Pure Nun-sense

Vancouver fuzzoids The Courtneys are on tour with Seattle squall squad Versing, and paid a visit to House of Targ Wednesday to unleash a variety of melodic noise on the audience. Locals Sparklesaurus played a dynamite set to start things off. Here's Felicity!



Colleen sings!



Keyboard action with Shamisa!



Felicity frets, Brad hits!



More Colleen!



Extra Brad!



More Shamisa!



Singalong action!



Sparkling action!



Versing turned up the volume a bit (after tactfully offering the audience some free earplugs) and headed straight into My Bloody Valentine territory. Here's some guitar action with Daniel and Graham!



Kirby sings!



More Daniel!



More Graham!



Max hits!



Even more Daniel!



Bonus Graham!



Extra Kirby!



The Courtneys sound is so indebted to the New Zealand pop wave that they're actually signed to the fame Flying Nun label. Here's Sydney on bass!



Courtney on bass!



Jen sings, likes Teenage Fanclub!



Sydney sings!



Courtney sings!



Jen is amused!



Extra Sydney!



More Courtney!



The whole lot!



Standout performances from all three bands.

To not sleep, perchance to dream

For some reason I got it into my head that school started at noon on Monday (actual start time: 8 a.m.), so I popped over to Pressed to catch touring trio The Courtneys and a couple of local bands, The Yips and Dreamphone.

It's been a little while since I saw Dreamphone, who are fronted by Les Allumettes' Jordanna.



Pressed has undergone a few renovations since the last time I saw a show there. I imagine it won't be long before someone from the Funboy Clubhouse is "stagediving" off that rail ...



Bassy action!



Percussive action!



The shouty bit!



Dreamy action!



Phonic action!



More drumming!



Barred action!



Now on to some out-of-focus phots of The Yips, who as usual had the audience shaking about. Things were a bit less sweaty than their Mugshots sets I've caught, but it was still getting mighty humid.



Fisheyed action!



Kerri lunges!



Faceoff action!



Jon hits!



And if you want to see more blurry Yips snaps there's always my Flickr photostream. The Courtneys finished the evening off. The Vancouver trio are back in Canada after a loop through the U.S.A. accompanying Tegan & Sara. They're playing Montreal (again) on Thursday, then make a stop in T.O. before heading stateside again. They say they like the Flying Nun sound, and who am I to disagree? Here's singing drummer Jen Twynn Payne, showing some Slayer love.



Cloesup action with Courtney Loove (possibly not her real name)!



A grainy Sydney Koke handles bass and banter.



Singalong action!



Sydney sings!



Jen hits!



A pretty good return on a bit too much lost sleep.