Together the People is almost upon us again, 3rd – 4th September in Brighton’s Preston Park. This year’s line-up sees Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds live, Suede, Gaz Coombes, Sage Francis and B. Dolan, M.Ward, Stevie Parker amongst others.
As the event is taking place in Brighton, and the local live scene is being represented at Together the People, we thought we’d ask one of the bands, Egyptian Blue to talk us through their collective influences. This quartet make a variation of post-punk that is sure to bring a good audience on the day!
- The Jones Girls-Nights Over Egypt
This sounds nothing like us in all fairness but I feel like whenever I hear it I want to take a trip to the studio to make some smooth funky stuff. I also sometimes wish this is where we got the Egyptian side of our name although sadly this shall never be.
- Frank Zappa-Muffin Man
I used to be play this a lot when I was young and since then it’s been one of my favourite songs. I feel like whenever we hear the beefy second part of the song, it makes us question the beef in our songs. It’s probably a good exercise in all fairness.
- Pink Floyd-See Emily Play
This probably reflects our ‘Psychedelic’ side. I remember hearing this on one of our friends radio shows and thinking it was so cool. This genre is something we will probably explore more into in the future.
- The Velvet Underground-There She Goes Again
This is probably Lou Reed’s best song in my opinion. We don’t try to sound like this but sometimes in rehearsals when we are jamming something out it can all go a bit Reedy.
- Canned Heat-On the Road Again
This is our band jam. We sometimes sing this when we are out and about. This is band envy at it’s best.
- The Birthday Party-Release the Bats
I can’t seem to get this out of my head these days. It’s so weird and cool. I remember a couple of weeks ago we tried to cover this but it went so badly. It’s not easy!
- CAN-Halleluhwah
I remember my mum buying Tago Mago when I was younger and this was the stand out track. I feel like a lot of these kind of garage punk bands these days are inspired by Can. It’s hard not to be inspired by something so good isn’t it?
- The Cramps-I Was a Teenage Werewolf
We listened to this as a band the other day and because of it we wrote a new song. It is just such a powerful punch and that’s something we wanted to emulate.
- Micachu & the Shapes-You Know
This is just so weird and it’s a direction we want to consider for the band next. I just like how she uses weird instruments and weird timings and stuff. It’s all very cool.
- Talking Heads-Love for Sale
This is another song that I grew up on. It always makes me want to record new stuff and write more songs.
- Wand-Floating Head
This is a new band that i’ve been getting into recently. They are great. I’m trying to bring in techniques they are using into our songs after hearing them.
Egyptian Blue will be playing on the BIMM stage on Saturday. Tickets are still available here.
