Halloween in Brighton now more like Hell-oween

After last year's full-on party (back-breaking preparation and flu chaos) and the previous week's White Night partying, Halloween took a back-seat like an evil midget hitcher with a blunt pen knife. Brighton was full of part-time zombies (turning up with a bit of blood and ripped clothes isn't really a costume mate) and wannabe Timewarpers for the world record attempt. I still had a bit more mileage to use from last year's costume so the Crazy 88 look (not the Green Lantern) got a public appearance. Kerry wore some impressive make-up to go with her new red hair dye but the rest of us didn't bother.

It was chaos in town with zombies and Frank N Furters and if you weren't dressed up then you looked a little out of place. Audio was our only appearance out but after 2 minutes a psychic decision was made not to stay even after escaping the main room for the DJ back-room which wasn't as glamourous as you'd think. A smoke and a drink upstairs just confirmed everyone's need to get away from the tourist/student rabble.

Back at Paul's and a few more friends had turned up and a few too many DJs meaning sets were reduced to 30 minutes each. I think my tough set of Vitalic, Etienne de Crecy, MSTRKFT's Vuuvuu etc. went down quite well with the Disco Dungeon old regime, clearing the recent disco cobwebs but was followed too closely (for some people) with Motown soul disco. Kerry's cocktail idea of Liquid Bubblegum shooters (blue curasco, creme de banana and Baileys) helped break the ice between the old school ravers and disco-loving locals as well as the other party prescriptions.

Sunday was another write-off watching the very impressive Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (though quite a dull race), eating a banana then having a white-out having to go to bed at about 6:30pm.

Daft Punk 2010 Tour Dates?

According to Data Transmission and Last.fm, Daft Punk will be touring Europe next year (2010). This hasn't been confirmed properly but worth looking out for ticket news. Instead of cramming everyone in a tent or small field they're playing in stadiums including Wembley Arena, London. There's nothing on the Arena or Le Zénith website yet but the search continues.

• Jul 30 Le Zénith, Paris, France
• Aug 1 Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Aug 3 Allianz-Arena, Munich, Germany
• Aug 5 The O2, Dublin, Ireland
• Aug 7 Parc des sports, Nice, France
• Aug 15 Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York NY, United States
• Aug 22 Sydney Football, Sydney, Australia
• Aug 28 Olympic Park Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
• Sep 3 Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom
• Sep 6 City Of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Gaming from the Atic (sic)

Image via Wikipedia

Influenced by our friend, Julian's impressive (and slightly worrying) collection of retro games consoles plus the recent BBC4 Electric Dreams programming, I raided the attic to find Kerry's ZX Spectrum for some classic gaming. I'd bought this for her birthday or Christmas present some years ago, not the rubber keyboard version but the newer 128k '+2' with proper keyboard and integrated tape deck (according to Wikipedia it cost £149 at launch) plus a heap of games. We were amazed it still worked and the legendary loading sound brought back memories of worry and paranoia whether the tape would load (until we got bored of listening to it).

Over the past few evenings we've tried a Dizzy game (you played an egg character), Manic Miner, Hyper Sports and Atic Atac. Manic Miner is still hard-as-nails to play, Hyper Sports surprisingly addictive and Atic Atac a recurring nightmare with a finger twister to play on the keyboard with all keys on one row. You can even see my YouTube videos of us playing them! We're now trawling through ebay to find other classics such as any Ultimate Play the Game titles like Sabre Wulf, Tranz Am and Jetman, The Hobbit, Daley Thompson's Decathelon and Trashman.

There's some good resources out there including the World of Spectrum if you want to know literally anything about the Spectrum. Alternatively, if you want to remind yourselves instantly of some classic gaming try the Classic Online Games website and their Spectrum section. There's 20 games including Chuckie Egg, Jetset Willy and Jet Pac. You might need to update your browser's Java. Also just found Road Rash for the old Sega!

Can anyone tell me what the game was where you travelled around a forest shooting at other motorbikes?

All White on a Saturday night ending with a Go Bang

After a few weeks break, our super-team of quizzers won the 1st year anniversary of Horace McSquirter's Quiz me Hardy at the Pond pub. It was very exciting with the place decorated with knob shaped balloons though I'd say we were robbed of the best team name prize (c'mon Horace, keep up with the news) with a nod to Amy Winehouse's year free cold-turkey "They tried to make me go to quiz night but Horace said no, no, no". The music round was a tie-breaker between us and another team but we lost that too. The last laugh was with us as we scraped through to win the grand prize with a cheeky half point.

