Mancunian Blues
Created | Updated May 18, 2006
Music At Last
I went to watch a couple of bands the other week. And since I started
this column to report on unsigned bands, I thought this would be a
good place to talk about them. Since I am stuck in Essex, I wandered
into the Great Cesspool, Whitechapel to be precise, to see four bands
at the intriguingly titled, 'Let Them Eat Gak' night.
The highlight of the evening was the compere, who used his two major
attributes - enthusiasm and a massive amount of alcohol in his blood -
to great effect at rousing the ground and building up the bands. Whether the DJ was purposely on a different wavelength was questionable, but CDs playing over announcements and being AWOL during changeovers gave a nice chaotic feel to the evening. I even got time to play one of my favourite pastimes, the Sound-tech - He or She game.
First on were Moocher, reasonably entertaining indie-rock, dressed in the traditional beanie hat and grungy pastel colours, these ticked every box of the 'we are indie boys' checklist, and even had one or two songs with decent single potential.
Cop on the Edge were an eclectic four piece. The two singers swapped guitar and bass a number of times during the set. The drummer did have the look of an old trap that they picked up drinking somewhere down Mile End. Rounding it off was a striking woman on keyboards and
pretend Theremin. The addition of keyboards made Cop on the Edge a cut above your average indie band. Again they were a competent and decent band, but at the moment, that seems to be all it needs to set signed, and having a 'fit bird' on board never hinders.
Hotel Ukraine made a brave attempt to claim the 'worst band name of the night' award. This band featured a rather suspect singer guitarist backed by a decent rhythm section of a bloke on drums and a girl on bass. They were rounded off by another girl on guitar. Their songs made the best out of a limited line-up. While the bassist seemed to be fairly talented, the other girl had the aura of not been confident
enough in her own abilities.
And so onto Big Sur. Personally I was expecting a The Thrills tribute act, you'd have to be very good to have a name that is so strongly linked with another band and get away with it. And there was no way Big Sur were going to get away with anything. The actual musicians were relatively good, it was just that they gave no impression of ever having met the singer before, let alone rehearsed with him. Which may have been a good thing, 'cause if I'd rehearsed with the guy, I would never have willingly got on stage with him. Here we had one of those singers who does a perfect impression of a drunk businessman singing to himself in the gutter late on a Friday night. However hard he sings and waves his arms it doesn't matter 'cause there is no possible way that anybody can make out a single syllable of lyric. He is obviously very proud of his words (almost all unintelligible singers are) but please, just listen to yourself on stage; its just one meaningless blur, punctuated by the sound of people walking out of the door.
Moving to my other topic for this column, Manchester. I have found the perfect advert for Virgin Trains between London and Manchester. It is the M1! Having been unable to get the ticket websites to sell me an
advanced ticket to Manchester, I decided to use the 'Megabus' coach to
get to the Rainy City. The train is timetabled for just over 2 hours,
the coach was set for 4.
After an hour, we were just outside of London. By the time we could
have been in Manchester, the bus had only just passed Milton Keynes.
Traffic jam followed roadworks, and roadworks followed traffic jam.
Fifty miles outside Manchester, the driver got fed up with the
motorways and headed across country. Two hours later, we arrived in
Manchester, five hours after we set off.
And then there was the company. There was either a stag-do or a bit of a rugby tour on the coach, as there were two blokes in dresses and bad make-up. One of there party sat next to me. He was a large Neanderthal with the attitude to personal space that can only come from having spent much of your life in the 2nd row of a scrum. Much of his time was spent leaning over (into) me to look out of the window. It was a shame that, since the window had an advertising sticker over it, you
could not see out of it. After five hours of leaning into me, he still
hadn't caught on. And even worse was opening his mouth, that guy's
breath smelt like his diet was entirely raw meat.
It wasn't the worst coach trip I've been on. The worst was on the way
back from school outdoor pursuits trip, in pouring rain when a girl
was having nightmares and prophesising that we were going to crash at
a certain time and five people would survive. The second was eight
hours back from Edinburgh at night next to a man who insisted on
keeping his legs open so as not to give me any space for the entire
trip.
I took a coach in America for five hours from the Eastern Shore of
Virginia to Philadelphia. The American trip was much better even
though the trip was on an antiquated bus, which at one point turfted
us out for an hour in little more than a bus shelter in a nasty part
of the city of Sailsbury. Even though I had to wait for an hour in
Delaware then get on a coach and stand for an hour to Phili, driving
straight past the airport to which I wanted to go.
The reason that the Carolina Trailways/Greyhound trip was not the
worst coach trip ever was because I knew that there were no better
ways of getting there. In a country that has let its passenger railway
system go to pot, for many places coaches are the only form of public
travel. In England, I knew that I could have been on a train, with
civilised people, which takes half the time.
Its not even as if, in general, coaches are cheaper. A ticket on the
train, bought in advance is £11 from Essex. A coach ticket is £7.50
plus another £10 to get to the coach station.
So be warned, next time, don't take the coach.
Until next time
Love peace and blues
tjm
