Her Majesty's Ship

A heap of keyboards, high vocal harmonies, sombre moods, off-kilter pop nous, a couple of drummers and a grab bag of instruments goes into Royal Canoes' sound. They jammed them all into Raw Sugar for a fine show. Here's a familiar face: Bucky Driedger of The Liptonians.



Pulling back we get Liptonian No. 2, Matt Schellenberg on the left and Matt Peters.



On bass, Brendan Berg; the shadowy figure of Liptonian No. 3, drummer Michael Jordan is at right.



Keyboards and more keyboards!



Singalong action!



Acoustic action!



Getting a picture of one drummer at Raw Sugar is hard enough, getting a picture of two (namely Derek Allard) is nigh impossible.



It can be a bit hard to manouevre around the cafe with a sextet.



More keyboard action!



Matt Peters munches microhpone.



They have a couple of western dates on the go.

• Show reminder: There will be some mind-expansion outside the National Gallery of Canada as the VEO (a.k.a. The Valiha Experimental Orchestra, a Castor-associated group) performs from 6 to 8-ish.  A short walk away and just about an hour later, Milk Music, Pregnancy Scares and Solids will rock Cafe DeKcuf. The Kestrels, Aim Low and Fiveways perform at Zaphod's; the Elmdale hosts Music Maul and Kris and Dee.

Nightcrawlin'

I grew up in the 1980s with Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby and other synth-loving, quirky pop artists but with the advent of The Pixies, Nirvana and the ascension of "college radio" to the mainstream, keyboard went a bit out of style. Well, its been 25 years, and synthesizers are back, baby! Not that I am wholly enthused about that, but at least they're being employed with folks with a certain sinister pop sensibility - folks like Winnipeg's Royal Canoe. They've been on tour, and rolled into Raw Sugar night to perform for a few dozen folks.

Montreal's Nash opened for them. Nash (first name Mike, for those who care) is a one man recorder, but he showed up with a backing quartet for some keening melodies.


Nash at Raw Sugar, May 3, 2012


Nash at Raw Sugar, May 3, 2012

Next up were Royal Canoe, who really bust out the keyboards for some excellent, highly layered melancholy pop. Half night-time thrill, half hangover. I recognize at least half of them - Bucky Driedger, Michael Jordan and Matt Schellenberg also play in The Liptonians (who performed at the Avant-Garde a while back).


Royal Canoe at Raw Sugar, May 3, 2012

And yes, they have two drummers lurking back there.


Royal Canoe at Raw Sugar, May 3, 2012

The band heads to Montreal tonight.