Riley Brandt

What happened to Baby Jane? She started a twisted garage band.

Has the bleakness of February left you feeling a little stir-crazy? You’re not the only one. With nothing to do but toil away indoors, indulging the darkness in the dustiest corners of their minds, the members of new scorching goth-rock band Whatever Happened to Baby Jane are crawling out of the garage this month. The four-piece has channelled its acute cabin fever into scuzzy, fuzzy, animalistic rock ’n’ roll, with a craving for the crass. Snagging members from various minor-key weirdo-rock bands such as Bikeland and Beija Flor, the band is using twisted garage-pop experimentation to get into the nightmare hearts of audiences all over town.

“Our band has a concept, but it’s not very high,” keyboardist Boo Drella warns. “We just like really perverted things. Most of our songs are about sex and bodily fluids. It’s the grossest band that you don’t realize is gross. Because it sounds more subversive, I suppose.”

“I’ve been told that it’s dancey,” adds guitarist and vocalist Butter Repkon.

Though the group wouldn’t divulge the details of its next show, it assured me in a very creepy away that it will again slither into view at the end of March, and get into full attack mode going in the following weeks. Watch the gutters for more details, or check out the band’s MySpace page: myspace.com/deathtobabyjane.

Continuing with our showcase of the disturbed and possibly psychotic, Weeds Café will host an evening of confrontational noise and avant-garde performances on Wednesday, March 10, with Bug Incision, tape-hiss worshippers Ultra Bon Bon, NSE trio and a solo performance from Incision member Chris Dadge. Unexpected corners in sound will be turned, to be sure.

Also on March 10, affairs will combine the dark and aggressive with the contemplative and the psychedelic at the House of Commons, with a stacked set of performances to support the debut of the Calgary edition of The Hot Cut Review, a magazine that collects art and literature from young unknown artists all over Vancouver and Calgary (with sights set on a Montreal edition in the near future). Azeda Booth side-project Free Nude Celebs will play, along with agro-noise act Bomber, the cathartic dream-pop of Bank of Canada member James Cochrane, Foon of Foonyap & the Roar, Nicholas Field and Poor Man’s Fantasy.

If you’d already spent enough time contemplating infinity and reading Beaudelaire in February and need something a little more uplifting, yet another large-scale event on Wednesday March 10 may satisfy: Some of Calgary’s better-known artists are joining forces at the Jack Singer Concert Hall to try to help those in much darker circumstances, namely the victims of the massive earthquake in Haiti. The Dudes, Corb Lund, Kris Demeanor (backed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra), Woodpigeon, Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, The Polyjesters and Denise Clarke will all contribute to aiding Le Foyer de Filles Chretiennes Orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Tickets are $25 at Epcor Centre’s website: tickets.epcorcentre.org.

March will also see local arts and entertainment collective The Modern Leisure host the last in a three-year line of utterly unbelievable spectacles, the eighth edition of The Factory Party, hosted by the Marquee Room and the Uptown Theatre. In addition to the wild array of art and performance pieces that will adorn the independent theatre, party-goers can expect a full evening of explosive rock ’n’ roll from a troupe of newcomers to the scene, including Manchild, the Poly Shores, Double Fuzz and Napoleon Skywalker. Edmonton’s The Famines and Whitsundays will be there to keep the fever high, and all will be topped off by the royal psych-rock freak-out that is L.A.’s Warpaint. A memorable close to an intense run of events by The Modern Leisure.

And, though you may have caught wind of three-piece lo-fi dreamers Friendo and its upcoming performance at the Plaza Theatre as part of the Market Collective’s Musical Chairs in our cover story, you can catch them again at the Hifi on March 20 with rhythmic avant-pop five piece Axis of Conversation.