#capratone

Tracks & Traces #13: I’ve been planning to write about the music of Capratone, The Asteroids and The Metronoids for sometime and have finally gotten around to it (somehow its been almost 3 years since the last T&T). The link between these bands is Andrew Lyster (now living in Brussels) and as I will explain, he kindly answered some of my questions for this hybrid Tracks & Traces. Since originally publishing this piece Richie Kelly of Capratone has also similarly added valuable information I would never have been able to share otherwise. Usually I just depend on my memory, the records, press cuttings and any surviving notes I took  from the times but as I got deeper into the story there were too many question marks about line-ups (pre-Capratone), the issue of a possible ‘lost’ Capratone album and don’t even get me started about The Metronoids!  At time of writing most of this music is hard if not impossible to find streaming online and I couldn’t even locate any band photos or videos either. Which is all the more reason to write a piece to mark their existence and hopefully spark a revival of interest. When I was putting the finishing touches to the article I did discover there is now at least some music from The Asteroids on YouTube. Not long after I originally shared this piece, Joss Moorkens of Capratone sent me two band photos, the first line-up (L-R: Fiachra, Joss, Andrew) and as a four piece with Richie Kelly (below).  

I first saw Andrew Lyster play (vocals/guitar) when I caught The World of Pugh in a venue I only went to once, Dillinger’s. Like many things from those days it’s long gone but it was a bar with a small stage (up some stairs?) somewhere off Dublin’s Capel St. (18/3/94). As I totally forgot who was in the rest of the band I’ll let Andrew take up the story.

“The World of Pugh was the first group where I wrote songs. I think it started around 1993. Originally it was Keith Swan on drums and a fellow called Brian McEleney on bass. Then in 1994 I brought some songs in and Brian took off to be replaced by Niall Brown (who was also the singer and guitar player for The Moustaches). Niall played bass for World of Pugh in the form where we had songs and did gigs.”

I’m sure someone like Joss Moorkens (then drumming with Tucker Suite) had told me about TWOP and the name had struck me (there was a very cool hand drawn flyer for the gig). They played bottom of the bill with Tucker Suite, Budge and Schroeder’s Cat, all part of a very exciting little scene at the time. Less than two weeks later I happened to see TWOP again on a bill with The Moustaches at a house party on Middle Abbey Street. The Moustaches, who sadly never released anything, were also part of this same scene (in my mind anyway). As I recall, this latter show was on the second or third floor of a semi derelict space in which a friend of both bands was living as a caretaker. Andrew has now told me that he and Keith Swan actually lived there and it was where TWOP rehearsed. I remember sitting on an old mattress and really enjoying the atmosphere (a cymbal was tied to a rafter). I do remember that TWOP had a real sense of humour on stage with some crowd involvement going on. They never had any releases but might well have recorded something (I’ve also heard tell of an unreleased album by The Moustaches!). This would be the last time I saw them play, perhaps it was even their last show? It would be another year before I would see Andrew onstage again.  

While researching this piece I did find an Irish band family tree which shows that Andrew, Joss, Fiachra Lennon and Brian Gough were in a band called Mudshark (1991-92), which was not actually their first band. Again, Andrew gave me some more information which I thought was worth sharing and clarifying about these early days.

“Brian Gough (later in Mexican Pets) had been in an even earlier band than Mudshark with me called The Foots. This band only played one gig in a pub in Dun Laoghaire in 1991. Our friends had to listen to the music from the street because they were too young to get in. After The Foots broke up I think Brian went on to another group called Harvey, and then Tucker Suite with Greg Barrett (later in Joan of Arse) on bass initially. Greg then did Schnorbitz with Joss, and had a cool band called Giraffe Running.”

Andrew’s next band would be Capratone (vocals/guitar) along with Joss on Drums and Fiachra on bass. Regarding song-writing Andrew told me, “For the most part I would write the songs and we would try to make them better by all writing our own parts through rehearsals. One or two were group written from stuff that happened in rehearsal.”  I first saw them in another venue off Capel St. supporting Schroeder’s Cat at Behan’s Bar (previously The Fox & Pheasant) (3/4/95) and again just ten days later at The Plough with (surprise surprise) The Moustaches and Schroeder’s Cat. I would get to see this line-up play quite often on local bills until Sept ‘97 (more on this later). I recall they also played a short tour around Ireland with US band The Make-Up (April ‘97). 

