You may remember Bob’s post from last year about ‘Home Made Music’, in which he talked to a load of the bands emerging from London and Brighton who seemed to share a number of similarities. While not necessarily sounding that much like one another, bands such as Male Bonding, Graffiti Island, Fair Ohs and La La Vasquez have all been taking a similar approach to making music, mainly influenced by 60’s garage, hardcore, the ‘anyone can play guitar’ ethos of punk and a give-a-fuck attitude to expensive production. And they’re all friends too, playing similar shows, generally just hanging out together and being nice to each other.
Not just restricted to the brains of journalists that like to ruin these things by labelling them with some patronising moniker, it did actually feel like something pretty exciting was going on in music in the UK, echoing what had been happening in L.A., Portland and New York around the same time. So it was kind of inevitable that the two record labels most closely connected with this music – Paradise Vendors Inc and Italian Beach Babes, run by Male Bonding and Conan from Graffiti Island respectively – have put out a 12″ compilation that collects together all of these bands, including a few other note worthy acts from a little further North (i.e. Spectrals and Mazes).
On Sunday they launched the record with an all-day event at Bardens, where loads of bands from the record played live, while those unable to (Graffiti Island, please start playing again!) spun a few records. Male Bonding were scheduled to play themselves, but due to their drummer being laid low by arm aids they had to pull out. Let’s hope he recovers in time for the billion week tour they’re just about to start.
Below are some photos from the night, taken by Sean at Disposable Youth. And if you are so inclined, you can buy a copy of the record from here or here.
