I saw a solid eight hours of awesome music last night, and since you’d probably get bored of my superlatives and a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a thousand pictures.
North Street Church: Metz, VKNGS, The Memories Attack, Torso, Pig
The Memories Attack
VKNGS
Metz
Toronto’s Metz made post-punk math rock geeks’ dreams come true with their music, and photographers’ dreams come true with their lighting. They play again tonight at Gus’.
The fun continued at the Khyber.
Khyber: The Ether, The Stolen Minks, Grand Trine, Black Feelings, Tyvek
The Ether
If I had a rock and roll show, I’d want the Stolen Minks to come.
I’ve been a Stolen Minks fan since I first saw them at a NSCAD dance years ago, but they’ve been on fire since they released their album High Kicks last year. Their three-piece lineup and spending most of the past year on the road obviously agrees with them; I think they get more punk rock every show.
Grand Trine
Grand Trine says they’re not a cult, but they spend 24 hours a day together enacting their band rituals, their singer’s grown his hair long and makes films about serpents, their drum kit is covered in various symbols and runes, and they took the audience on an amazing psychedelic punk journey, so I’m not entirely certain about this claim.
Black Feelings
If Grand Trine is a cult, Black Feelings is a religious experience. I’ve seen these guys three times now and that’s not enough. They play heavy as hell and put you into a trance and I’m scared to play their 7″ because I’m sure my living room can’t live up to a live show.
Tyvek can drive a Honda.
Tyvek turned the audience to a gyrating, fake-fur covered mass and knocked socks off throughout the room with their scratchy, lo-fi garage rock. It was awesome to see these guys and they couldn’t have played to a more enthusiastic crowd.
I walked off from last night with Tyvek’s LP, Grand Trine’s new tape and Black Feelings’ 7”, and eight pennies remaining in my wallet, but if you have money left or missed the merch tables this weekend, stop by the Crowd Control zine and record fair at the North Street Church from 1-5 PM. Go home for dinner and come back for Dog Day’s all-ages album release show at 7:30 PM; and if you have any energy left after, the fine folks who run the All Wound Up punk DJ nights at Gus’ will be doing a special Obey edition, along with performances from Metz and Minivan Halen, a punk scene supergroup with members of Die Brucke, VKNGS, Myles Deck and the Fuzz, who you really should check out. I hope they’re selling coffee.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2009.