POLARSETS Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar Sat 1st
Like Manchester before it three years ago, and Oxford over the last two years, Newcastle has experienced a recent bulge of quality bands who have reached out beyond its city’s boundaries and begun a march on the music press. Polarsets are a trio who may well hold the strongest promise from the recent North East batch, with their accessible, sing-a-long indie pop. Radio-friendly singles, with huge choruses and plenty of cowbell, are helping to fuel their ascent. (TR)
EMMY THE GREAT
Duke of York’s Mon 3rd
The grandly yet aptly-titled Emmy The Great hasn’t had the commercial success of Laura Marling, nor the critical praise of Caitlin Rose, but she can more than hold her own against them when performing live. She arrives in Brighton on the back of her second album, ‘Virtue’, to play at the delightful Duke Of York’s Picture House. Expect a captivating concoction of charisma, bold lyrics and bittersweet melodies; this should be something special. (GS)
WILLIAM TYLER Prince Albert Weds 5th
Best known as longtime member of Lambchop and Silver Jews, visionary guitar virtuoso William Tyler released his stunning solo album ‘Behold The Spirit’ on the esteemed Tompkins Square label late last year before being invited to tour with Yo La Tengo and Michael Chapman. He’ll be joined on this special double bill by Hiss Golden Messenger, whose ghostly folk blues has won many fans of late including David Bowie, who described his music as “mystical country, like an eerie yellowing photograph”. (IC)
TENDER TRAP Prince Albert Thurs 6th
Da Doo Ron Ron presents an extremely rare live appearance from Tender Trap. Featuring ex-Tallulah Gosh founder Amelia Fletcher and a cast of indie legends, they brim with the unquenchable spirit of classic pop. Keepin’ on with the melodic sunshine choogle are Summer Hunter, Brighton’s newest remedy to the eternal power pop void left by the death of the season. Finally, two-girl human juke-joint Dogtooth! grab your hand and drag you through their land of simple fables and clear voices. (LMM)
ED SHEERAN Concorde 2 Thurs 6th
If you haven’t heard Ed Sheeran’s massive hit, his debut single ‘The A Team’ which was released back in July, you’ve probably been suffering some kind of severe ear problems. Relentlessly catchy and soulful, Sheeran’s folk indie singer-songwriter style isn’t particularly new, but he does it very well. He’s the kind of boy your mother would like you to bring home, but despite being on the gigging circuit for years, he’s still only 20 so he has plenty of time to mature into something perhaps more unusual. (JMM)
FENECH-SOLER Concorde 2 Fri 7th
Deceptively foreign-sounding, Fenech-Soler are actually a pretty-boy four-piece from Northampton, with pop synth hits that seem worldlier than their tender years would have you assume. Despite looking a bit like the-band-that-Hollyoaks-built, their arching synthesisers, melodic indie harmonies and racing rhythms are as reminiscent of early synth popsters Depeche Mode and Erasure as much as modern incarnations like Ladytron and Calvin Harris. (JMM)
PLANNINGTOROCK
Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar Mon 10th
Brighton welcomes back, after a no-show at this year’s Great Escape, the sartorially extravagant one-woman project signed to the consistently brilliant DFA label. Often compared to Goldfrapp and Fever Ray although more spontaneous and less orchestrated than both combined, Boltononian turned Berliner Janine Rostron brings her multimedia performance art to Sticky Mike’s. Expect pitch-shifted vocals, filtered disco beats mixed with dark electronica, costumes and more unimaginable weirdness thrown in for good measure. (KK)
ART BRUT Haunt Tues 11th
Eddie Argos brings Art Brut to Brighton on the back of the band’s most accessible (and to our mind best) album ‘Brilliant! Tragic!’. While his trademark cutting lyrics remain, he’s toned down the tempo and enhanced the tunes. With Mr Argos freely admitting he ‘”actually tried singing on this album” and that he threw in a few songs to ‘”help you catch your breath”, this gig should be a tad different from their tried and tested floor-to-the-floor noise fests. (GS)
THE KILLS Concorde 2 Fri 14th
Garage rock lounge gods The Kills have been around for over a decade now, and their detached post-punk releases have grown from sounding like typical West Coast bored suburbia to globally appreciated art rock revival. Retaining their stripped-back, minimalistic, fatalistic grooves has served them well – their latest album ‘Blood Pressures’ was released in April to high acclaim. Dig out your coolest band t-shirt, look uninterested, and get down discreetly with Mr Kate Moss and his female counterpart. (JMM)
JULIAN COPE
Concorde 2 Tues 18th
