Surrey guitar studio to rock church for food bank donations April 11
Published 10:00 am Saturday, April 4, 2026
Three bands will play a benefit concert for Surrey Food Bank on Saturday, April 11.
The 7 p.m. show, organized by Accent Guitar Studio’s Terry Armitage and North Surrey Lions Club, promises a night of classic- and pop-rock songs at Northwood United Church, 8855 156 St., Surrey. Admission is by donation ($10 suggested); concert-goers are urged to bring some non-perishable food, too.
The featured bands — Bad for Grapes, The Llamas and Sultans of Birds — have connections to the long-riffing guitar studio, in Fleetwood on 88 Avenue.
One teacher is Graham Gomez, formerly of Peak Performance Project-winning Surrey band Good for Grapes, who’ll rock with some preteen students including Kayser, 11, and Eli, 9. “The band members liked the idea of being called Bad for Grapes because Graham was in Good for Grapes,” Armitage reports.
His old band disbanded, Gomez is now in Groove Saloon with Daniel McBurnie. On Youtube they posted a pretty funny video for “Look at Me,” a catchy, slightly yacht-rock song.
Armitage has taught guitar lessons in Surrey since 1982 — first in Whalley, then Guildford and now at a home studio in Fleetwood. Looking back, he’s proud to have worked with some talented young players over the years.
“Devin Townsend, he was one of my earliest students,” he said of the prog-metal guitarist in 2019. “Faber Drive, that’s Dave Faber. They got signed to 604 Records, and I worked with him for awhile,” he added. “There was a Holy Cross student, Christina Rieder, who later changed her name to Rykka.… She was one of my students when she was young, at age 11 or 12, and I took her into nursing homes to perform, that kind of thing.”
Armitage says Faber Drive took time off, but the pop-punk band is now back after doing some festival shows last summer.
“Dave was going to come and do an acoustic performance at our Night Of Music (on April 11) but is going out on tour with his son, stage name Powfu, (who) had a big viral success with ‘Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)’ featuring Beabadobee. It went viral on TikTok in March 2020 with 4.1 billion views, two billion streams on Spotify and has 838 million views on Youtube.”
Meantime, students at Accent have been busy performing music around Surrey and Langley.
“At Christmas we took some of our students to perform at the Fleetwood Villa retirement home,” Armitage noted. “When we do our yearly recital at Sullivan Hall we collect food to donate to the Surrey Food bank. As part of the Golden Daze Band, I perform at adult daycare centre in Guildford, Newton and Langley. We will be performing at Brookswood Lodge Retirement home on April 3, Good Friday.”