Miscellaneous - Ottawa, 16//6/2011...18/6/2011

  by Andrew Carver

published: 26 / 6 / 2011

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Article

The Ottawa Explosion was born from the ashes of Ottawa’s notorious Gaga Weekend. The three-day opus of garage, punk and powerpop curated by White Wires guitarist and Going Gaga Records mastermind Ian Manhire passed into the hands of musician, show promoter and DJ Emmanuel Sayer after three years and was consequently rechristened in 2011. Name aside, very little has changed about the mini-festival. It still runs Thursday to Saturday in a variety of homes, record stores, nightclubs, practice spaces and a laundromat and features dozens of local performers and a smattering of folks from other Canadian cities, as well as a few American acts. Its reputation has spread far enough that one fan came all the way from Switzerland The festival kicked off unofficially on Thursday with a performance by singer-songwriter Chris Bush inside a coin-op laundromat, but the real action began just down the street at the nightclub Babylon, where experimental psychedelic noise cassette label Bruised Tongue was presenting a lineup of its acts, starting with the disjointed psychedelic clatter of Knifemare. The duo had left Gaga weekenders nonplussed in 2010 with a brief set of sonic squawk most memorable for an uncooperative drum machine, but they rebounded in 2011 by recruiting an actual drummer and bassist, consequently freeing singer Patric to jump around in a denim vest and shorts to the sub-Chrome brutalist psychedelica. Mannequin’s sound is not dissimilar. One of the many projects by local psychedelic rocker Matt Oxley, who seems to be performing under a new name at every sighting (Nervous System was the one he employed at the last gaga Weekend, he’s also played as Crazy Ocean and showed up later in the Explosion as New Human), it also incorporated a bit of Cleveland-style lo-fi noise and covered the Electric Eels’ ‘Accident’. Male Nurse is a different proposition. A solo project begun by Davey Quesnelle as an outlet for singer-songwriter material in the vein of Sufjan Stevens, it’s become a much noisier affair following the recruitment of a bass player and drummer from one of the many other bands in which Quesnelle performs, sounding more like the Replacements or Built to Spill and concluding with a crowd-pleasing cover of Gob’s ‘Soda’. The Holy Cobras, one of the local underground scene’s most popular combos, gestated as Germs-loving punk thudders and have since stretched their tunes out into cosmic mantras and waves of Krautrocking fuzz. Bantamweight frontman Danny Druff is also one of the city’s most engaging frontmen, and cut a punkish figure in Ray-bans and a fur coat. Montreal rockers Demon’s Claws were the first band from outside the city to strut their stuff at the fest. Earlier shows from the band have shown off a bluesy streak and brought comparisons to the Gun Club, but this set went more directly to their garage rock roots with a fuller sound reminiscent of 60s icons Love. Pop-punkers the Visitors finished the night with a speedy run through of songs old and new. The Ottawa band has been a stalwart of previous Gaga Weekends and the associated Rock’N’Roll Pizza Party, a dearly missed Thursday night music event responsible for bringing many garage and punk rock acts to the city. The Friday lineup for the Ottawa Explosion showed the festival’s expansion from the Gaga Weekend. While the main event was at Mavericks nightclub and its upstairs room Cafe DeKcuf, there was a pair of simultaneous early shows. While thrashy hardcore acts Motivator and Pregnancy Scares played sets at independent retailer Vertigo Records, a bevy of heavier combos played brief shows, arranged by lottery at practice space Yogi’s Meatlocker. The Meatlocker’s two small practice spaces can squeeze in about two dozen fans, provided they’re willing to go almost toe-to-toe with the band, and the first was feeling pretty full as Pretty Little Death Machine kicked off their handful of tunes. The band is a fairly new outfit which has been sharpening its hard rock chops with regular shows; their music is right up the alley of fans of Swedish hard rockers like the Hellacopters and Backyard Babies. They were followed by the slightly funkier, more jammy sounds of Groovegasm, a band which has gone through so many lineup changes of late only one of four members remains; shorty after the show they decided to change their name as well (“Gypsy Wind” is the likeliest candidate). Gatineau’s Muffler Crunch dealt with their abbreviated time by playing one long song. The duo is one of the region’s most singular bands, with drummer Angie the Barbarian singing with a bluesy howl over the mammoth riffs generated by acoustic guitarist Luc’s distortion-laden, constantly feeding back instrument. While there were still three acts to go, it was time to walk downtown to Mavericks to catch the first act of the night - Ottawa punk rock legends