email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 158 September Oxford’s Music Magazine 2008

NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255

NEWNEWSS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net

THE MAGIC NUMBERS are set to by Supergrass producer and former- headline Harvest, the latest mini- Mystics frontman Sam Williams and festival from the organisers of Truck features eleven tracks, including and Wood Festivals. Harvest takes recent singles ‘Lamplight’ and place at the Isis Tavern, on the ‘Sleeping Pills’. head off on Thames, between Iffley Lock and a national tour this month, including Donnington Bridge, over the dates with labelmates Lights. Action! weekend of 13th / 14th September. who feature former-Days Of Grace The festival also features Danny & frontman Patrick Currier. The tour The Champions of the World, Hot starts on 7th September in Glasgow Club Of Cowtown, Coute Diomboulu, and visits the Oxford Academy on FOALS play a hometown show at the Academy on Friday 12th th featuring renowned kora player Jali 11 September. December. The band, who have spent the summer playing at festivals Fily Cissokho, Coley Park, Piney Gir This Town Needs Guns, meanwhile around the world, including Japan’s Fuji Festival, release a new single, & The Age Of Reason, plus more release their debut on Monday `Olympic Airlines’, from their Top 5 debut album `Antidotes’, this th acts to be announced. There will also 13 October. The local rockers month. Tickets for the show are on sale now, priced £13.50 from be talks and workshops as well as headline the Oxford Academy on wegottickets.com or from the Academy box office. nature walks around the river. Saturday October 11th with Jonquil. The Isis pub has recently been taken over by new management, who have BIG VILLAGE promote their last www.myspace.com/ for a special gig on Saturday 11th revamped the picturesque pub. season of concerts this autumn, soundismusicfestival, which also October. The band, who famously Tickets for the weekend are £30, or having failed to secure the necessary features MP3s of the acts playing. inspired Ride’s Andy Bell to play the £20 per day with under-14s free. funding from the Arts Council. Over guitar, were leading lights of the Tickets are available from the last few years Big Village, led by JONQUIL, Sunnyvale Noise Sub- Oxford scene in the early 1980s and Videosyncratic on Cowley Road, artistic director and local musician Element, Hreda and Cogwheel Dogs featured Peter Momtchiloff, who Mostly Books in Abingdon and Matt Sage, has hosted a wide range are amongst the acts included on went on to form and online from www.thisistruck.com. of world music artists to ‘Première Évasion’, a new Heavenly; Richard Ramage, who Music runs from 1pm each day. Oxfordshire, introducing local compilation album on French record later fronted The Anyways and The Access to The Isis is by foot, bike or audiences to acts they might not label Rabeat’s Cage. The label aims Relationships; Angus Stevenson, who boat only. otherwise ever get a chance to to give greater exposure to acts that formed The Razorcuts and The experience, often in exotic or are “experimental but pleasurable”. Relationships; Pete Lock, who was NIGHTSHIFT teams up with TCT unusual local venues. Other acts featured include Eberg, in The Anyways before forming Blue Music in November to present a While it is uncertain that Big Village Azad, Neor and Tam Rush. Visit Kite and most recently Moiety, plus month of gigs showcasing the best up will continue in the future, anyone www.myspace.com/ Valerie Howell, who fronted The and coming acts in Oxford. The five interested in helping out financially rabeatscagerecords for more details Lionhearts. Members of these later gigs, entitled On A Saturday, take with sponsorship can contact them on how to buy the album. bands also went on to form the likes place at the Academy every Saturday via www.bigvillage.org. Alternatively, of Les Clochards and Borgnine. The through November and will feature music fans can email THE BULLINGDON is looking for gig is in aid of former-Anyways The Winchell Riots, Elapse-O, The [email protected] to new midweek gig and club promoters. guitarist Mark Price’s birthday and Keyboard Choir, Stornoway, Space stress the importance of promoters Anyone interested should call Arron features all the original Here Comes Heroes Of The People, Raggasaurus, like Big Village. on 01865 244516. Everybody members playing in Motion In Colour, Tristan & The For now, though, the final three Big different bands with hopefully a full Troubadours, Alphabet Backwards, Village events are Hindustani QUEER IS FOLK is a one-off live band reunion. A special 18-track The Half Rabbits and more. Exact classical singer Neela Bhagwah at the music event taking place on Saturday compilation CD will be cut to mark dates and line-ups will be announced North Wall Arts Centre on Saturday 18th October at the Brewery Gate the event, featuring a veritable soon – visit www.tctmusic.co.uk for 4th October; Meta Meta and the Tavern in Oxford with the intention history of Oxford’s indie stars details as soon as they are finalised. Afropean Choir at St Barnabas of dispelling “the stereotyped through the years. Tickets for all shows will on sale Church on Thursday 23rd Oct, and notions that all homosexuals like now from wegottickets.com or from Tango Siempre at the Wesley and perform crap music”. Starting at the Zodiac box office as soon as Memorial Chapel on Thursday 30th 6pm the event will include bands, they are confirmed. October. open-mic slots, film, comedy and art, featuring both gay and straight A SILENT FILM release their debut THE REGAL hosts the Sound Is artists. Anyone interested in finding album, ‘The City That Never Music all-day festival on Sunday 7th out more or getting involved should Sleeps’, on Monday 13th October on September, a benefit event for email Mike Lowe at Xtra Mile Records. The album is Action Aid’s Making A Noise About [email protected]. preceded by a new single, ‘Thirteen Poverty campaign. The event, Times The Strength’ on 22nd which runs from 12.30 though to THE COURTYARD Youth Arts AS EVER don’t forget to tune into September. The album was produced 11pm features over a dozen local Centre in Bicester is now offering BBC Oxford Introducing every bands, including Ivy’s Itch, The Drug slots at its newly-refurbished Saturday evening between 6-7pm on Squad, The Colins Of Paradise, Red rehearsal room, complete with Pearl 95.2fm. The dedicated local music valve, Domes Of Silence, Sidwinders Export drumkit, from only £5 per show plays the best new Oxford and Hangman’s Joe. More acts are hour, Monday-Thursday 6-9pm. Call releases as well as featuring due to be confirmed. Tickets for the Jane on 01869 602555 or email interviews with local and touring fundraiser are £12, with the first 150 [email protected]. acts, news, demo reviews and a gig on sale for £10, from and clubbing guide. The show is wegottickets.com. Full updated line- OXFORD INDIE GODFATHERS available to listen to online all week up details can be found at Here Comes Everybody reconvene at .co.uk/oxford. A quiet word with Interview by Joe Swarbrick StornoStornoStornowwwayayay IF YOU’RE AUTISTICALLY was letting himself in for. planning on ordering your local CD “I knew the guys were a bit older,” collection thematically, then says Ollie, barely into his twenties, alongside The Epstein, Family “so as I was leaving the house I Machine and Witches you can thought, what if this is a scam to comfortably file Stornoway. Their attract vulnerable musicians and do melodies soar, tug at your heartstrings away with them? So in my bag was a like a lifeboat pulling your broken very sharp screwdriver…” The very vessel ashore, all shattered romance, idea of Dr Brian Briggs attacking any regret and longing and then, without living thing is absurd, but I suppose warning, their violinist Rahul will it’s best to be prepared under such take the stage dressed as a banana and circumstances. they’ll sing a song about haircuts. INSTEAD OF A MONSTROUS THIS DISPARATE HOPPING criminal underworld, Oli found from the sublime to the ridiculous has himself immersed in the beautiful, frustrated the critics: this very insular world of the Oxford student – magazine described their song ‘The something which may well have Good Fish Guide’ (which lists all the informed the sweeping architecture of fish you can ethically eat, then lists their more grandiose pieces. Put all the fish you should not – all to a this DIY process is to the band. weighs”. Early gigs were notable for another way, there’s no room for jaunty little hybrid of ‘What A Day “No-one else has the patience to Brian’s deadpan delivery of animal- gritty urbanity here. Forthcoming for a Daydream’ and Divine work with us, so we’ve found it better based facts from the back pages of single ‘We Are The Battery Human’ Comedy’s ‘Something for the to do it ourselves,” says Brian, tactful New Scientist. Not that you’d expect reads like a determined effort to Weekend’) as making the reviewer to the last. Delays on their last anything less from the band The block out the realities of city life: feel he had “died and woken up in record, `On The Rocks’, were Independent described as “officially from being trapped under “a pile of Purgatory with only Chas ‘n’ Dave apparently partly due to the original the brainiest group ever”. “It’s A4 snowflakes”, the natural for company”. Similarly, producers having a very clear idea of probably not too far from the truth conclusion is reached that we are like Oxfordbands.com said it had “the what it should sound like, which really,” says Brian, “my brother’s just chickens in a battery farm, though stagnant air of a failed 5th form differed from the band’s own vision – qualified as a doctor as well”. So that “we were born to be free range”. revue”. Audiences, on the other hand, a vision which they clearly protect ups the PhD count in the band to Similarly, when they reference the seem to find it witty, catchy and with passion. “Instead of drums we’ve what? “Four. It’s ridiculous.” Cowley Road on the song ‘Zorbing’, danceable. As many rock historians used chopping boards, footsteps, When I ask the inevitable “how did they do so by conjuring up the image have noted, it’s the bands that get the carrots, because on the first EP we the band get together” question, Brian of Brian bouncing round the streets in pretty girls dancing that make good didn’t have a drummer…I remember produces at least thirty sheets of A4 a large inflatable ball, rather than in the end. one trip with Jon to Age Concern lined paper, inscribed with small, neat getting verbally abused by a toga-clad where we bought all their crockery writing from top to bottom. “I’m rugby team or stabbed by a crack WITH ALL THIS IN MIND, I and got our housemates to smash it in more qualified to deal with band addict. don’t quite know what to expect the kitchen for one song.” Definitely history questions,” he explains, and I It was fitting, then, that their first when I arrive at the leafy terraced not something you could do as easily don’t doubt it for a second. proper gig was at the home of home of Brian and Jon, Stornoway’s when you’re paying by the hour in a Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the group Oxford’s other pastoral fantasists, respective singer and multi- sweaty little studio. was conceived within the hallowed the folk-ridden Catweasel Club. instrumentalist. A Monkees-style walls of Oxford University. “We spent ten minutes setting up,” madcap house of larks, or a crumbling ASKED ABOUT THE CRITICAL “I met Jon in Wolfson College when explains Brian, “which was the length Victorian living room where each reception to ‘The Good Fish Guide’, I was starting my PhD and Jon was of time we had to play, because we member silently cries into their mugs Jon mimes shooting himself in the starting his masters. We used to play had this monstrous technical hitch of herbal tea? As it turns out, all four head. It seems that defending this in the dining hall, a beautiful old which we’ve since become famous of the band are mid-way through song had become something of a bête wooden building with a grand piano in for. Ollie’s bass fell apart and we had recording ‘Mullet’ – that song about noire for them. “It does have a very it,” says Brian. “We enjoyed it, so we to ask the audience for a Philips the haircut, due to appear on their serious message,” says drummer Rob, decided to play some of the college screwdriver.” So was disaster averted? forthcoming album. No sooner have I “though I can understand how it could music events. We won a bowl of fruit “Luckily someone in the audience did removed my coat than they have be construed as comedy.” He makes a in a talent contest and it sort of went have one. The funny thing was that placed a microphone in front of me good point – as throwaway as it to our heads…” later there was a Hurdy Gurdy player and asked me to sing backing vocals. I might initially seem, proceeds from Honing their art as a two-piece on who had a problem with their Hurdy am a shameful failure, and the the sale of the song have been going the student open-mic circuit, the Gurdy, and had to demand a impromptu guest appearance with to the Marine Conservation Society decision was made to expand into a replacement from the crowd, which which I could regale my future and, on paper at least, the lyrics are full band. Bassist Ollie replied to their they also managed to do. That says grandchildren is swiftly abandoned. straightforwardly pedagogical. In fact, advert with an email along the lines something about the Cowley Road.” The song itself sounds great – there’s a scientific, educational of, “Dear Sir, I would very much like Ollie’s brother Rob then joined on sinister, ever-so-slightly jazzy chord message that pervades the world of to be considered for the position of drums, after an unusually pragmatic progressions are punctuated by Stornoway - ‘Mysteries Are Good For bassist...”