Recording: Golden Triangle

Artist: Golden Triangle

Song: Blood and Arrow

Recorded at The Shop @ Parts and Labour, June 5, 2010.

Golden Triangle - Blood and Arrow

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Golden Triangle

Golden Triangle (White Wires / Useless Eaters / Zebrassieres)

The Shop @ Parts and Labour. Saturday, June 5, 2010.

This was the second night of the opening weekend for this brand new Parkdale venue. Just a couple doors down from Mitzi's Sister, Parts and Labour is a swish-looking new restaurant — the sort of chi-chi place that sophisticates would call a "boffo new resto".¹ Downstairs in The Shop was another story.² Looking equal parts bomb shelter and rec centre basement, the room is a low-ceilinged rectangle, the entrance at one end and the stage area at the other. And "stage area" is the operative term here, as the bands perform on the floor, house-party style.³ The long walls feature some gymnasium-styled benches on one side, and the long bar, running almost the length of the room, on the other. Pretty spartan, although there's a dome-hockey table nestled in one corner and a few detourned workplace-styled signs on the walls.

There was the sense on this opening weekend of a mostly-completed project, still the faint scent of freshly-painted walls in the air, and a work-in-progress feel to the sound system. The tiny soundboard was sitting on a crate beside the stage area, the monitors demarking a rough boundary between musicians and crowd.

But still, the very existence of the place is something of a testament to local DIY/punk promoter Mark Pesci, now using this as a home base for his shows. Reflecting that, and the Parkdale ambiance as a whole, there was a mixed crowd on hand with hardcore kids, crusty old punks, indie types and Vice magazine trendsters all rubbing shoulders. Occasionally, a well-dressed couple, apparently slumming it after having dinner upstairs, would pass through.

And meanwhile, there was a show going on. Opening the night was Zebrassieres, "half from Ottawa, half from Calgary", playing some rambunctiously rangy punk. Quick songs, several in the minute-and-a-half range, Ramones-on-the-beach style. The slightly new-wave edge of Sarah's keybs⁴ elevated them above a generic guit-bass-drums sound, adding just the right extra flavour to songs like "Beach Fight". Playing songs with titles like "Man Pageant" and "Party Ghost" from a just-released album, it's clear they're not taking themselves too seriously. A new one called "Magazine Seducer" blasted past The Ramones into even more of a new wave-y direction, so that may be where they're headed. All told, this was good fun, and is totally the sort of thing I dig. A rockin' twenty-minute burst to start the night.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Useless Eaters offered less fun and more intensity. The trio is fronted by Tennessee singer/guitarist Seth Sutton, the lone full-time member and perhaps something of a peripatetic sort. Like Jay Reatard (with whom he had played) his music is adaptable to different supporting players, recruited on a temporary basis. The basic template here is white-hot punk music with an underlying melodic core. Some songs featured later in the set, notably "Telepath", gave the impression that Sutton is pushing his musical boundaries a bit beyond a sort of angry shoutyness that comes with an appropriated British accent. He was also a no-nonsense type while playing, not interacting with the crowd much as the group tore through nine songs in nineteen minutes.

Listen to a track from this set here.

There had been a good crowd on hand up to this point, but as White Wires set up, there was more of a tight cluster building up near the band, and a bit of a headliner vibe in the air. Clearly this Ottawa trio had a lot of fans and friends on hand. Although they were just as fired-up as the previous bands, they came at their punk-rock energy from another vector. Despite lyrical sentiments like "Pogo 'Til I Puke Tonight", the band's changes hearkened back to the purest of rock'n'roll greaser spirit, hinting that there's as much Eddie Cochrane as Young Canadians in their lineage.

In that vein, songs like "Just Wanna Be With You" brushed up against the great spirit of rock'n'roll radio. Their cover of the 1971 Motown beat obscurity "That's the Way a Woman Is" by The Messengers hinted at their historical awareness, but there was still plenty of sweat as the the band pumped out song after song. With lotsa catchy/uncomplicated stuff like "Girly Girly Girly", by the end of the set the crowd was pretty fired up. With things getting loose, there were bodies dancing right into the band and the mics got disconnected a couple times. Meanwhile there were impromptu lyrics about the other bands as the musicians struggled to keep everything plugged in. Pretty good sweaty fun!

