Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 09/10/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Last weekend’s gig pick post was all about quality not quantity, and we promised we’d be back this week bigger than ever. We’re still not scrimping on quality but we’re probably featuring more gigs this week than we ever have done.

We’re going to kick things off with a couple of gigs happening tonight. Normally we treat Thursday as the start of the weekend, but when two of favourite bands are playing we’d be fools not to give them a mention. IYES play their first ever headline show at the Prince Albert, which we’re very excited about. We’ve been huge fans since we first heard Lighthouse at the end of the year, and they haven’t disappointed since. Best of all it’s a free gig! Elsewhere, down at the Blind Tiger, Brighton Music Blog favourites The New Union are supporting Let’s Buy Happiness.

Thursday night is where we normally start our weekend gig round up, and the weekend proper is starting strong with Calico headlining Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. Support comes from 900 Spaces and Blackwell, and it’s four pounds to get in. Meanwhile, Normanton Street are playing at the Mesmerist.

On Friday some more of our favourite bands are supporting at the same gig. Pawws are supported by the fantastic GAPS and Dog in the Snow (as well as Saint Savanna, who are local and new to us). And it’s a free gig – Green Door Store, you do spoil us. There’s also a free gig at the Blind Tiger, headlined by Transformer, with support from Eagles for Hands, whose new EP we love.

Saturday night’s big gig is the Physics House Party taking place at Sticky Mike’s. As well as the awesome Physics House Band, AK/DK, Alphabets Heaven and Suffer Like G Did are also playing. Over at Fitzherberts, Speak Galactic and Soft Arrows are playing at a night called Ruff Stuff, where Owen from Speak Galactic and some of his old bandmates from Cinemascopes are unveiling a new project called Merlin Tonto.

Rounding off the weekend nicely at Sticky Mike’s, Esben & The Witch play the Brighton leg of their national tour promoting Wash The Sins Not Only The Face. At the Green door store, there’s an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gram Parsons early death in 1973, aged only 26. There’s loads of local bands getting involved – the list includes The Self Help Group, Dollboy, and Amy Hill plus various members of Laish, The Repeat Prescriptions, Super U, The Standard Lamps, Woodland Blue, The Pooh Sticks, Lolly & the City of Flies, Redlands Palomino Company, Englemann Spruce, and Lost Dog. Get there early enough and you’ll also get to see Pete Wiggs from Saint Etienne DJing before the live acts.

September Top Five

Posted on 30/09/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We’ve been away for half of September, so this month we’re just doing a Top Five rather than our normal Top Ten. Any good stuff we like from the last week or two may well make it into next month’s list. Anyway, without further ado:

1) Dog in the Snow – Fire in the Sky

At the top of the pile this month is Helen Ganya Brown’s latest haunting offering, available as a free download through soundcloud, and with a video that just went up online today:

2) Palm Springs – Could You Be Wrong

We’re the ones who’ve got things wrong about the new Palm Springs single. Their label, Random Acts of Vinyl, sent us a copy a few weeks ago and there was a bit of a mix up with release dates and we haven’t got around to doing a write up yet, even though it’s been out for a few weeks. We’ll be giving it a proper write up soon, but in the meantime, let it be known that it’s one of favourite tracks of recent weeks:

3) Luo – Spiral Staircase

Luo keeps churning out great music, which he keeps giving out for free, and was awesome at Sound Screen at the Corn Exchange earlier this month. This is our favourite track from his latest EP Imprints:

4) Momotaro – Embers

We got turned onto to Momotaro care of the new Green Door Store fanzine which has been popping up all around town. They’ve got got a bunch of free downloads up on Soundcloud, and Embers has had a lot of plays at Brighton Music Blog HQ:

5) Nordic Giants – Violent Lights

We only heard Violent Lights less than a week ago, but we’re big fans of Nordic Giants so we couldn’t not include it. The Build Seas EP which it’s taken from is out tomorrow.

New Music – Dog in the Snow and more

Posted on 09/09/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our latest post of the seemingly never-ending stream of fantastic new music from Brighton.

First up is a brand new dream pop download from Dog in the Snow. Fire in the Sky was produced by Steve Hillier, best known for his work in the nineties as a third of Dubstar, but the track owes more to Bat for Lashes and those who have followed her – haunting vocals, fuzzy guitars, a simple piano line and pounding drums.

Next up we’ve got a remix of Keep You by GAPS. The Paradise Remix brings in the beats earlier, loses some of the vocals and makes the whole thing far more dancefloor friendly.

