‘We wanted to put a mark on the world’: the sweaty, singular indie music scene of early-00s Brighton

From Bat for Lashes to Brakes and the Pipettes, misfits on the south coast made fearless music amid cheap rents and salty air. Could this ever happen again? It’s any given night in 2002. We’re at the Free Butt in Brighton, a small pub with a stage and an anything-goes spirit that serves as an extended living room and rite-of-passage workplace for aspiring musicians. Natasha Khan – not yet Bat for Lashes, still a Brighton University art student – is dancing on top of the bar while Yeah Yeah Ye...

By Mia Clarke