Sea monsters just keeps getting better and better. Tonight’s gig was amazing. Quite possibly – and I know it’s very early to start using these words – gig of the year. Strong words, I know.
First up were DA-10.DA-10 stood out because they were the first band I’ve seen so far (except Robert Stillman) not to rely on guitars at all, and the only band on the whole bill of Sea Monsters to make dance music. Picture a slightly more chilled out Daft Punk, with the bottom end of their sound enlightened by the kind of filthy noises made since the advent of dubstep and fidget house.
DA-10
Next up was Speak Galactic. Our paths had crossed briefly several weeks ago, when they supported Laetitia Sadier at the Green Door Store. They were incredibly loud though, and I was meeting a friend, so I stayed in the bar. I should have gone and investigated though, because it turns out that Speak Galactic were one of the most interesting bands on the Sea Monsters bill so far. Owen Thomas, who effectively is Speak Galactic (there’s a drummer too, but you can see all the amazing ideas are coming from Owen), played on tuesday night as part of Cinemascopes, and I noted that it was him who elevated them above a normal band. On his own, the ideas are flying out everywhere – songs skip around genres and technology is pushed to the limit. I was incredibly impressed. If this guy isn’t a superstar in the next twelve months, then there’s something wrong with the world.
Speak Galactic
Then came Nullifier, whose lead singer was Speak Galactic’s drummer. One of their keyboard players was playing last night in Negative Pegasus. In fact, all of the band members seemed have been playing in other gigs in Sea Monsters. There were seven members in Nullifier, which proved (for them at least) to be too many to fit onto the stage. So the singer, a bassist, and the guitarist performed out in the audience (leaving two keyboard players, a drummer and another bassist onstage). Which made the photography challenging to say the least.
Nullifier
And last of all was Restlesslist, who were an absolute triumph. Where other bands came and played sets, Restlesslist transformed the Prince Albert into another world. And while they might have been headlining a night a Sea Monsters, they would have been equally at ease headlining a stage at Glastonbury. The band – all six of them – were accompanied on stage by an eye patch wearing Mark Campbell, who between songs narrated a psychedelic story involving dogs in hats, shapeshifting beauties, and volcanic eruptions. Between his words Restlesslist effortlessly skipped around pretty much every genre in the textbook – Rock, pop, musical, krautrock, calypso, you name it. If any other band over the next two days managed to beat this performance, then I’ll be amazed.
Life would boring if we all liked the same things. Imagine that – before you even spoke to someone you’d know what they liked. Imagine how rubbish the charts would be with all the songs sounding the same. Thankfully the world isn’t like that, which makes it a much more interesting place. However, what that means is that sometimes, you come across things which other people like, but which aren’t quite to your tastes. But that’s OK, because it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry.
The reason I’m writing all of this is that tonight’s Sea Monsters gig wasn’t really for me. I could see in advance from some of the descriptions that it probably wouldn’t be my cup of tea. Plague Sermon describing their sound as having “deafening sludge riffs” doesn’t really appeal. So I’m not going to describe the music, but I will post up a few of the pictures I took while I was there:
A quick round up of Day 2 of Sea Monsters 2 then. Where yesterday was folk with a twist, today was very much an indie day.
Proceedings were kicked off by Tyrannosaurus Dead. The blurb in the program said Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth, but my ears heard The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who in the past few years have done a tremendous job of distilling so many of the great guitar indie bands of the past twenty five years. This is by no means a criticism, and I thoroughly enjoyed their set, even if I was a little distracted by the singers visual similarity to a young Buddy Holly. Or maybe he’s just wearing hipster glasses and I’m now old.
Tyrannosaurus Dead
The second band of the night were Soft Arrows – sonically, they’re a rockier version of shoegaze, but the setup of the band was akin to the White Stripes – just drums and guitar. Either they were trying to be arty, or they hate photographers, because the only light on stage came from a single light bulb at the guitarists feet. They’re going to have to try harder than that for me to not get the shot I want!
