COCAINE P*SS + GARDEN CENTRE + TOP LEFT CLUB – THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON 12.4.22
The award for the most confrontational (but memorable) name in music emanating from Belgian certainly wouldn’t fall to Front 242, Telex, A Split-Second, Plastic Bertrand, Milk Inc, Praga Khan, T99 or Technotronic. I suspect that back in 2014 when vocalist Aurélie Poppins got together with guitarist Mathias Estelles Y Carion, bassist Farida Amadou and drummer Yannick Tones, they collectively agreed on arguably one of the most disgusting group names out there…..Cocaine P*ss.
The band are certainly no strangers to Brighton having annihilated a packed crowd at The Haunt (now CHALK) at The Great Escape Festival in May 2019 and then returned half a year later to our city in order to play the live at the Latest Music Bar on 15th November 2019. The Brighton & Hove News Music Team were in attendance that night and reported thus:
“They certainly are a hugely enjoyable punk outfit who are purveyors of spitting out minute-long bile coated slices of pure punk rock, which certainly whipped up several members of the audience into a chaotic messy mosh. Their high octane blend of punk and noise was gratefully received by all and sundry, even though we hadn’t got a clue as to what the words were. But in fairness we were often distracted by vocalist Aurélie Poppins slightly outrageous behaviour in flashing her knickers on several occasions and slapping her rear and heading off into the crowd and hugging one of them called Josh. This is a vocalist who makes use of every inch of the stage and clearly beyond. The nearest we have locally to Cocaine P*ss is Brighton’s own Pussyliquor, and in general I would suggest the similarity to Australia’s Amyl & The Sniffers, but they are each their own band”.
We went on to say that ……”They played 20 tunes in total with no encore and all 12 tracks from their latest 2019 ‘Passionate And Tragic’ album had an outing. It was an enjoyable set and if they came back to town again, I would certainly make a point of going”.
Clearly Covid had put a halt to the world of Cocaine P*ss as they did not release any new material after their ‘Passionate And Tragic’ album which dropped on 5th April 2019. Then a bolt out of the blue cane in the form of the brand new tune called ‘Bad Kid’ which was unloaded to an unsuspecting world on 11th March this year. Even more surprising was the fact that rather than being around a minute in length like their previous material, ‘Bad Kid’ was clocking in only four seconds shy of three whole minutes! What is going on? You can actually clearly make out the lyrics and it’s much slower! Oh OK it is slower until you hit 65 seconds and then it’s business as normal, that being a combination of sounding like Brighton’s Pussyliquor, the Dead Kennedys and The Exploited. But by one minute thirty-eight seconds it slows down again! But worry not speed merchants as normality is partially restored at two minutes twenty five seconds – Listen to the track HERE and if you like purchase Cocaine P*ss releases on their Bandcamp page HERE which will hopefully include the forthcoming ‘Pool Party’ on 22nd April.
Tonight, our friends from Liege were starting their 18-date European tour here in Brighton at The Hope & Ruin courtesy of local promoters Acid Box before travelling on to Southampton, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester and then heading back across the channel.
We sent along Cris Watkins to The Hope & Ruin in order to get down and sweaty and to snapshot the action. It’s his photos that you can see in this article.
Support on the night came from the newly expanded Garden Centre who are arguably one of the most out there acts you will ever witness, and also on the bill were the ‘new masters of punk’, the Top Left Club, who we encountered in Brighton at the WaterBear on 1st October last year – Read our review of that night HERE.
Garden Centre are on Bandcamp HERE.
Top Left Club are on Bandcamp HERE.
