John Lucas

Fom the Archives: The Paper Kites (2019)

January 23, 2026

Australian indie-folk act the Paper Kites release a new album, If You Go There, I Hope You Find It, today. Here’s an interview I did with the band’s frontman and primary songwriter, Sam Bentley, a few years back.

The LP’s the thing for the Paper Kites

This article originally appeared in the Georgia Straight.

If you only know the Paper Kites for their track “Bloom”—well, you’re like most people. It’s a jewel of a song, all rolling indie-folk acoustic guitars and delicately entwined vocal harmonies, and it is by far the Australian band’s most popular tune. Released in 2010, “Bloom” has been a slow burner—it took almost a decade for the single to achieve gold status in the U.S.—but it has racked up more than 200 million Spotify streams, and on YouTube the video is closing in on 23 million views.

The singular success of “Bloom” is even more remarkable when you hear how frontman and primary songwriter Sam Bentley defines the Paper Kites.

“We are an album band,” he says when the Straight rings him at home in the suburbs of Melbourne. “We’ve never been a band that just puts out a song without it being a part of something or alluding to something. And I understand bands that do that. I understand the whole streaming culture now, and that it is about getting your music out there, but I still believe that there are people who understand the art form of a record, particularly with the revival of vinyl.

“I’m not sure how it is over there, but in Australia CDs are all but done away with and it’s all vinyl in the music shops again,” Bentley says. “I think with that, people want a tangible thing that they can have in their homes to show their love for a certain record. That art form is coming back, and putting on something and listening to it from start to finish and really getting inside it and it becoming something that you feel speaks to only you, that’s definitely something that we really care about, and we’re very intentional about the way we craft everything.”

To get a clearer picture of just how much of an “album band” Bentley’s in, consider that the Paper Kites put out two of the darn things last year. The LPs are connected in many respects, from Gina Higgins’s film noir–esque cover paintings of lonely metropolitans to Bentley’s lyrical imaginings of the inner lives of others. Sonically, though, On the Train Ride Home is spare and stripped-down, while On the Corner Where You Live boasts a fuller sound, buoyed by atmospheric keyboards and shimmering electric guitars.

Bentley drew much of the inspiration for the albums’ songs by watching strangers and inventing back stories for them. When the Paper Kites aren’t on the road, he works at a movie theatre, which offers him both the opportunity to observe his fellow humans and the anonymity to do so inconspicuously.

“We have regulars that come in, and no one actually knows anything about them, even though we see them all the time, so there are many stories made up for those people,” he admits. “It’s great. I love working there. I love film, especially, and it’s a great place to be if you’re a film lover.

“No one has any idea what I do, out there,” Bentley notes. “I live way out in the suburbs, almost in a place called the Yarra Valley, which is wine country. And no one there knows that I play in a band or that I’m off touring all the time. It’s nice. It’s kind of like a Bruce Wayne day-and-night situation.”
The Starling Effect’s first show of 2026 (an update that no one will read)

January 16, 2026

Look, I get the fact that no one cares about my music. Here’s how I know: I regularly post about my band, the Starling Effect, and I see the stats. Exactly zero people have looked at anything I have ever posted on the topic. Literally no one. Ever.

In case you thought I was exaggerating.

But, guess what? This is my blog on my website, and if I want to talk about my band every now and then, I will. Even if I’m the only one who’s interested. So… hi, me!

The Starling Effect (which has its own website, by the way) will be playing its first show of 2026 on February 6 at Take Your Time Back (648 Kingsway). This will be our first show at this venue, and that’s not all! It will also mark our debut as a three-piece, following the departure of long-time bassist Alex Reed.

Can we pull it off? You’ll only find out by coming to the show. You can find more details on this Facebook event page, but here’s some info about who else is on the bill:

THE STAKES ARE US formed in 2021 as a collaborative songwriting experiment between Trevor M. Thompson and Jeremy Todd under pandemic conditions. Blending guitars with keyboards and programmed beats, their songs often seem to have an early ’80s post-punk influence (often unintentionally), although other influences creep in as well.

