Review & Interview: The Routes, Keeley, and Vincent Christ at The Dublin Castle in Camden, London

Now that I’ve moved to England I’m happy I get to go to more concerts, although where I’m living I have to really plan things out because it is a bit of a trek by train and with concerts often ending late, you might miss the last train home. But I am happy that I can more easily go to concerts I want to go to than when I was living in Ireland. I had so much FOMO there. Whenever a band would tour Europe, England is like Glenn Coco getting four candy canes and Ireland is like Gretchen Wieners, no candy canes – or if you’re lucky it’s like Cady Heron – one candy cane, basically there’s one concert in Dublin and if you were like me and living all the way on the opposite side of the country, there’s no way you’re going because travelling within Ireland is more expensive than going to Spain.

Anyway one of the newer albums I’ve been obsessed with since it came out is The Routes’ The Twang Machine. I can’t remember how I came across The Routes… maybe browsing on Spotify? They’re a band with a revolving cast of band members formed in the mid 2000s in Hita in Ōita Prefecture Japan by a Scottish-born musician named Chris Jack. They’re very prolific with a lot of albums available to stream on Spotify. They’ve also played festivals in Portugal and France.

Anyway, the album was love at first listen and the concept was one of the most creative surf rock albums I’ve ever heard. Kraftwerk in a surf rock style. Who thinks of this? Be still my autistic heart! I love Kraftwerk. They’re a pioneering electronic band. You wouldn’t have the electronic music of today if it weren’t for them and Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). The appeal for me and many autistic people is how futuristic the music sounds, the theming and aesthetic of the albums (especially Trans Europe Express and Autobahn – a lot of autistic people are fascinated with trains and motorways, not to mention tech with albums like ), and how repetitious the music and lyrics are – it’s like stimming for your ears. I’m also a big fan of totally rearranged covers and I think there is an art in covering a song and making it sound totally different and new, bringing something new to the table. Some people dismiss covers, but I don’t. I mean, Joan Jett and Manfred Mann mostly are known for their covers and people love them.

The Twang Machine idea was conceived during covid lockdown as kind of a joke and it became a bigger success than the Japanese based band imagined with it getting positive reviews and a lot of praise. The title is a reference to Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine and Duane Eddy’s self-described twangy guitar sound – his 1958 debut album was called Have ‘Twangy’ Guitar Will Travel (great album by the way and if you don’t listen to Duane Eddy, what are you doing? Guy’s a legend and as of me writing this blog post he’s still alive!). If you’re a fan of The Shadows and The Ventures, you’ll love it. It’s like Postmodern Jukebox if it were surf rock.

When I found out The Routes were playing some concerts in England, I knew I had to go and see this album performed live. And so I did. There was also a nice surprise with the opening act that I only found out. A friend of a friend, Keeley was the opening act and I’ve heard good things about her music so that was really cool too. When I mentioned I lived in Ireland for almost a decade, people kept asking if I knew Keeley, which I definitely knew of her through some friends – small world! This is her first ever UK tour and a dream come true for her. The other opening act were a post punk band called Vincent Christ.

Camden & Food

If I’m going to be taking the train to London, I might as well spend some time there if I’m spending money on a train ticket. London has a lot of things that the city I live in doesn’t have and I really like visiting so I’m going to take full advantage and with the concert being in Camden, I was happy because I love going to the market (most of the stuff there is overpriced, sorry not sorry) and even if I don’t buy anything, I still get inspiration from the clothes I see at the vintage shops and alt boutiques and who knows? Sometimes there’s a sale and you get some really good deals. The pinup/rockabilly clothing store Collectif was having a 50% off everything sale and I found a skirt my size (I always have trouble finding skirts small enough for me) that was half off and best part is it has pockets! I was close to buying a tie dye scarf from a vintage shop, but I couldn’t justify £20 for a scarf, when I can and have found good scarves for less than £10. There were also some 60s dandy looking shirts that were tempting me but again… £100 is above my budget and I have other things I have to spend money on. Camden isn’t the cheapest in London for vintage and while yes you can find deals, it involves a lot of searching.

