Tag Archives: new-music

Brighton, Green Door Store, Hope and Ruin, The Great Escape

The Great Escape by Alex Hill

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Down every street in the city, venues are alive with the sound of live music and hordes of people queue outside standing around talking and smoking. It was, of course, The Great Escape. Over 450 different acts taking the stage in all the best pubs and clubs over four days.

If the weather plays nicely, there’s nothing like a Great Escape weekend. You set out with an idea of going here to see that, but then you meet someone who says you really should go there to see something else and then… Well, who knows  what happens then.

A typical Great Escape night tends to include a lot of drifting around venues in search of a band you’ve never heard but you’ve heard of. And as you’re halfway there, maybe going to the Hope & Ruin, there’s an alert on the phone app. The venue’s full. There’s a queue. Maybe you’d like to go to The Green Door Store instead.

It truly is a cross-city festival, and you may just find yourself doing that; especially during the particularly busy times if you’re intent on finding new and exciting gigs like I was. If you don’t mind the strain on your legs, and if chancing upon interesting new sounds is something that grabs your fancy, then the festival is definitely for you. You’re bound to discover many great bands you were previously unaware of.

You’re not always guaranteed to find that gig you were hoping to see. Late one night, feeling dejected due to not having the required wristband for a gig near the seafront – something the festival app neglected to tell us – myself and a few friends ended up at the Fiddlers Elbow for a curiously busy gig. We found ourselves in the company of an obnoxiously loud garage rock gig which was awfully mixed by the sound engineer and with frankly poor song writing from the band (who were, I believe, from Canada). The band just weren’t that great, but weren’t helped by long and droning instrumental parts drowning out the vocalist and… It was all too loud. We escaped, checked our timetables only to discover to our own chagrin that there weren’t any more gigs on – onto the next day.

Organisation is key to having a great Escape. A friend had an Excel sheet – really, an Excel sheet. All times and places and descriptions. I didn’t have an Excel sheet. I had a friend who said we had to go to Jubilee Square to see hot local band Slag. We got there to find that hot local band Slag were playing Jubilee Square. Or rather, had played Jubilee Square. Yesterday. Instead, we saw Azamiah, a smooth, laid-back jazz funk band. Good, but not as nature intended. Next year, Excel.

The Hope and Ruin was religiously hosting gigs, in both the upstairs and downstairs bar and I saw a lot of good bands here I’d never heard of before. No complaint from me. That’s the other thing about The Great Escape. You get to see loads of bands and very possibly you were told who they were and very probably you really remembered who they were and… who were they?

The bands at the Hope where all punk and hardcore; screaming the house down and getting the audience fired up. With each band delivering half an hour sets, I think I saw four or five different bands here – Pleasure Inc.from Norwich played funky headbangers with a Rage Against the Machine type feel; Jools were an intense, dual vocalist modern hardcore band; Really Big Really Clever were a midwestern emo sounding four piece who made the crowd go wild. The Molotov’s were also playing, but they were stuck upstairs.

In Green Door, where the uneven cobbled flooring tends to make your night a bit more like you’ve had a drink when you’ve drank enough to make you unsteady, various great bands played as part of both the Alternative Escape and the main festival. With so many gigs on in such a short time frame, it’s quite hard to plan where to go; especially with so many overlapping time slots – navigating the festival effectively requires incredible foresight I seemed to lack as a first timer. Next year, Excel.

My feet were complaining, my head also a little, but had a fantastic time and saw loads of great bands I otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to see. It’s probably been said before, but if the weather plays nicely, there’s nothing like a Great Escape weekend.  

Brighton Festival, Great Escape, The New Eves

The New Eves

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“A lot of our songs are influenced by literature”. Alex Hill talks music and The Great Escape

Sometimes you interview a band and they only have to say one thing and you’re hooked. “We’re all big Big Patti Smith fans” said Kate from The New Eves, one of the brightest sparks to be playing The Great Escape. Patti Smith. That’s us sold. It gets better. “We’d have to write a book listing all our influences, but Talking Heads are a big inspiration…”. And it gets more interesting. “… as well as more unique inspirations such as Bulgarian choir music”. Wasn’t expecting that.

