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the animalhouse @ the garage

"Have you seen these before?" I was asked by a member of the audience. I replied in the negative and he said: "No, me neither. I saw them on TFI the other day, but I'm only really here because of Ride. I got into Hurricane#1 and then discovered Ride and now I'm here." And something along those lines was probably true for the majority of the crowd. Although the Animalhouse are gaining a bit of a reputation for themselves, I think it's fair to say that many people are going to their gigs out of curiosity ö to see if the shorn Mark Gardener and fellow ex-Ride man Loz Colbert could do any better than Andy Bell did with Hurricane.

Now, the NME have taken a disliking to the Animalhouse, describing them as "one of the worst live bands NME has seen for some time" and "an unwelcome reminder of what Ride were not all those years ago". Which, in my experience, probably means that they'll be fucking excellent. And I've noticed something, a number of the better bands have songs named after them ö Big Yoga Muffin, Penumbra· - and the Animalhouse have got one and a half, 'Animal House' and 'Animal'. They're a kind of supergroup ö you've got Mark and Loz and you've also got Sam Williams, producer of the early Supergrass stuff, and you've got Jason King, who's played with a number of acts including Idha Ovelius, Andy Bell's wife. It all gets a bit confusing; I think it's probably best to forget about the past and think of them as an entity separate from their previous incarnations. They've got a female bass player too, Hari, which is always good.

Despite what's being said about them, they've certainly pulled in quite a sizable crowd tonight, and there's a real buzz of excitement flowing through the place. They come on stage, with Sam and Mark taking up position at the front, and go almost immediately into their set. The opener is 'Ready To Receive', the current single, which goes down a treat. It's a nice and lively track to begin a set with, hinting at what is to come throughout the show.

Their music at times is very rock 'n roll, at times it's kinda funk-ridden, at times there's an element of psychedelia, at times it's quite heavy, at times it's almost understated ö as you can see, their style is that they haven't really got one. One common thread though is the fact that Mark and Sam always sing the songs together, not sharing the vocals as such, but doing it together, in vocal harmony. Jason, on the Moog, provides us with splashes of noise and lots of portamento keyboard parts, but he's not restricted to just doing that. He also throws in a few really chunky organ lines and some Stone's piano.

The crowd are loving every moment of it, it's been a while since I've seen such an enthralled audience ö they're lapping it up and rightly so. The show is almost spectacular ö they sing and play with such enthusiasm you'd think they were all just starting out. One look at Mark and Sam though and you can't help but snigger ö they just look too old. So they can't sing about teen-angst anymore, but that's okay because their music is bright enough to carry them through. They've got quite a few decent songs in their repertoire and I've a feeling that they'll make a good go of it. The hordes of Ride fans that are still lurking around will see to it that a few records will be sold, but as for the long term? Who can say? Certain areas of the press don't think that they are strong enough to survive, but in the weird world of the music industry, it can take just the littlest thing to ignite something massive. Watch this space.

Nick (UK)

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