Since 2015 Southsea's Icebreaker Festival has been a highlight on the city's musical calendar, bringing unsigned acts to the city, delivering a glorious variety of new music to venues all within comfortable walking distance of each other. To be honest, I'm a wee bit embarrassed to say I've not been yet (I know, shame on me, I'll go sit on the blog equivalent of the 'naughty step').
Over two days in January Icebreaker turns existing venues, situated along the thoroughfares of Elm Grove and Albert Road, into stages offering the freshest in new and unsigned music. It's a model used to great effect by both The Great Escape and the fondly remembered Southsea Fest and, since its inception, Icebreaker successfully applied it to become the South's largest unsigned metropolitan music festival.
In preparation for their next shindig the folks at Icebreaker Towers have been seeding their social media feeds with stage line-ups for next year's festival. The list is, obviously, reassuringly long so, in no particular order here are the acts playing Icebreaker 2019 [deep breath]...
Dutch Criminal Record, Radlouse, Tirana, Syrette, Total State Machine, Arid Wave, Tides, Fake Empire, Ciircus Street, Hallan, Thieves By The Code, Octopus, Sad Palace, Luna Blue, Foxer, The Wild Claims, Alexis Kings, Captain Trips, Wild Front, You're Smiling Now But We'll All Turn Into Demons, Number 9, HAEMA, Violet Mud, Alice Milburn Band, Heir of the Dog, Fugitive Orchestra, The Machete, Slick Minded Individuals, Crybaby Special, Prey Drive, The Collision, Brother Deep, The Purple Smoke, Hang Dai, Something Leather, Joe Burger, The Sweetchunks Band, Frankie Knight, Victus, Anthropophagite, The Dead Reds, Alexander McKay, Seething Akira, Me & The Moon, Hooli, Southerlies, Madeline, Bella Estelle, Horseflies, Heebie Jeebies, Toreador, The Day Of The Rabblement, Bearfist, The Diamond Age, Romances, Winchester, Broken Links, Deuxes, Sam Wilde, Pleasure Complex, Tokyo Taboo, Hometown Show, Yeehaa Granma, Georgia Fearn, Katy Hurt, Mischa & His Merry Men, Ellis Hudson, Matt English, Ryan McMurtry, Mystic Hipniks Picnic, Tom Pointer, Freja Frances, Sal Paradise, Djuno, The Bayonettes, Brutum Fulmen, Pure Assassins, JEPH, Sweetmates, The Hideaways, Light Brigade, 12 Hour Avenue, Our Propaganda, Hanowar, (Not) Queens of the Stone Age, Stray Bullets, Cybernetic Witch Cult, Harbinger, Ravenbreed, King Abyss, Bleed Again, Bad Llama, Escape December, Costellos, Calum Lintott, Girls With No Faces, Cora Pearl, Currls, Sweet Facility, Gloo, Curbwire, Igloo, These Septic Stars, Aren Drift, Marmalade Moonshine, Bird Shoes, Lobster Pot, Submariner, Minque, Persona, The Vitrines, Finding Kate, Percival Elliott, El Morgan & The Divers, Principal Partners, Make Them All Smile, Mystic Peach, Dad Hair, Burning House, Drusila, Manreads, SKiNNY MiLK, Scrubs, Lucid Rising, The Burning Trestle, Jackarack (DJ), CLT DRP, Birthday Card, Cassinii, Bel Esprit, Counterpoint, FLOWVERS, Sarpa Salpa, Lily Garland, Brother Zulu, The Ruffs, Skull Above The Cannon, Eyre Llew, Capital Fuzz, The FreeDub Press and Shoot The Duke
...all of whom will be playing stages, some of which are curated by the likes of BBC Introducing Solent, Taro Records, Mayfield Studios and Express FM's The Shout, across a variety of venues (some of which are 14+ friendly for the younger music lover).
Icebreaker 2019 takes place on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th January 2019, with both day and weekend tickets available online via Seetickets or, if you prefer a proper physical ticket, from The Wedgewood Rooms box office. And after all that I think that I really must get myself a ticket...
Update: The full line-up poster has been released.
This Saturday, 10th November, Southsea's Wine Vaults hosts Old Guard 18/19, a musical fundraiser for charity No More Durty Water. Fifty DJs will descend on the venerable Albert Road pub, spinning thirteen hours of music across three sounds systems, raising money to aid the charity's efforts to end water poverty.
