Here’s what’s inside Roubini’s fridge

WMike Usinger

hat’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 Daphne Roubini.

Who are you?

I’m a jazz vocalist (apparently sounding like I am living in the mid-’40s rather than today) and bandleader of vintage-jazz band Black Gardenia, and ukulele jazz/folk duo Ruby & Smith along with my little darlin’ uke. So, I’m also playfully known as “Vancouver’s first lady of uke”, spreading ukulele madness, it seems, wherever I go. I founded the Vancouver Ukulele Festival and Ruby’s Ukes Ukulele School, now the largest ukulele school in the world outside of Hawaii, in 2009 and have made it a personal mission to make a difference in the world with music. (It’s true!) Coming up next for me is Vancouver Ukulele Festival 2019, with workshops (March 23 and 24) and a gala concert (March 22), and some really cool gigs coming up this summer I can’t tell you about yet! Originally from London, England, I am now deeply planted here in Vancouver!

Life-changing concert

It would have to be seeing the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in a tiny little folk club called Cecil Sharp House in Primrose Hill, London, around 2001. There were only 300 people there max, real old finger-in-the-ear folkies. A friend suggested we go, and I went thinking “What am I doing at the ukulele concert?” But she is one of the funniest people I know—to date—and so I went. I couldn’t believe my ears, and the audience, who were a mixture of old folkies and Primrose Hill trendies, were laughing out loud in absolute glee and joy— not in a “piss-taking” way at all. When they played “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” on ukes, we went insane! Now they sell out the biggest venues in the world. I didn’t play the ukulele then and would not have ever even considered it. I was totally immersed in jazz singing and piano then, so I reckon that it did change my life! Top three records

Ahmad Jamal The Ahmad Jamal Trio To me, Ahmad Jamal is one of the most unsung heroes of jazz; his work paved the way for later pianists that I also love, like Mccoy Tyner, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock. I love his early playing and his sense of internal rhythm. He is my favourite jazz pianist and I could listen to this album all day. I learned so much about jazz, improvisation, composition, and swing from the album. Plus, apparently it’s perfect to listen to on repeat night and day.

The Carpenters Close to You The first time I heard “Close to You” the purity of Karen Carpenter’s voice blew my mind and I was instantly addicted. I would spend hours singing along to the record in my bedroom when I was small; I often think Karen Carpenter taught me to sing. This album became a guilty secret when I was a teenager; I remember going to a party and we all had to bring a record we loved and I brought “Close to You”, and as I was coming back from the loo I heard someone saying in disbelief “Who brought this album?” I think that’s when I realized some music’s cool and some wasn’t. I always just liked what I liked. I was never the cool one. Now I know that is cool. Mandolin Orange This Side of Jordan I just saw their show at the Imperial a couple of days ago, so I am reminded of how brilliant I think this album is. Andrew Marlin’s songwriting is phenomenal—he manages to put his poems to music. I love, love, love visually rich songs where I can see the picture of the song in my mind as well as feeling the feeling it conveys.

What’s in your fridge?

A bottle of Wray & Nephew overproof rum. I love rum and juice, and I learned to make rum punch from my Jamaican friends in London, and still make a killer one that will lift you up fast and then let you down nice and slow. Keeping this strong rum cold makes it really smooth to drink. I love shaking a strong punch martini with cherry and apple juice and tons of lime. The perfect postgig or postclass or postanything cocktail. I feel like I am “back home” in London every time I have one of my specials; I am instantly back partying in Crouch End, London.

Fine chocolate. I am a lover of fine chocolate. Back in the day when I was a massage therapist in London one of my clients would bring me bricks of fine chocolate—he was, like, a chocolate dealer—wrapped in silver foil at the time when Bourneville was about as dark as it got. He’s Martin Christy, now the founder of the International Chocolate Awards. I learned to properly taste chocolate from him, and was one of his chocolate judges back in the day. In his home in Highgate he has a wine cooler full of only bars of chocolate. I have Sirene, out of Victoria, who won silver for their dark milk (65 percent), which is incredible, especially for relatively new chocolatiers. And a new bar by Pacari, single-bean, 70 percent, with cardamom.

Pesto sauce. The perfect right-therewhen-you-need-it kind of sauce. I love pesto sauce (especially Costco; it’s not cool, but it is true, and I’ve pretended I made it from scratch once… only once). It’s perfect for everything: salmon with pesto on top (grill for 15 minutes); cut-up leeks (steam first, then add pesto) with a poached egg on top; any kind of pasta, with anything else I can find; cheese-and-rye-bread grilled toast; late-night chips when there’s nothing else in the fridge postgig, served with the aforementioned Wray & Nephew punch martini. g

fellow travellers with a secret handshake. Tackling the revered Boston revisionists’ 1984 masterpiece “Help

You Ann”—as the Bad Beats do in a

2016 Youtube clip you need to watch right now—well, Christ, that’s like rolling up your pant leg and tickling the other guy’s sac while you’re at it.

The point I’m trying to make here is that this Vancouver four-piece is no bunch of fuzz-pedal dilettantes.

Second album Off the Hook offers solid d THANKS LARGELY TO the jokers evidence even without the help of in Steel Panther, it’s hard to tell when “Help You Ann”; vocalist Cam Alexander the metal-minded musicians of today and company beat the tar out of are being sincere when faithfully the Sparkles’ stupendous 1967 angst re-creating the sound that made the attack “You Ain’t No Friend of Mine”. ’80s famous. Jagger-richards receive an equally Sometimes what seems to start out tough Pacific Northwest workover on as a clever in-joke (3 Inches of Blood the title track, and the band fully reclaims comes to mind) morphs into a powerfully the Animals’ “Inside Looking authentic riff on the real thing. Out” from the heavy bread head territory Sometimes what seems like a winking Grand Funk Railroad took the piss-take (hello, Zimmers Hole) is no song into circa 1969. doubt meant to be a loving tribute.

Best of all, arguably, is the dirty, Sandstorm does its best to muddy tumescent organ throb the band the waters with the Bandcamp mission uses to assault Townes Van Zandt’s statement that the group is inspired “Waiting Around to Die”, finding the by both “’80s underground sinister nerve that every Van Zandt– Swedish metal.…& Rob Halfords loving acoustic folkie has managed Instagram account” (which the band to misunderstand or ignore for years thoughtfully links to just in case there now. Consider it a throwdown. As for are folks out there truly stuck in the the album’s eight originals, starting pre-internet era of spandex tights and

SANDSTORM Time to Strike