ZOE THE STRANGE is an experimental indie-pop solo project. Zoe likes storytelling, playing characters, dancing, and screaming.

STANZA LUNE is a synthy, sapphic, survivor songster making tunes for the moon. Much of their musical inspiration comes from video games & cartoons they grew up on, and that shines through in their unique melodies, poetic lyricism, and the dreamy, synthy sounds of their Suzuki Omnichord. They’re also a neurodivergent nonbinary lesbian, which greatly affects their creative process.

P.S. If you do actually read this post, please comment and let me know, because there’s a possibility that WordPress is just not showing me accurate analytics.
From the archives: Panic! At the Disco (2014)

January 14, 2026

Exactly 12 years ago, the Georgia Straight published my interview with Panic! At the Disco’s frontman, Brendon Urie. By this point, Urie was effectively the last man standing; only he and drummer Spencer Smith remained from the original Panic! lineup, but even Smith was a member in name only and would soon depart altogether. All of which seemed perfectly okay with Urie, who has never been keen on sharing the limelight anyway.

Panic! At the Disco’s Brendon Urie doesn’t mind the spotlight

(Originally published in the Georgia Straight.)

Panic! At the Disco fans got to see a lot of Brendon Urie in the band’s most recent video. In the clip for the single “Girls/Girls/Boys”, the frontman appears to be naked (although he’s only shown from the waist up), and he lip-synchs the song against a stark black backdrop. It is, in fact, a tribute to an earlier video, D’Angelo’s polarizing “Untitled (How Does It Feel?)”, released in 2000. The R&B star was famously hesitant to bare his ripped physique for the camera, and later felt that it actually hurt his career. Urie, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

“I love being naked, man,” the gregarious singer says, on the line from a tour stop in Mexico. “It was kind of just a natural thing. ‘Oh, I just get to be like I am all the time at home? Oh, cool. Just put a camera there.’ It is strange. You’ve got 30 people behind the camera just watching you, and, like, people you’ve just met for the first time that day. But it kind of surprised me how comfortable I ended up being after the first 10 seconds when the music started. ‘All right, here we go. One take. Fuck it.’ It kind of worked out. I like that rush that you get.”

Urie clearly doesn’t mind having all eyes in the room trained on him. He relishes being the face of Panic! At the Disco, and in fact it is Urie alone who is pictured on the cover of the group’s latest album, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. “Full disclosure: I love it,” he says with a laugh. “I really do. I mean, since I was a kid—youngest of five kids—I’ve always been starved for attention, like ‘Look at me! Look at me! Look what I can do!’ And I like it. It feels very natural. It’s never been a big, big problem since we’ve done this record. Some of my favourite record and album covers and stuff have all been the singer, and they create a character and they dress up a little bit. That’s kind of the focus. I enjoy it. Like I said, it feels very natural. I like being the centre of attention. And that’s my ego talking.”

The singer is getting plenty of time in the spotlight on the current tour in support of Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!. He is, in fact the only member of the original configuration currently touring under the Panic! At the Disco banner. As the project’s focus has shifted, from carnivalesque emo to ’60s-throwback rock to unabashed glitter-pop, its lineup has also changed. Founding drummer Spencer Smith is still in the band, but he has been sidelined since last summer in a bid to break his dependence on alcohol and prescription pills.

Always able to see the upside of things, Urie says he doesn’t consider Smith’s sabbatical a bad thing. “It’s actually been really good on both ends,” he insists. “Spencer is able to be at home and get his help that he deserves, and we also have people who’ve stepped up and been able to help us. The guy who’s drumming for us now [Dan Pawlovich] was our tech in the beginning, and he’s been able to tech himself and drum. So it’s been pretty amazing. Everybody’s stepped up and supported us through everything that’s happened. I mean, so many dynamic changes over the last six months. But it’s good. I mean, we’re looking up. It’s been positive so far.”
Recently published: December 2025

January 6, 2026

It just occurred to me that I forgot to do this monthly roundup at the end of December. I must have been distracted by something.

