The good book

Many years ago I headed over to the Dom to check out the heavy sounds of Illuminati; this was pre-blog, but a few photos did make it on to the Birdman Sound website; a couple of years later they were back for an equally loud gig at Zaphod's. They called it a day in 2007, but no one doubted the various folks involved would be showing up again in various projects, most notably bassist Nick, who's kept pretty busy - the next time I saw him, in 2007, he was backing up ex DFA 1977 man Sebastien Grainger at Bluesfest. A few years later he revved up the mighty machine that is Biblical, along with some folks from Bicycles (who have also made a blog appearance) and Steamboat (of whom I know naught). They were joined by Montreal's Mountain Dust and local power trio Rex Heck; here's Heckler Dave!



Brad hits!



Dave sings!



Danny sings!



Bonus Brad!



More Danny!



Even more Brad!



The whole lot!



Mountain Dust also raised a mighty noise; they have a new album chock full of extra-heavy blues sounds out. Hal from Eagle Tears was here in November 2013 for a show at Pressed, and Patrick was rocking a Flying V at Mavericks for a 2010 Trigger Effect gig. Here's frontman Brendan!



Keyboard action with Patrick!



Blair hits!



More Patrick!



More Brendan and Hal!



Bonus Hal!



Patrick works the steel!



Even more Brendan!



Rhythm section action!



More Blair!



Hal sings!



Biblical put on a really good show; they really like to jam out their tunes. Besides Nick, there's Andrew from The Bicycles and The Meligrove Band on guitar and organ, Matt on guitar and Jay on drums.



Nick is under there somewhere.



Matt rocks the Gibson!



Nick sings!



There was so much jumping about I busted out the flash.



More SG action with Andrew!



Jay hits!



Biblical action!



And so on!



Andrew sings!



Closeup action!



Faceoff action!



An excellent night.

From basement to book store

Last week I headed over to Ottawa South to check out a couple of Southern Ontario acts: Burlington's Grey\\Water and Hamilton's Basement Revolver. Both have their ears aimed solidly in the direction of 1990s college rock - I'd say Mazzy Star and The Pixies play a large role in their sound, with some shoegazing mixed in for good measure. Grey\\Water were up first; they've just released a new EP; here's Devon and Charlotte!



More Charlotte! Michael plays saxophone.



Guitar action with Jonathan!



Extra Devon!



Percussive action with William!



More Charlotte and Michael!



Singalong action!



Watery action!



Extra William!



More Jonathan!



Michael and William sat things out for a quieter number.



Feedback action!



More Michael!



Basement Revolver also have a new EP under their belt. I can see the trio going on to much bigger things, buoyed largely by singer Chrisy's excellent voice. Here she is with drummer Brandon!



Nimal handles bass and keys.



Extra Brandon!



Chrisy sings!



More Nimal!



Revolving action!



Nimal works the keys!



A nice evening.