incoming: ANKERKITES!
The search has been called off. Finally, a new ‘exciting’ post-rock band have surfaced to save us from the clutches of the local Paramore and Killers rip off.., wait, I won’t even go there.. Samuel Sharp have had the title of ‘best post-post alt. alt. alt. Wigan band’ (sic) crown since like, when, er - Oasis were still together and Arcade Fire were still good.. Time to move on. Ankerkites - at a combined age of about 54, are three young muso hungry students making a racket in a WN bedroom near you. We first set eyes upon them last spring when they played the Tudor. Since, the band have progressed more in their songwriting and confidence, combining quirky upbeat rhythms with emotional melodies and punk riffs; they sound a bit like At The Drive-In if they’d listened to Talking Heads more. The band play The Tudor this Friday and singer/guitarist Luke Geraghty recently caught up with us to discuss all things Ankerkites, Castrovalva and Toy Story 3..
WMC: Ankerkites, hows shittttttt?
Luke: Great, never better.
WMC: Your name, tell us where it came from?
Luke: GCSE English. Poetry anthology. Simon Armitage. Yup.
WMC: Luke, you recently joined NU Dub-Metal Gods Castrovalva on stage for ‘Pump, Pump’, you’d had a few shandys.. How was that?
Luke: Haha way fun. It escalated pretty quickly, I guess people now know that I will do anything if you shout at me loud enough.
WMC: You’re sound is very American influenced, do you think the UK’s post-rock scene is lagging?
Luke: I want to say yes but my finger is of the pulse at the moment, I don’t really know what’s going on. Definitely seems like its died down though, like last year it felt like there was always an awesome gig to go to. All of my favourite England bands keep splitting up! Like Blakfish, Colour, Dartz, Grammatics. Talons , Three Trapped Tigers , Bats , Tall Ships and runwalk are kicking ass at the moment though.
WMC: We believe you’ve just recorded some new tracks?
Luke: Haha no, it went wrong twice, Will of Old Tape Ghost kindly offered to record drums for us, but stuff kept interrupting/not installing/not being compatible so it went out the window and we spent most of the day jamming on his Keetar and Kaoss pad.
WMC: You recently played a show with Future Of The Left, how did it go?
Luke: Fun, although we got put on in the smaller room, which I don’t have a problem with, but the heat was unbearable for some and everyone kind of dispersed when we came on. The promoter was a dude but the Moho security were being ridiculous not letting people in/out because there were to many under 18’s, when it was clearly a 16+ gig.
WMC: Tell us some of you’re major influences?
Frank Zappa, Miles Davies, Brainiac, Dj Shadow , Twilight Zone. My biggest guitar influences are fingerstlye jazz players like Chet Atkins and Tuck Andress. Ive always wanted to take those chord-melody style arrangements and just thrash them out in a gang of four, Fugazi kind of way. Vocally, I like singers with urgency in their voices, so stuff like Forward Russia, At the drive in, early Tubelord. The Old Ankerkites, was boring shreddy metal tunes, which was lame and got old fast, so the Idea for this Ankerkites was to not have any intended sound so I took ideas from stuff like Art Blakely, Battles , Talking Heads, Foals and they all kind of got stuck together when jamming. You might not be able to hear any of those bands in our songs, but the motives are there. All of my lyrics spawn from films by Scorsese, Kubrick, Lynch, Stephen King and Bret Easton Ellis books and daft things we say. I have about 11 notebooks in the draw next to me full of gibberish that will end up in a song.
WMC: Best/worst gig?
Luke: Best: Cherry gardens easily. It just erupted into this big dance-foals-rip of-improv. The regulars didn’t have a clue seeing all these kids just going for it haha
Worst: An 18th. Fancy dress. So we turn up in bathrobes at Wigan Cricket club and there are like 12 people there, half of witch weren’t even in fancy dress. I’m not normally bothered about dead gigs, but I was having gear problems which gets to me.
WMC: Any local bands your digging at the minute?
Luke : Old Tape Ghost for sure. Three Black Dwarfs are mint, Mr Fist, Monster Island were cool last week, that’s it really….
WMC: Review Toy Story 3 in 30 words..
Luke: Rate good.
WMC: You’re playing The Tudor on Friday, and it apparently could be your last show?
Luke: Nah playing Satans hollow day after. Results day determines the future of the band, I’m kinda hoping our drummer fails so we can carry on. Ankerkites has always been my bedroom project with everything done on my mac, and then Jack and Greg are like the Ankerkite band, so If we do move away Ill carry on myself and we will gig when we can.
WMC: What can we expect?
Luke: We are playing Mute for the first time, a Gang of four inspired dance punk jam and a few other intros and outro’s to mix stuff up. Judging by yesterdays practise, this is gonna our most….erm…..Physical gig.
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www.myspace.com/ankerkite
Download ‘Mute’ HERE
Ankerkites play The Tudor this Friday (Friday 20th August) support from Scrubber Fox.
