TBDDMWB, Brandon Hill, 7th Feb

Team Brick Death Death March War Band,
Brandon Hill, 7 Feb

Originally we were going to repeat the singing-drumming-screaming thing in the new live venue in Bedminster, The Metropol - where I saw Angel Tech and NSN. It was cancelled and moved to the Louisiana where we performed the first time. Then the Metropol, which has been open and putting on gigs for a good few months, hilariously discovered that they'd forgotten to get a live music license! So we got cancelled again as they moved all the gigs to the Louie.

However, Team Brick refused to abuse the rare commitment of so many people at once and began a search for a suitable venue. With nowhere to go, everyone became enamoured with the idea of doing it outside. So we did. On Brandon Hill, which is remarkably and usefully very close to my house...

The first act was someone called Alex, Loxodonta, who played a little battery powered Casio keyboard, accompanied by Team Brick supplying rhythm on a tom. His introduction: 'What I do is I� think of a story and then tell it� er.. with music.' The thin strains of the tiny keyboard crept out into the dusk, eerie yet calming and atmospheric in the February cold. On the last track Brick beatboxed through a megaphone, ending the set on a lo-fi trip-hop note.

Francois, the singer who followed elected to stand under a nearby tree, his knees lit up by bicycle lights hidden in the grass. He sang gentle acoustic songs with harmonica and another little Casio keyboard which he tapped with his toes at auspicious moments. Perhaps enhanced by the atmosphere and the cold his songs are great.

I was concerned about being able to actually play my drums in the cold, but it turned out okay. The evening dew had a worrying effect on the skins, but I'm sure it all helped the bizarreness of the noise we made. The group was bigger than last time, augmented by instruments like a saucepan half full of water, bucket, kettle, toy drumkit etc. the guy next to me massacred an acoustic guitar with a hammer. It was sickening.

It was a dark, tribal noise, sacrificing music to the God of noise, or something. You can download all the music via this thread on Choke: Brandon Hill DDDWMB mp3's (recording does not represent actual experience). Photos are here. The whole event was pretty successful I thought, and when the summer comes we really should encourage a lot more of this sort of thing.

War Against Sleep, 10th Feb

War Against Sleep / SJ Esau / Cult Of Eris, Team Brick,
The Croft, 10 Feb

More noisy madness from Team Brick, I entered the room to multi-layered vocals building in intensity before being destroyed by horrible screaming noise. When you think it's getting too much for your ears he somehow manages to scrape some sort of melody out of the mayhem. Oh thank goodness, he's picking up his guitar� It's hard to describe the song that followed, starting with a single chord and building to a shouted chorus, TB is joined on stage by violin, trombone, bass, drums and SJ Esau on white delay box, who sampled the music and turned it into noise. I don't know whether this was just a one off, it could be an exciting new direction, or maybe he's just proving he can do it. Which he can. The song was great.

Unlike Cult of Eris, who suffer from a guitarist who sings what he plays, thus rendering all his wonderful pedals and fantastic noises useless because it's just not interesting. It is a real shame because there is gothic screaming darkness in the music and it could be much better.

SJ Esau played a star-studded set featuring guests such as Joe (Twocsinak) and Freeze Puppy as well as all his usual friends, playing other people's versions of his songs. Or theirs. I couldn't really tell. It was patchy, some stuff worked, other bits didn't.

War Against Sleep are at times funky, others quasi-jazz crooning, their songs recalling the early days of the Divine Comedy, but with a bit more edge. Show tunes with a sinister bent. It's scary, but it works.