Brighton blog part 1 (by M)
Current mood:
adventurous
Wow.adventurousMy head's still a bit fritzed, to be honest, but I wanted to type out some stuff before things get crazy again.
THINGS LEARNED IN BRIGHTON:
5,000 flyers for one gig is simultaneously too many and not enough.
Brighton is not the feminist mecca of England and you will still get your backside groped by the cloakroom attendant at Volks, unless we can get him sacked.
Lydia Lunch is a goddess.
You need the planning skills of Nasa to see even a fraction of the festival.
I actually miss the aggressive frisson of Westcliff when I'm away. Not least because if I'd been in a Westcliff mood that cloakroom attendant would have gone home bleeding.
AMBITIONS FULFILLED IN BRIGHTON
I got to DJ in a club!
I got heckled by Sim Fashoda!
We played '82 in Brighton!
Paul stole one of Paige Mullet's drumsticks!
A beat poet called me 'sister'!
MISTAKES MADE IN BRIGHTON
I actually expected people to eat salad on holiday
I accidently kissed Mel Mullet on the neck when I was aiming for her face
I came home.
Brighton blog part 2 (by M)
Current mood:
contemplative
The story of our Brighton gig goes way back to January, when I got a bit bored and decided it would be a good idea. Manda and I met in Brighton and we make little pilgrimages back there about once a year. Playing a gig down there seemed like the most fun idea and being part of a fringe festival an even better one. After giving Soph Noisy very little option the event became Noisy Night Does Brighton and she was soon organising a photo exhibit and goody bags and badges to make the event proper special.contemplativeI had to find a venue. Even though the festival was 5 months away, most of the good venues were either booked out or totally out of my league. Volks were advertising on the fringe website as somewhere to hold gigs, so I found some footage of a gig held there on You Tube. It looked noisy and messy and grotty and unpleasant so I decided it would be perfect. Also it has a basement which I figured would be perfect for the photo exhibition. I booked a date early in the month (no particular logic there) but couldn't get a weekend, or even a Thursday, so Wednesday it had to be. I figured this would be OK as during festival season in a student town people go out every night of the week anyway. Plus there would be more competition on a Thursday.
We had to figure a line up. The Machines were a definite from the start, they were the first band we thought of asking and they said yes right away. The we asked Johnny and the Mullets, which was a bit odd as we'd never spoken to them before even though we'd seen them live a couple of times. They were pretty damn keen as well and suggested busking down there to promote the show, which was a top idea. It didn't actually happen, but it was a top idea. Then we asked F451, who were having some kind of creative hiatus stand off which eventually lead to them splitting up, so that was a no-go. Then we simultaneously asked Fashoda Crisis and The Beatroots, figuring we had plenty of time for 5 bands to play given that everyone writes short songs. The Beatroots were so up for it we recorded a video of Miles saying hello to everyone in Brighton, and telling them how much he wanted to play. Then we realised a new Beatroot was going to be born that week so it was a dumb idea. Luckily Fashoda were up for it. They said they were going to bring a minibus full of people! Which was a great idea. It didn't happen, but it was a great idea.
As usual the flyer designing fell to Soph, who did a rather ace job of it, and we had some money we hadn't been expecting left over from the gig at the Ship so we used it to print up 5,000 flyers. Yes, 5,000. This seemed reasonable given that we would be there for a whole week. Unfortunately Brighton council then slapped a flyering ban on the city, pretty much the day after I collected them from the printers. Suddenly things were looking a bit worrying. Steve Machine made us a page on the 'Virtual Flyers' website which was rather cool and the lady who ran it liked our interviews and agreed to feature us on the day.
The period between January and May was mainly one of typing away at the PC trying to promote the gig. Soph and I also took a trip down to Brighton for the fringe launch party, and stayed the next day to flyer the city (by putting stacks of flyers neatly in shops as per the new regs) and put some sample CDs in the record shops to entice people into coming along. We had got stuck in traffic on the way there and so missed Patti Plinko, which was a double tragedy as her shows had sold out by the time we tried to buy them for the festival too. The launch was kind of weird, we weren't really sure what to do with ourselves having arrived late and it wasn't possible to get anywhere near the stage or the bar. They had promised us it would be 'lavish' but it wasn't really, and we had fought our way through abysmal weather to get there. So we went and had a Subway in our B+B and had a look through the fringe brochure. Turned out that a lot of the cool stuff was happening at the end of the month so we were going to miss it. Also turned out that everything was more expensive than we thought and that we were clashing with the Dub Pistols, which was a shame.
People were a bit slow on the goody bag idea, even though we were offering free publicity to bands, none of them seemed to want it. Then The Get stepped up to the table and recorded a special EP as well as digging out some flexidiscs from the 70's. Then suddenly a fortnight before the gig we found ourselves driving round the Essex and Hertfordshire countryside picking up so many CDs for the goodybags that we had to upgrade the bags themselves to it all in. In the need punters got at least 11 CDs, badges, a flexidisc, stickers, flyers, a balloon, some sunflower seeds and even in some cases a t shirt. Fitting 50 of these amazing gifts into the boot of the van was not going to be easy. Also by this point we only had a few photographs for the exhibition. It was a bit strange that no-one wanted to ride our coattails and promote their own stuff, we'd thought that was the one thing we could rely on.
