The Ottawa Citizen du lieu suivant : Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 82

J4 THE OTTAWA CITIZEN 0nAWACITIZEN.COMENTERTAINMENT SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2009 ISIDE OUT BLUES Lambert defies idle rumours American Idol link doesn't prevent him from building career on his own terms BY SHELLEY FRALIC If there was any question that Adam Lambert stands out as one of the most interesting performers ever to strut through America's flighty pop culture conscience, then you need only chat with him a few minutes for confirmation. Firstly, he just got a new iPhone and he's using it from his hotel room in Portland and he isn't quite sure how it works, so, um, sorry if he accidentally cuts you off. And, secondly, don't think for one second that the hedgehog-haired glam rock sensation who almost won American Idol coming second in last May's finale behind the talented, mild-mannered Kris Allen isn't guiding his own light. Lambert is touring North America as part of the top 10 Idol contestants in American Idols which stops in Hamilton on Aug. 14.

He took season eight by storm with his powerhouse vocals and his flamboyant stage presence, finely tuned from years in musical theatre. The experience, he says, grounded him and while he admits the music industry is different, he quickly puts to rest any suggestion that Idol has wrested control of his artistic ambition. That's always been the knock against the hit reality show, of course, that undiscovered talents such as Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry are manufactured commodities. That they've been plucked from obscurity, signed to contracts and steered to stardom with W- 1 1 H- vVz-r SSE TIM FRASER, NATIONAL POST The Dead Weather, from left, Jack White, Alison Mosshart, Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence, play the Bluesfest Rogers stage at 8 p.m. on July 19.

A new shade of White Canadians have taken most of an infamous name (or two, if you count Donnie and Marie Osmond) to special in an overripe genre. Stuart Derdeyn The Low Anthem play the Subway stage at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday July 18. The Bright Side of Dying Flecton Big Sky (Kelp) Flecton Big Sky really is big a big man, a big swirl of colours, a voice that's big with mournful longing. The Ottawa musician, who by day is known as Miche Jette, starts his second album with the easy sway of She's Out of Sight.

It moves on a vaguely Latin four-note guitar riff, occasionally echoed by blurts from a lazy horn. There are similar delicate moments on the songs Goodbye Drink and Finger Tips. Strummed Out is an ode to a "little banjo" with a relaxed southern reel, and Merle Haggard's Workin' Man Blues gets a slow, sad treatment. (The latter is a bonus track on the vinyl LP. The album is otherwise available only as a digital download, at kelprecords.com or iTunes.) Considered with Flecton's prior disc, Never Took a Wife, the songs show a man of real talent pushing himself in new directions, without letting go of his roots.

Peter Simpson Flecton Big Sky plays the Barney Danson Theatre at 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday. name themselves. Then this whole gaggle of a band, with Tom Wilson, Ray Farrugia, Josh Finlayson, Andy Maize, Michael and Margo Timmins, and Brent Titcomb, not to mention' some help from Colin Linden and Suzie Vinnick, take a few pages from Mark Knopfler and J.J. Cale, to say nothing of the Cowboy Junkies, to create their sound.

To quote Wilson in a recent radio interview, it's Canadian folk music with a bottom end. It has all the pent-up tension that Knopfler and Cale would pack into their low key shuffles, with a little guitar, harmonica, sax, flute, and steel solos just raising their heads above the nearly whispered vocals. The Love of One, for example, based on a syncopated shuffle, has a swampy feel to it as Aaron Goldstein's pedal steel guitar whines throughout. Queen Bee is a driving song while Blade of Grass is an appeal to a woman with lines like, "little shivers that make me blue from the cross you nailed me to." Margo Timmins's exceptional whispered voice comes in on Wilson and Cathy Jones's I'm Going to Stay That Way, while Summer Girl is a gentle hymn to a beautiful woman, and Lou Reed's I Can't Stand It is positively galvanizing as a bright little rocker coming at the end of all this hard folk. This is a folk ensemble from half the bands in Canada, and give a round of applause to the drummer and bassist who give it that great bottom end.

CanwestNews Service Lee Harvey Osmond plays the Hard Rock Cafe stage at 8 p.m. Wednesday Oh My God Charlie Darwin kkkk'A The Low Anthem (Nonesuch) The rerelease of this Rhode Island group should get its rollicking tunes out to many more listeners. Sometimes fragile, sometimes freak out, and able to do with a calliope what some need layers of guitars to accomplish, this group is something more about the beat than the beating. It's like an audible metaphor for White's life, a man who just can't stop driving the music, and sweeping all around him up into the swirl. Horehound goes on sale Tuesday at a record store or download web- page near you.

Peter Simpson The Dead Weather play the Rogers stage at 8p.m., Sunday July 19 Sunny Side Up Paolo Nutini (Atlantic) Scottish-Italian youngster Paolo Nutini's sophomore effort might as well have been called Sunny Side A. On his latest platter which, considering its breezy, blue-eyed soul vibe, would make a great little slice of vinyl the 22-year-old singer offers two very distinct facets of his personality. The first half is the light and carefree Nutini emulating Bob Mar-ley on a reggaefied 1010, showing a loving, tender side on Coming Up Easy, and singing "Nothing's going to bring me down" on the bumping Dixie boogie of Pencil Full of Lead. The second half of Nutini's album is more heartbroken and melancholy, conjuring lost loves (No Other Way), family disappointments (Simple Things), and redemption (Worried Man). Opting to self-produce this album, after working with producer Ken Nelson on 2006's These Streets, Nutini sounds at ease on his own, his uniquely warbled and scratchy voice ringing loud and clear alongside crisp arrangements borrowing from jazz, soul and classic balladry.

