Noise annoys

The Rock'n'Roll Pizza Party is grabbing good crowds at it's new Bytown Tavern location. And why not? Free pizza, no entry fee, good DJs - and some rockin' bands, such as this night's openers, The Annoyers, who sport a rough-hewn Ramones-loving sound.

Steve Annoyer and an ever-fashionable Creeps shirt.



Sean Shark loves New York.



Bevans actually is in The Creeps.



Which makes two bands Kevin is in with a Creeps member. Those Creeps get around.



More altogether action!



More Steve!



And so on.



Everyone starts to lean out of the frame.



Mighty solid.

• Show reminder: Evil Farm Children rev their motors at Autowonderland. Sirens and Serenades, Jamin Aura, Dead Eye Daisy, Eternal Paradox, Five Forty Nine and Bear The Witness play Cafe Dekcuf. Hollowtip Hearts release their new CD with Shanker + Romps and The Weathermakers at the Bytown Tavern. 90 Pounds of Ugly and No Barbers Required perform at Irene's. Amos The Transparent and Laurent Bourque play Zaphod's.

Unsteady as she goes

On to the Rickity Ship. I get the impression a good chunk of the crowd was pals with openers Use Every part of the Deer, because many of them split before the Ship's set. Pity! Anyway, this was definitely atighter, harder-rocking set than the one at Irene's a month ago.

Darrel sings! He was in The Desecrators, you know.



Richard from down low.



Tim; I think the red floods were set to grill.



Nate, also from down low.



I like the pretty colours.



The whole lot!



Mandatory clapping action!



Big rock finish!








A show with Four'n'Giv'r impends.

• Show reminder: Kintra, The Unavowed and Breadfan rock Cafe DeKcuf. Good2Go and Robin Black perform at Zaphod's. Danko Jones and Hot Springs perform at Barrymore's. The Sunbleached Skulls play the Elmdale House Tavern.

Hoof and mouth

Use Every Part of the Deer were the opening act for Rickity Ship at Zaphod's. Matt McLennan and Susanna Wiens both come from Winnipeg and met on a plane flight home. They describe themselves as sounding like "Elizabeth Cotten, Swans, John Fahey, the Birthday Party, Joanna Newsom, Vashti Bunyan, Nico, Misfits, this bike is a pipe bomb" on their MySpace and call themselves a death-roots band. They do cover The Misfits, but much of the rest of their music is stripped-down, folk.

Matt starts things off on "stink organ." Apparently he found it laying about. It's powered by a motorized belt of some sort and emits a discernible odour when in operation.



There was also some mandolin and guitar.



More mandolin!



And so on!





Matt tends to play on one leg.



As you can see.



And finally some no-flash shots.









They plan a 2008 release on Winnipeg's Grumpy Cloud records.

From Babylon to Bytown

There was a sizable crowd at Babylon when I walked in around 9 p.m. Last time I saw Islands was at The Capital Music Hall. The venue is smaller but their audience doesn't seem to have shrunk any. If they keep putting on shows like they did last night, there's no way they're going to be able to pack all their fans into Babylon. It was an excellent double bill. Guelph's The Magic sounded as sharp as they looked in their cummerbunds and white ties. It was formed by Geordie Gordon - the chap in the tie - who some folks may recognize from his membership in The Barmitzvah Brothers. That's his brother Evan handling the bass synth. Of the others I know not, but the sound has a certain Bryan Ferryish vibe.


The Magic, Babylon, May 27

Then The Islands whipped through a knockout set. They used to sugarcoat their sinister intent. On the new album there's no sugar and contrary to some opinion, I think it suits them very well. The performance was stellar from all points of view. The mass failure of Nick Thorburn's pedals didn't seem to affect them in the least.


Islands, Babylon, May 27

After the show (and a brief stop at the merch table to buy both band's latest releases) I headed off to the Bytown Tavern to check out the four-band show.


Biipiigwan, The Bytown Tavern, May 27

Unfortunately I missed the first three combos, including the newly re-purposed Mile Over Mecca (now Mothers of the Lower East Side). I stuck around for 20 minutes of Biipiigwan's grindmetal then dashed home. I need my sleep, since as far as I can tell the folks upstairs are rebuilding their apartment from scratch ...