Soft Arrows
Then we had kraut rockers Cinemascopes, who were fantastic. There’s not nearly enough krautrock around in my opinion, so it’s good to see another Brighton krautrock band, who aren’t treading the same steps as Fujiya & Miyagi. What elevated them about most groups who pick up guitars and make motorik music was the guy to the left of the stage, who spent most of the set kneeling down doing interesting things with loops and samples who defied the male dress code of the evening (skinny jeans, smart shoes, and either a check shirt or a t-shirt bought from M&S) with his hoody and baggy jeans.
Cinemascopes
Last band of the night were Fear of Men who while they weren’t doing anything especially different to any of the other bands of the night, did so effortlessly and sounding amazing. There was something about the way it all came together – how good the guitar sounded, how much of a better front person Jess was than those leading the other bands, how much more accomplished the songs were, which proved why Fear of Men were the worth headliners of the night.
There’s been quite a flurry of activity over the past couple of weeks where a lot of bands have obviously been waiting for the new year to unleash themselves onto the world. Here’s a couple of bits and pieces that have come to my attention, some by new artists, some by more established acts.
Fistly some videos, first of which is Moya, covering the Primal Scream track which got remixed to become Loaded. She’s playing at the Juice New Music Showcase next week if you like the sound of that. Then there’s Sebastian Blake, who’s currently working on recording his debut EP, but has put out this taster. There’s also a new track by Chris T-T, who put on last sunday’s Midwinter Picnic. Lastly, there’s a brand new solo release from Matthew from Fujiya & Miyagi, who is recording his own stuff as Ampersand (being neither Fujiya or Miyagi, obviously).
Moya – I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have
Sebastian Blake – Red Underwear
Chris T-T – Binker
Ampersand – 20 Seas 4 Oceans
There’s also some audio too – there’s the latest demo release from Munich, and a taster of Shrag‘s new material:
So, I’ve been thinking about how best to write up the Sea Monsters on the blog. I definitely don’t have enough time to write up a full gig review the night after each gig, since I’ll be ouat at the next gig. And while I could leave things to the weekend to write things up, it’ll be nearly a week since the first gig so I won’t remember it so won’t remember it so well, especially since there as so many gigs inbetween. So I figured some kind of diary might be a better approach, writing little and often. A recap the morning after the gig, maybe a photo or two, and some thoughts about the gig coming up that evening.
It’s the first gig tonight, headlined by Sons of Noel & Adrian, who have been tipped as one of the ones to watch in the previews I’ve read, so I’m looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to seeing how they’re going to fit their twelve members on the stage at the Prince Albert!
There’s all kinds of difficulties when it comes to writing reviews of live gigs. There’s turning up late and missing support bands. There’s getting a bit drunk and not remembering the gig too well. There’s turning up to a gig you thought you’d be able to get into and finding it was sold out, which is what almost happened at last night’s gig. Thankfully it just turned out that everyone inside the side room in The Brunswick was standing inside the doorway, holding up the queue outside. Once inside though I was faced with a rather unique problem – the support band didn’t actually have a name! So I could tell you that they were a bit ska crossed with German Oom-pah band, and that while they were obviously all tremendous musicians they weren’t especially to my taste but the crowd loved them – what do I know, eh? – but that won’t be that helpful of you want to go and find out more about them, would it? Thankfully, there did leave us with one big clue – they were the band who until recently were Twelve Stone Toddler. I’m not sure quite how and why they aren’t any more, and never saw them in their previous incarnation, but there you are.
Headlining were The Muel, whose album “All Kinds of Love” came out in spring of last year. Since then, they’ve been touring hard. Most recently Sam Walker (who writes all the songs, and whose full first name is where the band name comes from) has been out in Australia playing a string of acoustic shows. It’s very difficult to describe The Muel’s music – it’s a kind of psychedelic rock, centred around Sam, who sings, plays guitar, oh and plays drums from the centre of the stage too. As with the music defying definition, so the supporting cast are very talented and versatile – each of the other band members take on vocal duties at various points in the gig – and guitar player Jim Mortimore (who’s also been playing bass for The Woo!Worths and double bass for The Moulettes recently) also took on steel drum duties. The majority of the set was new songs yet to be recorded and released, that have the same energy as the older stuff, but do a much better job of showcasing the rest of the band and their talents – I was particularly impressed by some of the guitar and piano solos that we were treated to. If you missed the gig, you can catch them again in London at the Slaughtered Lamb in Clerkenwell next monday, and at the Landsdown Arms in Lewes on 11th Feb.
