Warning: Pseudo Show Review - SS Cardiacs et. al

Really great show tonight. Jessie was excellent, totally filled the room with just her and her guitar and a drummer. I got the Cardiacs CD and on first listen I think it's fantastic. Same minimal sound, really mellow, like the singer has her electric guitar in her lap on the couch, but still playing with lots of feeling.

I thought it was really classy of her to set up her equipment down on the floor in front of the crowd, instead of up on the stage. It made for a really comfortable, intimate atmosphere, but she still rocked out pretty hard. Her songs seemed to be pretty personal, describig a couple as “ever stalk someone? Well, I have.. I drove by that boy's house so many times,” and “this one is about a time when I nearly went completely crazy.”

She was really humble and sweet when I went up to buy a CD, she said “for which band?” and I had to say “umm, yours I guess.” “Oh. Well, that's cool.” She also gave me a compilation CD of a bunch of Toronto bands on the same label as her. I'll maybe write something about it later, but let's just say Chewie and his sense of humour fits right in in Toronto.

Special Noise had some pretty spectacular drumming, the songs were pretty out-there, too. Very interesting to listen to.

Spincycle Squared rocked out the hardest, more great drumming but with more straight-forward beats, really fun.

Thanks so much to kelly and gabrielle for doing all this up for us. We're lucky to have their patience and persistence.