Clap your hands, say yeah

Saturday I had a chance to check out a couple of bands I've heard good things about at the House of Targ. Stella Ella Ola was the headliner, but judging ffrom the the ebb and flow of the audience I'd guess that Mackenzie Rhythm Section was the real draw for a lot of folks. They traffic in blue-eyed soul, plus some lashings of surf and ska and seem like a most capable party band, so no surprise there.

Here's some vocal action from frontman Conor Kehoe.



Handclapping action with bassist Nicolas Sobzcak!



Carl Hageraats handles the keys (and also played some guitar later in the set.



JF Chevrier hits!



Rhythm section action!



More guitar!



Bonus JF!



Extra Conor!



Carl sings!



On to Stella Ella Ola. I was particularly interesting in catching them live since a couple of members _ the Boyd brothers, that is - are also in one of my favourite bands, Hollerado. The band is fronted by singer-guitarist Anne Douris, who also did some art and design work for Hollerado, and also features drummer Vince Rice. They're a really fun, peppy band - it's unfortunate that the audience dwindled a bit during their set.

Here's Nixon and Anne!



Jake steps out from behind the drums in SEO to handle the low end.



Anne frets!



Jake sings!



Guitar action!



Vince hits!



Singalong action!



Nixon frets!



Extra Vince!



Extra Anne!



More singalong action!



Anne jumps about!



Vince sings!



Fun times!

Gimme no lip, child

I was intrigued to see that the opening act for Sadie Hell's record release gig at Club SAW was billed as a Hollerado side-project. I bet a lot of folks were expecting something at least a bit like Hollerado's snappy pop-rock. Tough beans, because Wuhan Lipfight's disjointed sound is about as far away as can be.

Carl on guitar and shades.



El Suponte on real drums and a barely visible Lumberjack on fake drums (but not Fake Drugs).



Faceoff action. The band's other guitarist briefly considered Maybellene Switchblade as her pseudonym, but dropped the Switchblade because it sounded too violent.



Smokey action!



Bendy action!



Smoochy action!



More drumming!



To hell with this high-ISO crap, I'm turning on the flash.



More faceoff action!



See-through Maybellene.



Not-so-see-through Maybellene.



And, er, that's it - and I'm not giving any odds on whether they'll ever play live again.

• Show reminder: Missy Burgess and Keith Glass perform at the Elmdale; Mr. Something Something is at The Rainbow.

Surprise ending

Last time I was at Club SAW was September 4, 2007, to see The Rural Alberta Advantage. This time the headliner was Sadie Hell, which released their debut album and also raised some dough for SweatFree Communities, an organization for Third World workers. They got some support from Wuhan Lipfight, a band fronted by Menno Veersteg of Hollerado and Ottawa's own popular favourites The Love Machine.

Connecting Wuhan Lipfight with Hollerado is actually slightly deceptive. I chatted briefly with the members of the quartet after their set while they came up with pseudonyms and drummer El Suponte noted that while they stress all the time about what's going on in Hollerado, Lipfight is about doing everything they don't do in Hollerado. Thus, instead of snappy pop rock tunes you get skronky psych jam versions of Shortnin' Bread. The music is about as fuzzy as this photo.


Wuhan Lipfight at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

The Love Machine put on a very sharp performance. They actually gave their first performance at Club SAW about four years ago. "You can see how far we've come," joked guitarist Allan. They have a new album and video en route and played a bunch of new stuff.


Love Machine at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

The new video is courtesy of Luca Furgiuele, who also did the video for Sadie Hell's new single Pedestrians. The lady at left appears in the Love Machine video, if I understand things correctly.


Luca and friend at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

Then it was time for Sadie Hell; mainman Ben Welland corralled a bunch of folks to accompany him this time around, among them Peter and Christian Yurt of Hellbros, Mallorie Giles of Politique, new singer and guitarist May-Jun and Big Dick guy Dave Secretary on drums, along with usual suspects Dave Halabisky and Sean Lamframboise. They put on a sensational performance.


Sadie Hell at Club SAW, January 2, 2010


Sadie Hell at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

But the big surprise came at the end when Mallory ripped away the Sadie Hell banner to reveal behind it a big sign saying ...


"Colleen, will you marry me?" at Club SAW, January 2, 2010

Unfortunately it's kind of obscured by lights and microphone stands and a far-too slow shutter speed, but it reads "Colleen will you marry me?" As you can probably guess, she said yes. All together now: "Awwwwwww."