Words by Ed King
On Sunday 25th January, Average Sex play at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) with support from The Hungry Ghosts and Miles Cocker. 
Doors open at 7:30pm, with tickets priced at £5 – as presented by Setting Son Records. For direct gig info, including links to online tickets sales, click here.
Hot on the heels of their tour with The Charlatans (…mic, drop) Average Sex are coming back to the Midlands for a headline show at the Hare & Hounds – ticking off the Birmingham box that was sadly missed on their winter support tour. Gaw’d bless ‘em.
And whilst they spent last December playing with the Tim Burgess’ indie pop flower/powerhouse, Average Sex have also not long released their debut Ice Cream EP – out on Burgess’ own OGenesis Recordings. Lead single, ‘Ugly Strangers’, is a cathartic (we hope) look at drink, denial and the dark corners that our minds try and run from
– reported penned by vocalist Laetitia Bocquet during her evening escapes at a pub in Dalston. Whilst the other three tracks cover the familiar themes of love, unrequited love, break up (falling out of love) and licking someone’s face (kinda, sorta love). Job done, we reckon.
Fun and a little ferocious, the last time Birmingham Review saw Average Sex was at the Hungry Ghosts’ ‘Amerika/Lazaro’ single launch at Centrala, and to quote The Four Seasons… Now sharing a stage with the famished phantoms once again, albeit the other way round,
we’re pretty confident this gig will be well worth your five British pounds.
But if you needed more (you cultural capitalists) then Setting Son have also thrown Miles Cocker into the mix, who can usually be found ripping an eardrum or two with the wonderful and loud (or even wonderfully loud) Youth Man. Last seen, by Birmingham Review, flying solo at the uber-muso-glorious-smorgasbord that is All Years Leaving, Senor Cocker may be a tad calmer on his own. Only a tad mind, this ‘aint a Magic FM roadshow quite yet. But in whatever form this stalwart of the local stages and scene is always worth a stop, look and listen – so get there early, you know the drill people.
But we’ll stretch our editorial neck a little further along the line and say: expect fuzz. All round, really. And with a line-up of bouncy garage punk, slaughterhouse blues, and lyrics explaining how to stretch your bread budget, this can’t be too bad an idea for a Sunday.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Dalston…
‘Ugly Strangers’ – Average Sex
Average Sex play at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) on Thursday 25th February, with support from The Hungry Ghosts and Miles Cocker – as presented by Setting Son Records. For direct event info and links to online ticket sales, click here.
For more on Average Sex, visit www.facebook.com/averagesex
For more on The Hungry Ghosts, visit www.thehungryghosts.co.uk
For more on Miles Cocker, visit www.soundcloud.com/miles-cocker
For more from the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath), including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk
For more on Setting Son Records, visit www.facebook.com/settingsonrecords
The film tells the story behind Clerks, a tale which is now the stuff of indie cinema legend.
The other significant win at the Birmingham Review Winter Showcase was the crowd. There’s a lot of talk about ‘supporting the local music scene’ but unless you drag yourself out of the house, stick a smile on your chops, and get involved when musicians and singers are bearing their souls on stage… then talk is all that it will ever be. At the Birmingham Review Winter Showcase 175 people did all of the things I’ve just listed. And it felt phenomenal. To everyone who was upstairs at the 
