In the right light BNB Studios is transforming the esthetic of the local music scene By: Conrad Sweatman Posted: 4:58 PM CDT Monday, Oct. 21, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/10/2024 (350 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s sometimes joked in Winnipeg’s music scene that there’s only ever $500 circulating – it just keeps moving from this crew to that and eventually does the rounds again. A Keynesian multiplier effect, but without enough juice to jump-start the scene into a major commercial industry.

It’s also joked that if BNB — led by videographer-photographer duo Jen Doerksen and Julio (Buio) Assis — keeps making everyone look so good, the scene will spit out a few more stars and finally achieve that status as an industry. A rising tide lifts all boats, to abuse another economics idea.

BNB has accomplished something of a revolution in the way Manitoba musicians look — and can often be worked with for less than $500, depending on a music act’s needs. The company has collaborated with what seems like every musician under 40, and its crisply saturated fingerprints are all over the visuals of Winnipeg’s heaviest hitters, including Leith Ross, Begonia, Boy Golden and William Prince.

Assis doesn’t affect modesty about all this; his embarrassment is real. When responding to boilerplate questions about BNB’s trajectory, he interrupts himself. “It kinda sounds like I’m bragging, so I’m gonna stop here,” he says.

About that trajectory, which he ultimately lays out: born in 2016, a year or so after Assis moved to Canada from his native Brazil, BNB started off like so many similar projects — a couple of friends recording their other friends being cool.

“(Chris Bacon and I) ended up bonding through photography and hitting a bunch of music festival that year and becoming huge pals,” Assis says.

Soon they were for shooting music sessions for realsies, working with folks such as Kevin Roy and Micah Erenberg. BNB (standing for Buio and Bacon) was born.

Bacon made an important contribution in the early days, but being a full-time mechanic, he could only burn the candle at both ends for so long.

Soon, Assis teamed up creatively with Jen Doerksen, to whom he is now married, and the pair were producing BNB’s Bench Session, a series of live music videos with local musicians.

Today, thanks to this and other series they’ve produced, BNB’s YouTube channel is probably the most comprehensive document that exists of Winnipeg’s contemporary indie music scene.

One of these series is No Fun Club Live, produced with the local recording studio of the same name.

“They’re the best … Almost every local musician has worked with them,” says studio owner Rob Hill. “They have that rare combination of capability and ease.”

“(T)he folks at BNB are, of course, talented and professional, but they also just genuinely love music and working with musicians,” adds studio manager Riley Hill.

Terms like “ease” and “a good hang” come up a lot in relation to BNB. The Winnipeg arts scene is comparatively small after all. This can make the line between social and professional networks especially blurry, and reinforce almost old-fashioned Midwestern values, such as neighbourliness and co-operativeness.

But No Fun says that, despite BNB’s small-towny approachability, the company brings a bold visual esthetic to a prairie scene sometimes perceived by outsiders as looking and sounding a little provincial.

“They’re artists too, so their vision informs their esthetic … They get along easily with musicians, but they’re also like, this is our vibe,” says Rob Hill.

Riley Hill adds: “Having them in the community brings a consistently high level of video and photo work to all of our projects.”

BNB are guns-for-hire these days too. Doerksen handles much of the bookings and logistics, while Assis is more often found, gimbal in hand, an assistant not far away, gliding through the Winnipeg Art Gallery or a parking lot capturing a concert by an orchestra or soul singer.

While an equally skilled photographer and videographer, Doerksen’s talents as a planner and manager have also led them to organizing roles with Boy Golden, Saskatoon rockers the Sheepdogs and the local Birthday Cake label.

Doerksen also used to edit Stylus, the University of Winnipeg’s music zine. It’s rumoured that in the ’90s the magazine’s office kept a folder of the cringiest local band photos. (You know the type: four middle-aged men, slouched against a derelict building, gazing intently at nothing in the distance.) Ask Doerksen whether such a folder still exists and the photograpner is playfully evasive.

“Man, ha, they have photos for sure, but I don’t know about it,” Doerksen says. “That’s a question for the (new) Stylus.”

Evidently Winnipeg’s band photos have come a long way since then, so perhaps, at least visually speaking, there’s less local cringe music content to be ironically savoured.

And then there are BNB’s music videos. One highlight is singer-songwriter Ross’s clip for We’ll Never Have Sex, which has 1.3 million streams on YouTube. (The song has more 100 million streams on Spotify, placing it among the most successful tracks by a Winnipeg act.)

If one hints that BNB’s esthetic may have something to do with so many bands’ success, Assis won’t hear it: “It’s bad luck to start talking about what you achieve!”

Then he strikes a more earnest note. “I just want to artists to have better supports,” he says. “If they win, we win.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca