jc albyn complex
When THIRD RAIL broke up in October 2000 Adam and James decided to start a new band. They had a few practices at Yellow Arch, wrote some new songs and named themselves after an industrial complex they saw on the way to a practice. In January 2001 they asked Ralph to play bass and johnnie to play synth and guitar, but as the synth didn't really fit it was soon dropped. They practiced and wrote more songs, but after one gig at the Grapes in July 2001 they split up.
That's only the beginning of the story though because in September 2001 Adam, James and johnnie decided to record the songs to proove that the band had really existed. While recording the backing tracks for what eventually became the disconnected ep at Yellow Arch they were asked to play at Barfly Sheffield (the National Centre for Popular Music) in October 2001. The gig went well and so they decided to continue as a bassless three piece with johnnie using a sub-octave fuzz pedal to make bass-like noises on the quieter parts of their songs. They played again at the Grapes in November 2001 after which they took a break for xmas which lasted six months.
In the spring of 2002 they asked Craig from Betty's Clinic to join on bass and that gave them the motivation to finish their first ep disconnected before the first practice with Craig. During the disconnected sessions they also recorded a rocky version of "my head" for an ELEVATOR tribute album.
Then as a four piece they practiced, wrote new songs and recorded their second ep The Attic Tapes in September 2002 and at the end of the same month they started work on their first album, but Craig left to go to work on a boat before the album was finished and so jc albyn complex became a three-piece again. In typical jc albyn complex style they did nothing as a band for a year. In early 2003 Adam started recording a solo project called yell and the nolls and with the help of two "session musicians" (johnnie and Alice from the sPrinG) he recorded an eight song mini-album in three days spread out over about six months at sPookY sounds.
Eventually jc albyn complex decided to start again. After a few practices they dumped the old recordings and recorded the backing tracks for a new album in 2004. They practiced occasionally and added some overdubs to the recordings. Then one morning Adam woke up and found that his left arm wouldn't move which was a big problem for him as he is left handed. Although he plays guitar right handed, a limp left arm also made guitar playing impossible so jcac had another break.... After about six months Adam's arm started working again and Craig returned from the boat a while later. A year later after frequently talking about having a practice a bloke called Dave (who had just started learning guitar) gave jcac the energy required to phone and book a practice. As James was not available johnnie and Craig alternated drum and bass duties and Adam and Dave played guitars. The practice demonstrated that jcac needed someone who could play drums to play the drums and luckily James was available for subsequent practices so a five piece jc albyn complex started practicing regularly and wrote some more new songs.
They had planned to record a new album over the Easter weekend in 2007. Dave decided not to join in the recording as felt he hadn't learnt to play well enough so Adam, Craig, James and johnnie recorded the backing tracks in a day and left them to be finished at a later date (always a bad mistake at sPookY sounds). As the recordings were still not finished a year later a plan was hatched to finish them over Easter 2008, but it didn't happen. As johnnie had nothing better to do on Easter monday 2008 he found the master tapes of the 2004-6 recordings and mixed them as "The Lost Tape".
About six months later johnnie got talking to Leon from The Silent Age and SkyEdge. Years earlier Leon had been in a band called Sanctuary that Third Rail had been scheduled to play with, but split up just before the gig. Leon asked jc albyn complex to play with SkyEdge at the Grapes on 25th October 2008 and so jcac played their first gig for seven years and finally finished the album "the resurrection of..." so that they could give copies away at the gig.
jc albyn complex played a few more gigs over the following year and started to record a new album in August 2009, but unfortunately after a Halloween gig at the Grapes on 31st October 2009 James broke his ankle and so jcac are curently taking another break....