After writing this weekend about how much we love Luo, we’re a little bit embarrassed to admit that we missed him putting out another EP a few weeks ago. Imprints is free four track download that shows that electronica needn’t be cold an inhuman.

Yesterday Ed Prosek announced the release of a new EP. Willow tree is five tracks of gentle acoustic folk, which you can listen to on bandcamp and buy on download or limited cd.

Ancient Times have a new 7″ out next monday. Double A side Nightschool / Hieroglyphic has two tracks of unashamedly Smiths influenced indie which you can order now through their bandcamp site.

Freefall is a new single from brother / sister due BASA. Things start a bit synth-pop but by halfway through things are definitely dubstep.

Last, but by no means least is Embers by Momotaro, who have been tipped in the second edition of Green Door Store’s new monthly zine as “Brighton Band To Watch”. At the moment, all of Momotaro’s music on Soundcloud is free to download, so go and feast your ears!

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 28/08/2013 by brightonmusicblog

It seems a bit early in the week to be posting up our regular weekend gig picks post, but we normally do it on a Wednesday, so here we are.

Tomorrow night’s gig pick is House of Hats, who are supporting alt folk legend Mark Mulcahy at Latest Music Bar.

There a loads of great gigs on Friday night – Les Enfants Terribles put on one of their regular gigs at the Blind Tiger with Salt Ashes, My New Favourite Tribe and Bent Cousin. Juice FM also have an all Brighton bill at The Haunt, with Yumi & The Weather, Astrid’s Tea Party and Bella Feud playing. Meanwhile Brighton Electric are holding a summer party, with Dog in the Snow, Jungfrau, Momotaro and Dissonants.

Saturday night’s choice is The Space Agency who are launching their new single Bombay Potatoes at the Horse & Groom.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 21/08/2013 by brightonmusicblog

It’s a bank holiday weekend, so we’ve got a bumper round of gigs to tell you about this week, extending all the way out to Monday.

On Thursday night Juice FM return to the Haunt for a series of gigs showcasing local bands that they’re calling IntroJuice-ing. On the first of these DrDr launch their new EP with support from Dirty Damn Humans and Vaude Villains. It’s also the first night of Fragile Creatures residency at The Blind Tiger, and they’re joined by Mynie Moe. As well as that, TigerBiteFever launch their Love Is Strange EP at Latest Music Bar.

There’s another two launches on Friday night. Speak Galactic and P For Persia launch their split 12” at the Green Door Store, and yourgardenday launch their Flat Stream EP at St Andrews Church.

Late night on saturday at Sticky Mikes, The Repeat Prescriptions play their last show for a while, supported by The Space Agency.

At The Edge of the Sea is a festival curated by The Wedding Present which has been running at the Concorde over the August Bank Holiday Weekend for a good few years now. This year The Wedding Present play George Best on Saturday and The Hit Parade A-sides on Sunday. Support comes from his 90s pop incarnation Cinerama playing the two sides of their debut Va Va Voom across both nights, and a whole host of supports including Brightonians Dog In The Snow, Pete Fij & Terry Bickers and Monster Bobby.

Finally, if you’re still standing come Monday night, get down to the Green Door Store where Kill Moon headline, with Puppet Kings, The Hunger Pact and The Downing Street Years also on the bill.

Dog in the Snow / Les Enfants Terribles / Above Audio

Posted on 15/08/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Through a series of unfortunate coincidences we didn’t get to see Dog in the Snow live until this month. Gig clashes, not finding out about events until afterwards, timings changing – it was starting to look like we were avoiding them. We managed to put the situation right a couple of weeks ago when Helen Brown played a solo set opening the recent Two Three Four event at Green Door Store. We were so impressed that we decided there and then that we’d go and see her next time she played live, whatever else was on.

That next time was last night, when Dog in the Snow played at Above Audio. The night was put on by Les Enfants Terribles who have been putting on monthly nights at The Blind Tiger for the last year, but who also hosted a day at the Mesmerist for the Great Escape back in May and are running a stage at this weekend’s Playgroup festival.

We arrived too late to see support act Thyla, and between bands the lights were up and there was a lot of background chatter. Sadly that didn’t change when Dog in the Snow came on, and the sound wasn’t great either, with the vocals lost in the mix. Talent shone through though, with a quietly confident performance. Musically things were sometimes delicate but always purposeful, with layered soundscapes being created by Helen’s vocals and guitar (which was played with a violin bow on a couple of tracks) and her bandmate’s backing vocals , samples and keyboards. Dog in the Snow are band we’re going to do our best not to miss again.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 31/07/2013 by brightonmusicblog

In Brighton, the first weekend in August is associated with being Pride – probably the biggest party in the local calendar. We’re not going to include that in our weekend gig picks because of the lack of local acts on the bill, but we have got a whole load of other gigs to tell you about, including a very special couple of days at the Green Door Store.

