High gear

The Phantom Shifters return! If memory serves - it's been a while - I saw them play at The Dominion and such defunct venues as Lucky Ron's/The Hi-Fi and Molly McGuire's in the Market. It must be at least five years since I saw them play with The Cowslingers and The Fiftymen - time does fly. Since then Greg Kerr has moved on to The Long Timers and Ryan has been involved with Bluesfest. The band was just as hard-charging as I recall, and though their set was all old material, it sounds like they're going to make a go of it once again.



Ryan Kerr prepares to detonate.



Chris Lee.



Guitarist Greg Cockburn didn't make the reunion, so Dave Martindale of the Double Pumpers has been drafted in as a replacement.



Bendy action!





Grimacing action!







The audience shouted at them until they did one more song. It was kind of rough. "Never make us do that again!" said Dave.

• Show reminder: Sleeping Pilot, The Velouria and Smoke Judo perform at End Hits.

Long timers

Next up, the Long Timers. I though they stretched things out a little more at this show than usual; they had a new song (too new to have a name beside New B) and riffed so hard that Angie the Barbarian from Muffler Crunch threw her bottle of beer on the floor while rocking out to the sounds.



Johnny and Greg.



Jumping about and guitar-shaking action!





Gotta get the drummer photo in.





"Let's hear it for Rene!" I forget why - perhaps just because.



Monitor standing action!



Everyone's doing it, I hear.



That ain't how you play geetar.



Nothing else to report, except that when Johnny asked for a beer, three different people brought him one. Oh, and they have a show at Barrymore's Sept. 8 with The Mighty Eagle Band and The Sweet Janes.

Front line assembly

I had hoped a vast horde of hirsute rock'n'roll fans who had witnessed The Phantom Shifters in their heyday might head over to Babylon on Saturday for their centrepiece performance on a four-band bill. The turnout was, while not horrible, moderate. On the other hand it was a noisy lot so that makes up for something. First band on the bill was Army of Saint Joan.

Justin, yelling.



Pat, drumming.



Military action!







Pat and Justin are both in Sleeping Pilot, which is performing this Wednesday at End Hits.

JustinFest

Three of the four rock'n'roll acts just witnessed by a small but enthusiastic crowd at Babylon feature Justin Considerate, prompting Long Timers singer Johnny Nash to dub the evening Justin Fest ... Things kicked off with Army of Saint Joan, Justin's caterwauling frenzied blues duo with Pat Johnson.



Next up, The Long Timers ... I mentioned a few posts back you'd be seeing a bit of membership overlap. In addition to Justin, you've got Greg Kerr doing double duty. You can only see his shoe here ...



But here's the rest of him, in a newly reconstituted Phantom Shifters. Dave Martindale of The Double Pumpers has been invited to fill the second guitarist slot.



Finally, here's Death March Volunteers ... which features both Justin and Long Timer Rene (along with Amy and Scott Terry, who I presume spent the earlier part of the evening playing drums for Andrew Vincent and The Pirates at The Carleton Tavern).



I expect to see more of all these folks in the months ahead (work allowing).

In with the new

Phew! Here's the last post for Bluesfest, more than a month after it actually came to a close. The New Pornographers put on a tight set for the assembled power pop loving masses. Apart from the great music, the main things I recall are drummer Kurt Dahle singing with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and swigging from a bottle of wine and Carl Newman telling the crowd about some tourism ad claiming Ottawa was a combination of London and Paris. This claim was greeted with some bemusement by the audience.



Nothing says "rock" like sandals.



Family singalong action!



I didn't get any decent pictures of guitarist Todd Fancey, tucked away in the corner with his Gibson Explorer, or Dahle, but I did get one of Blaine Thurier playing harmonica. Yay me!



The big picture!



Rock action with bassist John Collins, and niece Kathryn Calder.



Huzzay!



A fine capper to a good festival. Like many I preferred it for the two years when there was Birdman Sound Stage, but I had a pretty good time this year. Flash update: If Pollstar is to be believed, they'll be back in town Oct. 9 for a show at the Capital Music Hall with Calder's other band, The Immaculate Machine, and Novillero.

