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

Despite Darwin Deez (aka Darwin Smith)’s New York twang appearing throughout his songs, I’m still surprised when it comes out of his mouth.

“Are you nervous?” I ask as he sidles about the crowd in typical vest, jeans, and bearably silly string-headband attachment.

“I was before, but not now” he admits, sloping off for a cupcake.

Soon to be playing as part of the NME Radar Tour, he’s playing at the sold out Black Heart in Camden organised by The Allotment, a small group of people I have more time for than the NME who work by the simple ethic of ‘we promote what we like’. It’s a gorgeous little venue; a box room where my hand’s greeted with a red pen smiley face drawn onto it. Naked orange filaments shine down and the squat stage is adorned with Orange amps, foam flowers and bendy rubber tube lights snaking about. The white-brick wall has 40s style up-turned lamps and balloons bundled about, and “Darwin Deez” in hand-made tissue paper letters plastered over it to the left of the stage. The whole thing reeks beautifully of home-craft and love.

We loiter and eat cupcakes.

The support, Extradition Order, starts and finishes; the singer belting into the mic with a habit of anxiously tearing his hair out as he sings, and the drummer pouting in the background.

Darwin Deez dive into ‘Hot Nights’ and ‘Up in the Clouds’, tunes pulled from outside their debut album. Three tracks later and the crowd is thick and stocky until the back wall. Jumpy, noisy notes blare out, crammed into the small space. They are long, pleasing five minute deals which keep and demand attention.

“I want to get drunk. On beer! Hah!” he says into the mic, laughing at the seemingly impossible task.

My research on Darwin Deez has extended to repeated watching of Radar Detector and a short listen to a couple of other tracks. Until I am saving face in a conversation, it does not strike me that they are in fact, a band. He’s joined by sister Michelle, without a string headband but with a penchant for diving into guitar beats with almost grungy grooving, and second guitarist Cole with a red and white striped top, rocking a faded denim jacket, backwards baseball hat and jeans rolled up around his ankles, teal socks pooling. The drummer beats zebra-striped drums. It’s a little bit indie alright.

The gig is infectious, fantastic fun and gets the first three rows dancing, unashamedly breaking the indie past-time of toe-tapping.

“I can’t see,” complains the fourth row, and when Darwin launches into the middle of the crowd with his madcap dancing they look shocked, and happily terrified. There’s a shriek and a pileup as they throw themselves at the floor before launching back into happy, greedy notes of Radar Detector.

The lights point down at the Allotment sign hanging over the drummer, leaving Darwin mostly in the dark. The crowd keep him lit with hectic, repetitive white camera flashes. The guitarists bop in and out of the light. They pull out great renditions of Deep Sea Divers, though throughout the gig no song sags.

They hit hidden pop hearts as Beyonce’s Single Ladies streams out for choreographed dancing which all four launch into with smiles. Hands waves and arms wield in silly choreographed routines similar to what, with a bit of effort, I could have hoped to make part of a Spice Girls routine aged 9.

“Thank you for the cake!” he shouts before heading off to return for an encore.

It’s playful, confidently happy lo-fi pop, it’s got people dancing and it’s entirely lovable.  We filter out pleased, keen to play Darwin Deez at loud volumes with smiles on our faces.

MySpace – Spotify – Last.fm
Flickr photos

The wobbly video is up – It’s in HD but you might have to view it on Youtube directly to see it.

Thomas Truax is a strange sort of man, but that’s no real surprise. We have struggled through the rain to see him and are excited when we see him lurking by a merchandise stand. He wears a black suit with an 80s cut and loose hair. We stand about dripping.

He seems confidently enshrined in his own little world full of self-invented instruments and references to unknown women in gigs. The crowd laughs half in politeness and half because he’s charming. He is also American, which surprises me. I don’t know why – maybe my notion was of an eccentric Brit – the Dr Who Matt Smith of music.

Three songs in, he leaps from the stage, guitar in hand and strolls into the audience, singing and strumming. “How odd,” I think, neither here-nor-there on the matter. He suddenly leaps from his guitar-filled wander, dives towards the door and bursts out with a clang. I potter off towards the toilet, coincidentally in the same direction (or maybe I’m just nosy and won’t admit it) and bump into the brown haired ticket-selling girl on the way.

“Where’d he go?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s his thing,” she tells me, waving ticket stubs about. “He runs up the stairs, and round the back. There’s a secret ‘No Entry’ door by the toilet which leads onto the stage.” I peer up the stairs but he is long gone. I continue on my toilet hunt, suspecting I must look like a stray fan hopelessly following Truax around the building. I see the secret door. It is a bit dull for a secret door and very nondescript, which probably keeps drunk people out. Such is the way of the secret door.

I take shaky video footage because my arms tire easily as I try to hold them really high. He finishes quickly and I eagerly ask him if he will play Wicked Game, a good 80s cover and the first track I heard by him. It’s no doubt an irritating request at the end of a gig to be asked to play a specific song. “Were the rest not good enough?” I half expect as an reply, but he smiles and tells me that he doesn’t have the right pedals.

Afterwards, everyone clears and feeling bold and drunk I grab my camera and leap on stage. Perhaps if I am arrested I shall tell them I am a blogger. That will fix things.

Bob discovers I have not been told off or frowned at in any way and jumps up too. I spin the ‘Sister Spinster’ around; it’s a smaller version of his first instrumental creation, a clanging beat-producing wheel with spokes, but I’m terrified of being that idiot who broke it and avoid pushing it with any force. The tapping noise it makes is exciting enough. This is the closest I’ve ever come to steampunk, and it’s lovely. There’s also a briefcase filled with a xylophone, with a lightbulb on a string hanging from the top. Wikipedia won’t tell me the invention’s name but it’s fantastic nonsense. I tap out some notes on the xylophone and admire the lightbulb. It’s brilliant and is my favourite bit. Glee glee glee.

We stomp back out into the rain. I rather like Mr Truax. Bob smiles all the way home. He took some lovely photos despite the red lights – you can find them here.

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.

I’ve finally got round to sorting my videos. My Mac has become sluggish because I need to restart it. It’s a terrible habit, along with my ability to accumulate 20 tabs and corresponding open notepads for each.

There’s an independent record store in Brighton called Resident. It seems very pleased with its status, very into new bands, folk and good things, and is good at sending out newsletters/blog posts with their record of the week and such, all in a lovely enthusiastic tone. They also have in-store gigs which are free and tend to be promoting real gigs taking place later in the evening at more serious venues. I’d never been to until last week (actually last Friday – this is horribly late) when I went to see Jesca Hoop in an acoustic set.

“Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night” – says Tom Waits.

It was lovely – not a ‘one man and his guitar’ acoustic sort of way, but Hoop and a guitar, two very harmonious backing singers, and er.. yes, a bloke with a guitar nipped in for a bit. It’s a small store and twenty or thirty people stood very politely. Really intimate, really nice.

And a video, of course. Taken on zoom, and I got heavy arms whilst doing an impression of an army drill with the camera, but it’s a taste: