In the city

Never let it be said Zach Condon doesn't wear his influences on his sleeve. I knew virtually nothing of his music before going to Zaphod's on Thursday. Quite apart from the inescapably obvious klezmer-gypsy brass connection, about 15 minutes into Beirut's set I was thinking "Gee, his songs sound a lot like Stephen Merritt's stuff." How I managed to glance through his website without seeing his nods to Magnetic Fields beforehand, I don't know. I also thought Condon's voice sounded a bit like Morrisey. He also acknowledges The Smiths as an influence. I think his voice has strengthened since he recorded Gulag Orkestar, since it's far more obvious on CD than on stage.

The band kicked things off by walking from the dressing room to the stage honking and thumping. It's a short walk so they hung about the floor for a few seconds.



Mainman Zach Condon.



Perrin Cloutier and his big accordion.



Jon Natchez toots on the baritone sax while Jason Poranski strums.



Brass man Kelly Pratt and drummer Nick Petree in a very unexciting picture. Not shown: The glaring light that baked Nick for the entire set.



Kristin Ferbee; I didn't get many good pictures because she was way on the other side of the stage behind a barricade of microphones.



Paul Collins is a bouncy sort. Paul: "I was, like, totally into the song, and then I looked over at the TV screen, and some hockey player was totally getting creamed, and I thought 'Dude, I'm in Canada!' "



Zach sings! Everybody else sort of stands around!



More Joe!



Ukulele action!



Band: "Do you want another ukulele number?" Audience: "Yay! Yeah! Yahoo!!!" Band: "That is the first time in recorded history anyone has ever requested a ukulele number ..." Nonetheless, there was more ukulele (and some mandolin).



Putting the brass in brass band.





Singalong action! Whether you want to or not!



Like many other bands who have played Zaphod's, the group decided to skip the usual encore ritual ("We would go to our dressing room, but the way is blocked!" observed Zach). Paul did a quick tour of the crowd with his drum.



Jason adds some more percussion.



Zach brought a microphone stand into the crowd - "Oh no, Zach has broken the fourth wall!" Paul yelped - and brought the show into the audience.



For Kristen and Perrin didn't quite make it off the stage, but someone has to hold down the fort.





A charmingly enthusiastic and slightly drunk show with one of the liveliest audiences I've seen in some time.

Mr. Beast

Animal Hospital is Kevin Micka. He makes music with a guitar, drum set, an assortment of pedals and some looping and sampling gear. I've seen a few acts with similar modus operandi; Collapsing Opposites and Fursaxa come to mind - there are others (like Zaimph, who I saw with Fursaxa and others in August 2005). That doesn't mean he sounds like them though. His stuff was more post-rock.

A man and his gear.



Knob-twiddling action!





Things were running a bit late so he did two songs and left the stage to do Beirut's sound.

• Show reminder: The New Pornographers, Immaculate Machine and Novillero perform at the Capital Music Hall; The Feminists, Kincaide, Stoic Kid and Flatlined play Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Bird is the word

Songbird Music has a staff of musicians (duh) so when their anniversary rolls around they throw a shindig at Babylon. This time I had heard Matt Ouimet, The Flaps, The Golden Seals, and Manpower were supposed to perform. Perhaps they did. I missed a good chunk of it because I blew a tire coming down Colonel By. That means no wheels until Tuesday at least. Bummer. Anyway, I did get to Babylon in time to see a bit of The Flaps.



There was also a brief set from a mystery guest (and no, I don't mean the Unknown Wrestler, either).



You'll just have to wait a week or so to see more.

• Show reminder: Getting sand in your sandwich is bad, but getting Danish in your Giant Sand is good, so go see Giant Sand, Under Byen and I Got You On Tape at Zaphod's.

Colour and light

Once again the First Baptist Church played host to an evening of secular entertainment. This time it was New York's Akron/Family, playing a sensational set, and Toronto's Born Ruffians. Both bands had a long drive from Toronto (Thanksgiving weekend meant a lot of traffic).





As you can see I've overcome my reluctance to take photos in church, so you'll be viewing more in the days to come.

