Stegosaurus presents Acoustasaurus, the night dinosaurs learned to play music

 It’s Thursday, I’m quite fatigued coming out of work and as I embark on my mount ready to head home, a notification appears, Stegosaurus is hosting an event at Barfly. I think to myself, is that a Jurassic Park theme event? Barfly, the bar where laughters, mean looks and imbeciles are mixed together giving birth to creatures of the night scarier than any mean dinosaurs featured in Jurassic Park!  Well, I’ll go take a peak, see if I can find unheard of dinosaurs over there. 

Chicken Suit is nowhere on the bill yet, Ralph is playing along Neptune under the name Chagossian, Amanda is performing a solo set and strangely, every face in the crowd points out to those familiar looks I’ve seen along Chicken Suit shows in the past. Alongside them, Ryan Brio, the Prince misunderstood genie is set to play whatever will come out of his mind, Le Torrent will swirl along musically and lastly, Johan Miranda a London issued folk will be headlining the bill.

On my way to the venue, I crossed paths with Elois, one half of Le Torrent, Colin the other half of Le Torrent and Ryan Brio. Delighted I am, as I navigated stormy currents down in the confines of my oblivious mind. Before going to them, I enter the venue, a girl greets me, demands ten bucks telling me I get to see each band for three dollars! In exchange I receive a custom ant drawing as a proof of payment, what a delight! Three bucks per band plus a handmade tailored drawing, wow, can’t get much better than that, aside from the good old mugging days were, in the streets, to get a gram, you had to come up to a fifteen drug selling fein and mug him out in exchange for a couple of green trees for free. I salute the musicians and once I hand them a cancer filled cigarette, they start rapping and yapping around practicing their clever rhymes, joking around, we burst out laughing. It was all games, but I must admit, Ryan Brio was killing it, practiced or not, his flows were murdering us all and I admit it was quite impressive for an improvisation. The weather is cruel, bone gripping, I’m shaking, convulsing with my lips holding tight to the cigarette, once over, we hurry inside and take seats as the show will start any moment. The crowd are familiar faces, yet there’s not too many people keeping a loki vibe inside, a washed up sailor or dreamer type pub vibe. 

Amanda, the sister of Chris who is the bassist of Truck Violence, hops on stage, she is laughing yet not assured. She grips the mic, opens the night announcing she will be performing a couple of songs from an upcoming EP titled Who Would’ve Thought? She gets going, and I can’t help but notice her delivery of the songs are a la Martha Wainwright, simple chords, yet effective melancholic voice cruising over, with stories of lovers who fell down to their knees begging for kisses, memories drowning in sorrow and more nights spent all alone drinking or reminiscing those persons we’ve crossed paths with. A lot of her set could be summed up with Lover, You Should’ve Come by Jeff Buckley. Her voice is distinguished, while not quite as powerful as Martha’s or Jony Mitchell’s, it can confidently say she’s not far off Buckley or Cohen with its raspy yet poignant tearful accent. One thing I did find funny, is the fact that she was overwhelmingly transparent. She admitted faults while playing and forgetting to put on a capo on a song. It ain’t nothing bad, and truthfully, I know stress must’ve motivated this blatant transparency to the public, but in my opinion she should definitely be proud and confident of her talent and her set.

After her set, we all cleared a bit, some smoked, others choked and on rare occasions some went eating or filled other biddings. Once back inside, I walked up and Chagossian was getting ready to play.  They sit down, Neptune salutes us all, overly excited. She shakes her hair, laughs, looks at us and declares, ‘’Well I don’t want to take my bass right away I’ll just sing along with the guitar! Is that okay?’’ I sit down with a beer in my hand, about to drouse in a fume of dream, but am restrained as soon as Raf starts ushering complex rhythms on the guitar! Their set starts, I get knocked out a couple years or even decades back, it feels as if we were in a folk cabaret bar in Greenwich village, her voice is clear, stinging down in the gut. The guitarist just slides along the fretboard making love, cooking the stove! A couple songs in and I’m already captivated, I expect Ginsberg to come in and declare poems at that point. But then the unexpected happens. From out of nowhere Raf grips the mic, declares, ‘’Hum so for the next one it’s a cover, a cover by the old house, where dreams have washed up like slimes dried

Sweet Reunions on stage.

