The Black Ryder - Club 77, Sydney (June 3rd, 2010)

Following up on a nation-wide tour supporting 80's rock legends The Cult, Sydney's The Black Ryder played Darlinghurst's Club 77 to a small but jovial crowd.

I reckon I walked past the doorway to Club 77 three times before I realised that the cheesy hole in the wall with smoke spewing out the doors was the place I was looking for. Returning with photographer Leigh Plover an hour or so later, I was still sceptical as they stamped our wrists for entry. This is a place that used to lay host to a small sect of Sydney's goth community in the 90's before being supposedly refurbished and turned into Fluorosingletsville recently. By the looks of the black netting hanging from the ceiling, giant chandelier and the leather jacketed man dancing to a candle it seemed as though either I had my facts wrong, or that the metrosexual's had been chased out with sticks. Possibly even sticks with flaming skulls on the end of them.

Club 77, then comes across as an unusual place for a music venue, looking more like the haunted house at a school fete than a venue. So to say that it was an odd venue for the Black Ryder to play is probably illustrative only of my own ignorance as to what I thought the band was about. I had kind of heralded them as the potential next big Brian Jonestown/Mazzy Star, shoe-gazing alternative to the crap doing the circles in popular music right now. But in hindsight, I guess they do have the word 'black' in their name and they are supporting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Black Cab in July. There were enough references to that god-damned colour to toy with the picture I'd painted for myself and all of a sudden I was wishing that I'd brought one of my several tubs of Brylcreem...and a leather jacket that I rubbed on the driveway for hours on end to get that awesome worn-in look. But in no way does that discredit their music...making shit jokes is just a great way to achieve word limit on an article.

The Black Ryder's 2009 album 'Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride' was, to put it verbosely, really awesome if you were into that sort of thing, but really good if you weren't. It was an album that jumped up from underneath the radar and caused a minor stir amongst most who heard it. From Australian Rolling Stone to yours truly, people were pretty keen on this Sydney based group, the hype of which died down off the back of next to no local touring as they pursued record deals abroad. The flow-on effect of this was that this show at Club 77, with around 80 people in attendance, was their unofficial Sydney album launch...eight months after the record's release. 

Coming off the back of a nation-wide tour supporting psyche-rock legends The Cult, and prior to another tour under the wing of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, this show came across as incidental more than planned. In fact, for reasons unknown, drummer Nick Kennedy was missing for their headline shows in Melbourne and Sydney, with a replacement rushed in who did the job amicably for such little preparation, but clearly upset the dynamic that was present at their slot at this year's Playground Weekender. Regardless, their small catalogue is still very solid and there is enough potential in them to suggest that the Black Ryder can, could and probably should have hit a level that they've as yet failed to reach. 

With bassist Archi Fires at one stage turned to demonstrate the drum pattern for an upcoming track, it was clear that it wasn't their best of nights. Realistically, they just weren't in it. Sure, the dead eyed staring into the walls is befitting of the style of music they're playing and the venue that hosted it, but it did occasionally come across as a little too convincing. The enthusiasm and energy that pulled a couple of hundred of festival goers at Playground into the February sun was altogether absent, replaced instead by a performance which went through the motions for barely an hour. 

Even still, it was a night that enforced the appeal that made them so attractive in the first place. With the hazy vocals of Aimee Nash and Scott Van Ryper floating over distorted guitars, samples, and departing keyboardist Jules Ferrari's playing, there's some great music in there. The night that we saw was potentially the worst you could see them, but considering that it was still pretty damn good, then that's actually quite a high compliment. The Black Ryder are an outfit experienced enough and of high enough quality to not require the word 'potential' tacked carefully onto every sentence, but until they really get behind the awesome product that they have, it seems as though that's all the band will ever show. Hopefully the next album will hit with enough force and touring support by the band to crack the Australian market which is absolutely yearning for some quality music of this type, but until then, take up any chance to see them live, as unfortunately, they're unlikely to tour Australia for the rest of this year aside from their supports.

You can catch the Black Ryder supporting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Black Cab in July.