Transformers

Odonis Odonis are one of those bands unafraid to change their sound from album to album: They started off somewhere around the Jesus & Mary Chain and seem to be headed into Nine Inch Nails territory. It's been a radical enough change that their House of Targ set was drawn entirely from their latest release, Post Plague. I would have expected someone like Casa Lagarto to be opening for them in 2011; five years later Ruth Grader gets the nod instead. Here's some synthetic action!



And so on!



On to Odonis Odonis for a short but good set. Here's Dean and Jarod!



Jarod sings!



Bass action with Denholm!



Denholm sings!



Extra Jarod!



More Dean!



A cool show.

Intense in tents

Saturday it was back to City Hall for a second day under the Arboretum tents. Unfortunately I was a little slow getting out of the house and missed openers H. de Heutz and Kini Nimiwag & Anishinabe Drum Group; Toronto's Doomsquad were just setting up as I arrived. The psychedelic dance combo features two sets of siblings: Josh and Jesse  Haskos,  (a.k.a. Brooklyn combo North America) handle rhythm duties for Jaclyn, Trevor and Allie Blumas. Here's Jesse!



Sibling action with Allie, Trevor and Jaclyn!



They like their stage makeup!



Guitar action!



Flowery action with Jaclyn!



Singalong action!



Bass action with Josh!



Flautist action with Allie!



Allie works the crowd!



Gripping action with Trevor!



Even more Jaclyn!



Trevor hops about!



Frigs played the Debaser stage and made a pretty good racket. The last time I saw them, at Mugshots during last year's Ottawa Explosion (when they were working under the name Dirty Frigs), their songs had a little more structure - they've turned up the squall since then. Here's Bri and Duncan working the feedback!



Bass action with Cameron!



Edan hits!



More Bri!



Duncan gets in the zone.



Floppy-haired action!



Friggin' action!



Closeup action!



Extra Edan!



More feedback!



The whole lot!



Back to the main stage for a hot set from indie rapper Junglepussy; she put on a great set.



DJ Joey provides the beats and all!



Closeup action!



Junglepussy shakes it!



Audience action!



Jef Barbara's show was a bit more low key ... for some reason Jef put me in my of Robert Wyatt and Plastic Bertrand, which isn't a combination that often occurs to me (or anyone). Barbara does seem to excel at a wide variety of musical genres, so it's no surprise that unusual combos come to mind.



Bass action!



Saxophonic action!



Backup vocal action!



Singalong action!



More Jef!



More saxophone!



And so on!



Mykki Blanco's Bluesfest appearance a couple of years back made quite an impression on the audience; I suspect the crowd was a bit less baffled this time, and they were certainly into it in a big way. First, his music-maker Larry B did some warming up and soundchecking.

 

Here's Mykki!



And so on!



Mykki runs about!



Stand-employing action!



Mykki works the crowd!



Conversational action!



Mykki talks to the hand!



Disrobing action!



Mykki visits the food truck!



The end!



Operators, the new group from Wolf Parade, Divine Fits and Handsome Furs' Dan Boekner, New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown, Hot Hot Heat's Dustin Hawthorne and Macedonian jill-of-all-trades Devojka. Mykki was a little late getting off, and Operators were even later getting on (they had a fair bit of electronic gear to wrangle), so their set was a brisk one. Here's Dan!



Bass action with Dustin!



Neither the first nor the last of the many bad pictures I took of Devojka that night.



A shouty bit!



Closeup action!



Sam hits!



Bonus Brown!



Extra Devojka!



A great end to the night.