A while after The Gilamonsters played Catch in London in 2006, it became clear that we'd run out of road. We'd been living in different towns for a few years already, and now we'd stopped bothering to book practices. No animosity - we're all still buddies and would even get back together to play a set for my 40th, which will be getting a mention in due course. Everyone else was doing other, very different bands - Jimmy was blowing minds in Teeth Of The Sea, Chris was pushing the boundaries of doom in Moss and Steeny was playing some lovely country/folk-inspired stuff in Polly & The Billets Doux, alongside original Gilas drummer Ben. Lacking the same drive to create as the others, I kind of figured I was done with bands. And then, sometime early in 2008, I got a MySpace message from one of the guitarists out of Hey Colossus. Little did I know that this would be the start of a more productive band than any in which I'd previously been involved.
I'm still not entirely clear how James found me - I guess we had mutual friends, and my old, now long-defunct MySpace page had a typically long list of bands I was into which included some of James's favourites, like Bluetip and Spirit Caravan. Presumably, somewhere on there it must have mentioned that I played bass. James was still in HC at this point - I first met him in the flesh when they played at The Freebutt, almost certainly with Trencher - but had started another band called Tyre with at least one bloke out of Cove. Damn, there were a lot of band names in that sentence. About to move from Tonbridge to Worthing, he was looking to continue Tyre with a new, Sussex-based line-up, which is where I came in. As did, er, a drummer living in Oxford.
James had met Charlie when the latter's cheekily-named band Mothertrucker played in Europe with Hey Colossus. Charlie was living and working in Oxfordshire (I've got it in my head he had a job at a power plant, which I can only imagine was similar to Homer Simpson's) and was already commuting back to his West Midlands homeland for Mothertrucker practices once a week. Why not ask him to do the same, but in the other direction, to play drums for the now-renamed Gorse? That's sustainable, right?
Incidentally, Gorse was chosen as a name, I think, because it didn't have any particular connotations. Perhaps there's something vaguely stoner rock about naming your band after a shrub, but it certainly didn't immediately pigeonhole us as a band. There was no conscious link to Sussex-born author Patrick Hamilton's partly Brighton-set Gorse novels either, though he is a favourite of mine. And, as far as I'm aware, we were unwittingly the third band to use this monicker: a Scottish band of that name had existed in the late 90s, supporting Goober Patrol at an STE gig at Southampton Joiners, while V/VM's label had released an album by some identically-named Cornish oddballs in 2002, including deathless classic I Like A Pasty, Do You?*
Looking back, things got going pretty quickly considering the obvious geographical hindrances. James already had some songs written, like Tarantella and King Of Tyre, and by the summer we had enough material to record an album and play some shows. James had mentioned the likes of Harvey Milk, YOB and whichever band Wino was doing at the time as touchstones for our sound; what ended up coming out was a mixture of doom, sludge, psychedelia and AmRep-style noise rock. The album was called Slumber Of Artemis (named after the cover, which featured a shot from Cornwall's Lost Gardens of Heligan), and was in fact comprised of rehearsal room recordings, somehow mastered into something resembling coherence by Jon out of Part Chimp and released on underground UK label Calculon. Despite a swathe of good reviews from hip metal websites (and, in the printed world, Kerrang!), at the time of writing there are still very cheap copies available to buy here: https://calculonrecords.bandcamp.com/album/slumber-of-artemis
I'm listening to it right now for the first time in ages and am honestly chuffed by how well it still stands up - definitely a little more stonery than later work but with a decent amount of scuzz and oddness.
Anyway, before that came out, we unleashed our sound ("like a shit-stained, oily rag," according to Podge from Calculon - meant as a compliment, natch) to the general public, initially testing our wares out on Hampshire audiences. Our live debut was at the Nell Gwynne in Portsmouth on an August Sunday. My chums in the Demons came down, as this was one of their locals, and my old Soton buddies Wayne and Kev were also in attendance, meaning we had a few people onside already. The pub laid on some food for the bands, which the Demons (as regulars) tucked into; despite us actually being on the bill, I seem to recall the owners eyeing us suspiciously when we went to help ourselves; perhaps they could tell I used to live in the hated Home of Ocean Sailing down the road. We played first and seemed to go down pretty well, especially considering the other two bands were of a more scene-friendly hardcore stripe, with fashionable haircuts and everything. These were locals Lucky One Dies First and, from Southampton, Our Time Down Here, two of whom would go on to something approaching proper stardom a few years down the line in goth punkers Creeper.
