The Motorettes / Brady Cole

According to Thomas Carlyle, isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man, and tonight I think The Motorettes would have been rather inclined to agree with him.

Glasgow’s newest music venue ‘Classic Grand’ (it’s not as classy as it sounds, don’t worry) was playing host to a night dubbed ‘Tramps with amps’ (that’s exactly as classy as it sounds, you have every right to worry).

Lets get things straight – Classic Grand was never going to be another King Tut’s. For starters, it shares a wall with a McDonalds, and the only thing grand about that is the size of the customers’ waistline. Secondly, two security guards rather uninvitingly block the entrance to the venue – and before I walked in I gave my scruffy trainers the once over just in case I didn’t quite meet the dress code.

Once inside though, it’s pleasantly surprising as a gig venue. It looks rather like you’d expect the inside of a 70’s juxebox to look, colourful art deco meets unlikely dated upholstery. It certain does look a little more swish than Glasgow’s Barfly, for example.

Chants of what I thought was “Bog Roll, Bog Roll!” were quelled when Brady Cole came on stage. Looking like scraggy rejects from an Oasis look-a-like competition, the frivolous Fife four-piece (try saying that after one too many) had already built up quite a following, most probably off the back of a support slot with Foo Fighters at the SECC.

Most* of the time it works. Gallagherish acoustic strumming is met with a rather pleasing lead guitar accompaniment, both set against classic rock star vocals – you know, slightly off key. There are more similarities to pre – 2000 music than there are to today’s trends, and Brady Cole seem to have managed to nail a merger of British and American styles for their sound.

While half of their material is laden with over blown Black Crowes style guitar riffs and macho Ramones singing, the other half is borrowing quite unashamedly from Britpop’s finest. Musically they are pretty tight, while vocally the harmonies struggle a little and as time wears on it becomes all the more apparent that the band don’t sound that great when they all sing together. That aside, the crowd of dedicated followers loved it.

What I couldn’t help noticing was that everyone was a little too dressed up for a gig. Where were the scruffy indie shirts? The ripped jeans? The ‘I just woke up and fell into a gig’ hairstyles? Instead we have Glasgow’s premiere fashion icons, even the scarily over enthusiastic drunken girl in the green top who had been dancing by herself all night was dressed up.

As soon as Brady Cole left the stage to more ecstatic bog roll cheers an atomic bomb was dropped. Well it might as well have been. The crowd began to vacate the venue in droves, quite obviously on their way to one of the cities other nightclubs, until there were a but a few confused onlookers left.



Matters were made even worse when The Motorettes ambled on stage a good 35 minutes late. The venue was pretty much deserted by this time and you couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for the miffed Northerners, even the drunk girl in the green top had buggered off. The only thing I can quite liken it to is when I saw Tokyo Dragons forced to play to a room of just roadies in the Glasgow Garage a few years back.

Motorettes open a little awkwardly; dodgy sound problems and no spectators aren’t exactly the best way to kick off a gig. The feedback problem is sorted by carting off a couple of the bands amps and for a split second I thought they were going to call it a day.

Simple, loud Rock n Roll is what The Motorettes excel in. Mindless power chord bashing is a given, but it’s hard to believe that the band are from Tynemouth when their style and sound is so American.

Unfortunately for the band this is great music for a crowded room, but I’m standing against the back wall and the only person standing between me and the band is the guy cleaning the rubbish off the floor. To give credit where credits due, the band carried on regardless.

‘Super Heartbeats’ sounds a bit like The Automatic crossed with Andrew W.K. Heavy, dumb, rock thrashing music you could stick on at an American high school party and get everyone dancing to. It’s certainly a feel good song, ready to make you punch the air in time with the pounding bass. Great stuff.

New single ‘I am Blisters, I am’ borrows a little from neighbouring band ‘The Futureheads’, with the same strange broken vocals. The live version is a lot more stripped down, omitting that peculiar strangled cat sound effect that they have on the recorded version. It lacks the same vitality as much of their other material and gets lost behind a wall of sound, certainly not one of their better tracks.

That distinctive wall of sound is definitely something that relegates their music to sub standard. Stylistically, it’s music similar to Burning Brides and The Ramones, but without such a gritty feel. Instead the band is left with a more sanitised feel, evoking memories of classic 60’s surf groups.


Apart from the lead singers super retro cool flying V guitar they don’t really look the part. The bassist could easily have slotted into any number of emo bands while the drummer would probably have been more suited to an art rock band, think Franz Ferdinand.

The over 18’s tag certainly hadn’t helped tonight either, most of the kiddies who would have probably loved a little bit of live music were all stood outside rock club The Cathouse, queuing in the cold with glum expressions and eyeliner down to their jaw line.

The Motorettes left stage to a few sympathetic handclaps. It certainly wasn’t their fault, while the band was far from awe inspiring such a lacklustre turn out really ruined the gig. A shame as the venue was pretty good too.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.