Old and new

Last week also offered a chance to catch some high-grade punk-pop and new wave sounds at House of Targ. The Creeps were headlining a show, joined by ace London rockers Wasted Potential and new Ottawa supergroup The New Calling. Heres' New Calling (and Voicemail, and Sedatives, and White Wires, and so on ...) frontman Ian!



Keyboard action with Johniie (of Big Dick, Warp Lines)!



Keltie (of Bonnie Doon) hits!



More keyboard action with Sara (also of Bonnie Doon)!



Ken (of Mother's Children) sings a bit!



More Sara and Keltie!



And so on!



Johnnie sings a bit!



Extra Ian!



Extra Ken!



Closeup action!



Bonus Keltie!



Even more Ken!



Londons Wasted Potential cite Turbonegro and early AFI as influences; I haven't heard enough AFI to vouch for the latter, but I definitely hear the Scandinavian punk rock'n'rock influence. Like The New Calling, they also seem to feature a bunch of guys from other bands. Here's an always-in-motion frontman Danny and guitarist Richard!



Bass action with Nick!



More Richard!



Dustin hits!



Even more guitar with Dennis!



Rhythm section action!



More Danny!



Extra Nick!



Dustin sings!



Potential action!



The Creeps wrapped things up with some of their usual ace pop-punk. Heres Skottie!



Bass action with Ian!



More Skotty and Jordy!



Closeup action!



Jordy sings!



Rhythm section action!



The whole lot!



A great night out! (Full disclosure, both The New Calling and Wasted Potential gave me free records.)

Music to die for

Linsey Wellman's a busy fellow; if you've been following the blog you'll have seen him performing with Fet. Nat. and The Mashed Potato Mashers. He's performed with several other local acts, such as Adam Saikely and The Rakestar Orchestra, but on this night last week he was heading his own trio, the Linsey Wellman Funeral Band, accompanied by Mike Essoudrey (also a Potato Masher) and Keith Hartshorn-Walton on tuba. The sound mixes Balkan and free-jazz influences ... heres the whole lot!



Sax'n'drum action!



Clarinet action!



More Mike!



Tuba action!



And so on!



More clarinet!



A lively evening.

See you around

I've been a combination of busy and sick over the last couple of weeks, so the shows and the posting have been a little sparser than usual, but despite a stomach bug of indeterminate origin I still managed to make it over to Hintonburg a couple of Saturdays ago for an album release show by Area Resident at the Record Centre. I spent many years working in the same office at the Ottawa Sun office as head resident Doug Hempstead, but this was the first time I've managed to catch him live on stage. But first, the rest of the band: Kristy, Paul and John (also of The Flaps, and others).



Doug hits!



Bass action with Kristy!



More guitar with Paul and John!



Extra Kristy and Paul!



Doug sings!



John sings a bit!



All good fun.

Whimsy and violence

A week ago I headed off to Pressed for a show promoted by CKCU's The New Local - locals Future News shared a stage with Torontonians Deliluh and WHIMM and Denver's Natural Violence. Future News were on first; you might recognize Kurt from the Young Offenders.



More news with another YO, guitarist Jacob, along with Jonah and Adam!



More Kurt!



Extra Jacob!



More Jonah!



Adam hits!



Futuristic action!



Even more Adam!



The whole lot!



Natural Violence is the solo outlet for Homebody's Michael. While Homebody (who you might have caubht playing at Bar Robo, or at Ottawa Explosion in 2015) sounds to me like Denver's answer to Mac De Marco. Natural Violence is quite different - a dark and doomy synth sound predominates. Here's a masked Michael!



More gripping action!



And so on!



Deliluh play a sort of slacker rock that strikes me as a blend of Bailter Space and Pavement. Here's 12-string guitarist Julius!



Bass action with Adam!



Ami hits (and also plays some violin).



Guitar action with Kyle!



More Kyle and Adam!



Extra Ami!



The whole lot!



I have a sneaking suspicion that the various members of WHIMM own a substantial portion of the back catalogue of This Heat and Gang of Four. Here's frontman Mounir!



Jonathan (also of Hooded Fang) hits!



Rhythm section action with Andrew!



Kyle from Deliluh also kicked in on some saxophone!



Whimsical action!



More Andrew!



Extra Jonathan!



A fine evening out.