Where I Was: Nashville Pussy/Supersuckers Double-Bill at Maverick's (Ottawa, Ontario)

Loud.  Raucous. Loud.

Oh, did I mention it was loud?

YEAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

(There you go, an 11-word concert review.)

Playing Catch-Up, Part II: Another Recent Concert

March 31: Glorybound and Bright Lights Social Hour, at Zaphod's.

Glorybound is a 3-man band hailing from Halifax. Throughout their set, despite my better intentions, I kept finding myself getting hooked into their post-punk-classic rock-sounding tunes. Their songs just kept being really catchy. I can easily see this band getting some Can-con radio play in the near future and basically become the new Sloan. I guess they could do much worse.

(And BTW, on almost entirely unrelated matter, Gloryhole would be a great name for a punk band. Or a gay burlesque review. Either or.)

As good as I thought Glorybound's set was, once Bright Lights Social Hour (pictured above) took the stage, you could tell what a band should sound like. As soon as they hit a few licks, they sounded tight, polished and like a rock band. They then proceeded to play a raucous, 90-minute set of high-energy soul- and funk-infused rock.

(Shameless name dropping alert!) In a conversation a few weeks prior, Eugene had heartily recommended the band. He evidently was skipping participating in JunoFest in order to bring this band in from Austin. A wise choice, yet again.

Bright Lights Social Hour is going to go down as yet another classic Zaphod's show and I will be able to say I was there. I want to see these guys again.

Playing Catch-Up, Part I: Recent Concerts

April 13: Tom Wilson, Elmdale Tavern.

A veteran of the Canadian music scene (Junkhouse, Blackie & the Rodeo Kings), Tom Wilson (pictured) played two gigs last week-end at the cosy Elmdale Tavern. I attended the Friday night set. Wilson gave a great show, backed by a tight, accomplished three-man band; the drummer had played with him in Junkhouse and the bassist in Blackie. The other guy was very skillfully playing pedal steel guitar, which is always awfully cool. Given how familiar they were with each other, all pretenses of a set list was abandoned, as Wilson entertained requests, and seemed to start a number of songs randomly muttering the title of the song to the other band-members to get them to follow along. Wilson also has a relaxed, comfortable stage presence and truly seems to enjoy bantering with the crowd. The best example happened when someone requested one of Junkhouse's major hits. Before accommodating it, he blurted out that he had made a lot of money off the song, but spent it all on drugs, which is why he still played small venues like the Elmdale. I am pretty glad that he does.

Of note, Wilson never seems to leave his guitar out of his sight, possibly because it is autographed by over 10 (I have to assume) guitar players. The only one I could make out was Robbie Robertson--not a bad one to have in an autograph collection.

The gig did feature one moment of sheer fright: Wilson turned in my direction and offered his guitar as an invitation to come up on stage. Thank the powers that be that this was aimed at an acquaintance of him who was standing next to me. Nothing good would have come out of the first scenario.

I am told that I have previously seen Tom Wilson perform at Tiger-Cat House during the Montréal Grey Cup in, let's say, 2008. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that assertion.

March 31: Glorybound and Bright Lights Social Hour, Zaphod's.

(See next post.)

March 31: Harlan Pepper and Deep Dark Woods, The Lounge, as part of JunoFest.

This is the only JunoFest concert I was able to attend at Fanny's... I mean The Lounge, on York Street. I caught most of Harlan Pepper's set. Almost three weeks later, I remember them as a three-man (I use that term loosely) roots band, although their disc lists four members, headlined, coincidentally by Tom Wilson's son. Let's get the first part out of the way: these kids are, well, kids, at most in their (very) early twenties. I have socks..., well, you know the rest. (Quite ironically, the doorman was quite insistent that I needed to have picture ID on me to get into the club. It did not seem to stop them from serving the band.)

It turns out that the band is a solid roots band. This is really an amazing time for Canadian roots-infused music: the Sadies, Whitehorse, RJ Arbuckle, Elliott Brood, Deep Dark Woods, Harlan Pepper, etc. These are all musically-solid acts, who perform carefully crafted songs.

Deep Dark Woods followed Harlan Pepper on stage, roughly at 1:30 AM. Basically, the sound was awful both for the crowd and the band, which kept requesting adjustments to their monitors. This is no fault of the band, as it should be the perils of booking an all-night, multi-band gig at a club, which is not used to holding such performances.

And this is certainly not meant to disparage JunoFest, which was evidently well-attended in the ten or so venues that participated over the Friday and/or Saturday that week-end. It gave the downtown core a music festival feel. Hopefully Bluesfest organisers were paying notice and will consider branching out into late club or bar performances, as was the case two years ago. It would re-introduce a dynamic element to a festival whose core, at Lebreton Flats' multiple stages, has felt bloated and unimaginative over the past two years.

Where I Was: Game 3, Sens-Rangers

Last night, I attended Game 3 of the Sens-Rangers opening round series at the Scotia/Corel/Palladium. I have disparaged Ottawa Senator fans on this site before and I now actually have to make an act of contrition. They can actually get loud! The place was raucous. I could not believe how boisterous the crowd was. Fans were not even waiting for the scoreboard to instruct them to make noise, they were cheering spontaneously! And did I mention loudly?

I never thought I would see the Corel/Scotia/Palladium Centre feel like a real NHL rink. I was wrong.

(Thus ends the contrition. Back to my lippy self...)

Where Was I: Fatboys Southern Smokehouse

Ok, I know what you are all thinking: the place is called 'Fatboys', he went there with his LT drinking buddy, the place is named for people like them, so he loves the place, right?

Well, let's see:

1) This is supposed to be a BBQ place, and the beef brisket tastes exactly like the pulled pork, which tastes pretty much like the ribs. They all taste like the glass of water, which I did not order, but kind of know what it tastes like.

2) They have Keith's and Bud products on tap, and a limited selection of bottled beers. Then, you are encouraged to drink either Busch or Busch lite, because those beers 'taste good with BBQ.'

3) Do I have to go on?

There seems to be a perception around town that 'Fatboys (TM)' is an Ottawa franchise of a North American chain. It evidently is not, which is unfortunate, because that would give Fatboys an excuse for its utter blandness. But, hey, they have merchandise for sale, so that's gotta be something, right?

Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

Pure Randomness about Cats and Quantum Universes.

Let us assume that the concept of quantum universes holds; i.e., that there are an infinite number of universes where a new universe forks into existence every time we make a decision. (That's my 21 word description. Put as much or as little stock into it as you deem.)

This means there are a multitude of quantum versions of ourselves interacting with each other in this multiverse, no two versions quite exactly alike (cf. Fringe for the best-known current fictional example. Or Spock with the goatee).

I am starting to be convinced that these multiverses must have common fixed points that anchor them to one another. And those anchor points would, of course, be cats. It would explain why my cat is constantly staring at me; she's either studying different quantum versions of me as some sort of quantum physics comparative study project, or, more likely, she is simply just trying to figure out which universe she has slipped into this time. (Now, my cat's name is Schrödinger, so it may just be her special skill to bring forth multiple quantum versions of me.)

That would explain why cats can disappear in seemingly closed quarters. They are not hiding; they have simply phased to another universe. It would also demystify the old adage that cats have nine lives. They do not actually have multiple lives; they simply skip to a different universe to avoid deathly danger.

The human Schrödinger may well have been on to something...


Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.