The journey down to Brighton was epic, on account of the QE2 bridge being closed. Luckily Paul Travolta had stocked up on travel games but Freda, our trusty van, has no stereo so also luckily Soph brought a portable CD player. When we arrived at our house was discovered a massive garden and it was decided right away that all the bands had to come back after the show and do cartwheels for our entertainment. It didn't happen, but it was great idea.
Next time: The festival begins.
10 Questions: An interview with Emma Reed of Ten Tigers
Yes, it’s “Noisy Night Does Brighton!” This time our spotlight falls on Emma Reed, lead vocalist and guitarist of Ten Tigers who answers our 10 Questions today. The Tigers are a band with lots of attitude and energy so lets hear from Emma….
1. What inspired you to become a musician and performer?
The desire to keep living as a student, but on the road! Doesn’t everyone want that? To work with their best friends making something unique. In broader terms though I was forced into music at the age of four when my headmistress told me I had no future unless I learnt to play the recorder. Bizarrely, she was right!
2.What is your show about and what should the public expect from your show?
I think the main theme of the evening is energy, we’re billing it as a punk show but that is more due to the attitude than the constraints of a genre. Brighton and Southend both have long love affairs with exciting aggressive and liberating music and that’s something we really wanted to celebrate. There will be lots of short fast songs!
My band, Ten Tigers, play a lot of different instruments and every song sounds very different from the last, so it’s pretty lively and attention grabbing.
Johnny and The Mullets have a more straightforward approach but there’s bits of punk and bits of disco, some heartbreak and some fighting back. They’re a girl band but that’s just anatomy. They gig like crazy at home and always get a good crowd.
Fashoda Crisis have been compared to McClusky, they have a really searing delivery and the most hysterically funny and obscene on stage banter. They suffer no fools! Seeing them live is a bit like a hot blast of air in the face.
And the headliners, The Machines, will probably do their own hype on this site but they’re proper, old school, actually bloody fantastic style trad punk. If that isn’t a complete oxymoron! They’ve being doing it since ‘77 and there’s no sign of them stopping yet, thankfully! It’s quite a varied bag on paper but when you listen to tracks by each band together it makes total sense. We’re all shaking life by the ankles to get at every last drop.
We’re also holding an exhibit in the basement to showcase the work of some of our favourite Essex music photographers, which I’m quite excited about. Many of them never exhibit offline and it’s a shame that no one sees some of these shots because a good photo can change the whole course of a band’s career, the whole course of music history, in fact. Without the musicians there would be no photos, without the photos there would be no legends.
And….. we will be giving away goody bags to the first fifty people through the door to make it a bit more of a special event and to encourage people to come early. My band’s on first so that’s a pretty important angle for me!
3. What is your favourite Festival or Fringe and why?
Well we’re newbies to fringing but Manda, Sophia (who writes Noisyzine) and I really enjoy going toladyfests, there’s a real sense of openess and a desire to seek out the new and alternative. Plus that culture goes hand in hand with workshops and fanzines and cake, all of which can be immense fun! Anywhere that you can try new ways to express yourself or new ways of looking at the world and not be judged has to be some kind of utopia for the human soul. We all need intellectual space, which is hard to find.
4. What’s your best advice for aspiring artists musicians on the Festival/Fringe circuit?
We’ll tell you when we’ve survived this one!
5. What is your funniest experience and also your worst experience performing or attending a Fringe/Festival?
My funniest experience is also my worst experience, I’m just too shy to say!
6. As you travel performing to different festivals/fringes, where is your favourite place to vacation/chill out and why?
As mentioned we’re newbies to fringing but Brighton looks great!
7. Who is the person you most admire and why?
I don’t think it’s good to put all your faith or admiration in one bucket. Everyone human is going to let you down. I think it’s better to look at each person and then try to take on board their strengths. Hmm, that sounds like I’m one of the Borg from Star Trek! What I mean is, you should strive to be your own hero. Form a composite of what you love about others and then aim for it.
8. What is the best tip you have ever been given?
‘If it feels right, do it. If it doesn’t, then don’t.’ My mum said that and then got angry about the consequences! But she was right. It’s the only way to live.
9. What is the best book/s you have read and why do you like them?
Possibly the best book I’ve read was ‘Notice’ by Heather Lewis. It’s a devastating and harrowing tale which is at least semi autobiographical. It’s about a woman who falls between the cracks of life so totally and is just horrifically abused by everyone she meets, which sounds completely unreadable but it’s actually very compelling.
It just goes places and says things which people don’t say, and the constant fear of how much actually happened to the poor girl makes you feel you have to read on. You have to stay with her as if that will somehow protect her from what might come next. The author committed suicide though. The character is very universal even though she’s living an unusual life, she feels like your daughter, your friend, your enemy, your crush, your little sister. It’s horrible and I’d never lend it to anyone but it’s also completely wonderful.
10. If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?
We’d all go back to the barter system. Although that might make Ebay a bit harder to use….
