Interlocutor

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So you’ve done the weekend now, except for that post-Saturday hangover-recovery dance, and you’re starting to wonder about your next big thing to do?

Well, you’re sorted. On Wednesday we have a gig by Alex White’s new band Interlocutor, Alex being the other brother out of the Electric Soft Parade and one of Brighton’s most prolific and talented musos. Interlocutor are an 11 piece alt-soul-rock band, and if Matthew E White or Lambchop’s your bag you will love this. Wednesday night they’re playing their new album right the way through. It will be great.

In support we have the amazing Crayola Lectern with his psychedelically-infused torch-rock, and the ramshackle indie-pop of Octopuses, comprising ex-members of the now legendary Foxes! And if that isn’t enough, these three bands will all be bathed in the warm glow of the Innerstrings Psychedelic Lightshow, a satisfying sight worth the meagre entrance fee on its own.

This one will sell out, so get your tickets pronto from the usual local stores or online at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/208205

Clowns supported by Frank Melena Band at Green Door Store

Posted on 01/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We truly are spoiled in Brighton. Not just because of the massive choice of music that’s on offer, but because so much is so cheap. Last weekend we went to Brighton Electric – It was three pound on the door which worked out at a pound a band. Last night Clowns played at the Green Door Store and it was free!

Frank Melena Band

We missed Victorian Hunter – because of a club night being held later on it was an early gig. We arrived at the bar to see a few members of the band still wearing animal heads. Probably a band worth going to see for the visual spectacle if nothing else. We grabbed a pint and headed in to see Frank Melena Band, who are also notable for their outfits – The bulk of the band sported wrestling masks, some wore ladies fur coats, and the bassist wore shorts with matching fur boots and had fairy lights taped around his mask. Musically, the band performed a reasonable set of angry garage punk, at times trying out a bit of politics in the banter between songs to a largely indifferent crowd. A punk band needs a punk audience, which isn’t the audience that were at Green Door Store last night but with the right crowd they raise the roof. Oh and one last thing, don’t go googling Frank Melena to find out who the band are named, because it’s not a who, it’s a what

Clowns

One of the main reasons I’ll keep going to see Clowns is that every time I see them they outshine all the other bands on the bill. As a unit the band are tighter, the songs have better hooks, and main man Miles Heathfield not only looks like he believes every single word that he sings, but that he wants you to believe it too. Clowns rock hard, but they’re also accessible. There’s humour, but they’re also very dark. Miles’ suit could make him seem aloof, but he always gets in amongst the crowd while he’s performing. These contradictions are their strengths, and they’re what make them so compelling. One of last night’s highlight was upcoming single Love Vigilante, which the band had asked the audience to film on their phones to make the video. If I was in a band and wanted audience video, I’d have done it in a venue with much better lighting – Green Door Store is notoriously dark!

Clowns next gig is at the Con Club in Lewes on 12th April. See you there.

Jacko Hooper / New downloads

Posted on 01/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Jacko Hooper, who impressed us at Sea Monsters back in January, has put a couple of tracks up on Bandcamp. Not an official release, just a free taster while he works on his debut ep. 21, Promises is gentle and fragile, while These Echoes is more upbeat and jaunty. It doesn’t show on Bandcamp, but when you make the download, you also get his cover of Cat Power’s Keep On Running too.

If you’re enjoying Jacko’s voice, and were wondering what it might sound like accompanying electronic music rather than acoustic guitar, then we recommend Luo’s recent Antidote EP (which we wrote about a few weeks back and haven’t stopped listening to since). Jacko features on track three Mistakes.

Laish on your sofa (or somebody’s)

Posted on 01/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Daniel Green of Laish played the Brighton Sofar Sounds gig in January with the full band in somebody’s front room and then went to the London one solo, and played this stunning version of Warm the Wind there. Absolutely beautiful and I defy you not to be moved.

Did we say the new Laish album is out shortly? Are you ready for it?

the story of SONAA

Posted on 01/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

A lovely short video of the Sons of Noel and Adrian story. They’re playing in support of Damo Suzuki tonight at a SOLD OUT gig at the Green Door Store. If you were lucky enough to get tickets it’s going to be better than awesome. Get there early to see Soccer 96, and Eyes & No Eyes who kick things off at 6:45pm.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 27/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Isn’t the weather meant to be getting better by now? And aren’t the days meant to be getting longer? It’s still dark when I get home from work. At least it’s almost the weekend, which means it’s time for us to flag up the local bands we think you ought to see over the next few days.

