Technical difficulties

It's been a busy week for rock of the fuzzy variety. First there was The Famines/Fucked Corpse/Wrist Pain show at Irene's, then there was Saturday's Nobunny show and last night was a Wooly Weekend/Nobunny hangover at the Montgomery Legion. For those of you not in the know, the Wooly Weekend was a garage-rock get-together held up in Montreal, featuring such luminaries as The Gruesomes, The Morlocks, The Hypstyrz, Question Mark and The Mysterians, The Alarm Clocks, The A-Bones ... and the list goes on! Anyway, a little further down the bill on Saturday you could see The Jinxes, The Teutonics and Ottawa's own Beach Blankets. Three of The Jinxes played last night as The Handsome Sexies opening for Nobunny, and they showed up again at last night's show.

Unfortunately, local Scott Beerwulf's dangling string wasn't the first break of the evening. Shortly after he was down to two, and that was the end of their very brief set.


The Handsome Sexies at Montgomery Legion, August 9, 2009

Next up were The Beach Blankets, who rocked out in their usual wild fashion. Unlike previous occasions, the space was too large for the crowd (in fact the turnout kind of sucked), and the band couldn't get up close and personal with their beloved audience like they should.


Beach Blankets at Montgomery Legion, August 9, 2009


Beach Blankets at Montgomery Legion, August 9, 2009

Still, a fine set from Ottawa's frat-rock favourites, despite Daniel's insistence they not play their AC/DC jam. Up next were The Jinxes - basically The Handsome Sexies plus one, with Scot trading in his guitar for a Farfisa. I've heard of performers who play guitar behind their back. This show was the first time I've seen someone do the same thing with an organ, as Beerwulf literally hoisted it up and turned in circles to the shock and amusement of the crowd. Alas there is no pictoral record of this momentous event, at least from me, because for some reason after a few shots of the Beach Blankets my camera stopped recording photos - and the damn thing's only a month old. It's not like someone spilled beer on it or anything either. I hope my experience with Nikon's warranty people is not as vexing as my battle with Ginn's old third-party warranty guys.
Anyway, onto The Teutonics. This doughty German quartet hails from San Francisco. Their hobbies include spraying beer, drinking beer, pouring beer on themselves and others, and being stuck in a timewarp from Hamburg circa 1962. They've got the vests, high guitars and collarless jackets, as well as a coal-scuttle helmet so you can tell they're really from Dusseldorf. They eased the audience into their set with some jokes read from a book (which also appeared to date from the 1960s) before beating out the beat.
Finally Gunsmoke finished things off with a rough and ready set of their own. It was getting on so they didn't stay long, and made up the set list as they went along ... actually just about every band tossed off their sets, but doesn't matter, it just added to the evening's slow-motion disaster charm.

• Show reminder: Alyssa Munaretto, Big In China, Erik Jorgensen and Keturah Johnson perform at Zaphod Beeblebrox; the Rainbow hosts Permanent Bastards.