Mr. Mom

It was into the wee hours when the Secret Mommy Quintet finished things off with a set of glitchy pop. I've seen reviews that compare them to the Animal Collective. I can see why, though I think the Collective is a lot more clamorous, noisy and psychedelic. The SMQ makes more obvious use of the contrast between laptop techno and instrumental sounds.

So, just who is Secret Mommy Quintet? According to recently declassified data, it's main man Andy Dixon and his fave lady Merida (on the blue ukulele).



Also in this Castanet-toting crew is Shane Krause of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? on saxophone, Sarah of The Doers and Gregory Adams, who is in Andy's other band Winning.



Andy gets with the program.



Sarah flutes a little, Adams picks up the Tele and Wink Todd kicks in some mini-maraca.



Duct tape is good for fixing maracas.



There was much envy for Dixon's sea-green Ric.



Xylophone action!



Krause in close-up.



The view from the back of the sofa.



The whole lot! And a taxi!



Mighty entertaining. And mighty late.

• Show reminder: Like I said yesterday, Islands, The Magic and Street Carnage perform at Babylon. The Mantra, Biipiigwan, The Mothers of The Lower East Side and The Mistress play the Bytown Tavern.

Mapping out the week

There's several intriguing shows this week. My days off fall early in the week so I'll have to skip out on the weekend pileup, but there's a few shows of note on Tuesday ...


Islands, Capital Music Hall, September 27, 2006

Namely Islands, who return too Babylon with new album in tow. The Magic and Street Carnage open the show. The Mantra, Biipiigwan and The Mothers of The Lower East Side and The Mistress make for an intriguing bill at the Bytown Tavern.


Good2Go, Barrymore's, May 5, 2006

Then it gets a little quiet - drop me a line if you know different - until Friday, when you can see Kintra, The Unavowed and Breadfan at Cafe DeKcuf. Good2Go and Robin Black perform at Zaphod's. Danko Jones and the ever-wonderful Hot Springs perform at Barrymore's. You can also see The Sunbleached Skulls at the Elmdale House Tavern.


Evil Farm Children, Zaphod Beeblebrox, June 6, 2007

Saturday Evil Farm Children fall in with the hot rod set with a show at Autowonderland. That kicks off at 11 a.m.; later in the day you can see Sirens and Serenades, Jamin Aura, Dead Eye Daisy, Eternal Paradox, Five Forty Nine and Bear The Witness at Cafe Dekcuf. Hollowtip Hearts release their new CD with Shanker + Romps and The Weathermakers at the Bytown Tavern. 90 Pounds of Ugly and No Barbers Required perform at Irene's. Amos The Transparent and Laurent Bourque play Zaphod's.
On Sunday The New Cities, To The Rescue and Bright City Lights get municipal at Cafe DeKcuf.

Keep one eye open

We return again to the residence of Calum Marsh, a few days ago, May 17 to be precise, and Ennuie has just concluded their set. It's The Winks' turn to take the stage - or, as it is more colloquially known, the living room floor. The Winks have six members, but for this occasion they had stripped down to a trio of Todd, Sean and Tyr.



Todd MacDonald rocks the mandolin.



Josh Zubot (not Sean, as I had originally) on drums and some unidentified circular metal thing that could be the lid of a pot.



Tyr on cello, singing and fancy dressing. Note the pedal board (and big green feather). She also does some tap dancing, for which she retreated to the entrance hall (just off to the right) since the hard floor there was more suitable. She also sang Simon & Garfunkel's Feelin' Groovy.



Hair-shaking action!



And sans flash.



Singalong action!



Sarah Jane of the Secret Mommy Quintet (and The Doers) helps out on keys. Did I have the flash a mite high for this photo? Err, possibly.



They've just wrapped up their tour with Secret Mommy. I'm keen to see them with their full roster.

• Show reminder: Male Nurse plays the Manx. Depending on which listing you consult, either poppy punks Hello Mayberry play Zaphod's along with Art or Sex, or Sam Slick, The Epilogue and The Wet Bed Fiasco perform. The only point of agreement seems to be that Smaller on You is going to play.