Sunny Side Up may not yield as many TV-friendly singles (i.e., New Shoes) as its predecessor, but it's a much stronger and more personal album showing a talent rapidly coming into his own. Francois Marchand Paolo Nutini plays the Subway stage at 9:30 p.m. Friday A Quiet Evil Lee Harvey Osmond (Latent Recordings) Ripping a page out of Marilyn Manson's playbook, some good old CDs END HITS 407 Dalhousie St. l.Ox Coalesce 2. Farm Dinosaur Jr 3.

Octahedron Mars Volta 4. Veckatimest Grizzly Bear 5. Darkest Day Obituary This week's Recordings page is full of reviews of the new and latest releases from performers at this year's Bluesfest. For more Bluesfest CD reviews, see ottawacitizen.com bluesfest. Our regular Recordings format returns next Saturday.

Horehound 'A The Dead Weather (Warner) "Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home, a broken trumpet or a telephone," Jack White sang on Icky Thump, the last White Stripes disc. No broken trumpets or telephones on Horehound, from his new band, the Dead Weather, though one can't be too sure what's involved in those White-ian squalls of sound that habitually burst out of the speakers. The band itself, however, is a rag-and-bone collection that White has gathered around him, with a bass player from his other other band (Jack Lawrence of the Raconteurs via the Greenhornes), a singer picked up on tour last year (Alison Mosshart of the Kills), and a ringer on guitar (Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age and a touring member of the Raconteurs). Then White put aside his own guitar which he has practically redefined in rock 'n' roll in recent years and got himself behind thee drum kit. Go figure.

The new band has shades of all of its base elements, from the Stripes to QOTSA, and in the fine tradition of musical cross-pollination it turns the music into something more. Fer-tita's guitar is reminiscent of White's, raw and perhaps by times more muscular, and with a keen urge to wander. It ranges from the psychedelic, instrumental jam of 3 Birds to the metallic, serrated edges of 60 Feet Tall and I Cut Like a Buffalo, reminiscent of Tom Morello's latter days with Rage Against the Machine. Mosshart has a fine rock voice, like P.J. Harvey after a case of cheap scotch.

It's a seamless fit with White's raspy yelp when they duet on Rocking Horse and elsewhere. White's drumming can mirror the emphatic style of his ex-wife Meg, especially on the drum-and-cymbal jumble that graces the peaks of So Far From Your Weapon but, overall, it has slightly more groove and is BEST-SELLING CDWAREHOUSE 499 Terry Fox 1383 Clyde 1717 St. Laurent Blvd. 1. Wilco (The Album) Wilco 2.

The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) Black Eyed Peas 3. Thriller (25th Ann. Ed) Michael Jackson 4. Cradlesong Rob Thomas 5.

Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison George Harrison the backing of the big Idol machine and franchise creator Simon Fuller's company, 19 Recordings. American Idols Live! features the season's Top 10 performing along with Allen and Lambert are Allison Ira-heta, Anoop Desai, Danny Gokey, Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud, Megan Joy, Michael Sarver and Scott Maclntyre. Lambert says the group, which is travelling to venues on two separate buses, has been in rehearsals for the past month. For Lambert fans, the show will surely recall his memorable over-the-top Idol performances, which ranged from a haunting Mad World to a rocking version of Aero-smith's Cry in' to a show-stopping Ring of Fire. Though he was considered the favourite from the start of the season, his campiness and the rumours about his homosexuality, which he didn't publicly confirm until after the show finished, were said to have scuttled a win, with conservative American Idol voters opting for the more homespun Allen.

Lambert knows there is no question he's an TdoZ oddball and a media magnet, whether he's being touted as Queen's new frontman or taking flak from Gene Simmons of KISS, who said the 27-year-old killed his career by officially outing himself in a June cover story in Rolling Stone. And while Lambert says he's had to sacrifice his personal life (he's dating interior designer Drake LaBry), "I try my hardest to remain cool with it, to have a sense of humour about it." CANWEST NEWS SERVICE VALERIE MACON. GETTY IMAGES Glam rock sensation Adam Lambert stands out as one of U.S. pop culture's most interesting performers. ft- Ratings k-k-k-k-k A classic of the genre Excellent Good Fair If your host puts this on, leave Your CD here Send your CD to culture editor Peter Simpson at: Ottawa Citizen, 1101 Baxter Ottawa, K2C 3M4 E-mail: ottawarocks thecit izen.canwest.com Tell us what's on your MP3 player.

Send your full name, phone number and songs to mytunes a) thecitizen.canwest.com MY TUNES SHONNATUCKER VY' 1. Lost and Lookin Sam Cooke 2. Husbands and Wives Roger Miller 3. Take Time To Know Her Percy Sledge 4. Holiday James McMurtry 5.

Carolyn Merle Haggard 6. Johnny Sunshine Liz Phair 7. I'm In The Mood John Lee Hooker 8. Dreamer Eddie Hinton 9. Elvis Presley Blues Gillian Welch 10.

Ruby Centro-matic Shonna Tucker is in the Driveby Truckers, who play the Subway stage July 18 at 9:15 p.m. For more on Tucker's picks and to hear her sing, see ottawacitizen.combigbeat.