Speaking of Southampton, we headed down there on the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August. Anna and I made up an advance party by arriving the night before to return to the Dorchester with Sarah, Tom, Paul and Carrie, some of whom we crashed over with. It was brilliant to be back at The Hobbit for the gig, and to be playing for the STE again (or, technically, Almost The STE, as this was one of the occasional all-dayers Rich continued to put on after the retirement of the "official" STE). I would have bet that we were on first, but looking at the line-up I don't recall seeing the first few bands, so maybe we were put on midway up the bill owing to travel considerations? I remember playing a punk show years earlier at The Hobbit with The Gilamonsters (as a trio, without an unavailable Steeny) and feeling like absolute cock rock idiots in comparison to thrashcore champs Parade Of Enemies, but the slightly noisier edge of Gorse ("fucking ugly sounding," according to Podge from Calculon - meant as a compliment, natch) meant we were less out of place and, once again, I felt we did a decent job despite my playing one song in entirely the wrong tuning. Jamie Festo was complimentary afterwards, and as he wasn't the sort of bloke to sugarcoat his opinions, I was well chuffed. We certainly had a fair few friends in attendance (as well as some of the aforementioned chums from the night before, (the other) Kev, Emma and Les all made it down), which was lovely, and we got to see a bunch of other decent bands (though my attentions were divided between the music on offer and catching up with old friends). Screwed Up Flyer were the 2008 incarnation of the longterm musical alliance of Tony Suspect and Mike Fox, playing zero-bullshit hardcore as always. I remember them playing a song with the timeless hook "DIY! Or Die, or die, or die!" and a friend turning to me and complaining, "They're so dogmatic, aren't they?" Southampton thrash attackers Whole In The Head (featuring, amongst others, the aforementioned Festo) did their always-energising thrash attack, while Bristol's Tractor were somewhat kindred spirits of ours with a slow'n'low alt-sludge attack; fittingly, we'd play with Kunal from Tractor's other band Art Of Burning Water years later. Threat Manifesto were a more melodic band from Wales - the flyer (which we weren't on, presumably as a late addition) compares them to Husker Du and Assfactor 4, which sounds about right. Bringing things to an end were, er, Beginning Of The End, whose thunderous crustpunk was simultaneously right up my street and a rather punishing conclusion to festivities.
Either before or after these Soton shenanigans - I can't find the date - was our first Brighton show, supporting Headquarters and Dethscalator at the Freebutt. This was certainly a Tatty Seaside Town show, though I've been unable to uncover much info about it and rather fear that we didn't bring enough people down for promoter Colin's liking as he would never book us again; Headquarters were good though, and now that I think about it I reckon they had also been on the bill when I'd first met James at that Trencher/Hey Colossus show. And Dethscalator were probably the closest the UK had at that point to The Jesus Lizard, no mean feat itself - despite its unfathomable title, I'd recommend their 2013 release Racial Golf Course No Bitches.
The next hometown show was as support to Enablers at the Prince Albert in early September, making it four gigs in as many weeks - a schedule we certainly wouldn't end up continuing. I'd seen this San Franciscan band a while back at the Engine Room, but the Albert proved a much better place to lose oneself in their Slint-esque sound. Also on the bill, which was put together by Buz of Punker Bunker fame, were Monsters Build Mean Robots, a post-rock outfit with origins in Chichester. They'd first come to my attention when then-member Alice contacted me about reviewing them, having been sent my way by her brother, Ghost Of A Thousand frontman Tom. I'd subsequently work with Alice for a bit - and she was also chums with my friends Lisa and Hayley - but, as it turned out she'd actually left MBMR shortly before this show. My friend and workmate Ryan turned up to the venue and met us sat outside. I told him Alice wasn't gonna be playing anymore and he wandered off. Cheers mate! (In fairness, he would see us on many later occasions).
In terms of our performance, this Enablers show was the best of the four we'd played so far - but it was the last for a little while, as James's daughter appeared on the scene and the new dad understandably had other priorities. In the meantime, Slumber Of Artemis was released, and as well as the various reviews mentioned earlier, we scored a short piece in Terrorizer thanks to Jimmy (and even did a little photo session in James's garden!). In the interview, James coined the term "rainy psychedelia" to describe our sound, and I mentioned an ambition to have a real ale named after us, having sampled one called Angel Witch at a beer festival. This never happened, although funnily enough our interviewer is now a member of yer actual Angel Witch.