If you’re even a little tired of the regular ‘guitar-bass-drums-vocals’ set up, The New Eves should make you smile. The Brighton based band feature Nina Winder-Lind (cello, guitar, vocals), Ella Oona Russell (drums, flute, vocals), Kate Mager (bass, vocals), and Violet Farrer (violin, guitar, vocals, dance) and it’s a little more arty – and can we say darker – than your average band. 

“A lot of our songs are influenced by literature”, says Kate and there’s a lot of the unexpeced here. Their new single, “Highway Man” is a darkly-energised, female-first retelling of Alfred Noyes’ classic 1906 romantic poem that, as they put it, flips the lens. “In the original version it’s this dude, who’s being the dude, and the girl doesn’t do anything and then dies,” says Nina. “So I was like, ‘We can’t have that…’” 

If all that sounds a bit too much, there’s still a bit of guitar solo rock’n’roll. “It was when I first started to find my guitar style, which is basically just weird noises and bashing” said Violet. And it is. Kinda cool though. The distorted guitar turns into adistorted cello – which is also kinda cool. 

“It’s really good to play The Great Esacpe but it can be a bit overwhelming. We’re also playing The Alternative Esacpe because more of our friends can come and there’s more of a local buzz.”

The New Eves are playing Chalk on Friday May 16 at 6.15pm

Caraline Brown, Mrs Wilson's Children, The Welly Club, Hull

Mrs Wilson’s Children: The Welly Club

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When stars such as Katy Perry, Coldplay and Enter Shikari, along with the current Government and Brighton and Hove council rally to the same cause, we have to pay attention. After successful lobbying by the Music Venue Trust, they are all supporting grassroots music venues. This is a real issue across the country as venues are regularly under threat from developers, gentrification and the cost of living. Here, the iconic Prince Albert was not so long ago battling closure.

As Brighton-based author Caraline Brown says, “Music is life. It is the blood in our veins. It’s what made us and will keep us sane”. Her book, Mrs Wilson’s Children: Adventures at the Welly Club, Hull 1979-81, tells the story of why these venues are crucial to the social, cultural, and economic life of our cities. Think what Brighton would feel like without The Hope and Ruin, The Green Door Store, Chalk and so many others.  

Stuffed with rare, fascinating pictures, tickets and posters of the gigs, Brown’s book illustrates the enduring importance of these venues through the prism of the punk/ post-punk/ 2-Tone moment (1979-81) and tells us about life away from the bigger cities such as London, Manchester and Liverpool. The Welly – which could be the Concorde or, well, pick your own favourite venue – became the centre of a community, a place where fans, bands and promoters could meet and chat and drink and ferment ideas. These places provided a space to build a scene. As Welly regular Jon Nelson says: “We had to build our own revolution, one gig at a time”.  

“I owe my whole career to those early days at the Welly”, says Brown. Managed by the formidable Mrs Wilson, like a “stern ward matron”, the Welly opened as a working men’s club in 1913, and was still hosting darts matches when Brown was promoting gigs there. A proper sweaty venue with character and sticky floors. However, it didn’t appeal to everyone. Bauhaus were supposed to support Magazine, but their singer Pete Murphy took one look at the stage, pronounced the venue a “shithole” and refused to play. His loss.  

Another highlight was the reproduced pages from Brown’s contemporaneous notebooks with the phone numbers of music industry executives such as legendary Factory Records boss, Tony Wilson, as well as the costs for the gigs. Refreshingly, there’s no sign of a mobile phone or an Excel spreadsheet. Local musician, Vince Coulman says that, while the gigs might not have made much money, the real benefit “might lay, not in cash, but in the thrill of bringing an ace band to our favourite place in the city. In short, making stuff happen.” 

