Today’s appearance in Brighton by the racist English Nationalist Alliance only managed to muster what looked like about 30-odd people. It was hard to tell, concealed as they were behind huge lines of fluorescent jackets. I’d say that Sussex Police easily had three times as many officers as the ENA had attendees and that was just escorting their march, not even counting those watching over the rest of us.
The number of various anti-racist, anti-fascist and queer activists, Brighton folk, socialists and trade unionists was a bit more impressive with something like 2-300 people joining the main march, plenty of other people showing support as we passed, and I think a few dozen anarchists running about and trying to block / tussle with the ENA.
The police forced us to move on from the station (I think, I joined the march just as it got going) and we headed along Queen’s Road, then down North Road to Victoria Gardens where we found ourselves penned in. Great. This was pretty shit but spirits were pretty high and most folks were having a laugh, enjoying the sun, listening to a few short speeches and generally not being reprehensibly awful human beings. The reprehensibly awful human beings took about an hour to show up, possibly due to interference from the anarchist bloc, police management or just through being too stupid to walk about 15 minutes to their destination.
When they eventually arrived they spent about 20 minutes listening to some speeches – thanks to getting ourselves penned we had no idea what was going on so consoled ourselves with chanting at them. Hmm. After that was up they were escorted back to the station, surrounded by a cloud of onlookers, hopefully a few of whom were sharing their opinions of the ENA and the EDL. Eventually we were let out of our pen but not before a few spirited attempts to break through the fence were made. A few people were arrested, mostly for being mouthy as far as I could see, and hopefully have been / will be released without charge (I didn’t know any of them).
After that I headed homewards and found the remnants of the ENA arrayed outside the station with a bunch of the remaining counter-protesters chanting at them. I left at this point but apparently the fun continued for a while longer when the ENA got themselves an escort to a nearby pub (would that the police offered this service to regular folk) which was again surrounded. Well, I imagine they got the idea that they’re not welcome here and easily outnumbered, even with an almost total lack of promotion for the counter-demo.
A bunch of photos and a very short video follow. I am not a good photographer I’m afraid, so suck it up.
The news broke today that the Freebutt will no longer be able to operate commercially as a live music venue. Head over here to read their official statement; the gist is that they need £20,000 for the required soundproofing, which they don’t have, and the council have reduced the limiter to 95db which is too low for amplified music. They’ve shut the venue as making £20k from live acoustic music doesn’t seem feasible.
(The Penthouse above the ‘butt will be still be running, though, so do keep heading there. It’s a scrappy little bar that I’m still really fond of, and it has some cool esoteric DJ nights.)
This rapidly follows confirmation that The Providence is being sold by the Barracuda chain, quite likely to Tesco. Make of that what you will; it’s been pointed out that several other Tesco branches are about 5 minutes walk away, and there are already 11 Tesco shops in Brighton (plus there’s the one they’re considering building in Lewes Road too). I wasn’t hugely fond of the Providence as a pub but the sound was decent enough and some long-standing promoters put on a lot of shows there.
In the last month we’ve also heard news that The Engine Room has been closed. No official statements have been released as far as I’m aware, although the word on the street is that there just wasn’t enough money for some payment or another. Anyone reading this got the facts? [UPDATE: minutes after I posted this, an article popped up on the local paper's website explaining that the venue is up for sale. Balls!]
And of course earlier this year came the end of the Hobgoblin, a genuine Brighton punk rock and metal institution, which despite eking a few more months of life after its initial closure late in 2009 has been bought by another chain. They’re currently in the process of entirely revamping it; initial rumour was that it was being turned into a gastro pub (ah yes, no shortage of those in Brighton) although its new exterior paintjob does still tout “live music” as a feature. It seems unlikely that they’ll want to play host to the same D.I.Y. promoters and touring bands as in the past, though.
Several years back the Pressure Point was sold to a developer following a lack of interest from purchasers who wanted to keep it running as a venue. It’s since been converted into a hostel with a bar. The Brighton Gloucester / Barfly remains closed and unused following Barfly / MAMA’s abortive attempt to break into the local music scene around the same time. I assume they still own it and may intend to reopen it in brighter economic times.
The saddest thing is that most of the venues that have bitten the dust were the ones doing the most to support relatively unknown outfits, small touring bands, local groups and musicians and so on.
SIGNS OF LIFE
On the positive side of things the Hydrant (was the Hare & Hounds) is making a huge and laudable push into supporting local music with both a large upstairs function room for shows and regular gigs in the downstairs pub as well. Then there’s Hector’s House which seems to have picked up a lot of the punk and metal shows the Hob would once have hosted – and good on them, speaking personally it’s greatly preferable to the student drum ‘n bass crowd I remember from 5 years ago! Finally one of my current favourite venues, the Prince Albert, is also keeping on rocking – and their P.A. is one of the best I’ve heard in a small venue.
