Past tense: The Fortunate Sons

Once more, it's back to the distant past at the Dominion Tavern ... this time we'll be viewing some photos of Tricky Woo's opening act, The Fortunate Sons. For those not following along at home, The Soms were something of a brother band to The Dead City Rebels, with which they shared a few members. You might call them The Uranium Comeback of their day, since their shows were few and far between but remarkably potent.

But first, some drinking!



Austen rocks the Flying V! (You can just make out Rebel Rene and Heather Osborn, drummer for Holy Hell, off to the right.)



Chris rocks the sax.



Nathaniel Hurlow - recently seen on this blog with The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - and J.P. Sadek (Tokyo Sex Whale, Loviatar) fret and drum.



More Nate!



Rock stance action!



Nate's brother Ben handles the low-end. Nowadays he plays guitar in Gunsmoke.



Guitar action!



Rhythm section action!



And so on!



The view from the side of the stage.



Austen sings!



Bonus Ben!



Extra Nate!



More J.P.!



The end!



I'll have to dig out their LP sometime.

• Show reminder: UneXpect perform at the Rainbow.

Boxing day

You could hem and haw over the actual punkness of the three previous bands on The Rainbow's Monday night bill last week, but Boxhands are more less the real thing. Or at least, the real 1990s-ish thing. Anyway, here they are!

That's Nick O'Gorman, Eric Larsin and Coleen McKeracher.



Nick sings! He has admirable shoes.



Coleen rocks the Batgirl look.



Eric is not naked.



Nick frets!



Eric sings!



Nick sings!



Coleen sings!



Shoutalong action!



Everybody sing!



Bonus Nick!



More Coleen!



More hitting!



Assorted rocking out!



And then I popped off home because I was still feeling wiped out from earlier gym-going.

• Show reminder: Yellow Jacket Avenger and Rebekah Higgs play the Elmdale.

Unknown sounds

Sounds From The Green Room are a bit of a mystery; as far as I can tell they're pals with the RedD Monkey folks and hail from The Soo. But even Sault bloggers don't seem to know anything about the duo, who also seem to lack any sort of Internet presence. It's basically a guy playing somewhat twisted classic rock on guitar with a nice fuzzy sound - right up my alley - plus drummer.

They also employ some scintillating effects, like this Lumi-tone glass plate.



And now, the rock! I recall overhearing the guitarist's name is Brad. Not very helpful, is it?



The drummer is even more of an unknown.



Fretful action!



Dig that glowing guitar, dudes.



The whole lot!



Singing action!



And so forth!



Staring action!



The end!



I quite liked that, actually.

• Show reminder: Brain Trust, Thesis Sahib and Greed Bros play the Raw Sugar Cafe; Desert Owls and Celery Troff perform at the Avant Garde Bar; Sheezer returns to Zaphod's, with New Teeth and The Music Box doing the opening honours. The Mighty Popo pops into The Rainbow; Endemise, House of Horvath, From the Deep, Incarnia, Dissentient and Sonburst play Mavericks; Drumhand and Rattling Tro Tro are at Irene's; a bevy of Ottawa country rockers pay tribute to Johnny Cash and raise some shekels for CHUO at the Elmdale.

Monkey puzzle

Up next were RedD Monkey - or as they were called for this occasion, Box Monkey. As far as I can tell from their possibly fictionalized biography, they started in Kelowna, moved to Toronto and now call the Soo home. They bill themselves as an alt-punk cello trio, and mention D&D, so I'm also going to say they are nerds. I thought they sounded pretty decent, but it did take me a few tunes to warm to them.

Steve Mozarowski on the microphone. Are alt-punk combos allowed to rap? I'm sure there's a law against it.



Brother Pete on the cello.



Hip hop cello action!



Drummer Joe Bumbacco likes the double-kick.



And now for some actual guitar.



Harrumph, the way kids play these days ...



Assorted monkeying about.



Bonus Joe!



The whole lot from the second floor.



Stringy action!



More Pete, sans flash.



Extra monkeying about!



More hitting!



Pete sings!



The whole lot!



Brotherly action!



Pete sings some more!



Shouty Steve!



Starting and ending with a rap song is apparently their thing.



That was a bit odd.

• Show reminder: Great Bloomers, Huron and The Withering Pines play Cafe Dekcuf; The White Wires and Gunsmoke play The Clocktower (you might want to get there early ...); The Goodluck Assembly, Atomic Tom and Scott Nicks Band are at Mavericks; Sound Of Lions and Jordan Allen roar into Zaphod's; Reverb Syndicate and The Pelts are at The Rainbow; The Unseen Strangers and The Avenues can be seen at Irene's; The Davis Payne Band, Train Jumpers and Blisster and The Saddlesores walk, roll and ride into the Elmdale. Robots! Everywhere!! go beep at the Avant-Garde Bar (Devin Johnstone and Jon Davis show up later in the evening).