Afterwards I was hungry and while I usually go to Temple of Seitan, I decided to try something different and go to a vegan kebab shop called What The Pitta. Everyone loves a kebab, and I never had kebabs before going vegetarian. I did have veggie kebabs while in Turkey, but none that imitated the kebab meat, it was just veggies, salad, and bread. I ordered a doner kebab chip box, which is basically salad, kebab pieces (made of seitan, I think?), hummus, and tzatziki. I showed pictures of the food to a couple friends of Turkish descent and they both said that it looked exactly like a real kebab. If you’re not in Camden, they have other locations in London in Brick Lane and Croydon and they also have locations in Brighton and Manchester. I’m going to Brighton next month and I’m definitely considering going back to What The Pitta.

After that, I still had time to kill before the concert and so I decided to go to my usual favourite, Temple of Seitan and have a chocolate shake. The weather is lovely and perfect for milkshakes. I’m on a day trip so might as well treat myself. As always it was great. My husband was begging me to bring back Temple of Seitan chips because they’re his favourite.

The Concert

So I make it a point to get to concerts early so I can get the best spot for taking photos and videos and so I can listen to the opening acts. I make sure to get my moneys worth. One thing that happens a lot if you’re seeing a smaller band at a venue is you might run into the musicians at the bar or in front of it and that’s what happened. I saw Chris Jack and The Routes right there in front of The Dublin Castle (where Madness first played and a favourite of Amy Winehouse, RIP) and I got a picture with the band and I interviewed Chris, which you will see later in the blog post.

The doors were set to open at 7:30 PM, but there were some delays and my criticism of the venue is they should have had better communication. Felt like I was on a plane waiting for it to take off but no one’s announcing what the reason for the delay is. So many people were walking up to the door and opening it but being turned away because the bands were still doing soundcheck. It almost felt like a comedy sketch. Anyway, if any event organisers are reading this, remember that communication is key. No one likes a delay, but people get annoyed and confused if there’s no communication.

The first act to go up were London post punk band Vincent Christ. What makes their sound special is that the lead singer plays saxophone and he did for a couple of songs in the set. I liked it. You can follow Vincent Christ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Bandcamp.

The second act was Keeley Moss and her band, simply called Keeley. She’s an up and coming dreampop musician from Dublin who recently went to America to play live on a radio station in New Jersey and Philadelphia and is now going on tour in the UK (a dream come true for her!) playing shows in Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, and Leeds. Her music has been earning a lot of praise, being played on college radio stations and her debut album Floating Above Everything Else being nominated by Blowtorch Records as one of the best Irish albums of the year in their Alternative Mercury Prize, An Gradam Lugh. What makes Keeley’s music stand out is that she’s a concept artist. All her songs are about one topic, the murder of Inga Maria Hauser, a young backpacker from Munich who was murderered in Northern Ireland in 1988 while on her way to Dublin. She was only 18. It is still an unsolved mystery. Her parents died and never got justice or answers. When reading a book about true crime, Keeley was fascinated with this obscure case and made it her life purpose to dedicate a blog and music in Inga’s memory. She never heard about the case even though it happened on the same island she was living on. She has traced Inga’s footsteps and spoken to people who knew her to better understand her and tell her story. As someone who has a longtime interest in true crime, this whole concept fascinated me. And what makes her work different from other true crime creators is she focuses on Inga’s life, not her death. It’s a really well-written blog and worth checking out. I love how she ties in pop culture references into the timeline. Musically, Keeley’s sound is dreampop, an ethereal, almost psychedelic sounding type of alternative rock that came into prominence in the 80s, around the time Inga Maria Hauser disappeared – it’s a musical time capsule and a lovely sounding tribute to a young woman gone too soon. If you’re a fan of shoegaze, you’ll love her music. In a way, the theme makes me think of Steven Wilson’s album Hand. Cannot. Erase., which is about the case of Joyce Vincent, a woman who died alone in her North London bedsit and no one knew she died until two years later.

