Hell and marriage

Ben Welland did his LP/CD release show up right, with a bunch of folks on hand to help out - which he dubbed Sadie Hell version 6.0, or something like that, and a big surprise at the end.

Ben!



My what big teeth Peter Jurt has.



Ben bends!



Dana Halabisky blows his own horn; Dave Secretary of Big Dick is at right.



Sean Laframboise drums from the other side of the stage.



Mallory Gilles from Politique sings; Christian Yurt on guitar.



Monitor standing action!



More Dave!



May-Jun and Mallory sing along.



The mandatory shouty Ben shot.



May-Jun breaks out the axe.



More shouty Ben!



And the big finish: A marriage proposal from Ben to his gal Colleen.



They're playing tonight at The Minstrel Cafe in Kelowna B.C. before heading home; their next Ottawa show is May 2 at Pub.101 (Not March 13 as I said earlier - that's the date of their show in Sault Ste. Marie).

Onward hop!

Later in the day of the Sounds Unlikely in-store appearance by You Say Party! We Say Die!, I went over to Zaphod Beeblebrox to see Sadie Hell and Modernboys Moderngirls. Sadie Hell can be seen in many permutations - indoors or outdoors, standing or sitting, solo or multitudinous. In this case it was Ben Welland solo.

Ben and a knitted backdrop.



Shouty closeup action!



In the interest of fairness, a non-shouty photo of Ben.



More yelling!



Tonsilled action!



Actually most of these photos looked kind of the same ... this one does have a lamp in it though!



Overhead action!



Anyway, not much has changed for Ben in the intervening months (apart from that Club SAW show where he released his debut record and got engaged to his girlfriend after a surprise proposal), but he does have an upcoming show at The Royal Oak (the one on Bank St. near Third Ave) on January 29. It's a benefit for Glebe fire victims along with The Murder Plans and Watters Brothers.

Surprise ending

Last time I was at Club SAW was September 4, 2007, to see The Rural Alberta Advantage. This time the headliner was Sadie Hell, which released their debut album and also raised some dough for SweatFree Communities, an organization for Third World workers. They got some support from Wuhan Lipfight, a band fronted by Menno Veersteg of Hollerado and Ottawa's own popular favourites The Love Machine.

Connecting Wuhan Lipfight with Hollerado is actually slightly deceptive. I chatted briefly with the members of the quartet after their set while they came up with pseudonyms and drummer El Suponte noted that while they stress all the time about what's going on in Hollerado, Lipfight is about doing everything they don't do in Hollerado. Thus, instead of snappy pop rock tunes you get skronky psych jam versions of Shortnin' Bread. The music is about as fuzzy as this photo.


Wuhan Lipfight at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

The Love Machine put on a very sharp performance. They actually gave their first performance at Club SAW about four years ago. "You can see how far we've come," joked guitarist Allan. They have a new album and video en route and played a bunch of new stuff.


Love Machine at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

The new video is courtesy of Luca Furgiuele, who also did the video for Sadie Hell's new single Pedestrians. The lady at left appears in the Love Machine video, if I understand things correctly.


Luca and friend at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

Then it was time for Sadie Hell; mainman Ben Welland corralled a bunch of folks to accompany him this time around, among them Peter and Christian Yurt of Hellbros, Mallorie Giles of Politique, new singer and guitarist May-Jun and Big Dick guy Dave Secretary on drums, along with usual suspects Dave Halabisky and Sean Lamframboise. They put on a sensational performance.


Sadie Hell at Club SAW, January 2, 2010


Sadie Hell at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

But the big surprise came at the end when Mallory ripped away the Sadie Hell banner to reveal behind it a big sign saying ...


"Colleen, will you marry me?" at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

Unfortunately it's kind of obscured by lights and microphone stands and a far-too slow shutter speed, but it reads "Colleen will you marry me?" As you can probably guess, she said yes. All together now: "Awwwwwww."

Death and girls

My music-watching got off to an early start yesterday: You Say Party! We Say Die! dropped into Sounds Unlikely for an in-store performance - their first ever, they said - and played an acoustic set (not even a microphone). They were en route to Joliette, Quebec, and have a bunch of Eastern, Quebec and Ontario dates before they swing through Ottawa for a show at Babylon with "real instruments" on November 14. "It's much easier being loud," bassist Derek Adams observed.


You Say Party! We Say Die! at Sounds Unlikely, October 22, 2009

Then I snuck off home through the rain and bided my time for the evening watching Thai martial arts films and South Korean crime dramas before setting off for Zaphod Beeblebrox. Sadie Hell started things off (no sign of the John Punch Band). Ben brought some knitted stuff to serve as a backdrop, and a lamp. He didn't bring any bandmates - they're either in Halifax or ensconced in other projects.


Sadie Hell at Zaphod Beeblebrox, October 22, 2009

Modernboys and Moderngirls don't seem to be having much luck attracting an Ottawa audience ... they'll do a lot better when they share a stage with The Balconies in November (at Irene's, if I remember things correctly) I imagine. Despite the small crowd things ended up very lively off stage with people dancing around by the last handful of tunes.


Modernboys Moderngirls at Zaphod Beeblebrox, October 22, 2009

In short, it was a fine day, provided you don't think about the weather.