Early Music Vancouver aims to make Handel’s beloved Messiah feel both fresh and familiar

(Stir, December 3, 2025)

SINCE ITS FIRST PUBLIC performance in Dublin in 1742, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah has never fallen out of favour with audiences, even as its presentation has been changed to suit the tastes of the times.

In the Victoria era, fashion dictated massively scaled-up renditions of the beloved oratorio. In 1857, for example, London’s Crystal Palace hosted what was billed as the “Great Handel Festival”, complete with a performance of Messiah by a chorus of 2,000 singers and an orchestra of 500.

Not everyone, however, was a fan of this supersized Handel. Bernard Shaw was among the detractors, writing: “Why, instead of wasting huge sums on the multitudinous dullness of a Handel Festival does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance of the Messiah in St James’s Hall with a chorus of twenty capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die.”

Read the rest here.

Richmond mayor hits the right notes at Vancouver Sunshine Lions Club charity concert

(Pancouver, December 8, 2025)

It isn’t every day that you get the opportunity to see a sitting mayor take to the stage and give a musical performance in front of a paying audience. That’s exactly what happened at Richmond’s Fraserview Church on December 7, when Malcolm Brodie provided piano accompaniment for vocalist May Ho and violinist Kan Chen.

Not by himself, mind you, but with the backing of the Vancouver Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. Brodie’s performance of two songs with the ensemble was the centrepiece of the Gentai Charity Concert. Organized by the Vancouver Sunshine Lions Club, the event raised $20,288 for the Richmond Community Foundation (which administers more than a dozen scholarships for secondary-school grads) and it also marked the Sunshine Lions’ 10th anniversary.

The two songs that featured Richmond’s mayor might not be very well-known outside of the Chinese community, but each is significant in its own way...

Read the rest here

Vancouver Cantata Singers bridge generations with Christmas Reprise concerts

(Stir, December 9, 2025)

PUT IT DOWN TO genetics, credit the influence of growing up among musicians, or simply call it destiny; whatever the case, Sophia Colpitts was going to end up involved in music one way or another.

“My mom was an elementary-school music teacher and my dad still is, and they both play many instruments, so I grew up doing piano and I eventually started singing in choir when I was 11 years old,” says Colpitts, now in Grade 12. “And then I started writing choral music.”

Choral music certainly seems like the natural choice for the budding composer. One might even say it’s in her blood. Her grandfather, Doug Colpitts, has been a member of the Vancouver Cantata Singers since 1976. Sophia got her own start with the Vancouver Youth Choir, of which she is still a member, and she began composing her own choral works in 2022.

“The first piece I ever wrote was because of the Vancouver Chamber Choir’s Young Composers’ Competition,” she tells Stir in a telephone interview. “I just thought it would be interesting to enter, and so I did. And for that one, I won an honourable mention in the competition.”

Clearly, this is a young woman who takes music very seriously. Most of the time…

Read the rest here

How SFU’s Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum was designed to be about more than just art

(Montecristo, Winter 2025 issue)

In Siamak Hariri’s view, every major project needs three key figures in order to come to fruition. A founding partner of the Toronto-based Hariri Pontarini Architects, he identifies the members of this holy trinity as the Champion, the Visionary, and the Captain. And in the case of the recently opened Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby Mountain campus, the architect says he knows exactly who filled each of those roles.

The Visionary, Hariri says, was Joy Johnson, SFU’s president and vice-chancellor, whose unswerving support ensured that the 12,100-square-foot, $26.3-million facility was built—and on a prime piece of real estate, no less, with an entrance adjacent to the campus’s main bus exchange. “She put this at the gateway of the entire university, and you have to acknowledge that that’s a daring act,” he insists. “She gave us enough land to spread out.”

The Captain, the architect continues, was Kimberly Phillips, director of SFU Galleries, who steered the Good Ship Gibson through occasionally stormy waters. And the Champion? That was Marianne Gibson, who was determined the new museum would be what Hariri calls “a love letter” to her late husband, Edward Gibson…

Read the rest here
The Starling Effect’s 2025 year in review

January 3, 2026

In case you missed it (and assuming it interests you), here’s some of what my band got up to over the past 12 months, via TikTok.

