Polytechnic / The Answering Machine / Otra Mano

It’s another of Channel M’s Thursday night showcases at Live 235; the most odd venue to be hosting the cream of Manchester based indie talent and their fans. They have to walk though roulette, black jack and all manner of bright blinking machines before finding the cosy room tucked away at the back.

Tonight’s bill features two of the most hotly tipped – The Answering Machine and Polytechnic, but first up are Otra Mano.

Their overt nodding and winking towards 70’s America MOR would be fine if The Feeling hadn’t beaten them to it first. Granted, frontman Don Vega (real name – Gareth!) is a million per cent less twee than Dan Gillespie Sells (real name - Dan Gillespie Sells!), but his piano led songs certainly wouldn’t be out of place on their bill.

Songs like ‘Circles’ and ‘In Love For the First Time’ all show a broad knowledge of how a song works, cleverly incorporating all the elements for a crowd pleasing show, like potential clap-a-long moments that could be extended to suit an audience’s patience. All tunes would sound just fine on daytime radio, but success would now come with endless comparisons and coat-tail riding references. They need an edge to differentiate themselves from Gillespie Sells’ band, which only showed in ‘King of the Street’ – a song about ASBOs. In summary then, pretty good if you like that sort of thing.

Martin and Pat, guitarists with The Answering Machine are dressed as though they have come to the gig straight from school and are so fresh faced it’s a perfectly plausible scenario. Luckily Gemma, bassist of the trio, is not required to wear the skinny tie uniform and is allowed to look a little more grown up.

I can picture you all beginning to count on your fingers as I type, so to save you the trouble I can confirm that yes, it is true, The Answering Machine has no drummer. The beat is instead made by their drum machine, known as Mustapha Beat. Mustapha is so popular with fans he even has his own myspace page, but there is much indignation among the purists wherever they play.

Things are getting a little more serious for the band now – a glimpse at their home page shows that they are no longer doing their own bookings or publicity – and it seems as though the fact that this is now a job rather than a hobby could be getting to them. Previously they’ve played with abandon, intent purely on enjoying themselves, but on this occasion they seem a little on edge, Martin’s voice barely registering whilst Pat stares vacantly, swaying with his instrument like a naughty boy sent to the headmaster rather than throwing any rawk n roll moves. Only Gemma appears to escape the nerves, her bass pumping the heart of the band throughout.

The band were formed over a mutual love of The Strokes’ ‘Is This It’ and that record’s influence is all pervading in the guitar sound straight from the starter’s gun that is ‘Oh Christina’, a track that recently caught the attention of Top Shop and formed part of a recent podcast for the store. But on the whole the performance is workmanlike, although ‘Oklahoma’ is a clear bright spot and is still among the most glorious tracks produced in 2006.

‘Pep’ by Polytechnic might also fall into that category having come out in Spring 2006 to great local acclaim, although seemingly without a fanfare outside the Manchester metropolis. Then they disappeared to finish off the album that comes out next month and most recently supported Keane on their arena tour.

Their opening is attention grabbing, all clean guitar and whiny vocal Clap Your Hands Say Yeah style with a simple two word chorus of ‘Man Overboard’. Unfortunately, the formula rarely changes throughout and whilst the songs are all decent, and more than competently played there is very little to stand it out from other similar bands. Stand out performers are the bassist Yuri and drummer Tim, the former for being quite simply excellent at his job, the latter for being the only member expressing any energy and enjoyment, flailing his arms around Animal style.

Polytechnic might have all the tunes that a band may need to succeed, but through singer Dylan they express very little personality and the crowd noticeably dwindles while they play. They need something to grab the attention and keep it – it appears even the cameraman’s thoughts drifted elsewhere during their stage time as they are called back upon finishing to re-perform a couple of tracks that hadn’t been captured correctly.

------------------------------------- You can make up your own mind on this gig by tuning into Channel M at 10:30pm on Saturday, Channel 203 on Sky or 878 on NTL.

FUTURE GIGS

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