Thomas White – Electric Soft Parade – Restlesslist – British Sea Power – Milk & Biscuits – Foxes! – Do You Feel What I Feel Deer? – Fragile Creatures – Clowns

Posted on 25/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Merry Christmas! We’ve gone overboard today, hit the sherry too hard too soon, and crammed Nine bands into our final advent calendar post. The truth is, you can’t talk about one of of these bands without inevitably mentioning some of the others.

Let’s start with Thomas White, who released Yalla back in March. It was originally just a bunch of tunes he recorded for himself when he was bored and restless on holiday, which he was persuaded to release after he shared them with some of his friends, and is one of the finest collections of tunes that we’ve heard all year. Album closer The English Sargasso is a soporific masterpiece. We didn’t do an end of year list in 2011 because the blog had only been running a matter of weeks but to make make up for it we’ll make a mention of the Electric Soft Parade‘s “A Quick One” EP now. Lead track Lily is the kind of melodic guitar pop that most indie bands would sell their grandmother to be able to write. 2012 marked the tenth anniversary of Electric Soft Parade’s debut Holes in the Wall and the White brothers celebrated by playing the album start to finish at The Haunt, and returning to the studio to start work on their first album for five years.

Thomas White was also listed as a member of Restlesslist in the sleeve notes to their fantastic album Coral Island Girl, although he’s no longer part of their live setup. Before this year I’d heard the name but not the music so was quite looking forward to their performance at Sea Monsters. I wasn’t prepared to see so many people onstage. I wasn’t prepared for so many genres crammed into so many songs. I wasn’t expecting it to be narrated, or for that matter for the narrator to be wearing an eye patch. Most of all, I didn’t expect to enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Musically it was fantastic, but it wasn’t taking itself seriously at all. Where Thomas White earns his prime place in our Advent Calendar by doing things so much better and more effortlessly than anyone else, Restlesslist earn their place by being completely peerless.

While Thomas’ other band Brakes were taking a bit of an, erm, break in 2012, Eamon Hamilton made a return to his old band British Sea Power at one of their Krankenhaus concerts at The Haunt. Krankenhaus was more than just a concert though – The bands on the bill were more varied than you would expect, and played for longer. There were DJs inbetween the bands making for non stop entertainment. There was non-musical entertainment in the form of a ping pong table upstairs. At the one I attended, there was a stage invasion by a giant bear and a choc ice give-away! As well as their Krankenhaus gigs, British Sea Power also played at the Duke of York’s, providing a live soundtrack to a film made up of old archive footage called From The Sea To The Land Beyond.

Milk & Biscuits share a number of their members with Restlesslist, and have rightly had praised heaped upon them for their single White Noise, and their mini-LP Balcony times, which came out at the end of 2011, is worth a listen. It features the vocal talents of Jennifer Left (who we wrote about back on 14th), and Kayla Bell of Foxes! who also released an eponymous album of top indie pop earlier this year. Eleanor Whittle and Rachel Dey – who provide vocals in Restlesslist and Milk & Biscuits and have sung backing vocals for Thomas White at some of his Yalla gigs – make up Do you Feel What I Feel Deer?, and have given us a taste of their wonky folk with their lush Save My Heart single. Adam Kidd has also sung backing vocals for Thomas White and his own band Fragile Creatures put out a grower of a track called Dear Michael. The tables were turned a week ago when Thomas White provided support at their Christmas gig at the Prince Albert. The final mention goes to Clowns, a band that Thomas White played bass with for a while before admitting that he was too busy. Every time we’ve seen them live this year (at a couple of Bleeding Hearts Clubs – did we mention that it was Bleeding Hearts who put Yalla out? – and more recently at December’s Source New Music night) they’ve got better and better.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was dozen other related bands. Here’s to finding out all about them in 2013!

Source New Music – Clowns, Evil Son and Wildcat Strike

Posted on 22/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Thursday night was the last Source New Music of the year, and the last for a few months until they return in February 2013 – like Source Magazine, the night is taking a well earned break in January.

Wildcat Strike

I arrived midway through Wildcat Strike’s set, which I was quite enjoying – really rather good post / math rock, nice and tight – and then the vocals came in. I say vocals, it was just shouting. Not exclamations of anger or any other emotion, just shouting. It’s a shame because aside from the vocals, Wildcat strike were really tight and made a fantastic sound.

The Evil Son

Next up were Evil Son, who we saw a few weeks ago at their EP launch at the Albert. We got a similar show: tight, spiky alternative guitar pop – let’s use the word grunge, because they do – but louder, and with better lights. There’s nothing to fault musically with Evil Son – the songs are well written and it’s obvious that each member of the band oozes talent – bassist Pepe Le Moko also plays bass for David Gedge’s Wedding Present. They’re the kind of band who you could enjoy even if grunge wasn’t your thing because what they do they do so well.

Clowns

As much as I enjoyed The Evil Son (and the bits of Wildcat Strike when they weren’t shouting), the floor was wiped clean with the night’s headliners Clowns, who provided a masterclass on showmanship. A sharply dressed Miles Heathfield spent the set prowling the stage and the front few rows of the audience, with a taut muscular musical backing from the three other clowns. If you wanted an example of what to look for in a great frontman, Miles was it. No standing still trying to hide behind the microphone stand. No danger of being distracted by anything other than what was going on on stage. The start of the band’s set was deceptively quiet, with things soon turning around to show their true colours – loud, alternative rock. After a full set of their own material they return for an encore of a cover of Ghost Town by The Specials. The level of engagement from Clowns, their intensity, their energy, the volume all contributed to them being worthy headliners. Next year, Clowns will be releasing their album Macho Bimbo on Bleeding Hearts Recordings, and we can’t wait.

