Officer Girl and WinteContrived @ Brennan's

Wow that was a great show for a Wednesday night in Charlottetown. Officer Girl were pretty good, a nice and unpredictable structure-wise, they tripped me up a few times thinking they'd go to a course or end a song and they'd just rip into something totally different. Unfortunately the sound wasn't very good, the guitars were't quite thick enough and everything just sounded almost-there but not quite.

Contrived, also known as 'that band with the drummer from Wintersleep (Loel Campbell)' was the star attraction. Contrived are a little more punk-sounding and chunky than Wintersleep, less about the catchy hooks and lyrics and more about the go-go-go air-guitar-able riffs.

Personally I think Loel should just go on tour with his drumkit. I'd go see that, for sure. In one of the new Wintersleep videos during the interlude where the singer isn't singing anything they have a hsot of the band all playing around Loel who's in the center at the front. Now there's a band who knows who wears the pants in that group.

You have to admire Loel, he must be the hardest working musician around these parts, what with his two bands and a couple of other things I hear he's working on, he goes full tilt. He's a cool guy, too. We were sitting around outside and he came over and asked for a light and we chatted for a while. He told us about the process where a label is thinking about signing you and the ybring y ou to Toronto and pamper you and your friends for a couple of days and then make you play your show in front of them as they evaluate you. And they look so completely stone-faced and critical as they watch you play, that it can be very disconcerting.

G. told me that something similar happens when you give a technical pitch, where there might be maybe two technically astute people watching your pitch and the rest are simply put there and told to look stone-faced, precicely to make you feel uncomfortable. . Supposedly this can help expose technical flaws, if you can't ride the wave of confidence.

Anyway, it was a fun night, and the Summer weather and getting to sit outisde seems to be making people friendlier and more talkative. Hopefully that keeps up.