As far as I can tell, our next outing was in April 2009, when we got to play London for the first time at the Doom To The Tomb all-dayer at legendary Stockwell boozer The Grosvenor. I think our inclusion on this bill shows that we'd been somewhat accepted by the underground doom scene - our name would crop up every now and then when other bands were asked about their new recommendations and so forth, which was lovely. Emmanuelle, who'd been a friend of Anna since uni, and my old school friend Ben both came down for the gig, and I have to admit I spent more time chatting to these guys in the beer garden than watching other bands, though I do remember enjoying Trippy Wicked and Flatlands. Everyone else gradually left throughout the evening, but I stuck around to see Pombagira - however, despite being a big fan of mainman Pete's old band Scalplock, I found this new duo a little underwhelming, or at least unsuitable listening after a heavy bout of day drinking, and ended up staggering back to the tube before they were done.
Ten days later, and thanks again to Buz we played what was a fantastically varied bill, topped off by the biggest band we'd ever support. Local (and very good) thrash metal revivalists Crypsis opened this Engine Room show before we did our thing. Playing after us was excellent American troubadour William Elliott Whitmore, whose acoustic country/blues sound was a marked change from what had preceded it. And headlining were Baroness, at this point with one full-length to their name and absolutely brilliant, though still perhaps a few years off being one of the most critically-acclaimed metal bands of their day.
Sometime around this point, we played a show at The Hare & Hounds/Hydrant. Not only can I not remember which name the Preston Circus boozer was going by at this point, but I'm not sure who else was on the bill - I feel like we played it with local doom buddies Funeral Hag, and also with my friend Tim from Kill Kenada's then-new band (one of many called Clowns?), but surely that would have been two different shows?
Through 2009, we were working on, and recording, a bunch of new songs which would end up as our second album, Bovine Soul. The first of these, and the one which we would get to play live the most, was The Sweet Smell Of Decay, an attempt to incorporate some Godflesh-style industrial influences into our sound. Here's us doing it, I think at the Hare & Hounds show I just mentioned.
Unfortunately, but understandably, Charlie broke the news that he'd be leaving the band, the commute from Didcot for practice finally breaking him. His swan song found us opening another great bill at the Engine Room, with American bands Earthless and Pontiak. My abiding memory of our set is my bass going badly out of tune during closer King Of Tyre... oh well, at least the other bands were decent! Charlie has gone on to be inredibly prolific with various projects since then, both in bands and solo; here's a link to some of the latter: https://charliebutler1.bandcamp.com/
Anyone who's been in this position will know that a new drummer tends to be the hardest position to fill in your band. It's also crucial to find the right one, as a sticksperson who doesn't get where you're coming from can leave your songs sounding all wrong. The guy we auditioned who had apparently played live as a session drummer for the Happy Mondays clearly didn't understand our music, for example.
Chancing my arm somewhat, I asked Ash, who'd played drums for Charlottefield and various others and was certainly one of the best drummers in town. He politely declined but mentioned that his partner Bryony, who'd recently taken up the drums, might be interested; unfortunately, when she heard our tunes she thought they might be a bit too much for her (though this might also have been a polite excuse!).
We were still getting gig offers, though, so James and I decided, for the moment, to carry on with a drum machine, entering what underground rock cognoscenti refer to as our Pet Shop Boys period. Playing to pre-programmed drums didn't suit all of our material, but given the afore-mentioned industrial influences that were creeping in, we figured it was a way to carry on the band while we continued to search for an actual live drummer.
In The Gilamonsters, I'd been used to Jimmy and Steeny throwing ridiculous rock shapes at the drop of a hat. In Gorse, James and Charlie were tied to a mic stand and drumkit respectively, so I'd tried to make myself move as much as possible onstage, just to make our live show a tad more visual. Playing as a two-piece just made me want to do this more, as well as hollering (without mic) some lines during King Of Tyre, and occasionally dropping some passable banter between songs.
