The Recommender

Two posts in two days – Aren’t you the spoiled ones! Saying that, already got a new Recommender due up too, so the posts are coming thick and fast now that my computer’s feeling better about itself. Nice.

OK, it’s been a mad month through May in Brighton. Not only did we have many strange and beautiful highlights here for the ‘Brighton Festival’, but we had our annual mad weekend of new music with ‘The Great Escape’, which is fast becoming Europe’s leading new music festival! It’s brilliant that we Brightonians embrace new music so well. I figure it’s a blend of having an alternative atmosphere inherant in the city, having a large young population of students, having a great number of small and mid-sized venues dotted around the centre of town and also a little sprinkling of the sea air probably adds to the madness too!

This years Great Escape saw the acts such as: Yeasayer, The Ting Tings, The Young Knives, Vampire Weekend, The XX, Late Of The Pier and The Futureheads to name but a few! Best named bands gotta be split between either : Soiled Matress & The Springs or Brighton’s own Maths Class – brilliant!

And so we look on to what’s in store through the rest of the summer and turn our attention to two American bands edging onto many radio’s playlists currently. Remember, this is ONLY a guide to what’s on, the rest is up to you : check out the bands, locate the tickets, get to the venue etc. My aim is to simply make you better informed. Nice.

First up – THE BLACK KIDS. They are from Jacksonville, Florida and bring with them a sunny disposition and energy in their tunes. It sounds a little as if The Cure’s Robert Smith is fronting The Go Team, if you can imagine! Great riffs and sing-along chorus’ burst out of each song. Live they’ve supported acts such as Kate Nash, Friendly Fires and more recently Cut Copy, all of which would’ve been cracking evenings I’m sure!

ACT: THE BLACK KIDS
VENUE:                CONCORDE 2
COST:                   £ 8.50
DATE:                   Thursday 10th July 2008
WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/blackkidsrock

Next up is New York oddballs – BATTLES. I’ll attach a video for their single Atlas, as trying to describe their sound is nigh-on impossible quite frankly. Guitar-led indie with weirded-out vocals by singer Tyondai Braxton make up a unique and experimental soundscape. Brilliant riffs and hooks whip the listener up, it really is excitingly fresh stuff. Have a listen…then go get some tickets as I reckon this gig will be very, very cool!!

ACT: BATTLES
VENUE:                CONCORDE 2
COST:                   £ 11.00
DATE:                   Tuesday 15th July 2008
WEBSITE:          www.myspace.com/battlestheband
VIDEO:                

Other highlights coming up include; THE PRESETS @ Barfly, Friday 27th June (£8.00) and OK TOKYO (more about these guys in next post of The Recommender me thinks) @ Freebut, Friday 13th June (£6.50).

Recent brilliant gigs of awesomness that appeared in our city included; MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS @ Barfly, FRIENDLY FIRES @ Concorde 2 (note-best guitaring I’ve seen since Johnny Greenwood!), HEARTS REVOLUTION @ Ocean Rooms and UFFIE & FEDZ @ Ocean Rooms. If you missed them, nevermind, just make sure you look out for them next time around as they come with my stamp of approval all over them. Yummy.

Before I end, I gotta say yet another well done to Henron at Ocean Rooms for managing to book the best DJ’s and dance acts on the planet. This club is now going down as one of the finest in the UK for its cutting edge Electro night, usually every Friday. The media are all over it - so should you be!

See you down the front some time soon…
Mike