We don’t do gig previews that much any more, mainly because we don’t get out nearly as much as we used to. We’ve got a big feature coming, but it’s taking a little while to get together, so to tide you over until then, here’s a few gigs that have caught our eye over the coming month:
Tomorrow night (Monday 10th July), Bleeding Hearts almost celebrate their fifteen birthday at The Rialto. As they put it: “We’d planned to host an alldayer only to find out that our adversaries had used their telemeters to evil effect. Due to dimentional complications we will not be celebrating the actual anniversary but instead our inability to celebrate our longeveness.”. On the bill are Garden Centre, Academy of the Sun, Gary Goodman and Sam Cutting.
On Saturday 22nd July, Britpop stars Sleeper return to play a sold out gig at The Haunt – their first gig in almost twenty years. Support comes from fellow nineties stars My Life Story.
The Fiction Aisle headline an intimate gig at the Komedia Studio bar on Thursday 27th July. Their debut album Heart Map Rubric has recently re-released on vinyl by Brighton’s Finest, so expect some of that in their set. Support comes from the off-beat genius of Crayola Lectern.
The following night (Friday 28th July), Animal House are top of the bill at The Hope & Ruin, to celebrate the launch of their Hot Bodies EP. Further down the bill are The New Faith, who’ve just finished recording their debut album.
The people. We were incredibly warmly welcomed into a big group of friends as soon as we arrived and it’s never been difficult to meet a friend here. The music scene follows along that same vein.
Who are the your favourite local bands?
Blue Spectre – garage surf rock
Strange Cages – 70’s style psychedelia
Other States – sort of Western style crooning, little bit like old Nick Cave with modern production
What’s the best venue?
I mean – Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar is always a laugh, The Hope & Ruin is great upstairs, Green Door Store has a great garagy feel; they’ve all got their selling points.
What’s the best rehearsal space / studio?
Our one! We lucked out when we arrived and have a space in a DIY rehearsal room we share with several other bands and musicians. We pay a monthly rent and have basically unlimited access, it’s bloody wonderful.
What’s the best club?
You want classic bangers, The Haunt on a Friday or Saturday, though I might be vilified for that. Legends is lovely and Volks is a classic super late night / early morning club innit.
What’s the best record shop?
To be honest I like just snooping around all of them. Some owned by old legends who have a collection of a billion records they’re selling and know each one like the back of their hand, I always have the most fun in those. Resident genuinely has to be the best for new music though.
Where’s the best place to eat?
One of my favourite local haunts is Milk No Sugar on Trafalgar street. It’s a happy little Vietnamese restaurant, cheap, delicious and the dude who owns it is literally the friendliest person there ever was.
What’s the best pub?
The Great Eastern, also on Trafalgar Street is just such a great little English Pub, best enjoyed in Winter though. In the summer, I mean, I hate to say The Fortune of War but it’s a classic beach front destination.
Who’s your favourite Brighton celebrity?
Has to be Steve Coogan. I’ve served both him and Nick Cave separately when I was working in cafes. I tried to make a joke regarding a banana loaf to Steve Coogan but he didn’t hear (or pretended not to) and I died a little bit.
When was the last time you had any Brighton Rock?
You mean the candy? Ummmmm… a year ago at a party probably?
Animal House‘s Hot Bodies EP is out now, headed up with the super-catchy Coca Cola. You can catch them live on 28th July when they play a headline gig at the Hope & Ruin:
It’s been a fortnight since we made a new music post, and as usual when it’s been slightly longer, somehow there’s disproportionately more tunes to write about (and that’s not counting the ones we’re missing out because the Spotify / WordPress plugin isn’t working for us these days). So without further ado, our first track this week is another new track from the upcoming GAPS album. If We Remain is the latest track the band have shared from As It Is, which comes out on 22nd June (according to the iTunes preorder page)
Theo Verney has shared Mind Fire, the first single from his debut album Once Small Piece which comes out next month on July 7th. You can pre-order the album now on bandcamp, which gives you a free download of Mind Fire.
Next up is the new single from Warsaw Radio called Still Have You To Hold. They’re playing at The Brunswick on July 7th, and are also currently working on their debut album with producer Jag Jago, who’s worked with The Maccabees and Florence Welch in the past.
Slightly more rough around the edges is the new Black Biro track Off The Shopping List. There’s no Black Biro gigs coming up as far as we know, but members of the band will be playing at the Kinks Under Kover night at the Prince Albert on 18th June.
