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His respite from the academic grind wound up taking him him from pre-med to Deadhead. “For a few years, I travelled and followed the Grateful Dead,” said Olson. “I lived out of my Volkswagen van most of the time, but there’d always be a pretty bustling parking lot scene. So I could sell grilled cheese sandwiches or beer out of a cooler. You’d actually make enough money that you could buy a ticket and get gas money to the next city. “Then Jerry Garcia died, so I went and lived in Austria for a couple years,” said Olson. “I was involved in a lot of service projects…Building houses, and things like that.” Next Olson returned to the United States, and was met with another stroke of luck. “My brother and some of his friends went to Olympia, Washington and started an internet service provider,” said Olson. “As part of the dot-com boom, we got bought out by a big [telecommunications] company out of California, so I kind of went into semi-retirement for three or four years with my stock o - daveo

This video is packed to the gills, but here are some of my favourite quotes: “The stuff I learned to do my job I learned hitch-hiking, I learned traveling, I learned taking risks and practicing my craft all over the world.” “80% meditation, 10% execution, the other 10% is inebriation.” “Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Find that thing that makes you a little bit weird and your work will get better.” “Let’s get some better heroes.” “Embark on personal archeology. In your closet you all have a shoebox full of pictures; you all have a file folder with your awesome college thesis that your professor and maybe one other person read; why don’t we put all that collective intelligence online?” “Hunter S. Thompson could get away with partying like a maniac because his work was awesome — it was top shelf.” “Ignore the gatekeepers. Write for yourself; write for others.” “You really have to push yourself and look inside yourself and ask yourself, ‘What am I capable of doing?’” “Telegrams l - daveo

Bev was a regular at the Smiling Buddha Cabaret, which was was located at 109 East Hastings. In the Nerve article she talks about taking photos of DOA playing Friday night, go home and develop the film, then come back Saturday night with a box of photo postcards for sale. The Buddha was a dive and at the same time a mecca for local and international alternative rock acts. From The K-Tels, The Subhumans, DOA, or Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck, to Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane. - daveo

Mike Quigley and I made it to the Bayshore on time for the interview, but soon found out that things were running a little late. Lightfoot was still with a man from CBC Radio so we had to wait. Waiting in the Bayshore lobby is a strange experience in itself, but this time the whole thing seemed even more absurd. Stereo Muzak can do weird things to your mind. Finally our turn came, and we were ushered into Lightfoot's presence. The singer was wearing his TV togs: a jean suit with the jacket bespeckled with flying birds and symbolic sunsets. He wasn't too happy to talk to The Straight, presumably because we had half-panned his last album. The whole conversation was a bit strained at first, but he opened up after a while. The man talks deceptively like John Wayne; I suspect their egos are much the same. - daveo

In case you aren't aware of it, there is a description on the Grateful Dead web site of the Dead's experience playing the Trips Festival that was held in Vancouver in July 1966 at the Gardens. The Grateful Dead web site was recently revamped and now includes an Archives section which is where you'll find it - select 1966 on the timeline and click on the image of the black and white Trips Festival poster. The text will appear on the left of the image. - daveo

Back in Vancouver, my club The Elegant Parlour had always packed in the audiences in this 1967 to 1968 period, and other bands were booked while we were on the road. Our Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers album was released on the Motown label in March 1968 and we were being booked across the USA. July 1968 was the peak for Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers because that’s when our album charted and we were in the most demand on the road. From July 12 to 27, 1968, our opening act for a two-week gig at Chicago’s Regale Theatre was a Gary, Indiana family pop group. We were very impressed with these brothers, called The Jackson Five. Bobby Taylor was convinced they would be huge and took them to Detroit, booking them an audition with our label, Motown Records. On July 23, the Jackson Five had their Motown audition, at which they performed James Brown’s hit I Got the Feelin’. In later years, Motown publicity tried to make the claim that Diana Ross discovered them, but that is pure hype. Bobby worke - daveo

