Personal Trainer Brighton

Personal Trainer play Chalk, Brighton on Saturday 1st March. Get tickets until 5pm from Seetickets or there are some available on the door

STAGE TIMES:

Westside Cowboy – 7:30pm

Personal Trainer – 8:30pm

If you like pop music to keep you on your toes, Amsterdam’s Personal Trainer provide that service fulsomely on their superb second album. Essentially the project of Willem Smit (working with co-producer / collaborator Casper van der Lans) on record and a band live, Personal Trainer showed a facility for DIY indie-pop exuberance and experiment in sync with 2022’s debut, “Big Love Blanket”. Now signed to Bella Union, Willem returns re-energised with Still Willing, a multi-faceted album of shining contrasts and spry melodies, effusive arrangements and subliminal sounds, playful lyrics and self-reflection: in short, a pop album executed with dynamism, vim and charm.

Willem is the epicentre of the band, which originated from impromptu and exhilarating live shows featuring ever-shifting members of different local bands sharing a bustling stage. The live line-up has solidified somewhat but Willem still welcomes the contrast with his recorded work: “When I make the record, it’s me calling the shots. But I can’t tell everyone exactly what to do every second when we’re on stage. There’s, like, shakers flying around or instruments being thrown all over the place, so I don’t have the capacity to control that. And that’s really exciting to me.”

Meanwhile, Still Willing arrives as a fervid expression of Willem’s home-recording and studio methods, tethered to inviting pop instincts and rich with the fertile promise of more to come. Willem doesn’t want to tell you what or how to think about the album but, he says, “It would be awesome if people like it and buy the record, so that I can make another one.” On the strength of Still Willing, he’s fit for the long distance.

+ Westside Cowboy:

Westside Cowboy sound new but seem to come from an old place. Surrounded by 1978 Fender Twin Reverbs, well-thumbed Wem catalogues, a four-track recorder and spools of cassette tape the Manchester four-piece are made up of Aoife Anson O’Connell, James (Jimmy) Bradbury, Paddy Murphy and Reuben Haycocks. With a sound raw as a carpet burn, they ride a thrilling lo-fi boxcar tuned to the melodic precision of Teenage Fanclub and held together with the slacker cool of Pavement. For most bands this would be enough, but not for Westside Cowboy. Just when you think you have them pinned, they career the entire thing into a brick wall of country, trad and early harmony coated, major-key rock’n’roll. They call this process ‘Britainicana’. A portmanteau of the band’s own making to describe Amer- ican culture digested by English people in small towns with almost nothing in the way of cosmopolitan sheen. “Think kids in double denim and Converse eating Greggs vegan sausage rolls.” It’s alarming and exhilarating in equal measures and marks them out as a band perpetually on the verge of losing con- trol but having too good a time to notice the smoke screaming out from under the wheels. https://www.westsidecowboy.com/

Upcoming Love Thy Neighbour shows:
20022025 – BABii. Green Door Store
21022025 – Rats on Rafts. The Prince Albert
21022025 – MAQUINA. The Hope & Ruin
22022025 – She Drew The Gun. Revenge
01032025 – Personal Trainer. Chalk.
09032025 – Sean Rowe. Lewes Constitutional Club
10032025 – Carter Sampson. Prince Albert
12032025 – Helen Ganya. Alphabet
12032025 – Pom Poko. Chalk
20032025 – The Wave Pictures. Lewes Constitutional Club
21032025 – Pure Adult + Cassels. Daltons
22032025 – Thank + Kal Marks. The Hope & Ruin
25032025 – Real Farmer. Hope & Ruin
29032025 –The Tubs. The Hope & Ruin
03042025 – Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. Chalk
05042025 – Jools. The Hope & Ruin
08042025 – Divorce. Chalk
09042025 – Ronker. The Hope & Ruin
18042025 – Welly. The Charles Dickens, Worthing
20042025 – Chat Pile. Chalk
27042025 – Erotic Secrets of Pompeii. The Prince Albert
30042025 – Michael Cera Palin. Patterns
30042025 – Hannah James & Toby Kuhn. Lewes Constitutional Club
30042025 – GNOD & White Hills. Green Door Store.
02052025 – Henge. Concorde 2
02052025 – Penelope Trappes. Alphabet
04052025 – Acid Mothers Temple. The Hope & Ruin
06052025 – Soccer Mommy. Chalk
13052025 – Snapped Ankles. The Old Market
16052025 – The Bevis Frond. Lewes Constitutional Club
29052025 – Throwing Muses. Chalk
30052025 – MJ Lenderman. Chalk
01062025 – Shonen Knife. Concorde 2
06062025 – Willi Carlisle. Alphabet
13062025 – Niamh Regan. Folklore
08072025 – Battlesnake + DZ Deathrays. Chalk

Accessibility:
Fully accessible venue, disabled toilet at the back. Ask bar for assistance. Entrance for wheelchairs at the back of the venue. Toilets gender neutral on some nights. If you require a carer at the venue, please contact us at info@lovethyneighbourmusic.co.uk for guestlist, with evidence such as a blue badge or access card. If strobe lighting is an issue or if standing for long periods of time is an issue, please contact us in advance. Wheelchair area, and sofa at the side for seating, but depending on how many people are in it may affect the viewing.

Personal Trainer Brighton

Personal Trainer Brighton