Bacteria, bugs, Bill, boxes and blood

It was a rockabillin', psychobillin' crazy country kinda night at Babylon, with a trio of Montreal acts dropping into Babylon to share the stage with locals Lefty McRighty and the Boxcar Cadavers. You can expect more pictures of all these folks when time allows, but for now here's some group action.

First up, The Pandemics, a frenzied trio.



Next, The Cockroaches - a little more traditionally flavoured.



Bloodshot Bill - wild, man, wild, as usual. He was joined by Johnny Montreal - and special guest Gerard Van Herk of Deja Voodoo.



Finally, Lefty McRighty and the Boxcar Cadavers.



Unfortunately I had to get gone a little early - somebody shoved me into a PA speaker and scraped off a mole on my arm - it was quite a little bleeder so I went home in search of a Band-Aid.

Keep it in the Famile

Sunday evenings at the Rainbow have become a little more interesting to fans of things indie, alt, pop and folk; recently They Shoot Horse Don't They and Telefauna graced the venerable blues venue's comfy stage, and a couple of nights ago interlocking country-folk bands Casey Comeau and the Centretown Wilderness Club and The Golden Famile each played a brisk set. I hope to be at Babylon in a few minutes time (I'm writing this up last night) so this is going to be a hit and run job.

Casey Comeau and her swanky new Taylor T5.



M.J. Houle, Dietrich Sider and Richard Jeffrey.



Mike Sheridan was looking sharp.



Dietrich was looking sharper.



Aalya Ahmad from on high.



Richard and Marie-Josee.



Casey and Aalya play while Mike plays the other side of the bass drum (and possibly checks his reflection).



The whole bunch from down below ...



And up above.



As I mentioned in my last post, the Golden Famile and the Club have three members in common, Richard, Casey and Mike, and they certainly make a well-integrated double bill.

Frontman Darrell Angus.



Casey on organ ... when they were setting up it was sounding very fuzzy - no doubt flashing back to its Desecrating days ...



Ryan Hough up close.



Nate Hurlow - you are going to go see his other band The Fortunate Sons at Irene's May 2, right?



Folk-rock action!





Hello down there!





The soundman was later heard to observe "I didn't expect it to get so loud there at the end ..." He did a great job anyway, I thought - and fine sets from both bands.

• Show reminder: Lefty McRighty and the Boxcar Cadavers, The Pandemics, Bloodshot Bill and The Cockroaches play Babylon.

We're outta here

Well, the turnout was meagre, but the performances were hot at Babylon a few minutes past. Four'n'Giv'r keep sharpening their sound, and The Expatriates were as solid as ever.





Some entertaining stage antics to delight the eye when I get around to posting some other pictures, too.

Sparks fly

Muffler Crunch finished off the night with a bang. The duo of Angie "The Barbarian" Neatby and Luke Lavigne make a hellacious din. Luke's guitar "Ol' Sparky" provided the title of their latest recording, Ol' Sparky's Revenge, and was indeed in a vengeful mood as the band crushed the sizable crowd with its monstrous fuzzy hammer.

First Last Drag Records supremo "Diamond" Neal Johnstone makes the introductions ...



Angie the Barbarian! Singer, drummer, zine author, Ratt Restorer ...





Guitarist Luke!



Luke, and his evil twin! Eviler twin?



Rock action, and lots of it!





Luke gets the beat down.







You get to run around a lot when you have a radio unit ... and incidentally provide a sneak preview of tomorrow's post, since Dietrich and Aalya of the Centretown Wilderness Club happened to be in the audience.



Of course there was a crash-bang finale, with Luke launching himself into the drum kit - there goes the high-hat!



"Oh, this is gonna hurt!" said Angie.



If I treated my guitar like that, it would want revenge, too.



That's what I call demolition rock ... baby!

• Show reminder: Civic Duty presents Expatriates and Four N' Giv'r at Babylon; punkottawa.com throws down an anniversary party at Cafe DeKcuf with Sleeper Set Sail, Marigold, The Soap Opera Coma and This Is Rocket Science.

