL Feldman's for doing all that for us, it's impossible to express how much my eyes glaze over when presented with a contract or form of any kind! Mille Grazie!)

Everything was cool at that point, but next came a phone call about getting music for the ending as well. This was one of those good news/bad news things. The good part was that we'd get a whole 30 seconds for the outro! The lame part was they had no more money in the budget. But, of course we had to do it, reimbursement or not.

The outro piece was a lot simpler, only took one shot at it. Since we'd already agreed upon a tempo I started with that and threw everything I could into those 30 seconds, even a snare drum ba dum-dum at the finale. Isabelle sings lead in this part this part, which is kinda cute: I sing the intro and she sings outro. Personally I much prefer the ending credit version, there's more time, so we could fit all the parts in and have it hold much truer to the album version. Only regret not sending them a louder version, as it always seems a bit low on the televison, especially following a commercial!

After all that malarky we sat back and and awaited the debut of the series. It came out way earlier in the States. It was funny to discuss the show with people who'd viewed most of the season before we'd even seen a commercial for it! About a Girl started in October down south but we didn't get it in Canada until March! By that point we'd seen a clip of it via my brother-in-law's netcam pointed at his tv, but it was a lot cooler to sit down and wait to hear our song appear on the television for the first time. We were both cheersing each other quite a bit that night!! Plus the adventure hasn't stopped yet. We noticed that after the first season aired on E-Channel the series was picked up by Showcase for it's autumn programming. That made us smile a bit too.

So from being the very first song that Isabelle and I wrote together, in our basement, with no greater thought than "what the hell let's try it", Blue Kitchen has now been heard around North America. We've met many cool people on our myspace due to the song, and have had a ton of exposure (though admittedly you need to be an extremely fast reader to catch the name in real time as if flashes on the screen)! And this was the same song that I personally thought was too simplistic to put on our album. Isabelle always defended, probably because it was her first song, but also because she really liked it! Pretty good beginners luck!

If you'd like a copy for your iPod you can find it by clicking on the album artwork below:



Thank you for reading this. Cheers,

Mark Henning

iTunes Music Store

Well it appears that the process of getting songs up on the iTunes music store has become more streamlined. In the past there was a very random period of time that passed between submitting your music to be "processed" for the store, it may have taken 4 weeks but the first Combine the Victorious album took over eight. Never knew why. However as of 2008, all three Boutique Empire releases have appeared in under four weeks, and this last one, the Disagreements ep from Combine, even appeared online on the day we requested. Fantastic stuff.

You can sample all three BE releases on iTunes, myspace, last.fm, iLike.com and the CBC new music Canada site as well. Please follow the links below if you're curious to hear what we've been up to.



Combine the Victorious - Disagreements (be08003)



Guilty About Girls - ep1 (be08002)



Sex With Strangers - The Modern Seduction (be08001)

Mission Statement

First post on this site.  

Hello.  We're just getting started but we've had a good first half year so far.  Born on a concept and a  verbal agreement, Boutique Empire came into being in the spring of 2008.  Essentially we are an artist's collective from Vancouver, Canada.   In July we set The Modern Seduction loose on the world with all the robot rock and concept album futuristic fury that Sex With Strangers could imagine.    In October Guilty About Girls put out their first ep, understatedly titled EP1.  And now on November 25th Combine the Victorious is set to release their second collection of songs: Disagreements.

Boutique Empire is a group of Vancouver artists that have agreed to wear the label on our releases and support each other through obvious things like performing on each other's albums, or producing the recordings, or creating the artwork for the albums, or co-ordinating events that overlap with all our creative offerings.  Currently the group consists of three bands, a graphic artist and a fashion designer: Combine the Victorious, Sex With Strangers, Guilty About Girls, Robert Edmonds, and Isabelle Dunlop.  Ex-members of the band Pure are integral to the group as Mark R Henning, Jordy Birch and Todd Simko are all involved with most of the projects in one form or other.  

Art openings, fashion shows, mixed media events and of course concerts are all part of the Boutique Empire vision.  Hopefully in the future both video and cinema may be included as well.   Anything that inspires.

Please check out our various websites for updates or latest events.

Combine the Victorious

Sex With Strangers

Guilty About Girls

Robert Edmonds

Isabelle Dunlop

All our artist are available for listening on last.fm please tune in for a listen.  

Thank you for reading this, hope to start posting here regularly.  Cheers!!