Ottawa Bluesfest 2013: Day 7

My stint at Bluesfest Thursday night was a short one. I arrived in time to check out Jack Pine & The Fire, stayed for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and took in a couple of other acts, but I wanted to be at Pressed for 9 p.m. so I didn't linger.

First stop, the River Stage for Jack Pine and company. I saw him at Cafe DeKcuf in March of 2012 and really dug his mountain music style. I was equally impressed with his band.


Jack Pine and The Fire, July 11, 2013

After a few songs from them I went over to the Black Sheep Stage to inspect Les Mosquitos. They had some reggae style grooves and  a high quotient of songs about drugs.


Les Mosquitos at Ottawa Bluesfest, July 11, 2013

Good energy from this quintet.


Les Mosquitos at Ottawa Bluesfest, July 11, 2013

Next stop was the Main Stage (or the Bell Stage, as I suppose I should call it), to check out an old favourite, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Spencer, Judah Bauer and Russell Simmins always put a lot of energy into their show, and Jon's pants brought back happy memories of their sizzling Babylon set back in 2007.


Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at Ottawa Bluesfest, July 11, 2013

Finally, I went over to check out some of Larry McCray's set (and grab a bite to eat). He was good in 2009, and good this year too.


Larry McCray at Ottawa Bluesfest, July 11, 2013

Then it was time to make a beeline for home and grab my "real" camera for the evening's Damo Suzuki performance - more on that later.

Boxing Day blues

I was scrounging through my banker's boxes, looking for pictures of The High Strung, when I came across my CDs from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion gig at Babylon on July 19, 2004. I thought most of the shots had been posted at Birdman Sound or on here, but it turns out that apart from a few lo-res photos at pennyblackmusic.com, and a single snap way back in 2005, nothing had seen the light of day. That's just plain silly.

Explosive Explosion action!



"Would someone please return the photographer to the upright position?"



That's too far!



Much better.





Sometimes a man must testify.



Spencer works the audience.



"Yeeeeeeeah!



Off course he came back later with Matt Verta-Ray and The Sadies as Heavy Trash. The band released Jukebox Explosion, a singles collection, on In The Red in October.

Rockabilly recyclers

Jon Spencer has been twisting music around since his days in Pussy Galore - he messed with blues rock in his Blues Explosion and now he's doing the same thing in Heavy Trash with Speedball Baby guitarist Matt Verta-Ray. He could probably do a lot of the stuff he did on stage at Babylon Friday night with the Blues Explosion. A big part of his appeal are his moves and vocal mannerisms, none of which have changed since his main outfit played a show in the same place a while back, and like that show the crowd ate it up.
Before Heavy Trash hit the stage, The Sadies - who have been backing Spencer and Verta-Ray on this part of their tour - warmed the audience up with a dozen of their own tunes.

Dallas Good, much the same as he left us.



His brother Travis shouts it out.



The aforementioned Mike "Snake" Belitsky.



Good and Sean Dean, the hirsute half of The Sadies.



Sadies action!







After the shortest Sadies set in recorded history, Dallas introduced Heavy Trash and the group segued directly into the Heavy Trash part of the program.



Jon Spencer - likely going "Uh-huh!"





Matt Verta-Ray - I have some pictures of him at Bluesfest 2003 laying around somewhere.







Spencer gets on down.



"My lawyer has just reminded me that there's one thing I have to do ... can you say 'YEAH!!!'"



Of course The Sadies were doing their thing while this was going on - Dallas played harmonica and piano in addition to his usual Telecaster wizardry.



Travis again ...



Trash action!







Spencer had the crowd "Get down!" during HT's surprisingly long encore (10 songs? 11?). For the most part, they did. In addition to the standard issue bigger versions reached by clicking on the appropriate picture, I also made up this half-assed panorama shot.



"You're gonna look pretty funny up there all by yourself."



A great end to a superstrong bill.