Ellipse Promotions present
Luna and the Moonhounds – You Dirty Blue – Mvnich – Lizzy Bee
The Maudsley, Coventry
12th July 2018
Coventry’s Ellipse Promotions put on nights with bands of all different genres and sounds together, add in old Coventry venues, warm summer nights and gin and tonic and you’ve got the recipe for excellent nights out. Their latest was last weekend, read what Fighting Boredom thought about it below.
It’s a balmy evening just outside Coventry City Centre and the grand old pub is busy, there are every type of people you could imagine in here, old, young, straight and the weird all waiting patiently at the bar or sitting out in the sunshine. We get a drink, head outside and immediately start talking to friends. The atmosphere is friendly and as we see more people coming in we decide to head upstairs to see what’s going on. The function room is a grand space, scattered groups of people milling around. It gets busier quickly as the first act of four comes on.
Lizzy Bee stands at the front of the stage, she’s flanked on the one side by an acoustic guitar player and on the other by another singer who’s names I don’t know. The music is folky, loud and clear and Lizzy’s vocal is strong and fills the room, the harmonies come in and they are just lovely. It’s all about the voices as they make a clean, wistful sound. The guitar gets faster and Lizzy sounds stronger, the crowd is growing and there’s a good feeling in the room. The guitarist finger picks and the vocals bring a summery drifting sound, it goes into a feeling of regret and night time, of reflection and longing in moonlight. The harmonies are beautiful. They carry on to Lizzy talking about seeing a Fleetwood Mac in Dublin which leads into an emotional and cool cover version.As they finish off their set with a timeless rock’n’roll guitar sound the second vocal is more restrained and gentler which makes the harmonies rise and fall around the crowd. It’s an age old feel and a great start to the night.
We retire downstairs for Gin and a balmy summer night. I’m caught by a friend from way back and reminisce for a while. The second band are Mvnich, a bunch of youngsters with short hair and big, big slabs of noise. The first songs vocal is whiney with hard drums and big bass, it’s grinding, lurching music which alongside the vocal has a Nomeansno vibe. That is of course an immense compliment. It’s ace as
the vocal is at odds with the music and that’s why it works. The music, twists, turns and spasms into jazz interludes. It swings around, moves sideways and then trips over it’s untied shoelaces. They move to a punky groove and sound like they should be on Alternative Tentacles, interesting, hard and twisted.
They move slower with a different vocalist, it’s indie now, mesmerising and down tempo. They shift again to a psychedelic, psychotic groove and then a concrete dusted lurching nastiness. Bored and hopeless. They move the sound around so much that the crowd are captured by them, it’s a sixties mod dance now, cool, fresh and besuited twisting. The singer is grinning his head off and so he should be, this is great. They finish with a fuzzed out sixties garage freak out. What a great set.
Again the garden beckons, but the gin isn’t as good as the pub has run out of ice, the place is rammed, downstairs is full and slipping onto the stairs and out of the door. My handwriting is deteriorating fast as I sip my warm spirits.
You Dirty Blue look like a couple of metal heads on guitar and drums. They start, hair everywhere, and lock into a blues, prog psych out which harks back to the seventies and is quite simply brilliant. They are fast, furious, rough, ready, thrashy, punky, bluesy and very very infectious. The vocals are gravely which matches the music as it rises and falls. They don’t let up or ease back for a moment. They are invoking the memory of Rory Gallagher, it’s full on, focused and as sharp as a razor’s edge. They get rougher and I’m dancing to this blues rock brilliant noise. The songs flow together and I notice that the drummer has a cymbal with a chunk knocked out of it, it’s like they’re not even trying but the emotions are clear, these two are having the time of their lives. They start a song slowly and then in an instant are right back into the layers of noise and moving up and away. The crowd are dancing and all of a sudden it goes all Hendrix abandon as they slowly ease the set to an end with a dose of crazy, psychedelic, blues slowness. Madness takes over as they draw to a close. The snapper goes and buys their music and tries to guess whose Mum is behind the merch stand.
Luna and the Moonhounds look like rock stars, the peaked cap, long hair,
headbands, scarfs, questionable shirts and black velvet add up to a full on Rock’n’Roll star vibe. They start with the countdown to liftoff and then the sixties groove kicks in. They layer riffs, grooves and the guitar and bass swing low. But the vocals again make the band. It’s a loud blues vocal which is rough, rude and sleazy. Looking like this and the way they play it’s obvious that they live for this. They are grooving like lunatics, the singer is poised and perfect, a vision of coolness and the music adds to the effect.
They slip into a breakneck rock’n’roll beat and smash on massive riffs to create sleazy drugged out rock. The spirit of Johnny Thunders and Arthur Kane look on and nod approvingly.They slow down to a solid blues rock riff and leave youhanging, waiting for the explosion and then they fall into a bluesy, messy blur. They are big, big fat Blues, big fat rock and a massive vocal, everyone is dancing and smiling as they finish.
Eclipse promotions promised an evening not to be missed and Fighting Boredom can’t disagree, a good evening with friends and excellent music.
–
Lizzy Bee
All Pictures and CDs purchased by Martin Ward, all words by Adrian Bloxham.
the vocal is at odds with the music and that’s why it works. The music, twists, turns and spasms into jazz interludes. It swings around, moves sideways and then trips over it’s untied shoelaces. They move to a punky groove and sound like they should be on Alternative Tentacles, interesting, hard and twisted.
You Dirty Blue look like a couple of metal heads on guitar and drums. They start, hair everywhere, and lock into a blues, prog psych out which harks back to the seventies and is quite simply brilliant. They are fast, furious, rough, ready, thrashy, punky, bluesy and very very infectious. The vocals are gravely which matches the music as it rises and falls. They don’t let up or ease back for a moment. They are invoking the memory of Rory Gallagher, it’s full on, focused and as sharp as a razor’s edge. They get rougher and I’m dancing to this blues rock brilliant noise. The songs flow together and I notice that the drummer has a cymbal with a chunk knocked out of it, it’s like they’re not even trying but the emotions are clear, these two are having the time of their lives. They start a song slowly and then in an instant are right back into the layers of noise and moving up and away. The crowd are dancing and all of a sudden it goes all Hendrix abandon as they slowly ease the set to an end with a dose of crazy, psychedelic, blues slowness. Madness takes over as they draw to a close. The snapper goes and buys their music and tries to guess whose Mum is behind the merch stand.
headbands, scarfs, questionable shirts and black velvet add up to a full on Rock’n’Roll star vibe. They start with the countdown to liftoff and then the sixties groove kicks in. They layer riffs, grooves and the guitar and bass swing low. But the vocals again make the band. It’s a loud blues vocal which is rough, rude and sleazy. Looking like this and the way they play it’s obvious that they live for this. They are grooving like lunatics, the singer is poised and perfect, a vision of coolness and the music adds to the effect.
