Bad news and waterfowl

For Day 2 of Megaphono I went back to St. Alban's to see a trio of acts who I'd only heard of Fiver, Merganzer and Andy Shauf. As it turns out, two of the major players are not entirely unfamiliar: Fiver is the solo project of One Hundred Dollars from Simone Schmidt, and Merganzer is fronted by Mika Posen of Timber Timbre and Last Ex (who I shot at last year's Megaphono outing). I've always loved One Hundred Dollars' hardnoised country-noir, and Fiver is, if anything, even bleaker. Simone's voice makes me think a bit of Karen Dalton.



Blue-ish action!



Merganzer is also a solo project, but the now Ottawa-based Posen is backed by a trio live. Here's keyboardist Katie Hurdon.



Mika has her hands full.



Pascal Delaquis from Hilotrons keeps the beat.



Scott McCannell handles the low end.



Mika sings!



Pascal applies some mallet.



Singalong action!



I confess that prior to this show I'd never heard of Andy Shauf (barring a brief notice in the my shows notices for an Elmdale gig back in 2011), but the Regina singer-songwriter seems to be getting quite a lot of attention for his rustic lyricism. He'll be back in the area in just a few days, performing at Gatineau's Salle Jean-Despréz on Feb. 20.



Keyboard action!



Bass action!



Olivier Fairfield makes his mandatory Megaphono appearance.


 
And so on!




Another very pleasant night out.