Onions, flowers, chords and puppies

Thursday at House of Targ was all about the heavy guitar sounds: You had stoner rock, blues rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock and stoner-blues-psychedelic-garage rock. Up first the somewhat grungy sounds of The Mudpuppies: I guess it makes sense that someone on bass would dress up in waders ...



Guitar action!



Percussive action!



Vocal action!



More bass!



Muddy action!



Cold Chords really rocked with some sharp garage-styled sounds. Here's some vocal action with Rob (who has also played guitar with The Sick Sick Sicks)!



Bass action with Matt!



Singalong action!



Percussive action with Mina!



Matt sings!



More percussion!



Cold action!



Chorded action!



Brain Flower were a bit on the trippier side. Here's acoustic guitarist Josh!



Hawaian action with Theo and Oli!



Fretless and shirtless action!



Extra Theo!



Josh jumps about!



Theo sings!



JP hits!



Guitar action!



The night came to a close with a performance by Onionface; you'll recognize bassist Calvin from Big Moan, and the two bands' sounds isn't that far apart. Here's Stefan on vocals and guitar!



Jon sings!



Calvin sings!



Extra Stefan!



More Jon!



Bass action with Calvin!



Rhythm section action!



Singalong action!



Stick-twirling action!



Monitor-standing action!



Onionfaced action!



An excellent introduction to all four bands.

The crying game

Saturday night I headed over to Pressed. It was a chance to see a couple of bands I had neither seen nor heard of before, Eagle Tears and Moon Destroyer. Eagle Tears were the main draw for me since I like that retro-rock stuff. It was a fairly eclectic evening otherwise, with The SIck SIck Sicks' trademark Django-billy and Moon Destroyer's more post-sludge metal sound.

Moon Destroyer kicked things off ... they sounded a bit like the louder parts of Explosions In The Sky.



Feedback action!



There was also some some singing, but mostly they stick to the instrumental stuff.



Percussive action!



More guitar!



More bass!



Eagle Tears and Sick Sick Sicks after the jump ....

Buzz band

Back to Zaphod's in January, back to a trio, indeed, back to The Dead Bees. This combo features Chris Thibedeau and Kosta McKay, once the rhythm section of Department of Foreign Affairs, and Chris Sims (formerly of This Minor Tremble). Their combined work isn't too far off the mark from either band.

Singalong action from Chris and Chris!



Bass action!



More Chris!



More other Chris!



Instrument switching action!



Kosta sings!



Most recent news from the hive is that they opened for Canrock stars The Grapes of Wrath back in June at Mavericks.

That's just sick sick sick

This show at Zaphod's was pretty eclectic. You had a rock starter, a pop finisher and in the middle The Sick Sick Sicks, a band which is pretty diverse all by itself. They combine punk rock, Balkan jazz and surf, among other things.

Guitar action with Rob Varma!



More guitar from Maxim cossette. That's Kost McKay (of Department of Foreign Affairs fame) on drums and headless Red Bronson on bass at right.



More Rob.



Microphone-licking action!



Gripping action!



Kosta sings!



Harmonica action!



Huggy action!



Kneebending action!



Bronson goes down!



Bronson gets up!



Banjo action!



The end!



They'll be playing an early gig at the Atomic Rooster August 17.