You can follow Keeley on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Bandcamp, and her blog The Keeley Chronicles.

The Routes set was excellent. They were appropriately dressed as Kraftwerk during their Man Machine/Mensch Machine in their red button down shirts, grey trousers, and black ties. An iconic look that any Kraftwerk fan would appreciate. There was a bit of a false start at the beginning, but they carried on and I think it worked for the type of music they were playing because in garage rock, it’s those quirks that make the music special – like that little goof where the vocals come in too early in “Louie Louie”. Most of the set were Kraftwerk covers from The Twang Machine and the last couple songs were songs from an upcoming album of Buzzcocks covers called Reverberation Addict. The highlights for me were “Computer Love”, “Autobahn”, “Showroom Dummies”, “Radioactivity”, “Trans Europe Express”, and “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”.

You can follow The Routes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Bandcamp.

Interview: Chris Jack of The Routes

Before the concert, I interviewed Chris from The Routes about The Routes’ music and his story:

Angie: What are your biggest musical influences?

Chris: My influences are so, so broad because I listen to all kinds of music so I can’t nail anything but one of the bands I’ve listened to the longest is The Fall. The Fall kind of introduced me to lots of other stuff like The Monks and a few other things like Can and things like that. There’s a lot of stuff referenced. I listen to a lot of German music like Can, of course garage punk, one of the bands that influenced me to start The Routes was Thee Headcoats. That’s pretty much everything on that.

Angie: How did you get into surf rock and garage rock?

Chris: Again, that was through listening to the stuff Thee Headcoats did. They did instrumental and also from Hipbone Slim and Bo Diddley and so listening to stuff like that and then when I came to Japan – The Ventures are really big in Japan. They were the ones I got exposed to making instrumental music.

Angie: What was it like growing up in Essex during the 80s?

Chris: I was born in Scotland and we moved to Essex in 1982 when I was about 5 years old. I grew up in Essex. As a kid you don’t know if it’s good or bad or anything, you’re just happy, aren’t you? And then when I was a teenager in the 90s, it’s like acid house and stuff like that was around. I think looking at it, it was pretty wild compared to kids now. Thankfully my son is not half as bad as I was. It was a pretty dangerous place I think as well. It was pretty rough, living in Essex, it’s really rough, lots of fighting. I mean especially being into the music we’re into and stuff as well, it’s a really small circle amongst the people that were here.

Angie: Did you ever come to London to see concerts back then?

Chris: Yeah, all the time. [I went to] so many concerts. I came to see Suicide, come to see Mogwai before they were famous, I came to see Damo Suzuki from Can, I came to see The Who when they did Quadrophenia in 1998. I came to concerts all the time. I saw like, cos grunge was still big then I saw bands like Hole. I saw lots of concerts. I used to travel here all the time.

Angie: What inspired you to do Kraftwerk covers?

Chris: Both me and Brian the drummer really like Kraftwerk and it’s completely alien to what we do musically. But we thought it would just be a laugh like it’d be fun to try and do our own interpretation of it and we’re just started doing it for ourselves. We had no intention of releasing it and it’s like a little project for ourselves during covid lockdown and we just made it for ourselves and the label happened to be interested in it. We thought it’d go down really bad but that’s it. 

Angie: It was definitely one of the most unique surf rock albums I’d ever heard. 

Chris: Yeah, like I said, we didn’t really expect to release it. We weren’t expecting it to be well received at all. We thought it was going to be hated, you know? 

Angie: How did the band get started? 