In early ‘96 they tried to record an album with producer Marc Carolan. Andrew told me it was to be called, “Le Plus Roll, because we felt our music was more Roll than Rock. I can’t pin down the exact date of the recording, but my guess is that it was in 1996. We had 2 days in a studio somewhere in Rathgar. It was a 24 track ADAT studio. I think it had a Soundcraft desk. The highlight equipment-wise was an incredible Ampeg bass stack that belonged to some professional band. Its sound was so authoritative and great that by the end of the long first day’s recording, when I had crawled into bed, I was woken up a couple of times by LOUD auditory hallucinations of Fiachra’s P Bass blasting through that thing. Marc, and the three of us all worked really hard for the two days, we did manage to record and mix all the songs we came in with, but I think the short time-frame worked against us capturing the right aesthetic. The means of production were expensive to rent and we couldn’t afford to record even in a project studio like that for more than a day or two.”

Luckily, one of the songs, ‘Homeward’, ended up on the Irish band compilation album, Zip Up Your Boots For The Showbands (1996). I always loved this intricate and explosive song and a whole album like this would have been quite something. The only place online you can hear it now is on a radio show I made for Dublin Digital Radio about bands that played in Dublin’s Attic venue. I must point out the musicianship of Capratone, it may not have been so obvious in the more noisy Tucker Suite but Joss was such an amazing and distinct drummer and both Fiachra and he so easily locked together. They created a lot of space for Andrew’s vocals and guitar for these catchy and very inventive songs to really flow. 

At some point in late 1996 Richie Kelly joined (on right in pic) on guitar and they played as a four piece. At some other point Andrew left but as the band continued things must have been going really well musically. According to my notes the last two times I saw Capratone play was at the start of September ‘97, supporting The Sewing Room and Luggage at Dublin’s Mean Fiddler and then a headline show in The Funnel venue at the end of the same month. This doesn’t mean they stopped playing of course but for whatever reasons I didn’t see them again. Things don’t stay static, I did get really into electronic dance music and clubbing the following year but continued to see guitar bands as well but gigs would clash, allegiances, circumstances and tastes change, choices have to be made. 

At some point this second line-up hooked up with Dublin label Folkrum Records (run by Dan Watson) and they recorded a mini album, The Art of Go, which was released in early 2000 (CD only) and produced by Simon Kenny aka Si Schroeder. At that stage Joss and Fiachra were still in the line-up with Richie and Eric Sexton (on guitar). I wasn’t sure if any of Andrew’s songs survived after his time with the band (on the Capratone page of the old Folkrum website he only gets thanked for the name) so I needed to ask him about it, “I didn’t write anything on the LP called The Art of Go. There was a strange overlapping series of line-ups in Capratone but when I left I think Richie Kelly (who was a recently arrived guitar player joining the original 3 piece) took on the song-writing job. As far as I know those Art Of Go tunes were all of his making. Richie went on to make a few attempts at recording subsequent line-ups of Capratone.” According to Joss’ short biog of the band on Last.fm, by the end of Capratone the line-up had changed completely from the original one. 

Since I published this piece Richie Kelly has been in touch and has kindly provided more detail about joining the band and how his role and the line-up evolved. “I saw Capratone in 1996 and was blown away. Even before the show ended, I wanted to join but that seemed unlikely. It turned out that Andrew’s song-writing was taking a new direction and he had decided to add a second guitarist. We were connected through an extended friend group and apparently word had gotten to him that I was as enamoured with The Beach Boys as he was. We bumped into each other and started talking music and I must have auditioned and joined the band shortly thereafter. At some point I brought a song to the band and we added it to our set (with my vocals). I started contributing more so when Andrew decided to stop playing, we just continued. We added Eric Sexton, a friend and former bandmate. The Art of Go was recorded by Simon Kenny with basic tracking done over a weekend at a large room in Joss’ father’s business. Simon and I continued vocals and overdubs at his flat in Donnybrook.”