So, I had this grand plan to do a write up about what I was looking forward to at Sea Monsters 2 in the week leading up to the gigs. But then I went to a gig last Sunday night, which I wrote up on Monday night. And then I went to a gig on Tuesday (which wasn’t one for the blog). And then Wednesday I went and interviewed the Repeat Prescriptions. Last night I thought it was about time I spent some quality time with my girlfriend, so now here we are on Friday, with the gigs starting on Monday with nothing written.
Thankfully, One Inch Badge, who are putting on the gigs, have done pretty much what I intended to do, and have written up some highlights of some of the twenty three (!!!) bands playing next week.
Personally, I’m looking forward to Us Bear Baby Bones, who I saw supporting Laetitia Sadier last week at the Green Door Store, Black Black Hills, who headlined the Source New Music night a few months ago at the Pavilion Theatre, and Restlesslist, who I haven’t caught live yet but are playing tonight at the Green Door Store.
I don’t quite know how I’m going to have time to fit in time for an update on every gig next week, but keep an eye on the blog, and maybe I’ll find the time to get a little something up.
Here’s a link to the Sea Monsters section of the One Inch Badge website, and here are the links to the band previews they’ve posted so far:
After several months of news, reviews and links, I’ve finally got around to the first Brighton Music Blog interview. It’s a rainy January evening, and I’m meeting Simon Bate and Alex Borg in The Gladstone. They’re two fifths of new band The Repeat Prescriptions, and when they’re in the band, they assume pseudonyms and take on a rather interesting back story…
Simon Bate onstage at the Prince Albert
RO: Hello. Who are you?
SB: We’re the Repeat Prescriptions, and we basically play loud raucous rock’n’roll from a distant past.
RO: Tell us about this distant past…
SB: My name is Smuj E Koknokka, and in the summer of 1965 I moved from Ohio – I was a simple farming lad – to the bright lights and big city of LA, but obviously there was no money in it initially so to subsidise my meagre income as a musician, I got a job in the adult film industry as a fluffer, and I was on the set of Gorged that I met the director Ju Ju Sharp, who was a guitarist, and we formed the Repeat Prescriptions. We penned a lot of songs and did a few gigs, we met this gentrified English chap, who was heavily into the brown acid, called Marmaduke Marshall…
AB: Good Evening
SB: …and he was hanging out with a guy called Sandy Hoxton, who was a drummer, who was a surfer boy, wasn’t he?
AB: He liked girls and he liked riding the waves.
SB: Riding waves and women.
AB: That’s all you really need rhythmically. He was always going to be good on drums, wasn’t he? Sandy ‘Sticks’ Hoxton – the ‘Sticks’ is very important, that has to be there otherwise he gets a little bit diva-ish.
SB: What about Brian ‘O Brian’ Brian?
AB: Well he was playing keys for Hendrix, sessioning on some of his work which we don’t think ever saw the light of day, and it was through a friend of a friend we were put on to him and once he jammed with us there was no turning back and that was it.
SB: It was either him or Manzarek, but he was a little bit busy at the time. So in the late sixties – 68 – there was a very real prospect of being conscripted into the Vietnam war.
AB: Being fit, young men, as we are
SB: So we decided that maybe our market might be in the future so we decided to get cryogenically frozen. Keith Moon agreed that he’d ship us back to Brighton because he thought that when we thawed out in the 21st century we’d be a bit freaked out and that would be the ultimate place.
RO: So you’re back?
SB: Yeah, we’re back. We got thawed out last year. Obviously took us a while for our fingers to actually work again so we could play our instruments, but we’ve just started to do gigs again in Brighton – we played one gig already, we’ve got three booked up so far in the next month or so
RO: Which are?
