Witching It Up at the Carlisle
A Hastings all-women promotions company is launching a new live music night to bring more oestrogen-fuelled rock and metal bands to the town. The Coven Club at The Carlisle Rock Bar on Hastings seafront will open its doors in April.
The Coven Club is the unruly love child of vocalist Amanda ‘Mandie B’ Brooks-Byron and bassist Steph Bennion of Hastings rock band Ditch the Demon. The idea came about after meeting other musicians touring the country’s rock clubs and getting to know other women striving to make their mark in the raucous world of rock and heavy metal.
Hastings has long been a fixture on the grassroots touring circuit. The Carlisle in particular has an enviable history of hosting rock acts from around the country and beyond. Having met no end of bands wanting to come down to the south coast and play, Mandie and Steph realised there was a gap in the local gig calendar for something a bit different.
Mandie says “The Coven Club will open another door for people to come and enjoy themselves and listen to unadulterated, female-captained, purely original, live rock ’n’ roll.”
Steph adds, “We’ve met lots of lovely people across the country when gigging, women who are writing and performing original material. Rock and heavy metal is often seen as very ‘male’, but musicianship isn’t ruled by gender.”
The band’s name is a nod to Liverpool’s Cavern Club, birthplace of the fledgling Beatles. But primarily it pays homage to Jinx Dawson and her seminal American band Coven, whose 1974 album Blood on the Snow inspired Mandie to form the band Ditch the Demon in 2019, and which has forged its own unique, contemporary goth/prog twist on 1970s-inspired rock.
All of today’s major rock music acts began life in small venues. A core element of The Coven Club is to make touring more financially viable for grassroots artists, while keeping prices low for supporting rock fans. Money raised through ticket sales will go directly to the bands, thereby supporting original music.
The Coven Club will run quarterly at The Carlisle Rock Bar, with at least one local act appearing on each bill. The debut event will feature: I, Doris, London feminist kitchen-punks with fun DIY attitude and heaps of humour, Vampyra, a ferocious horror punk-rock band from Kent, and Wave Machine, grunge/punk surf-rockers and rising stars of Hastings’ music scene.
Debut event: Friday 3 April.Tickets (only £5!) are on sale from The Carlisle, on Skiddle at skiddle.com/whats-on/Hastings/The-Carlisle/The-Coven-Club/42085972, or at the door on the night. The Coven Club will return on Friday 24 July with Artemisia Nathair, Planet Enid Collective, Deity & Devilry and Kindred Spirit. A Halloween’s Eve special will follow on Friday 30 October.
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