The Go! Team / Semicircle

PRESS3I had a dream last night where the centrepiece of the upcoming Brighton Festival was a concert by The Go! Team, but instead of being in a venue it was a parade through the streets with the band accompanied by a brass band and a steel band and loads of vocalists and dancers. It was a joyous celebration. As the procession wound it’s way around the lanes the crowds grew bigger and bigger, culminating in a massive finale on the beach. Sadly it was just a dream, but close your eyes listening to the band’s new album Semicircle and it isn’t too hard to imagine (and if David Shrigley or anyone from the Festival reads this, it’s not too late to make it happen!) Continue reading

Support Your Local Girl Gang at Sticky Mikes Frog Bar

Last night we went along to the new Support Your Local Girl Gang night at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. The night has been started up by local promoters Rixson Music after reading about how under represented women are on bills across gigs and festivals in the UK. We got there a little too late to see opener Holly Deanna, but we did see Anna Leigh Stainton, IVI and Stranger Girl, all of whom are names to keep your eyes out for – we’ve had a couple of IVI’s tracks on the blog over the last year, and will no doubt be featuring the others in due course. Here’s our pics, as always, click to view large: Continue reading

Green Door Store 7th Birthday

Happy Birthday Green Door Store! Yesterday our favourite venue in town invited us along to their birthday gig. As we mentioned in our January gig preview post there were a couple of Brighton bands on the bill – Guru and Desire – so we pointed our lens at them and you can see the pics below. Click through to view large: Continue reading

New Brighton Music

Happy New Year! Our first New Music post of the year is a bit of a catch up, since we put these on hold in December while we were posting our end of year roundup. It’s been so long since our last post that the band we’re most excited about blogging has put out two new tracks. The Go! Team posted up their latest track All The Way Live just yesterday:

And Mayday went up right at the very end of November. If you haven’t got a ticket to their gig at The Haunt on 11th February yet, then move fast because the dates for the whole tour are selling out all over the place:
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January 2018 gig previews

After posting our 2017 reflections in our top 25 over the past few weeks the time has come to look forward again. Here’s our January 2018 gig preview post.

GDS 7First up is a band who were in the top five of our end of year list. Fresh from supporting Fujiya & Miyagi on their UK tour in December, grasshopper are headlining their own gig at the Green Door Store on 3rd January, supported by Red Deer People and Olm. Continue reading

Brighton Music Blog 2017 Top 25 – number 2 – Pete Fij & Terry Bickers

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We Are Millionaires by Pete Fij & Terry Bickers was released back in July, quietly understated but at the same time accomplished and powerful. The band describe their songs as being miserable, which you can’t deny, but there’s also a majesty to them too. Most of all though, they make it look effortlessly easy, which everyone knows is the really tricky bit. Continue reading

Brighton Music Blog 2017 Top 25 – number 3 – AK/DK

 

RZ9A3797esThis year, AK/DK released their second full length long player Patterns / Harmonics, a further refinement of their anarchic analogue kraut-punk-techno sound and the follow up to 2014’s Synths + Drums + Noise + Space. As great as they are on record though, it’s live where the band shine and their album launch at the Green Door Store in October was our gig of the year.

 

Brighton Music Blog 2017 Top 25 – number 4 – grasshopper

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We haven’t managed to make it along to many Bleeding Hearts Recordings related things this year, but we’re still fans of what they do with their regular monthly nights ploughing a different furrow to everyone else. They’ve only put out one record this year, which felt (to us at least) like it was a long time coming. Since the recording of the three tracks on grasshopper‘s Nothing Like Us single they’ve changed guitarists a number of times, but have now settled on a line up which has added some meat to the post-punk bones of their previous post-punk incarnation. Where so many guitar bands in Brighton opt for a grungey shoegaze sound it’s always refreshing hear grasshopper (which you can do on the 3rd January at the Green Door Store)

 

Brighton Music Blog 2017 Top 25 – number 5 – Anneka

We’ve put a couple of bands in our top five who only had short form releases, whose music we love and we feel still deserve a place in our list despite not having released an album. The first of these is Anneka, who released her Life Force EP at the end of April on Anti-Ghost Moon Ray. The tracks managed to be both electronic and organic at the same time, layering synths over ethereal vocals and blurring the distinction between the two. When we met up to do her Brighton Rocks shoot in May she told us that there was a follow up planned at some point so hopefully we’ll see that soon in 2018. Continue reading