@thestarlingeffect
A lot happened this year! We played some fun shows, we recorded and released new music, and we said an amicable farewell to our bassist extraordinaire, Alex Reed. Let’s see what 2026 has in store! #vancouver #indiemusic #thestarlingeffect
♬ original sound – The Starling Effect – The Starling Effect
Holiday music video countdown finale, featuring ABBA

January 1, 2026

I guess after all that talk of burning longships in yesterday’s post, I felt a little guilty, so in the last post of this series, I’m giving the Scandinavians their due.

ABBA’s “Happy New Year” is, in some ways, the perfect song for January 1, opening with lyrics that refer directly to the festivities of the night before: “No more champagne/And the fireworks are through.”

From there, though, things take a decidedly darker turn, as the narrator (via lyricist Björn Ulvaeus) struggles to leaven his despair over the state of the world with a glimmer of hope for the future:

May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die

In the next verse, Ulvaeus presents a grim vision of a reality in which “man is a fool…never knowing he’s astray” in a “brave new world”. Whether he’s borrowing that phrase from Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel of the same title or going straight to the source—William Shakespeare’s tragicomic play The Tempest—it’s a pointed indictment of the times. And this was in 1980! Imagine what he’d have to say if he were writing this song today. Or, actually, it’s probably best not to imagine that.

Sweden’s biggest cultural export and one of the most successful acts in the history of popular music, ABBA isn’t typically remembered for having especially topical lyrics. However, “Happy New Year” would not be Ulvaeus’s last flirtation with dark themes. ABBA’s final album—until 2021’s Voyage, that is—1981’s The Visitors, explored marital dissolution and Cold War militarism, among other uplifting topics.

The LP’s title track, which was released as a single, was sung from the point of view of political dissidents facing oppression by an authoritarian regime. No countries were named in the lyrics, but those commies in the Soviet Union were so vain that they probably thought this song was about them. (The album was banned in the USSR is what I’m getting at there.)

These walls have witnessed all the anguish of humiliation
And seen the hope of freedom glow in shining faces
And now they’ve come to take me
Come to break me
And yet it isn’t unexpected
I have been waiting for these visitors

That is one seriously bleak song! And since none of the above is the most upbeat note upon which to begin a new year, here’s an ABBA song that won’t make you think of anything other than dancing. And perhaps feeling the beat from the tambourine.

Happy New Year!
Holiday music video post Day 31 (Hogmanay edition), featuring The Cast

December 31, 2025

Lang may yer lum reek…

If you read that and immediately thought, “Wi’ ither folks’ coal!” then you’re probably Scottish and know that this is a traditional Hogmanay salutation. (It translates to “Long may your chimney smoke…with other people’s coal!”—but don’t ever dare suggest that Scots are “thrifty” unless you’re spoiling for a bout of fisticuffs.)

For the non-Gaels in the room, Hogmanay is what Scottish people call New Year’s Eve, an event traditionally celebrated with festive gatherings, fireworks, and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne”.

If you think that sounds a lot like what North Americans get up to on the last night of the year, that’s a fair perception. On the other hand, the Scots really, really like to burn stuff on Hogmanay. In Aberdeenshire, for instance, celebrants assemble bundles of chicken wire stuffed with flammable materials that they set ablaze and swing over their heads as they march to the harbour, into which they hurl their fireballs.

Edinburgh’s annual celebrations include a massive torchlight parade of folks dressed up like Vikings, who set a replica of a Viking longship on fire. Which, quite frankly, seems like an insane thing to do, albeit perfectly understandable when you consider that the Scottish people are, collectively, insane. (And I can get away with saying that, being descended from some of the craziest, including this guy.)

Lee Kindness, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

As for “Auld Lang Syne”, it was introduced by Scotland’s bard, Robert Burns, in the late 18th century. Burns sent a copy of the song to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, along with a note reading “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man.” While Burns’s version does bear some similarities to an older poem, Burns scholars generally agree that he probably wrote most of it himself.