He and Tommy Melton opened a club in 1963 called the Blues Palace in an old movie theatre at Alma and Broadway. "We brought in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, which had never been to Vancouver before." The two Tommys also played in a band called Little Daddy and the Bachelors, which won the battle of the bands contest in 1964 at the teen fair at the Pacific National Exhibition. The prize was studio time to record a 45-rpm record on the RCA label at Aragon studio. The single, a version of the Chuck Berry tune Too Much Monkey Business, was included on the History of Vancouver Rock and Roll Volume 2 album, which was issued in recent years by Vancouver record store Neptoon Records. - daveo

And no one has ever come close to matching the lovely Ms. Beverley Davies in capturing the shining, grimy, joyously human moments of Vancouver’s much-ballyhooed punk scene of the Smiling Buddha Cabaret days. This writer was gracefully invited by Ms. Davies into the cozy comforts of her quaint old Strathcona home over this past winter to sip soothing tea in a rocking chair near a warm fireplace, beside which a content old grey cat lay sprawled out with no trace of feline grace. Wrapped in a shawl, her kind eyes always smiling as she shuffles around her kitchen in her slippers to seek out the sugar bowl, Bev Davies looks like everyone’s favourite aunt – but this favourite aunt isn’t cut from the canasta-and-shuffleboard crowd. “You can’t tell anyone this,” Davies confides, “but I am SO into the Brian Jonestown Massacre.” Her smiling eyes widen with girlish glee. - daveo

The entire Grateful Dead stayed in my room. My room was half the basement in the house at 1937 West 3rd Avenue between Maple and Cypress. That night I slept upstairs. The only thing I ever said to the Grateful Dead was I forgot my cigarettes when I went back down for a minute. The only thing the Grateful Dead ever said to me was silence. They just waited for me to get my smokes and leave. Except the next day I exchanged morning pleasantries with Pigpen – one or two words at most. Seemed like a nice enough guy. I was listening to a lot of Eric Dolphy in those days and had zero interest in the Grateful Dead, I’m sorry to say. Had I foreseen the day I’d have a baby girl who’d grow up to have boyfriends I’d have made some attempt to have a memorable experience with the Grateful Dead that I could kick back and spin yarns about and the boys could call me Pops! - daveo

This page provides full of the various Retinal Circus shows and events that took place in Vancouver and Edmonton. - daveo

Vancouver B.C had a rather impressive freak scene going in the late 1960s. Bands such as My Indole Ring, Papa Bears Medicine Show, Mock Duck, along with other essential ingredients such as psychedelic clubs (like The Retinal Circus), underground magazines, and even top-class poster art (Bob Massey) all combined to create a credible local variation on what was going on in bigger scale in San Francisco; perhaps similar to how the local head scene down in Austin, Texas developed. - daveo

In 1960's Vancouver, The Afterthought on 4th Avenue was the place to be for the best live music of the time. Many of the top folk and rock acts of the 1960s performed there, including Country Joe & the Fish, Steve Miller, Jefferson Airplane and many, many others. Bob Masse's art of this time was heavily influenced by his contact with these bands, many of them from San Francisco, home of the psychedelic movement... - daveo

In the 1960s, it was asserted that this city led the nation in experimentation and the embrace of new ideas in the arts. We do not need to examine the speciousness of that claim, nor why it would be made of such a small provincial city. One celebrated factor was Vancouver’s “West Coastness” in a world that was taking the pulse of California’s hippie cultural rebellion. The counter-culture of consciousness raising, Tibetan Buddhism, faux agrarianism, wilderness worship, LSD, and sexual exploration found its biggest Canadian colony in Vancouver. This “West Coast Thing” was a social and aesthetic context for Vancouver art in the 1960s. It is remarkable, despite the growing — or abiding — interest in the 1960s all over the world, that so much artistic work from this period in Vancouver is lost and, cruel to say, how many sixties artistic careers subsequently entered the twilight. This is especially odd in a city whose artistic community’s boosterism seems to know no limit and where the 196 - daveo

