Run time

Nashville's always been a music town, with a huge role in country and soul; now it can also claim a big garage rock scene, with some outfits as Jeff The Brotherhood and the Infinity Cat label flying the flag. Add Diarrhea Planet and Music Band, two combos whose musical abilities are in direct contrast to their terrible names. Last Friday they landed at the House of Targ for a killer show alongside locals The Boreds. Here's Boreds frontman Adam!



Bass action with Dave!



James rounds out the trio on drums.



Adam sings!



The whole lot!



Rhythm section action!



On to Music Band - are they the worst-named band to go looking for on Google?!? Actually, no - they come up pretty fast if you add a qualifier like Nashville, where they're based. But it's kind of a bland name for a cool band. They started up in the Big Apple, and for some reason had me thinking of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. First a little soundcheck action with brothers Harry and Duncan.



Here's drummer Lee!



Brotherly action!



Singalong action!



The whole lot!



Elbow action!



Harry sings!



Rhythm section action!



The shouty bit!



Leaning action!



Lee sings!



More singalong action!



Crouching action!



Diarrhea Planet have obviously got a classic rock jones - I can imagine them sharing a stage with Turbonegro, for example - and a serious love of guitars. They have four guitarists in all, but manage to keep things from getting cluttered. They also have a lot of fun on stage. Here's Evan Bird and bassist Mike Boyle.



Ian Bush hits!



More guitar with Brent Toler!



Hair-adjusting action with Jordan Smith!



Even more guitar with Emmett Miller!



Evan sings some!



Emmett sings!



Guitar action with Jordan and Brent!



Ian hits!



Jordan sings a bit!



Even more guitar!



Guest dancing action!



Bonus Brent!



For an encore they had Harry from Music Band up on stage to sing AC/DC's Thunderstruck.



The end!



Definitely one of the best shows so far this year.

That's hot

Wednesday evening I scooted over to Mercury Lounge for an early show: Mehdi Cayenne has a new album out, Aube, and was celebrating with a free show, complete with Tabasco-flavoured cocktails. Here's Cayenne, exuberant as ever.



Olivier Bernatchez hits!



Mehdi sings!



Guitar action (also, Francois Gravel on keys)!



Extra Francois!



Fisheye action! (The Lounge's stage was brightly lit for the sake of a video recording of the show.)



Crowded action!



A fine performance as always.

The sounds abound

Friday I went over to Pressed for the fourth volume of the J'acousmatic series, dubbed "Spectre Sounds". The idea was to get four sound artists to show off their solo work. Thus, you had Lesley from Bonnie Doon performing under the Ginny monicker,  audio experimetalist Sant Intone from Vancouver, electronic improviser A-Dontigny and Montreal punk hystericist Tiffany Paige. And now for some introduction action from Jeff Morton, who's organized the series.



Lesley was up first with some post-torch stylings, accompanied by Kristy Nease (an ex-coworker of mine, as it happens).



Kristy handles the low end.



Lesley sings!



Extra Kristy!



The whole lot!



A_Dontigny then performed a couple of pieces , the first apparently began as a bit of a joke and used samples from Kate Bush, The Police and Wayne Shorter for some "normcore footwork" sounds. Here he is explaining what he's going to do.



And here he manipulating said sounds.



And so on!



Tiffany Paige hails from Montreal; the moment she started up I put i mind of Lydia Lunch, and true enough she lists her as one of her influences, along with BDSM, catharsis and Catholicism (among others).



Vocal action!



Edible drumstick action!



And so on!



Scant Intone - a.k.a. Constantine Katsiris - brought some oceanic drone to finish off the night.



After setting things up, he sat out in front of the speakers, so my few pictures were one the dark side.



Slider-adjusting action!



An intriguing array.

Synths go pop

Last month's edition of Switched On Synths was quite a success, so I decided to check out the October edition last Saturday. It was dubbed the "pop" edition and I was expecting some bubbly 1980s style numbers. Not quite; Canada High kicked out some house-style jams, Andrew Newton served up tag-team techno, while Violence's minimalist burble hewed closest to the pop banner. First up was Canada High, a.k.a. Paul Anthony and Travino.



Okay, perhaps not the most exciting photo subject.



Andrew Newton is in fact the duo of Ezekiel Hagar and Kevin Will.



They were accompanied by their own lightning setup.



Synthetic action!



Dial-adjusting action!



Wired action!



Violence started their career in Shawinigan, moved to Montreal, decamped to Oxford, England and are now based here in Ottawa. Here's Julie Morand-Ferron and Eric Trottier (handily winning the "best shirt of the evening" prize).



Julie sings!



Hair-tossing action!



Gripping action!



And finally some flashy action!



A fun night out.