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'd first checked out Golden Triangle at 2009's NXNE without really knowing much about them, and had left impressed. Under the reductive description of "imagine if The Vivian Girls had convened as a surf band", they nailed a sweet spot that hit me just right. So they were on my radar to check them out again. I'd missed them on a return trip to the city last fall, but was glad to take this chance to see 'em. A different kind of musical attack than the night's previous acts — except for in a DIY sort of sense, one wouldn't call 'em particularly punk, and with six members up of stage, there's no tightly-wound minimalism here, either. But in terms of producing a clamourous bit of fun, they fit in just fine.

The larger crew did need some extra time to get set up, and it seemed as if they were taxing the limits of the venue's sound system ("It sounds like a refrigerator up here," was one comment from the band while they were soundchecking.) The early-days, slapped-together nature of the sound system was a bit of a problem here, with the vox a bit buried and smushed together during the set. But, once things were more-or-less tied down, the band led off with the first couple songs from their Double Jointer album, "Cinco de Mayo" sounding pretty muffled at the start. Things did improve from there, though, such as on "Blood and Arrow", with the band at their most psychedelic, the snaky, woozy guitar line breaking through to hover over the song in an echo-y haze. So it certainly wasn't hi-fi in the room, but it was good enough, especially with the band playing some catchy stuff like "Neon Noose".

Reaching beyond their album, the band threw in "Jungle Jim" from their split 7" with The Fresh & Onlys. Except maybe for a guitar solo sounding like it was related by a drunk friend trying to describe "Over Under Sideways Down", that one was cut from similar cloth to the rest of their material. Just like on their album, the songs came in short burts. And also like the album, the set ended with "Arson Wells", their one lengthier excursion, giving the opportunity for an extended freak-out groove to end the night. Arguably not as good as the band could sound, given the technical limitations they were playing with, but one is less focused on technical imperfections when you're pressed in with a heaving, sweaty crowd. An auspicious start for The Shop — it's not somewhere I'll go all the time, but hopefully it will have a good run filling its particular niche.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ N.B.: Take note that I actually have no idea what sort of patter sophisticates actually use — they may not, in fact, talk like nightclub patrons in 30's films any more.

² Also note here the distinction in the naming — that, technically speaking "Parts & Labour" is the restaurant upstairs and "The Shop" is the venue downstairs. In practice, though, this is less iron-clad, and people (not to mention promoters, tickets and show posters) will often just refer to the whole place as "Parts & Labour".

³ This has all those theoretical virtues of not placing the band above the crowd, etc., etc., and allows people to get right up close — or for the band to range out into the crowd — which well-suits the DIY anti-rock-star ethos of the venue, but it also means that if you aren't right up close you won't have much of a view. Woe to those who aren't so tall, or who don't want to get too much into the sort of bump-around-jostling that bands playing here tend to bring out in people.

⁴ There are no last names supplied in any of the band's info I could find.

Recording: Golden Triangle

Artist: Golden Triangle

Song: Neon Noose

Recorded at Velvet Underground, NxNE Festival, June 19, 2009.

Golden Triangle - Neon Noose

My notes from this gig can be found here.

NxNE: Friday

NxNE — North by Northeast Festival, Toronto 2009.

Friday, June 19, 2009. Featuring: Spiral Beach, Matt and Kim, Parlovr, Zeroes, Golden Triangle, Mika Miko, The Homosexuals, Experimental Dental School

7 P.M.: Spiral Beach @ Whippersnapper Gallery

Making my way through a College Street under siege, booths busily being set up for Taste of Little Italy, found a bit of a queue in front of the Whippersnapper Gallery as ID's were busily being checked. Still managed to get in a few minutes before seven and found a patch of floor not too far back from the stage. For the "big time" of NxNE there were a couple lighting rigs flanking the stage, adding a bit of visual flair to the venue.

