Rather like the internet, pop and rock music sometimes provides a shield for those who want to share things that they probably wouldn’t walk into a room of strangers and tell immediately*. Alicia Bognanno of rising Nashville group Bully takes off her invisible handcuffs in the groups new indie / grunge rocking song Trying from the start: “I’ve been praying for my period all week and relief that I just can’t see. I question everything, my focus, my figure, my sexuality and how much it matters,” she sings before the guitars are dirtily ramped up like a modern day L7 or Hole and she yells “I am trying to hide from my mind, I am trying all the time, I am.” If these words were the first that Alicia spoke to you if you met her in the street, you’d probably find it way too intimate and totally disconcerting; but rasped out in a song, broadcast to potentially the whole wide world, it seems totally natural. Bully’s debut album Feels Like is out June 23rd with forthcoming dates in Breaking More Waves' home country of the UK in May including The Great Escape, Live at Leeds and London’s Lexington. *Footnote - thankfully unlike the internet pop and rock music doesn't allow artists to share pictures of what they're having for their lunch or cups of coffee they're drinking. Bully - Trying
If there’s one music festival that we mark on our calendar every year for certain attendance it’s Brighton’s The Great Escape. A new music fan’s delight, The Great Escape (and it’s smaller brother The Alternative Escape, which runs alongside the main event ) is an urban festival that showcases emerging artists from all over the world with over 400 up and coming bands playing in 35 venues, accessible on one wristband. It’s the festival where we first saw Adele playing in a tiny coffee house, Haim play a ridiculously sweaty club show that involved one of the band stripping down to their underwear it was so hot and along the way we’ve caught the likes of Foals, Years & Years, London Grammar and Dan from Bastille (before he had formed Bastille) play sets whilst they were still developing as artists.
So what makes Great Escape so good? Here are 5 simple reasons:
1. It’s a music fan's festival.
Other festivals are brilliant for the diverse and often rich range of entertainment and experiences they provide, from poetry to film to theatre, to fine food and drink, but Great Escape's focus is firmly on music and nothing else.
2. The imbecile factor is low.
Because of 1 above and the fact that virtually all the acts playing are relatively new, the lack of idiots in the audiences tends to be minimal. At the risk of sounding like gig snob, and generalising a little, as bands become more successful their audiences generally become more mainstream and with the mainstream comes more and more twats. You know the sort – the bloke who stands with a pint in his hand chatting to his mates all the way through a bands set, suddenly paying attention when they play ‘the hit’ shouting “I love this song,” and to record that he was there promptly takes a selfie of his stupid dumb ass face with the band behind him, recording what a 'great time' he had before continuing to chat for the rest of the song and then heading for the bar.
3. Sheer value for money.
You can buy a super early bird 3 day ticket for just £39.50. Last year that allowed us to see 42 bands full performances over the course of the event.
4. Daytime gigs.
Daytime gigs are music lovers dreams come true, mainly because you can the whole day doing what you adore doing but can normally only do in the evening. All we need from the Great Escape now is a handful of breakfast gigs (in a cafe serving coffee and croissants perhaps - that would be perfect.) Also you’ll find it’s the more committed fans who will catch the shows earlier in the day, which once again reduces the imbecile factor.
5. Number Of Shows / Choice.
Of course there are plenty of other multi-venue festival’s in the UK now, but The Great Escape is the grandaddy of them all. Now in its 10th year (we’ve been to 9 of them – having missed the first) it boasts more bands, more venues and more choice than any other. Sure, some venues, particularly those with the more well-known / buzzy acts will reach capacity and you’ll have to get there early to get in, but if you find yourself in a queue, don’t hang around too long, there’s a huge amount of other brilliant talent waiting to be devoured in other venues.
Have you got your ticket yet? Have you got as excited as we have about it all? In that case grab one now by clicking here (it usually sells out so don't delay) and enjoy the thrills and spills down by the seaside at one of the musical weekends of the year.
