Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Three years ago, singer-songwriter Sherwood Lumsden rounded up the dads in his Preston Street neighbourhood to form a band. He knew Matt Young and Geoff Paisley for years before that — but he never knew their vocal talents until they started writing songs for their kids as the band Hey Buster.

The new album features cover art by Sherwood Lumsden’s son, Thomas Slaughter, 7.

Between the three dads — plus newest recruit Tom Stewart (Furnaceface, Slo’ Tom) — the band members have nine kids from the ages of two to 9. They write tunes for little ones without the preachy educational elements common to kids’ music. Their style hits somewhere between Junkyard Symphony and Robert Munsch with lyrics about family life that are observational and funny. Hey Buster’s first album called Bing Bang Bong was released in 2010 and includes songs about poo, pee, pink eye, and getting lice.

The song “Lice Twice” is about an experience familiar to parents of grade-schoolers. It rhymes hats with gnats. The chorus of “Pee Dance” describes the contorted moves kids make when they clearly have to go. “Oh no, I don’t have to go. No siree, I don’t have to pee!” goes the chorus.         

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Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Claude Munson. Photo by Igor Cedeno Garcia

UP CLOSE WITH MUNSON AT DAILY GRIND CAFE

Two singers come immediately to mind while listening to Claude Munson. The Ottawa folkie’s falsetto interludes recall Jeff Buckley, while the white reggae vibes churn up thoughts of that dude from Bedouin Soundclash.

Those word-of-mouth references are a nice boost for a new-to-the-scene songwriter, and his shows are often packed as a result. From here, the challenge for 24-year-old Munson will be to carve out a name from underneath the weighty influence of two superstar sound-alikes. No one wants to sound wholly derivative.

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Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

DJ Zattar, aka Alexandre Mattar

KITCHEN PARTY 9 + DJ ZATTAR’S NOSTALGIC WITH 45S MIX

Alexandre Mattar is waxing nostalgic about, well, wax — and a bit of acetate too.

Mattar is known by his DJ handle, Zattar, and as one of the cats that started the good-time monthly dance party called TimeKode.

Zattar been collecting records since he starting DJing a dozen years ago and has, of late, taken a shine to labels such as People’s Potential Unlimited, an American mail-order business that has re-released some boogie-funk records from back in tha day on seven inches.

Zattar took it on as a personal challenge to prepare a new set using only 45s. He will play that mix Friday at Kitchen Party 9, a monthly dance night that, as the name implies, takes the hang-out-by-the-sink house party vibe and transfers it to the neighbourhood pub.

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Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

Omar David Rivero and Jamie Kronick of Eraserheads. Photo by Jamie Kronick

A MEETING OF THE HEADS

Two dudes bumped into each other at the School of Photographic Arts in Ottawa on Dalhousie Street one night and had a bit of a doppelgänger moment. Jamie Kronick, a graduate of the school, and Omar David Rivero, who was at SPAO with a friend, are roughly the same stature and have similar pompadours. The uncanny commonalities continued as the two started talking about music. They bonded over a discussion of the finer points of obscure bands such as Battles (Warp Records).

That first meeting led to the inevitable invitation to jam — the bromantic gesture of newly formed male relationships — which led down a path of musical obscurity known as Eraserheads.

That’s the name of the duo’s new experimental drum-and-bass project. It takes from the David Lynch film in that the songs are as non-linear as the movie’s plot.

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Sound Seekers by Fateema Sayani is published weekly at OttawaMagazine.com. Read Fateema Sayani’s culture column in Ottawa Magazine and follow her on Twitter @fateemasayani

MORE TRANSPARENT (READ: WEIRDER, TAMER)
It was sometime in 2008 when we were bumming around the studio, that Jonathan Chandler, front guy for Ottawa sextet Amos the Transparent, summarized his philosophy for the band’s second album that he was working on at the time.

“I want to make the weirder songs weirder, and the tamer songs tamer.”

It is a simple — and quippable — MO that offers some insight into what makes the band appealing enough to score primo opening spots (they toured with Patrick Watson), attract the attention of heavy-hitting collaborators (Amy Millan and Evan Cranley of Stars) and to cement a rising national profile (they’ll play live on Q on CBC Radio on Friday morning).

Amos the Transparent, from left: Mark Hyne, Jonathan Chandler, Kate Sargent, Chris Wilson, Dan Hay, and James Nicol. Photo by Jamie Kronick

While the weird-tame dynamic started with their 2007 debut full-length Everything I’ve Forgotten to Forget, it became apparent on their 2009 EP My What Big Teeth You Have, and comes together on the new LP, Goodnight My Dear, I’m Falling Apart, which was released this week on Valentine’s Day.

By meshing those polarities, Amos the Transparent churns up a funky-ass musical sound.

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