Last time we mentioned Morning Smoke was back in January of last year. Since then they’ve regrouped and reformed as Method Actress and have just shared their debut single Point of View:
If it was a while since we mentioned the last band, it’s been even longer since we wrote about Grace Carter, who we caught supporting Fear of Men at the Dome Studio Theatre back in 2014. She’s now released her debut single, a beautiful, minimal track called Silence:
Other States have been on our list of bands to check out after The New Faith recommended them in their Brighton Rocks interview. As luck would have it, just yesterday they shared a new track, My Beau, which is the b-side to their new single Make Amends:
Talking of the New Faith, our next band were the support at their single launch recently. We caught the last few minutes of Grymm‘s set where they played their new single Gravity:
Next, an apology to Animal House. The original email from their people got lost amongst the hundreds of other emails that get sent to us, and we didn’t pick up on Coca Cola, until they sent us another asking what we think of it. We’re glad they did:
Now we have the debut single from Johnny Kills, Let’s Talk about Me, just under three minutes of trashy rock’n’roll:
Sunday is a funny old day to release a single, but that’s what Somebody’s Daughter are doing with their new single Pretty Game. Handily though it does tie in perfectly with the launch gig, which takes place at Latest Music Bar:
On the subject of bands with launch gigs on the day their record comes out, now’s the time to mention the debut Common Tongues album Divisions, out on 16th June with a launch gig at The Haunt. Here’s Pioneer, which came out as a single last month:
Horace sent over a taster of his In The Garden EP before it was public, which we liked very much. Now it’s up for everyone to listen to it would be rude of us not to include it in one of our new music posts:
Our last track this week is by BUNKR, a Lost Idol spin off project. A 12″ has come out on Love On The Rocks records, and this is one of the tracks from it – Juno’s Revenge:
Another week, another new music round up. We’re kicking off this week with the new single from Black Honey which came out last Friday called Hello Today. We’ll be down the front for Black Honey’s sold out show next Thursday at Patterns. See you there.
Next up is Fear of Men who are off on tour again, covering Europe in September and October (stopping off at Patterns on 15th October), then off to America in November. To celebrate they’ve shared a video for another track from their Fall Forever album. This is Sane:
Bad Family have just shared their second single called I’m a Drunk. It seems that everyone I’m writing about is playing live soon – you can catch them at The Hope & Ruin next Monday.
The Hundredth Anniversary‘s first new music in a long time showed up a week or two ago. After I Was Thrown In The River is more melodic and less shoegaze than their early stuff, and is the first taster of their upcoming album Sea State Pictures.
The new Animal House EP Sorry comes out on 18th November. They’ve put out a video for the track Heavy which you can see below. We’d write about when they’re playing live, but they’re probably on stage at the Prince Albert as I’m typing this:
A Drop of Blood in a Bowl of Milk is the new EP from Whiskey for the Wounded which came out on 22nd September. If you missed the launch last week, you can catch them at the next Indie Noir night at the Verdict on 13th October.
Last but not least we had news in a few weeks ago of End Call, an album released on cassette by Bloody Death. Turn The Tables is the track that they’re choosing to showcase the album with on bandcamp, but the rest of the tape isn’t all trashy guitar – there’s some mellower stuff on there too.
Have you all recovered from The Great Escape yet? I think my trainers are still wet from thursday’s downpours. Anyway, here’s this week’s roundup of new music. There’ll actually be two new music posts this week because we’ve had so many bands contact us that there’s just too much for one post.
First up is Milk & Biscuits, who’ve been missing in action since the release of their Lick Tape in spring 2014. They’re back with a double A side split single on Lick Music with a track called Towns are Concrete Holes, which is out on 1st June. The flip is a track from Octopuses which we’ll feature in our other post we make this week.
Milk & Biscuits share a few members with Prince Vaseline, who have a whole album coming out in June. The album’s called A Naturally Coloured Pleasure and will be released on Sunhorse Records. Here’s the first taster of it, the psychedelic Radio On:
Atomic is the new track from Alphabets Heaven, featuring London vocalist Segilola. It features on King Deluxe’s latest compilation, and also got picked out by Bandcamp as one of their tracks of the week.
Time for T launched their new single Tom Tom at the Green Door Store last week and premiered the video on Spindle. They’re currently in Portugal on a mini-tour of Europe where they seem to play even more than they do locally!
Flash Bang Band are back with their first new material since their debut album. Spooky Action at a Distance is out on 14th June, and apparently forms a bridge between the lo fi sound of their debut and new material being recorded.
Bichon Frise is the new single from ElleKaye. I haven’t been provided with release dates or labels, but we’ll fill you in with more info as we get it:
Animal House are Australian originally, but have relocated to Brighton. In an effort to socialise with the locals, they’ve made a video featuring roller derby team Brighton Rockers. Figure It Out comes out on May 25th:
After a number of remixes over the past year or so, Kudu Blue put out their first self penned track earlier this year, a chilled pop number called Bones. Head over to their soundcloud page where there’s also a remix by Luo.
Next Saturday (15th July) Wax Machine launch their new EP Harlequin’s Patchwork at Sticky Mike’s. There’ll be visuals by the brilliant Innerstrings, and support comes from ZOFFF and Jouis.