On Thursday night Clowns play at the Green Door Store, supported by Frank Melena Band and Victorian Hunter. As front men go, they don’t come much better than Clowns’ Miles Heathfield, so this comes highly recommended. And it’s free! Over in Hove at the Bee’s Mouth, Zoe Hazel Hedderwick headlines the first Lipstick & Picks night – a new monthly night showcasing female musicians, which is also free.

Friday night’s biggest gigs to mention are some musical legend supported by local bands – Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band headline the Concorde, supported Son Belly, and Damo Suzuki from Can headlines the Green Door Store. Not only is he supported by Sons of Noel and Adrian, Soccer 96 and Eyes & No Eyes, but members of each of these bands will also be playing with him for his set. Friday is also Lout’s next Brighton Rocks night at Sticky Mike’s, with Saint Savanna, The Dancers, Farrow and Pizzabones.

There’s also another Brighton Rocks on Saturday at Sticky Mike’s – Ham Legion, The Creaking Chair, The Evil Son and LSD-25 are on the bill. House of Hats host another Harvest Session at the Brunswick, with support from The Self Help Group and Katharine Rose. Later in the evening Kovak host Club Kovak at the Blind Tiger, where you’ll have one of your first opportunities to see them playing tunes from their upcoming album live. Support comes Paper Playground and a DJ set from Youth. I suppose we ought to mention that Woodingdean’s finest X-factor contestant Frankie Cocozza is playing at the Haunt too.

Just the one gig to mention for Sunday, but it’s one we bought a ticket for before we even realised that the support would be a local act. Melody’s Echo Chamber plays at The Haunt (not Green Door Store where tickets were originally on sale for), and we’re looking forward to see them almost as much as we’re looking forward to Fear of Men who are supporting.

Curxes at the Green Door Store / Milk & Biscuits at the Blind Tiger

Posted on 21/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

As you may have gathered from our posts, we’re big fans of live music here at Brighton Music Blog. In Brighton, we’re incredibly lucky that there are so many great gigs and so much choice. Last night was no exception, so much so that we decided to go to two gigs. We headed to the Green Door Store where Curxes were first on the bill at Danger De Mort’s monthly night, and then moved on to the Blind Tiger where Milk and Biscuits were headlining.

Curxes

Danger De Mort first came to our attention in October last year when they put on a show that Nordic Giants headlined. Since then they’ve been putting on a gig every month with a mix of local and national bands, all with great line ups. Last night Brighton Music Blog approved Curxes opened the show. Where their first few releases had been very much in an industrial electro vein (they opened with Souxsie Sioux fronts Depeche Mode style single Spectre) they showed a new side with their Christmas cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and it was this that we were hoping to get get a glimpse of last night. The first part of the set was filled with the early singles – big belting synth epics which only went slightly awry when a lead fell out of the back of the laptop providing the visuals. Because it was cold, because it was midweek, because it was early – for whatever reason – it was a bit quiet, so Roberta took to the middle of the room as her stage, losing herself in the space, giving us an impression of the what the Curxes live show might be like when they’re playing bigger venues. Their new more reflective side was shown at the end of the set, when they closed on quieter aggressive song, showing off Roberta’s voice and showing the band’s newfound versatility.

Milk & Biscuits

While I had heard good reports of the rest of the bands on the bill they weren’t from Brighton, and there was another band playing in town who I was also looking forward to. I had only seen Milk and Biscuits once before, playing a low-key support slow at the Green Door Store around the time of their Balcony Times mini-album back at the tail end of 2011. That it’s taken until now for me to see them again isn’t to say the eight-piece took 2012 off – half of them are also in Restlesslist, whose concept album Coral Island Girl was one of our highlights last year. By the time I arrived at the Blind Tiger, the place was getting busy and I spotted quite a few local musicians amongst the crowd – Mary Hampton, Jennifer Left, Nick Hudson, Adam from Fragile Creatures, and probably a whole load more that I didn’t recognise. The Milk and Biscuits onstage yesterday were far more performance based than the band I saw over a year ago – they’ve transformed from a bunch of great musicians playing amongst each other to a fully fledged band who looked out towards the audience in a formation which showed them off well. Musically things had changed too and their set didn’t feature any tracks from their first release. To these ears their new sound isn’t quite so introspective as before. Last year’s single White Noise still sounds quite pastoral, but Milk and Biscuits rock harder than they used to. Local poet Gary Goodman joined them onstage for a few tracks, which added a different dimension to things, his sometimes-cutting observations showing that they’re more than just a band. Overall though, the gig was hampered with poor sound – there was a lot of feedback from the microphones, and the drummer seemed unhappy throughout, no doubt one of the issues of having such a large band. Let’s hope that next time there aren’t the same issues. Next time they’ve even promised an encore too!

