Issue 44 / May 2014

14
Bido Lito! May 2014
A Day In The Life Of… The Part
Time Heliocentric Cosmo
Drama After School Club
When audio innovators Graham Massey and Paddy Steer
come together sparks tend to fly. Having locked horns several
times in the past, recently they have found common ground
in their mutual admiration of Sun Ra. Ahead of their new
project’s performance at this year’s Threshold Festival, we
sent Alastair Dunn and Keith Ainsworth along to spend the
day with the team – band members and promoters alike
– to soak up the essence of this special collaboration.
Saturday 29th March 2014
It is fortuitous and perhaps appropriate that on this Saturday
afternoon, the second day of Liverpool's annual Threshold
Festival, the sun god is beaming down on the Baltic Triangle,
setting the stage for tonight's performance from THE PART TIME
HELIOCENTRIC COSMO DRAMA AFTER SCHOOL CLUB (SATURN,
LANCASHIRE DIVISION). The Manchester-based eleven-piece band
have travelled to Threshold for what will be only their fourth
outing (in various forms), but before this can happen there is
much to be done.
1.30pm
To kick off proceedings, Paddy Steer, Graham Massey and
Richard Harrison – all members of the After School Club – are to
give a talk in Unit 51. As they make their way into the building they
are greeted by the sight of a man in a lemon-coloured cardboard
suit and a town crier in full garb. It is fitting, then, given the
overriding aesthetic of the festival, that the talk will
concern DIY music and its place in the digital age.
This talk lasts for over an hour, with the main
focus on the three musicians' careers to date,
and their general musical ethos: namely,
collaboration and commitment. It is clear
that these ideas have laid the foundations
for their work with the After School Club,
as Paddy Steer goes on to note: “Success is
putting ideas together with different people.
We are paying homage to Sun Ra because
of his dedication to music. He had to carry it
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through the ups and the downs, but he never lost
sight of his vision.”
The creation of the group can be traced back to
last August when Steer was asked to perform at a
Sun Ra tribute night at The Kazimier. The event was
the brainchild of promoters A Culture Less Ordinary
– run by Rory Mason and Ken Clarke, otherwise
known as Rebel Soul and Audio Voyeur – and named
Space Is The Place after the film of the same name.
The group's origins, however, stretch much further
back. Graham Massey explains: “Some of us in this
band have been playing music together since the 1970s.
There's a community of musicians in Manchester that have
dipped in and out and some of us have a long thread.”
Precisely where this long and knotted thread begins
is very difficult to pinpoint, given the richly diverse
careers of some of the After School Club’s
members. Graham Massey’s first project, Biting
Tongues, was signed to Factory Records before
he founded acid house outfit 808 State. His
musical career has seen him cross paths
with a variety of musicians across the world,
including Björk, with whom he worked for
two tracks that ended up on her 1995 album
Post. Leading an equally eclectic musical life,
Paddy Steer is one of the original members of
electronica outfit Homelife and has been one of the
stalwarts of Manchester’s revolving-door music scene of
improvisers, of which Richard Harrison was also an exceptionally
active member. Having all started their careers in the late-70s, all
three have amassed massively diverse contact books and CVs by
retaining an appetite for creativity that is perhaps stronger today
than it has ever been.
4.35pm
The evolution of this particular incarnation of their work
together has been very much a collaborative experience. Though
several of the members have known each other for over thirty
years, one of the things I notice, as the band assemble for a
soundcheck after the talk, is the diverse range of ages within the
band. Nathaniel Mason, a 21-year-old who plays alto sax, explains
how the generational gap was breached. “I was playing in a blues
band in Manchester, and I went to see Paddy Steer play. The next
day I told my bandmates how good he was, and it
turned out that one of the members was his
son. It all kind of led from there.”
The other noticeable thing about the
group, now in the midst of setting
up onstage at 24 Kitchen Street, is
the sheer variety of instruments
on stage. With two drum kits,
several synths and enough brass
to satisfy John Williams, it is no
wonder that the soundcheck is
proving a rather complex affair.
Amidst the noise and general
confusion, Paddy Steer emerges as an
impromptu orchestrator, positioning mics and turning his ear to each
instrument individually. With the whole crew now assembled, the
glistening horn section and rhythmic bass undertones begin to fall
in with each other, and create a rich, sonic tapestry that reverberates
gleefully around the stone-walled room. It is the foreshadowing of
what promises to be a pretty special evening.
With a couple of hours to kill before the show, the members
head in different directions. Some walk the short distance to The
Baltic Social bar and others are content to hang around backstage,
attempting to dampen those pre-show nerves. Based on the
soundcheck there should be no reason for anxiety, and Howard
Walmsley (Tenor Sax) offers further re-assurance by reminding them
of Sun Ra Arkestra leader Marshall Allen's congratulatory tweet
following their recent BBC 6 Music performance.
7.30pm
As gig time approaches the band reassemble
to witness Richard Harrison's
main project Spaceheads perform.
Both intriguing and impressive, the set
seems to have a stimulating effect on
the other members of the band, and
Nathaniel's sentiments echo those of
most musicians. “I just hate waiting to
play.” As the final strains of the next act,
The Harlequin Dynamite Marching Band, drift
from the PA, Massey and co. head backstage to
don their elaborate home-made costumes.
With the venue now swollen to near capacity, forcing some
on-lookers to climb onto tables for a better view, The Part
Time Heliocentric Cosmo Drama After School Club emerge, to
the delight of every photographer present, as a glittering and
colourful apparition. As the crowd throbs with anticipation the
horns begin to drone: at first it is hard to decipher any pattern
in the sound, but as the decibels ascend, so Steer's underlying
bass synth notes rise to meet them. The phrase spirals around
the room, gaining momentum through its repetition, and before
long the two drummers are in full flow. The audience, at first not
knowing what to expect, are now fully enthralled and dancing
joyously along to this freakish, cosmic ensemble of noise.
It is a magnificent sight to witness such a large group of musicians
come together as one entity. Though they have no background in jazz
(as stressed to me by several members of the band), there is clearly
a deep understanding of the music among the group. The reaction
in the room is ecstatic. Through the musical performance the group
have certainly done justice to the legacy of Sun Ra, managing to
remain faithful to the original material whilst also introducing their
own influence. But the true impact of this collective lies beyond
the musicians’ skittering melodies and outlandish outfits: scanning
the room you can see so many people basking in the majesty of
the performance, joy mixed with satisfaction at realising an artistic
vision. Music can often be a solitary journey: tonight’s happening
shows what can be achieved when the shackles of preconceptions
are thrown off and artists pull together as one. Never has an afterschool
club been so appealing.
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