If you’re struggling with the idea of 400 acts and wondering which ones to take a punt on, Breaking More Waves has selected 20 which we think will be worth investing time with (programme clashes permitting). Unsurprisingly the vast majority have featured on these pages before.
We’ll be featuring 4 artists in each of the next 5 blog posts. All 4 posts will be published during the course of today, 1 post on the hour every hour between 9am and 1pm GMT.
Recommendations (Part 1)
1. Aquilo
Breaking More Waves gave them their Hype Machine debut in March 2013, in 2014 they played a daytime basement show for The Alternative Escape (which was rammed with music industry types) and now 2015 finds them on the main bill of Great Escape. Beautifully restrained but soulful keyboard based music.
2. Bully
"Indie / alternative guitar music is dead." Yawn. No it's not, it's just reached that stage where its become like folk music, a tradition, ideas handed down from generation to generation. Bully are just part of that lineage. The point is that they're one of the better and more exciting bands of that breed around right now. We introduced them to the blog just last month. Read more about them by clicking here.
3. Rag 'N' Bone Man
Big voice. Big tunes. Blues. Gospel. Soul. Rock. Hip-hop. This man does it all. One of our Ones to Watch for 2015 (here) playing in his home city. Everyone who catches him live is blown away by his incredible voice. If you haven't yet, it's about time, surely?
4. Jerry Williams
Another recent blog inductee and one of the more unknown names on the bill, 19 year old Jerry Williams hails from Breaking More Waves home city of Portsmouth and is pretty much the opposite of Rag 'N' Bone Man in terms of vocal tone; Jerry's is deliciously sweet and utterly adorable, as are her chirpy acoustic pop songs that she plays with a sense of joy and freedom. We understand that Jerry's playing more than 1 show in Brighton at the Great Escape - expect to see her somewhere on the Alt Escape bill as well.
Stay tuned for part 2 of our recommendations later today.
10 things you need to know about Bully* 1. They’re a band (OK, that’s probably an obvious one, but let’s start with the basics, because you could be mistaken for thinking that's not the case given the photo above.) 2. They have a frenetic punkish energy that is infectious. You’ll be giddy with the rush. They’ll make you feel alive, then sick. But it’s a good sick feeling. Then you’ll feel alive again. 3. Lead singer Alicia Bognanno worked as an intern at Steve Albini’s studio in 2011 and it’s there in after-hours downtime that she started work on what was to become Bully songs. 4. Their track Milkman was first uploaded to Bandcamp last April and has been doing the rounds ever since. It’s brilliant. We particularly like the line about “Spinning around in my underwear.” It’s how the song makes us feel. 5. Milkman (streaming below) clocks in at just over 2 minutes. Another one of their songs, the visceral I Remember is one minutes and forty seven seconds long. We imagine their live shows are short sharp noisy sweaty shocks to the system. 6. They’re the sort of band that in the early 90’s would have been guaranteed a slot on TV show The Word, having just the right mix of indie, alt-power pop and punk. Wouldn't it be good to have a show that featured bands like Bully on mainstream terrestrial TV again? Or does nobody care anymore? 7. They’re coming to the UK in Spring (dates here) and it appears they’re playing the super huge Corn Exchange in Brighton at the Great Escape festival. Our guess is this will be an NME sponsored show. 8. They played quite a few gigs at this year’s SXSW festival, and all the feedback we saw online was positive. 9. As far as we’re aware Milkman is nothing to do with Ernie, The Fastest Milkman In The West (here). 10. They have a drummer called Stewart Copeland. The drummer in The Police was also called Stewart Copeland. We assume they’re not the same person. But if Alicia changes her name to Sting we’ll be suspicious. *Just in case you don’t know about them yet – as although we’re featuring them in this introducing piece they’ve actually been around since 2013 when they put out an eponymous EP and 7” single). Bully - Milkman