The nights that Brown had organised at the Welly were still being talked about reverently when I arrived in Hull in the mid-1980s, even though Brown and the Wilsons were long gone. 

Thankfully, The Welly is still going strong playing host to the new generation of alternative groups. Music is indeed life.

l ‘Mrs Wilson’s Children: Adventures at The Welly Club, Hull 1979-1981’ by Caraline Brown costs £14.99 plus postage and is available from http://www.karibrown.uk

Johnny Hopkins 

Call My Franco, Green Door Store, Nel Blu, The Wrong Trousers

Music Review: Flavours, Nel Blu, The Wrong Trousers & Call Me Franco

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By Alex Hill

Friday night was a busy one down at The Green Door. Nestled underneath Brighton train station lies the tiny, cobbled floor venue which always seems to be absolutely packed. The hoards of people on the night were justified by the lineup of four fantastic bands.

The first to take the stage was Nel Blu, the grungy looking five-piece delivered a barrage of classic 2000’s indie sounding songs with a math rock twist with the keyboard and gentle, melodic guitar breaks. Fighting through the crows to see what they looked like, Nel Blu’s jangly indie bangers sounded exactly as I imagined they looked. Even if you’re staring at the back of someone’s head, you can tell these guys are a talented bunch, with songs sounding similar to massively popular indie bands like The Killers which easily got the whole room bopping along.     

As I finally managed to secure a view, The Wrong Trousers – a high energy, heavy punk band – hit the stage, and took it by storm . I loved these guys and their hardcore sound, the very fast drumming, wrist-achingly fast guitar and screeching vocals from their attitude fuelled frontman who bounced around the stage made a headbanging result. It’s refreshing to see a band which are keeping the punk sound alive while also combining it with some surf or shoegazey guitar parts to keep it interesting and put a modern spin on the genre.

Call Me Franco are, right now, perhaps the most original band in Brighton, and their set left me utterly impressed. The trio has no singer, instead opting for strange sound effects and voices – which sound like aliens attempting to make contact – acting as an introduction to their songs. With the guitarist and bassist using a range of effects pedals to create a unique result which they use to their advantage when alternating between heavy riffs and isolated instruments, using a lot of noise – or lack thereof – to their advantage.

Complimenting the rest of the band is the extremely talented drummer whose hard-hitting technique and rhythm drove the songs. Call Me Franco demonstrates clearly how a singer isn’t at all necessary in their arty rock style. The band that came to mind as a comparison is Muse, with their similar effects driven heavy rock, and yet at no point in the show did I feel vocals were missing or needed. Their unique sound kept us enthralled. A very cool instrumental band which you don’t see the likes of very often.

Following on from Call Me Franco were headliners Flavours, a four-piece modern sounding rock group championing the release of new single, the aptly named ‘Still Heavy’. With the two guitarists playing a mix of heavy riffs and very cool sounding melodies on their twin guitars while trading vocals, followed along closely by the bassist and backed perfectly by the drums; these guys solidly pay tribute to classic psychedelic rock, while making it their own with their atmospheric sound. They saved their new single until later in the set, delivering on the anticipation with a great tune which starts off with a jangly, soothing guitar intro and melodic singing before going into a brilliant guitar solo and heavy riff, which live up to the songs name and was a treat to experience live. If you want to see a current band exerting heaps of high-energy talent; these guys won’t fall short.

Bones Ate Arfa, Brighton music scene, Fever Rouge, Fire Escape, ism, Kocapoli, Lana Death Ray, Leibniz, Spill, Will E Bray's Horrible Lot

Music: Tallulah Gray’s Top Ten Must-See Bands For 2025!

