Darwin Deez live

Deez dazzles Digital

4/5

Digital, Brighton

Friday 22 October 2010

“I’ve been working on who I am for 15 years; maybe I need another 15 before the next record.”

And with that, Darwin Deez kept the audience guessing at Digital on Friday night, delighting the packed venue with, as his MySpace page suggests, “indie rock with a side of calisthenics”.

Support band Naive New Beaters did a stellar job of gearing up the audience, no doubt helped by the appearance of Darwin Smith himself in their closing song, complete with indoor sparkler.

When Darwin and his band hit the stage proper, they gave a performance of pure energy and never let up; highlights included the soaring ‘Up in the Clouds’, ‘Constellations’, and the band’s biggest hit to date ‘Radar Detector’, which had the audience roaring along in unison.

In light of some criticism that the last UK tour was a little light in content, the band excelled here with a tight rhythm section, a creative, dynamic lead guitarist in the shape of Zach Cole Smythe, and Darwin Smith’s mesmeric melodies and complex chord patterns.

Bassist Andrew Hoepfner said that he was thrilled with the set, suggesting that it “...might have been the best set since I rejoined the band in August”.

Smith said that he can cope with the rigours of playing, dancing and partying while touring because: “I have a high metabolism so I bounce back easily”, and it certainly showed in the fantastic dance-offs in between songs; if you’ve ever wanted to see a four-man dance routine to a medley of Orinoco Flow and Rage Against the Machine, then this was the gig for you. Naive New Beaters also got in on the dancing fun, giving the gig an intimate feel.

When asked about the diverse nature of the show, Smith told us that: “I get bored easily and need to be creative”, leading to him experimenting onstage. For example, Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ was mixing into ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ before the band segued into the penultimate number ‘The Coma Song’, leaving the audience dazzled by Deez’s variations.

There was even space for an impressive rap from guitarist Smythe, who explained that: “I only started rapping with Darwin two days ago, so it was fun for me”.

The dynamic nature of the performance perhaps raised more questions than answers as to Smith’s future, but whatever Darwin wants to do next, this show confirmed that he’s confidently a few rhythmic steps ahead of the current indie clatter.

Darwin heads back to Brighton in March at Concorde 2, and it’d be a Deez-aster to miss him.

The stunted growth of a muddled blog...

I’ve predominantly used my blog as a way of advertising my writing to, well, anybody that will read it! I set up my blog in June, and managed a whole three articles in three months, which was a poor attempt at trying to see if people interested in what I had to say, as I wasn’t saying anything.

However, in September I realised that I was starting my NJCT course with Brighton Journalist Works in a month, so panic set in. Handily, I was working as an online news writer for a small company called Big Briefs; our job was to provide video games news and previews for TalkTalk’s website, so I thought it’d be a great way to effectively dump all of my writing on to one internet page, rather than telling people to look for my work across the oceans of internet pages, knowing that they wouldn’t do so. The operative word is dump, as the blog is currently a bit of a mess!

There are quite a few gaming news stories, a few football opinion pieces, and album reviews. I’ve also applied to be a live music preview writer for the Brighton What’ On Guide; if I get that then I’ll be uploading quite a few live previews of shows in and around Brighton in the coming months, with more live/album reviews to go with them.

Since I’ve started the course, I was informed that due to financial reasons there’ll be no more work from TalkTalk, which is a minor kick in the teeth in terms of the volume of blogging I was getting into the swing of in September, although it’s a great place to put up any news stories that I find for myself on my patch for The Argus.

On Thursday 14 October I uploaded an article about a poetry event at Hove Library from the previous night, and provided a hyperlink to the Community page on The Argus site where it is also placed, so I’m getting into the swing of combining all the different aspects of social media in one (albeit clumsy) fell swoop.

I think I’m trying to be all things to all people (well, all two followers so far), so perhaps a bit of refinement here and there wouldn’t go amiss in terms of providing a consistent form of text and pictures, and adjusting the page so that the multi-coloured candy background doesn’t blind readers.

Performing poets shine at Hove Library

Hove Library hosted a open mic poetry event called 'Every Day is Poetry Day' on Wednesday 13th October 2010.

Poetry lovers gathered for a free evening of open mic performances at Hove Library on Wednesday evening for the 'Every Day is Poetry Day' event.

A number of published and amateur poetry enthusiasts showed off their talents, as well as being treated to the expertise of three special guests in Ben Graham, Yvo Luna, and Rosy Carrick.

The event's organiser Louise Halvardsson, who performed under her stage name 'Lou Ice', was pleased with the evening, saying: "Everyone gets a chance, and it's nice to have some real quality performers".

The performances took place in the Children's Library section, and the strong content of some of Graham's and Alice Kelly Purnell's work in particular juxtaposed wonderfully with the surroundings.

Special guest Yvo Luna spoke of her links to the 102 year-old Hove Library: "My earliest memories of literature were at this Library…lots of pony books!"

Graham thoughtfully performed a relevant local piece entitled 'Ken Kesey on Hove Lawns', speaking of "rainy-day women and sour-flowered children…on that Victorian promenade", providing the audience with a surreal slice of local history.

Following National Poetry Week, Purnell explained the important cultural role that poetry can still play: "People need to laugh (with all the problems in the world)…and we're lucky to have such a rich language".

Another performer, Ann Perrin, said that her experience as a former puppeteer gave her the courage to perform, exclaiming: "You have to go for it!"

On a professional note, one of Luna's humorous pieces, entitled 'Recycled' (about the fate of our recycling), even featured our very own Argus paper: "The Argus, for example, gets turned into soup" - food for thought indeed!