One of these days

It's been many years since I first saw The Atomic Bitchwax; back before I was doing the blog they performed at Molly Maguire's on a bill with Nebula and Core for a heavy evening. They rolled back through town again in late 2005 for a set at Babylon with local space-gods Castor. And here we are, almost a decade later and they're still trucking along - and sounding better than ever after a few rocky years. Also on the bill for this evening were Michigan Motorhead worshippers Against The Grain and locals Big Moan and Blackbread. Big Moan were just wrapping up their first song as I walked in the door at House of Targ Monday Night. Here's guitarist and singer Calvin!



Rhythm section action with Mandy and Jon!



Hair-tossing action!



Jon hits!



Kane works the frets.



Extra Calvin!



Big action!



The shouty bit!



Banged action!



More Mandy!



Extra Jon!



On to BlackBread, which played a typically sharp set.



More Paul and Megan!



Roof-raising action!



Ian handles the low end.



Extra Megan!



Yeesh, I totally forgot to take any photos of Adam. Well, next time!



Against The Grain really ripped things up. Unfortunately, they made me think so much of Motorhead I couldn't help but make an unfavorable comparison. But that's just me - the audience was super-enthusiastic for their deadly thrash sounds. Here's frontman Chris Nowak and lead guitarist Nick Bellomo.



More guitar with Bryan Griffin!



The shouty bit!



Extra Nick!



Rob Nowak (brother of Chris, of course) hits!



Frontline action!



Singalong action!



Atomic Bitchwax played an absolutely monstrous set; the crowd went crazy for the gigantic riffs being dealt out by Finn Ryan and bassist Chris Kosnik, to say nothing of drummer Bob Pantella's mighty thumping. Here's Finn, trading some vocal back-and-forth with Kosnik.



Rhythm section action!



Bob hits!



Fisheyed action!



Finn frets!



One thing about the House of Targ - it's easy to take good drummer photos ...



The crowd was super-hyped for the encore, which kicked off with a killer cover of Pink Floyd's One Of The Days.

It's addictive

Have you ever told yourself, "Self, I'd like to look at Andrew's photos, but accompanied by something other than those repetitive captions and all those damn exclamation marks!!!" Well, now you can! I've partnered with the folks at rockandrolljunkie.com. They do the writing, I provide the occasional snap. Check out today's review of ATomic Bitchwax at the House of Targ for a taste of things to come. And here's a picture of Bitchwax (and Monster Magnet) drummer Bob Pantella to provide a bit of colour!



Er, I mean "Percussive action!"

Ottawa's newest hitmakers

I don't usually go and see cover bands (the only other one I can think of is Sheezer), but I figured I'd make an exception for The Ya-Yas, since they play out quite a bit and feature members of Good2Go and The Bushpilots. I'm also a fan of The Rolling Stones, so there's that, too. Here's some gripping action with The Bushpilots Rob Bennett.



Bushpilot Glen works the frets.



Percussive action from Good2Go drummer Gilles.



I'm sure Fred Guignon has made a couple of blog appearances before, but apparently he went nameless because I can't track a specific post down.



Glen sings one!



Gilles sings a bit.



Bushpilot Jeff handles the low end.



Extra Rob!



Rolling action!



They played two sets, here's Rob after a bit of shirt replacement.



And so on!



I split for the bus just before they were scheduled to round things off with Satisfaction.

Short and sharp

A week ago I went off to Daily Grind to check out some punk rock. On the bill were local combos Slim and Popular and Acid OD, with The Strapones from Switzerland en route to a series of gigs in Cuba. Alas it seems the Daily Grind can't really turn up the volume these days, and the show came to an abrupt halt before they had a chance to hit the stage. Acid OD started things off with some masked action.



Does this count as a horn section?



The whole lot!



Percussive action!



Bass action!



Jumping about1



Singalong action!



Unmasked action!



On to a very short set from Slim and Popular, who got in one song before the venue pulled the plug.



Dave hits!



And, er, that's it! Things were just a bit too loud, notwithstanding Lars' complaint that the volume on his bass rig was "between zero and one." The Strapones did get to play later after things moved over to a nearby basement.