Surprisingly none of this music has made it onto YouTube or anywhere else online that I could find. It can be bought on Discogs, which is how I got my hands on it about two years ago. In my opinion it works really well as an EP, with a few really engaging tracks but with some filler too. The best for me would be ‘Clozer’ which sounds like a lost classic and musically is a more full bodied version of the band heard on ‘Homeward’. ‘Free Jazz’ is pleasingly upbeat and cruises along on Beach Boy vibes. They do sound quite American (Pavement and bands of that ilk) at times (as did Capratone mark 1) but this was very much the sound and influence of the times, everything still comes down to the quality of the song-writing. The band broke up a good while later, sometime in 2003 without anymore releases. At some stage Richie Kelly moved to Brooklyn, New York and started a similar sounding band there but with more brass, Sport of Kings. He even re-recorded ‘Free Jazz’ and made a video for it. The influence of Brian Wilson is clear on this song in particular, they cleverly re-use The Beach Boy’s ‘Cool, cool water” line in the song (also present in the original version). Apart from some positive reviews of their only EP, Logic House (2011), there is little sign of the band online either but at least you can check out their excellent video for ‘Free Jazz’ (see below). I did find just one image of Capratone at this time on the Folkrum website, which I have enlarged below. Richie is the golf club carrying member. 

In my original piece I wasn’t sure what happened to Capratone next so Richie can take up the story, “The Art of Go attracted the interest of Shifty Disco, who released all of the Elephant 6 stuff in the UK. We set about making a full length for them which we were calling Aviation High. Simon Kenny was initially set to record but was so busy with other projects, I asked Andrew to do it and he agreed. Drum and bass tracking took place in a studio in Dublin. Andrew and I indulged our love of tinkering at his family home while recording my parts and mixing. The result is a pretty high fidelity Capratone record. Shifty Disco preferred the super compressed Capratone of the previous record and passed. We trudged along with some line-up changes after that. The most stable line-up though was myself, Cian Synnot on drums, Fiachra McCarthy on guitar and Michael Stevens (of Groom and many other excellent bands) on bass. As Joss said, no original members were left by the end of Capratone. I believe we kept the name simply because we couldn’t come up with a new one, apparently I have a problem naming things. When I ended up opening music studios and practice spaces in Brooklyn after moving there, I asked Joss if I could use the name of his label Scientific Laboratories because I loved it so much and couldn't think of an alternative.”

I think it’s well worth including here what happened with Richie’s next band Sport of Kings. “My love of fidelity only increased as the years continued except my focus switched from The Beach Boys to Steely Dan. I because obsessed with doing an indie rock version of their music and Sport of Kings took that direction. The initial line-up was drums, bass guitars and Fender Rhodes and then we added a horn section and a drummer from NYU’s Jazz Program who were incredible and took things to a whole different level.”

“After our Logic House EP, we made a full record (15 songs to be called Queer Theorem) with Michael Leonhart of Steely Dan as producer and occasional synth/horns/vocals contributor. This was essentially a dream come true for me. Initial tracking was done by me at a studio in Brooklyn and painstaking overdubbing, vocals and mixing was done by myself and Michael at his mixing room in the city. Ironically, we recorded yet another version of ‘Free Jazz’ with Michael. I’m not sure why I keep rerecording it but it might have something to do with Andrew and I finding out Brian Wilson used to record ‘Proud Mary’ every time he went into a new studio to check the sonics. I think I now have 4 completed versions!”

“I put an enormous amount of effort into Queer Theorem but it took so long that by the time it was ready, many band members were so in demand by big artists that they had little time to give. Keeping a 7-piece band of amazing musicians afloat proved too difficult and I disbanded the group rather than trying to recruit new musicians. I had also taken that level of fidelity to its conclusion and I returned to looser music after moving to Portland, OR.”

The next ‘band’ Andrew founded was solo project The Asteroids. I don’t think he ever presented it live but there was just one release, an exquisite three track 10″/CD, Moonlight Music For Beginners, which was released on Joss Moorkens’ Scientific Laboratories label in 2000 (the same year as The Art of Go). You can listen to what has to be my favourite song, ‘Nine Lives’ at link below (the other two songs can helpfully be found on the same channel and I’ve linked them here). According to the sleeve notes it took two years to record, with I assume Andrew playing all the instruments and doing the programming etc. I was sure to pick this up on vinyl at the time and have cherished it since. The amazing paintings on front and back were by the artist Niamh McGrath.

