Blank Vinyl Project (BVP) is one of UBC’s most ambitious clubs. Each year, on top of weekly free multi-band live shows at Koerner’s Pub and offering access to a dedicated jam space for members, the student-run live music club hosts several large-scale ticketed events that regularly draw crowds in the hundreds.
BVP’s independent music festival, Goosehunt, is the largest of these, typically featuring around 10 half-hour-long sets from various local bands and artists — think of Versus, the club’s annual battle of the bands, as Goosehunt in miniature. 2025’s iteration pitted six groups against each other in short 15-minute sets over the evening of Oct. 2.
With only enough time for four or five songs at most, the bands — Shimbashi Station, Bella Blanche with Somatone, Anteater Eater, Infidelity, Mom Cuts My Hair and Chronic Fatigue — were each up against the clock.
Where Goosehunt tends to showcase the best and brightest of UBC and Vancouver’s thriving independent scene, BVP Creative Director Emily Yang said the club’s goal with Versus is “to give certain bands — who we think deserve it — a platform in the scene.” This meant the artist booking team leaned toward giving precedence to newer, less established bands. Bella Blanche with Somatone, for example — a languid, country-infused set in the vein of Lana Del Rey meets Mojave 3 — played Versus as their first live show.
Like Versus 2024, the event was hosted at the Biltmore Cabaret in Mount Pleasant. Though Events Coordinators Kaia Santorineos and Nina Liendo were familiar with planning shows at Koerner’s Pub — BVP’s usual stomping ground and the yearly venue for Goosehunt — interfacing with an independent venue posed new challenges.
Santorineos explained that, while BVP is not for profit, venues are invested in making as much money from each show as possible. “There are definitely some difficulties … [with] how much money [independent venues] want to make,” she said. “How much money our crowd is spending at the bar isn’t always what they want.”
Despite some organizational challenges, Versus came together smoothly. Backed by months of preparation and a dedicated team, the night had the polish of a much larger show.
Shimbashi Station kicked off the night with a set of J-pop-inspired tunes that layered ‘'90s pop-rock melodies over impressively tight instrumentals. Anteater Eater followed Blanche & Co. with an indie rock set elevated by all-in vocals from the lead vocal-guitarist and backing vocal-bassist. Their song “PunK DreamZ,” with its tongue-in-cheek take on the chorus of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” was a highlight.
Up next, Infidelity’s drummer held down intricate beats while the rest of the band — guitar, bass, keys and saxophone — built up impressive runs that dropped into walls of sound. Mom Cuts My Hair followed with slow, low riding verses that built to driving choruses buoyed by excellent vocals and prominent basslines.
Chronic Fatigue closed out the night, combining punk instrumentals and choruses with rap-rock vocals on the verses from frontperson Sam Patterson. During their song “Bus Beers,” Patterson cracked open a cold one, poured it into a dog bowl he’d produced from… somewhere, and chugged it while the crowd chanted the two-words chorus — no points for guessing the words.
After all the bands had played, the audience was invited to vote on their favourite set of the night. BVP’s execs had iterated on their voting process slightly since the previous year with the addition of a field asking which sets voters had actually seen — previously every vote was weighted equally regardless of whether a respondent had arrived at 7:30 or 11. “It’s not a foolproof system,” admitted Yang, “but we’re trying to make it more fair. We want to reward bands who bring the energy and keep people engaged all night.” Of course, the form still didn’t require emails — so yes, you could technically vote as many times as you wanted — but even with its imperfections, the new process was an improvement.
At the end of the night, Infidelity took the prize — a guaranteed spot in 2026’s Goosehunt lineup — with Shimbashi Station bringing up second place.
For the organizing team, the real prize was the energy in the room.
“It’s very exciting every year ... We’re all unpaid volunteers putting a lot of time outside of school into this. But I think it’s really worth it when you see how much it means to people,” Yang told The Ubyssey.
Looking ahead, BVP continues to provide UBC students with community spaces for local music lovers. According to Yang, one main goal for the year is to build connections between BVP and other AMS clubs and campus groups like CiTR, the UBC Jazz Club and the UBC Sustainability Hub.
BVP’s executives are also pushing to include a broader range of music at club events, which currently skew heavily toward indie rock — a reflection of the broader Vancouver independent scene. The club hosts an EDM night yearly, and last year hosted an Arab music night at Koerner’s. They also host Guateque, a Latin music night, every November — Santorineos and Liendo are currently in the booking stages of this year’s iteration.
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