It's Party Time

September 27 I popped over to The Rainbow to see a couple of Guelph related acts and Toronto's Party Time opened the show. Despite the name, the performances of Emma Moss Brender (sole proprietor, etc.) are not really geared to providing festive levity. I also wonder why someone would hide a cool name like Emma Moss Brender behind the relatively generic Party Time, but I guess that's a question for another time. I liked her set enough to buy her album.

I'd say she's a bit like Ottawa's own Giant Hand.



It was a little darker than usual, thus the cruddier low-light photos.



She was later joined by Matt Reeves of the Oil Spill.



Capo time!



Headliner Richard Laviolette prepares for his guest vocal moment.



Singalong action!



Big finish!



She's also a member of Toronto combo The Pinings; no word on upcoming shows from either combo.

• Show reminder: Man, where isn't there a party going on tonight? Ukrainia!, Empiricals and Lords of Vanier, live it up at Babylon; Good2Go and The Kingmakers rock the Elmdale House Tavern; Lindsay Ferguson, The Polymorphines, Blazer and The Sin Kickers hit Zaphod Beeblebrox; The Hammerheads get funky at The Rainbow; Monkeyjunk performs at Irene's; Rep By Pop is at the Avant-Garde Bar; if your part of the houes-partying demographic, there's also Homosexual Cops, The Suppositories, Ultrathin, Holy Cobras, Pregnancy Scares, Total Crush and Get A Life Losers down in Cozzie's Dungeon.

Head games

Year Zero and a super-secret band were slated to perform at The Atomic Rooster for the Sept. 24 edition of the Rock'n'Roll Pizza Party. I worked that night so I missed Year Zero, but I did manage to catch the set by the surprise guests.

They're a band shrouded in mystery!



Okay, it was actually Off With Their Heads. The shouty punks were on tour with Bouncing Souls and Youth Brigade, but apparently one set in Ottawa wasn't enough for the Minneapolis quartet (sometimes quintet), so they knocked out a growly set for the punks on Bank St. as well. They apparently switch membership quite often, so all IDs barring main man Ryan Young are provisional.

Zack Gontard downstrokes.



Ryan shouts some.



Ryan Francis mans the skins.



More Ryan!



Even more Ryan, plus bassist Nate Gangelhoff.



Zach keeps his neck sinews well-exercised.



More Nate!



The whole lot!



Rocking action!



The end!



They're still busy touring, and will be back in Ottawa for a show at Mavericks with The Queers February 22.

• Show reminder: The Rainbow gets a jump on New Years with The Maria Hawkins Band ... most other folks appear to be resting up for Thursday.

Goodbye girl

Another night at work, then off to Babylon just in time to miss the first two bands! But I wasn't going to miss the night entirely, since it was likely the last The White Wires will be playing in this town for some time to come. As reported earlier, Allie Hanlon (also of Peach Kelli Pop, who opened the show) is off West, so until she makes a return visit (possibly around the time the Wires head off to Austin for SXSW 2010?)

Allie rocks the whiskers!



You can't really tell from this photo, but Ian also had a painted-on mustache.



Everybody gets on stage to sing along for Ha-Ha Holiday.



And a final posed picture with Luke making funny faces.



The band wrapped up a recording earlier in the day and promise between one "Or maybe 20!" more shows in Ottawa.

• Show reminder: In a somewhat different vein, pH, Project and Boyscout Killers perform at Mercury Lounge; Wise, Young and King, The Gospel and In Kaleidoscope are at The Rainbow; Erik Jørgensen, Keturah Johnson, Jonathan Becker and  The Panama try their hand at the Avant-Garde.

Jump aboard

The Train Jumpers finished the night off. As I was looking through my photos a week ago I noticed the lead singer of The Train Jumpers bore an uncommon resemblance to Chris Landry from the Harvey Cartel ... indeed, it is Chris Landry from the Cartel, which just goes to show that my brain has been reduced to tapioca by too much eggnog (or something like that).

From left to right we have Chris, Kato Blaine, Brandon Agnew and Stu Rutherford.



The other side of the train.



Dusty Drifter Stu was also laying down some slide for the Train Jumpers. He may not know whether to jump or drift ...



Landry sings!



Singalong action! With Kato Blaine, whose name I fear I may be misspelling.



Brandon Agnew brushes up. Brandon has his own musical outlet in in rehevoli, and can sometimes be heard with L. Poushinsky as well as Dave Norris and Local Ivan.



And so on.



Perching action!





The suitcase actually travelled a bit more than it should - thus soundman Tom's deployment of the cinder block.



Chris was rather self-deprecatory about the performance, but I though it sounded decent enough, despite a few flubs.

