You want the truth? You can't handle Motormark!

Montreal's The Dears, live in Edinburgh's Liquid Room on 21 January 2005, supported by The Autumns and Ambulance Ltd (seemingly aka The Ambulances).

And — !! electro double feature !! — Bozilla, My Tiny Robots, Motormark, and Piney Gir, Caledonian Backpackers, 22 January.

Got in to the Liquid Room just as openers The Autumns were singing their last two songs — sounded very promising, guitar pop in the vein of many of the modern bands whose names follow the The ???s pattern, but with more variety to their sound than most. Looked excellently geeky (I'm sure I've overused that phrase over the last year — a trend perhaps…?) in their diamond pattern knitwear and traditional “haircuts”, sorry to miss the beginning of their set. Or not: these people were apparently not The Autumns (who hail from L.A. and list their Friday gig as “cancelled”) — they were Scottish I'm sure, but beyond that I haven't a clue who they were <sigh>. Call me an old fuddy-duddy but I wouldn't object to bands being forced to wear name tags some days. Or at least say who they are when they finish playing.

Not so positive about second support, Ambulance Ltd (“from New York”), who sounded pretty generic, 'fraid to say. Not much variety to their sound which was — shit, I don't know, I can't differentiate, just another modern guitar band like. I mean what can I say? Sorry? Audio during their act was odd too, even at their loudest crescendo they sounded muted.

Headliners The Dears sound good fun but not necessarily hugely to my taste (just let me say “modern guitar pop” again, but that would be unfair) on their latest release No Cities Left (in shops now!), although with a better-than-most range of styles under their belt (facilitated by the good variety of voices in their lineup), running all the way to nicely retro bossa nova influences (although that was of course all the rage (appropriately) last year darling) and in general reminiscent of The Smiths. Definitely won me over with this gig though — despite being “sick as a dog”, lead Murray Lightburn took us from a surprising instrumental opener all the way through to an absolutely storming finish with their rather fabulous “Who are you, defenders of the universe” and (ahm, my memory is failing me, but I think) “22 The Death of All the Romance”. Their stage lineup is a little unusual: three male guitarists (including Lightburn) arrayed centre leftwards and frequently playing to each other in a semicircle, with two deliciously disinterested-looking female keyboard players (one of 'em also a flautist) out to the right — and drums to the rear as usual. Little bit of new material played, otherwise mainly stuff I recognised off the album. Lighting was well done, lots of light-reflecting-off-polished-guitars-like-laser-beams going on. Definitely worth catching if you get the chance.

So Saturday follows Friday, another day and another gig. Not been to the Caledonian Backpacker's before, and the initial impression wasn't too good as they wouldn't let us in to the bar unless we were backpackers until strictly after the fairly late 8:30 doors opening. No points for arriving five minutes early then. Visited a pub 'cos Edinburgh is cuh-cuh-cold right now. I mean really, even-Conrad-thinks-it's-cold cold. Standing around outside not recommended. At. All. Tonight is mainly scheduled to be electro, have never heard any of the bands before poking around their websites this afternoon trying to decide between this gig and Kid Commando's; am anticipating fun…

Venue when we get in turns out to be quite an intimate little bar with the stage at one end of a long room. Amplification is good, never painfully loud but enough to make sure you're not distracted by crowd noise.

Opener was Glasgow's Bozilla, possessors of a number of mad fun electronic thingies you can just wave your hand at to get fades, percussion, scratching, all kinds of stuff (looks literally like magic!). And red-dreaded lead singer Aimee with a kicking fine voice — though she mainly chose to stay back in with the rest of the electropop/disco mix — and a nice line in hip-wiggling. Top tracks included “This Is Not New Sound” and “Too Much Fighting on the Dancefloor”, their recreation of The Specials' “Ghost Town” — and these were very top tracks indeed, TINNS being one of the most mind-infecting things I've heard in ages. Any later in the night and I'm sure they'd have succeeded in their stated goal of getting us to Awkwardly Dance ('nother great track).

Next up were Edinburgh's My Tiny Robots. Was perhaps negatively predisposed 'cos their website runs purely through Flash™ so I had to jump through hoops to listen to their music, which then sounded a bit wistful and lacking in variety. They dealt with this preconception reasonably well by playing a good range of guitar-y stuff, but just weren't in tune with the rest of the evening and for all that lead Dylan (?) possesses all the clean lines, swagger and attitude that a lead should I couldn't really work up an enthusiasm — they were the youngest band playing tonight though… They also seemed to have brought a load of friends who left immediately MTR's set ended, which is Just Not On — although it did give us more space to dance, which turned out to be Very Important…

[Minor rant on band websites: publish a few tracks for free, please — I decided which gig I went to today using the Interweb, and the bands which published tracks ended up being the bands I paid money to see]

Third set was by ?Glaswegian? electropunks Motormark. Like most of tonight's bands they spent their time before the set wandering around in the audience, but Miss Jane Motoro kindof stood out more than most for her bleached-out spiky hair. Wasn't adequate preparation though for her reappearance on stage in — admittedly clichéed — heels, tutu and tight diagonal-zipped black leather though. This duo rocked. In no uncertain terms. Your next action should be to buy a ticket to Glasgow and then go dance your socks off wherever and whenever they're playing (like, this Friday in Utter Gutter at the Riverside Club for example). Very very frantic loud jumpy-uppy-downy electro-y punk-y excellence, to which a few people in the audience actually danced (am told that what I was doing was more “scary” than dance, but hey). Couple of mp3s available online, including “We Hate Everybody in the Discotheque” will give you a taste. Oh yes, oh yes, this is what Live is all about.

Last band standing were Londoners Piney Gir. Turns out this is not a band name, but the alias of lead Angela Penhaglion, who sings supported by band A Physician and a Technician (well that was last night; on the web the Technician is referred to as a Scholar, it's all very confusing). Originally from Kansas, and apparently brought up in a pentecostal household with “a formal education in music, untouched by the temptations of sinful secular pop”, her music took the form of electro/synthpop in as many styles as she played songs — including lounge, punk and country (!). Sounded a little reminiscent of Kenickie for sheer sense of fun, but the band were obviously put off by the apparent failure of part of their gear, limiting their repertoire and curtailing the set as a result. Shame, 'cos what we heard was really good.

Unquestionable stars of the last two days though, for sheer live brilliance, were Motormark, closely followed by Bozilla. Will keep an eye out for future Piney Gir gigs too. And while you're at it check out The Dears' recorded material.