Winners of inaugural Bop City Records Community Music Fund are ready to rock
From left to right, the winners of the 2025 Bop City Community Music Fund are musical act Mean Bikini with drummer Ashley Gelaude, vocalist Milli Lyman, bassist Laurie Storrie, and guitarist Josh Marcellin (not pictured); and solo guitarist Sebastian Robles. Images courtesy of Mean Bikini and Sebastian Robles.
The 2025 Bop City Records Community Music Fund has been granted to two winners, local punk rock band Mean Bikini and local musician and guitar teacher Sebastian Robles.
The funds for Mean Bikini will help cover costs of mastering their new album that was released on April 3rd, This Ain’t Gonna End Well, which the band previously was paying for out of pocket.
For Sebastian Robles the funds will go to shred guitar lessons to further his skills.
Both winners shared their stories of how music drives them, and the community their music fuels.
Milli Lyman is the lead singer for Mean Bikini, and spoke to that special something that happens when the band plays together.
“ I feel like we've been exceptionally lucky that right from the get go, something about what we're playing has had people really fired up,” Lyman said. “Every time we go and play a show, it's always been met with such a special energy that we feel like we have something special. I don't know if it's the music, or the way in which we perform, or just the energy that we all have creating together, but it's something that people really love and that really fills us up in such a profound way.”
Lyman said that after three years of growing, shifting and changing, the band feels they’ve finally locked in the perfect line-up for what they’re trying to do.
“It feels like, you know, for all the goals that we've set, the ceiling for what seems possible just keeps getting higher and higher, and we just really wanna see how high it can go,” Lyman said.
As far as coming across the Bop City Records Community Music Fund, it was a serendipitous moment in the record shop that made it happen. The band is signed to an independent label, Outhouse Records, run by Mean Bikini’s bassist Laurie Storrie. They became connected with Kip and Karen, spouses and co-owners of Bop City Records, initially as a place to sell their music.
“We were all just really charmed by the way they ran their business and how willingly supportive they were of buying and selling records from our independent label. And I just happened to be in there one day and was having a chat with Kip, and saw a form for their community fund sitting on the table. And after looking it over, this was right after we just dished out a ton of money out of our own pockets to record this album, I was like ‘wow. What an amazing initiative,’” they said.
“It was really cool too to hear how the funds came about, in terms of people coming and dropping off records for free, and Kip and Karen just being like, ‘you know what? The money that we get from these records we're gonna set aside to help local musicians.’ And the Comox Valley is such a rich place for music and it's getting increasingly harder to get your music out there in the world,” Lyman said, “so it was really cool to be able to apply for. They're covering all of the costs for mastering on the record, which takes a huge financial burden off of us, a big chunk of that. And just to be met with that support from a local business is such a wonderful thing, especially as a band that has been doing it ourselves the whole time. And it's really heart warming and just feels like it's creating a huge piece of that community connection.”
Lyman explained that mastering is applying the finishing touches on an album that has already been recorded, polishing the quality of the sound to the level you would expect on the radio, or from major artists.
When talking about the drive to create this music, Lyman said it is bigger than performing or releasing work; it’s about creating a space.
“There hasn't been a punk scene in the Comox Valley for a long time, and another big goal of ours was to create that space for people. And you know, we did that out of our own passion for the music, and sense of wanting community,” they said.
Lyman said the group has brought bands from all over the world to the Comox Valley in the last couple years, including one band from Brighton, UK, called Moody Goods.
“And it's been putting the Comox Valley on the map as a place for punk rock, which is so, so cool. And beyond that, in creating space, it's turned into something that we never even knew was gonna happen, which is this safe haven and this space for queer and neurodiverse youth, which has been so amazing,” they said.
Lyman said that in a small town like this, there can be a lack of counterculture, something they personally were drawn to as a kid and still are as a queer and neurodiverse adult. Lyman said that is an important space to provide for other queer and neurodiverse folks in the community.
“Honestly, I would say the biggest success we have had as a band is creating a space for sort of marginalized groups of young people to come and feel safe and feel like they can be themselves and express themselves and feel safe to do so. And we see it at every show that we do out here, and it never loses its shine for how special it is,” Lyman said.
Mean Bikini's new album This Ain’t Gonna End Well is available for streaming on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. The band can be found on Instagram at @MeanBikiniOfficial.
