Brakes ‘On Your Side’ acoustic

Just discovered: Thomas and Eamon perform ‘On Your Side’ for Ray-Ban from 6 months ago. TW wears white jeans and dark shades (of course) Better late than never: watch here

ESP Nostalgia

The Fly remembers ESP from their 2002 and 2003 covers…

the-fly.co.uk Take February’s (2002) Electric Soft Parade cover. Never has the magazine trodden the line between the sublime and the ridiculous so expertly. The entire basis of the feature was that the band were in Paris, having a chat with Will Kinsman. This did indeed happen. However, there was no budget to send a photographer with Will, so, ingeniously, he hooked up with the band a week later on Primrose Hill, sat them down on a park bench armed with nothing but a string of onions and a couple of croissants, and took some anonymous-looking shots with lots of anonymous-looking sky. To the layman, this might have initially looked like bad photography, but it was in fact a deliberate ploy that enabled our designer to photoshop in the Eiffel tower, and, for one of the smaller shots, a couple of whole baguettes.

“The worst cover photo ever?” asks Kinsman, “A string of onions and a superimposed Eiffel Tower were never going to make Primrose Hill look like Gay Paris”

the-fly.co.uk The Electric Soft Parade, one of whom is “wearing” a pencil moustache and not even in jest are on the cover of our September issue. They follow the 2003 running theme by not looking the slightest bit bothered about it. Now, there’s been a few DID WE DO THAT? DID WE? moments as I’ve flicked through these back issues, but The Electric Soft Parade ain’t one of them – the album the cover coincided with, ‘The American Adventure’, was and is fantastic, their current anonymity more to do with a label that struggled to wipe its own arse, never mind make a success out of the once-astoundingly creative White brothers.

Patrick Wolf at The Palladium

Fan videos from Patrick Wolf at The London Palladium, 15th November with Thomas White on guitar and Alec Empire on keyboards (some songs) To save you watching through 3 pages of youtube videos, here’s some favourites of most songs featuring TW. Videos: Magic Position, Hard Times, Vulture, Oblivion, Overture, Battle, The Libertine, Wind In The Wires, The Bachelor (scroll down for more)

MAGIC POSITION x2 – if you only watch one, make it this one…

HARD TIMES x2

VULTURE

OBLIVION

OVERTURE x2

BATTLE

THE LIBERTINE

WIND IN THE WIRES

THE BACHELOR

What’s In It For Me

RESTLESSLIST + CLOWNS Nov-Dec shows

RESTLESSLIST shows – visit their Myspace to hear Shy Coconut Love Song. Back in March they had a session on 6Music’s Marc Riley show, with Thomas White on drums – listen at this blog post – there’s an interview too.

19 Nov – The Komedia, Brighton supporting 12 Stone Toddler – More info + tickets
27 Nov – The Freebutt, Brighton supporting DOSH – Myspace – tickets

CLOWNS show – Myspace – Live footage (with Thomas on bass)

2 Dec – The Albert, Brighton at 8 o’clock Sharp – Myspace

DESTROY RANKIN Ebay Auction in aid of Youth Music – with artwork created by Brakes

More info at youthmusic.org.uk Renowned photographer Rankin and the world’s top musicians and artists have supported us by donating their precious time, energy and creative spirit for a major art project entitled ‘Destroy’.

To help celebrate our 10th Birthday, more than 70 musicians and visual artists have created a groundbreaking body of collaborative artwork based on Rankin’s iconic portraits of musicians. Artists such as Jarvis Cocker, U2, Debbie Harry, Little Boots, Kylie and visual artists including Damien Hirst have ‘destroyed’ a Rankin print of themselves or a musical hero and turned the image into an original piece of art. Those involved were given the freedom to manipulate their images in any way they wished. View and bid for the items at Youth Music on Ebay

‘DESTROY’ BY BRAKES AND RANKIN

View Brakes artwork at the Youth Music website

Youth Music Ebay page for Brakes
Auction ends 21 Nov, 18:00 – starting bid £50.

Behind the scenes footage with Brakes and Rankin

‘Destroy’- original artwork created by Brighton band Brakes and world renowned photographer Rankin. A rare one-off piece of original art to raise money for Youth Music.

Professional inkjet print on archival paper / digital photomontage and 3-D collage. Framed 20 x 24 inches.

“We cut our figures from the original print, put them in a box and took a photo of it, and then put this in an old advertising hoarding on the seafront, and took a photo of that. It looks as though we have come from outer space and ‘touched down’ into the ocean, and also references our hometown Brighton and a certain timelessness that our music has”. Eamon, Brakes.