the Fucking Machines. It was the final show for the Black Flag-worshipping sextet, and featured both their vocalists for the first time in a while and ended with an appropriate cover of The Angry Samoans ‘Lights Out’. That done, the crowd - or at least a good chunk of it, headed out the doors and upstairs to the considerably snugger Cafe DeKcuf for a performance by the Mnemonics. The Mnemonics are a part of a circle of Ottawa bands with an overlapping membership which draws heavily on the work of the Replacements and other Twin/Tone acts. Their poppy rock sound also owes a debt to Superchunk. Montreal’s Sonic Avenues are a frequent visitor to town, most recently sharing a stage with Paul Collins’ Beat. The tight sound owes a lot to mod rockers, particularly early Who. Back upstairs, the Johnnies - another band in the Mnemonics’ circle - zipped through a set of girl-group-loving pop. The band consists of three veteran woman performers, while the drummer started playing just last year in hopes of getting on the Gaga Weekend bill. Their music splits the difference between the Shangri-Las and Joan Jett. Downstairs again it was The Creeps’ turn. The long-running pop-punkers share a frontman with the Visitors, Skottie Lobotomy. The Ramones and Screeching Weasel are their forefathers, though the band has recently begun flavouring their sound with a few gothic touches, at least in the lyrics. Their final songs was a cover of the Spits’ tonight, which raised a few eyebrows among the members of Fear of Lipstick, who played the last show upstairs and had Spits-covering plans of their own. Fear of Lipstick were one of two bands to make the 13-hour trip from Moncton, New Brunswick to perform at the festival. The other was the Kamalas, who take their name from famed African gimmick wrestler Kamala, and played the next show at Cafe DeKcuf. the band has two female guitarist singers and plays a ramshackle powerpop that had viewers bouncing up and down on the heels. Downstairs, Sudbury’s the Statues tore through a set of Buzzcock-inspired rock. The band comes to town even more frequently than the Sonic Avenues. “I see you guys more often than I see my kids!” declared guitarist Rob Houle. Unfortunately this line of stage banter turned into some bitter on-stage grumbling about his domestic situation and interband profanity which somewhat dampened the spirit of their energetic tunes. The Kamalas’ Moncton compatriots Fear of Lipstick played one of the festival’s hardest-hitting sets, toning down their New Wave influences (barring the aforementioned cover of the Spits ‘Spit You Out’, dedicated to the Creeps) in favour of their punkier leanings. Bad Sports hail from Denton, Texas, making them the band with most miles on the odometer, sometimes described as protopunk, plus handclaps, the band’s jumpy tunes and jumpier bassist inspired a torrent of crowd-surfing from the packed house and rounded the night out on a high note. Like its predecessor, the Gaga Weekend, the Ottawa Explosion’s final day is something of a musical marathon, with shows running from noon to closing time, starting with a barbecue and matinee at Yogi’s Meatlocker. Although the need to recuperate from Friday meant missing the first band on the bill, folk-punkers Dead Weights, I did manage to catch most of Finders Keepers. The trio is another in the Mnemonics-circle of bands, leaning toward the shoutier side of the spectrum, and provided a early afternoon pick-me-up to the dozen folks who snuck into one of the Meatlocker’s small practice spaces (the other being piled high with band gear, and the occasional band member). Much of the action at the matinee takes place outside, with the city’s tight-knit garage community scoffing barbecue and catching up on what’s been happening on the scene, while inside a pair of associated Nova Scotia bands performed in the Meatlocker’s larger space. The first was Cross, a moody and somewhat standoffish trio whose mysterious membership produce a cross between the Modern Lovers and the oddball outsider folk music of loners like Bob Desper. The Friendly Dimension have a similar zonked demeanour, but their undulating, blown out garage rock is a psych head’s dream, right down to a somewhat abused Christian Death cover at set’s end. They were followed by another festival highlight, a ferocious rock set by the Shakey Aches, recently supplemented by bassist Eric Larock of Montreal’s famed Tricky Woo and Golden Famile/Halfmilers axeman Richard Matthews. With three guitars (including, full disclosure, former pennyblackmusic.co.uk writer Darrell Angus) in the lineup and a heavy dose of reverb on the vocals the band knocked it out of the park. The Visitors’ Skottie Lobotomy got his third turn on stage performing with eviler-than-thou black punkers Crusades. The Satan-loving quartet have been described as “like (Scandinavian black metal band) Emperor, if Emperor listened to pop punk.” The harder side of punk rock got an airing next with Asile, the only francophone