söndag 25 Apr 2010, 17:05

Friend rock sometimes takes you to weird places. Last night, it was to a cavernous pool-hall/bar with a stage big enough to accommodate KC and the Sunshine Band twice over… overkill all around, what with maybe fifty people in the place (half of them just playing pool 'cause it was Saturday) and the bands being swallowed up by video screens showing a no-budget CGI Doctor Who time vortex. Oh, and the bands on the bill seemingly had nothing in common beyond maybe knowing the guys whose lighting rig was up there with them. Oakville is the best.

Anyway, Infernal Arms… I'll bet you a quarter that this is the first time they've been mentioned on this site. (EDIT: Curses, it wasn't. Looks like their drummer has listened to one of their songs with the Last.fm client running.) I work with guitarist/Shouty Guy #2, which is the only reason that I had ever heard of them before, but a blown-out recording (made on Steve's iPhone) of one of their first songs was decent pinned-in-the-reds garage fare and I was curious to know if he plays as emphatically live as he air-guitars in the store — he does — so there I was. The next twenty-five minutes saw Mare/Cursed/Titan-flavoured riffs changing places with lighter, more melodic strains (that reminded me Sonic Youth's catchier moments, but I don't know squat about this sort of stuff) in the blink of an eye, and just a splash of Tom Waits carnival oompah-oompah about halfway through. Steve will probably roll his eyes and tell me that that was their ironic ska tune or something, but I liked it. The vocals weren't exactly tight, but I had been warned well ahead of time that they were probably going to be messy, so no huge loss there. Probably a more productive use of a Saturday night than plan B, which involved riding dirt bikes off the edge of a cliff in Grand Theft Auto.

Burlington/Hamilton "Christian rockers" (nyuk-nyuk-nyuk) the Goddamn Goddamns were up next, and they were considerably more polished… to the point where the between-song banter just sort of spilled out because it was that part of the show and that's what you do then. It's not like I'd normally dump on a band that sounds like Trailer Bride, 'cause who doesn't like Eddie Cochran and Stevie Nicks covers mixed in with originals sporting titles like "My Baby Loves the Backhand"…?, but it was all just a bit too rote and joyless to really get behind.

There was still one more band scheduled to go on, but with the pumpkin hour inching ever closer and the idea that there might have been an oatmeal cookie left in the microwave at home creeping into my head, I decided to call it a night. More positively, the buzzcut at the door incredulously asking "Dude, aren't you going to stick around for Jojeto?" put a serious plan into my head: when I become king of the world, my flying-monkey minions will be deployed everywhere and they will flay the flesh from the bones of small-town promoters for the amusement of all. It's a thought, anyway.

PS: Just saw the schedule for this year's Victoriaville festival, and man, do I wish I had $250 to spare. Thirty-two bucks seems a bit steep for a René Lussier show, but it looks like fun nonetheless.