PART II - Futensil + Fear Eat Soul + O-voids + Ultra Thin @ SQUALOR

Futensil

futensil were just done setting up as we came in, the guitarist was busy plugging some sort of effects pedal into his microphone that would end up being used by all the bands who played. they consist of 3 members. a lovely young pixie girl on the drums, who grinned her way through the entire set and said hi to her father repeatedly. a mysterious mustachio guitarist/drummer who looked like he had just stepped off a fishing boat in P.E.I and played guitar through some sort of tape echo while simultaneously hitting a snare with a kick drum pedal and occasionally swiping at his guitar with a drum stick as if it were a violin. and the singer/guitarist who jittered and swayed with his instrument like the bassist from OMD in the enola gay video.

futensil play some fucked up deconstructed garage rock, basic primordial drum beats that align with dissonant chords and strange guitar noise. the type of shit id usually hate, but they pull it off well. the songs are somehow catchy and entertaining, they keep a healthy mix between actual song and pure noise, and they are just straight up fun to look at. it was the first show for them, and even when the singer broke a string and had to contend with about 10 minutes of dead air till the dude from the o-voids was able to provide a back up, they didnt flounder, but kept the vibe up with bad jokes and strange little noise jams. definitely good stuff. recommended for your next house party.

Fear Eat Soul

yet another band who was playing theyr first show that nite at squalor, fear eat soul were most definitely the highlight of the evening for me. motherfucking intense, 3 guys, completely insane. these boys play a very powerful brand of no-wavy post-punk. kind of like if system of a down had no bassist and decided to play nothing but erase errata covers. they started off with the number one hit single TAKE ME TO HEAVEN, and proceeded to violate the crowd with a short setlist of vicious bombs. definitively the crowd pleaser of the event. the drummer was working the breakbeats so hard i was getting tired just looking at him. these guys rock my world. best band ive seen in years. the recordings on the myspace do not do them justice. go see them.

The O-Voids

the o-voids are coming off a stretch of inactivity, this show was the first one for them in a while so they might have been a bit rusty. they just got themselves a new drummer also and they are still adjusting to that change. all in all they did a good fucking job. these guys are montreal scene veterans, they been doing it for a number of years, one of the only bands to my knowledge in this city doing this kind of angular, slightly dissonant post-punk. i was getting a real section 25 kinda vibe off alot of the songs. the songs go from almost a grungy 90s kind of sound to a pure 80s manchester warsaw type of feel. they seemed to be a bit shy at first but they got over it and had a good time, you could tell they were really feeding off the crowd and enjoying themselves.

Ultrathin

so if fear eat soul and futensil were playing theyr first show, and the o-voids havent played a gig in god knows how long, where the fuck did all the people come from? they came to see ultrathin, the new west end darlings apparently, along with red mass. ultrathin is 4 dudes who play sludgy heavy psychedelic rock. before they even started playing we were privy to 20 minutes of the singer muttering obscenities into some sort of fucked up delay pedal. it sounded like a robotic satan you might hallucinate while high on ketamine and dmt. after that, the guitarist finally figured out how to turn on the amp he was trying to use and they started. these guys sound like black sabbath if they were really shitty musicians. the songs were decent. these guys know how to get a crazy tone out of a pedal (or 8) . my only complaint would be alot of the songs sounded similar to one another, all generally of the same tempo and using one cyclical bassline. but hey its guitar music, i was fucking wasted by the time they came on, and it wasnt complete bullshit. a couple more months to fine tune the sound and they could have something.

Futensil + Fear Eat Soul + O-voids + Ultra Thin @ SQUALOR

so every week now in montreal some motherfucker decides to open a new venue..they've been sprouting up on both sides of the city in ever greater numbers since BLACK DOT was closed down. last week was my first experience with one of the newest spaces yet, the aptly named SQUALOR. im not too sure but theyve been around for a couple of months i figure.

i drove down to st-henri with a bunch of mooks, found some free parking on Notre-Dame street near Rose-De-Lima and proceeded to walk west looking for the typical conflagration of indie hipsters huddled outside a building smoking which would indicate the presence of a musical engagement. sure enough after a couple of blocks we came upon the singer of FUTENSIL having a cigarette along with a few other random mopes outside what looked like any other stretch of notre dame. some condos and a shitty antiques stores next door, nothing to indicate the DIY sex orgy taking place only meters away from us.

squalor is completely fucked. you walk into an apartment building, up a flight of steps, down a a dirty dilapidated corridor with holes in the gyprock and dirty cigarette butts everywhere, then down ANOTHER flight of steps, the environment becoming more toxic and foul with every inch. you bang your head on the low ceiling that has been padded with yellowed foam so as to protect the innocent children who call SQUALOR theyr home, and down a final slush adorned corridor where the sounds of human beings in the throes of rock music stupor reverberates like a wave of power. through the last door and youve crossed into the looking glass motherfuckers. dark and damp, a bare ass sub basement has been painted red and green, persian carpets cover one wall completely and there are fucking old mattresses stuffed into the ceiling in an effort to dampen the sound and thereby minimize the level of police involvement. in one corner there is a make shift bar selling beers and god damn packs of native cigarettes! they even sell fucking singles for 25c, better than a fucking depp.

the place was like something out of NYC 1982 or some shit, packed to the fucking gills with beautiful hipster girls in theyr best gig outfits and novelty glasses, ratty fucking boys with hairy faces and focus group haircuts, punxkxx rockxx kids from ndg who stood out like sore thumbs with theyr dirty boots and hoodies. And of course the prerequisite smattering of band members from various bands , shmoozing and boozing to theyr hearts content. there were even a few old people ( i think those were the o-voids OHHHH! ). no smoking allowed in the venue, and the place must have a capacity of like 150 people id say, there were at least 100 people packed in there for fridays gig, a very very good turn out considering 2 of the bands were having theyr first shows that nite, and the other two are not TOO well known in the city. blame it on chloe from aids wolf, who pimped out ultrathin in her blog a couple of weeks ago, officialy granting them MYSPACE HOT status.

part II with actual review of the gig up soon as im done smoking this spliff and going to tim hortons.