Friends & Ganglians @ Raw Sugar Cafe [November 24, 2011]

With various shows happening all over Ottawa on November 24, 2011, I decided to go to Raw Sugar Cafe to see two new up and coming bands from the USA.
One was Friends (simply Friends), from Brooklyn, New York.

The other was Ganglians, from Sacramento.

I was more excited to see Friends because of their catchy song “I’m His Girl”. This was their first time playing in Ottawa and their second night in Canada; the night before they played at Montreal’s Casa del Popolo.
Their music is very dancey and poppy, or as I like to call it “booty dancing music”.
There is buzz surrounding them, evident by their show next February in London, UK that has already sold out.
I guess Canada was their testing ground before they head off to Europe next year.
Their set was definitely fun, because Samantha, the lead singer, totally wanted audience participation.
I was totally shaking my booty to all their songs.
During one song, Samantha even jumped on one of the members of Ganglians.

It was a sight to see Samantha dancing with some of the audience.
They sang the four songs, which were “Friend Crush”, “Feelin’ Dank”, “My Boo”, and “I’m His Girl”.
I had a fun time dancing my booty off to Friends.

Before their set, I interviewed Samantha of the band.
Have a listen to the interview.
Transcription of the interview is here.
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/InterviewWithSamanthaOfFriends/MONO-004.mp3]

I forgot to ask her about when the album is coming out, but I later asked Matthew, who said it should be out by Spring 2012.

Ganglians were up next, and the set was the exact opposite.
Their music was very psych-rock, with a bit of surf like sound.
They were great, and I was swaying back and forth the whole time.
Samantha asked me what I thought, and I said “pretty groovy”. She agreed.

Overall, I enjoyed this show.
Here are the rest of the photos.

November 24, 2011

20 photos