Arguably the most famous rendition of “Auld Lang Syne’ is a 1947 recording by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians; this is the version played in Times Square annually as the ball drops to mark the start of the new year.

Lombardo and his band got a lot of mileage out of Burns’s song, playing it on radio and/or TV every year from 1929 to 1976 as part of their annual New Year’s Eve broadcasts. They also released at least four other recorded versions of it. Were Burns still alive today, a single royalty cheque could fund the razing of enough longships to constitute a declaration of war against Scandinavia.

In more recent years, one of the most popular versions of “Auld Lang Syne” is that sung by Mairi Campbell (who recorded it as part of a duo called The Cast alongside her husband, Dave Francis). The Cast’s version, which uses a melody that predates the more commonly heard one, was featured in the 2008 Sex and the City movie, but we won’t hold that against it.

And just for fun, here’s Lombardo’s very first recording of “Auld Lang Syne”, released in 1939:
Holiday music video countdown Day 30, featuring the Stranglers

December 30, 2025

I really wanted to post Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” (because that’s tomorrow night, in case you’ve lost track), but there’s no video for it, so I was forced to go see what Holidays-and-Observances.com had for me.

Turns out that December 30 is the Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute. A festival, no less! Here’s hoping it involves what would generally be considered “festivities”—you know, family gatherings, sing-alongs, airings of grievances, maybe a roast beast. (Confession time: roast beast is a feast I can’t stand in the least.)

Let’s see what Google can tell us…

The consensus seems to be that the Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute is an occasion to reflect on all of the goals you never got around to tackling during the preceding 12 months, and to then make “enormous changes” in order to accomplish them before the end of year.

Well, that’s no fun! No one’s going to bake cookies or go out carolling for that. Therefore, I deem it “not a festival”. Still, it gives me an excuse to post the video for “Something Better Change” by the Stranglers.
Holiday music video countdown Day 29, featuring Tay Zonday

December 29, 2025

It’s a tad early—much too early in the game, if you will—to post New Year’s-themed videos, and to be honest I’m a feeling a little bit lazy. So let’s just say that today is National Chocolate Day. Unless that was yesterday. Or maybe it’s actually on October 28.

This is not to be mistaken for World Chocolate Day, which is on July 7. As Wikipedia helpfully points out, “The observance of World Chocolate Day dates back to 2009 and is not to be confused with International Chocolate Day.” Which is September 13. And before you ask me what the distinction is between a “world” observance and an “international” one, let me assure you that I haven’t the foggiest.

What I can tell you is that in Latvia, they celebrate World Chocolate Day on July 11. Leave it to those tricksy Latvians to mark a “world” day on a different date from the rest of the world.

Anyway, here’s a song:
Holiday music video countdown Day 28 (National Short Film Day edition), featuring the Smashing Pumpkins

December 28, 2025

Today is National Short Film Day, and while I’m pretty sure that “national” refers to the United States (the observance was started by the New York-based Film Movement), let’s not let that stop us from celebrating here in Canada. Or wherever you are as you read this.

Moreover, National Short Film Day was inspired by an event that happened in France. On December 28, 1896, Auguste and Louis Lumière held the world’s first paid public motion-picture exhibition. They screened 10 (very) short films, several of which you can watch below:

The Lumière brothers made their films using a cinematograph, a camera that also functioned as a film developer and a projector. One notable attendee at this first screening, held at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris, was Georges Méliès, who went on to become a pioneering filmmaker in his own right. Méliès made more than 500 films, but is probably best remembered for 1902’s A Trip to the Moon, inspired by the writings of Jules Verne.

In 1996, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris drew inspiration from A Trip to the Moon when they directed the video for the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight”. Trivia time: the video stars real-life married couple Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, who not only were castmates on Mr. Show, but also went on to voice SpongeBob and Karen Plankton, respectively, on SpongeBob SquarePants.

For the sake of comparison, here’s A Trip to the Moon itself: