The Levellers, Electric Soft Parade and McDermott’s Two Hours at the Dome

Posted on 21/07/2013 by brightonmusicblog

On Friday Night The Levellers played a one-off sell out gig at Brighton Dome to celebrate twenty five years as a band. Support came from two other acts who’ve collaborated with The Levellers over the years – Electric Soft Parade, who played a set taken from their new album Idiots, and McDermott’s Two Hours who were originally a band who inspired The Levellers but who the Levellers went on to produce. We took our camera along to capture a permanent record of a timeless night.

Click on the images to view large:

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 17/07/2013 by brightonmusicblog

The weekend is almost upon us so it’s time for our weekly round up of the best local talent that you can see live this weekend.

We’ve spotted two great gigs on Thursday night – Tiny Dragons are playing at Club Criminal at Latest Music Bar, with support from Fools Knowledge, Dead Whisky and Dress Theque. Round the corner at the Blind Tiger The Resonators headline Dub Organiser.

On Friday there are a crazy number of local bands playing live in Brighton. The biggest show is at the Dome, where the Levellers play Brighton for the first time in ages to celebrate their twenty fifth year as a band. Support comes from Electric Soft Parade. Friday night also has two gigs by Brighton bands at the Blind Tiger. Early doors Standard Lamps and Calico are on the bill, and later on from 10pm The Impellers play their own gig. Meanwhile The Meow Meows are holding a launch party for their album at The Gladstone, and Emberhoney, Mishkin Fitzgerald and Simonne (without her Dark Stars) play at the Komedia. Just a few miles out of town, British Sea Power play at the Gentlemen of the Road Festival in Lewes.

The rest of the weekend we think you should be out enjoying the sun, stopping only at the end of the weekend when Brighton Folk hold their regular night at the Brunswick with Dave Blackwell topping the line up.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 05/06/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Here’s our round of up this weekend’s gig picks. There’s some great gigs on, the weather’s going to be fantastic, it’s just past payday so there’s no excuse for not getting out there and seeing some live music.

On Thursday night, The Mojo Fins headline Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. There’s some great support slots too – Curxes are supporting Chapel Club at The Haunt, and Negative Pegasus are supporting Holland at Green Door Store.

Friday night see’s Time for T playing at St Luke’s Church on Old Shoreham Road. This is one of the first gigs we’ve heard of taking place at St Lukes, so could be interesting. Ourother Friday Night gig pick is also in a church – Abi Wade is supporting Olof Arnalds in the Unitarian Church.

At the Brunswick on Saturday Night House of Hats host this month’s Harvest Sessions, with support from Emily Baker and Cordelia Gartside. If you fancy an all dayer on saturday then head over to the Green Door Store for Cupboard Music’s second annual Hey! Fever gig. There’s ten bands on over the course of the day, with Negative Pegasus and Black Black Hills topping the bill.

Bank Holiday Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 22/05/2013 by brightonmusicblog

This weekends gig picks come in the form of two festivals – one taking place just up the road in Glynde near Lewes, and the other taking place in the Druids Arms by the Level.

Meadowlands features dozens of Brighton bands, so I’m not going to try and list them all. It’s a weekend festival with camping, so fingers crossed for the weather. If we were going, we’d be making a bee-line for British Sea Power, the Physics House Band, Interlocutor, Clowns, Bent Cousin, AK/DK, Kovak, and Nordic Giants.

If you like your festivals a bit more local then Nice Weather for Airstrikes Festival, now in it’s fifth year, could be more your cup of tea. The line up is headlined by Shrine, Codes in the Clouds and the Hundredth Anniversary over three nights.

Finally if festivals aren’t your thing, then on Sunday night The Impellers play a late night funk and soul gig at The Warren.

Levellers 25th Anniversary show (updated)

Posted on 02/05/2013 by brightonmusicblog

UPDATE – CHANGE OF VENUE

Following on from all of the tickets selling in the blink of an eye, the gig has been moved to a bigger venue – The gig will now be held at The Dome, and further tickets have been released.

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In a roundabout way, The Levellers are partly responsible for this blog. No, really. They were the first band I saw live who were associated with where I was living. I grew up on the suburbs of London and while there might have been bands who associated themselves with London, seeing them in London would have still been an hour’s journey on public transport.

In the summer of 1993 the band headlined a night at a free festival in Stanmer Park, just a walk over the fields from Sussex Uni where I was studying. Eighteen year old me thought it was very cool that a band who I’d heard on the radio, whose cds my friends from other parts of the country owned, would be playing a free gig in their hometown, my hometown. It would be another eight years before Fatboy Slim did something similar with the first Big Beach Boutique.

Fast forward to 2013 and the band are celebrating their 25th birthday. The Levellers don’t play much in Brighton these days but to commemorate the landmark they’re playing a one off show on Friday 19th July at The Dome ~~St Barts church just off London Road~~ – the closest suitable venue to The Level which was one of the inspirations for their name (We could mention that The Levellers was also the name of a political movement in the Civil War, but we’re Brighton Music Blog, not the Seventeenth Century History blog). Pre-sale tickets sold out when they were announced last week, but more tickets have been released and are available seetickets.com.

