CityLife

Back to the future with blind io

NOBODY has yet turned up to a blind io gig wearing a wizard or goblin costume, but the band certainly haven't ruled it out happening in future.

"I'm sure it'll happen one day," laughs bearded, tousle-haired singer Jay Jevens. "It's inevitable. All these fantasy novel readers will discover us one day! We'll be the band of choice for the fantasy anorak community."

He's referring to the band's (totally non-deliberate) choice of name, which, if you're a die hard sci-fi/fantasy novel reader you'll know, is also the name of a major character in the novels of fantasy author Terry Pratchett.

Try inputting "blind io" into any internet search engine and you'll be greeted with a cavalcade of sci-fi/fantasy anorak fansites.

"A few people have actually come up to me saying 'oh you do know that blind io (they insist on the lower-case) comes from a Terry Pratchett novel don't you', says big-haired guitarist Jonny Booth.

"But it's not deliberate. We're not fantasy novel geeks! We just heard it somewhere, and thought it would be a cool name. It just sounds interesting ... a name which doesn't give any clues about what genre of music we are or anything."

"Maybe we should cash-in and start selling wizard outfits on the merchandise stall," says Jay.

Blind io might not hail from a world of goblins, dragons and elves, but their spiritual and musical origins do have an otherworldly essence to them nonetheless.

Anyone who purchased their self-funded debut EP To Be Continued last year will have thought, on cursory glance, that they were picking up an undiscovered musical treasure from the dusty seventies rock archives.

Everything from the sleeve artwork (all grand, messianic illustrations of the band) to the music contained within (like an opiated, frazzled collision of Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and Free) suggested that blind io were a great lost rock band of the seventies.

However, the reality is that they exist NOW in 2007, they hail from Manchester, and are currently (and inexplicably) still an unsigned band.

Seventies

Jay smiles. "A few people have said that we're a band born thirty years too late. Like if we were around in the seventies, we'd be huge! But that's fine with us.

We love that kind of music, those are our influences. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Crosby, Stills and Nash ... they're the reason we're doing this, it's the reason we dress like we do. But it's not contrived. We sound like we do very naturally."

True. While it's fair to say that seventies-tinged rock excess and caution-to-the-wind folly might be creeping back into the musical zeitgeist( thanks to the likes of Kasabian and Muse), there's little artifice and manufacturing to blind io's rise on the Manc music circuit.

For many years, guitarist Jonny, bassist Jim Lumby and drummer James Smith, were toiling in a Pink Floyd-flavoured prog rock outfit called The Tangents, but with little success or recognition.

Via mutual friends they met Jay, a folk singer-songwriter with a similar love (and appearance) of seventies rock pomposity, who seemed the perfect choice of frontman to start a new band venture.

With both Jonny and Jay indulging each others love of seventies rock'n'roll grand excess, they've stumbled upon a rock formula which is refreshingly unashamed in its retro indulgence.

Their debut EP showcased their freewheeling classic rock machismo over six bluster-packed tracks, and acted as a fine aperitif before their debut album later this year, which is likely to be "a double concept album". In the band's own words, they make the sort of music "that your dad would love". And bizarrely, even Emo kids who loiter in Exchange Square.

"I think one of the greatest days this band has had was when we played two gigs last year," recalls Jonny.

"We played a daytime show on this outdoor stage by Exchange Square to loads of 16-year-old Emo and skater kids, who were well into it. Then in the evening, we played in Matt and Phreds, where the crowd was mostly mums and dads, who were equally loving it."

Enticing

Certainly, it's this sense of old values exalted with modern attitude which makes blind io such an enticing - and strangely everyman - rock proposition.

Dealing in what they call "protest songs" (standout track Mother Nature is a furious lament about British government hypocrisy), they hide any obvious politics behind rabble-rousing choruses and the sort of wide-eyed idealism which could have come straight from (obviously) the seventies.

Jay enthuses. "I'd like to think we write protest songs, but the way they used to be written. We're not trying to get on a soapbox or anything, we're just observing the world in which live, and giving out opinion.

"Dylan is the best example of someone who did that in the seventies. Nobody seems to do that anymore.

"No bands or songwriters seem to have that anger or want to speak out against the establishment.

"You've got all these Emo bands, but they're just rebelling against their spoilt, middle-class lives. It's just fake."

While it's easy to dismiss blind io as retro long-hairs who need to get over a decade they were too young to actually even remember, it's much better to venerate them for their out-of-placeness.

In a musical climate defined by starter-kit indie, New Rave and over-hyped nonsense like The Horrors, maybe a bunch of hairy, prog-rock monsters who write overwrought, indulgent two-part concept albums is just what we need right now.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with excess and indulgence in rock'n'roll," exclaims Jonny.

"Pink Floyd always said that- they would never have had been able to make Dark Side Of The Moon without a big recording budget and unlimited access to Abbey Road Studios.

"That's what this band is working towards... just thinking big and indulgent when it comes to recording, and having grand stage shows. I like what Muse do with their stage shows, we'd like something epic like that." Would there be wizard costumes in there too? "I think we can do without those," sighs Jonny.

Blind io play Night and Day on Wednesday, January 31.Their debut EP can be purchased from myspace.com/blindiomusic