We only played a couple of shows as a duo. One was at The Hobgoblin, alongside fellow Brightonians Jovian, a great doom quartet who'd sort-of grown out of the now-defunct End The Agony, and Londoners Toad (In The Tree) and At A Crawl; the other was another relatively high-profile support slot at The Engine Room, opening up for the mighty Oxbow. Really leaning in to that industrial vibe, I think this might have been the show where James got a projector to show scenes from Japanese body horror classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man against us as we played. (This might also have been a good tactic for distracting the audience from the lack of people onstage).
As it turned out, Ash from Charlottefield ended coming up trumps after all. He pointed us in the direction of Jennie, who'd been playing for From Beneath It Devours, and was up for joining Gorse. Where Charlie had been a straightforward powerhouse on the drums, Jennie had a subtler feel, somewhat informed by jazz and psychedelia, and the music we would go on to make with her would take on a more progressive bent. It was certainly an advantage having all three members based in Sussex, and Jennie's serious-minded attitude to proceedings gave myself and James a kick up the arse.
Jennie joined early in 2010, and we played our first show in March - although I've been unable to figure out where or who with. We did, however, return to The Hobgoblin, with help once again from Buz, to put on a show with local grungers Orchid Trip and Gerda Blank, from New Zealand of all places. The latter were a duo playing garage rock, and featured Stu, who'd played with James many years before in turn-of-the-millennium UK emo types Yeast. James and I would cross paths with Stu again, although not in Gorse.
Shortly after this, we headed back up to London to play the Loud Howls weekender at The Gaff on Holloway Road. It was fun to do another show in the capital, and I remember digging Astrohenge and Berserkovitz, who played before us. Fellow Brightonians Dopefight and Hampshire sluggers Witchsorrow were also top notch. Somebody outside the venue referred to our sound as "indie sludge", which probably wasn't intended as a compliment but kinda summed up the way we could fall between stools; put us on with indie or punk bands and we'd sound very metal indeed, but on an all-doom bill we'd often be the subtlest combo in the house.
In May, we played a punk rock show at The Cowley with excellent Finnish band Unkind, who were stylistically somewhere between Neurosis and Tragedy, and at some point were signed to top metal label Relapse; I can't find the flyer so can't be sure who else played, though it might have been Dutch hardcore types Gascoigne. Less than a week later, we were back at it at The Albert on something of a local doom showcase with Dopefight and Funeral Hag; this was probably the point at which we felt most part of a scene, and Brighton felt like fertile ground for doom bands at this point in its often metal-resistant history.
Coming out after Charlie had left, Bovine Soul ended up being the least-promoted release in our history; I can't find it online to link here, and aside from The Sweet Smell Of Decay few of its tunes hung around in our set for long. In June, not long after my wedding and honeymoon, I Made This, the label who'd put it out, arranged a very belated launch gig for the album. It was a bit of a rum do, as we now had a new line-up and were writing fresh material quite different to that record. We tried to get some bigger bands to play; at one point, Hey Colossus were attached but ended up pulling out, ditto local doom/noise types Sloath, and in the end it was just us and a solo support slot from Oli Irongiant, then of Jovian and later of a slew of siginificant bands like Sea Bastard, Dead Witches and Grave Lines, playing to a relatively sparse crowd upstairs at The Hydrant. I do remember my friend Violet telling me it was cool to see me playing bass wearing my wedding ring.
Around a month later, we were back at The Cowley, playing what might have been the first gig from local d-beat supergroup Blod Drunk, alongside thrashing German punk headliners Family Man. For me, at least, it feels like these DIY punk shows were somewhat the natural habitat of our band. Certainly moreso than in August, when we opened up for local tech-metal types Lithurgy (clearly, not to be confused with NYC art-metal types Liturgy). The show was at the Latest Music Bar, at this point more commonly used for folksy acoustic entertainment. While we played, the landlady came down from the ground-floor bar, stormed onstage and turned my amp all the way down because the bass was apparently too loud. We tried to negotiate, but she maintained that the whole gig would be pulled if I turned it back up. Aware that there were three other bands still to play, the rest of the set was played with totally inaudible bass, while I took my anger out on throwing myself and my bass around the place - it didn't really matter if I was hitting any of the right notes, after all... Dopefight and Arteriosus managed to play without any further interruption, but one or both went so far over their set times that Lithurgy ended up with about ten minutes to play. I couldn't help feeling sorry for them, as this was their warm-up show for an appearance at cult metal festival Bloodstock.
