Fly Machine “s/t” CD

Now that Confessor's back in action, Fly Machine has been getting mentioned more and more often with regards to what some of the Confessor dudes were up to in the time between Confessor's disappearance in the early-90's and their 2002 reunion to benefit the family of their former guitarist, Ivan Edward Colon, after his unfortunate passing. It's a horrible shame that it took such a tragedy to bring the members of Confessor back together, but it's otherwise nice to see a pioneering band make a strong return, and for a project like Fly Machine to get a little retrospective press in the process.

Well, at some point after Confessor first disbanded, members Brian Shoaf (guitar), Cary Rowells (bass), and Steve Shelton (drums, a.k.a. "One of the Greatest Drummers to Have Ever Walked the Planet") formed Fly Machine. I believe the band was originally called Mover, but Shoaf left about a year later and never recorded with 'em. He was replaced by Chris Nolan, and Dave Dorsey rounded out the lineup on vocals and guitar. Their style was basically a gradually more simplistic and graspable take on the odd time signatures and off-kilter rhythms that Confessor made infamous, with Dorsey's often more restrained vocals taking it down a notch or two.

This CD, self-released by the band in 1997, contains two different recording sessions consisting of four songs each: One set from Richmond, VA; the other set from Raleigh, NC. My guess is that the four Raleigh tracks are the older of the bunch as they sound a lot more like Confessor (Is it me or do some of the riffs in "Downsize" sound eerily familiar?) and the recording's not nearly as strong, but despite some rough spots this CD definitely has some strengths and deserves a happy home in any Confessor fan's CD collection.

I only found out about these guys because they used to play around here in Richmond about once a year with Burn the Priest, and of course I flipped out when I heard that they had ex-members of Confessor in the band. I remember they were selling this CD for only $5 at shows, and I was really impressed by that. I tried to do a big feature on Fly Machine over five years ago, but they were really hard to get a hold of and it never panned out before they, too, sort of vanished:

Fly Machine "Becoming"
Fly Machine "Downsize"

At some point, years after this disc hit the streets, the band had posted some new mp3's online, but those songs were never released. I actually remember being tremendously disappointed in that material anyway, as it was far more basic and rocked out, bearing little in common with where the band came from. This disc wasn't well distributed at all, and I haven't had any luck locating any copies online for any interested parties, but if you do some digging you might be able to come across one. Hell, the band might have a handful leftover, for all I know?

In the meantime, the almighty Confessor is alive and kicking once again, so check that shit out instead! I, for one, am eagerly awaiting their forthcoming full-length!