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.

High-minded

Thursday night I headed over to Pressed for an ill-considered mochiatto (it tasted great, but kept me up all night) and some equally tasty psychedelica. The evening's headliner was Andy Boay, one half of Tonstartssbandht. Also on deck were Blake Hargreaves and Patric.

You may recall Patric from his stint in Fucked Corpse. I'm not sure what you'd call his opening set ... outsider karaoke? He sang along to records of odd easy-listening and synth renditions of hits by The Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival, among others. Not shown: patent leather shoes.


Patric at Pressed, April 4, 2013

The ghostly presence version!


Patric at Pressed, April 4, 2013

On to Blake Hargreaves, whose appeared on the blog before as half of Thames and Caymans. Solo he reminded me a lot of guitar great Richard Youngs.


Blake Hargreaves at Pressed, April 4, 2013

Spectral action!


Blake Hargreaves at Pressed, April 4, 2013

Finally Boay put on a super set of  space guitar and reverbed voice. He also brought his own mini-psychedelic stageshow. Here he is, sporting a T-shirt from another of Blake's band's, Dreamcatcher.


Andy Boay at Pressed, April 4, 2013

And so on!


Andy Boay at Pressed, April 4, 2013

A very entertaining night.

Rotate this!

Allright, we have one little orphan photo from the Thames show at Sounds Unlikely. I would have posted it yesterday, but for some reason my image provider decided to install a function that automatically rotated all my photos "right side up" without telling me they were doing so. This photo of Alexander Moskos refused to unrotate until now, so here it is.



And now onto this evening's entertainment: Today I Caught The Plague, Children of Eve, Callahan and The Courtship rock Mavericks; St. Joe's Mission and Sojourn play Zaphod's; The Hammerheads get funky at The Rainbow; The County Boys and Huntley Slim perform at Irene's; Sandy release their new CD at the Elmdale along with Seedhill Road; Ladymilk and Uncle Sean play the Avant-Garde Bar.

By the water's edge

The final performer at Sounds Unlikely were veteran noiseniks Thames, featuring Alexander Moskos of Unireverse and Goa and Blake Hargreaves of Dreamcatcher and Cousins of Reggae. Here they are singing the hits ....



Alex turns.



Blake needs more power!



Alex twists and shouts.



Shadowy, slow shutter-speed action!



Big finish with freakout guitar!



A deafening experience for all!

• Show reminder: Ben And Me, Arms Of The Girl and Kristen Hilge play the New Bayou; Malajube, Young Galaxy and City of a Hundred Spires perform at Babylon; Brainhunter, Owl Farm and The Sonic Defense hit Cafe Dekcuf; Los Mondo Bongo bring the music of Joe Strummer to Zaphod Beeblebrox; The Brothers Chaffey perform at The Rainbow; Brent Randall and His Pinecones and Laura Peek perform at Irene's; The Scotty Doubt Band rock the Elmdale.

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.