SB: This Sunday, the 22nd, is the Green Door Store for Sunday Service. Two weeks after that we’re playing the Horse & Groom, up on Islingword Road with the Stash DJs, so that’ll be 50s and 60s rock’n’roll music, and then the 24th of February we’re playing the Brighton Ton Club which is a motorcycle enthusiasts day out.
SB: So we’re playing at that, we’re going to have burlesque dancers…
RO: Is that part of your rider?
SB: We’re going to have to start making stipulations for future gigs!
AB: I think we need some platforms for them, to the left and right of the stage
SB: Or if we can’t afford platforms, just get them to wear platforms, so they’ll just naturally tower over everyone else
RO: Next question – Are you planning to put any of this onto record?
SB: Yeah, yeah. We’ve come back and everyone’s doing digital stuff at the moment and I don’t really truly believe that you own something if it only exists as a series of ones and noughts, so I think what we’re going to do is release limited seven inch singles.
AB: Get some plastic out
SB: Make something tangible, it’s important that people can get something that can collect and hold that’s a bit unique, so each sleeve will maybe numbered or something like that.
AB: Something to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
RO: So, the blog’s all about Brighton – What do you think it is that makes Brighton such a creative place?
AB: It’s the people, isn’t it?
SB: I think Brighton is the closest we’ve got in England to Laurel Canyon in the Sixties, home to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jim Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, … They were all neighbours and they all used to play with each other, and I think Brighton’s very similar to that.
AB: It’s a little hotbed of creativity. But only seven people in Brighton are from Brighton, apparently.
SB: Everyone seems like they’re imports.
RO: What are your favourite other bands from Brighton?
SB: I love Abi Wade…
AB: …Gentleman Starkey …
SB: … Lolly & The City of Flies, Lost Dog, Rocker Switch *laughs* <it’s worth pointing out that Simon plays with the last two bands mentioned>
RO: Do you think the success of Rizzle Kicks and the Maccabees (currently in the top five in the singles and album charts respectively) will help the music scene in Brighton?
SB: Well, I think anything that puts the spotlight on a particular area is good. It would be nice if we had what happened in Manchester when the baggy scene started up, everyone was looking at Manchester and there were these bands who weren’t even particularly good suddenly getting some sort of recognition.
AB: I’m going to be controversial and I’m going to say that it’s not going to make any difference, just because those two bands are completely different and they’re not really coming out of any scene.
SB: I suppose so. When the punters think of that, they don’t think instantly Maccabees = Brighton.
AB: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s ever been a big scene in Brighton. There’s been lots of good bands doing their own thing, and just the ones that are really good at whatever do are the ones that shine. So Rizzle Kicks I think are great – I especially like the one about mums, and the video to that is brilliant.
AB: And the Maccabees are great. I think they’ve always been great, personally. That Pelican tune is fantastic considering they’re all about what, 21, 22?
SB: Still? They can’t be 21,22! They’ve always been 21, 22!
AB: They’re probably all 36. Anyway, I like it. It’s not boring drossy run of the mill indie.
RO: What’s your favourite venue to play in Brighton?
SB: I think the Green Door Store was what Brighton always needed. It’s got that Berlin shabby chic. It looks like a bombed out shell of a building.
AB: It’s very industrial there.
RO: It’s good because you can spill your pint and no one cares
AB: You can spill blood and nobody cares!
SB: All the girls I know there wear quite fancy shoes. That massacres your shoes. It’s basically like dancing on emery boards.
AB: It’s an orthopaedic war zone. That would make a good album title.
SB: It’s a concept album!
RO: So you love the Green Door Store…
SB: And the Albert. I think the Albert’s got great sound.
RO: A lot of the stuff that goes on at the Green Door Store kind of feels like the stuff that would have gone on at the Albert before, but it still feels like the Albert has got loads going on all the time. Any other venues you feel warrant a mention?
