Guilt and Co. live album benefits area charities
Gastown venue Guilt & Co. is Vancouver's unofficial “House of soul/ R&B.” One of the best evenings to catch talented local scene singers and bands laying down the grooves is GroundUp Thursdays.
Now suspended since March this year due to the pandemic, the eight-year-old event has run since May 2012.
For the duration of the run, net door revenues from the night are collected and turned over to assorted non-profit organizations supporting and providing services to the Downtown Eastside and other marginalized communities. An impressive $90,000 has been raised to date for the evening, which was started in honour of late singer Randy Ponzio.
The loss of any monies, particularly at as difficult a time as now for organizations aiding those at-risk populations in the area, is bound to be felt.
So Guilt & Co. house tech manager Trevor Tews and musician Bonnie Northgraves pitched the idea of putting out the Live at Guilt & Co: Vol. 1 compilation album to live programming manager Paul Clark as a way to keep GroundUp in action.
Now the release, featuring 11 of the longest-running acts to appear at the night, is available through Bandcamp, with all net proceeds to be turned over to the Raven Trust, Vancouver Black Therapy Fund, Saint James Music Academy and Loving Spoonful.
Among those artists performing on the release is GroundUp Thursdays co-founder Tonye Aganaba, bluesy balladeer Dutch Robinson, the funky Krystle dos Santos and jazzy Uno Mas. It's a great-sounding slice of some of the city's finest players.
“Bonnie initially reached out to see if it was a good idea to do the album to get some exposure going for the venue during COVID-19,” said Paul Clark. “But things have been going well enough that we chatted about doing the compilation for non-profit. ... So we used some of the money that we had set aside to make the album and it worked out really well.”
Bonnie Northgraves has played at Guilt & Co. since the venue opened and she lavishes praise on the room and the scene taking place in it.
“There is nowhere else like it and sounds like it, with that low ceiling, hard rock and cement infrastructure,” she said. “There is an energy that can't be created in any other venue when it's full of people. And I think that electricity translated onto the record, even though we recorded it live in an empty room because of the pandemic.”