PECHAKUCHA NIGHT VOL.20 • FEB 29TH SPECIAL EDITION • ALL-STARS VOGUE THEATRE • 918 GRANVILLE STREET 20x20 - VOLUME 20 ‎PechaKucha Night Vol.20 - All-Stars voting has now ended. Over 1000 votes are in. Unfortunately, a few of the presenters getting top votes such as John Fluevog and Bing Thom are unable to join us for the evening. Luckily, our talent pool was deep and filling their spots if not their shoes was pretty easy. May we present your top 10. PRESENTERS Chef Todd • 12b Danielle LaPorte • Danielle LaPorte Dave Olson • Uncle Weed David Eby • BC Civil Liberties Association Diane Roberts • urban ink productions Katrina Pacey • Pivot Legal Society Ken Lum • Artist Marian Bantjes • Graphic Designer Omer Arbel • Omer Arbel Office Sean Orr • Writer - daveo

Everyone who went to school in Canada knows about the Group of Seven, but we remind you it wasn't all paint, praise, and poses for the artists, particularly Frederick Horsman Varley, whose story is featured in this issue. His tale of alcohol, depression, and poverty is one familiar to some of the members of another Group of Seven: the original seven Vancouver street paper vendors, who we pay homage to for their decades of work on the streets. - daveo

Could you describe what started your interest in doing posters... when did that begin? Well, I actually was doing work for a lot of the coffeehouses in Vancouver, Canada back when Robson street was the big scene. This was in the early 60's. Robson Street was the pre- hippie beatnik place, folkies - it was called Robsonstrausse because it had a lot of European cafés, we used to hang out at a place called the Europe Café, it was all beatniks in those days, back in '63 & '64. I was still going to art school at the time - A friend and I did a lot of work for the Bunkhouse, a coffeehouse in Vancouver. We did Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, that type of band. I don't think we even charged them for them. We just had a running tab at the bar and got to go to all the parties afterwards. We were in our early twenties, that was enough, just to go and party with these people. There was a place on Pender Street called Nelson's Happening - that was when - daveo

Customers are part of your culture. By inviting them to participate in your campaigns and community, you can speed progress, gain candid market insight, and have some fun. This conversation will share tips about wrangling your passionate users to help with specific tasks for mutual benefit. The tips and tactics will include: understanding motivations, providing rewards, setting boundaries, understanding types of volunteers, organizing disappearing task forces, avoiding "cat herding,” and thwarting confusion and conflicts. Practical examples will include: crowd-sourcing a multi-language software translation project; organizing citizen reporting at an Olympic Games; creating participatory contests to produce content and assets; identifying perpetrators and looters in a riot; raising relief money under difficult circumstances; and, rapidly helping victims in disaster zones. From the examples, we’ll discuss methods for channeling the passion of audiences into tangible results in much the - daveo

A panel of experts including Dave Olson from HootSuite, sits down with TD's Irene Law to discuss how you can use social media to grow your small business. PART 1 - daveo

The United Empire Loyalists' new lineup tightened up quickly, and in late 1966 booked time at Robin Spurgin's studio on Broadway in Vancouver's Kitsilano district, which was the place to record in Vancouver at the time. "Robin had this leading edge setup with two track recording!" quips Richard, "anyways The Collectors (who evolved later in 1971 into Chilliwack - DG.) were there listening to us record 'No No No' and you could see that they were thinking it was pretty good that we did it right in about one take, especially as we were such young guys about 16 or 17." In February of 1967, Country Joe & the Fish made their first visit to Vancouver and opened a new chapter in the affairs of The United Empire Loyalists. The Loyalists opened the third night of Country Joe's residence (after Martha Mushroom's Fantastic Sensations (!) and The Painted Ship had opened the previous two), and the visiting Berkeley band was obviously impressed with the young Canadians with whom they shared a simil - daveo