Last week Opal Mag released their new single “Looking For“, and celebrated the launch with a gig last night at the Green Door Store (supported by Glass House Red Spider Mite and Frances Mistry). We were down the front with our camera to catch the action:
I haven’t made too many posts recently. Some gig pics are still going up on Instagram, but last night wasn’t just some gig. It was the launch of Sad Dads new single Surf Instructor, supported by Room Service and Telecom, as well as the reveal of who was behind I Flipping Luv Brighton. There was a raffle (where two of the prizes were won by Miles Soft Top and Maximilian, surely some kind of fix!), excursions from the stage into the audience, swimming pool noodles being thrown about, even a light sabre fight from Room Service, and a whole load of love in the room. Some bands take music very seriously indeed, but last night showed that you can have a great time when you don’t
Surf Instructor is out now
It’s been a little while since we made a post, and it’s been a long while since we made a Brighton Rocks post. And it’s actually been more than two months since I sat down with Ideal Living‘s Billy Marsh at the Fortune of War to kick start things again, but what with one thing and another here we are now timing things to coincide with Ideal Living’s two new singles Roam and OFD.
Back in April there was no imminent Ideal Living single that we were aware of, but the band had been working hard, touring with Flip Top Head earlier in the year, and at Homegrown festival. They had been due to play at the Great Escape, but were one of the first to pull out because of Barclay’s sponsorship and their links to arms companies supplying Israel. Never ones to waste an opportunity, they ended up playing around half a dozen unofficial gigs over the weekend. Outside of the band, Billy has been busy running Dead Dog, promoting gigs all over town as well as putting out the Hutch EP and the Maximilian album.
What I was struck by at the time was Billy’s passion for the local music scene – the aspiration not just for Ideal Living to do well, but all the other bands around too – and for his desire to do something about it too rather than just wanting things to go well, one eye on opportunities now, the other on the future
Onto the singles, both of which have featured in their recent live sets, if you’ve been lucky enough to catch them. OFD is a reflection on the breakdown of friendships, and has a hint of Tom Waits about it, until the rage erupts two thirds of the way through. Roam talks urbanisation and changing landscapes, and is what they’ve closed their sets with the last couple of times I’ve seen them – the acapella close still sends shivers down my spine
What’s the best thing about Brighton?
To many things but the sea is a pretty good part
Who are your favourite local bands?
Even harder but I guess The New Eves, Flip Top Head, Attic o mattic, Van Zon, Maximilian, Hutch, but yeah, so many
What’s the best venue?
My favourite is Green Door Store but have lovely memories in so many places
What’s the best rehearsal space / studio?
Brighton Electric is good
What’s the best club?
No idea like the I Hate Clubbing nights a lot
What’s the best record shop?
To many to choose form I reckon they’re all good
Where’s the best places to eat?
I really like fire and charcoal
What’s the best pub?
So many good ones but Hand in Hand is nice, I like playing Toads in there
Who’s your favourite Brighton celebrity?
Bertie beer
When was the last time you had any Brighton Rock?
When I was l like 8 years old. I don’t like the stuff but the book is good
OFD and Roam are out today, and the band headline the Hope and Ruin on 4th July
Our focus on New Releases has mainly switched over to our Instagram Stories these days, but we’re making an exception for a band who have seemed to appear from nowhere fully formed. We first caught them at the Albert last November, bottom of a bill which would have people queuing around the block for these days, alongside the New Eves and Fliptop Head. At that point Van Zon had only been going for a few months, but managed to leave a big impression.
A few months down the road, and they’re ready to release their debut effort Cannon Fodder. You could call it a single, but it clocks in just shy of eight minutes. It defies genres – Post rock weaves it all together, but the violin pulls it into folk territory, and the clarinet and 6/8 time signature sometimes nudge things toward neo-classical and further away from any sort of classification. Not wanting to just regurgitate their PR, I can’t disagree with line that says that it’s “Like a painting by a renaissance master”.
With an Instagram feed of less than a dozen posts, no Facebook, Twitter, or other social media, and very little else about the band anywhere online, I met up with them to try and demystify things. Van Zon tell me that they’re named after a Dutch serial killer, but that the name also means From The Sun in Dutch. Drummer Ewan is part Dutch too, something the rest of the band didn’t find out until they’d settled on a name. They tentatively describe themselves as experimental folk rock, but don’t feel like their sound can easily be slotted in alongside any pre-existing genre. Cannon Fodder was one of the first songs that they played live, and has evolved each time it’s been played out, only becoming it’s final version when it was recorded around a month ago. The rest of their unrecorded material continues to change each time it’s performed, with the band keen to continue to make them “even more epic”. They claim the lack of an online presence isn’t a deliberate attempt to be mysterious – that they don’t have the time, and that they aren’t great at social media. Yet, as we part ways they upload a post of an old painting, with nothing but the dictionary definition of Cannon Fodder in the description, and no hint that it might refer to their upcoming single. So much for not being mysterious. However, the phone signal isn’t great and there’s part-serious, part humourous concern that it’s going to upload multiple times. Maybe this approach to social media is the essence of Van Zon right now – embracing their contradictions and letting their subconscious lead the way, wherever that may take them, and things just turning out just right.
