I was at a great gig at The Greenhouse Effect, Church Road, Hove tonight. I went primarily to see Kung Fu Monsters - who used to be Breach - but was pleased with all the other bands on the bill - Pog, Amateur Ninja Club and Fitsroy too.
Pog, who seem to have been around forever, entertained us with their astute observational take on Brighton Life while Amateur Ninja Club proved to be very noisy buggers indeed. I was particularly impressed by one Deacon Brown who played a pretty fair imitation of Ray Manzarek on keyboard in Pog and sang and mightily thrashed his guitar in ANC [if you'll forgive the acronym used out of its usual context]. He is not only pretty versatile instrumentally but when I could hear his voice I wanted to hear it exposed in an environment where it could be exploited to its full potential - and I don't mean as loud as possible! Perhaps this is a direction Deacon could consider for the future.
Fitsroy, I understand, have already established themselves regionally as a band of some standing, having won some category on Southern Counties Radio's music awards. I was amazed that their strange amalgam of metal and dancy pop works so well and was delighted by the enthusiasm the posse they brought with them exhibited for the music. I'm sorry that I didn't see their whole set as my car was turning back into a pumpkin by 11 o'clock and I had to make my excuses and leave. Thankfully, I managed not to lose my glass slipper in the process. But I will be looking out for Fitsroy in the future and hope to hear more of them then.
I must say this is the best performance from Kung Fu Monsters I've witnessed so far. They were really very tight. The drums mapped out the usual solid grounding supported by the bass. The guitars played very well against each other and Penny's voice was supreme once the sound system got sorted. They're really beginning to assert themselves as Brighton's Premier Classic Punk Band. I've got their new record release - a single featuring the new song 'Safety in Numbers' and old favourite 'This Isn't Safe'. The production is brilliant and hopefully it'll put them on the radar once it starts getting airplay. This should start happening quite quickly now as I know there was more than one radio DJ in the crowd and their reactions were favourable.
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