11 Feb

Brighton is unique for music

Posted by sarahchapman

Unique because it attracts some of the big names in the music touring world.

Brighton and Hove has a population of 230,000 (approx) and yet can sustain a thriving music, theatre and art scene. For a city of this size I can think of no other that can match it in terms of singers and bands touring. It astounds me (an Aussie living here) that last year alone Goldfrapp, Scissor Sisters and Michael Bolton played in Brighton (Scissor Sisters playing twice in one day).

Just in the last 4 weeks Ani DiFranco, Patti Smith (I’m including Bexhill as GREATER Brighton!) and Joan As Police Woman have played in Brighton. That is why I see Brighton as unique and one of it’s biggest draw cards.

Ani DiFranco is so prolific that in one year she released two albums (1999′s Up,Up,Up and To The Teeth), not many other artists these days can do that. She is able to do it because she owns her own record company Righteous Babe Records. I have searched Youtube for a live music clip of Ani playing in Brighton but can’t find one so I have to use the London Shepherds Bush O2 concert (Watch it here).

Bexhill is not that far from Brighton so I am going to include Patti Smith in this blog and I know Patti has played in Brighton before. I could write a PhD on Patti Smith…but for this all I will write is that she is a legend; a poet, novelist, painter and of course singer/songwriter. Last year she won the National Book Award (America) for ‘Just Kids’. Her seminal debut album ‘Horses’ in 1975 put her on the map but then ‘Because The Night’ really cemented her popular career  (Watch it here, at age 60) (Watch it here, at age 39).

Joan As Police Woman (JAPW) played at the Komedia on Wednesday 3rd of February. I’ve seen Joan play in New York City, Bristol, London and now twice in Brighton. Like many American musicians including The Gossip and Scissor Sisters, JAPW has greater success here in the UK  than she does back home, but that is a whole other blog waiting to be written. See Joan play in Brighton (Watch it here) and her previous night gig in Oxford (Watch it here).

Ani, Patti and Joan are heroes of mine and I love the fact that Brighton can bring them here.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 10:00 am and is filed under Art & Exhibitions, Events, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.