‘Nine Lives’ is so laid back, rich in instrumentation but for me it’s all about Andrew’s vocals (Alan Kelly of The Last Post also provides additional backing vocals). The lyrics prove to be the real earworm for me, “Who is the man, who has done this to you?” with an unexpected lyrical twist at the end. The song has somehow burrowed its way into my consciousness and over the past 20 years has been liable to play in my head at any time. ‘Return Of The Moonlightman’ is more sparse and based again around the vocal arrangement, a second deeper voice (John Parkinson) enters the fray about halfway and it goes to another level with a lovely gradual close. ‘The Great Escape’ is dominated by a really warm organ sound that pulls you along. This one in particular reminds me of Brian Wilson, one of Andrew’s touchstone influences. It’s one of those releases which has dated really well in my opinion and is pretty much unknown I think (I don’t know how many were pressed or sold). There was so much promised with this release and frankly it’s something of a shame it was not followed up at the time. If Andrew had been signed or whatever then things might have happened differently but like all of the bands I’ve written about in this series, we’re lucky to have what we have and the music will last forever. You can still find it for sale on Discogs and it can be played and purchased on iTunes and Tidal. There was one other song from this period, ‘Lunar Doo Wop’, released on a compilation CD included free with the first Foggy Notions magazine. I vaguely remember it but can no longer find my copy (the title tells us all we need to know!). 

Sometime in 2005 or later I bumped into Andrew and he gave me a CD from his latest group The Metronoids. It was a two track disc in a plastic wallet (no cover artwork or personnel details) called Petroleum. Today this doesn’t even exist on Discogs never mind anywhere else! Until I asked Andrew about it I wasn’t sure if this had simply been a promo but he told me there was artwork etc. The reason I probably never saw it for sale is that I left Dublin in 2005. For a bit more information I had to dig into the data on the CD itself and found that the track names are simply ‘Petroleum 1 & 2′ and for what it’s worth the genre on iTunes comes up as Blues (not sure how this gets assigned). It’s a pleasant listen (the more spirited second track is my favourite) but it surprised me very much to find it was all drums/percussion and obviously nothing like what he’d done before. This would be the only release under the name, which I imagine is pretty rare to come across.

I obviously had to get Andrew to explain The Metronoids to me, “This was a project I really enjoyed. Done in 2004/5 with Joss and Marc Hayes (drummer from The Moustaches, Boxes). It was always a real pleasure to be in a room with those two guys. I think we did a handful of rehearsals and one recording session. The idea was drum improv within premeditated structures. All three of us played drums. I think I got the notion to do a project that required a different kind of listening from my love of the CD called Guitar Solo by Annette Krebs.” 

I wasn’t aware of this at the time but Andrew, Joss and Fiachra briefly reunited as The Lamps in 2005 but as far as I know while there were some live gigs there were no releases. Since then Andrew has told me he is currently working on two new music projects, “One with Fiachra Lennon is called Fig/Astro, it started in 2018, we should be finished an LP this year. He wrote a bunch of instrumental tracks and sent them to me. At his request I turned the instrumentals into songs, and the productions are evolving from there with both of us working on it via WeTransfer. He is a real natural musician so the songs have  a very solid foundation. It was refreshing to write songs this way from track to song, rather than from song to track as I had always done previously. My own LP has been in the pipeline since 2009 when I wrote a load of songs and set out to record them in-the-box. Some of the songs went through over 20 productions. Working on a finite group of productions over a long period, under the microscope of Digital Audio Workstation has really allowed me to discover how to do my own thing. The work on this solo album takes a lot of focus.” 

After Capratone Joss would go on to play with Joan of Arse and The Dudley Corporation and guest on many other releases, most of these can be found on his impressive Discogs entry. When I was doing my research for this piece I was excited to find an old Souncloud page for The Asteroids I never knew existed, it has two unreleased tracks which date from about 2014 but Andrew said the music since then has been become more abstract. Fiachra meanwhile has a bulging Soundcloud page full of his own demos that is very worth exploring too. Both of them are also on Twitter, The Asteroids and Fiachra. It will have been a long time coming but I’m looking forward to the next new releases from both these artists.

Sometimes the best things take time.

Stephen Rennicks