The Machines Will Take Over @ The Railway (Featherstone)
By Lucy Johnson
First impressions of Featherstone's The Railway? Normal pub... ominous looking equipment lying around... scarily empty. Ah. Possibly because we're in the wrong bit. We scuttle outside to the other section and, after the obligatory time voluntarily spent nattering outside in the freezing cold, we ascend a long flight of stairs and find ourselves in what looks (and sounds) like a cross between a school disco with decent music and one of those American type bottle-bars where Lynard Skynard cut their teeth live, the kind that goes on till 6am.
Tonight is the second Rocked Out night, conceived after Rich spotted the potential of this room as somewhere for live music. In its time it has probably served as anything and everything from a wedding reception room to a school disco and from jumble sales to AA meetings. And it has the coloured lights to show for it.
First up is Kate Is Cool, borrowing two members of Dragonflies Draw Flame tonight, due to the lack of friendly vibes in the old line-up. All has hopefully been resolved by the recruiting of a much better drummer. (DDF is a band I've only heard in MP3s to date... think Lyca Sleep with a tune. That's meant to be a compliment, by the way).
Kate is Cool are determinedly unconventional, not that they would put it like that. Frontman Craig sports a rainbow visor complete with flashing LEDs - this is quite disconcerting when his Disney shirt is taken into account. Not the liveliest set I've seen from this lot, but it still managed to lay a few well-aimed kicks into the shuddering, decaying corpses of a genre or two. Lays waste to the strange belief that guitar solos ended in 1991 and recommenced with The Darkness... cool little guitar bits from Robin, (playing a guitar once apparently, incomprehensibly, described as a hedgehog. Still puzzling over this one... eh!? Hedgehog?! What!?), refreshingly free of any cock-rock pretence. (Does anyone else think that Gary Moore's 'Parisienne Walkways' just drips cheese - ugh). Worryingly nervous expression on the face of the borrowed drummer aside, what may safely be described as a "solid set."
Next up, Samskara. On first glance, the guitarist looks like he could slot into the line-up of any NME-praised band without looking in the least bit out of place. On second, he's much better off where he is. At this point I was recruited to watch the door while the previous incumbent dashed to the front for Samskara's set. Thankfully, he pointed out that the windowsill made a handy place to stand and watch bands from. At the start of one song they announced they'd only just worked out that it was at least seven minutes in length. All I can say is, if it really was that long, I wouldn't have minded a few minutes more.
Previously I'd only heard a fairly dodgy demo of theirs - a good song played by a good band, but with the bits that make it worth listening to and distinguishable from the latest Busted offering not entirely present and correct. If you have their MP3 and didn't think much to it... you have to see them live! Bluesy, funky indie-tinged rock'n'roll. I didn't think they made 'em like that any more... if I was the manager of this band I'd be trying damn hard to make sure the NME don't get their grubby mitts on them. Top marks as well for the improvised capo.
Third band of the night... second to last (dodgy pun there, explanation later) are The Storytellers. Described by someone as "sweet and rocking indie, similar to Coldplay" (a description I found positively offensive at the time due to the mention of Coldplay in the same sentence) I can't think of a much better way to sum them up.
The bass player is due an apology from me I think... amongst other things I had formed the impression from somewhere that he wasn't particularly good (although not as bad as that legendary bassist who played with little numbered pieces of paper stuck on his fretboard). Anyway, I was wrong. At one point, his bass part was reminiscent of the gorgeous slide-guitar part on the last track of The Joshua Tree. In a non-"listening to last night and accidentally got stuck in my head, and from there into the supposedly original music we just wrote" kind of way.
I don't think I've ever heard a below par set from The Storytellers but every time I've seen them I fervently wish that someone would tell the singer he's great more often or slip him some sort of tablet to help him relax on stage. Drummer sounding very good, but he probably always sounds good and I just don't notice.
All credit to the guys, they kept playing without keeling over with laughter when pint-size Kate is Cool frontman Craig Nunn attacked me with gaffer tape and tied me up pretty thoroughly. This was probably because I commented that I liked the Rasmus' 'In The Shadows' but I may also have said once or twice that Craig was a fascist. Although come to think of it, it was probably less distracting than me constantly looking behind me scanning for frontmen brandishing rolls of gaffer tape.
I felt a bit like that scene in the Borrowers where there's one guy being wrapped up by all these teeny little people running round. I sincerely hope there are no photographs, I look bad enough in normal pictures. Thank you to Charlie, Francine and everyone for untangling me.
* This bit has even less relevance than the previous - the taller of the two Storyteller guitarists brought out one of those f-hole semi-acoustic Gibson type guitars. This was quite a strange coincidence because I had been reading a very old (c.1967) guitar instruction book earlier, which described the type as "Cello guitars, found in Dance Bands, Pop and Jazz Groups." Random use of capital letters aside, they're not normally called cello guitars are they? :-S *
Last band of the night, The Machines Will Take Over (formerly known as Pillbox) on the last night of their tour with Second To Last (see crap punnage earlier. Second To Last are first and foremost, great. Then they're loud. Absolutely fantastic when I saw them this Tuesday in ye olde Counting House in Pontefract, playing with TMWTO and Seed). The Machines Will Take Over are early 90's emo styley (or so I'm told) with echoes of And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots (again, or so I've been told) with spot-on drumming, angular guitar fragments and a charismatic bass player (worked that bit out for myself.) Definitely worth going to see, although it has to be said their EP comes closest to capturing their sound live than any others I've heard recently.
Speaking of EPs, the Kate is Cool CD joins a list of records I own that are worth buying for the liner notes alone (now there's two of them). I know I shouldn't find it funny but I do.
Another average "pontemusic" night then. (Pontemusic - noun: music originating from, conceived or generally performed in ye olde historic market town of Pontefract). Top bands, strange location and stranger happenings. (I'm still thanking my lucky stars that the water-soaked effects box didn't explode at any point; and thank you to the barman who gamely agreed to my bizarre request).
PS. any suggestions how I can get a little bit of revenge on Craig more than welcome.