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 20/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Normally our weekly post about which gigs we think you should go to to see some of our favourite local acts starts on a Thursday. Thursday has long replaced Friday as the start of the weekend in the Brighton Music Blog calendar. This week though, we’re starting things even earlier on Wednesday, because there’s two cracking gigs on tonight which we feel deserve a bit of a mention.

Tonight Milk & Biscuits play at the Blind Tiger. We loved last year’s epic White Noise single, and this is a great chance to see them playing their new material for their follow up to 2011’s Balcony Time’s mini-LP. Over at the Green Door Store, Danger De Mort are holding their third event. Their first night had Nordic Giants headlining, and we were gutted to miss last month’s event which had IYES and Us Baby Bear Bones supporting. This month’s local support are Curxes, who have promised to play the new tracks they they’ll be releasing later this year. I don’t know a great deal about the rest of the bill, headlined by a band called Cymbals, but we reckon it’ll be great just on the strength of their previous line ups.

Onto Thursday night, where we normally kick off our weekend. One Inch Badge are putting Doldrums at the Prince Albert. Doldrums are from Toronto, but the supports – Us Baby Bear Bones and Luo are two of our favourite local bands.

On Friday night we’ve spotted four gigs we like the look of. Written in Waters, IYES and Calico are playing at Brighton Electric, Speak Galactic and Cloud are supporting Antibang at the Prince Albert, Catherine Ireton is supporting Stu Larsen at Sticky Mike’s and Anneka is playing at live set at the Traumfrau night at the Haunt. We’re spoiled for choice!

Then on Saturday Professor Elemental is launching his new single at the Marlborough. The single’s called This is My Horse (Show Me Yours), and we’ll be writing a separate post about it sometime next week.

IYES – Glow

Posted on 18/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

When we first wrote about IYES back in January, we tucked their track Lighthouse in amongst a whole bunch of other tunes by local bands that we wanted to share with you all. After we posted it, we couldn’t stop listening to it – it was that good. And then we went to go and see them live, and that was great too.

Fast forward to this weekend, and a brand new track has appeared on their soundcloud, and this time we’re going to give it the fanfare that it deserves. Glow starts off simply with an arpeggiated rhythm and Melis’ vocal, and then around thirty seconds in it explodes into technicolour with effervescent synths and the strength of Josh’s voice. Glow is a bit more uptempo than Lighthouse, but doesn’t lose anything for it. I always have a little bit of fear when I hear one track by a new band that the rest of their material won’t match it, but IYES have proved that this doesn’t have to be the case.

Nordic Giants – Speed The Crow’s Nest

Posted on 18/02/2013 by brightonmusicblog

The brand new Nordic Giants single, Speed The Crow’s Nest has just been released and the band celebrated with a sold out launch show at the Dome Studio Theatre last night.

Speed The Crow’s Nest is unmistakeably Nordic Giants from the off – big, uplifting piano riffs, shimmering guitars and clattering drums. The experience is completely exhilarating – like falling from a great height, or being caught out in a thunderstorm – it’s a little disorientating, but at the same time utterly awe inspiring. The b-side is the first track released with Nordic Giants new vocalist, Freyja. Glass Skinned Girl showcases the other side of the band – quiet, reflective and glacial. Freyja’s voice is a perfect complement to their more ambient stuff, and rings out as much a part of the instrumentation as a vehicle for delivering the lyrics.

Onstage Freyja fitted in perfectly too, dressed head to toe in black with the most amazing head dress, with the live delivery matching the clarity of the recordings. Freyja only joined the band for two tracks – the rest of the Nordic Giant’s set was either instrumental, or had the vocalist pre-recorded with their image projected into a separate video box in the middle of the stage. I’ve long maintained that Nordic Giants are one of the best live bands in town. On the way out I heard someone describing it as “a religious experience” which you can’t really argue with – the music blows you away and you’re blinded by the strobes, but it’s all so incredibly beautiful. The next Nordic Giants live date is up in London in April, but it’s in a church in St Pancras – that truly will be a religious experience!

You can buy Speed the Crows Nest on iTunes or it’ll be available in physical form from the band’s website soon.