• Show reminder: Marianas Trench, play a predictably sold-out show with The New Cities and Carly Rae Jepsen at the Bronson Centre; Cuff The Duke, The Soiree and The Stables perform at Babylon; Vic Chestnutt and Clare and the Reasons play Mavericks; Bloodshoteye, The Catalyst and Terrorhorse terrorize Cafe DeKcuf; the band whose name is a symbol, Castor, Matt Oxley and Black Feelings do it for CKCU at Irene's Pub; for those who like a visual element to their music, The Flaps will be providing the soundtrack to Faust at 7 p.m. while Mike Dubue and Co. do the same for Nosferatu at 9 p.m. the Mayfair. Ron Hawkins and Sarah Hallman play Zaphod's; Lonesome Paul brings his lonesome self to the Elmdale House. Remember Ashley Newall playing with Big Bend when they filled in for 40-watt Monkey at Zaphod's back on Oct. 14? No? Oh. Well anyway, his band, Semtazone and the Chris Cawthray Trio are at the Avant-Garde Bar.
  

Prelude to a murder (or two)

After the swell Von Drats/Mississippi Grover/Shanker + Romps show at Irene's I laid low for a couple of weeks - not by choice, but due to an unfortunate show cancellation. When I resurfaced, it was to go and see Murder by Death at Mavericks. I knew I was going to like Sadie Hell and Murder Plans (though a cynical streak in me suspect that the latter's name played an outsize role in their being on the bill), as I'v seen them both before and know they're both killer live acts. But Sadie Hell in particular is a an ideal opener for the MbD crowd ... really, they should do a tour together.

Smiley Ben action!



Flailing action!



The inevitable shouty Ben action!



Singalong with Sam and Ben action!



After a while Ben ditched the Fresh Prince style jacket. It was a bit toasty.



More singalong action!



Fingersnapping action with saxophonist Dave Halabisky.






And so on!



I usually get the pictures of other members, such as drummer Sean Laframboise, a little earlier; this time it happened during some last-minute running around.



And a bit more Sam.



And finally a bit of bending Ben.



There next scheduled show is at the Cock & Lion Pub May 30.

• Show reminder: Do Peter Bjorn and John, deserve their somewhat middling live rep? I'll find out tonight when I see them with Chairlift at the Capital Music Hall and report back. The Dirty 30's, The Afterbeat and Stick 'Em Up will be holding forth at The Bayou.

No one gets out alive

I had a fun time at Mavericks last night - or, as it seems to have renamed itself, Maverick - watching local feral folkies Sadie Hell, The Murder Plans and Murder by Death.

Ben Welland bolstered his forces for this show with saxophonist Dave Halabisky and guitarist Sam Welland along with drummer Sean Laframboise. Ben was sounding in very good voice - they kept it to a short set of five songs, ending with popular howlalong The Wolf Can.


Sadie Hell, Mavericks, April 18, 2009

The Murder Plans were also sounding pretty tight, rocking out a healthy helping of new tunes from their 5/8ths finished album and sounding even more like The Wedding Present to me than usual.


Murder Plans, Mavericks, April 18, 2009

Finally. Murder by Death. When they last played town, opening for the Reverend Horton Heat, they didn't make much of an impression - not surprising since I only heard three songs. On this occasion they really impressed, both with their doomladen songs about puking, survivalists, drinking, bad brothers and the apocalypse - or, as lead singer Adam Turla put it "The fun stuff." They certainly seemed a lot more energetic on stage this time around, and were buoyed quite a bit by a large, enthusiastic audience. I could hear a lot of singing along. Turla's voice was in excellent shape, and it's a nice, resonant instrument.


Murder by Death, Mavericks, April 18, 2009

They also left an impression of being generally swell folks, performing The Big Sleep by request for a soon-to-be married couple. Turla encored alone with Shiola then had the band back for an instrumental workout.

• Show reminder: DD/MM/YYYY, METZ, Fucked Corpse and Army Of St. Joan were supposed to rock Mavericks tonight, but one of the DD/MM/YYYY guys got banged up on his bicycle (he'll recover) so the band had to cancel ... not sure what that does to the rest of the gig, so I'll update the post as soon as I find out (Update: Alas, the whole show's cancelled); Ridley Bent, Dustin Bentall (son of Barney) and Steve Stacey perform at Zaphod Beeblebrox; Jane Ehrhardt, Bette et Wallet and LPoushinsky folk around at the Rainbow.

Cutting remarks

Cast your thoughts back to October 10: There's an election in the making and the Conservative Party of Canada is cutting arts funding and kicking small puppies (or something like that). Some artsy-fartsy types decided to resist the blue tide with a series of shows around Canada, dubbed This Is Not A Conservative Party, of which this Zaphod's shindig was one, featuring locals Sadie Hell and non-locals Brasstronaut.

Ben Welland in blue and red. I shot a few no-flash photos that didn't work too well.



Angus Cruikshank was keeping the beat on this occasion.



The whole lot!



Ben reads from the litany of the Tories' failings. "Well I guess they aren't all bad."



The mandatory yelling Ben shot!



The other mandatory yelling Ben shot.



Ben made sure he was right between the red and blue lights.



"I'm going to have to stand for this one."



And one last Angus shot. Which is quite nice, if I do say so myself.



Their next show is at Mavericks December 19 with No Other Way, Hellbros and Phat Bastard.

• Show reminder: Stars, play a second night at the Bronson Centre with Think About Life Bronson Centre - and apparently it's not sold out (yet); The Creepshow and more rock Mavericks; Velvetbox and Sacha Gabriel perform at Zaphod Beeblebrox; Harvey Cartel and The Bruitals play the Elmdale Tavern.