Category Archives: Gallery

Lemonsuckr Life Is A Heist EP launch at Alphabet gallery

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Hats off to Lemonsuckr, who have a song with the line “in a murderous summer heat”, for playing at Alphabet last night in a murderous summer heat. They were playing to launch their new EP Life is a Heist, out last week, and warming up for a summer playing festivals pretty much every weekend. To say it was hot is an understatement, and Alphabet’s air con just couldn’t cope with a packed out room jumping up around to the most exciting Brighton band of the moment – it was so bad that my lenses were steaming up and I had to put my camera away. They’re playing again at the end of summer at Brighton Psych Fest – you’d be a fool to miss them

Life is a Heist is out now:

MEMORIALS / All Clouds Bring Not Rain tour hometown gig at the Prince Albert

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Last month, MEMORIALS released their new album All Clouds Bring Not Rain.  They played a stripped down acoustic set in Resident on launch date before heading to France for promotional duties. They’re currently on a near sold out UK tour which took in Brighton last night.

It goes without saying that if you haven’t listened to the album, you really must immediately – it’s easily one of the best things we’ve heard all year (jump straight to Holy Invisible or Dropped Down The Well if you’re short on time) – so there was no way that we weren’t going to be down the front with our camera:

All Clouds Bring Not Rain by MEMORIALS is out now on Fire Records:

 

Goodbye / These Things Take Time EP launch at Alphabet supported by Lindow Man

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Goodbye released their debut EP These Things Take Time a couple of weeks ago on 26th March, but the launch tour didn’t arrive in Brighton until last night so here’s our slightly late post about it. Since their arrival on the scene eighteen months ago Goodbye have been ones to watch, and their EP fulfills the promise they’ve shown. Shimmering guitars that rise and fall brush up against soaring vocals, one moment powerful then in a moment gentle like gossamer. It’s dream pop, it’s shoegaze, it’s what you should be listening to in our opinion.

Support at the gig came from newcomers Lindow Man, half of whom were former members of blog favourites Van Zon. Lindow Man hit harder than Van Zon ever did on record, but some of their last gigs before their split hinted at harder material so maybe this is what became of those songs. I haven’t seen any line ups at all yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them on the line up of an alt escape bill next month somewhere, if you do want to try and catch them.

These Things Take Time by Goodbye is out now:

 

 

Ladylike / It’s a Pleasure of Mine, to Know You’re Fine EP Launch at Green Door Store

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If you hadn’t heard, Ladylike are back, with their first full length EP, the six track It’s a Pleasure of Mine, to Know You’re Fine. It sounds like the Ladylike you might have been familiar with if you’d have seen them a year ago, but bigger and better, like the difference between watching a film on television vs watching at the cinema. Burning Heather is split into two parts which appear non consecutively on the EP. Rome (In Progress) starts off like a folk song then gets huge by the end. Fresh Linen clocks in at almost seven minutes, but with not a second wasted. If you haven’t listened yet, do yourself a favour and remedy that right away.

They’re playing a short tour, which kicked off last night at Green Door Store.. Click through to view the photos large:

 

Flip Top Head – Trilateral Machine EP launch

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On Saturday Night Flip Top Head played a gig to launch their second EP Trilateral Machine at St Augustines Church (which has actually been an Arts Centre for seven or eight years, but this is the first gig that we’ve been aware of here). Support came from Joel Whittaker, sometimes known as the bassist in Keg (who I missed, unfortunately), and My Precious Bunny, the new project from Penelope Isles’ Lily Wolter (who far exceeded my expectations).

It goes without saying that the EP is a beautiful thing – Math / post rock with heart and soul. If you haven’t heard it, stream it right away, or better still, head over to their bandcamp and buy yourself a copy.

