And So I Watch You From Afar

 

This blog is going to be slightly different from my regular ones. What happens next in my musical journey is very much shaped by my dalliance with one particular band. I want to devote a blog to covering the good times I spent with And So I Watch You From Afar. To this day, ASIWYFA remain one of my favourite bands. The band have continued to be a presence on the live circuit and despite line-up changes still release intriguing and ever evolving music to tantalise. Through my association with Echoes And Dust website, I’ve reviewed several of their albums.

I first noticed ASIWYFA when they played as support to We Are Knives, another Belfast band with incredible musicians. I didn’t know what to expect from them as their band name initially felt kind of pretentious, albeit the lyric from a Deftones song. It became apparent though, that the instrumental post rock the band were creating was right up my street. I’d been listening to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky and early ASIWYFA was very different to what they do now. The tracks would feature elongated passages of cyclical melodic guitars and would build up to a crushing crescendo of distortion and noise. Mesmerised and hooked, I left that gig determined to see this band again.

By good fortune, I was paired to play the same venue as them at a BelFest gig in the Black Box. I was playing the front café room and they were in the main hall. After my set, I made a bee-line for the main hall and made sure to introduce myself to Rory Friers, by the side of the stage. Anyone who has ever met Rory will testify to his enthusiastic demeanour and passion for music. You’ll also find a steely determination to succeed. He chatted to me and passed on a CD of two songs they had recorded, one of which was ‘Mount Kailash’, a track that they had blown me away with. It remains one of my favourite ASIWYFA tracks. I was chuffed to bits. Again, the band put on a staggering set.

Whilst this gig was as Foamboy, I was planning to record the first Cruz album. I can’t recall for sure if I exchanged a copy of my music, but there’s every chance I did, such was my wont. Any road, at some point ASIWYFA eventually got to hear Cruz and they liked it. I was invited to come to their rehearsal space, off the Falls Road in Belfast. Whilst that part of the world would eventually become an area I’d traverse through on many occasions it was not a part of the world I’d been to before. I got lost on the way there but eventually pulled up to the red bricked ginormo-building. The band’s rehearsal space was a tiny room in a disused factory/warehouse, situated next door to an archery class. It was tight and cramped but there was enough room for me to throw down my collection of pedals.

Rory was his usual chatty self and made me feel welcome. Chris Wee was an affable drummer, as drummers tend to be. Johnny Adgers was a behatted bass player who was quiet in comparison. Then there was Tony Wright, diminutive in stature but friendly and welcoming too. Most of my communications would have been with Rory up to this point. The plan was that the band would jam along to my songs. I hadn’t played with a live band in years, especially with a drummer. I can still recall the sheer bliss when this band of great musicians, who I’d not even met, could play along with MY music as if they were in my band. There was a moment when we all simultaneously jumped onto our respective LOUD pedals and made a thunderous noise. Unreal.

Having got a feel for each other, the band invited me to support them at their debut e.p  launch gig in Auntie Annie’s upstairs bar. This was a really special gig as the band were starting to garner much acclaim locally and had acquired quite a sizeable following. Tony was/had been a barman in this bar as well, though I don’t know if I knew that at the time or not. Each band member again chatted to me prior to the gig putting my nerves to ease and making me really feel part of something. I played a good set, this was the first outing for Cruz so I didn’t know what to expect. A one-man band hunched over his pedals, doing a bizarre up/down manoeuvre that explains why my knees are knackered now! But it was the only way to co-ordinate all the pedals and drum machine and the violin. The crowd liked what I was doing. Gary Jackson, my musical friend from work, was filming me too to add to the tension. At the end of the night, Tony and Rory approached me for a chat. They felt they needed to make the breakout of Belfast and wanted to know if I would like to accompany them on a short tour they were planning in England! Now, I was a serious homebird (still am!) and absolutely shat myself at the thought of it. Obviously, I was super thrilled to be asked but my home situation of looking after two increasingly sick parents overruled any notion of going out on a tour. I politely declined. Maybe it was just a spare-of-the-moment request, I don’t know, but it was quite something to be thought of in this way by a band who were clearly going places.

I’d go see ASIWYFA at every opportunity, they were getting all the best support slots at the time. At one gig in Queen’s Speakeasy, supporting 65 Days Of Static, Tony dedicated ‘Mount Kailash’ to me. ME! I was absolutely dumb struck to be acknowledged in this way. I’d eventually be the support for ASIWYFA in the same venue, for their own headline show as part of Radar. I remember the band hugging in unity before they went on the stage. Even witnessing these scenes up close was something I will never forget. They were starting to get lots of press appearances too, with Hot Press and Alternative Ulster giving them front cover status. What’s more, they were namechecking me in one of their interviews and I was being mentioned in some of their articles. ME?!!!! Wow.

