The Smiths-Shakespeare’s Sister
Dinosaur Jr-The Wagon
Superchunk-Animated Airplanes Over Germany
Little Girls-Youth Tunes
Woods-The Hold
Mika Miko-Totion
Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s-Blow Your Head
Think About Life-Joanna
Brian Jonestown Massacre-The Ballad of Jim Jones
Pink Mountaintops-Axis:Thrones of Love
Lightning Dust-Antonia Jane
The Weakerthans-Aside
Thrush Hermit-Radio Blaster
Iron & Wine-Communion Cups & Someone’s Cup
Iron & Wine-Belated Promise Ring
Iron & Wine-God Made The Automobile
The Stone Roses-Fool’s Gold
Dizzee Rascal feat. Calvin Harris & Chrome-Dance Wiv Me (Jason Nevins Remix)
MSTRKRFT-Fist of God
Tiga-Shoes
Akufen-Jeep Sex
Richie Hawtin-Orange
Major Lazer-I’ll Make Ya
Magnetophone-So Much As Hold My Hand
Flaming Lips-Talkin’ Bout The Smiling Death Porn Blues (Everyone Wants To Live Forever)
My Bloody Valentine-Soon

Thanks to petenema and flickr for the photo.

Ladyhawk is an anachronism: a band that has existed for only 4 short years that plays loose,  catchy, rock and roll that would seem more at home filed next to Powderfinger-era Neil Young or A Catholic Education-era Teenage Fanclub than the scads of neo-post-everything bands that represent their contemporaries. Not to say that they are stuck in the past, it’s just that they don’t seem interested so much in trying to capture a sound as they are in building songs around melodies and hooks using the barest of rock and roll elements: choruses, verses, bridges and solos. 

Definite road dogs (this is the second show that Ladyhawk have played at Call the Office within a 6 month period) their comfort on stage is obvious, and they eased into a set that captured both the bluesy work-outs and catchy pop songs that make up the sound of their latest album Shots. Singer/guitarist/primary songwriter Duffy Driediger was really the focal point of the evening as he sang in his heart-broken yelp of a voice, conjuring Husker Du’s Grant Hart, and making cryptic comments at the appreciatively vocal crowd. Not that this is strictly his show: Ladyhawk are an obvious capital-B band; each member works off of each other and when they start to get down and stretch out on songs like Fear and The Dugout the hours spent playing in booze-holes like Call the Office become obvious. When they finished their 45-minute set, I was left with a feeling of poignancy: Ladyhawk seems destined to languish in obscurity, playing in front of 30 people in college towns simply because the earnest rock and roll that they purvey is no longer fashionable. If you ever want to see what a band looks like that makes music simply for ‘the love,’ I suggest you catch Ladyhawk before they get washed away with the tide.

Ottawa’s Metz opened the show with what might quite possibly have been the loudest set in recent memory. The three-piece practices the same techincal, bass-heavy, power-through-volume ethic popularized by the early-90s Touch and Go Records crowd. Echoes of Don Caballero, The Jesus Lizard and Lightning Bolt abounded as the young band members alternately jump, shook, posed and looked bored. Check them out on myspace here.

Ladyhawk, taken at Zaphod's. Thank you blurasis and Flickr for the photo.

Coming through for the second time in 6 months are BC’s arbiters of flannely North-Western rock, Ladyhawk. Still touring in support of their pretty great Shots album that came out last year on the pretty great Jagjaguwar label.

Check out the sweaty, rock and roll action. Call the Office, Wednesday April 22.

Tickets are $12 advance/$15 at the door.

Isis taken in Toronto at the Harbour Front Centre. Thanks to chromewave and Flickr for the pic.

All I really have to say is Thunderheist was dope. I danced my hot pants off to Graham Zilla and Isis as they got down to some serious dirty bass business, and so did the 60 or so other people who were there.Within minutes of hitting the stage with the Thunderheist “swagger dancers” in tow, Isis beckoned to the enthusiastically booty-popping crowd and soon the stage was flooded with bodies. For the next 40 minutes or so they turned the motherfucker out, playing through nearly the entire set of songs on their recent Big Dada release Sweet 16.  While Sweet 16 is a good representation of the Thunderheist sound, their live show is where they really shine. Isis is one fierce bitch on the microphone, and she commands a crowd like the pro she is (she brags that she has been rapping since the age of 13 in a recent Exclaim article.)  When Isis called it quits, Graham spun a few tracks to the faithful who were still hanging about as the rest of the sweaty crowd headed into the night, still exhilarated from the  short, tight blast of a show that it was.

Mention must also go out to Montreal’s Winter Gloves who opened the show aptly, but as I arrived late I was securing libations and such during most of their performance. Check them out here: Winter Gloves.

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