Doll at The Bovine Sex Club
Written by Jason Daniel Baker
Sunday, 09 June 2013 04:00
With an earthquake centred in Ottawa hitting Toronto just before the Victoria Day long-weekend I raised an eye-brow when I discovered an item in my e-mail advertising the beginning of the summer ‘Rolling To Rock Tour’ of a familiar Ottawa band – Doll. Was this rumbling out of Canada’s National Capital Region a harbinger of what this band is set to thrust into this country and twist around in promoting their new CD ‘The Ragdoll Diaries’ and their surreal music video ‘Plastic Lies’?
I quickly agreed to cover their show in Toronto on May 26th which had them sharing a stage with Old James, Sista Fista and Sluts on 45. I first met members of the band Doll at a Toronto venue called Lee’s Palace in 2009 having been introduced to them by then CJ Sleez guitarist Andrei Sin. The other circumstances (security and other staff) were less than ideal and the excesses of Lee’s Palace began to grate on this journo over the years.
I was thus somewhat relieved to note that Doll was playing at The Bovine Sex Club, a cozy, friendly venue on the Queen Street West strip with stylish gothic hostesses. But it isn’t lost on me how it might sound when I write that I went to a place called ‘The Bovine Sex Club’ to see bands called ‘Sluts on 45’ and ‘Sista Fista’.
Some might think it appropriate for whatever I write to be packaged in a plain brown wrapper and wonder if I went there wearing a black mask, ball-gag, leather bondage harness, edible undies, fishnet stockings and stiletto-heeled shoes. Sorry folks, I’m very boring and conservative for a guy who lives in a city run by a mayor embroiled in a crack cocaine scandal. The bands of course were anything but boring or conservative.
Sluts on 45 hit the stage and did their Detroit punk circa 1969-style set. Nice people but they were either playing too fast or I’m getting too old. They ended up being the most genteel and sedate group to take the stage that night which is living proof that there is a first time for everything. They would have almost certainly been the raunchiest band on any other bill.
Sista Fista came on immediately after and both beguiled and revolted the audience with catchy riffs but disgusting double-intendres. They handed out latex gloves to everyone in attendance and embraced a similar vibe to the infamous Rockbitch. Sista Fista features an adorable little sparkplug named Megan Merrick on lead guitar who bedazzles with scintillating solos. Her performance sticks in mind. But the lyrics to the music her band played are probably going to mess around with my subconscious for a lot longer.
Doll was up next and sunk (or rose) to the level of depravity whilst giving a brilliant interpretation of their repertoire inserting a breathtaking cover of ‘Jailbreak’ by Thin Lizzy. The time and place I guess just clamoured for members of Sista Fista to mime a sex act as…y’know…a welcome to their friends from out of town. By then everyone there might just as well have stripped down for a cesspool skinny-dip.
I had to skip out right after Doll’s set. The double intendres and innuendos leftover from Sista Fista were so vivid in describing different kinds of moisture and smells that I was ready to wash my own mouth out with soap. There was also a guilty feeling – like I had done something naughty just by being there. I didn’t want to tell anyone I was feeling naughty because I was afraid of what they might do.
Concert goers respond well when they are treated right. This particular show at the Bovine – admission $5, came a night after the Rolling Stones played the Air Canada Centre and fans were gouged with ticket prices ranging from a few hundred dollars (for people who are content just to be in an arena while big band plays and watch them on the jumbotron) to several thousand (for wealthy posers who shell out wads of cash to serve their pretenses).
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[With thanks to Gilles Marc Landreville Photography]