Low Red Moon

ギター弾いてる時だけは、なんか無敵になった気分でさ！！

1980s Brighton Bands Or Singers

Acts based in Brighton during the 1980s, often of an indie persuasion.

Turn It Up Listeners Chart 1989

Listening to Turn It Up on 12th December 1989 is was something of a shock to find us joint third for the County.

Admittedly Sussex was not a hot bed of internationally successful recording artists, The Popguns and 14 Iced Bears were the bands ahead of us, but most of the other acts in the chart were what we’d consider ‘real’ bands as opposed us gentleman amateurs.

And given our incompetence at getting gigs I can only think it was the Radio appearances that did the trick where we were perhaps a little lighter in tone than some of the local groups.

It was also a rare placing for a Horsham band as usually Crawley represented the north of the County.

Interesting to note the dawn of The Levellers who were tenth in the Poll.

Some tunes from the top 10 acts are here.

Ah Yes, The Hair

Photograph of The Man From Del Monte who were actually a lady and three gentsIn a rare outing without a video camera in tow The Gits (UK) next supported The Man From Del Monte and The Grooveyard at The Escape Club on 28th March 1989.

I remember The Grooveyard when they played in Horsham but not from this gig. No doubt we were still recovering after giving our all for the minor placings.

Luckily a quick trip to Cloudberry Records explains amongst other things why I used to get them confused with Blow Up as some of the same people were in both. Here they are in the flesh a couple of years later:

Photograph of The Man From Del Monte

I fair little better with the Man From Del Monte. I recall walking into The Escape Club as they sound checked, t’ singer Mike West sat on stage waiting for some technical difficulty to be sorted out, but that’s yer lot. To be fair I’ve nothing from the rest of the band either so you can sit back and consume a little music from the headliners without prejudice:

Mike West still plies his trade from a base in New Orleans though there’s no mention of his past indiscretions with The Man From Del Monte on his website so I shall crib from LastFM…

The Man From Delmonte formed in Manchester, England, UK in 1986.

The band’s members were Australian Mike West (vocals and acoustic guitar), who used to be seen around Aflecks Palace with a little dog, Sheila Seal (bass), Martin Vincent (guitar), and Howard Goody (drums).

They released 3 singles on Ugly Man Records: Drive Drive Drive, Water in my Eyes and (Will nobody save) Louise. Water in my Eyes had the honour of being the cheapest video ever shown on ITV’s chart show at the time of Michael Jackson’s Video for his Thriller single that had cost a reputed 1million US Dollars.

The band formed part of the pre “Madchester” movement, enjoying much local success at gigs in the Manchester area although failed to go on from their local popularity to achieve the commercial success of contemporaries James.

I’ve a suspicion it was after this gig we introduced the limit on pre-gig drinks for Ben the bass player; one pint of brown & bitter, the Gits tipple of choice. That we had put the effort into deciding on an ‘official’ drink but had no plan for success perhaps explains a lot.