Brighton
Lee "Scratch" Perry and Max Romeo, Brighton DomeSaturday, 21 May 2011
There are often times when I dislike the smoking ban. Tonight was one such. A few years ago, a gig such as this would have been awash with marijuana smoke and that was as it should be. At a guess I'd suggest the crowd, who range from 16 to 60, or... Read more... |
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Apocrifu/ Gardenia, Brighton FestivalFriday, 20 May 2011
Apocrypha is a word that has acquired a dubious meaning, for books of questioned value and authenticity, texts in various religions that may not necessarily be held divine. The Belgian-Moroccan dancemaker Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's dance work Apocrifu... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Brighton: At the Festival Where Anything GoesSunday, 15 May 2011
Persecuted Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi may be this year’s guest director, provoking a loose theme of "freedom of expression, liberty, and the power of the individual voice" that’s all the more powerful for her enforced absence. But a... Read more... |
Asian Dub Foundation - Music of Resistance, Brighton DomeTuesday, 10 May 2011
It's been a while since I've spent time with Asian Dub Foundation. In the mid-Nineties, when they first appeared, they were one of the most exciting acts around and I enthused about them in print at every opportunity. They were born of an east-... Read more... |
The Mummers, King's College LondonThursday, 21 April 2011
In the lager-carpeted sweat box that is the KCL student union it was hard to fault The Mummers. There are some concerts where band and audience seem so lost in a private world that you can almost forget that the humdrum, everyday world even... Read more... |
Micky Flanagan, touringMonday, 11 April 2011
Micky Flanagan was a jobbing club comic for a few years before he shot to stardom with his first full-length Edinburgh Fringe show in 2007, for which he was nominated for a newcomer award at the grand age of 42. The show, What Chance Change?,... Read more... |
Plan B, Brighton Centre, BrightonWednesday, 09 March 2011
After his spectacular performance at the Brit Awards, the stage running amok with a dancing jury, shimmying riot police and balletic convicts, I wasn't sure what to expect from a Plan B show. Perhaps a theatrical experience somewhere between Rick... Read more... |
Esben and the Witch, Pavilion Theatre, BrightonWednesday, 02 February 2011
It seems to me that Esben and the Witch would like to perform in absolute darkness. Or perhaps in silhouette behind a screen like an oriental shadowplay. Such a theatrical device might even suit their dark, menacing music. Instead, two of the three... Read more... |
Brighton RockMonday, 31 January 2011
Revisiting Brighton Rock was bound to cause an uproar. A couple of weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph’s Simon Heffer launched a ferocious assault on Rowan Joffe’s new screen version of Graham Greene's novel, while admitting he hadn’t seen it. Mind you,... Read more... |
CD: The Go! Team - Rolling BlackoutsTuesday, 25 January 2011
The last album from Brighton’s The Go! Team, 2007’s Proof of Youth, followed the template set by Thunder, Lightning, Strike, their 2004 debut. AD-HD sample-driven songs met Northern soul and hip hop with call-response vocals and melodies that could... Read more... |
The new funk: Belleruche exclusiveWednesday, 27 October 2010
Here, we present the exclusive first showing of a new video by the Brighton/London band Belleruche. This clip for “Fuzz Face” is highly arresting, an ingenious and slightly disturbing collision of hi and low-tech, made using thousands of photocopies... Read more... |
The Jim Jones Revue, The Komedia, BrightonThursday, 07 October 2010
The great music writer Nick Tosches put me onto James Luther Dickinson. In Where Dead Voices Gather, his self-indulgent but fascinating book about the obscure early-20th-century minstrel performer Emmett Miller, Tosches kept touching on Dickinson, a... Read more... |
