am/fm dreams and Ye-Yeti

After a year of me nagging them to start playing shows in St. John's, the mythological creatures from Mount Pearl emerged from from their sarcophagus to play a set at The Ship (opening for The Pathological Lovers and Ye-Yeti). am/fm dreams for those of you who are not in the know; are a very prolific band from out in Mount Pearl who drew a lot of peoples attention last year with a really stellar entry in the RPM Challenge and kept everyones interest by releasing three other albums (including this years RPM challenge entry "The Plaid Album") since then. It was a really solid set, especially good considering it was pretty much their second live show ever. It was a real treat to finally catch them, although as a bit of criticism they didn't play my two favorite songs of theirs "I wish I never met you" and "Always The Follower", but I guess that's the problem when you release six albums before your first show, just which of the songs do you play? They need to chill out a bit as well and bounce around a bit more. Bouncing is important.
Here is a rocker of theirs called "Paper Tiger"


and here is their closer "Spaceship". Notice in this video how I capture the four other people (the video quality unfortunately only lets me pick out two of them though) in my vicinity who were also filming this rare beast for their own blogs or facebooks.



Also that night, I caught Ye-Yeti for the first time, who don't play that many shows in town for the good reason of being too young to legally be in a bar without their parents written permission. Now I was very skeptical of them ever since they made the cover of the Scope's "Hot New Music" issue awhile back. "What?! they're like 15 years old and have only played like two shows! why the hell are they on the cover of the scope (and not me)?" is what I thought. I was prepared to to take that bitter cynical attitude with me through their set but Goddammit! they have matching fez's with "Ye-Yeti" written on them! how can I stay mad at that? So how was their music? you ask. well it was about 95% exuberance and about 5% ability, which honestly, is just about all I'm looking for in a highschool band. I can't say my brain exploded or anything but they certainly had energy and got the people moving. Also they had probably the most interesting musical tastes of any teenage band that I've seen in ages and ages. I started taking a couple of videos but they progressively got more and more naked as the show went on and I suddenly became more and more aware that I am a 30 year old man standing around attentively taking videos of half naked hairless teenage boys gyrating in a club, and I felt very very uncomfortable all of a sudden. Not that there's anything wrong with taking videos of unknowing, half-naked children, I just have a public image I have to keep up you know. Here is a video I took, I don't know what the name of the song is (edit: it is called "Ammit"), but here it is anyway. Cheers.

Colonel Craze and Mark Bragg

I try not to be this tardy when putting up videos. but to today I finally got around to putting the finishing touches on a pile of footage I took on the weekend before last. Since I got hold of my girlfriends fancy Edirol recording devise I've been thinking it might be nice to go back and record some of the bands I've previously posted about. Colonel Craze and The Hunch are pretty much my favorite band going right now. The weekend before last they played a big show opening for Mark Bragg and the Butchers at the Rockhouse. The show was deadly. The Rockhouse has a tendency to sound like a cafeteria if there isn't a packed crowd but Colonel Craze make it work.
Here's "Hard Hat Opportunity" from that show:

And here's the very politically correct song "Nice Day For A Rape" (Don't worry I'm pretty sure Andrew Waterman probably doesn't support or promote Rape directly)

Then it was Mark Bragg and his latest incarnation of The Butchers. Now, I've always been a bit take-him-or-leave-him with regard to Mark Bragg in the past, I've generally liked him, but found his live shows kinda ungainly and all over the place. But this new formation of the band has been stripped down to a tight little four piece (including Bragg) of young guys who don't overcrowd Mark's loquacious compositions with needless baggage. Brad Power was channeling some awesome Marc Ribot tones and I don't think I've ever seen him play more fluidly, and Victor was playing Trombone!!! unfortunately my camera batteries died before I could capture Vic on the horn. But here's "Plans For The Boys" for your viewing pleasure.

Sound Symposium Presents: Justin Haynes, Ryan Driver, Jean Martin, Bill Brennan

Last night I caught a really fun concert being put on by the Sound symposium organization. It featured Justin Haynes (who is the most skilled ukulele player I have ever seen), Bill Brennan on melodica, Jean Martin on suitcase with brushes and show stopper Ryan Driver playing a steel street sweeper bristle

with a box and a contact mic as a bass. This was truly something, the fact that he could articulate the notes so well with such a tiny piece of steel and the fact he could make it sound so much like a stand-up bass was crazy. But in advantage to just mimicking an acoustic bass sound he could get all the crazy buzzed out farty noises you'd expect from a contact mic'ed steel sprig. Funtimes. The set started with just the three piece of Justin, Ryan and Jean.

And in the second sert Bill Brennan joined in.


The Sound Symposium is one of the most interesting events this city has. To find out more about it go to soundsymposium.com

Kill Popoff

Thursday night I was itching to go out so I went to watch my friend (and drummer's) band Kill Popoff play down at CBTG's. They were kinda annoyed about having to play last and when their time did come they got experimental with the stage set up and ended up putting the drums on the floor in front of the stage facing the stage. Weirdly enough it seemed to work really well! it gave the band more room to thrash around, bands always play better when you can look the drummer in the eye, the drums certainly didn't get buried in the mix this time and it gave me an interesting angle to film them. It was a really good set, Devon Milley is a riff machine. I'm the only guitarist in my band but I'm the shittiest guitarist of the three of us. Of course it's no fun to play in a band with musicians who aren't better then you. Anyway, here are my two favorite Kill Popoff songs, this time you will notice no more lo-fi 8 bit crap audio, but new fancy schmancy sound provided by my new toy Edirol sound recorder thingy. I moving up in the world of videographing.

My weekend with some bands

Well I was feeling better this weekend having just gotten over a vicious flu (not swine apparently). I decided to break my reclusive streak and take in some tunes. I saw that The Kettle Black was back in town and my head was still a flutter with some vivid memories I have of seeing his set from two years ago, I decided to go down with my (girlfriends) camera and with a new portable Edirol sound recording gadget (also my girlfriends) I was eager to try out. So as a result the videos I took have much improved sound (after I took the time to sync it up to the video) but the picture quality remains the same brutal pixelated mess it has always been.
The Kettle Black is without a doubt the most intense solo performer I've ever come across. He is a one man band who fills the stage with dozens of fancy toys and fills venues with blistering cascades of pure pink noise.



There was a large group of us who went to see him at Distortion on Friday but he was unfortunately put at the end of a six band bill with some badly miss-matched acts and some just plain bad acts that I won't get into. Since he has so much gear and theatrical props involved in his set and since he has no one else to help him set up The Kettle Black didn't get to start his set until 3:15AM! this is after the steel gate is locked and nobody else can get into the bar. So there was just a very sparse crowd of enthusiasts left in the room cheering him on, but did he let this this get him down? hell no! he played one of the most ferocious sets I've seen in a long damn while.



I decided to come check out his set the next day at The Ship, this time opening for "The Gramercy Riffs" and "The Pathological Lovers". The hipster quota of the bar was way off the charts, I spent the night counting Keffiyeh scarves (only four so it wasn't so bad) and the faces of really uninterested people in horrible eyewear. This wasn't really the right crowd for The Kettle Black, but it was stil a good set.
I hadn't really had a chance to check out the much hyped "Gramercy Riffs" before Saturday and by the tight packed throng of people gathered by the stage while they played it was pretty clear who the crowd had come for. So did The Gramercy Riffs live up to the hype?? no not really.. I really can't give them a ringing endorsement, but this isn't to say they were terrible. In comparison to the rest of The Nordic Beat, Mercy the Sexton, Texas Chainsaw pool of bands the Riffs have derived from, The Riffs are welcome breath of tolerableness. I actually really liked most of the songs Mara sings lead on and Lee Hanlon isn't without his charm. While there were 3 or 4 songs in their set I can declare as pretty darn good, the rest of the material suffered from some supremely uninteresting lyrics and tempos that plod along way too slow for a band like this. ughh.. I'm being a bitch on my blog and I should stop before I go to far. Here is a new song of their's I filmed called "Hold my Hand" and while it doesn't sound like Hootie and Blowfish or The Beatles, it does have a passing resemblance to Roy Orbison at the end with the classic break down style.



The Pathological Lovers were on next and as previously blogged, I have total chubby for Jody Richardson's voice. This was there third show in three days and they were in a very special drunken mode throughout the night. Much silliness ensued. This video had to be cut short due to 10 minute limits unfortunately. Anyway, it was nice weekend despite the large leather clad man standing way too close to me while I filmed and the table full of overpriced cupcakes tempting me with their delightfully decorated frostings, even though I totally despise the charity they were going for. Look, I don't care how many monkeys you have to torture or murder, if it means my mom won't get cancer go for it. Kill as many monkeys as you want.

Patrick's foibles in the world of internet self-promotion

Lately this blog has turned ugly and started becoming a meager self-promotional soapbox instead of the insipid scenester rag I intended it to be. I will rectify this as soon as I feel undiseased enough to go outside and actually watch shows again. This flu I've had the last week and a bit has been ridiculous. In the meantime I'm gonna shove a big pile of Internet egotism and sales pitches at you all. I seem to have a problem obsessive compulsive disorder (a fairly common one nowadays) with creating profiles on new music sharing and social networking sites. I got the Myspace, other Myspace, Reverbnation, Garageband, Ilike, CBC Radio 3, Sonicbids, CLLCT, AMP Live, Facebook, Terminus 1525, RPM Challenge not to mention Tubemogul, Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Google, Saatchi and Flickr profiles (notice not twitter, that shit is worse then BRAINAIDS). Why does a man need so many profiles? Fucked if I know, But now I gotta new one at Bandcamp.com. Bandcamp is a bit different from the other ones in that I can properly sell things there and control how it looks and is presented to the public. I have both the "Sex Lives of The Paralyzed" and "The Pervert" albums uploaded there and both can be streamed in their entirety from the website. For downloading the songs people have the choice of either download the 128 kbs mp3 files of the songs for free or paying a small fee and downloading the song or album in whatever higher quality format they prefer.
The thing I like about Bandcamp is that if anybody buys something from me there it goes directly to me and I see it instantly, not a month or two or three down the road like dealing with Amazon or shitty ol' Itunes. Dealing with those companies is a pain in the ass and it's not like they do anything to actually help promote me or sell my music. Fuck em'. So for the time being I want everybody who would like to support me to go to my Bandcamp profile and buy songs from there. They are cheaper for one, and better quality then the third party shit. Anyways, Cheers. Here's the Bandcamp widget thingy for streaming my album. have a good one. I might step outside if it's not too rainy .