“Merely by staying away, you can create a myth,” stated Julian Cope recently. It’s an interesting claim from a music icon who, in actuality, has continued the construction of his own legacy not on silence and reclusion, but by obsessing over underground genres, standing stones and a mainly abominable line in absurdist rock that has no place alongside his solo work or that of The Teardrop Explodes. SOURCE wishes to hear only the latter tonight. But will the ‘Arch-Drude’ abide? (BG)
MARBLE VALLEY
Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar Thurs 20th
The endearingly beardy Pavement-drummer-turned-stonemason-turned-Pavement-drummer-once-more, Steve West takes on the role of front man and vocalist in his own band, Marble Valley, who have been releasing albums since 1997. Obsessive Pavement fan? You’ll pretty much like the abundance of slacker guitar with a stoner edge, while West’s humourous songs such as ‘Hip Hick Hop’ and ‘Computer Man’ will warm your heart indeed. (KK)
PETE FIJ • & TERRY BICKERS Latest Musicbar Thurs 20th
With the cautionary tale of Creation Records’ rise and fall given a cinematic airing in this year’s Upside Down, it’s as good a time as any for two of the label’s former golden boys to reappear. Adorable, and later Polak, front man Pete Fijalkowski has teamed up with House Of Love/Levitation guitar legend Terry Bickers, leading to Pavlovian salivating among the ‘set the controls to sonic cathedral’ effects pedal fraternity. Hollowmoon and Fujiya & Miyagi’s Matt ‘Ampersand’ Hainsby support. (SH)
BRIGHTON INDIE POP WEEKENDER
Horse & Groom Sat 22nd – Sun 23rd
Lo-fi, loud and insanely repetitive, hard-boiled indie duo The Lovely Eggs are 6 Music favourites. A married couple from Lancaster who sound like a de-discoed Ting Tings with better (by which we mean more infantile) lyrics and a more fried guitar sound. Their set marks the end of a weekend-long festival of indie music, also featuring the Tigercats, Pocketbooks, Bobby McGee’s and more. There’s no need to scramble for tickets or poach a friend’s as admission is free. (AP)
LINDI ORTEGA Hope Sun 23rd
Imagine a Toronto-born Dolly Parton but with less plastic surgery and more rockabilly clothing, crooning country classics in a gravelly, soulful voice, telling tales about her favourite pair of boots, and you’ve got Lindi Ortega. Canada’s churning out folk indie singer-songwriters at the moment, and given that they’ve previously produced Celine Dion and Sum 41, they’ve got a lot to make up for. Listen out for hyper-bouncy ‘I’m No Elvis Presley’ from her last album. (JMM)
BAXTER DURY Komedia Mon 24th
You might have seen Baxter standing alongside his dad Ian on the cover of ‘New Boots & Panties!!’ aged five. More recently, he was portrayed by Bill Milner in the 2010 big screen biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, featuring a stunning lead performance from Andy Serkis. But Dury Jr. is a terrifically accomplished musician in his own right, producing understated, soulful smoke rings of sound whenever the moment takes him. Reasons to be cheerful part four, then. (BG)
THE HORRORS
Concorde 2 Tues 25th
From backstage staff on Southend pier’s ghost train to the saviours of British music in the space of two albums, it’s been a stunning few years for The Horrors. Any suggestion the band might have fluked their transformation with 2009’s ‘Primary Colours’ album have been dispatched with this summer’s equally transcendent follow-up, ‘Skying’, and frontman Faris Badwan’s exotic collaboration with Canadian opera singer Rachel Zeffira, Cat’s Eyes. The only scary thing about them now, in fact, is their future. (BG)
PEGGY SUE • Haunt Tues 25th
Always viewed as the most likely of Brighton’s Tweecore Class of 2006 to hit the mainstream, Peggy Sue’s sound has matured significantly, from early stripped-down guitar to a new album you’d expect to find on 4AD. Hopefully the amiable lo-fi enthusiasm and instrument swapping of their live performances hasn’t disappeared in amongst all the ethereal ambient electronica. Can there be such a thing as a grown-up tweecore band? Find out tonight. (AP)
GLASVEGAS Old Market Wed 26th
The average footballer spends most of their time, SOURCE imagines, thinking about a bigger car, a bigger knob and a bigger harem of girlfriends. Not James Allan. During a lengthy, pre-Glasvegas Scottish football league career, the singer used to dance down the wing wracked with daydreams of Elvis Presley’s haircut, Phil Spector’s production and dark, heavyweight themes raining down from Glasgow’s circling thunderclouds. Now a fully fledged rock icon and former drug addict, a duet with Joey Barton surely awaits. (BG)
BASTILLE Green Door Store Thurs 27th
This solo artist from London gained some online buzz earlier this year with a homemade video for his debut single, ‘Flaws’, which used snippets of the Terrence Mallick film Badlands. His market was immediately made apparent from a subsequent batch of unexpected YouTube covers by kids in their bedrooms. Viral hits aside, Dan Smith writes pop songs with heart, speaking directly to the hormonal Ellie Goulding or Frankmusik market. Radio 1 will no doubt be his playground once the buzz-following hipsters have moved on. (TR)
