This Sunday, King street was littered with people moving from venue to venue for Newtown’s urban music festival. Over 20 venues up and down the street were packed with people inside and lining up outside for their turn to get in; searching out fun, noise, and maybe even the Brown Note. With over 100 bands playing for free throughout the day, there was something for everyone, as long as you could make it into the venues.

Here’s a little excerpt of a few of the shows.

Party Dozen – The Newtown Hotel

This duo was made up of drums and a sax player hooked into various bits and pieces of electronica. They burst into wild tribal beats, laid over with an unpredictable and sometimes wailing saxophone.

Vocals were sporadic and shouted through the microphone attached to the saxophone belle, making for an intense and swirling cacophony of noise which somehow all made sense.

This Party Dozen mesmerized the audience with their dramatic and unpredictable swirly sounds, topped off by a stomping and bouncing sax player and explosive primal drums that came from a deep electronic world.

There was definitely Brown Notes hiding inside that sporadic sax and drums

Los Tones – Leadbelly

I managed to squeeze my way into Leadbelly to catch the last 2 songs from Los Tones; who had the packed house writhing, jumping and crowd surfing to their nonstop,  growly 60’s psych-garage sounds. The frenzy of thrashing bodies transformed the dance floor into a sauna full of sweaty sticky bodies.

Before I knew it, they were done, leaving the crowd yelling for more

Any brown notes….I’ll have to check, it was all over way too fast

Abbe May – Waywards

After queuing for what seemed like an age I finally made it into Waywards to catch most of Abbe May’s set. Tonight she is playing as a stripped down three piece, beefed up with some electronic toys. A consummate performer, she trills and bellows out a raft of favourites from previous albums and even a few sneak peaks from her new up and coming release.

Songs were full of sexual angst that had the crowd jumping and grinding away while her expertly driven guitar sent us all on the frenzied journey.

I don’t know about the Brown Note, but I’m sure that some of the crowd would have left a little more sticky than when they arrived.

Deep Sea Arcade – Waywards

This 5 piece hit the ground running, blasting the crowd into a brit pop experience. The driving swirling guitar enhanced by subtle keyboards were topped off by swaggering and lunging by their frontman in a Gallagheresque display of defiance.

They ebbed and flowed through their shoegaze world, broken up by a couple of slower numbers, bring along a willing crowd, singing along to songs. As they hit their peak for the night, they were prematurely cutoff, as the closing time bell rang and microphones were turned off.

No Brown Notes, but a few cranky ones at the end of the shortened set.