Fredag (Friday in Swedish)
We celebrated Sukey's first day at work, which started for her on a Friday. Our chosen meet up point was the Northern Lights, the Scandinavian bar on Little East Street. It was a gloomy, wet evening but the atmosphere inside was cosy and cool. Shame their gin and grapefruit speciality was sold out but I did get a chance to sample their long list of flavoured vodkas. Vanilla vodka and coke was delicious whilst observing the half-hat barman and an advert for the world record attempt to do the Timewarp dance on the beach next week. A noisy Globe pub and an after-hours drink at Paul/Sarah's house to round off the night.

Japanese Beer Festival
Thanks to Kerry picking up the flyer the previous week, we dropped into the Moshi Moshi organised 'festival' after our Saturday shopping. I say 'festival' but I would say a couple of small marquees and 3 different beers doesn't qualify for this grand status. For a start where the Kirin! Their special Autumn brew was sampled but was a mistake and wished I'd just bought an Asahi. To make up for the experience, their yakitori chicken was really good and Kerry commended the Shochu cocktail even though the barmen had no idea what they were serving. The karoke didn't really sell the nearby Lucky Voice bar.

White Night
Ahh, bless you Brighton for combining art and a good night out. Greedy for night time attention and not content with Halloween just around the corner, this city-wide celebration has been going on for awhile but we'd somehow missed it last year. We stuck around after the beer festival waiting for the Penny Arcade which consisted of three creepy, interactive, fortune-telling machines and some sound effects from a stripped out piano hooked up to a sound machine. I managed to get first in queue and had my fortune sung to me by a pair of clowns receiving a pencil drawing and the advice to eat mnore ruffage. Kerry's choice was a marionette corpse flying out of a toy coffin delivering a rolled-up scroll of prediction. Just outside the marquee venue was one of the five locations for the Mobile Movie Treasure Trail, a mobilephone bluetooth access point to get short films. Disappointingly, this didn't work and the later ones we tried had no success either.

After some grub at home we returned to the crowded streets heading for the Pavillion walking through the Northern Gate of the gardens to see The Penny Drops light installation. The queue for the Fortune and Destiny event was just too long so walked round to the Old Music Library for Prescription Art's exhibition. We didn't hang around for the music or bands but loved the Insa grafitti art and the downstairs lighting of the band area (See my Flickr photos).

We crossed the road to see the Bang Future Machine projection at the Unitarian church but the visuals at the time we a little boring and the rowdy crowds put us off from staying. Onto Jubilee Square and the Sam Hewitt and Shardcore art experience which consisted of two golden lucky cats which would answer any question you had. Can't be arsed to explain further so just see my Flickr photos to work it out.

Final art visit was at Fabrica for the Chameleon exhibition. The room was full of flat creens showing various faces in still motion then would spark to life with some sort of facial expression of emotion. Below the screens were materials to draw them which Kerry took advantage of (see her results on Flickr).

All my White Night Festival photos on Flickr

Go-Bang at the Globe
Disco DJs Affy and Ali were providing some soulful tunage downstairs in the Globe as their Go-Bang Brighton guise. Paul and Sarah were already dancing within the crowd. Later, the 'council' (James, Julian, ex-member Sukey and others) turned up in their wedding outfits. Nice to trade some old house music stories with Sean though sadly he didn't mention how his ferret mansion dream was progressing. More random conversations at Paul/Sarah's to end the 60 minute-saving night. I've uploaded the best snaps of Go-Bang on Flickr.

Spymonkey's Moby Dick

Our Friday night cocktail evening based on Spaced went well, I think. Thanks to Kerry, we had a late inspiration to base it on Simon Pegg and co. and designed the cocktail menu accordingly with every character receiving their own drink. Thankfully the ice-crusher bought on ebay arrived just in time though typically only got used twice. There was a frantic 3 hours of shaking, mixing and washing then it seemed everyone realised how drunk they were and calmed down taking it easier preferring to extend their stay. Personal favourites were the Bubblegum shooter made of Creme de Banana, Blue Curacao and Baileys Irish Cream which actually tasted like Hubba Bubba.

Saturday teatime/evening was another comedy festival event. I'd never heard of the theatre group Spymonkey but they were presenting their version of Moby Dick at the Brighton Corn Exchange. With our front row tickets we got slightly more than we expected from the performance. The stage props and scenery looked quite basic covered in a large tarpalin giving little away. The four actors (3 male and one female who I had a sneaking suspicion I'd seen somewhere before) came out and introduced the play, a little nervously and perhaps a little straighter than I expected but with the male centric story this created a comedic tension which featured later.

The Ishmael character/narrator introduced himself with what sounded like a mock-Mediterranean accent and set up the first scene of the New Bedford bar. Superb slapstick, some clever prop work and some hilarious 'sexual tension' instantly won us over. From there the gags, comedy, songs and dancing go funnier, saucier and sometimes daring in taste but every scene and gag was like a masterclass in funniness.

