Yeah, there is a story behind that subject line.

So last night Skank Williams and Realiser were playing at Gus's Pub, so I rearranged my usual Thursday plans and and went out to see them. As I explained in the Tuesday post, fully half the participants are Tribeca regulars so someone had to go and report back, right?

The show was listed as starting at ten. In my experience, this invariably means eleven, so I went ahead and watched the end of Survivor (which was kind of awesome) and then made my way downtown, arriving at about ten-thirty.

Just as well, since Skank Williams was just about to go onstage. In fact, if the sound guy hadn't gone missing they've have been onstage already when I arrived! (The sound guy was Scotty, who is too large to steal, and once again I must note that if I'd been writing this story things would have looked bad for Scotty. At least until I relented in the second draft.) Luckily Troy, Scotty's band mate and brother, stepped in to look after sound and the girls got started just after ten-thirty.

As I have mentioned before, Skank Williams is the self-proclaimed "only all-female Hank Williams cover band in the Halifax-Dartmouth area!" Which is certainly factual, but it would perhaps be more true to say they are the best all-female Hank Williams cover band in the Halifax-Dartmouth area.

( Meet Skank Williams! )

The girls came offstage to general congratulations (I wasn't even the only library type present) and Realiser went on.

( Realiser notes but no set list. )

After Realiser had literally played every song they knew, I looked at my watch and it was only about a quarter after one. Dawn and Kathy and I were at a table together and they joked that I was probably calculating how fast I could get to Tribeca.

( More on THAT good idea. )

It's possible that a giant, awesome jam session broke out after hours--if there wasn't one there should have been--but two bars in one work night seemed like enough for someone my age, so I said goodnight and called it one. Whew!

Since Saturday night went so well, I decided to go back out on Sunday, this time to Gus's. I haven't been back to Gus's since that one show in October but I'd noticed in The Coast where a bunch of bands were playing, including one called I See Rowboats, which featured one of my brother's former room mates. My brother has heard them and was impressed, so I thought I'd check them out.

Gus's is pretty small, and the event was to celebrate the birthday of a local musician, I guess, so it got crowded really quickly. I found a table only partly blocked by a structurally-necessary-but-vision-obstructing pillar, and ended up sharing it with three nice young women who quickly learned that Gus's is not a place where you order any drink that doesn't come with the cap on.

The first band up was called The First Aid Kit--I can't find a MySpace page for them (there are eight bands called The First Aid Kit on MySpace and I don't have time to rummage.) Anyway, they featured two guitars and a good-natured synthesizer, among other things, but I confess I was mesmerized by the fact one of their guitar players looked like Conan O'Brien. Okay, looked like Conan if you washed him in extremely hot water, so he shrank to half his usual size and his hair deflated. I'm sorry, once I started thinking of that it was really hard to concentrate on anything else. Fortunately, a gang of excited young people stood between me and the band for most of their set, and when I couldn't see I was able to pay attention to what they were playing.

After the last debacle with a dead-souled cover band I think I stated that I would rather listen to the worst original band on earth. These guys weren't the worst original band on earth, not by a very long chalk. But I got the impression... Okay, there were moments when they suddenly broke out into unexpected big vocals on the choruses, or the guitars did things that didn't seem to entirely match the dynamic of the song, and I finally decided that they know what they are going to sound like, someday, but they haven't quite put all the pieces together. It's like when you have a two-year-old colt and you can tell he's going to be a great little horse but right now he can't even walk in a straight line without wandering.

With that said, I liked them. There were big chunks of every song that worked, and they really really meant it, you know? And the synthesizer had a real sense of humour. I think they're going to be really good. At the moment they struck me more as sincere and full of potential. I'll take it.

I See Rowboats includes cello and violin and parts of their set were really orchestral, while one song I liked a lot sounded like the theme to a British caper flick from the sixties. By this time it was really packed in front of me and that was okay--it was sort of hypnotic just listening to them. It would be nice to catch them in a bigger venue where the sound had more elbow room, but they might be the kind of thing I'd like better on record anyway. You could probably write while listening to them.

I didn't stay around for the rest of the fun, figuring I'd been out late Saturday and will be out late tonight, and as my grandmother used to say there's no need to go to hell with the joke.

However, good fun, and it was kind of cool to hear some new and oddball stuff. Be interesting to see where these two bands go from here.

As I commented a few days back, it would be easier for me to behave sensibly if the people I stalk weren't so damned cooperative. And also if I didn't get encouragement from anonymous tipsters.

( Yes, yes, more than you ever wanted to know about another Matt Mays show behind the cut. Sheesh. )

( No, actually the Matt/El Torpedo part really starts here. )