Control freaks

I saw controller.controller open for DFA 1979. I was a bit late arriving (it was an all ages show, and work demands kept me late) so I only saw the first part of the show. It was quite good. The band's performance at the Black Sheep Stage was pretty good as well, but it lacked some of the vital rhythm lockstep that their sound requires for peak effect. Still pretty good - I like that post-punk stuff.

Singer Nirmala Basnayake is a local gal.



Drummer Jeff Scheven braved the elements in his wolf mask - for the first song anyway. He would have fried his brains if he kept it on any longer.



Scott "Karate" Kaija and bassist Ronnie Morris face off.



Colwyn Llewellyn Thomas is the second half of controller.controller's guitar attack.



Ronnie's got that stare down pat.





Here's a picture of Jeff so you can see what he looks like without his wolf mask ... er, sort of.



Guest vocal action!



More Ronnie and Nirmala action!



Out of control action!



Morris was having some bass strap problems - not that they held him back much.



The band was actually a bit more active than these pictures suggest. As mentioned below, they'll be back in town Sept. 15 for a Zaphod's show with You Say Party We Say Die and The D'urbervilles.

Tonight's the night

There are plenty of good shows happening this weekend, some of which I'm going to miss due to work, some of which I'm going to miss due to a late birthday party. So I'll yap about them now.



First, Lefty McRighty and the Boxcar Cadavers are holding their CD release party tonight at Zaphod's. The late shift will keep me away, but I'll say that the shindig - also featuring Bob Heath & The Staggering Drunks and Evil Farm Children - is feting a fine album. Apart from the band members themselves, I have to say the Bovas did a killer job on the production and mastering. Some may sneer at at the inclusion of jokey tunes like Big Nipples, and grumble about "authenticity" and suchlike, but look at this way: Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno, but Greg Harris might actually be a boob man. You can't get more authentic than that ...



Up in Wakefield, i(heart)music is celebrating its first anniversary with three nights of shows at the Black Sheep Inn. Pony Up!, The Soft Disaster, Heroes and Villains and Relief Maps perform tonight. The Relief Maps just released their debut EP Sunrise Seaport. More fine production courtesy of my dad vs. yours' Arturo Brindisi (Harris Newman also does his usual high quality mastering job). I think Katie Duross has one of the best voices on the Ottawa music scene right now; the band itself reminds me of The Organ, but with more stage presence. Saturday Land of Talk, Expatriate and Spy Machine 16 (a fourth band will hopefully step in for the suddenly on hiatus We Are Accidents). Raising the Fawn, My Dad Vs. Yours, What Seas, What Shores and Turning Into Salt wrap things up on Sunday.
Fortunately I won't be totally deprived this weekend: Phantom Shifters return from the junkyard for a show with Long Timers, Death March Volunteers, Army of Saint Joan play at Babylon Saturday. You may notice some membership overlap ...

Tess transmission

Following their Zaphod's show last Thursday The D'urbervilles are holding down a very comfortable No. 4 spot in the list of bands knocking me out without warning (Spiral Beach, Henri Faberge and the Adorables, and Born Ruffians are holding down the Top 3). Antic, a bit twitchy, a wee bit of politics - I detect some early 1980s influences! As one does in about 90% of the new music coming out these days. Anyway, these guys hail from Guelph and were darn fine.

They started the show off with some fingersnapping ... no sooner had I thought "How West Side Story-ish" then they started chanting about Sharks and Jets.



Left to right: Gangly singer John O'Regan, guitarist Tim Bruton, drummer C.L. Smith and bassist Kyle Donnelly.



Faceoff action!





Riser action!



Drumming action!



Guitar action!



Gettin' down action!



Keyboard action!



And, of course, singalong action.





Smiley happy people!



Oh, there was also some running about, with O'Regan racing to the front of the club and back mid-song. Here he confines himself to on-stage running.



I bought a copy of their self-titled EP, which comes in a spiral-bound booklet and several exciting colours. Ahem. They shall return to Zaphod's Sept. 15 with controller.controller (about whom more tomorrow - coincidence? Maybe!) and You Say Party We Say Die. Yay!

• Show reminder: The Grass and Unbranded Model perform at End Hits; The Habit, Sienna Dahlen, DJ Morales and more play a benefit in support of same-sex marriage at Zaphod's; The Sadies, Amy Millan, Ridley Bent and The Agnostic Gospel Mountain Choir play the Capital Music Hall.