The Verdict Revival Lockdown Sessions
“As live events make a very cautious and conditional return, there’s still a big hole in the local scene left by the closure of the local club circuit. While there’s an abundance of international livesteam material available from the likes of Emmet Cohen, much of it very good indeed, the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of the kind of audience-artist connection that can only really thrive on the grassroots circuit. It’s therefore very welcome indeed to see Brighton’s Verdict club back in action again, under the directorship of drummer/percussionist Tristan Banks, offering a regular weekly programme of ticketed livestream gigs from the roster of locally based, international quality artists who would have filled it back in the long-ago days of normal.” – Eddie Myer SJM
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Friday 11th June 8.30pm BST
Ashley Slater is a well known trombonist, singer and songwriter. He started out in the British Army as a bass trombonist, and his marching skills are still at a very high standard. After leaving the army, he attended and orchestral studies course at Goldsmith’s College. When he was there, he attended an early Loose Tubes rehearsal, at the end of which, he stood up and informed the band that they had a new bass trombonist. Nobody objected, so that happened.
Slater emerged as the front man for Loose Tubes, and as such became as much known for his off the wall sense of humour as his playing. During a season at Ronnie Scotts club, he was approached by Rob Partridge from Antilles (Island) who wanted to know if he did anything else. That’s when Microgroove was born. He partnered up with fellow Loose Tuber John Eacott and eventually released The Human Groove to little or no public acclaim. Nonetheless, the band gigged quite a lot and soon accrued a large cult following. It was during this period that Slater met Norman Cook, who had remixed one of Microgroove’s tracks. They stayed in touch, and when Cook wanted to finish with Beats International, he ask Slater to be the singer and co-writer in his new project, which became Freak Power. Freak Power went on to have one very big hit and a few smaller ones, and eventually imploded when Cook realised it was cheaper and easier to get on a jet and fly first class with a box of records than it was to drag a 7 piece band around Europe.
Post Freak Power, Slater languished in the wilds, then he made two solo albums with his own project, Big Lounge.
After that, he vanished in a blizzard of drugs and bad decisions until he partnered up with Scarlett Quinn to form Kitten and The Hip.
Since then, Slater produces bands, writes songs and reads books, as well as doing some voice acting and keyboard warrioring.
The gig will be a retrospective of songs he’s written over the year, form all of the above bands. He will be on stage with some of his longtime collaborators, including Dale Davis, Tony Remy, Adam Bushell, Kate Cameron, Oli Howe, Julian Nicholas and Hattie Snooks.