We played the Cowley again in October, when my friend Ben, who would go on to put out our next album, asked us to play a show alongside the bands Stick In A Pot and The Causeway Occupation. I think this might have been the time we had to put the PA together ourselves. More psychedelic experiences were to be had a week later, when we opened for The Notorious Hi-Fi Killers and Black Bombain at The Hope & Ruin. And then, in November, we headed to Hastings for the first and only time to play a show with the Chicago band Cave. In another example of the kind of mishaps we seemed to invite at this point, we had to halt our set temporarily as James had parked his car in front of the pub's chef, and the latter had finished his shift and needed to get out...
So, that was 2010, and frankly I'm worn out just contemplating the number of gigs we played that year. We spent much of 2011 working on what would become Old Certainties - our third record, though the first one James considers an album as opposed to an EP. There were a couple of shows in the early part of the year, at The Green Door Store and The Hope & Ruin, the latter again put on by Ben. We made it back to London in June to play in Deptford at the invitation of Bloody Kev out of... well, out of bloody loads of bands. It was a decent bill, with Glaswegian hardcore band Clocked Out and Swedish sludgers Pyramido; our friend Blue came up with us and Jimmy showed up too, so it was a fun summer evening in SE8. And in September we were back at The Cowley, playing with Anacondas, a great power trio featuring the Hunter brothers out of Johnny Truant, who we'd become mates with when practicing in adjacent rooms at Brighton Electric.
https://gorse2.bandcamp.com/album/old-certainties
Old Certainties finally came out in October, and while the finished CDs didn't arrive in time for the album launch show that Ben put on for us at The Hope & Ruin, the show itself was one of the best that we played. We were proud of Old Certainties as a piece of work, and it felt like a real DIY effort with help from our friends in terms of putting it out, taking the back cover photo, giving us a place to record (the studio which Jennie's housemate Matt had built in their basement, and which became our base for the rest of the band's existence), etc. I think this was probably the strongest set of tunes we released, too; storming opener Stallions At The Cross, heads-down groover Ramifications and doom epic The Custom Of The Sea were particular highlights, and as a whole I think we managed to retain the noise and weirdness of our earlier incarnation while incorporating a more prog approach and even - if I may be so bold - the occasional moment of subtlety. Pleasingly, we'd end up getting a bunch of decent reviews again, including another KKKK from Kerrang!. At the launch show, we decided to play the album in full, with phone footage of the view from the window of a train journey from London to Brighton projected behind us. There was a decent turnout, and it felt like we'd really achieved something. Metal Ben said he could tell when we were getting near the end of the set/album as he recognised Preston Park Station appear on the screen!
A couple of weeks later, we got to play one of the Metal nights that Oli Irongiant was putting on at The Green Door Store every Monday. It might not surprise you to learn that these were called Metal Mondays. Oli really was a hugely important component of the Brighton metal scene at this point, putting on shows, supporting local bands and being an all-round good egg. I think the line-up for this one was us, ace noise rockers Broker and Bear, along with Oli and Pat spinning classick metal wax, and I also remember giving a shout out to Oli's then-new band Sea Bastard, who were playing the following week.
Oli would put on our next gig too, in February 2012 with Eagleburner and Crypsis at the Albert. Once again, though, this year ended up being more about working on new material rather than playing shows. We did what must have been another Metal Monday at the Green Door Store with Stone Circle in June, returned to The Hope with Broker in September, and played Worthing in November alongside Kraken Mare and a band called Sea Weed (clearly, not to be confused with US post-hardcore types Seaweed). I had it in my head this was at the Vintner's Parrot, but maybe we'd played there with Kraken Mare at some point before? The flyer says it was at Bar42, and if so it would have been our first time in the excellent seaside venue, which at the time of writing has sadly just closed its doors for the last time.
We kicked off 2013 by playing with Art Of Burning Water and DKH at the Albert halfway through January. DKH were good lads from Worthing playing hardcore-inflected sludge, while AOBW were scene stalwarts at this point, having been active since the start of the century; we'd already played with Kunal, also the impressario behind the ace Super-Fi label, when he played Southampton with his other band Tractor.