Since its inception in 2010 No More Durty Water has, through parties, gigs and raffles, fully funded the building of 10 protected springs in southern Uganda. The charity was founded by local DJ Monkey P who, inspired by the fundraising activities of music students at South Downs College, realised that he could involve Southsea's musical and artistic community to raise both money and awareness. Sadly Monkey P died in 2015, the work of the charity he created continues however.
In addition to the DJs spinning out tunes there will be a raffle, with over thirty prizes supplied by local businesses, a record fair and a sale of Monkey P's record collection (some of which was sold at The Wedgewood Rooms back in May). The poster, below, riffs on the classic Mexico '86 World Cup logo (which reminded me that, back when I was a small boy, I had a model of Pique that I assembled out of a Kinder Egg).
The music starts this Saturday, from midday.
It seems to me that the relatively simple task of picking a small selection of bands to see at Southsea Fest becomes more difficult every year. That said perhaps I'm deluding myself that it was ever simple (every year I try, and usually fail, to be in several places at once to take in all of the delights on offer) and this year's line-up is, in my opinion, stronger than ever. Eventually, after much poring over the Clashfinder, scratching of head and imbibing of caffeine, I came up with these suggestions for acts that you should maybe see this year...
Honeyblood - The Wine Vaults 'Pie & Vinyl' stage [2100-2130]
Last year, at the inaugural Gland Rock, I found myself the lucky recipient of a bag of Fat Cat vinyl in the raffle. This stuffed Santa's bag of aural delights somehow made it home safely, despite my tired and emotional state (it had been a long day) and the next morning, whilst my hangover slowly abated, I rifled through my red felt sack. Tucked away inside I found a lone 7" single, Bug by Honeyblood, on soothing mellow pink vinyl. None of this is any explanation why you should see Honeyblood at Southsea Fest but, if you need one, know that they can make cakes explode with their minds.
Battery Hens - Southsea Social Club 'Champagne Justice' stage [1355-1725]
At Southsea Fest 2012 I found myself in the cramped confines that is the tiny room above Bar 56, watching a dedicated if not sizable mosh pit wreck themselves to Battery Hens. To this day I still have no idea how I made it out of there without being drenched in lager. If you like noise, and don't mind flying lager, then these are for you.
Wyldest - Bar 56 'Strong Island Recordings' stage [1520-1600] & Magick Bean Café 'The Boy I Used To Be' curated stage [1820-1900]
The duo of Wyldest (or Wildest Dreams as was) have had an eventful year so far. They've won a slot at Green Man, been tipped for great things by various music blogs and, to top it off, have had to change their name. All that and they still had time to produce a fantastic cover of Kate Bush's Cloudbusting.
Mazes - The Wine Vaults 'Pie & Vinyl' stage [2200-2300]
Manchester's Mazes arrive at Southsea Fest with a new album, Wooden Aquarium, under their belts. No, I haven't got it yet so I can't witter on about how good it most likely is; you'll have to toddle along to the Vaults and find out for yourselves instead.
Prides - Little Johnny Russell's 'Psychedelia/Quay West' stage [2130-2200]
Scottish trio Prides recently supported Foxes on tour and played the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. If you don't get your synthpop fix fully sated by Curxes earlier in the day, and are jonesing for some 80s style keyboards and drums as Southsea Fest works its way into the night, then this lot should sort you out.
Gossling - Kings Theatre 'Southsea Fest' stage [1900-1930]
Australian Helen Croome produces beautiful folk-pop tunes, made slightly off kilter by her distinctive vocals. Quite lovely.
Fear of Men - Southsea Social Club 'Champagne Justice' stage [2200-2245]
Floaty but dark indie pop from Brighton, you can already feel yourself swaying along...
A selection of different acts then, different styles of music, some local and some from further afield. If none of these tickle your fancy, and if you have seven (!) hours to spare, I heartily recommend sampling the official Spotify playlist. If anything it made my cogitations more difficult (such that my plan for five acts to see went right out of the window) but there are gems on there waiting to be heard (including Brontide who, sadly, have had to pull out of Saturday's shenanigans).
Southsea Fest 2014 also sees a couple of local bands bowing out in style, both Attack! Vipers! and The B of The Bang have announced that theyll be playing their last gigs this weekend. Typically, in yet another turn of the festival screw, the Bang's set clashes with that of Curxes so, if you happen to spot a goatee'd oaf bundling across the road from the Kings Theatre to the Wedgewood Rooms (or vice versa) around 1520 on Saturday afternoon, chances are it'll be me.
Now, where did I put that Clashfinder...
