If you missed the last train to Sackville and you’re not
heading to New Brunswick’s SappyFest this weekend, some of those bands
are coming to you. The Gertrudes, an 11-piece roaring clan from
Kingston, are playing Gus’ Pub (August 3). The band tells us they
“sound like a ol’ time saloon party in deep space…experimental noise
beds with down-home folk passengers, frolicking through original
material, played by a veritable orchestra of instruments. Nerdgrass?”
There’s a local love connection too: the gorgeous album art for Hard
Water was designed and hand-printed by Vincent Perez at the Dawson
Printshop. Montreal’s The Luyas are sneaking in a show at the
Khyber (August 4), with Special Noise and Money. A killer
pedigree, featuring members of Bell Orchestre, Miracle Fortress,
Torngat and SS Cardiacs, singer Jessie Stein (another ex-HFXer)
says the show is “spookier and prettier and more insane than anything
we’ve ever done. The idea is to make songs that you already know but to
make them so they feel subtly strange or otherworldly in some
way….The idea is to play music that divorces you from reality so that
you can be gone for a while. And when you step outside you feel somehow
less like a rerun.”
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.