• Show reminder: Skunch and The Botched Suicides terrify the Rainbow Bistro; you can say goodbye to Allie of The White Wires and  Peach Kelli Pop at the Bytown tonight; The Visitors are also on the bill; The Girlfriends, The Barstool Layoffs and Get A Life Losers make for an excellent free triple-bill at Zaphod Beeblebrox (or at least the Girlfriends and GALL do - I can't testify for the Layoffs).

That's gotta hurt

I honestly didn't expect to be at Spaceman Music's Bruisefest, but thanks to a lift home from a coworker I managed to make it over to Babylon in time to catch Mountanaka and The Suppositories. I'm sorry I missed Germ Attak and Cloven Hoofs (particularly the latter since I haven't seen them before - Chris from the Unavowed mentioned he thought their set was particularly good). It's also a bit unfortunate that the freezing rain undoubtedly kept people away from some excellent and loud music. Hopefully it'll become an annual event (and luckier with the weather).


Mountanaka at Babylon, December 26, 2009

The Suppositories played a particularly hard and fast set, and wrapped things up around 1:45 ... I could have sworn it was over earlier - good music always seems to go by faster.


Suppositories at Babylon, December 26, 2009

Part II of Bruisefest is on tonight at Mavericks, with sets from Tokyo Sex Whale, Daiquiri, A Darker Day and Alaskan.

If you catch their drift

Dusty Drifters are a hot-sounding bluegrass combo made up partly of folks you may have seen or heard performing with other folks. They certainly have excellent chops.

There's enough folks in this band that you need two photos to take them all in: From right to left we have P.J. Baker on guitar, a somewhat obscured Stu Rutherford on Dobro, bassist Dan Grewal, guitarist and lead vocalist Paul Roberto and a bit of mandolin player Mike Mezzatesta.



Further to the right, the rest of Mezzatesta and fiddler Nathan Smith.



Guitar action! And let us not speak of this infernal contraption, the electronic pickup.



A little post-tune Smith and Mezzatesta.



More Roberto (and some other guys).



Spotted!



It's a good band for profiles. Mezzatesta can also be heard playing banjo for Meredith Luce and fiddle for Glenn Nuotio.



More Smith - you can also hear him playing on John Allaire's Up Hill ... Both Ways.



Singalong action!



Drinking action!



More Paul and Dan (also of the Jesse Greene Band)!



The whole lot!



A super set.

• Show reminder: If I weren't working, I'd be at the Spaceman Music Bruisefest watching  Suppositories, Mountanaka, Germ Attak and Cloven Hoofs at Babylon; elsewhere, Avendale, Rainbow Pony Power, After The Vendetta, Rising City States and Plaster Man's Master Plan rock punkottawa.com's Boxing Day bash at Mavericks. The Hinterlandband (not the Vancouver folks, the ex-Blinker The Star guy) are at Zaphod's. The Lee Bowie Band are at The Rainbow. Lonesome Paul and The Valley Ramblers are at Irene's
  

Not a creature was stirring

My one day off this week is Christmas Eve, so my show-going options were limited ... fortunately the folks at the Rock'N'Roll Pizza Party have no respect for the Baby Jesus and continue misbehaving no matter what else is supposed to be happening on a Thursday. I actually popped into Atomic Rooster at 10, the alleged but obviously not real starting time, and the bar's regular clientele already had their fingers in their ears. Thus encouraged I went home to continue watching Korean vampire flick Thirst (which was quite entertaining, albeit no Let The Right One In) and returned in time to catch The Girlfriends set (and their extended search for a working microphone).

I was communicating with guitarist Nigel earlier this week, and he mentioned that Sammy was going to be playing some bass. I believe his words were something on the lines of "we like to change things up so we don't start fires". They dressed for the occasion, then undressed for the occasion. Also, they had buttons and lollipops.


The Girlfriends at The Atomic Rooster, Christmas Eve 2009

Mother's Children began and finished with The Little Drummer Boy, and sandwiched some of their ace power pop in between. They too dressed up for the occasion, though only Davey rocked the beard and saw it through to the bitter end. They also dedicated a cover of Run, Rudolph, Run to soon-to-depart Allie Hanlon from White Wires.


Mother's Children at The Atomic Rooster, Christmas Eve 2009

The Girlfriends are going to be playing again this Monday with Get A Life Losers and The Barstool Layoffs at Zaphod Beeblebrox.

User's manual

I had a lot of cheap entertainment in September thanks to Zaphod's free showcases. This was another rural-sounding affair, starting with use Every Part of The Deer. The death-folk duo were wrapping things up as I walked in the door, so I'll just say they sounded fine and offer up a few pics ...

Susanna Wiens and Matt McLennan, not in that order.



Matt's other side.



And Mat, now with less flash bounced off the reflective insides of the stage lights.



Shouty action!



Gripping action!



Susanna fiddles about.



And that's it, since I only caught about five minutes of their show.

• Show reminder: Mothers Children and The Girlfriends spread Christmas cheer, and possibly blood, at Atomic Rooster.