Another live ‘threesome’ night out … with Alan Dearling
This was a mad, frolicsome night. Rammed venue and an extremely eclectic musical mix. If this was fifty years ago it would have been dubbed, ‘Variety Night’!
Autocamper were up first. Young, keen to plough their own personal musical furrows. They looked as though they enjoy working together, and each member of the Autocamper ‘team’ contributed to the overall jangling soundtrack that they made sound just a bit off-kilter, but nicely so. Three of the band took turns on vocals, not just frontman Jack on guitar. Collectively, this added to the spicy ‘variety’. Niamh’s xylophone provided a hypnotic tubular bells-type edge to the proceedings. I thought that the drummer’s vocal was particularly individual. Overall, a modern take on the garage band with an added little bit of Byrds-like psychedelia.
From their FB page it tells us: “introducing… YOU LOOK FABULOUS! our debut cassette release! featuring ‘bonfire night’, ‘never end’ and a cassette only exclusive ‘Ken Hom’ recorded by John Harkins at the mill in Plungington and put out by discontinuous innovation inc!”
They didn’t seem to have any cassettes left. A shame for them, they might have sold a few.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/automaticcamperband/
The Furrowed Brow
I own up. I had been watching the vids of The Furrowed Brow quite a lot in advance of the gig. They sparked my imagination. “Would I be getting the opportunity to watch a new major band at the beginning of their journey to star-studded Musical Heaven?”
Visually they are very imaginative. A potpourri of Bowie psych Ziggy, androgynous, playful, theatrical. A veritable circus of talent. Strong songs, dodgy, edgy lyrics, inventive performances. Plenty to watch and The Furrowed Brow are real crowd-pleasers. They exude oodles of their own brand of mischievous fun and are obviously enjoying themselves thoroughly on their adventures into post-punk/glam Wonderlands in search of Alice and the White Rabbit! Masses of vital energy. Individual and thoroughly entertaining. Nice mixes of shadows and light. Darkness and Day-Glo. Scuzzy. It’s good to bear witness to some quality catchy pop music. Ear-worms to the fore! They should soon be in the forefront of the new Manchester wave of young bands. Check them out!
https://www.facebook.com/furrowedbrowband
Single: ‘Jill’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIfO1vm6SjI
‘I threw the bathwater out’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OT49iUeS84
Furrowed Brow tell us: “We’ve been working on our next single: OUTDOORS MAN – we’ve cobbled together everything we need to record ourselves properly at Brow Towers so the entire thing – recording, mixing and mastering – is now 100% us. Fear not, we’ve still recorded everything live but it means we’ve also had as much time as we like to chuck in loads of weird and wonderful effects and it’s sounding really fucked up and amazing – just like the good Lord intended. Release date looking to be mid- June.”
Blue Orchids have been around a long, long time. Since 1979 in fact. They originally formed out of the proverbial ashes, when Martin Bramah left the Fall, after playing on the band’s debut album ‘Live at the Witch Trials’. They are often spoken in reverential, hushed tones as Nico’s backing band.
This live performance commenced with Martin complaining about the ‘smoke’ rolling onto the darkened stage and then telling the audience: “You won’t know any of the songs tonight, we are premiering our next album.”
I suspect, or guess, that the Blue Orchids like a bit of organic confrontation. Moody music, moody atmosphere. They claim on their Facebook page: “…we speak with the tongues of men and of angels we have the gift of prophecy and can understand all…”
Here’s what was said about the band in advance of the show: “First conceived in 1979 after he walked out on Mark E Smith, the group has been through many changes. This year’s line-up is a wild mix of psych, post-punk and a strange kind of ‘city-folk’.
Pounding beats, pulsing bass, a maelstrom of melody and discordant lead-breaks, powers this beast that Bramah has created and nurtured through the years.
Follow them down a shady back-alley, if you dare, and watch as they reveal the dark, psychedelic mysteries at the heart of their music. Not to be missed!”
Online I can see that Blue Orchids have been critically acclaimed by some notable music writers. From Wikipedia: “The NME’s Barney Hoskyns commented about them, “There is an economy of love and yearning in every chord, vocal or instrumental that breaks from the aching heart of the Blue Orchids’ sound” while the writer Paul Morley, reviewing their second single ‘Work’ said, ‘They rave but they are not mad’.”
‘Lucky Speaks’ (2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvgU3unB5T8
‘What thing is man?’ (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FzA4y1yzaA