Brown Sugar closure bitter blow for fans

HONGKONG'S live music scene has been dealt a major blow with the abrupt closure last week of Lan Kwai Fong venue Brown Sugar.

Staff arrived at work on Monday to be told the club would close that night. Although Brown Sugar had been through difficulties over its liquor licence, a source said the closure was unrelated to those problems.

''There were no financial problems - in fact it was doing well,'' a staffer said. ''It is not being sold. It is being handed over to the landlord for him to do as he sees fit.'' BETTER news for live music fans is the emergence of an exciting new Hongkongfunk band, The Mothership.

It certainly has a good pedigree: John Lowe and Zoe Brewster (Signal Eight), Andrew McDowell and Tom Le Bas (The Vitamin Trip), Mike Poilevin and Kumi Masunaga-Keep (The Filthy Flute and Bongo band) and newcomer Iain Davis on vocals.

The Mothership will play at DDII on June 5 and the Jazz Club on June 14. SPARE a thought for Hongkong lad Michael Hutchence and his band INXS, who started a European tour in a converted church in Amsterdam last week.

At first, everything went fine as a 1,000-plus crowd rocked in the old Gothic-style church. But when INXS launched into The Devil Inside, the power went off and the lights went out.