Shrimp, battered and fried

Caught Shrimp's show Saturday night at the Collective Cabaret in Osbourne Village Saturday night. The punk chicks rocketed through their set at full pelvic thrust, middle fingers blazing, deep throats barking out lyrics I'm sure would have been witty and rude if the sound mix had let me hear them. But what the hell's a sound mix got to do with punk? A proper punk band should barely be able to play their instruments. I'll just have to read the liner notes.

Shrimp turned over the still-burning stage to Ted, who poured some crystal-meth-laced gasoline on the flames. Big Trouble in Little China finished the night off with some long-haired head-banging, make-your-eardrums bleed rock and roll. Crowd-pleasers, the lot of them, fun for the whole family.

Had drinks with Jason Lapeyre last week in the Palm Room of the Fort Garry Hotel, which sits blocking the view from my balcony -- or filling the view, depending on your mood. His big piece of advice about social life in Winnipeg was: Go to a show, hang out, find another show.

And that's exactly what we did. Since Winnipeg is currently throwing its annual jazz festival, a number of bars hosting jazz performances have applied for extended drinking hours. Next door to the Collective is the Cavern, styled (so I was told) after the Cavern Club in which the Beatles got their start. It was was open until 3:30 or so to accomodate a ska band that was playing but who's name I didn't catch (no, they weren't jazz, but they had a horn section). After the show, the rag-tag lot of us ended up at Arlea and her boyfriend Mike's apartment, hungry enough to get Mike to fire up the barbeque to warm up some shrimp and perogies, but tired enough so that by 4:30 a.m. when the food was ready actually all we wanted to do was go home and sleep. I finally crawled under my sheets at 5, as the sun was rising and my hearing was finally coming back.