Youth Music is the UK’s largest children’s music charity providing funding for music projects and activities. We believe in the power of music to transform young people’s lives. Music has the power to encourage and nurture talent; a power that builds confidence and self-esteem; a power that opens new horizons, raises aspirations and helps individuals express who they are. Since 1999, we have provided over 2 million children and young people with free access to a range of music-making projects and activities. For many, being given the chance to experience the power of music has been a life changing experience. Because of Youth Music there are now more high quality music-making opportunities for a wider range of children and young people than ever before.

Brakes 6 Music audio, pics, quotes, guilty pleasures, official secrets

Marc Riley Brakes were on 3 times throughout the show performing songs from their live album Rock Is Dodelijk (i.e. Rock is deadly or lethal) One of the session tracks – What’s In It For Me – is the crazy rock out version from the live album.

Comma Comma Comma Fullstop + Porcupine Or Pineapple: Part One here

Don’t Take Me To Space (Man) + What’s In It For Me: Part Two here

Leaving England (TW on backing + spine-chilling guitar) Part Three here

Marc put a fans question to the White Brothers, resulting in Alex mentioning his love of the band Chicago – “everyone I know has a story about, that was the last time I saw you, you were just banging on all night about Chicago” – and TW’s reply that “we don’t really believe in ‘guilty pleasures’ – if you like something sincerely, that’s fine, it doesn’t matter what it is”

He also asked Tom about his other projects; Restlesslist, Clowns and his solo album got a mention. TW: “I got a record coming out in March. Infact I was a bit cheeky; when we were recording the last Brakes record and these 3 guys were mixing it in the control room, I snuck into the live room and started recording and then ended up with an album – and I’ve just signed to Cooking Vinyl – so as we’re writing the new (Brakes) record I’ll be promoting that”

Marc then plays a few seconds of Restlesslist (Tom says the album’s coming) Marc: “And you’re in another band called Clowns. Bit greedy isn’t he?” TW: “I don’t like days off”. Marc asks Marc from Brakes what he’s doing and he says “me and Alex, I think we’re going to join our friend Matt Eaton, he’s got a new album coming out and we’re going to be his rhythm section”

After ‘Leaving England’, Marc Riley exposes his inner TW fan: “that was staggeringly good, that, not that I think you’re rubbish normally, but that was just something else. And that guitar playing…“

Alex said they’re staying with Official Secrets Act… there’s footage of him playing keyboards with them on youtube – before that he was their stand in drummer.

Screenshots from the 6 Music webcam… aka Thomas models his latest suit.

Here’s to a Brakes Session Album one day (it will sound much better than my fan recordings at least) And after all this can you even imagine what the next ESP record will be like… they’ll return one day, with melancholy Music and Lyrics and it will be Out Of This World. Til then watch this space

Alex White talks to Radio 1

Nick Grimshaw Alex White and Eamon Hamilton had a really good interview on Radio 1 tonight whilst Tom and Marc loaded the equipment offstage back at the venue. Also includes audio from Alex’s own phone of tonight’s crowd cheering.

Brakes interview on Radio One – Part 1 — Brakes interview on Radio One – Part 2

Here’s a screenshot taken during the interview…

Rock Is Dodelijk (Brighton show) mixed by Alex at The Metway

groupee.com Eamon Hamilton on Rock Is Dodelijk Listen/Buy — Reviews here

We ended up concentrating on two recordings we had, The Concorde from Brighton and the Essigfabrik in Cologne. We chose the Brighton concert because it is our hometown, and the sound desk that they have meant that we could separate each track and mix it like an album (each track is live, but it meant we had some control over drum sounds and microphone levels) The Cologne gig was just a recording straight from the desk – we couldn’t mix it or mess with it, and we thought it sounded great, so we used that one too.

Drummer Alex White was the man behind the mixing of the Concorde show (“he set the desk up at the show itself and took the tapes away to mess around with” Hamilton explains), which was recorded onto a digital desk with each track separated and converted into Pro Tools files and later mixed through a Neve desk in The Metway studio. And the band’s sound engineer Ric Peet (who was in band in the ’90s called Candyflip) recorded the Cologne show via an iPod stuck into the mixing deck. “We didn’t touch it afterwards” Hamilton says, “it is exactly the same as the gig”.

Brakes 6 Music session

BBC 6 Music, Wed 11th November, 7pm – Marc Riley’s homepage Tonight we’ve got the wonderful Brakes in session promoting the release of their new live album Rock Is Dodelijk. Their live set is notorious for its rambunctious energy and ear-splitting immediacy. Hand-picked by Brakes partly from a hometown (Brighton, UK) show in August 2008, and partly from a May 2009 show in Cologne, Germany: Review quotes here — Listen + Buy