Little Comets

/// Little Comets

Robert, Michael, Mark and Matt first met in a little greengrocers beneath the hue drenched hills of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Sharing a mutual abandon for David Bowie, dalliance and limes they became a bonded musical quadrilateral in 2008, playing a series of gigs in barns, houses, university lecture theatres, prisms and trains.
After this things fluctuated wildly between recording an album in a school/farmhouse (produced by Michael, mixed by Rich Costey), playing gigs with people like Hockey, Delphic and Noisettes, and falling out with a rather large record label.
Influenced by books as much as music as much as their natural surroundings, Little Comets try to capture bits and pieces from places like Jonathan Safran Foer, Kate Rusby, Joan Miró and attach them to songs. Using bright rhythmic melodies to assuage often dark didactic lyrics, the result is something hopefully as authentic as the intention was originally meant to be.
With a new song (called Isles) released in October, Little Comets will be touring both on their own and with friends Darwin Deez throughout the month, hoping to gather the pace, swiftness and warmth to counteract the burgeoning autumnal shades.

/// Black Flowers

We Black flowers have been together since January 2009. Consisting of Mark White on drums and backing vocals, Ashley ‘Birchie’ Birch on bass, Aaron Butcher on lead guitar and Ben Stanton on main vocals and rhythm guitar. Together, that is all back in this country, one of us had some business to take care of over in Afghanistan. Aaron had been called up for duty in the Royal Marines 45 Commando in October 2008. So, the rest of us isolated ourselves in a room that’s very cold, damp and gloomy; a ‘house of ill repute’ as we know it. It’s the place we go to get away from the grim meat hook realities that we fight off every day; like our jobs, our women and the weather. Full of anger and energy, there’s a constant flow of ideas, opinions and new songs that spring out in many different shades from the rotten smoky air, water drops and the little ceiling windows that set the scene.

/// Plug Factory

**Next up was Plug Factory who played to a now packed crowd. Their set experienced a slight delayed start as the musicians needed to re-tune...but that was soon forgotten as their first song ‘What We Do’ introduced the Plug crowd to their loud vocal, short, sharp, snappy tunes... I like Indie music with a ‘tongue in cheek’ style, and pretty much all the set had the same energy all the way through....on occasions though in songs such as ‘Where You Want To Be’ the melodic tunes are mingled together with a very noticeable West Indies style of rhythm....so you can’t help but want to dance. I have to say...this band are rhythm experts....it’s just so appealing and they make it look so easy! The best track of the set was ‘Ships’; the interesting drum playing was just the start...it was their special dance which encouraged the crowd into a cheering frenzy. Their last track ‘Times We’ve Had’ was a real banging tune...the fast vocal and lyrics reminded me of something The jam would be proud of...and also at the front of the stage the dedicated fans soon broke out with some quite nifty dance moves. However there was another good moment when a fan jumped on stage and continued to dance in their trade mark manic fashion...then after the song, one of the band members said “what’s he been on...?” well the answer to that is.....your music!