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| Vic Godard & Subway Sect - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
I haven’t been to Brighton for years but always fancied a return visit, so when I saw that the closing party for the
ABC Art Exhibition at Gallery 40 was being held on a day that coincided with
Oh! Gunquit playing at
Stay Sick, I didn’t need any convincing to get the train tickets booked, grab my bucket and spade and head on down to the seaside. The exhibition featured a selection of artwork from three Punk inspired artists,
Billy Chainsaw,
David Apps and
Gaye Black, or Gaye Advert as she might be remembered from the legendary early Punk band The Adverts. There was a really good turn-out and a last chance to see an impressive cross section of all three Artist’s work. Billy Chainsaw’s bold red and white ceramics and prints featuring Mexican wrestlers and superheroes really caught my eye. Regular Blog readers will know we are already big fans of David Apps and Gaye’s artwork and have reported on Gaye’s excellent
Beyond Punk Art exhibitions and have even released a
Retrosonic Podcast where we talk to David about his art and photography.
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| Gaye Black, Billy Chainsaw & David Apps - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
As
Stay Sick is more of a nightclub with a live band it wasn’t due to open until 11pm which meant we had time to go along to see
Vic Godard & Subway Sect who were playing at The Green Door Store by the station. We walked past the Prince Albert with its impressive and colourful mural of various music, movie and sports icons from John Peel, Jimi Hendrix and Ian Dury to George Best, Keith Moon and Oliver Reed. We got into the venue as Vic was just starting the set and bumped into ATV’s guitarist Lee McFadden. He told us that we had missed both support acts, Asbo Derek and then his own performance with
The Unreliable Witnesses. Subway Sect have had a change of line-up since I last saw them, bassist Paul Myers and drummer Paul Cook have departed, rumour has it that this was due to a possible re-forming of The Professionals with Steve Jones. Ian Holford has taken over on drums and from the last line-up I recognized Kevin Younger on keyboards and guitar and Mark Braby, who has switched from guitar to bass. There’s a slightly chaotic feel to proceedings, some songs have to be re-started in a different key and there’s quite a bit of re-tuning.
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| Vic Godard & Subway Sect - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
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| Vic Godard & Subway Sect - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
At one point I was reminded of the classic Eric Morecambe line “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order…” but to be honest it doesn’t really matter, it’s all part of the charm. Vic is an engaging and self-deprecating front-man who chats away to the good natured crowd between songs. Anyway, when they do get going there’s something irresistible about their unique brand of fractured angular guitar allied to the Northern Soul beats of songs such as “You Bring Out The Demon In Me” and “Holiday Hymn”. We get treated to a cross section of tracks from all throughout his long and varied career with songs such as “Best Album” from my favourite album “We Come As Aliens” and the superb “Caught In Midstream” from their latest release, the rather excellent “1979 Now!” Of course there are also the frantic, and much underrated, early
Subway Sect Punk classics “Nobody’s Scared” and “Ambition” which go down a storm. Unfortunately, it’s a rather short set which was a shame, but that gave us plenty of time to walk down to the Stay Sick Club to see
Oh! Gunquit which you can read all about in the previous Blog feature
here.
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| Vic Godard & Subway Sect - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
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| Vic Godard & Subway Sect - Photo by Retro Man Blog |
For more photographs of the ABC exhibition, Vic Godard & Subway Sect at the Green Door and Oh! Gunquit at Stay Sick then please head on over to the Retro Man Blog
Facebook page and, if you are not already following, hit “
Like” for access to the photo album. There are also videos of Subway Sect and Oh! Gunquit filmed up on the Retro Man Blog
YouTube channel now. Also, please do check out the excellent official Vic Godard
web-site which features a stunningly comprehensive archive.