Bleeding Hearts Christmas Party

Posted on 04/12/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Is there something in the water that nobody’s told me about? After Friday night’s Miserable Rich gig being their last gathering for the foreseeable future, it seems that The Bleeding Hearts Club have also hung up their hat for now too.

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Whereas most Bleeding Hearts have involved three or four acts, each only playing three songs, last night involved over a dozen bands, each only playing a song or two, with a rule that it had to be a Christmas related cover. I didn’t catch the names of everyone but Fire Eyes, Self Help Group, Nick Hudson, Ingrid Plum, Jane Bartholomew, Things in Herds, Clowns, Crayola Lectern, Tandy Hard and Seadog were amongst the bands who played, some onstage, some in amongst the crowd. Some bands embraced the Christmas theme more than others, and somehow we ended up with two versions of Brass in Pocket by the Pretenders. I’m sure the Pretenders’ Christmas song was 2000 Miles. It was some of the more leftfield covers which raised the biggest smiles. Clowns covering The Sex Pistols God Save the Queen was brilliant, and Crayola Lectern doing Bat Out Of Hell was a moment of warped genius.

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We’re going to miss Bleeding Hearts every first Monday of the month, and we hope that it’s only a temporary break. This isn’t be the last we’ll hear of them though – they told me to pencil in the release of the Crayola Lectern album for next April.

Bleeding Hearts 10th Birthday Gallery

Posted on 06/07/2012 by brightonmusicblog

It feels kind of appropriate shooting the Bleeding Hearts Night on film, because aside from Hattie Cooke’s iPad adding a bit more reverb to her guitar, everything else onstage could have been from any point in the last fifty years, so why not record it in a similar way too?

Anyway, happy birthday Bleeding Hearts – ten years is an amazing achievement. Here’s to the next ten!

(click on the pics to view large)

There’s some more pics over at out friends Brighton Noise

The return of Celebricide

Posted on 02/06/2012 by brightonmusicblog

Legendary Brighton rock band Celebricide returned to the stage for a one-off gig, six years after they went into hibernation following the release of their debut album and effectively disappeared from the scene. A real shame, as on Thursday night’s showing they are still amazing and hopefully this won’t be the only time we see them.

Lead singer Tim Leopard started the evening in dark shades that made me think of Andrew Eldritch and Sisters of Mercy, but musically the band had a lighter touch and more variety. Dave Hughes on keyboards and Steve Barber on guitar were constantly inventive, the shadowy presence of Chris Anderson (now Crayola Lectern) on bass and the powerhouse of Emily Powell on drums never let up the rhythm.

Fly magazine called them “Elegant psychopaths… a lethal cocktail of Pulp, Roxy Music and The Fall. With literary lyrics about blackmail, contract killings and ruined lives…” Well, yes there’s an oddness and an aggression which is full on and confrontational but their new wave gothic rock belies a humour and self-depreciation which is also endearing.

Support came from Clowns. If you haven’t seen this Brighton band yet then you really ought to – they produce a really tight full-on garage-rock sound, and in Miles Heathfield (ex-Poppycocks) have a lead singer prone to prowl the stage and terrify audiences. Although tonight they omitted the Clown costumes that would occasionally appear at early gigs and even neglected to play their anthemic ‘She Says I’m A Clown’, they were really quite brilliant with an unrelenting driving snarling rhythm and beat from start to finish.

Their single is out on one of this blog’s favourite Brighton labels ‘Bleeding Hearts Recordings‘ and is well worth seeking out.

(All Photographs by Jon Southcoasting)

The Hydrant plays host to sleazy rock’n’roll

Posted on 27/11/2011 by brightonmusicblog

The Hydrant pub on the London Road played host to some sleazy garage band rock’n’roll last night Five raucous and talented bands for free made for an energy-filled noisy bargain of a night.

First up was Thee Mouldous Hypotenuse, who played electric garage-style blues songs with passion and verve.

Next up the hardest-gigging and hardest-rockin’ band in town, Deadbeat Descendent. They’ve been described as a combination of the Stooges and the Fall, which is pretty spot on. They put on a pretty lively performance.

Out-of-town mayhem came via the Silver Brazilians who produced a blistering live show of excellent bluesy swamp rock. Powerful songs – and enough charisma to break into a version of the Beatles’ Happy Birthday mid set when they heard there was a birthday celebrator in the audience!

Next up were Clowns, one of the best live bands in town, with their spikey and sharp post-punk pop songs. The vocals suffered a little from the Hydrant’s sound system by this point and couldn’t seem to keep up with lead singer Miles’ leaping off the stage and dashing into the audience, but it was great fun. They ended a wonderful set with their classic ‘She calls me a Clown’.

Last to play were the headliners Mudlow, taking us past midnight and into the early hours. More bluesy garage band sound, loud and fast as it ought to be.

All photographs by Jon Southcoasting