• Show reminder: Heaps of stuff to see, with Museum Pieces, Sadie Hell and Acres at Irene's Pub; Cadence Weapon and Tokyo Police Club at Zaphod's; the Songbird Music crowd take over Babylon with sets from The Golden Seals, The Flaps, Matt Ouimet and Manpower; The Hylozoists and The John Henrys play Barrymore's; Rare Women for Wild Birds - i.e. Casey Comeau, Amanda Rheaume, MacKenzie MacBridge and Ana Muira - play a benefit for the Wild Bird Care Centre at Cafe Dekcuf.

Feast of wire

Beirut 's primary influence is Balkan Gypsy music. I hear some of their locale - Albuquerque, N.M., - as well. The band's debut album is almost entirely the work of Zach Condon, but he's touring with a group of other folks. He also has a soundman, one Kevin, who doubles as the opening act under the name Animal Hospital.

I've seen a bunch of solo-with-looper acts lately. Kevin dispensed with the vocals and offered up some post rock instrumentals. It was pretty good and very brief.



Here's Zach (at right) and one of several bandmembers who I am striving to match a name too.



They ended up playing in the audience.



I think everyone agreed it was a lot of fun.

• Show reminder: Akron/Family and Born Ruffians perform at the First Baptist Church. Kingston Fog, My Architects, Approaching Zero and Lucky Ron play Zaphod Beeblebrox. The Cat Empire and Hayley Sales perform at Barrymore's.

Great expectations

At last, a day of rest. So needless to say I'll be running around and seeing a lot of things. Unfortunately, one of them won't be Great Aunt Ida, who perform at End Hits this evening (I'll be at Zaphod's instead). I will, however, dig a picture of Ida Nilsen out of my files from about six months ago. She was in town for a show at Barrymore's with both The Violet Archers and The Buttless Chaps. Here she is singing a bit and playing euphonium with the Archers.



Mark Wilson is also on the bill. Apart from the Beirut/Animal Hospital show at Zaphod's, there's also a Hi Lo Trons gig up at the Black Sheep Inn with husband and wife team Marianne Dissard and Naim Amor.

Damn Yankees

Sigh. Two days to go before I can post live pictures (I'll be seeing Beirut and Animal Hospital on Thursday). Therefore you get more idle chatter about what I'm listening to these days.
Like it says off to the right, I review stuff for pennyblackmusic.com. Among the many labels that grace pennyblackmusic.com with review copies is Detroit stoner rawk label Small Stone. I seem to be one of the few PB writers into the heavy stoner southern sound, so a fair portion of them float my way. Like many specialist labels, Small Stone sometimes puts out stuff that only a genre fanatic could love, but that's most definitely not the case with a trio of new releases.
The first two, despite originating in Boston and New York, dip heavily into the southern rock vein.
Album No. 1 is by The Brought Low. The Queens-based quartet owe a large debt to Lynyrd Skynyrd on Right On Time, their second album.
The Rolling Stones also loom large over the proceedings. The acoustic intro to A Better Life’ smacks of the Stones' Exile years (the thundering chords that follow could find a home on any number of AC/DC albums) while the seedy storyline of Hail Mary (a tribute to a stripper) is reinforced with Sticky Finger-style sonics, including some roadhouse piano.
Meanwhile, Antler also serve up a (raging) slab of southern boogie rock, all slathered in organ on Nothing A Bullet Can't Cure. I also hear touches of Alice in Chains and Cop Shoot Cop in their angst-fuelled southern dirges.
Though I haven't gotten around to typing up a review yet, you can be sure I'll have nothing but nice things to say about Los Natas' El Hombre. The Argentinean trio have set aside both the raga experiments of the Toba Trance and the Kyuss-loving doom of Corsario Negro for fuzzy rock and some acoustic workouts.
Course, not everything I'm listening to came in a padded envelope from Scotland.
I've also been spinning The Gargoyles' Without End. Released on the Sympathy label back in 1992, it's about as solid a slab of Stooges-styled rock as the decade saw.
Of course, you can't live by old style Iggy-philes alone, so I have some new-school Pop-fans as well, in the shape of the debut from Awesome Color. They even come from Ann Arbour.
Finally, I've been digging the thumping drums and triple-guitar attack of Roy and the Devil's Motorcycle. It's on the Voodoo Rhythm label, and therefore is both bad and good for you. They remind me somewhat of Jack Meatbeat and the UGS, the whacked-out predecessor to The Flaming Sideburns.

