Latest 7 magazine

Can someone please explain why Girls Aloud are treated by the serious music press as the manufactured group it’s ok to like? From tonight’s display, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Though admittedly some of their tunes are decent enough pop (recent single ‘Call The Shots’ most notably), too much is just dull, low-rent dross. The girls can’t really sing and they can’t really dance. They’re paid to pout a bit and sell underwear, which they do kind of well. There’s little fun for anyone who genuinely likes music here. As one Latest 7 reader recently wrote, it’s like burlesque for kids, though they forgot to add ‘minus any talent’.
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Nick Aldwinckle

Brighton Centre, Tuesday 13 May

We have 10 pairs of tickets to give away to for ‘All Dolled Up’, the sellout show from international-irish gender-illusionist, Panti for Tuesday 20th May & Wednesday 21st May at the Udder Belly’s pasture.

Simply email mattlyndon@googlemail.com with your name & contact details, the first ten to apply get the tickets for free, simple as that!

A local fight club is trying to bring a controversial cage fighting match to Brighton. Rachel Pegg reports.

If some of Hove’s more genteel residents knew about it, they’d probably have nightmares. Every couple of months Hove Town Hall is loaned out to a local fight club to stage an exciting, fast-paced night of hybrid boxing and kickboxing, with members of the club taking on amateur and professional fighters from the local area and further afield.

“The male race are being neutered more and more. This allows us to behave like men”

Now the organisers – ZT Fight Skool of Fonthill Road, Hove, are planning to stage Brighton’s first cage fighting night, where competitors can draw on a range of mixed martial arts to beat their opponents in a ‘cage‘ made of rope netting.

Last time ZT – which stands for Zero Tolerance – tried to stage an ‘ultimate fighting‘ night such as this at Hove Town Hall in 2006, the event was cancelled by Brighton and Hove City Council after a campaign from the local Green Party. At the time, Green convener Keith Taylor complained that violent events such as cage fighting should not be held in public buildings. Instead the event had to be transferred at the last minute to the Copthorne Hotel in Crawley. This summer’s cage fighting night will take place at the Hilton Brighton Metropole in Kings Road, but ZT is hopeful that one day they might get permission to stage the controversial sport at a bigger venue such as Hove Town Hall or the Brighton Centre. Read the rest of this article »

Fanfare Ciocarlia and Tcha Limberger’s Budapest Gypsy Orchestra bring their gypsy music to Brighton Festival on 17 May

‘Speed daemons’ Fanfare Ciocarlia began life as a village wedding band in the remote mountains of North East Romania. Today the 2006 winners of BBC Radio 3’s ‘World Music Award for Europe‘ are the most famous Gypsy band in the world, fuelling a global Balkan beats revolution with their dizzying brand of roaring Roma funk and high velocity Eastern European dance music.

Steeped in tradition, yet absolutely contemporary, Fanfare have not only won over world music fans but also count rockers, ravers and jazz fans amongst their audience.

The legend of Fanfare Ciocarlia begins in the ‘invisible‘ Gypsy village of Zece Prajini in North West Romania. For generations the village’s men farmed and made music, playing local weddings, funerals and festivals. In 1996 Henry Ernst, a German sound engineer, chanced upon Zeci Prajini’s musicians and, realising he had stumbled on hidden musical treasure, took the village orchestra to Berlin. An instant hit, Fanfare’s brass attack soon conquered Western Europe, North America, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Russia, Israel and – in 2006 – Romania.

The band’s patriarch Ioan Ivancea died last October after a long illness, inspiring the band to record Queens and Kings, an album cut with legendary Gypsy musicians from across Europe.

Blind Belgian violinist Tcha Limberger hails from a famous family of manouche musicians, steeped in the Gypsy jazz legacy of Django Reinhardt. Drawn to Hungarian music from an early age, Tcha spent three years studying its roots in Budapest. Now, with his hand-picked ensemble of Hungary’s finest Gypsy players, he revisits the heartland of Budapest cafe culture. Plus DJs provided by Balkan Beats UK.

Sat 17 May, 8pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome. Tickets £15, £18.50.
Call 01273 709709 www.brightonfestival.org