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
If you’re anything like me, you probably aren’t really aware of Tinderbox. Maybe if you were paying attention you might have seen a poster for this week’s Human Interest gig at the Hope & Ruin and thought they were promoters. Actually, Tinderbox is a non profit artist development and music production house, based in Sussex and funded by the Arts Council. In their own words the “exist to make sure cool, diverse music keeps getting made by cool, diverse working artists, who increasingly can’t afford to get into the studio”. The team behind Tinderbox are made up of Lucy Sheehan from Projector, producer / engineer Ben Hampson, who’s been involved an impressive list of bands from Brighton and beyond, and Suzi Ireland, a music industry professional with decades of experience across management, promotion and journalism.
On Friday the 25th, Folklore release their second showcase EP, Folklore Vol. 2, so I caught up with Folklore head honcho Jacko Hooper to get the low down on the acts and the accompanying launch gig. Volume one was a 7″ record, but for this release (and probably future releases in the series) they’ve switched to the 10″ format. Initially driven by the length of the songs, which wouldn’t have sounded as good with the physical constraints of a 7″, there’s something alluring about the slightly larger format. Jacko talked me through each of the bands on the EP:
It’s worth noting at this stage that a fair amount of time has passed between volume one – which appeared in 2018 – and volume two. “Yeah, volume one was a while ago! But it’s gonna be a bit more regular from now on. The plan was always to do them slightly more regularly than that anyway but with Covid and then opening the venue it just fell down the list in terms of having the time and resources to do that. Basically trying to keep a venue alive is like a very much full-time job but now we’re in the rhythm of things and volume three is already done. I’m trying to stay like a record ahead of myself. We keep moving forward with the 10 inch releases and we’re looking at one or two a year”
Brighton Music Blog 