No quarter

The Fucking Machines celebrated the release of their new 7-inch Stole My Quarter Saturday night (Muffler Crunch were the other half of the bill). As usual, they punk rocked like it was 1983. It sounded great to me, perhaps because I spent a fair amount of time right beside one of the PA speakers. Loud, it was.

Civ on the mic (with Johnny Nash at back).



John Sproull and a big flash-confusing banner.



I've discovered that my camera's autofocus doesn't like beards ... this picture of Scott Terry wasn't easy to take, I tell you! Joey Vienneau in back. You can see Andrew Vincent there in the crowd. Fun fact: He's performing solo tonight at The Whalesbone along with Ukrainia.



More Joey!



More Johnny!



The Machines interact with their loving audience: "Fuck you Scuzboy!"



"Six pack!"



Singalong action!



Fucking Machines? More like Smooching Machines if you ask me!



I'm definitely going to grab a copy of that 7-inch ... there was some delay in getting the actual vinyl, but they were supposed to be in this Tuesday at show co-sponsor Birdman Sound and at End Hits.

In the club

Casey Comeau and The Centretown Wilderness Club had just begun their first song when I walked in the door of the Rainbow three hours ago - here's Richard and Casey (with M.J. Houle and bassist Dietrich just visible in the background).



Then it was the Golden Famile's turn ... Richard and Casey are also Famile members (as is CWC drummer Mike Sheridan). I had to hunt for a Golden Famile picture that didn't have either of them in it ... I'll save the redundancy for a full-length post on the evening's music doings. Here's Darrell Angus and Nate Hurlow.



Another successful foray by the Rainbow away from the blues.

Drink and complain

Come with me children, to a dark and benighted time - an era before you could easily buy CDs by Scandinavian KISS fans ... a time when grunge had cast an occasionally good but frequently horrid pall across the land ... a time when, to paraphrase The Supersuckers' song, rock'n'roll records weren't selling that year. This was around 1992, and apart from The Didjits - whose Rick Sims actually ended up in the Suckers for a spell - there just wasn't a lot of hard rock outside the bland mainstream. Of course, I speak as someone just dipping his toes in music at the time ... a more knowledgeable past self would have mentioned UIC and others. But for a lot of people, The Supersuckers were a cool anomaly (and not just on the Sub Pop label, which was the band's home at the time) and 1992's The Smoke of Hell was a rare rock blast. It was actually one of the first CDs I bought (before then, I spent my money on cassettes and vinyl).
Times have changed. You have your Hellacopters and Turbonegro, your Mutts and Living Things, your Michelle Gunn Elephant and Asteroid B-512, not to mention such world class native exponents of rock power as Le Nombre and The Chickens.
The Supersuckers are hardened veterans now - they formed in 1988 - and their core of Eddie Spaghetti, Ron Heathman and Dan Bolton have stayed put. Damn, was that a longwinded way of saying they put on a great show but I've turned into a jaded SOB? On to the pictures!

As is their wont, The Supersuckers kicked things off with a few country numbers. Cocaine Blues was first out of the gate "You don't need many reasons to play a song by this man these days" observed Spaghetti. I also recognized The Best of All Possible Worlds by Kris Kristofferson.



Ron joined in on guitar.



And here's a similar pic, with added shutter speed silliness.



Here's one of Dan "Thunder" Bolton that worked out real nice.



The Suckers seem to go through a fair number of drummers ... last I heard they were working with Eric Akre, so I guess this is him.



Ron was all far away, so I broke out the telephoto for a closeup.



Eddie on bass.





Rock action!





The devil's horns at a Supersuckers show? What kind of crazy world is this!



These pictures could have turned out better, but as you might have guessed, a crowd of hopped up Supersuckers fans is not the best place to take photos, and Zaphod's was pretty full. They asked for some transport help at the show - their van broke down - so I hope they made it to Montreal.

• Show reminder: The Golden Famile and Casey Comeau and The Centretown Wilderness Club bring overlapping membership goodness to the Rainbow. The Meathookers, The Sweet Janes and Preachers from the Black Lagoon play Cafe DeKcuf.