More details are available on the facebook event page.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 24/04/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Earlier this week we pre-empted our regular weekend gig picks by putting up a separate post about Thursday night’s gigs with a choice of Moulettes, AK/DK or The New Union. Here’s the rest of what we recommend this weekend:

Our choice for Friday Night is Clowns, who are headlining at the Prince Albert. Clowns are a real must-see band. If you haven’t seen them, then this should be your Friday night sorted. Support comes from Mum, Dad & The Kids, Little Bird and Downing Street Years.

We haven’t mentioned Tyrannosaurus Dead for a while on the blog, but they’re on the bill on Saturday night at the Green Door Store (headlined by the Bastards of hate). Also on Saturday at The Hope is Rotait, who we’ve been meaning to catch for a while, supported by Simonne & The Dark Stars, Mishkin Fitzgerald from BirdEatsBaby and Paul Diello.

The big gig on Sunday night is Physics House Band, who are guaranteed to blow the roof off at the Green Door Store. Watch out if you’re catching a train out of town! Support comes from Shrine and Ojo de Gringa. We also spotted that over the road at the Prince Albert, Pete Fij & Terry Bickers are launching their new single, with Al Chamberlain also on the bill.

Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 17/04/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Before we get onto this weekend’s gigs, we’re going to remind you all about Record Store Day. Hopefully you all know about this Saturday already, but did you know that as well as Resident getting involved, Borderline, Rarekind, Cult Hero, One Stop Records and RK Bass records will also be stocking some of the RSD exclusives. It’s sad that Rounder are no longer around to fly the flag, and a warning that you shouldn’t just go and support your local independent shops just one day of the year!

Anyway, onto the gigs. On Thursday we like the look of Tiny Dragons and Rotait on the support bill for Johnson and the Believers at the Green Door Store. If you fancy a bit more of a grand setting, Mountain Firework Company are on at Saint Georges Church in Kemptown.

Friday night’s pick is Brighton Music Blog favourite Laish, who’s headlining the Prince Albert supported by Emma Gattrill and Martha Rose.

Saturday Night we suggest you head down to the Blind Tiger where Flash Bang Band will be bringing their unique brand of indie pop to the party. Alternatively Cloud, Becky Becky and Kellar play at the Green Door Store.

We’ve also got a couple of picks for Sunday night – We’re very much looking forward to seeing Cate Ferris back in town at the Blind Tiger. She’s been on tour for a while and it seems like ages since we caught up with her. Over on the other end of town, it’s Brighton Folk night at the Brunswick, with Mike Newsham, Donna Fullman and Sam Green.

Weekend gig picks

Posted on 10/04/2013 by brightonmusicblog

We missed a round of gig picks last week because of holidays (ours, not bands playing in Brighton), but we’re back this week. The weather is getting warm enough that you can’t use it as an excuse for not leaving the house any more, so here’s what we recommend when you do get out.

On Thursday night Amy Hill – who hosts the long running Brighton Folk night – launches her album Place of Mind at the Brunswick. Support comes from Jacko Hooper, which should be good.

Friday night see’s the latest Brighton Rocks night at Sticky Mike’s headlined by Devil in Detail. We’re going to be heading out of Brighton to the Con Club in Lewes where Clowns are playing.

Saturday night’s big gig is Pere Ubu at the Haunt, put on by Melting Vinyl. While they might not be thought of as a local band, their legendary lynchpin David Thomas is a Brightonian these days, so the date on their tour to support new album The Lady From Shanghai is something of a homecoming.

Jumbo Easter Weekend Gig Picks

Posted on 27/03/2013 by brightonmusicblog

Normally our weekend gig picks have events from Thursday night onwards, but with the weekend starting a day earlier this week thanks to Easter, let’s kick things off from today.

Tonight Rizzle Kicks headline the Dome in a charity fundraiser for Audio Active. We wrote about the opportunity for a local act to support them – congratulations to Frankie Stew and Harvey Gunn who won that honour. Alternatively, at the Green Door Store Abi Wade is support at the launch of Charley Bickers album Our Frail Hearts.

On Thursday, it’s the monthly Source New Music night with Jennifer Left, Laish and Le Juki. This month, rather than being at the Dome Studio Theatre, it’s at Church Street Bar, which will offer cabaret style seating. Our other pick for Thursday Night is The Beautiful Word, who are playing a hometown show midway through their national tour which is hosted by Communion.

We’ve also got two picks for Friday Night. The first is Les Enfants Terrible – a new monthly night being held at the Blind Tiger bringing you new Brighton talent. Bands on for their first night are We Spies, Lion Bark, Animal Language and Girlfriend. Our second pick takes us up to the Green Door Store, for their regular Pelirocco Platters night. New Street Adventure, Tiny Dragons and The Chances are on the bill.

Saturday sees Fragile Creatures at the Blind Tiger, supported by Garden Heart and Land of Youth, and on Sunday we’d recommend heading up to the Green Door Store where House of Hats and Jacko Hooper are supporting Tom Staniford, or over to the Blind Tiger where Sweet Sweet Lies are supporting Louis Barabbas.

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.