"We had jellied sweets at our first birthday," says Simon Parker, "but all the bands complained about having stomach ache. Apparently they didn't mix too well with the beer."

Tonight, Cable Club, the original weekly showcase for unsigned local bands, will celebrate its third birthday with a line-up headlined by returning indie kings Electric Soft Parade.

But since a themed menu is off the cards (as promoter Parker points out, "everyone would be eating bits of wire"), it'll most likely, as always, be about the music and the beer.

Held every Thursday and some Mondays at Pressure Point, Parker started Cable Club because he sensed that while "it's okay playing on the floor of a pub, it's much better to show off on a stage."

For many of the unsigned acts, it's the first time they've encountered even Pressure Point's diminutive four-foot drop, resulting in many a disappearing singer over the years.

For others, Cable Club provides just the leg-up they need, with the likes of The Upper Room and The Tenderfoot (who support tonight, along with Actress Hands) going on to sign deals and record albums after being spotted here.

As Parker points out, the success of his venture has gone hand in hand with the re-establishment of Pressure Point as a key Brighton venue and with a national resurgence of interest in seeing live music.

"Pressure Point's got an amazing history," he says. "There's a room downstairs that's still got some graffiti done by Blur. But towards the end of the Nineties, club culture got big and there was a lull in live music.

"When Gareth Gwynne-Smith took it over three years ago, it was just a big echoey room upstairs. Now people are out to see bands again and Brighton has the biggest scene I've witnessed outside of London and Manchester. So we're riding the crest of a wave."

Although he has his own group, Villareal, and works as a booker and promoter for signed bands, running Cable Club is what Parker loves best.

"Well, I've spent half my life in unsigned bands," he laughs, "so I kind of know what they're going through.

"We can't phone up all the A&R folk for them but, if a band tell me they've had a bit of interest, we'll try and really look after them on the night - like not leaving them stranded with bad sound and no lights. The bands make successes out of themselves - we just make sure we give them the best Brighton gig they could have."

Parker, who also funds a yearly Cable Club compilation album and presents a monthly demos show on Radio Reverb, has inevitably become something of a guru for Brighton's unsigned hordes.

And his advice is always the same. "Don't gig or make a demo until you are really ready," he says. "Even if you want to be the most ramshackle band in the world, you'll need to be rehearsed up with 20-30 minutes of great stuff.

"Keep it under wraps until you know what you've got is absolutely brilliant - then go and inflict it on people."