The other winner of the Bop City Records Community Music Fund is Sebastian Robles, shred guitarist and music teacher.
“I felt really nice when I found out that I got the prize. I was pretty excited, 'cause I was like, ‘oh, okay!’ Of course I put my energy into it and I was like, ‘I really wanna do this. I wanna go back to lessons and maybe this is one chance that I can take lessons again.’ So I was like, ‘okay, I'll apply for it.’ And then when I received the notification that I got it, I was like, ‘oh, great! I feel good.’ And I really appreciate their support and all that. I love going there and buying CDs too, so that was pretty nice,” Robles shared.
Robles has been connected to music since he was a baby, listening to his father who is also a musician. His motivation to try for himself came later though, inspired by a guitar icon.
“When I picked up guitar I was 13, and I always wanted to do it because I saw my dad playing. And then I watched a video of Jimi Hendrix playing on the TV, a performance of [his]. And then that's why I wanted to start, ‘cause I thought that was the coolest thing in the world to do,” he laughed.
Robles said that at first his father taught him, but he grew up in Mexico and when his father moved to Canada their opportunities to play together became rare. Later when Robles moved to Canada himself, he continued to learn on his own between a few different guitar teachers spread over a couple of years.
“I had to figure out myself how to do it,” he said. “How I did it though is, I just watched my favorite guitar players and then I was like, ‘okay that's how you do it.’ I'll put a video or a live album of them playing, and I was like, ‘okay, so that's how you do it.’ And I was like, pausing the video and playing and trying to figure out what they were doing,” he explained.
Robles said that before he first started playing, he initially held back thinking that only rich or famous people could pursue music. But looking to his father, and his father’s musician friends, he realized anyone could try, and since then he has been motivated to inspire others to play as well.
“My goal in music is to share what I can do with the instrument, but also most important, I just wanna inspire people to do it. Because like I said, at first I thought you need to be rich or famous to start doing this,” he said.
He said he wants to show others who may have similar doubts that they can try too, and he has been successful with this, playing live as a young teen and seeing others around him picking up the guitar to try it too.
“ Not change the world or anything because that's kind of hard. But like, I just want to change the world with my music and inspire people and I don't know, just get people to start playing an instrument or something. Doesn't have to be guitar. It could be anything. It could be singer, drumming, bass player, whatever, but just to see that they can get on stage and play music and inspire people and all that. That's kind of important to me,” Robles said.
He said this influence is what has led students to him for lessons.
“When I realized that people were getting inspired by music and my playing, I felt really proud about that. And the same, I see it [in] my students too. They say [to] me, ‘oh, well, I didn't wanna take lessons, but then I saw you play. And I was like, okay, I wanna be like that guy, and that's why I'm here taking lessons with you.’ And I was like, oh, that's pretty neat. And I really like that,” he said.
Robles said that it hasn’t always been easy for him to stay inspired, as he has struggled with depression in the past.
“ I got into a deep hole where it was just darkness every day for me, there was not a single thing that will make me happy anymore. But then I– sometimes I will not play, but sometimes I'll play some music on my phone or like, I'll put live concerts of my guitar idols. And then, I start to remember why I started to play the guitar, and all the happy memories and the moments that guitar gave me and music gave me before.”
He said that he wasn’t only motivated by himself and the music, but also by wanting to make his mother proud, who at the time was coming to visit him from Mexico after four years apart.
“That's why. Pretty much, because my mom and the guitar and my guitar idols and music got me back into it again. Like I said, music was there for me again. I was like, ‘yeah, I'm gonna do it no matter what. I'm never gonna stop.’ And sometimes I still feel depressed. And of course, not every day I feel like playing the guitar, but sometimes I remember those days and I go like, ‘no, I should not go back into that. Like, I should just stay focused and play the guitar.’ And also Jimi Hendrix said that too. Sometimes you'll hate the guitar. But then if you sit with it, she'll pay you back. Or, music also will pay you back. So that's why I went back to it, that's how I got out of it,” he said.
Robles said that like life there will always be ups and downs, but now he knows that he will never stop playing, and music will always be there for him.
Sebastian Robles’ track Shark is available to stream on Bandcamp. He can be found on Instagram at @bastian_SRS, or on Facebook as Sebastian Robles - Guitarist.
More information about the Bop City Records Community Music Fund can be found in a previous report on CHLY News.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Reporting done in the Comox Valley is done in partnership with CVOX.