Friday, October 09, 2009

From the basement to the stars

It's always nice to see a band up close and personal, and you can't get much more up close than the basement at 443 Kent Street. I have a new toy, an SC-29 Nikon flash synchro cord like all the cool kids have, so last night's show seemed an ideal opportunity to try it out. Thus I went off to the house of Calum and Co. to witness Victoria's Vincat and local garage terrorists The Girlfriends. Which I did, after a discussion of silent film, Russian film and strange baby-eating German cults.

With Pop Montreal going on to the east, there's a number of bands great and small spreading the musical goodness to nearby cities like Ottawa. One such band is Vincat, whose psychedelic noise-pop has brought in a fair amount of praise. They even got a brief gushing mention in The Montreal Gazette's Pop Montreal writeup. The trio put on a great show in front of 20 or so folks.

Vincat at 443 Kent Street
Vincat at 443 Kent Street, October 8, 2009

There followed a hallway discussion of the relative merits of The Japandroids' recent Mavericks show (which The Coathangers apparently stole - don't judge them on their recorded work or Myspace stuff). Then it was back to the basement. The Girlfriends put on their usual raucous show, and even had a smoke machine this time. "I have asthma!" complained a freshly shorn Nigel, but it didn't stop them from ripping things up, doing headstands and in Wolfgang's case stripping down to his boxers and sticking a shoe down the front of them. As you can see their high-energy show has aged Wolfgang horribly.

The Girlfriends at 443 Kent Street
The Girlfriends at 443 Kent Street, October 8, 2009

I bought a couple of Vincat albums on the strength of their show ... I'm listening to an earlier effort now, Inner Space. It's poppier but still really good. Remind me a bit of the JT3 mixed with Crazy Diamond-era Floyd.

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