Tomorrow night IYES and Yumi & The Weather are supporting MT at the Prince Albert. It doesn’t cost anything to get in, but to get hold of a ticket you’ll need to register online.

There’s quite a few gigs on Friday that have caught our eye. AMiTY and Jacko Hooper are playing at Neighbourhood on St James Street, and The Jargonaughts (featuring ex members of Los Albertos) are on at the Gladstone. Over at The Hope multimedia electronica night The Outer Church hold the launch night for their new compilation with live music from Pye Corner Radio, Kember Norton, Embla Quickbeam and Wrong Signals.

Over Saturday and Sunday Green Door Store are holding an event called TwoThreeFour. There are over twenty bands on the bill, mostly from Brighton, including The New Union, Kill Moon, Faux Flux, Spit Shake Sisters, Dog in the Snow, GAPS, Written in Waters, The Hundredth Anniversary, Tyrannosaurus Dead, Ed Prosek, Tigercub, Foreign Skin, Wildcat Strike and Demob Happy. It’s an amazing line up, and it’s free – You’d be a fool to miss it.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 12/06/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s this weekend’s gig picks for you all. This week we’re extending things out to Monday, because there’s a gig that we can’t not mention.

On Friday night Martin Rossiter headlines the Source New Music Night at the Dome Studio Theatre. Support comes from The Beautiful Word and Jacko Hooper so this should be a bit special. Tickets are a bit pricier than a normal Source New Music though – so if you’d rather save your pennies then head down to Sticky Mike’s where the Physics House Band are hosting another Physics House Party. They’re playing a headline set with members of Flamingods, and there’s support from Luo, Caveman Genius, Demob Happy, and Shrine. Hush Hush Friday at the Blind Tiger caught our eye too – another free gig with FVNERALS topping the bill and Dog in the Snow supporting.

Saturday Night’s pick is Clowns, who are playing at the Prince Albert. If you like your weekends a bit funkier then The Impellers are on the bill at Craig Charles Funk and Soul Club at the Concorde.

Brighton Folk comes back to the Brunswick on Sunday Night, with Amy Hill and The Galleons playing.

The reason we’ve extended things out to Monday for this weekend’s picks is to include the Electric Soft Parade‘s album launch at the Green Door Store. The album is definitely the highlight of 2013 for us so far and will be on sale at the gig. Support comes from Crayola Lectern. Also on Monday, for those who prefer their ‘problem folk’ to sunshine pop, ex Brighton resident The Great Park returns from Germany for a gig at the Prince Albert, ably supported by local singer-songwriter Tandy Hard. Frankly, as ever, we’re torn…

Thursday’s gigs – Moulettes at The Haunt, AKDK single launch / Source New Music at Dome Studio Theatre, New Union / Boon Magazine launch at The Green Door Store

Posted on 22/04/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Normally midweek I put up a post about gigs that have caught our eye in the upcoming weekend. This week, I’m making an exception and writing a whole post about three gigs taking place on thursday night, all of which look fantastic.

The first of the three is Brighton Music Blog favourites Moulettes, who are playing at The Haunt. Moulettes are a fantastic band, but it’s not until you see them live that you truly appreciate how great they are. Support comes from local act The Slytones (who we’ve still yet to catch), and Robert Vincent.

AKDK were one of our favourite acts at this year’s Sea Monsters. Their new single Battersea is out soon, so to celebrate they’re headlining this month’s Source New Music at the Dome Studio Theatre. Support comes from DA-10 (who were also brilliant at Sea Monsters), Dog in the Snow and George Lazenbleep.

Last, but by no means least is another launch, but this time of a magazine rather than a single. Boon Magazine say that they’re going to feature music, fashion, photography and culture. The launch takes place at the Green Door Store, and is headlined by The New Union. There’s also going to be a burlesque dancer, and more music from Demob Happy, Kill Moon and Spit Shake Sisters.

Dog in the Snow / Fear

Posted on 07/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We included Dog In The Snow in our Weekend Gig Picks post, on the bill supporting Hidden Orchestra alongside Calico at the Blind Tiger on Sunday. That was our first mention of the band though, so now’s a good time to introduce to you some of their music. Here’s their latest video for a track called Fear, which was produced by Steve Hillier of Dubstar fame: