Brighton after dark: 13 May 2014
BEN BAILEY
On the Festival’s literary side
There’s more to life than books – there’s also talks about books. Brighton Festival has plenty to offer this week, including a graphic artist, an atheist and a whole lot of missing Romanians. If the Farage vs Clegg debates are anything to go by, a lot of people’s take on immigration seems to be based on apocryphal anecdotes and stats they heard in the pub. We’d like to think that without the obligation to score party political points, The Immigration Debate (Dome, Sat 17 May) will be more productive in addressing the issues. Is multiculturalism a myth? Are they coming for your jobs? Who are ’they’ anyway? Find out at this panel debate with outspoken Times journo David Aaronovitch, former equality commissioner Trevor Phillips, academic Paul Statham and historian Dr Madge Dresser. Simon Fanshawe, as usual, is on hand to chair the meeting.
What they really need are some decent infographics. Author and designer, David McCandless, might be able to help (Dome, Thu 15 May). Discussing his book, Information Is Beautiful, David talks about the power and elegance of visualised information – which he uses to tell stories and coax out connections from data that might otherwise be impenetrable or simply overwhelming. It’s at the point where art meets maths (a good Venn diagram would explain it nicely), so it was always going to be geeky. It’s also probably the first and only time a graphic designer has managed to turn his day job into a stage show.
AC Grayling (Corn Exchange, Sun 18 May), on the other hand, is probably the first and only author to rewrite the Bible from an atheist perspective.
If that strikes you as sort of self-important, you might want to ponder the reason he felt it necessary. Hear the man speak and you may well find yourself siding with this philosopher and humanist. A master of measured argument, AC is a common-sense rationalist with an affable donnish manner and a somewhat silly silver mane. His latest book, The God Argument, sees him continue the good fight against the good book with a calm, uncontroversial stance – a far cry from the froth and fury of Richard Dawkins’ God-baiting antics. However, since Brighton is considered the most secular place in Britain, we’re curious why it’s here that he’s chosen to preach to the unconverted. Maybe God knows.
Brighton Noise
Alastair Reid on the week’s best gigs
Pop punk gets a bad rep. Punk in general, actually. The seventies spit-and-safety-pin scene had some air of respectability behind the sneer in its politics, but all that dirt and heroin made it impossible to break into the mainstream. Instead, the original punks grew up and sold it back to their children in the pop punk of the nineties.
By then, Thatcherism was so deeply entrenched that the only rebellion was against teachers or parents, with brattish 30-year-olds like Blink 182 or Sum 41 whining on MTV between McDonald’s adverts about not wanting to grow up. The three chord simplicity of the first wave was a template to empower those with little or no training to find a voice for the feelings of disenfranchisement; somehow most 90s bands sang about dicks, tits and frat-boy pool parties and got away with it.
Noughties’ emo carried some of the musical themes along with the existential crises that advertising’s psychological warfare created, but it seems there has been a punk renaissance of late with Cloud Nothings, Speedy Ortiz and Joanna Gruesome.
Canadian band Pup have just released their debut album, carrying all the same energy of their predecessors but with more latent skill and less impudent belly-aching. They are musicians first and foremost, simply choosing the palette of punk to explore their boundaries. They’ll be showcasing the record full of guitar solos and skipping time-signatures at The Haunt on Tuesday night.
Brighton’s Shrine will be at Brighton Electric on Wednesday, heading up a night full of niche-rock bands. Math-, post- and prog- are the main prefixes here, but with support from Vasa, The Doppler Shift and Porshyne, it’s the pick of the night. Birdskulls fuzz up and slow down the punk sound to give it more of the Dinosaur Jr/Mineral feel that was concurrent with grunge. Supported by Hindsights, Milk Teeth and Echo Rain, they’re at the Hope on Thursday for a fiver and Cosmic Thoughts round off our punk history week at Fitzherberts on Friday.
If that all sounds like too much hard work, save your pennies for the weekend, where the critically acclaimed electronic trio Factory Floor will be starting a party with Drohne and AK/DK at Coalition on Saturday, before winding down to Bo Ningen’s psychedelia at the Haunt or a new, improved (read: sober) Cat Power at the Dome on Sunday.