And of course there are other venues like Jam, the Greenhouse Effect, Audio and larger venues like the Concorde 2. So live music in Brighton has taken some major blows, but there are still plenty of places to go and play.
If you’re involved with a local venue, whether as an owner or a promoter, please get in touch via email or the comments below. I’d like to do a round-up of venues in a separate post in the near future, and counteract some of this bad news with a reminder of how Brighton still has a lot to offer!
This news broke last Wednesday but I’ve been busy recently and so I’m only writing about it now! One of Brighton’s longest-running venues, the Freebutt, is under threat of closure as a result of a noise complaint and subsequent Environmental Health Office investigation. As I put it on Facebook:
Many of you will have seen this already, but so what, it’s important. The Freebutt is facing closure due to ONE noise complaint. They are doing everything they can to solve the noise problem, but the EHO and the neighbour are preventing them from doing so. For a venue with decades of history to be shut down for such a bullshit reason would be a travesty.
This summary is a bit unfair on the EHO – they’re helping, just somewhat slowly – and the neighbour – who presumably has a legitimate complaint, but they’re not helping get it resolved except in the sense of “if the venue closes, the problem goes away”.
The Freebutt is presently owned by a small group of local music fans and entrepreneurs. They’re put a lot of work into ensuring the venue is shipshape and this is the only noise complaint since they took ownership. Although since the redesign the giant pillar in the middle of the room is still a source of constant complaint, Brighton’s live music scene wouldn’t be the same without the ‘butt.
The Freebutt circa 1968.
You can read the full story from the Freebutt here. The Argus has an article covering Brighton Council’s statements and some tedious, reactionary reader comments. There’s a petition you can sign here and a Facebook group here. The MP for the area is Caroline Lucas (Green) and the city councillors can be contacted from here.
The venue’s owners sent out an update 24 hours after the news and campaign broke which you can read below the cut. » Read the rest of this entry «
I’m not much of a thrash metal fan but my friend Tommy, bless his beard and genial metalhead nature, has been making some effort to convert me. This included getting me to join him for a show headlined by Irish thrash metal legends Gama Bomb. It’s all thrash, all night… and all I’ve heard of any of the bands is Gama Bomb’s album Citizen Brain.
First up is Driveby Shark, who are fronted by a ridiculously tall screaming bloke with ginger hair… or a dark blond, I guess, maybe it’s just the light. Whatever – he reminds me of my friend Ric from black metallers Iceni, who is also a ridiculously tall screaming frontman with ginger hair. It must be a metal thing, right?
In late 2009, one of my favourite hardcore punk outfits in Brighton called it a day: the Offcuts. In the interest of full disclosure I should probably mention that I’ve been friends with the band for years and have lived with most of them at various addresses!
Essentially, the band ended when Alex (bass) decided to leave. The others opted to continue as a band but to make some changes. These included one of the band’s two guitarists adopting bass duties (at the moment Chris and Pinder share, swapping over on stage for different songs), Alec adding keys and synth to his distinctive vocal slurs and screams, ditching all of the old tunes and writing entirely new ones, and changing the band’s name to WW2 vs Dinosaurs.
There’s a new page on the site (replacing the somewhat pointless ‘gubbins’ page) that I’m using to list upcoming gigs here in Brighton. I got fed up of writing about shows I wanted to attend in intermittent posts that became out of date really quickly. No doubt this static page will also be out of date quite a bit, but at least it won’t keep showing up unwanted in RSS feeds. Pow!
My friend Andy got in touch with me on behalf of the label he works with, Nice Weather For Airstrikes, and asked me to post about Last Days of Lorca, one of their bands. LDoL are a self-described post-indie band and currently have a song in Danny Dyer’s new film, Jack Said.
I’ve not seen the film and I probably won’t go and see it (looks a bit Lahndan gangster mate innit), but I’ve been asked to point out that the song ‘I Start Fires We Start Riots’ is by Last Days of Lorca, and NOT by Muse. It’s part of a cunning plan to get the right band name showing up in Google results, do you see? Seems only fair that the right band get attributed. Oh yes, and the band are playing Brighton soon.
Anyway, here’s a clip from the film with the song in the background:
That’s enough promotional material on behalf of friends for now… apart from mentioning that The Offcuts, Another Day Lost, ASBO Retards, Bull See Red and Harmful Effects are playing the Greenhouse Effect in Brighton on Friday November 13th, and I’ll be there celebrating my twenty somethingth birthday. So come on down!
