Cold War kids

As some folks may know, I was born in 1970, which puts my formative music-appreciation years in the early-and-mid 1980s. Those were good (or bad, depending on your taste) years for synth music. Like many a young Ottawan I had Eight Second's Where's Bula drilled into my brain, along with possibly toxic levels of exposure to groups like a-ha, OMD and ABC. Although it didn't last (the influence of friends pulled me more in the direction of AC/DC, Joan Jett and Motorhead), I still have a fondness for those synthetic sounds - my most listened-to release of 2013 is undoubtedly the Cosmic Machine comp of French synth acts. Synth music seems to be enjoying a renaissance these days. On to the reason for this post, Montreal's Rational Youth. The Montreal combo were part of synth rock's first wave, and got a bit of chart time with songs like No More and No Less and Bang On. Keyboardist and Brand New Waver Kevin Komoda apparently found a heap of old tapes from his old outfit and talked Tracy Howe into hitting the road one more time, along with his Plunt-mate Brian Arsenault, Tracy's wife Gaenor and the oh-so solid rhythm section of Paul Grainville and Scott Cameron (of Normals fame). Apparently they're big in Scandinavia, so they hit a few dates there before returning to Canada for their first show in Montreal in 27 years earlier this month. Saturday night, they were at Zaphod's, performing for a few young 'uns and a bunch of folks in their 50s.

First up, Riishi Von Rex. The last (and only) time I saw Riishi was also at Zaphod's back in November 2009. Four and a half years later, she still reminds me of P.J. Harvey. This time around she also had a drummer, Michel, on hand. She's hosting a rock'n'rolll night the first Sunday of the month at the Rainbow, too.



Michel hits!



The whole lot!



Riishi sings!



Singing drummer action!



Tapping action!



The end!



On to Rational Youth ... well, they aren't quite youth nowadays, but they sounded very solid and were definitely into it. They started things off "unplugged." With just the keyboardists Brian, Tracy and Kevin. Here's Kevin!



The Youth of today! Brian, Gaenor, Paul, Tracy, Scott and Kevin.



Brutish action with Brian.



Darn it, forgot to take any decent photos of Scott Cameron!



Tracy claps.



Gaenor provided some extra percussion and backing vocals.



Kevin sings!



Gripping action!



More Paul!



The end!



Great night, and a treat to hear City At Night, the prescient Dancing On The Berlin Wall and Saturday in Silesia again (also Holiday in Thailand, Man In Grey, and others).

Fall and rise

I zipped over to Pressed Saturday night to check out some more metal. Among the most glaring omissions of local bands from the blog, I'd say grindcore devotees Fuck The Facts are near the top of the list. I still haven't seen them, but I figure it might count the same if I manage to catch the various members other projects ... no? Well, it was worth a shot. At any rate, FTF's Topon Das kicked things off in a decidedly non-grinding mode with some pedal manipulation, and Black Oak Decline and The Great Sabatini completed the ear-drum-pummelling evening.

Topon twists.



"Now go home and play with your delay pedals."



Up next, Black Oak Decline. The name automatically makes me think southern rock, but don't expect any washboards from this crew, which was first put together by frontman Mike Raymond; I also know drummer Tony from manning the door at Zaphod's. Here's Mike, starting things off with some serious feedback.



Bass action!



The whole loud lot!



More camouflage!



Tony hits!



Mike sings!



More bass!



Extra Tony!



Unfortunately their bass amp died after four songs or so ...on to The Great Sabatini after the jump!

Saints and sentries

It's been a busy week for me, what with school starting up, thus the short delay in posting stuff from Friday's show at Luneta Cafe. It was an eclectic evening, kicking off with shoegazers Destroy Clocks, continuing with rugged fuzz poppers Saint Clare and concluding with instrumental metallurgists The Night Watch. Unfortunately I missed Destroy Clocks due to a late-night school project, so let's go straight on to Saint Clare.

The band takes its name from former Shakey Aches frontman Matthew Saint Clare, and also includes Richard Jeffrey and Ryan Shannon from that band. They profess fandom for Arcade Fire and various Elephant 6 combos. I thought they sounded like some of Spencer P. Jones' stuff.



Saxophonic action with Morgan Grant!



Bumpy action!



That's Daniel Devries on the drums.



Richard Jeffrey of Golden Famile and others rocks the Telecaster.



Matthew sings!



Extra Richard!



On to The Night Watch after the jump ...

Irate young things

I have a few idle hours at school, so let us once again cast our minds back to March, and Teenanger's headlining set at Mugshots (with The Yips and Average Times at the bottom of the bill for those of you who last track over the holidays). The Yips had already generated much audience upheaval, and things went even more wild for Teenanger's performance.

Chris sings!



Stagecoach hits, plus guitar action with Gary!



Bass action with Melissa!



Chris works the crowd!



The whole fisheyed lot!



Floppy-haired action!



Audience-smooching action!



Hooray!



Since this show they've been back for the Ottawa Explosion and released a much-praised LP. I gather there's at least one Teenanger vet performing with Wrong Hole tonight at Mugshots.

In effect

I've been lazing around this winter break and only caught a few shows, but I figured it was worth making the trip over to Raw Sugar to see Shalabi Effect and David Jackson. Along with a lot of people, I first heard about Sam Shalabi in conjunction with his split recording with Godspeed You Black Emperor. Later I caught him performing solo at Gallery 101's old place on Nepean St.; that would be April 2003.

David Jackson's show ended much like his Pressed performance opening for The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol in March at Pressed, reminding me very much of some of Roy Montgomery's work, but he started things off in a more experimental mode, manipulating his guitar's pickup selector switch, futzing with pedals, and using a vibrating clip and miniature street organ to stimulate the strings.



I only took three photos, one of them out of focus, so let's move right along to Shalabi Effect. In addition to Shalabi, the Effect features the many talents of filmmaker Anthony Seck, percussionist Will Eizlini and avant-garde musician Alexandre St. Onge. They started things on a more experimental tip, then wrapped things off with some Eastern-influenced stuff.



St. Onge got a seat at the table.



Too dark for a good Eizlini photo, sorry! No wait, I just made a mess of my ISO settings.



Seck frets!



Extra Osama!



St. Onge works the mike.



Lap steel action!



Time for the oud.



Seck's instrument looks a bit like a dutar, but I'm no expert.



They really finished the night in style.