There would be even more excitement for me when the band asked me to record a song with them for an upcoming e.p. they were going to make. I arranged to meet with Rory at a coffee shop up the Lisburn Road to discuss the finer details. The band had recorded the music and my track was a downtempo shimmering piece that was certainly unlike most of their other music to date. I went to one of the band’s houses and we all squeezed into a bedroom where a microphone was produced connected into some form of recording equipment. Rory hunched over and started clapping his hands at various locations in the room. I’d never seen this before but then my previous knowhow with recording equipment was shoddy at best! I’d nothing prepared for the recording. I didn’t write lyrics for my own songs I wasn’t going to start writing them for someone else! I would do it like I always did, the melody and the words would just happen. I also decided to go for a baritone style for the main vocals, like Nick Cave.  And so “La Plata es el Asesino” came to be. As with all Cruz songs, the title is in Spanish, translating as Silver is the Killer. I recorded some additional falsetto backing vocals and then the band took it away and performed some kind of miracle transforming the song into the beautiful piece it is. This was the final song on the “Tonight The City Burns” extended play. It also featured contributions from Cahir Doherty, Johnny Black and Neil Hughes. You won’t find it on any streaming service, just on Youtube. It’s fun reading the comments from people trying to decipher the lyrics. I also see someone paid 50 quid for it on a second hand website.

The boys had also big plans to perform the e.p. at a gig in the newly refurbished Spring And Airbrake (now the Limelight 1). This was one of the first gigs in the venue and all of the other bands on the e.p were to perform their own set, and then join the band for their respective songs. They made posters and flyers for the show sending me into a head spin of excitement. I was first up, and the venue was quite empty to start with. As I started to play more people came in and it was quite filled out by the end of my set. I did well on that big stage and there’s a review in Alternative Ulster magazine which spoke favourably of my performance. There’s a backstage area in the venue, just off the stage and unlike a lot of other gigs I did, I was able to have a drink as I wasn’t driving home. With a backstage rider too availed of refreshments. This was mostly snapped up by Cahir and Johnny who seemed to be having a right good time to themselves. By the time it came to perform with ASIWYFA I was quite pished, but coherent enough to know the words. Having said that, I am pretty sure the boys jumped ahead of one of the verses, that or I fell asleep and missed it out! Still, the place was absolutely heaving, and I can still recall shambling onto the stage and looking out at a sea of faces. I would never experience a crowd like that again.

I also got a request from the boys to perform the song for a BBC session. This involved a trip up to one of the huge hangars that the BBC has to record shows in. There was a truck stationed outside that was doing all the recording and technical stuff and the band set up all their gear indoors. I only sang on the song so didn’t have to bring anything other than me. It was magical performing the song with the band again, this time with sobriety. I really did feel at this time like I was a bona fide musician, and I was loving it.

On the night of the e.p. show I was outside having a smoke and chatted to a youthful Ewen Friers, who was down to see his big brother perform. He’d have been about 16 at the time but was equally as passionate about music as his brother and told me of his plans to start a band himself. This was turn out to be the brilliant Axis Of. They’d go on to do some great things, split up, then reform to make a stunning album called ‘Bella Pacifica’. In between Ewen made records under the name Catalan! and I reviewed all of these too for Echoes And Dust. Ewen is a lovely fella and along with Tony, is the only member, past or present who I have remained in any sort of contact with. He now plays bass in the band, Johnny plays with another great band 7.5 Tonnes Of Beard, who make slightly noisier sludge/doom metal. I recommend them highly. I also highly recommend checking out Tony’s musical output since his departure, mostly as VerseChorusVerse.

I would line up again one last time with ASIWYFA at Lavery’s Bunker, this time I played as another new entity I haven’t blogged about yet, Team Horse. Our paths would eventually go separate ways. ASIWYFA’s trajectory was increasingly on the up, with tours and signing to first Smalltown America, then Richter Records, before moving to the bigger league with the U.S label I loved, Sargent House. I couldn’t keep up with their pace, they had outgrown the local scene and so it was natural to slip away. I’ve watched this band show everyone else how to do things, in terms of getting up off your arse and working hard to be a success. I was absolutely chuffed to get a mention in the list of “thank yous” in the inlay of their first two albums. They’ve consistently pushed the limits with every release and taken their sound to places you would not have expected. Covid nearly put their smoke out, as it did with so many other bands, but they returned with Jettison, a single piece of music, split into sections and an accompanying film. They continue to tour around Europe and I’m hoping there’s more to come from them. I will be forever grateful to Rory, Tony, Johnny, Chris (and Ewen) for the time they afforded me. They made me feel special. They gave me opportunities and exposure that really helped my confidence and progression. Thank you…