Unsigned Rock Podcast

I got Ambershift played last week on the show, and much like when I got From Motion to Memory played back in May, I figured that since they’re a local band, I may as well catch them live! Kieron, the band’s manager, was quite keen to look at getting an interview recorded (in the kitchen in the end…), and a few live tracks were recorded too. They’ll be coming out in a special podcast later on today or tomorrow.

Bar Pure is one of those venues that if you’re a north-east band, you have to play at. Dunno why really. I’d never been there before to be honest as I’m not really a fan of the Sunderland venues, and this just re-inforced my attitude! The sound system was terrible which made the vocals very muddy - annoying when Ambershift really were awesome! This was no fault of Ambershift, as all their gear over-powered the poor PA anyways!

They knocked out a 10-track set in half an hour, a mix of some older tracks and a few new tracks from their latest album (launch party Friday 25th August at The Cluny, Newcastle), and it was all very well received. I can see why Ambershift have played so many gigs recently and have more lined up - Kieron doesn’t really take no for an answer, and the guys obviously have a big following. Quite a few people last night had come in from checking out the guys on MySpace, and quite a good portion of the crowd weren’t exactly Ambershift gig virgins - that’s always a good sign too!

I’ll talk more about the show on the podcast, and even if you were at the gig and so heard most of the tracks that will get played, you need to listen to the interview! Good stuff, and will make you think again about what the guys were wearing (or at least one of them!)! Simply click here to automatically get the podcast through iTunes once I get it recorded, along with the other podcasts I put out too!

These guys were one of the first bands out of the north-east of England I played on the Unsigned Rock Podcast, and by complete co-incidence Simon on guitar/synth is the guy taking over my job as network manager in a few days time!

Anyways, I played ‘Verbal Drive-by’ back on show #4 and now that From Motion to Memory have started gigging, the guys sorted out a couple of tickets to their gig at Head of Steam, Newcastle for me.

Considering this was From Motion to Memory’s second gig (the first only being last week) things went pretty well, and I’d guess almost the whole crowd knew them from MySpace. Sequencer’s went a bit out at times, and timing went a bit off too, but that’s about what you’d expect when coming together playing live at first and it’s something that will always get better over time.

Banter during tracks was good, and the set slowed down nicely to my favourite, ‘Verbal Driveby’, in the middle before building back up again to the end. Not a huge fan of the vocals at times as the heavier side of things where the lyrics become incomprehensible unless you’ve seen them written down just isn’t my thing. Everyone’s different, and there’s a stack of people that will disagree with me on that point and say they really like it - Pete is an excellent front-man, so no disrespect meant!

But, overall a decent 25-30 minute set, and I do like the base sound of From Motion to Memory with the synth’s, drums + guitars/bass working very nicely to create music that does make you want to listen to it. I got the whole set recorded, which was a first for me and Olly their sound engineer, and 3/4 tracks should be usable, so I’m hoping to get out a special podcast tomorrow, along with some (probably crappy!) photos.

For anyone at the gig/missed it/wants to have a listen, add the show feed to iTunes to automatically grab the show when it’s online! If you were there, let me know what you thought too!