Chris: I moved to Japan in 2000 and I lived in the middle of nowhere, literally in the middle of the mountains where there aren’t really any foreign people. I didn’t see any non-Japanese people for about the first three months I lived there and it’s amazing. It’s that countryside. I think even now, I think there’s about three English people and about four Americans in the city and it’s 70,000 people. It was just an excuse to go out and do something so I had nothing to do, no mates. I met this New Zealand guy and he introduced me to a Japanese guy who played drums and that’s how we started.  Just two guys jamming it out.

Angie: How popular do you think your kind of music is in Japan?

Chris: Not popular at all, our music. We’re not popular at all, but like I think there’s a scene in Japan, but again it’s just what’s left over from the 90s like the Estrus label days like when The Mummies were big and all them bands from that time. Sorry, I’m really jet-lagged. Jon Von’s band, The Ripoffs, stuff like that, so they’re still into that side of things. They never really got further than that side. 

Angie: What was it like recording The Twang Machine?

Chris: We have a funny way of recording. We record at home ourselves. We don’t go into the studio. So I don’t like studios. I record my parts in Japan to a metronome and I send them to the drummer in England and he records his parts at home and we put it all together like that. It was fun throwing ideas backwards and forwards. It’s for ourselves, you know?

Angie: It’s truly international, kind of like surf rock in a way.

Chris: It is. It’s not intentional, it’s just I can’t find members I can work with over in Japan so and like the members I have now, the members you’ll see today, Steve [the bassist], the last time I saw him was 25 years ago when we played here and Brian the drummer I played with him about 25-26 years ago as well. So they’re old friends, we’re all used to playing together, it’s much easier to communicate than if they were Japanese people. And also commenting on that, I don’t have to babysit them.

Angie: Why is the album called The Twang Machine?

Chris: Man Machine and you know, twang, Duane Eddy twang guitar,  it’s just referencing Duane Eddy and twangy surf music and we just wanted to make it look like The Man Machine, but unfortunately some people couldn’t read the T and they said it looked like The Wang Machine. I don’t mind!

Angie: Tell me about your upcoming album that is a tribute to Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks?

Chris: We have an album of 15 Buzzcocks songs called Reverberation Addict and again it’s something we did as a little project at home and when we made The Twang Machine the designer from Buzzcocks Malcolm Garrett, someone bought him a copy of the album and he loved it because he’s a big surf collector and when he found out we’re doing Buzzcocks, he offered to do the artwork for us so we got him on board to help us and he decided the name for us, Reverberation Addict. Yeah, it will be out on October 6th. We’re excited, as you can tell.

Angie: What is your favourite music from Japan?

Chris: I like GS [Group Sounds] music, like Terauchi Takeshi the surf guitarist from the 60s, he passed away now. He was a shamisen player, he took the music of The Ventures and mixed it with Japanese music. I like some GS bands like The Golden Cups and The Mops. 

Angie: What is your favourite thing about living in Japan?

Chris: It’s just an easy life. If you want to go to the doctors, you can go in and get seen in like 10 minutes, 15 minutes. If you want to go to the dentist you don’t have to wait ages. It’s safe, you don’t have to lock your door, you don’t have to worry about people nicking stuff. And also people are very respectful of each other. Like they treat you like a guest every day. I’ve been there 23 years and it still feels like I’m on holiday every day. People are all like, so happy to see you, it’s so nice. It’s clean as well. Very, very clean. 

Angie: What do you miss most about England?

Chris: I miss some food like toad in the hole. I get cravings to eat English food. I miss my mates of course. Things have changed so much since I’ve been here, especially here. It’s a different place to what I grew up in and what I knew. So it’s like everything I loved, a lot of it’s gone. All the record shops and clubs and things. 

Angie: So a lot of gentrification and stuff?

Chris: Not only gentrification, but like if you go somewhere like Southend-on-Sea it’s turned into a big toilet. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. Trash and shit everywhere, all the shops got broken windows. 

Angie: Any words for your fans?

Chris: Do we have any fans? (laughs) Thanks for listening to us, if anyone out there is listening to us. That’s about it. I don’t think we have any fans… (laughs)

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