up on a wall.’’ And then it comes in like a wave ready to drown me in uncertainty, I open my eyes and look up to make sure. Is this the Smiths? Can she really sing that? Certainly there's no need to be as cocky as Morrissey to sing like him. The song goes in and out, takes me all over back to the times I hung out with a friend. She would always put the Smiths along in the evening. We’d end up cuddling and fondling one in another as Johnny Marr would usher shimmered notes. Neptune is insane, she nailed the smoky warm rounded voice the singer has, she did it in her own way, but I got to say, it was damn well! Following up, we had a taste of a Chicken Suit reunion as Amanda hopped on the mic and sang a song or two I can’t remember as I’d drowned my thoughts in a glass of HOPeless IPA. Everyone cheered, that I remember, it was heart-warming to see them perform a bit again all together. A song about a certain Ziggy is then ushered, Neptune later takes out an Omnichord like instrument to arpeggiate notes accompanied by a melancholic voice reminiscing a tragic ice-skating memorie, a bit like Air Dance of Black Sabbath for those who dug deep Never Say Die Album. One of their last songs was a cover of The Show Continues in January which was also great and just a nice touch of comradery with fellow musicians in the scene.

After another fumed fuelled drug taking break, eyeballs on the leash about to bark at the moon, fatigue slithering its way to my veins and brain neurons, I walk back in, frozen as a motherfucking orphan in the damned streets of Saint-Petersburg. Ryan Brio hopes onstage with a GX-10 or the ancestor of. He starts with synth-horn style guitar sounds and dives in his musical catalogue. The lady at the bar, not enjoying it, decides to lower the volume. Talk about Hendrix playing the American National Hymn at Woodstock with no one to appreciate, and fifty years later, Ryan a devotee to weird experienced guitar fingerwork lives on to be lowered to an inaudible volume on stage! What a shame, can’t they hear it? The genie in his work, the balance between the chords, melody and singing. He laughs a lot, makes jokes, asks to turn the volume up, spits, shiites and keeps on juggling on the guitar and here I stand knowing very well that his act may look funny, but it’s fuelled with talent and ingenuity. He sings his own song reinventing the tones with random presets he chooses, changing the rhythmics. Although at times, his songs and covers crossed paths with a lot of comedy and the public seemed to be lost in his haze of music, his overall act and dedication to music is phenomenal! An example is, he played Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon And Garfunkel, with a fuzzy tone on the guitar. Which was very much troubling. Yet he played so well and it was refreshing so although very different and unfaithful to the tenderness of Simon and Garfunkel I was very much amazed at how accurate his rendition was. 

Poster done by Kenna

Next up, was Le Torrent, a Charlebois type of voice so soft, kind of raucous voice, raspy and round. He reminds me of MIchel from Beau Dommage, telling stories like Charlebois has done so well over the years, with a tenderness that echoes the one I’ve seen on Harmonium’s numbers. His songs were smooth, we danced, some held hands over the tender ballads. His first song reminded me of Je Reviendrai À Montréal of Charlebois, Funnymen was a Plume Latraverse ode in my opinion. Although I didn’t know much about his songs, I could greatly appreciate it due to the hour being late and his melodies being soothing and calming. I sadly believe that the lack of french toast talkers in the audience was a shame for Colin because the crowd couldn’t seem to be understanding how graceful he was on stage.  To be fair, Colin came with a classical guitar and his bassist was electric and I just don’t know why he did this, his guitar was not loud enough, but sadly, the voice was hard to hear yet it was more leveled with the bass I have to admit. Overall, his set was great, although the bar didn’t help out and the crowd lacked culture and speakability to engage in his music. 

Finally, Johan MIranada was set to play, but a rush in the veins and need for desperate sleep came flooding my mind and  I sat him out. Overall the night was great, the bar’s sound system was a bit shady, but the bands were great! Mellonella are soon to be playing alongside Truck Violence which will be a hit wonder for sure, with their drummer Gael being back on drums, Ryan is playing June 28 alongside Colby Wallace and Mano A Mano under Rat’s Nest Production, a group of unknown who are diy-ing their way in the scene as concert organizers. Le Torrent will play at Casa del Popolo with Plumage Duo, Johan Miranda, and Julian Lopez on the 12th of July. Thanks for reading.