Urban Mixer Blog

ZebraClub, the legendary clothing store on South Granville, celebrated 1 Year at Maurya Restaurant on the 28th. Jose Chavez MC’d the event and hosted a great fashion show.

Check out the video footage too:

For those of you who missed the show, you can check out ZebraClub’s fall/winter and spring/summer collections live and in person at their store:

Zebra Club
3101 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC V6H 3K1

Telephone: 604-732-3368

Week of November 27th - December 3rd, 2006

To see the latest newsletter (and newsletter archives) for your city, click the appropriate city, below:

CALGARY | VANCOUVER

Welcome to the week of November 27th - December 3rd, 2006. Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight, for Mother will be there.

We’d never go to the dogs; we don’t even know any! Dognabbit but the Urban Mixers are the cutest pack of puppies around. So don’t sit (or stay) chained to a desk; slip off that leash and come howl at the moon. Or at least convince him to pull his pants back up.

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Saturday in Vancouver - we checked out four great events with the Urban Mixer crew starting with the BMW X5 Launch at Brian Jessel BMW on Boundary Road.

Later in the afternoon, we checked out the Skoah 5 Year Anniversary. Skoah is a spa which is located in Yaletown and is best known for giving the best facial in Vancouver (and Calgary now that they’ve opened a location in Chinook Centre):

In the evening, we first checked out the Starlight Starbright Childrens’ Foundation New Orleans-themed gala event at the Vancouver Museum on Chestnut Street - loads of fun:

We finally ended the night at Century where we enjoyed Chris and Tracy McKee’s 7th Annual James Bond Party:

Stay tuned for more great adventures! If you want to join us, simply drop us a line.

Three great parties on Thursday again:

First, the launch of Muzi Tea Bar on Cordova Street where the gals of Tara Parker Communications (also famous for bringing us Vitamin V) introduced us to the first premium granite ground powder tea to hit North America. We enjoyed custom cocktails by Chambar’s bar team together with choice hors d’oeuvres prepared by Murray Bancroft.

Great tea, excellent drinks and those hors d’oeuvres were certainly choice. I even asked Brian Takeda, the President of Muzi Tea, to consider my humble suggestion of getting a liquor license for his location.

Second stop, Watermark Restaurant in Kitsilano for Fred Lee’s “Fabulous Fortieth” birthday celebration. Fred is best known for being both the social writer for the Vancouver Courier as well as a columnist for CBC British Columbia’s Early Edition. He’s a veritable riot to hang out with.

Catch Fred as the host of tomorrow’s Second Annual Gala Event for Starlight Starbright Foundation. You can find out more about the event HERE.

Third stop, The Bacardi Black Party. The vibe is dark, dress code black, music-a combo of heavy rock, 80’s and electro. The freaks certainly did come out. So did Schulz - the very talented rock band who’ll play their next show at the Cobalt on December 8th. Check out the video below.

It’s Saturday November 18th, 2006 and Bhangra Nation is about to start for the 10th time. As one of the founders of North America’s premiere Bhangra and Dhol (traditional drum) competitions, I was proud to see that 10 years later, the spirit still lives on. Furthermore, we continued to have the support of our loyal and long-time sponsors: Payal Banquet Halls, Canada Power Products, the Voice and National Video Lab. Joining us for the first time on a national level were Telus and President’s Choice foods.

14 Teams competed in the following categories: Best Traditional (live music only, simply vocals, the dhol and some auxillary instruments like the Algoja (a flute), Best Freestyle (pre-recorded bhangra tracks were used as the backbeat), Best Male Dancer, Best Female Dancer and Best Dressed Team. The grand prize for the Best Traditional and Best Freestyle were $5,000 to the winning teams.

MCs for the evening were City TV Toronto’s Nalini Sharma, Star TV’s Husein Madhavji and OmniTV’s Sarabjeet Singh.

And the winner’s are:

Professional Category:

1. Gurman Folk Dance Academy all the way from Barnala, India
2. Nachdi Jiwani, Toronto
3. Rooh Punjab Di, Toronto

Freestyle

1. Shaan-e Punjab, Toronto
2. Bulldawg da Raag, University of Georgia Co-Ed Team (note: 4 of the dancers were not even of an Indian descent)
3. Bhangra Beats Co-Ed team, Abbotsford, BC

Best Male Dancer: Tejinder Singh, Gurman (India)

Best Female Dancer: Mira from Bulldawg. She learned bhangra in 3 months and is not even east-indian. Wow!

Best Dressed Team: Nachdi Jiwani, Toronto

A special thanks to BC Cultural Group who travelled to Toronto from Vancity.

Balwinder Safri came from England to perform and DJ Amita rocked the house with a few tunes.

The BN executives were proud to announce that with the support of the Ontario and federal governments to the tune of $100,000 over 3 years, BN will be able to open a free dance studio in Brampton where anyone of any age or background may come in to learn bhangra, giddha, the dhol or other instruments used in the art. Proceeds from ticket sales will also be directed towards this endeavour as BN is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the art of bhangra and punjabi culture across Canada.

Finally, BN has the esteemed honour and sole authority to assemble an offficial university-level bhangra team representing Canada (Team Bhangra Nation), who will participate in 3 intercollegiate bhangra competitions in the Punjab this October….all expenses sponsored by Guru Nanak Dev University.  Talk about WOW!