WU LYF Coalition Thurs 27th
The inordinate amount of hype surrounding the mysterious WU LYF has given the raucous vocal harmonies and chaotic rhythms of their ‘heavy pop’ a lot to live up to. Head down to Coalition and listen yourself to the 2011 buzz band whose marketing genius had PRs scrabbling for notebooks worldwide. Though maybe now it’s about time they leave their illuminati-esque musings of a ‘World United’ behind and just get signed, get drunk, and enjoy their moment in the spotlight. (TJ)
CHARLIE SIMPSON
Concorde 2 Fri 28th
Leaving Busted to pursue a career in rock was never going to be an easy road, and putting Fightstar on hold to go solo sounds just as tough. However, many sceptics have been proved wrong as his debut album ‘Young Pilgrim’ has gained a sea of favourable reviews as well as charting in the UK top 10. So if you want to hear his new direction of indie acoustic sounds you’re in the right place, but if you’d rather listen to ‘Year 3000’ or ‘Paint Your Target’, you’re wasting your time. (AJM)
900 SPACES
Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar Fri 28th
Imagine Cyndi Lauper fronting Foals and you’re close to 900 Spaces’ ballsy, new wave disco rhythms and danceable, grinding synth pop. Support act The Stars Down To Earth write songs about hope in the face of disaster, combining sweet and affecting vocal harmonies with intelligent lyrics about love and science, and intense but melodic guitars. Lillies On Mars take the angular yet sensitive guitars and the fragile shoegaze of Lush and Slowdive and write the soundtrack for an imaginary David Lynch film. (LMM)
SILVER APPLES
Concorde 2 Fri 28th
Portishead’s stupendously delayed 2008 album, ‘Third’, signalled not only their long-awaited comeback but also a debt of gratitude to New York’s Silver Apples, in the menacing kraut grind of ‘We Carry On’. Examining their formation closely, however, you might assume it would be Kraftwerk that owed props to the influential duo. Around the time of the band’s 1967 formation, they deployed an arsenal of nine audio oscillators and 86 manual controls operated by hands, feet and elbows. Behold, the real man-machine. (BG)
JOHN PEEL NIGHT
Hydrant Sun 29th
For many music fans, the untimely death of John Peel in still leaves a hollow feeling inside. The BBC’s initial efforts to commemorate his passing with an annual ‘John Peel Day’ of gigs petered out after 2007, but others have helped to keep the flame alive in their own way every October. Spinning Chilli celebrate with an evening of Peel favoured acts including Vic Godard’s Subway Sect, The Shapes and Brighton’s own Piranhas 3D (The Piranhas, essentially). (SH)
REGAL SAFARI •
Green Door Store Sat 29th
Here’s an exciting trio from our home city of Brighton. Well, we say trio, it’s made up of two musicians and one ‘visual artist’, which goes some way to explaining the intention and sound of these atmospheric electronic artists. Fitting somewhere between chillwave and the more meandering tunes from the early Underworld releases, their music surrounds the listener. Perhaps literally – they’ve been advising people to bring 3D glasses to their live sets. (TR)
ROSIE VANIER
Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar Sat 29th
You might remember her as the pretty front woman of Rosie And The Goldbug, but following their breakup in 2009 this sister’s doing it for herself. Skittish, kittenish vocals bring to mind Kate Bush, Siouxsie Sioux and 80s disco electro, and the pounding garage style of her keyboards and drums are refreshingly stripped-back. Worth watching before she loses those delightfully Cornish touches – it’s all right, lover. (JMM)
ANNA CALVI Concorde 2 Sun 30th
Beautiful, soulful and influenced by Nick Cave; if you like your girlie pop music on the dark side, Anna Calvi’s your woman. Crooning with passionate moans above masterful vintage Telecasters and harmoniums, this is a woman on the ascent. From being a YouTube hit last year, Anna Calvi scored a Top 40 with her eponymous debut album in January, has gained considerable admiration overseas and, if she doesn’t implode with romantic zeal, looks set to rise and rise. (JMM)
GUILLEMOTS Old Market Mon 31st
Over a year since Fyfe Dangerfield flew solo at Brighton’s Komedia, he returns to the city with his Guillemots bandmates in tow to play a low-key show at the newly refurbished and re-invented Old Market. Whether you’ve been a fan for five years or just five minutes, this looks set to be a show to remember. If you can get your grubby mitts on a ticket, you owe it to yourself to attend (even if you only know ‘that song off the John Lewis advert’). (AJM)
WORDS BY IAN CHAMBERS, BEN GILBERT, STUART HUGGETT, TOM JENKINSON, KERI KENNEDY, JESSICA MARSHALL MCHATTIE, AMY JO MCLELLAN, HELEN MURDOCH, ADAM PETERS, THE RECOMMENDER, GARY SCATTERGOOD