At sea

I've seen Nick Diamond and Co. three times. First as The Unicorns, then as Islands at Babylon back in May, and most lately at the Capital Music Hall. I seem to remember a bit more sparky commentary between songs on previous occasions, and this show was sliver below their Babylon appearance in terms of musical fire. Of course, they didn't have Jim Guthrie or Jamie Tambour with them, so it isn't quite a fair comparison. Still quite good though.



Diamond!



Diamond close up!



Violinist Sebastien Chow makes an impish counterpart to Diamond's smart aleck stage presence.



Bassist Patrice Agbokou in lights.



Sebastien's brother Alex in less light.



Faceoff action! (With Patrick Gregoire.)



Later in the set I snuck up to the balcony. A couple of guys left before the encore, so I had a good spot to shoot from.





As an added benefit, it was actually a half-decent place to get a few shots of Patrick from.



Brotherly action!



Seb and Nick action!



Encore action!



Unfortunately I couldn't get a decent picture of Tambour's replacement, Aaron Harris. New violinist Kate Perkins wasn't around, either.

• Show reminder: There's Ladyfest action at Maverick's with Julie Doiron, The TunaHelpers and Kelsey McNulty (ex-My Dad Vs. Yours; Amos the Transparent).

Acoustic-electric

Acoustic guitar was not what I expected when I walked into the new Capital Music Hall for the first time to see Islands. The guitarist in question, Stephen St. Pierre, acknowledged as much as he strummed his way through a very good set. The audience was most receptive, and clapped him out for the last few bars of his closing number.



I took some of these pictures at 400 ISO; the lighting guy at the Capital must have set them on "grill."





There was a Soft Disaster cover near the finish.



The act I had expected, Unireverse, then worked through their set. I was stuck to the left of the stage, so most of my pictures feature Alex Moskos. Makes up for getting a decent picture of him when he was here with Goa, I guess.



They had a visual element going on, with images projected on a screen off to the left, but as Alex noted the Capital is not really well designed for that sort of thing.



A horrible Brian Damage photo.



This is as much of Michael Caffery as you're going to get.



They finished their set with a quick game of Space Invaders.



Just kidding - it was their Moog adaptation of Black Sabbath's Electric Wizard. Another cool and well-received set.

• Show reminder: It's one-man action as Mayor McCa and Rhume perform at the Clocktower Pub. Josh Gabriel and Once Past Silver perform at the Avant-Garde Bar.

Get some!

Like many rock-lovin' folk I bought Nashville Pussy's debut when it emerged back in 1998 on a wave of hype. It was good, sleazy fun, but didn't blow me away. Part of my cool reaction was probably due to their treatment of The Contours' First I Look At The Purse. I was on a soul kick at the time and was a bit aggravated by it. In consequence, I didn't rush out to see their live show on the occasions when they tore through town. This time I figured I should finally see them, and don't regret it. They put on a great show, but I find Priestess the better band, musically.

Blaine Cartwright on lead howl.



His lovely and talented wife Ruyter Sus. The hat didn't last long.



She was stuck on the other side of the stage so I didn't get to see much of Karen Cuda's moves, so here's my one good photo of her canoodling with Ruyter.



Drummer Jerry Thompson. Like Priestess's Vince Nudo, he skipped on the riser (that's it propped up behind him).



Ruyter started off the set by mock-kicking me in the head (her foot missed me by millimetres); here another audience member gets the boot.



What a cute couple.







Ruyter spent a lot of time down on the floor.



More Cartwright 'n' Cuda.



"We're No. 1!"



"I feel good ... and will soon feel better."



A little feedback workout.



Ruyter ended the show by ripping the strings from her guitar and riding around on Exciter bassist Crammy's shoulders.



The audience loved it ... and I could feel the beer-bottle glass crunching under my feet as I walked out.

• Show reminder: Like I need to tell you that Yo La Tengo performs at Babylon tonight.