Looking at our woeful lack of gigs through the rest of 2013, this retrospectively feels like the start of the slow fade-out of the band, though we did release what would be our final full-length, Twisting Nature, in May. I know I'm biased, but it was another great album, albeit with a more sombre tone and the prog and post-metal elements dialled up even further. Also, Jennie (whose talents were considerably varied) was responsible for some lovely handmade CD sleeves. No album release show this time, just a low-key show at The Druids just down the road from my flat, with (I think) MIGHT and Grasshopper. We also made it all the way to the rock'n'roll mecca of Redhill in September to play a metal show in a small room off a large but fairly empty pool hall. It was an odd evening, but our friends Guy, Ben and (I think) Adam made it over to see us. Annoyingly, having spent all year trying and failing to get support slots with bigger bands, we managed to secure a show with with American psych-doomsters Jex Thoth in November, only to have to cancel due to James having an op, and our discovery that part of the wall and ceiling in our flat was falling down.
https://gorse2.bandcamp.com/album/twisting-nature
King Goat were the other local support (who did actually play the show), and we played with them and Anacondas in February 2014 at Sticky Mike's. The rest of 2014 was mainly about playing the Green Door Store. First there was an opening spot there in July for my friend Tommy's band The Rocket Dolls. This lot did a pretty accurate recreation of that point in the 90s when the hair metal bands, sensing imminent extinction, started adding a little grunge and classic rock to their sound. Also on the bill were Graces Collide and Core of iO, playing melodic hard rock and metal-ish prog respectively; I guess we were kind of the odd ones out, but I think we still went down OK. Then in October, we played at a great all-dayer in aid of ace marine conservation group Sea Shepherd. This was part of an ambitious event dubbed Warrior Weekend and put together by Magnum Opus Tattoo shop. Following a comedy night (yeah, well done, no, we didn't play that one) and a funk/soul event, the Sunday featured a great bunch of bands, punctuated by a talk about the work done by Sea Shepherd courtesy of local boy and Architects frontman Sam Carter. I think I only got there in time for that, meaning I missed sets by Dooman Empire (one of Jennie's other bands, with the similarly-busy Oli and his bestie Phil Kyle, also founder of Magnum Opus) and ex-Placebo type Steve Forrest, amongst others. The rest of the line-up was all gold, though: Crypsis, Milton keynes crust metal types Crossburner, Anacondas and Oli's then-most recent band War Wolf all played (and slayed). We didn't do too badly ourselves, and some fantastic photos were taken by Kan Lailey, including one which, nearly nine years on, remains my Facebook profile picture.
As mentioned way back in the first paragraph, I had one of those round number birthdays in November, and had long harboured a desire to get the old band back together to mark the occasion - the old band in this instance being The Gilamonsters. After getting Jimmy, Steeny and Chris on board, I booked The Green Door Store and we had practices in London and Winchester. I thought it would be cool for my newer friends to see my old band - and for my older friends to see my new one, so I decided to pull a double shift and have Gorse open the show. Inbetween were old muckers You're Smiling Now... But We'll All Turn Into Demons, who as well as being great mates who'd played at the last Gilas gig were a band I considered to be one of the best in the country, an opinion I've seen no reason to revise since.
I was totally chuffed with the turnout and had a splendid night. Not entirely unpredictably, it was hard to socialise fully with everyone as I had two sets to play (and I wanted to watch the Demons), so I still feel the need to apologise to anyone who felt slighted by my lack of attention - and to thank everyone who bought me shots. And Tom, who helpfully pointed out when, perhaps as a result of these shots, I hadn't noticed that my guitar lead had been pulled out. It was great to revisit the Gilas' best material, plus our cover of Prowler by Iron Maiden, for the first time in eight years. Terrifyingly, it's now been another eight years since that night. As it stands, that remains the final Gilamonsters performance, and there wouldn't be many more from Gorse, either...
That said, the very next month we did get to play at Drill, a multi-venue festival spread across brighton for four days in December and curated by seminal post-punkers Wire. Technically, therefore, we were on the same bill as the likes of Swans, Savages and These New Puritans... although we were first on at one of the smallest venues on the Thursday, and our inclusion was a result of my friend Mel (one of those who'd bought me a shot at my birthday gig, incidentally) working for promoters One Inch Badge rather than at the personal behest of Wire. As we were into the late night opening time of year at work, I played this set on an extended "lunch" break, which was certainly a novelty. Theoretically, we had passes to go to the rest of the fest, but (again) due to work, all me and James made it to was Swans; we did then try and get to see The Wedding Present, but underestimated how long it would take to walk from The Old Market to The Haunt and only caught the last five minutes. In the second such coincidence in this chapter, my friend Mel is now a member of The Wedding Present.