AB: The Hope. The sweaty Hope. It is incredibly hot. In the summer it’s almost unbearable but it just seems to be the perfect little sweatbox venue that holds about a hundred people. I’ve got a lot of happy memories from there. I’ve played there a few times, put on gigs there. It’s a weird venue, the road it’s on, you get the passing tourist trade and that can make it quite exciting sometimes. I always thought there was an air of danger from that place because you can get anything from football supporters to the complete other end of the spectrum.
RO: And what about the Hippodrome – the old Mecca Bingo Hall down on Middle street, which has apparently been bought up and is being done slowly up by Live Nation who used to be Mean Fiddler. It’s got history – the Beatles and the Stones played back in the 60s.
AB: Whenever a building of that historical significance, it’s great.
SB: I think it’s inevitable in a city the size of Brighton there’s going to have to be something like that. There is still a city centre gap…
AB: …and it’s going to have to be someone with some money and some clout to make it a successful operation. The only way that would work otherwise would be if you got some kind of community syndicate project to sort it out. That’s obviously not happened so somebody with some clout and some money’s gone in there.
SB: I still think places like the Albert and are going to be perfect for the homegrown bands, because they’re really nice places to go.
AB: It’s going to be touring bands that play at the Hippodrome, anyway.
SB: Anywhere would be better than the Brighton Centre. That’s a horrendous place to see bands. You might as well stick a ghetto blaster in the King Alfred Centre for the sort of sounds you get in there.
AB: I have a feeling it’ll be about the same capacity as the Dome, which does seem to go for the “still touring at the age of 60” middle of the road vibe
SB: It’s a seated thing isn’t it?
AB: That’s why all the good gigs are in places like the Hope or the Green Door Store. So many good ones happen when it’s just you and a fifty or a hundred people.
RO: Last Question: Brighton or Hove?
Both: BRIGHTON!
AB: Hove’s full of estate agents.
SB: Hove’s a little bit snooty. I love this side of Brighton. I love the area where I live.
AB: There’s nothing to do in Hove, except get on a bus and come into Brighton.
SB: Stick us down for two Brightons!
The Repeat Prescriptions play the headline slot at 9pm for the Sunday Service at the Green Door Store on 22nd Jan.
Every third Sunday of the month, Brighton Folk is held, at the Brunswick pub. It’s been running for a few years now and is a pretty established part of the Brighton music scene. Last night, two local acts were on the bill – The Galleons and Peanut Albinos. The evening started off, as ever, with Amy Hill playing a few of her own folk songs.
Amy Hill
The Galleons reminded me a lot of Tunng – they were quite folky with occasional time signature changes, and the interplay between vocalists Ben and Beth hark at their sound too, sometimes harmonising and other times swapping melodies. Six people on stage was quite a squeeze, especially with the bassist swapping between conventional electric bass and a futuristic looking upright electric bass. Still, they managed a lot better than last time I saw them, when they were shoehorned into a tiny corner at the Constant Service in Hanover. With that bit more space, they managed a bigger sound, one which will hopefully be brought to life even more when their new album hits the shelves in a few weeks time
The Galleons
Peanut Albinos might have been playing in the side room at a pub in Hove, but when you closed your eyes, you might as well have been in a whiskey bar in America. Actually, if you ignored the rest of the pub and just looked at the stage, you could easily imagine the same. Sonically, it’s as if Tom Waits were fronting an stateside version of The Pogues. It’s music to get drunk, dance and sing along to. They brought their own crowd along, but they didn’t need to – even without them there, they would have raised the roof.
As you may have seen on Facebook or Twitter recently, there’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming Graham Coxon tour, where he’s offering local bands the opportunity to be the support act. The Brighton gig is on 23rd April at the Concorde 2. If you click through to here, you can see the bands who have been nominated so far. I say that – all you get is how many “suggestions” (which I guess is how may times it’s been tweeted of facebook’ed about) a band has had so far. You don’t get any of the important information, like, say, the band name unless you start a video, then click into the video to bring up the information about it, which is a bit poor in my opinion. It looks like a few bands have got strong campaigns going already, but if your favourite band doesn’t have the most votes, don’t worry, because the final decision is down to Graham Coxon.
Brighton Music Blog 