I'd only seen Spiral Beach once before, December '06, when they opened for Tokyo Police Club at the Horseshoe. Though I'd sampled and enjoyed their first alb, the live show left me feeling unimpressed — I recall thinking this was a young band with more spirit than songs. After that, they'd sort of been put on my mental backburner while they continued to garner a lot of positive vibes. But let it be said I'm willing to give second chances, so I came to the show with an open mind to see what'd changed in a couple years. As it turns out, although the band still looks shockingly young, there's been a whole lot of development. Although still usually pitched as a good-times-party kind of band, Spiral Beach's music had a darker, psychedelic edge than anticipated. Even on the faster numbers — including a new one that sounded like Piper at the Gates of Dawn hooked up to a primitive drum machine — there was something that suggested, "even if I'm dancing, I'm still in the middle of a bad trip". Interesting stuff, and it brought me around enough that it occurred to me I'd see 'em again.¹

Listen to a track from this set here.

8 P.M.: Matt and Kim @ Whippersnapper Gallery

Stayed on — hell, I'd gotten here early for — Matt and Kim, a band I was curious to see live. Despite the fact that the album didn't quite sit right with me, I'd gotten a notion that there was something to this Brooklyn duo. They took the stage with an instrumental fanfare and Matt was soon oozing positivity ("it's a beautiful goddamn day in Toronto") to the enthusiastic crowd in the stupidly hot room. Kim, meanwhile, was fighting the aftereffects of some bad Thai but still put in a spirited performance. It wasn't a visually satisfying experience, what with both musicians playing while seated on a low stage, I only caught a glimpse of either when they stood up. But musically, it was a worthy effort. Though there might have been one too many instrumentals in the short set (including a quick run through "The Final Countdown") the band's irrepressible gusto was impossible to deny, so I can say I left liking them more than I did when I came in.

Listen to a track from this set here.

9 P.M.: Parlovr @ Supermarket

After that, walked over to see Parlovr ("one of Montreal's most talked-about unsigned acts") at Supermarket², part of a showcase for Nevado Records. The three piece featured a dual-guitars-no-bass setup, though Louis Jackson's guit had a split output into the guitar and bass amps to prop up the bottom end. On a stage decorated with traffic signals, the band played a reasonable set of post-Strokes indie rock with a Montréal twist, guitars cleanly intertwining around slightly howl-y adenoidal vox. They were entertaining and brought some pleasantly goofy banter (including an onstage argument over Heath ledger versus Val Kilmer) but the songs weren't so memorable. There's a good base here, and I wouldn't write this band off, but I wasn't totally convinced by what I heard.

10 P.M.: Zeroes @ Silver Dollar Room

Wandered over to the Silver Dollar to see Zeroes, another Montréal band. Which made for an interesting compare and contrast, I guess. Zeroes had a bit more of a colder, post-punk edge — the guitars more menacing and the keybs icy — hints of, maybe, Magazine and bands of that ilk. I liked the band's textures, but found their stage presence to be a bit lacking in charisma: even when, say, grinding a guit against an amp, it seemed a little rote. That's petty, sure, but given the onslaught of bands I was in the middle of, the marginal things tend to stand out a little more. Interestingly, on listening to the playback of my recording of this set, I found myself liking it more than I remember, which might indicate that I was hitting a bit of a wall at the time. Possibly a good soundtrack for wandering the city while the drugs aren't quite doing enough to squelch the voices in your head — which may or may not be your idea of a good time on a Friday night.

Listen to a track from this set here.

11 P.M.: Golden Triangle @ Velvet Underground

By this point, I was definitely looking for something outside the broad category of "boys with guitars", so, looking over the listings, grabbed the streetcar down to Queen and walked over to Cameron House, thinking that The Hank and Lily Show would be a good change of pace. But inside, I found about a dozen people in line waiting to get in to the back room. That didn't seem entirely promising, so I ducked back outside and looked at the listings again and decided that the answer was just a bit further down the street at Velvet Underground. Got in with Brooklyn's Golden Triangle already on stage, a repeating riff echoing through a thick layer of reverb. When the drums, muffled like they were being played in a room a couple doors down the street, kicked in, I felt at home. This band's sound could probably be captured with a fairly reductionist blurb like "imagine if The Vivian Girls had convened as a surf band". Which might sound like pithy snideness save for the fact that, to me, that sounds like a bloody marvelous idea. With dual female vocalists up front, those snake-like guitar lines, and the primal drumming, I was totally into this — just the right mix of murk and sass. One of the best sets I saw at the festival.