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Brighton’s live music scene is one of if not the most exciting parts of living in the city, with a myriad of live music venues to choose from and a wide variety of genres explored by local bands. With so much on, it can be hard to tell what bands should be on your radar. What you need is a guiding hand… Fortunately, The Whistler’s Music Editor is here to shine a light

10. Fire Escape

I first caught Fire Escape back in January and recently caught up with them at their show supporting Lifts. The difference is night and day between January and now as the Brighton-based 5-piece has really tightened up their sound over the last year. Their shows are vibrant and energetic, blending a variety of influences to result in a post-punk meets performance art set that really distinguishes them from other bands in the Brighton scene. (Photo by @moonrockmgmt)

9. Kocapoli

With their angelic harmonies and their driving bassline alongside guitarist Billy Twamley’s blues rock riffs, this band feels like Fleetwood Mac meets The Doors. I first saw them play at Rossi Bar during the tail end of Summer and haven’t been able to get enough since. If you like powerful instrumentals and sultry vocals in equal measure than this is definitely a band you’ll want to see! (Photo by @Flyhighmedia_)

8. ism

I had no idea what to expect when I saw Ism(stylised ‘ism’) play Daltons back in October, and this kind of curiosity is exactly what seems to fuel the band and their eclectic performances. From their decision to assign themes to every gig they play, to the way in which lead singer Tyra Kristoffersen teases the audience during the set, this band is a surefire way to enjoy your evening. (Photo Shot by the band and @__pmw_)

7. Will E. Blay’s Horrible Lot

No words can really do justice to the vibe the Horrible Lot bring to their shows. An equal mixture of Irony and pure funkadelic talent. Frontman Will E. Blay’s energy on stage is infectious and the characterization he and the rest of the Horrible Lot lean into while performing on stage is a load of fun to watch. From fantastic music to an entertaining performance, The Horrible Lot certainly has it all. (Photo by @moonrockmgmt)

6. Bones Ate Arfa

The self proclaimed “Junkyard Dogs” of Brighton, Bones Ate Arfa has been making waves in the Brighton live music scene all year. Their latest EP release Akimbo People serves as a concise and emblematic release for the band. If you’re looking for heavy basslines and a punk rock energy then you are in luck! (Photo by @_beccaconn_)

5. Leibniz

After the release of their new EP Lifetime Patient, Leibniz has been a force to reckon with. Their shows are moody and cathartic, with a set that swells until you almost can’t bare anymore just to hit you with a sensational wave of release. I personally think this band is one of the strongest playing in the Brighton scene at the moment and I cannot wait to see what they do next. (Photo by @_redinfocus)

4. Fever Rouge

Fever Rouge are rapidly reaching Local Legends status within the Brighton music scene. From a well recieved tour to their phenomenal music video release for ‘The Buzz’ (shot by Cavey) this band is reaching new heights every time I see them. I last caught their live set supporting Die Twice at the Hope and Ruin and man, do these guys put on a show. Tracks like ‘Weatherman’ and ‘Feed the Villain bring such a palpable psychedelic rock meets King Krule energy that really sets them apart from modern rock bands. (Photo by @tale.pho)

3. Lana Death Ray

As a massive fan of the grunge and shoegaze music from the 90s, Lana Death Ray is a dream to watch on stage. Frontman Beau Jackson’s dynamic vocal range coupled with their driving rhythm section makes for a new take on the band’s 90s influences. And rumour has it, they’ve got an EP in the works for the new year! (Photo by Fynn Moran Media)

2. Slag

Slag has rapidly taken over my Spotify ever since I saw them play Daltons in early October. Their debut single Ripped is punchy and dynamic, and the way in which the band plays into the lilt of their lead singer’s voice alongside their incisive instrumentals. This band (along with Number One on our list) is really THE band to watch in 2025. (Photo by @ellatibbett)

1. Spill

It’s no secret that Spill is one of the strongest bands in Brighton at the moment. Their rich sound is meticulously crafted and their stage shows are filled to the brim with raw and electric talent. Spill has had a big year and it looks like 2025 will be starting off with a bang as they launch into their first tour to support their upcoming single release ‘Mr Blue’. Not a moment of their set is wasted as they pack their shows full of profound and cynical lyricism, overdriven yet melodic guitar riffs and the meanest bass tone Brighton has to offer. (Photo by @Caveyslife)