Right then let’s get down to business! If you are a fan of trashy rock’n’roll and punk rock then you seriously need to head on down to The Pipeline in Brighton on Friday 17th November from 7:30pm onwards as Garageland Brighton have organised an absolutely blinding night of music!
Amazingly, there will be no less than five bands on the bill that night, two of which we at Brighton & Hove News have already had the pleasure of previously witnessing live in action on more than one occasion. Let’s meet the bands….
Electric Cowboy Club (E.C.C.) are at the very summit of Brighton’s Trashy Rock n Roll scene, once seen never forgotten! Consisting of Brandon Parker, James Lissimore, Jacob Lenadd O’Shea and Wyn Harcourt, they have even supported The Exploited – read our account below and visit linktr.ee/electriccowboyclub.
It’s time to ‘Turn And Burn’ with Brighton’s Top Left Club who are purveyors of raw, pure songs filled with visceral energy will saturate every corner of your mind. Their filthy frequencies have been likened to the Ramones. So set your ‘Shoulders At 90’ and check out their Bandcamp page HERE. Find further reading below!
Feral Kids quintet are also on the bill and they recently dropped their ‘Feral Kids On LSD’ three track on their Bandcamp page. They offer up “Athens Riot Blues” and their debut full-length is fully recorded, mixed and mastered, and coming soon! You’ve been warned! More info at www.facebook.com/FeralKids666.
Skum (stylized as SKUM.) proudly boast that they are “the worlds shittest punk band”. You can decide for yourself when checking out their Bandcamp page HERE or when you see them live at The Pipeline on 17th November. Find out more at linktr.ee/skum.uk.
Rank (stylized as RANK) offer up raging Bristol hardcore played at its best by familiar faces including former and current members of Agnosy and Grand Collapse. They say they are “opinionated arseholes”, so maybe you can decide by checking out their Bandcamp page HERE.
Purchase your concert tickets HERE.
Additional reading:
Electric Cowboy Club live at The Arch, Brighton supporting The Exploited 24.3.23:
This evening, the Brighton & Hove News Music Team broke their E.C.C duck and I’m certain that based on tonight’s performance, it won’t be the last!
Well where do we begin? At the beginning of their set I guess, which was at 7:29pm. A trio of players were positioned on stage: drums…check, Epiphone bass…check, Squier Mustang guitar…check, vocalist…oh, no vocalist! We were positioned front right (house left) and then all of a sudden from behind us, this young topless tattooed guy suddenly appears and clambers over the crowd barrier and rolls onto the stage! The existent trio don’t bat an eyelid! I would have thought that at least one of them would have thrown this imposter off the stage!
Hold on a minute…it’s the singer, Brandon Parker. What an entrance! But there’s more…much, much more! Suffice to say that if Duracell Batteries are after something different in order to promote their wares, then Brandon’s your man.
They begin with ‘Reality’, the first of their ten tunes, and musically it sounds rather promising trash rock n’ roll. Song two ‘Yeh’ I’m Movin’’, was more than adequately demonstrated by Brandon as he vacated the stage (one of many trips as it turned out) and lived up to the title of this ditty by joining us in the crowd and whizzing all around us. Song three ‘Trippin’’ and Brandon kicked off the moshpit and the punters that were just starting to dabble beforehand, were now encouraged to go full throttle.
I was standing there thinking to myself that vocally it’s got more than a nod to Jello Biafra (former frontman of the Dead Kennedys) and Brandon even sounds American when singing but I think he’s a Brighton boy, physically it was heyday Iggy Pop on steroids, and musically it’s The Cramps. Not a bad combination if you think about it.
Brandon was really up for it, and when I say really up for it, I mean REALLY up for it. He contorts his face like the mad jailer’s assistant in Monty Python’s ‘Life Of Brian’ “Oh, don’t worry about him, sir. He’s ma– he’s m– he’s ma– he– he– he’s m– m– m– he’s m– he’s m–”. One isn’t really sure what he’s going to do next, but I would guess that something around 15 to 20% of their set was filled with Brandon writhing around on the floor! As Iggy said “I’m a real wild one, wild one, wild one, wild one”.
Brandon is extremely animated and his energy levels were literally off the scale, hence the Duracell reference. E.C.C are a band seen once and not forgotten, that is if all of their sets are like this! Guess we will find out next time!
By now, I was totally lost as to what track they were on as I was so absorbed trying to track where Brandon was in the venue, but one of the latter numbers did actually remind me of The Damned’s 1977 tune ‘Stretcher Case Baby’. Now I know this review of E.C.C appears to all be about Brandon, but you have to appreciate the work behind the scenes (ie up on the stage) that James, Jacob and Wyn, were doing, if you have already witnessed this outfit live and they have been the same as tonight, then you will understand.
E.C.C are yet another decent Brighton band that’s seriously well worth seeing. It’s a true spectacle if tonight is anything to go by. After 28 minutes they were done and vacated the stage at 7:57pm. Great job lads…..ALL of you!
Top Left Club live at the WaterBear, Brighton supporting The Slaughter House Band 1.10.21
Tonight’s event has been put together by Acid Box Promotions who have also secured the services of the Top Left Club which features both members of SKiNNY MiLK, namely Johnny Hart (bass and vocals) and Tim Cox (drums) as well as MacDaddy (guitar) and Jimi Dymond (YAMAHA Reface DX keys and lead vocals instead of bass), from Young Francis Hi Fi.
Top Left Club’s first ever live concert took place behind closed doors during lockdown, when the guys performed for the FourFace video cameras at the Concorde 2 back in July. Their three songs will hopefully surface on the FourFace Digital channel real soon.
Prior to tonight’s concert I had checked out both bands’ material and was to be honest totally blown away by the Top Left Club’s ‘Shoulders At 90’ album on their Bandcamp page. It was totally awesome! I was so looking forward to seeing these guys play live in order to ascertain whether they can cut the mustard in a live setting. The upshot, they did…..with bells on!
The shell suited quartet took to the stage at 8:31pm and performed a blistering 32 minute set. One thing is certain, there’s nothing Kevin and Perry about this lot. They don’t sound how they look. There’s certainly no boyz in da hood about this performance! Top Left Club are 100% retro punk. They are purveyors of a sound that up until now had only been heard on recorded punk vinyl up until February 1977. They have captured that nostalgic sound to perfection. Of course it might have something to do with their debut album having been written and recorded in Johnny’s living room in only 8 weeks with no leaks. Johnny told me his dog can be heard on the disc, but I can’t hear it.
The Top Left Club’s fifteen song set for us tonight, initially began with a few tunes running into one another and the lads adopting a capital ‘T’ shape pose. Maybe this is something to do with the album’s title ‘Shoulders At 90’, as in at 90 degrees?
We were joyous receivers of ten of the eleven tracks from their album, with only ‘Rollin’’ being omitted and the remaining half dozen tracks will surface on their follow up platter in due course. Every one of their fifteen tunes was a corker! If push came to shove and I really had to flag up their standout tracks, then I would opt for ‘No Control’ and ‘Frown’.
Their ‘sound’ seriously reminds me of The Heartbreakers, early Damned, a heavier version of The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and The Stranglers, as well as the vibe of the Rezillos mixed with the New York Dolls. Their final number ‘Demons’ also has a nod to The Stooges. There’s the Ramones in there too. I mean Christ was is there not to like with these guys? I have just found my new favourite local punk band!