Van Zon are playing five alternative escape gigs next week:
15 May / Pipeline (10:30) – Brighton Noise Stage
16 May / Grand Central (6:45)
17 May / The Gladstone (5pm)- Slack City Stage
17 May / UnBarred Brewery – (9pm) – JOY stage
18 May / The Hope And Ruin (2:30) – Love Thy Neighbour Stage
Last week Maximilian released his debut album Surrender, on Dead Dog records, and last night he played it live start to finish at Fabrica supported by Skydaddy and Brighton’s Opal Mag.
Playing an album all the way through in sequential order isn’t the most obvious thing to do – A set of songs which might make for a good gig can be quite different to a playlist / ordering that makes for a good album, but Maximilian created an immersive world last night aided and abetted by some of Brighton’s finest musicians that more than lived up to the challenge – intimate, and uplifting, the evening felt like it was over far too soon.
As I find myself saying for the second post in a row, if you missed the gig, Maximilian is on the bill at Homegrown Festival next weekend, so you can catch him again then.
Last Friday Glasshouse Red Spider Mite played their first headline show, promoting their debut single Erstwhile, which came out on 20th March (which you’d have spotted if Instagram showed you our story on release day). Support came Van Zon, who we can’t get enough of these days, and out of towners Plainmoor. If you missed the gig and want to hear more from the band, you can catch them (and Van Zon) at Homegrown festival on Saturday 13th April
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Hot on the heels of the release of their top twenty debut album One More Thing, Lime Garden closed their UK tour on Friday night with a sold out gig at Chalk. Support came from Ladylike (who are locals so also feature in the gallery below) and Ugly.
There was a shoutout to Chloe’s mum up in the balcony when they played Mother, quips about seeing the four coolest women on International Women’s Day, one of the friendliest mosh pits I’ve seen in a while, and, by all accounts, massive queues at the Green Door Store after they announced that’s where the afterparty would be.
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This week Brighton Music Blog favourites Projector hit the road to promote their new album Now When We Talk it’s Violence. There’s a whole bunch of other tour dates (go check their website), but obviously the only one that really matters is their hometown gig, which took place at Green Door Store last night. It was everything you’d hope for and more – the album played through larger and louder than you’d have heard it at home, a mosh pit, band members removing layers of clothing, a Pixies cover, and fantastic support sets from Ideal living and Vincent Vocoder Voice. Go stream the album (or better still, buy it) today
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Yesterday Lime Garden released their debut album One More Time. After a strong run of singles, of which only those released in the last twelve months feature on the record, and years of playing live honing their skills, they’ve come up with an accomplished collection of songs dealing with hope, humdrum and matters of the heart. Broadening their palette beyond guitar pop Floor and Pop Star casually toss in a bit of autotune, and Fears almost ditches guitars altogether save for a few riffs towards the end. The closing pair of tracks, It and Looking, strip things right back and remind us that it’s not parties every night. And then clocking in barely over half an hour it’s done, leaving us thirsting for more.
Promotion for the album kicked off last night with an in store at Resident (and an anecdote about how at a previous instore Chloe had asked Marika Hackman to sign a sanitary pad), followed by a launch party around the corner. A whole bunch of live dates are coming up including their biggest ever headline gig at Chalk on Friday 8th March, and no doubt a summer full of festivals
Last Friday Plantoid released their debut album Terrapath on Bella Union records, which follows the singles Dog’s Life, Pressure and Modulator:
It’s influences are rooted in 1970s prog rock – album opener Is That You? clocks in at over six minutes and jumps time signatures – but there’s a lot more to the record than that. Stick with it, and by the time you reach the lilting highlight Wander/Wonder you’re transported to South America as a whole load of Latin influences slip seamlessly in. Elsewhere the album rocks hard, on GY Drift, and wraps you in gossamer, on album closer Softly Speaking.
The album was launched with a out-store gig at Alphabet, playing through each track in order from start to finish, joined onstage by album producer Nathan Ridley enthusiastically playing the bongos. Click through the pics to view large:
Terrapath is out now in all good record shops and streaming sites, or from the band’s bandcamp page:
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