combo of the festival. The band of veteran local punks (featuring former members of Critical Convictions and the Dirty Nuns) last opened for Ken Mode, and they definitely tested the limits of local noise bylaws with their Motorhead-loving D-beat punk. Constantly touring punks Germ Attak have travelled as far away as Indonesia in their quest to bring crust to the world, and even sporting a fairly new bassist the spikey-haired trio put on a ferociously tight set of UK82-style punk. Ottawa’s Zebrassieres bring a happy-go-lucky face to their pop-heavy New Wave sound, though for this occasion it was covered by silver masks. Songs like ‘Beach Fight could be both cheery and menacing, but in the Zebrassiere’s hands cheery usually wins hands-down. Also cheery was the appearance of Strange Attractor. The band features all three members of the Statues plus a guitarist nicked from fellow Sudbury band Ultra-Violet Ray, and though the music is snarling, sneering 1976-style punk, last evening’s dispute had apparently been patched over. Red Mass was to have brought the matinee to a close, but the band was stuck on the highway from Montreal, so Bad Sports stepped in to fill the gap, using Strange Attractor’s gear. The next stop on the Ottawa Explosion itinerary offered to choices: A house show featuring a quartet of skull-crushing bands from the local Dwyer Record label or a more psychedelic offering at Birdman Sound, Ottawa’s premier record store for off-the-beaten track vinyl. Figuring the house show would be jammed I went to Birdman Sound. The first act was another of Matt Oxley’s many outlets, New Human. The trio includes a lady friend from Montreal, who in addition to singing and playing baritone guitar read out a rap song during their brief set. Despite the switch up of personnel, it sounded much like Oxley’s other work: Weird and druggy. Since Birdman Sound is a rather long and narrow venue, the Band Whose Name Is a Symbol had some difficulty fitting six of its members in. It’s almost fortunate that two of their regular members were unavailable. The band’s psychedelic jams often involve a fair quota of noodling (and a sizable dose of Hawkwind), but on this occasion the band cruised along at rare velocity. Fortunately the Explosion’s schedule allowed for a brief break before the final performances of the night, once again at Babylon. The Steve Adamyk Band got things underway. It had been a busy festival for the band, with organizer Emmanuel Sayer playing guitar, frontman Adamyk having filled in on bass for both Sonic Avenues and Male Nurse, and the Male Nurse himself, Davey Quesnelle, on show number four (after his own, Klovenhoofs, Pregnancy Scares and with Mother’s Children yet to come). Despite vast consumption of booze and energy drinks, the band slugged its way through a rough and ready set. The wild card of the festival, comedian Nick Flanagan, performed a brief bit of standup comedy next. I frankly preferred his work as singer for idiot savant hardcore punks Brutal Knights, but at least this time he kept his pants on. Having finally wended their way through the traffic between Montreal and Ottawa, Red Mass played a short set. A far, far too short set, because mainstay Roy “Choyce” Vucino (garage rockers formerly of several Montreal garage rockers, including CPC Gangbangs and Los Sexareenos) has recruited a mighty rhythm section. Rockabilly bassist Symphonic Sausage and drummer Post, whose Bonham-sized percussive power ranks among the best of Canada’s rockers, gave the music an incredible shove, elevating Choyce’s already formidable tunes. Mother’s Children, the city’s best powerpop band, then rocked the crowd with a formidable set to celebrate the release of their new EP ‘Are You Tough Enough?’ Music to the ears of fans for Dr. Feelgood, Milk ‘n’ Cookies and The Boys. The penultimate band of the fest, Heavy Cream, made the trip from Nashville, Tennesse, but countrypolitan they aren’t. With her peroxide blonde locks, singer Jess resembles Debbie Harry (she sounds a bit like her too), but the band favours garage rock with a punkish twist, a sound buttressed by Jess’ hectic stage moves. By the time Heavy Cream hit the stage the audience was sending someone over the crowd every few minutes - even the band’s only guy, bassist Daniel, was sent aloft. By the time local favourites the White Wires took the stage, even more chaos was ready to break out. White Wires frontman Ian Manhire has been too busy with his band’s international touring and marriage to arrange a four Gaga Weekend this year, but that didn’t stop him from jumping around with the headlining act. The area’s most popular garage scene export like songs about girls, going to the beach and holidays, and has a dedicated fanbase ready to sing along. By the end of the night -perilously close to closing time, it was all the heaving crowd could do but jump on stage and dance along with the band until the venue kicked everyone out.

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