What she said

If you want to see a wild and crazy show, Duchess Says is always a good bet. I've seen them play a few times in the last decade and frontwoman Annie-Claude always gets up to some entertaining shenanigans - the music is always great too. They were joined by local combos Expanda Fuzz and Dark Plains. Dark Plains started things off with some super-heavy post-punk sounds - here's guitar man Chuck (Last Communion, Mountanaka and others).



Matt sings!



Plain action with Chuck and Andy!



Bass'n'drums action!



Andy hits!



Extra Chuck!



A shouty bit!



Chuck sings!



Dark action!



On to Expanda Fuzz, who continue their dedication to JAMC-style drum machine fuzz rock.



Leila sings!



Singalong action!



Guitar action with Leila!



Bass action with Chris!



Extra Leila!



Drum machine action!



Let's just start by saying that Duchess Says always have a strong banner game (which usually gets destroyed by show's end); this time they had one that lit up! Here's well-illuminated drummer Simon and guitarist Ismael!



Bass action with Phil!



And here's Annie-Claude, with a beer she will shortly pour over her own head!



Annie-Claude adjusts!



And so on!



More guitar!



Simon hits!



Keytar action!



Josh from the bar also contributed some vital budgie-related history.



A really fantastic show.

Black Ought

The entertainment calendar is beginning to thin out as we get closer to Christmas, but if you fancy post-punk or the hardcore side of Ottawa underground music scene in the mid-1990s then Pressed was the place to be last night. Mark from Black Bough Records brought Dark Plains, Lungbutter and Ought together to play a fairly intense show. (Taline Noelle Bedrossian also did some pre-set tape-manipulating, but I arrived too late to hear it.)

First up, Dark Plains. This is yet another Ottawa bass-and-drums duo, and it's interesting to hear how they differ from Big Dick (who come out of Ottawa's punk rock and punk-pop scene) and Thought Project (from the hard rock side of things). Andy Cant and Matt Deline have their roots in Okara and Shotmaker. Andy's also appeared on the blog with the New Autum Line and Les Allumettes. They had their first show this year at Ottawa Explosion. Here's Andy!



Plain action!



Dark action!



Matt sings!



Staring action!



The end!



More stuff after the jump.

Got a line on you

Another bunch of Saturday Looks Good To Me openers, the New Autumn Line. As I arrived at the show they were just going into a walkie-talkie solo. Part way through their show they announced the band's drummer had died a little while back. The audience was hoping for some tale of This is Spinal Tap-ish autodestruction, but that was just their way of announcing they had bought a new drum machine after the last one expired (well, maybe some one threw up on it ...). Andy announced the band would be playing half songs they knew, and half songs they didn't.

I really hope this tune is called Communication Breakdown.



Jeremy Latta steps on it.



Brian Martin and Andy Cant.



The pictures from this show once again serve to remind me not to shoot from an upward angle, since Irene's has a very, very low ceiling ...