Listen to a track from this set here.

12 A.M.: Mika Miko @ Sneaky Dee's

A bracing walk up Bathurst gave me a bit of a second wind. I'd been a bit eager to check out Mika Miko and was a little worried, given some buzz, that I might round the corner on College to find a line-up. Turned out to be no problem — possibly the demand had been spread out, given that this was the band's second set of the night. Veterans of the same Smell-based L.A. scene that has produced No Age, Mika Miko have a more straight-up punk feel — the rapid-fire songs came with shades of Liliput, Wire, Undertones and so on. But as with all first-class rock'n'roll bands, their energy made it all seem new and spontaneous. The duelling vocals of Jennifer Clavin and Jenna Thornhill were the most powerful weapons in the arsenal, but the whole band was on fire. I can't really say if this was objectively good, but in the moment it felt ferociously vital — which kinda means it seemed fantastic.

Listen to a track from this set here.

1 A.M.: The Homosexuals @ Sneaky Dee's

Oh my. I guess I could pull cred and say I was familiar with original-wave British punks The Homosexuals, but, quite honestly, I'd never heard of them. I had no idea what to expect from this set, but from the moment I saw the blazer-clad older British chap pulling his carry-on towards the stage, I was guessing this was not going to some rote re-hash of the glory days. Instead we got a tour through the mind of Bruno Wizard, who claimed to have fired his crack band after catching them listening to Bruce Springsteen and was now backed by "the future of fucking rock" in the form of Fiasco³ — or at least two-thirds thereof. After some introductory comments, Bruno moved behind the drum kit to give a history lesson about how all rock music is derived from African rhythms before picking up the guitar and playing a couple songs. He was then joined by Jonathan and Julian, who backed him sympathetically and ably, even if it was evident on occasion that they had as little idea as the rest of the audience what Bruno was going on about. Songs were interspersed with free-association digressions on cosmology and history (what was that about riding on a beam of light with Einstein again?) until Bruno deigned to start a song or Jonathan could sneak in a count-in. Fortunately, Bruno seemed to be canny like a fox and I think — I think — that to be entertained by his erratic tangents was more like the sort of sharing vibe he was encouraging, and not a case of "let's laugh at the nutter". The set ended with an extended version of "You're Not Moving the Way You're Supposed To", which was pretty fantastic — in fact, all of the tunes on which the Fiasco lads got a groove on were pretty hot. Bruno announced that when Fiasco's bassist was done school, they come back for another gig, which would be free for anyone in attendance "with love in their hearts". A baffling and unique experience.

Spend a few perplexing minutes with Bruno here.

2 A.M.: Experimental Dental School @ Rancho Relaxo

Well. One could imagine anything'd be a letdown after that but I felt like I had one more set in me, so walked over to Rancho to see Experimental Dental School, who, possibly fortunately, were really neither. That is, not so much experimental per se as a minimalist pop act using a double-decker rack of guitar effects to stretch out their sound some. Drummer Shoko Horikawa and guitarist Jesse Hall traded off vocals and took the songs out on little excursions, but didn't drag things so far away as to crumble the foundations. They also exuded a cool, positive vibe from the stage, seeking high-fives from anyone digging the sounds. I'm willing to concede by this point of the night I was more just surfing on the vibe rather than listening carefully, but this was enjoyable. A nice vibe to end the night and head home, a little exhausted.⁴

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¹ Which, as it turns out, came to pass a bunch sooner than I'd expected.

² Slogan: "Kensington's least grungy venue".

³ Recently in town at the Over the Top festival.

⁴ It looks like the band is offering a free album for download on their website — which I'm now going to check out and recommend to you as well.