Nina

Stay tuned for: the release of the official Bhangra Nation LP produced by Sahib-G in England from MusicWaves and ofcourse…more details on BN West!

Sarah Bancroft and Tara Parker-Francis at Vitamin V certainly have their work cut out for themselves. They release a cool email daily covering topics including health + beauty; fashion + shopping; arts + culture; travel + leisure; dining + nightlife. We whine about publishing once weekly, maybe twice - plus the sporadic blog, but practically every day of the week? Whew!

Last night at Nu, Vitamin V celebrated their second year with fantastic appies, great drinks and a fantastic crowd.

We also got to try this fantastic new ultra-high-end Vodka that hits the market next week. It’s called U’LUVKA and Jim Irving from Point Grey Importers gave me the inside scoop. I’ll have more to say about that in a post on my personal blog HERE in a day or two.

Check out the Vodkast website at http://www.uluvka.tv for cool mixology.

Nu has really made progress since they first opened. I was amazed by the insight, creativity and attention to detail put into the food. Definitely the lounge with the best appies in town … but I continue to digress so best get back to the meat - great party, here’s the pics to prove it:

Great door prizes from the sponsors of the event. Check out my new scarf courtesy the good people at Urbanity in Gastown - sexy, non?

Monday night, the king of all school nights - what better a night to host the who’s who in Vancouver’s club-going scene for an exclusive open-bar VIP party. If only a venue could figure out who the best people were to invite to such an opening party.

Well, six months after the opening of the Granville Street hotspot, Republic (and similarly, Sanafir), they finally get around to having that opening party (Republic, that is), and here are the pictures to prove it:

Hmm… Fashionably late definitely comes to mind. Definitely fashionable. Definitely late.

Week of November 20th - 26th, 2006

To see the latest newsletter (and newsletter archives) for your city, click the appropriate city, below:

CALGARY | VANCOUVER

Welcome to the week of November 20th - 26th, 2006. The Urban Mixer’s prepared a catalogue of cataclysmic action for you, so purrpare for playtime!

Listen up, cats and kittens! Calling all cougars and shaguars! Attention fat cats! Get out from behind your computer, put on your pumas and pussyfoot down to any or all of these fine excuses to show off your shiny coat, because there’s more to this world than what’s on MewTube. Get your yowl on all this week with your kith and kindle at the Urban Mixer.

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Saturday night - it’s time to put on the tux and party in style. First stop, the Vancouver Martini Tour, hosted by Josh Bender, featuring James Bond inspired stops en route to the main event at the Vancouver Aquarium:

The venues for the Martini Tour:

• Diva at the Met, 645 Howe Street
• Terrace Bar - Four Seasons Hotel, 791 West Georgia Street
• Mosaic Bar - Hyatt Regency Hotel, 655 Burrard Street
• Gerard Lounge - Sutton Place Hotel, 845 Burrard Street
• The Vancouver Aquarium

At Diva, we actually captured a ‘cloaked’ secret-agent martini drinker. I guess invisibility cloaking technology isn’t 100% just yet:

(click on the image to get a larger version - it’s truly fascinating!)

Second stop, Jet Set Crew presents “Thunderball” at the Vancouver Aquarium:

The highly anticipated, sold-out, Jet Set Crew theme party definitely was the best party to be at on Saturday night, period.

Heroes and villains, dressed to the nines, invaded the Vancouver aquarium for a superb experience! Check out the photos here:

The superstar cast of DJ’s was definitely a highlight for the evening. Erick Decks from Germany and Vancouver’s own DJ Tyson moved the crowd below sea level, DJ Leanne rocked the house on the upper deck. Check out the video of Erick spinning the wheels of steel:

Third stop, limo ride to ?. This section has been classified top secret. Perhaps next year, grasshopper.

Last night’s press conference/team meeting for Bhangra Nation (BN) 10 (Bhangra is a folk dance from India which occurs during harvest season) was well-executed and on time. During this 45 minute meeting of the minds, Ranvir and Harkirat (Pres of BN) outlined this evening’s happenings.

Joining us for the evening were representatives from all 14 (yes…14 teams) including the University of Georgia, Bhangra Beat from Abbotsford, BC Culture (Vancouver), Rooh Punjab Di (UK) and our star performers, the Gurman Folk Dance Academy all the way from Punjab, India. This is the first time that a team from India has traversed the oceans to participate in any North American Dance Competition.

In attendance were Rina Gill, Niche Marketing Specialist from Telus and her team, Balwinder Safri, our UK DJs, National Video Lab (sponsor), Canada Power Products (sponsor) and Fotosbyavtar (sponsor).

Other notables for the evening:

• Bhangra Nation West to launch in 2007 spear-headed by yours truly.
• BN will also open a free bhangra dance studio in Brampton over the next 3 months. This effort has been fully funded by the federal and provincial governments. Let’s hope we can duplicate this effort in BC.
• BN has been invited to assemble a Team Canada of university/college dancers to send to the Punjab next October to participate in 3 inter-collegiate competitions there….all expenses paid and finally,
• the official BN album (produced by Pammi Saib) to be released by Vancouver’s own Music Waves in the next few weeks….let’s hope its before BN West goes live!!

Will have all the excitement for you tomorrow as I head over to the hall now. Since my ticket was paid for by BN, the executives are putting me to work!!

Nina

http://www.bhangranation.com/newsletter9.html