We continued to work on and record new songs as 2014 turned into 2015, and our next live engagement wasn't until April, when we played for the first and only time in Chichester at a weird bar called La Havana, which appeared to be essentially a tunnel. It being Chichester on a Sunday, the turnout wasn't great, and the resulting acoustics made everything super-loud and horrible - although maybe that was just us and our new friends Burning House, a noisy shoegaze band from Hampshire. The bar owner had an argument with the promoter (James's brother), who then scarpered before the end. Not, it would be fair to say, our best gig - although it was cool to meet the Burning House lads, one of whom knew Steeny from Winchester, and who we'd be seeing again before too long.
The last Gorse music was unleashed to the world in August, in the shape of our Vulcanised EP. It was perhaps a sign that, where before we could be quite prolific, this time we'd only concocted four new tunes in a couple of years (though the total running time wasn't far short of half an hour). My favourite of the four was probably lengthy closer Tower Of Angels, wchih in a way reminded me of King Of Tyre from way back on Slumber Of Artemis. We played our next show the following month, at The Hope & Ruin on a night put on by a couple of dudes who wanted to promote rock bands with female members. Despite mixed feelings about the tokenistic element of this endeavour, we decided to go for it and ended up playing with Vodun, a London band playing what could loosely be described as Afrodoom. Their drummer, Zel, had been in blazing punk band Pettybone, who'd been favourites of mine for a while, and singer Chantal had been a member of outsider groups like Chrome Hoof and Do Me Bad Things. She had a great voice - Lisa Kekaula and Skin came to mind as comparisons - but despite the band clearly being talented, and even doing something slightly different to the norm, I couldn't quite get into them. The evening ended on a sour note when the promoters claimed not to have money to pay us even a taxi fare, when they had clearly had enough money to get shitfaced through the evening. Promoting rock bands with female members, just not getting them and their drumkit home afterwards.
By this point, with gig offers drying up and inspiration dwindling, we fell out of the habit of rehearsing and the writing appeared to be on the wall. Jennie was, as ever, doing plenty of other music, and James and his partner Marianne had started a metalgaze band with our friend Bill called Black Shoals.
https://blackshoals.bandcamp.com/
We did resume activity to play a show in June 2016 at Bar52 in Worthing with Pasacagoula and Burning House, and it was a good time. Pascagoula featured ex-members of a bunch of great bands including Trencher, Charlottefield, The Plague Sermon, etc and played brilliant, lurching noise rock. They're still going now, as are Burning House; James and I would cross paths with the latter's drummer Ash again, although not in Gorse.
So it turned out that would be the last time we played a show. We never had a conversation about splitting up, we just - and this may sound familiar - stopped bothering to book practices. By this point, Anna and I lived a street away from James and Marianne, so we'd still see each other (and feed each others' cats when the others went on holiday). Jennie I'd see less of, but occasionally we'd bump into each other at shows. Her band CV has continued to grow, with current outlets Sobek (also featuring Stu from Anacondas) and Gaffa Bandana both highly recommended.
https://www.facebook.com/So3ek
https://humanworth.bandcamp.com/album/fraught-in-waves
https://dormansland.bandcamp.com/album/dormansland
Black Shoals ended up ceasing activities, but James did a solo release under the name Dormansland - which would ultimately morph into our next band together. Guess you'll be reading about that in another eight years or so...
I'm very proud of what we achieved with Gorse: five releases of varying lengths, all featuring music that I loved and enjoyed having played a part in. Loads of gigs, playing with a bunch of great bands, whether that was internationally renowned types like Baroness, Oxbow and Enablers or pretty much every decent local metal band of the era. And we did it all ourselves, or with help from friends and the DIY scene. It's a shame we never did an actual tour, as I would have liked to have gone further afield, or even gone back to some of the places we only played once. But for eight years, I was in a band that probably came closest to achieving what I wanted from the whole shebang, and if our victories were small, I'd like to think that our creative successes were considerable.
* I Like A Pasty, Do You? by (another) Gorse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0A5zbUlk9I
Thanks to all the bands we played with, and everyone who put us on or put out one of our albums, lent us gear, came to our shows, took photos of us, bought a CD, did the door at one of our gigs, wrote a review, said nice things about us or played us on a radio show. Special thanks to Ben Wait, who probably did at least half of these things.
