By Taylor Burgess

Photo: Adrienne Huard

Cannon Bros. are Cole Woods and Alannah Walker, who have lived pretty much their whole lives together—they’ve been going to the same schools since grade two and they both played on Oak Park’s water polo team. As Winnipeg scenesters might know, they’re also one half of the band the Playing Cards, a band that has been around since Walker and Woods were in junior high school.

So imagine my joy when I approach them at the Albert after one of their shows, Woods slams down an empty plastic tumbler on a table and says, “Alright, I’m good to go.”

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Tonight, if you’re feeling adventurous/nostalgiac, the West End Cultural Centre is presenting the 100 Mile Musical Diet, including Magnum K.I. covering the Weakerthans’ Reconstruction Site in entirety and Paper Moon playing Red Fisher’s War Wagon in full. Homage or blasphemy? You decide. Starts at 8, and the West End don’t wait.

Also, at the Garrick tonight, powerpop powerhouses the New Pornographers are playing with the Mountain Goats. Seriously? Seriously.

This Friday, if you prefer to have your concept of music constantly rearranged, if you choose to get out of your dank humid basement (which we know is plastered with posters of esoteric bands and filled with shelves of complete Brian Eno discographies), you’ll find a couple of rad shows.

First up, a band that we covered in the newest Stylus, the experimental trio Radian from Vienna. send + receive and CKUW are bringing them to the WECC, where they’ll rumble off stuff from their latest record Chimeric, which, as Stylus writer Curran Faris put it, “deals with the fundamentals of rock music: energy, dynamics, and sheer volume.” They’re playing with the awe-inspiring Tim Hecker and Didi Bruckmayr. The show starts at 8, and FYI, the WECC won’t wait up for you, so don’t be late.

If, however, you are of the night owl variety, you could see new local noise outfit White Dog play with Blind Squab,and touring Spirit Abuse. Chris Jacques of White Dog sent us an email about it (including a video of one of Spirit Abuse’s solo escapades), so we’re assuming that he’s pretty excited, and if he’s excited, then it’s something to get excited about. That’s happening at the Plug-In I.C.A. at 10 p.m. for $5.

And lastly, two gentle Toronto bands of the indie pop variety will be slaying the Rudolf Rocker this Sunday. The Phonemes and Metal Kites are going to be supported by Ingrid Gatin, and it’s going to be a big good old fuzzy pop time.

San Diego’s Nathan Williams has already run the career gamut from bedroom recording project to freaking out onstage on some heavy drugs–in less than a couple of years yet. However, he’s about to make his third album, King of the Beach, a cleaned-up production-wise album, and he’s recruited Jay Reatard’s rhythm section. (What makes it stranger and more socially awkward is that they joined Wavves before Reatard died at age 29.) So here, in all of its streaming glory, is “Post Acid,” the first track from the album.

Imho, it sounds dangerously close to Sum 41. And, as a side note–this single is on Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound imprint which has a ton of indie artists on it.

After interviewing the two core members of YACHT about fringe religions, the abstract (yet identifiable) meaning of triangles, and the punk rock nature of creating your own symbols, I left the Pyramid to meet up with friends, and came back well in time to catch locals Not Animals play to a mostly-seated crowd.

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Hey Winnipeggers, has this warm weather got you riled up? Nowhere to take yr aggression out on a Tuesday? Well don’t forget that the unparalleled cultural experience that is Tel Aviv’s  Monotonix will be playing at the Pyramid Cabaret tonight. The three-piece have been banned from most venues in their home country of Israel so they took to the road a couple years ago so us hedonistic North Americans can partake in their rampage.
Eh, whatever, just check out this video of them playing the Pyramid last year:

Winnipeg duo War Elephant will be opening up the early show (no srsly, the poster says doors at 8 p.m.) with their merciless crunch of bass/drum noise rock. Here’s a video of them jamming in Wigtads‘ space.

WHERE: Pyramid Cabaret
WHEN: TONIGHTTTTTTTT
TICKETS: $18 ahead at Soul Survivors and $20 at the door