Crimes against photography

With Ottawa Explosion, done, I headed off to Pressed for some heavy sounds. Ryan of Coliseum has a new band, called Fotocrime, and since previous shows by his other outfit were such killers I had to go and see what he's been up to lately. Ultra Love had already begun their set when I walked in. Here's Pascale on guitar!



Bass action with Ted!



Eric hits! If memory serves, he was also in Embassies of Denmark way back when.



More Ted!



Pascale sings!



And so on!



More Ted!



Ultra action!



Singalong action!



The whole lot!



Destroy Clocks played next - here's keyboardist and singer Nicole!



Kevin sings!



More Nicole!



Tyler hits!



Extra Kevin!



Destructive action!



Fotocrime played a fantastic set - a real treat for fans of groups like Killing Joke, Tau Cross and Sisters of Mercy. They also had an interesting DIY lighting setup and tons of smoke. It did make photography a little tricky. For example, here's a picture of Ryan.



Okay, now a somewhat better picture.



You get the idea ... it looked really cool in person!



Guitar action with Nick!



Nick sings!



Ryan adjusts!



Bass action with Shelley!



Shelley sings!



Here's the view from the back of the room.



A great set.

Mmm, Danish

A lot of the folks who turned out for 120 Days left before Embassies of Denmark tore through six songs. Their loss, the remaining crowd were treated to a barn-burning set.

Bill Greene and Eric Elgar shout!



Eric Elgar and Bill Greene shout a bit more.



Pat Johnson grimaces.



Mike Bond flails a cymbal.



Danish action!



And one more of Eric just because I like this one.



They're playing Cafe DeKcuf Dec. 1.

• Show reminder: The Rude Dudes and HellBros play Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Begin at the End

My night started earlier than usual with a trip to End Hits. Swedish hardcore band Regulations were in town to live up to their reputation as one of punk rock's great loud hopes. Opening up were Ottawa's own teenage manglers, The Sweet Janes. Unfortunately, this pictures obscures their mysterious guest bassist - okay, it was Luke from the Million Dollar Marxists filling in.



The Regulations keep it nice 'n' short, eh?



Next I went to Zaphod's. It was not yet 9 p.m., and the first of four bands slated to play that night were still on stage. Just who they were, I'm not sure. The band scheduled to play was called Out Reason, so I guess this is them. They seemed like a good bunch of musicians, but their stuff was a bit too mainstream to tickle my fancy.



Next up, The Undead. No, not that Undead (despite their bassist's Misfits T-shirt), or any other Undead. If I were the sort of shallow person who judged bands by their appearance, I would have expected some godawful rap-rock deal. Instead, these guys are more on a death metal-hardcore tip. They also stick out their tongues a fair bit.



Norway's 120 Days were the big name draw, and a sizeable crowd did in fact turn out for their synth'n'bass set. They sounded like Spacemen 3 with Moogs. A good heavy, danceable sound from these guys.



Finally, Embassies of Denmark closed things off with a particularly ferocious set. They really ripped things up.



The Embassies will be performing at Barrymore's Nov. 4 as part of the Million Dollar Marxists' CD release shindig.

On your marks

This was the third go-round for Embassies of Denmark - I saw their premiere at Zaphod's back in March, and again at Civic Duty in April a few weeks later. Now here they are a few months on, still Pat, Bill, Mike and Eric, still dual vocal screamy melodic rock. This was a CD EP release show for them.

Bill shows off the upper thigh.



Eric at a rakish tilt.



Mike, slightly fuzzy.



Pat with some overly obvious shutter speed nonsense.



Diplomatic action!











I seem to recall some talk of a split with Black Actors ... don't know what happened to that.

Lives become electric

Interesting triple bill at Zaphod's this evening, starting with the post-rock of City of 100 Spires, moving on to the screamy punk of Embassies of Denmark and then These Electric Lives' Cure-influenced, Metric-lovin' post punk.

Those city boys set up on the dancefloor and beckoned the audience to come closer. Then they jumped around a lot and played fuzzy, Tortoise-inspired instrumental rock.



Embassies of Denmark got up on stage and did their thing in honour of the release of their new EP.



Finally These Electric Lives performed. Unfortunately a good chunk of the audience evaporated while they did, which was a pity, since they put on a good show.



I shall speak more of this later.

• Show reminder: Vandelay, Dora and Planetary Confusion perform at End Hits; Gutter Demons, Urban Alien and The Sewer Rats perform at Cafe Dekcuf. You could probably see the former then skip over to see the latter if you felt so inclined, since show times are 5:30 and 7:30 respectively. Heck, you could also see The Flaps perform at Andrew Hayden Park earlier in the day and make it a threefer.
  

On your mark!

Another Tuesday, another fine lineup at Babylon for Civic Duty. This was show No. 2 for Embassies of Denmark; still short, but longer than their last one. The DJs took over the stage and the bands set up on the floor for this show, so there's a lot of audience in these photos. There was a good turnout - I keep expecting about two dozen people will make the foray on a Tuesday; but as you'll see it's quite a good draw.

Eric Elgar is a two-headed rock beast! There was a clique of photography students at Babylon taking pictures of the show, so for a few pictures I turned off my own flash, set the shutter speed to five seconds; this is what showed up.



Bill Burke at work.



Pat - also of Sleeping Pilot and Army of Saint Joan.



Mike, like Pat a Sleeping Pilot.



Rock-and-audience action.









A split with Black Actors is in the works.