The only female character had a number of costume changes including her mad woman with fake arm, a mermaid and a red-haired inflatable warning beacon (at a guess) but ran off stage hugging random people including myself. Her other character was a butch bloke who kept eyeing up Kerry whilst gesturing for a 'shag'. I've since found out with some web research that the female actor, Petra Massey had been seen before. She's the ship's humanoid computer on the BBC space comedy, Hyperdrive.

Other highlights were the extendable arms of the reverend in his prayer before sailing, Queequeg trying to deal with the stairs nearly brought me to tears, his magic tricks of levitating, the cast's sailor dance and the lift and hammer gag. The whale scenes were cleverly done using video projection and the final fight using a Lucha Libre or mexican wrestler scene. A little audience participation with sound effects brought the story to its natural end. Then a familiar song, Bright Eyes was sung by the cast shortly followed by a full male choir dressed as sailor extras. A heart-warming end to the best comedy theatre I've seen for years. More please!

Simon Amstell stand-up

After our complete bender of a 1920's night out, dragging ourselves out again was a huge challenge (I really wish my mind could switch off and let me rest). We'd promised ourselves a Wagamamas for an evening treat and invited Paul and Sarah along for the nosh. The spicy katsu chicken went down just but its destination didn't quite appreciate or expect it.

With our stomachs full we headed over to the Brighton Dome for the Simon Amstell show without any expectations. The settling-in music was like a repeat of the night before with 1920's swing music pumping from the speakers literally next to our seats so no snoozing for us. The warm-up act was slightly forgettable but didn't draw away from the main show, titled 'Do Nothing'. Instead of the fast paced, witiness of Never Mind the Buzzcocks (of which I can say he's sorely missed from the current series), it was a slow-burn of a performance like the feeling of our day. He dealt with an over-friendly heckler very well and brought in a reference to them later. Otherwise it was a long but very insightful and interesting dialogue into his outlook in life as in seizing opportunities in love (we learn that he fancies thin, even ill looking men). There's also some Jewish humour and reference to his family which received some mixed responses but he acknowledged it and changed tact to recover the audience attention. A few amusing diversions away from the main story with some very funny personal situations, a few honest words with the spotlight operator and a suitable introspective finish to close the performance. His story-telling was excellent overall and matched the energies of a Sunday night well.

The Blind Tiger Club at the Old Music Library, Brighton

Wow! What a night! With some costume headaches and worries throughout the week everyone turned up at Riki Tiks looking the part. Kerry's side-parting, facial twirl and Louise Brooks look won me over (and a few others). Julian and Sukey were a pair of dapper gangster bosses, Clare transformed herself into a living Bonnie Parker, Charlotte looked amazing in her Flapper outfit whilst I went for a more blue collar look, a black-shirted fascist Andy Capp. Go-Bang DJs were playing the house sounds in the bar and sat just behind the decks was my boss which was interesting...

A couple of drinks later and we went down to the venue, the Old Music Library opposite the Brighton Dome, which from the front window looked like an old funeral parlour complete with coffin and flowers. We were a little bit miffed at having to queue even though we had tickets but once in we were impressed by building's atmosphere and décor. The ground floor had a few clothes rails for the cloakroom (which later fell over from the massive weight), a bar at the back, some remains of the art installation (see Robots are coming blog entry), a few chairs and access to the basement, outside court and upstairs. Drinks were limited to a number of premium brands including one of my favourite vodkas, Bison Grass.

Downstairs was a sweaty experience of an underground club feel with the band and DJs behind a pavilion styled area. Behind the dance floor was a shots bar, again with some remains of the graffiti art illuminated. The top level was another bar with a giant rat and face graffiti above it, a recessed area for the band, a dozen or so tables with chairs and a large screen looping what looked like an early erotic film about some ladies rowing on a lake with crotch shots. The event had promised blackjack tables, magicians and hostess waitresses but we only saw one gambling area. The outside area was principally for smoking and access to the toilets. Just four portaloos for a 400 capacity which didn't go down too well. Luckily we were a short walk away from Riki Tiks and Paul and Sarah's house.

Musical highlight for us was The Correspondents down in the basement. It felt like discovering a new music scene with the MC bebopping and rapping over swing and jazz like tunes such as the Jungle Book's King of the Swingers. With the whole crowd dressed to impress and pulling shapes, you just couldn't tear yourself away from it even though we were dripping in sweat. Dancing to the music was a mixture of two-step drum'n'bass, Chalrleston and anything you could remember from old films. Although as soon as tried to match the fast pace you had to switch back, sometimes ungracefully into a more relaxed, every other beat step. By the end of the night the whole experience was one of the best nights in years I'd say.

I've uploaded all the decent photos of the night onto Flickr and have some video footage on YouTube in case you're interested.