High seas

Many years ago I worked at the Ottawa Sun with Darrell Angus of Golden Famile (I still do; he left to pursue education and employment elsewhere). We rode the bus in to work together, talked about music and traded CDs. It's probably not a coincidence that he was the first person I photographed when I started documenting the local scene - talking with Birdman Sound's John Westhaver outside Bumpers (gone but not forgotten ... Malcolm Bauld mentioned playing shows there during his performance Tuesday night). That night The Golden Famile were opening for the Asteroid No. 4. I've seen him in both The Golden Famile and backing Casey Comeau as a Half-Miler. The other members of the band have similarly extensive pedigrees in the local music scene - Nate Hurlow was in The Dead City Rebels, The Fortunate Sons and The Glads, Richard Jeffrey is in Mono Hum and is Casey Comeau's partner in music and life, Tim Matthews is also a Glad, was a Knurling, is also in Mono Hum. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Rickity Ship is picking up where the Famile left off with some extra VU and early Floyd mixed in courtesy of a cover of Lucifer Sam.

Darrell.



Nate.



Tim.



Richard sings Sam.



Rhythm section action!



Ship-shape action!



Clapping action!



The whole lot!



There was some joking after the show from band members that the performance was as rickety as their name - all part of the charm, I'd say. Maybe they'll be note-perfect when they play Zaphod's with Use Every Part of the Deer on May 21.

• Show reminder: The Constantines, Attack In Black, and Castlemusic play the Capital Music Hall. The Habit, Sadie Hell and Eastborough perform at The Rainbow. Brock Zeman plays Irene's. Lords and Cloak/Dagger hit the End Hits basement. Knives for Kids, Inire and Special Ops performs at Zaphod's.