Royal treatment

If you're familiar with my musical tastes, you'll know that one of my all-time favourite bands is Royal Trux; when I heard that Neil Michael Hagerty, one-half of the acclaimed duo was coming to town I naturally had to go. ALso on the bill, Alexander Moskos' latest project, Drainolith, and locals Eraserheads.

I saw Eraserheads a little while ago performing in the Mugshots Courtyard. Their projections worked a little better with an actual projection screen.



Here's Omar!



The whole lot!



More Alex!



And so on!



Everything electronic worked out pretty well this time, as well!



I've seen Alex Moskos perform many times, but I can't recall if it's ever been with the same band: He's served in Goa, Unireverse, backing Damo Suzuki at the Avant-Garde, Thammes, AIDS Wolf .... He also teamed with headliner Hagerty recently in Dan'l Boone (Hagerty also produced Drainolith's latest).



And here's Mr. Shapiro, half of rhythm-section-for-hire The Trippy Twins.



Hairy action!



It was an evening of minimalist drumkits.



Rhythm section action!



Although the headliner was billed as Neil Michael Hagerty, it was really the latest permutation of The Howling Hex on stage (Hagerty gave out the band's anme after every tune). He was joined by spoken word maven Lexie Mountain and percussionist Eric Van Leuven. Here's Neil, seen just a few minutes earlier playing the House of Targ's Metallica game with grave intent.



Tiny drum kit action!



Lexie explains the intricacies of cat-folding.



Neil sings!



Lexie shakes!



Eric hits!



Singalong action!



Extra Lexie!



Harmonica action!



A mighty fine night.

Unlikely sounds

It was a pretty easy decision to head over to Sounds Unlikely last night to catch a triple bill of far-out sounds - mostly on the noise side of the spectrum - from three different acts. About 30 people showed up, so it was a tight fit among Sounds Unlikely's CD bins and record racks.

Self Surgery is the noise-music project of Fucked Corpse member, photographer, Bruised Tongue proprietor and master of disguise Pierre Richardson. You could say his performance was straight off the floor, using a bunch of tape decks and a microphone.


Self Surgery, Sounds Unlikely, February 22, 2009

HI-COMM were more melodic. Despite the photo below, there are in fact five people in the band, including Daniel from Place (at left). They got plenty noisy at times, but there was more discernible rhythm, and at times they sounded a bit like Circle, or the more industrial parts of F/i.


HI_COMM, Sounds Unlikely, February 22, 2009

Thames brought the noise back with some grinding tones and freakout guitar on the last movement. Alex Moskos, who's part of Unireverse and also played with Goa when they were at the Avant Garde many moons ago, is 50% of Thames; the other half is Blake Hargreaves of Dreamcatcher and Cousins of Reggae.


Thames, Sounds Unlikely, February 22, 2009

I'll just repeat what I said during one of the intermissions: "I'm glad I brought my earplugs."

• Show reminder: The Polytones, The Urban Aesthetics, That's The Spirit and Sunjet Records Band play Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Avant noise

The Avant-Garde Bar had yet another interesting show last Friday, with *Expatriates kicking out the jams before Goa hit what passes for a stage with their Boredoms-inspired psycho-groove (and yes, they admit to the influence). Unfortunately, the only people whose identity I'm sure of are singer and loop guru Monstre (Phillipe Lambert to his mere and pere) and suitcase adjuster Alex Moskov. According to published accounts, he's abetted by Will Glass and Alex Macsween on drums and Jrobot (who I believe is the bald gent at the back in the first picture).

Alex Moskov, the possible Jrobot at back and Lambert.



These guys must love to fry.



Goa's mystery lady.



It was getting quite hot, so there was a fair amount of shirt removal going on.



And now for a few *Expatriates pictures ... first a view of Damon Thompson, Michael T. Weiland and Chris Landry.



And again!



And finally, a really swell of picture of Bill Guerrero.



One of those happy accidents. I tried some trick photography through the glass partition of the bar's entryway ... boy did not that work out! But this one with a slow shutter speed and flash turned out nicely.

What I did on my vacation

I finally had a chance to get my film developed, so now I can over some photographic evidence of my travels: All the way from Hawaii to the U.S.S.R.! Okay, The Aloha Room to the Avant-Garde Bar.
First, on July 6 I went to see the Lords of Vanier. I first head the mysterious group on Friday Morning Cartunes on CKCU 93.1 FM. I thought the vocalist sounded a bit like Damien Sawka, but it's not like he'd have time for yet another band, right? Uh, wrong ... the threesome is rounded out by Paul "Yogi" Granger and Jordy Walker of The Hi Lo Trons. Here's a photo, with extra lighting courtesy of the guy who videotaped the proceedings. (Update: This post was edited July 29, 2008.)



More photos and some yak about their new EP next week.
The following day I went to the first night of Bluesfest to catch the tail-end of Southside Steve Marriner, The Architects and War. I didn't get any photos of those folks, but I did snap a few of Tinariwen and Neko Case on Friday.
Here's Tinariwen - or five-sevenths of them, anyway.



And another view ...



Then it was Neko Case and The Sadies turn.



After examining these photos I've decided that blue lighting is better than red and yellow.



Then I zipped over to The Avant-Garde Bar and saw *Expatriates.



They were opening for Montreal's GOA! Here's main man Monstre and a few of his Boredoms-loving bunch.



(You're going to have to wait for next roll of film to get back from the developers before you see the others.)
Last but not least, in my post about Quarter Life I said I didn't have any good photos of drummer Shane McEwan from their July 3 show at Zaphod's . Now I do, so here you go:



And a bonus photo of bassist Jason Leen and guitarist Anders Drerup on backing vocals.



They've acquired a slot opening for David Gogo and ZZ Top at Bluesfest July 12.