02/07/04 @ Annandale Hotel
Machine Translations
Red Sun Band
Disaster Plan
If music was edible, this would be a toffee apple. Cheap as chips, sweet, fun, not branded or otherwise advertised, and should be more popular than it is right now. And red on the outside while it�s really a green granny smith apple. It�s just ever so slightly off centre, kooky, smart, unpredictable and subversive in a cute way.
It�s been so long between outings, you all probably thought I had quit live music. First time rocking up to the Annandale Hotel, had a slight reconnaissance failure and got off the bus too early. The bus driver was no help. Never did like buses. By the time I got there, the crowd was unexpectedly healthy for the end of the opening set from Disaster Plan. A large group, if my frail memory serves me correctly, I believe there were around six or seven people on stage with keyboards, drums, and an excessive amount of guitars. The four or five songs I caught sounded reasonably interesting. Guess when there�s so many people involved, it may be difficult to get boring. Special mention for the song �when the cows come home�. Finishing the set with a song about staying on stage for too long? Cheeky.
Next, a band that�s been brewing some underground hype, the Red Sun Band. Two girls & a guy on keyboards, drums, guitar and tambourine. Lots of tambourine work on here tonight, and even more fuzzed out guitars from this band. The singer drew comments from the crowd like �is she another [Katy] Steele or what?� for she does more of that Kate Bush style vocals, and what we do see of her does resemble Steele a bit. Some slow and very moody stuff in this set. Throughout it all, the singer never looked up at us, her face mostly obscured by her long hair, not unlike a certain character from a Japanese horror movie. One of the harder songs of their set was the single called �sleep forever�, so that may give an indication of how slow most of the set was. But I loved it. Maybe I was just fascinated by the singer, or her fuzzed up guitar work. Or all that tambourine action. I�ll give a more definite answer after seeing them again, no doubt sooner rather than later.
Machine Translations. Once upon a time it may have been a one man band, but tonight it is represented by main man J Walker on guitar, plus keyboard player, drummer, second guitar, bass, and everybody had a shaker of some description. The downside to a large, cheap and cheerful crowd is they can be too cheerful by themselves and there was a bit too much shouting and laughing from the crowd throughout the set for my liking. But then again, a normal punter would just call it atmosphere. There weren�t any layering electronics in the live incarnation of Machine Translations tonight. But just when I thought they had settled down into a safe pop/rock rut, a cowbell would ring and they�d change tack on ya. Cowbells and shakers. Whenever they came out to play, everything was looking good. The set swayed and drifted from slow moody near-instrumentals to funky strutting numbers, with some quality pop songs somewhere in between. Deserves better recognition, and I�d say from a more respectful crowd too. Oh, didn�t I tell you I was an uptight, pedantic music nut? Well now you know. He promised more shows soon and I look forward to being there was well.
Don�t know much about Disaster Plan, but the people who caught more of it had some very good things to say about them. Red Sun Band was very intriguing, and Machine Translations did a solid job. For $12 entry fee, this was better than what I had any right to expect.
Then I had to catch a taxi to the train station because the uptight bus driver wouldn�t stop even though we were within sight of the bus stop. Never did like buses. Public transport in this city is so lame.