Making waves

Another year, another edition of Surf & Turf. I checked out the second half of the two-night helping of surf and garage music last year and was well-entertained. This year I managed to get to both nights, along with a packed house of surf and instrumental fans. The first band on the bill was The Randy Shenanigans; this was my first time seeing them live. Here's bassist Kevin.



Guitar action with Gabe!



More red Telecaster action with Matt!



More shenanigans!



Daniel hits!



The Reverb Syndicate have already appeared on several occasions in National Capital Rock (the last time was their last Surf appearance at Targ in 2014) so I'll just get on with it - here's Mike Sheridan.



Vic strums!



Jeff handles the low end.



More Vic! In the foreground at left, a Commodore 64.



Extra Jeff!



Bonus Vic!



Syndicated action!



Mike reaches out.



I wasn't kidding about the Commodore; Vic rigged it to provide some extra electronic sounds.



Montreal's Men In Gray Suits (not to be confused with Honolulu's Men In Grey Suits) are a surf band boasting a bunch of folks from such combos as Astro Hot and Bloodfeast, among others. They have a sharp, punchy sound; along with classics like Intoxica you also got a reworking of Kraftwerk's Das Model. Here's guitarist Mike Decosse!



More guitar with Jim Johnson!



Saxophone action from The Kingpins' Josh Fuhrman!



Bass action from Martin Oligny!



Bonus Jim!



Rhythm section action with a blurry Pat (The Cat) on drums!



Less blurry action!



Graying action!



Extra Mike!



More saxophone!



A very promising start, and a great crowd as well.

Keep it in the kitchen

Last week I made yet another visit to the House of Targ (and believe, there's more to come when I post my Surf & Turf photos), but this time it was for something a little out of my usual heavy metal-hard rock zone: A couple of Exploding in Sound bands, Stove and Dirty Dishes, made the trip up from the States to unleash some very dawn-of-alternative rock sounds on the Targ audience, with Bonnie Doon also making a post-partum appearance. Stove was on first, and made me think a bit of Failure crossed with Guided By Voices. Here's Steve Harlett, formerly of Ovlov.



Here's some bass-and guitar action



Percussive action!



More guitar!



Colour-contrasted action; bassist Alex Molini is also in Dirty Dishes.



Extra Steve!



The whole lot!



Instrument switching action!



Last time I saw Bonnie Doon was at Ottawa Explosion. They played a couple of other shows then went on pregnancy hiatus until guitarist Madison had her baby - this was their first show back in action, and they dressed up in a (mostly) monochromatic colour theme. Here's Lesley!



More bass with Sara!



Gripping action with Madison!



Keltie hits!



Closeup action!



Singalong action!



More guitar!



The whole lot!



I found Dirty Dishes to be quite an interesting outfit; they take a bunch of 1990s sounds (e.g. Sonic Youth, Nirvana, maybe a bit of Mazzy Star) and freshen it up for this decade. Here's frontwoman Jenny Tuite.



And once again, here's Alex.



Jenny definitely wins the best-pants-of-the-evening award.



Percussive action!



Closeup action!



Rhythm section action!



More Jenny!



More feedback!



Keyboard action!



The whole bendy lot!



Definitely a band worth checking out.

East meets South

I'm starting to feel a little guilty about the amount of time I'm spending at House of Targ. There are plenty of other venues around town hosting shows, but Targ keeps dragging me over. Not that I offered much resistence to a double bill featuring Bad Uncle (last seen rocking the old HoT on Main) and Ukrainia - last seen at Bluesfest an alarming five years ago. First off Bad Uncle - they've got that Eastern European sound that seems to be automatically conjured up whenever accordions are involved (see also: Gogol Bordello, Beirut) even if, like frontman Santosh, you affix a wee Casio to it.



Singalong action with Jean-Phillippe and Ram!



Extra Santosh!



Hugo bends a bit!



Extra Ram!



Uncle-ish action!


More singalong action!



Bonus Ram!



More Hugo!



Hatless action!



Gripping action!



Contrabass action!



As I mentioned earlier, it's been a good half a decade since I saw Ukrainia in action, though I've caught all the members in other projects far more recently. Since then, there's been quite a bit of a lineup change. A trio of Hilotrons have been drafter in to fill in for Tom and Yogi. Here's Damian and Trons drummer Phil Bova.



And stage right, guitarist Paul Hogan (also of the Empiricals, etc.) and Mike Schultz, whose keyboards provided a big boost to the band's sound.



I'd better through this pic og Mike up now, because I think it's the only good one I got ...



Dave rocks the low end.



Guitar action!



Mike sings!



Extra Phil!



Gripping action!



More Damian and Dave!



Face-making action!



A really excellent show.