Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit are introduced to us as the next folk sensation, so we plod along to Brighton’s Komedia which sees an excited crowd from far-a-field gushing to see him. Some have brought parents.

The focus is hardly on ‘the wit’ though. Watching, you can see why the audience is mostly female, and listening I can hear why they’ve done well. He’s got a teenage heart-throb haircut which doesn’t immediately tell of his grounding; actor, poet, songwriter, and theatre trouper (citing W.B. Yeats and Shakespeare among influences). His look swings between waistcoated artisan, paint smeared jumpers and as tonight brings, and more often to plain checkered shirts when not on a photo-shoot. But when he sings it’s out of the ordinary and barely fits his age.

When he plays it’s incredibly polished, coming across very much as a performance; speaking briefly to the audience and simply getting on and playing to the crowd. The cellist and Johhny hijack the show and whilst they’re all good, the rest of the band disappears into the orifices of our memory. I could vaguely tell you about the keyboardist’s haircut (mop like) and some languishing strokes from the drumer but I could tell you for longer about the cellist. Shining under stage lights by the all-too-loud speaker, he’s playing with thin strings of horsehair broken and floating about under the bow as it slides about. They steal the show together.

Towards the end Flynn’s enthusiasm ventures out from behind the polish. The second that sells him to me is when he falters and a bit of musician focus streams out. A couple of drunk fans bellow “Oh, Johnny!” and he smirks as he changes from guitar to banjo, and tunes it. Everyone stands politely, and he strums a couple of notes.

Stops, retunes. Looks out, unabashed – strums and stops. The crowd shuffles and they launch into song, playing upbeat notes. They stop seconds later. I grin my face off and squeak my enthusiasm to Elliott, whilst a couple of the crowd look vastly unimpressed. He ignores them and concentrates on tuning. He starts up again, and their enthusiasm’s dwindled, but three tunings and a focus on getting the sound right have made me watch a little closer. What follows is the best song, and is like a couple of their tunes is incredibly catchy.

He is good, and touted as “the next poster boy of the nu-folk scene” by the Times. However, whilst this might seem a frivolous complaint I leave feeling that some of the songs are almost too wholesome, and too easily slide by.

My parting thought is with the support.

My favourite band of the night comes in the form of Dry the River; a awkwardly delightful forerunner. The singer is a chap in a grey tshirt and skinny trousers who rotates about the stage in a silly arm-flailing and angular sort of way. They’re incredibly tight as a band, they’ve got a mandolin, and they’re really fucking fun. It’s upbeat, tuneful, clappy chanty sort of stuff and makes you smile outright. They make me feel at home, included in their well-formed music and jolly as hell.

I recommend you investigate them.

Johnny Flynn – Been Listening by cooperativemusic1
Of them all, I recommend Barnacled Warship

Beth Jeans Houghton played at Komedia on Wednesday. I wouldn’t have found this gig without Jonathan writing an entry for Bored of Brighton which is good because she was fantastic. She’s like Gaga’s outfit, but wonderful and singing excellent music. I can’t think of a better description than his really:

“Her songs – and Beth herself, if you take her interviews as evidence – inhabits a creative world which is winningly magical. It isn’t the wistful, wide-eyed universe of a Bat For Lashes, but rather an arch, colourful terrain which seems to owe more to Cindy Sherman or Tony Hancock than it does Kate Bush.

Her musical palette – she is a young, female, folk singer – may seem familiar at first glance, but she has practically nothing in common with the likes of Laura Marling, Emmy The Great, Florence Welsh et al. First, her voice is more interesting – an effortless, husky hum which recalls 70s icon Bobbie Gentry, and her music is informed by deeper, darker, more esoteric strains of folk, country and progressive rock; by the likes of Tunng, Pentangle and Melanie.”

Here’s my hand-held video from the gig (new E-P1 cam does far better recordings than my point and shoot, unsurprisingly, though I wasn’t expecting sound to pick it up as much as it did). Stornaway, the main band, were less exciting but Beth J Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny (her band) were fantastic.

When I was in London over Summer I found @tiredoflondon which blogs one thing a day to do in London. I was never organised enough to use it (probably read here: in bed at weekends) but loved the idea and this month I started writing one for Brighton (Tom, the guy who writes TOL was super helpful here).

I moved here to go to Sussex Uni in October 2007 and spent my first year understanding what an Oceana was and why it should be avoided. I’ve mostly managed to miss the important side to Brighton – the bits for everyone, that don’t necessarily involve dancing badly or massive pupils, and the parts that make everyone feel that it’s in some way intrinsically different to any other city – and whilst writing @boredofbrighton I’m starting to become aware of everything I’m missing (well, to a point – I’ve still idea what’s on at the Cowley Club, but then that’s not listed on Brighton tourism sites so I might have to go leaflet hunting and ask about with hippy friends).

We like doing things, as Liam is busy demonstrating here on our way to walk around the frosty cemetery last year.

A nice person called Jonathan, who also writes a nice blog, has been writing about bands with me. He recommended the Hornblower Bros. They sing about Waterstones, how could it be wrong? I’m clueless with local bands as it seems I’d much rather keep Cat Stevens on Spotify for hours on end, than have a nose around MySpace. Perhaps my priorities are wrong.

Either way, when I’ve handed in my two looming, doom-filled January deadlines on the 14th, I want to start going to the things I’m writing about. Not all, but more. And take photos. And get more people interested, but that’s more of a side note.

I stole an idea, but we’re sticking with Faris’ notion that that’s okay and it somehow makes me a genius. Bitchbag takes videos and cuts them together in snappy chunks; nice insight to life I think. I liked the idea back in November and also had no video editing skills – a good excuse to master the simplicities of iMovie, if you can call those video editing skills.

Anyway, I got distracted playing around with video from the last half year but finally cobbled together my bits for November and December (which is good because they’ll become massively more irrelevant the minute it hits 2010) . I’ve learnt the pain of removing long chunks of video that I love but no one else would (mostly gig footage), but soon got over it. I quite like them.

Lost my camera charger in December so there’s less chunk-age. Although all that really means is there’s slightly less fit-triggering Christmas lights footage, which I had plenty of anyway.