 

Fifteen Years of Green Door Store

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Normally when you see something about a new venue opening, it’s not really a new venue, it’s just an old one with a new name: Waterbear Music Bar is just Latest Music Bar with a new badge. Patterns used to be Audio but some older Brightonians remember it as the Escape, and even more people still talk about Quarters as The Zap. The Hope & Ruin used to be just The Hope (but it’ll always be the Pig in Paradise to me). Before it became Folklore Rooms the upstairs room at the Quadrant was a firm fixture for alternative escape gigs (even if for the rest of the year it just hosted comedy). Fifteen years ago this week though Brighton got a proper brand new venue, and it’s fair to say that the impact it made to the local music scene was massive, and almost definitely one of the reasons I started Brighton Music Blog later that year. On 7th January 2011 Cold Pumas played the launch party for Green Door Store, and since then they haven’t looked back.

To celebrate their fifteenth birthday, over the course of January they’re putting on a free gig every Saturday – on 10th January Silver Gore, Lemonsuckr and Lonnie Gunn play, on 17th there’s Thistle, Goodbye and Little Grandad, on 24th Hutch, Trip Westerns and Lelamb, and on 31st January Complete Snake, Tempers Fray and Landmine.

Here’s a big bunch of photos of Brighton bands at Green Door Store, from Brakes playing their second ever event in January 2011 (we weren’t there on the launch night) through to Kate Peaches in August last year. Happy Birthday Green Door Store!

Goodbye / Meat single launch at Bella Union Shop

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Goodbye‘s debut single feels like it’s been a long time coming – At their first gigs back in Summer 2024 they already felt like a band who had been around for a while. They had songs, they had stage presence, they had a fully formed sound that takes some bands years to establish. I guess what they didn’t have at that point was a reputation, so they’ve been working hard since then and the time is finally right for them to share their first release. Meat has been a staple of their live sets for as long as I remember and appeared on the live cassette that came out back in March as a way of getting some music out into the world before a proper release. The band’s PR calls it dreampop, but there’s definite 80s / 90s indie sound to their guitars (I’m sure I heard someone that they’re named after a song by The Sundays but I can’t find anything online to support that, so don’t quote me on that).

In lead vocalist Megan Wheeler’s own words: “‘Meat’” sort of touches on the idea that some men see women as lustful objects rather than human beings, ogling them as meat. Sometimes you catch a stranger’s eye and they look right through you, as though they are stripping you of everything you are, your personality, skills, talent reduced to just meat. In my experience the majority of women I know have felt this in some form so I kept the lyrics deliberately vague and open to interpretation.”

Last night the band played a launch at the new Bella Union Shop, supported by Atticomatic. The room was packed so I’m glad I got down early for a good view to have the night captured for posterity.

 

Meat by Goodbye is out now

 

George Bloomfield / Now & Then album launch

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On Tuesday night, George Bloomfield launched his new album Now & Then at Alphabet with a full eight piece band, supported by Soft Top (who also had a cast of thousands on stage). George and his band played the album roughly in order, with a few non-album tracks tucked in the middle. In lieu of an encore the closed with Space Between which came out a couple of years ago.

We were down the front with our camera to catch the action (click through to view large):

 

Mutations Festival 2025

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This weekend was Mutations Festival, and Saturday night’s headliner was local heroes Lambrini Girls. Overall though Brighton felt a bit under represented, with less than 10% given over to local bands. On Friday, you couldn’t have watched both Fickle Friends and Ditz because they were in clashing slots (although they are very different bands). On Saturday Ladylike opened up proceedings at Chalk. Lemonsuckr proved to be so popular that I spent half their set stuck in the queue outside Dust and when I did get in they were struck down with technical difficulties. Because both of the timings of both of those sets, I didn’t manage to get to Alphabet for My Precious Bunny, although I heard good things afterwards, and Opus Kink were on way past my bedtime. Overall though, it was a great festival – they probably needed a few more small stages open in the afternoon before the bigger venues opened up, and the weather was very forgiving, the bill overall was diverse enough to not get boring. Here’s to next year (with hopefully a few more Brighton bands on the bill)

Van Zon / Glasshouse Red Spider Mite EP Launch double headliner at Alphabet

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Around a month ago, Van Zon released their debut EP “All Things, All One Aglow“, and a couple of weeks later, Glasshouse Red Spider Mite released their EP “What Do You Mean The Monster?… Hahaha“, and last night the bands played a double headline launch gig at Alphabet, supported by London band Catbandcat. We went along with our camera to capture things for posterity:

(click through to view large)