. One imagines that such audition process. “We’d had seven flurries of discordant trumpet, coming You’, from their first EP, usefully good manners must have gone down different drummers who’d come along to the boil with a massive multi-part points out that “a spider’s web is well with Brian and Jon. Ollie, on the for auditions,” recalls Brian, “One vocal harmony. I ask how important strong when you consider what it other hand, didn’t quite know what he seemed to be on Class A drugs; one brought a load of African drums and “Duffy?” offers Rob. “Cos we’ve said he didn’t like structure. Anyway, already done the Sugababes. And the Rob came along and he brought a Wombats.” heater, which was great because the “I find it difficult,” ponders Oli, garage was absolutely freezing. That “Because we don’t sound similar to sold it for us.” another band I can think of. Maybe Things have moved pretty quickly the Epstein...” since. Playing seven gigs in a Momentarily disturbed that they fortnight in Oxford alone, getting can’t imagine scaling heights any Brian’s brother to dress up as a horse higher than supporting the Epstein, I and play the trumpet, adding two offer the idea that they sound a violinists shortly before headlining teensy bit like Gorky’s Zygotic the Oxford Academy; Stornoway are Mynci, and Brian begins to talk with nothing if not busy. Brian reckons great enthusiasm about them. their success is at least partly down to Similarly, Rob’s eyes light up as he September one hairy man’s patronage: “The discusses the drum pattern on last gig in that two week session was Guillemots’ ‘Trains to Brazil’ – the first time Tim Bearder from BBC another band to which they bear a Every Monday Oxford came to see us - it was just passing resemblance. THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES him and two of our die-hard fans… I The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. was mortified, as I was desperately STORNOWAY ARE A BAND THAT st trying to impress him! It turned out know their place in the world, where 1 THE KYLA BROX BAND (UK) th he didn’t mind anyway, as he then did they’ve come from and what they 8 ANGELA BROWN & THE MIGHTY 45s (USA/UK) something called “Stornoway Hour” bring to the table, yet there’s a 15th THE OLI BROWN BAND (UK) on the Breakfast Show – devoting an palpable sense that they’re striving to 22nd RIETTA AUSTIN BAND (NZ/UK) hour to our songs and interviews and create a world of their own, as 29th THE HAMSTERS (UK) stuff, and straight away he got isolated and remote as the Hebridean suspended.” town from which they derive their “He put his job on the line!” cries name, and as distant too, perhaps. Every Tuesday Jon, somewhat incredulously, “For us!” Brian is a sailor and a doctor of THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB While Mr Bearder’s fandom might be ornithology as well as Stornoway’s Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am career-cripplingly obsessive, Brian principal writer – I ask him how he nd th rd thinks it’s “mainly thanks to friends finds the time to have the calamitous 2 / 9 / 23 THE HOWARD PEACOCK QUINTET and fans that we’ve started to get relationships that inspire his music? 16th ALISON BENTLEY heard. When we first got played by He stares at his lap. 30th THE HUGH TURNER BAND Colin Murray on Radio 1 that was due “Yes, it’s a busy life,” he murmurs. to a fan sending in a link to our The subject is swiftly dropped in songs, and the same with Tom favour of a discussion of how their Wednesdays rd Robinson on BBC 6 Music – it’s been lyrics are very often misheard. 3 MARILYN MANSON TRIBUTE really great.” “Someone misheard the lyrics of 24th BEGGARS / VIXENS `The Good Fish Guide’ as `The Good SO HOW HAVE STORNOWAY Fish Died’, remembers Oli. “Someone Thursdays found the Oxford music scene? Do else read some covert sexual th they feel part of it; are they close to reference in the lyric, “the hooded 4 MOSHKA presents THOMAS TRUAX / BLACK HATS any bands in particular? snake controls your mind”,” adds Jon. / COGWHEEL DOGS “It’s been really good to us.” Rob I suggest that it barely seems like a 11th CLARE & THE REASONS / BRENDAN CAMPBELL / enthuses, “When you have someone subtext, but in fact sounds pretty THE VATICAN CELLARS / TAMARA PARSONS-BAKER really different playing with you, you filthy to me. 18th JUBILEE / LES GARS / THE DRESDENS get different ideas and can implement “I never though about it before, them – it’s a great source of ideas.” maybe it’s a really steamy song!” Brian is similarly complementary, They fall about laughing, and the Every Friday but seeks to distance himself a bit: “I change in mood seems symbolic of BACKROOM BOOGIE know there are groups of bands that the band’s output in general. do knit together a bit more within the On the surface of things, Stornoway Funk, soul and R&B. 10.30pm-2am; £4. Oxford music scene, but I feel we’re a appear to be a band in conflict: more independent entity.” capable of genuinely moving an Friday Early Shows You’ve become darlings of the Truck audience, but more than willing to 19th MOSHKA presents TOUPE / supports. organisation though; what’s your play the part of the sideshow Doors 7.30pm Includes entry to Backroom Boogie afterwards involvement with them? entertainers to win over a crowd. Yet “Just as friends now, really. `On the instead of devaluing their more Rocks’ was due to be released on the emotive work, this variety is, more Saturdays Truck label, and then just before the often than not, what makes them 6th SIMPLE – Funky House with WAHALLA / JAMES release date the label had to fold for special: after all, life itself is a WESTON / SI YEATES 10-4am. various legal and financial reasons.” cocktail of joy, disappointment, love th “It’s a bit awkward really – we just and loneliness. One day you’re 13 HI-FI HAND-GRENADES / DEADBEAT CAVALIER ended up doing it ourselves, like all dumped, the next day your mate gets / ANTI-VIGILANTE the other ones. Still, what they have a hilariously terrible haircut; such is 20th OX4 – Drum’n’bass done has been a massive help just by life. One thing’s for sure: Stornoway 27th MOSHKA presents EASY TIGER – album launch allowing us to play the last two are so committed to being Stornoway, party. Plus LISA FITZGIBBON festivals.” so wrapped up in their own way of Perhaps most bands tend to think of doing things, so immersed in their themselves as outsiders, but own aesthetics and ideologies – as all Sundays Stornoway seem especially eager to great bands should be – that the 14th THE MODEY LEMON / SENNEN / 50ft PANDA / separate themselves from everyone chances of them changing any time PISTOL KIXX else. When I ask who they’d ideally soon seem Hebredianly remote. 28th THE SPINTO BAND like to support – anyone, living or dead – I get some odd responses. ‘On The Rocks’ is out now Sponsored RELEASED by this new single forgetting to blink or breath, merely gazing out of the window at the AGENTS OF JANE reflection of sunlight on a nearby parked car ‘Karaoke Boy’ wondering what it would be like to live under the sea. Shouldn’t more music make you feel (Gold Filling) like that? Summer might not even have got going this If we had to describe ‘Brittle Bones’ in a single year but in Agents Of Jane’s world it’s already word it would probably be weightless. Or autumn. Such is the melancholic mood perhaps simply faultless. It is awash with a hanging over this debut album, the local folk- yearning, dreamlike sadness, so ephemeral that pop outfit seemingly most at home when you worry if you press eject on the stereo the casting wistful glances back down long, dusty CD will simply dissipate to dust. Richard’s roads. slight, limpid voice is a genuine wonder – a gift The largest cloud that looms over these eleven that no other Oxford singer has been blessed tracks is, unsurprisingly, Nick Drake, Agents with. The closest comparison would be Of Jane’s male lead Chris capturing some of Puressence’s James Mudriczki, another voice that poetic reflectiveness on tracks like with the ability to makes your heart stop in ‘Petticoat’, while the sombre strings that add RICHARD WALTERS simple wonder. colour (mostly darker hues) to the song also ‘Brittle Bones’ So far simple bad luck has stopped Richard recall the pastoral loneliness of Drake. Walters achieving the sort of international Agents Of Jane do, however, attempt to (Kartel) recognition his talent deserves. If he remains our spread their net wider, from the country-ish Nightshift’s love for Richard Walters is such secret treasure, it makes him no less precious. porch croon of ‘Lay Down’ to the more that we spend the entirety of our first listen to Dale Kattack rhythmic ‘Shetland Brae’. But it’s when they keep it simple, sweet and mournful that they work best, as on the album’s opening song, SIMON DAVIES track two and thereafter it’s an endless dirge that ‘Harbour’, Chris’s voice intertwining well the odd moments of acoustic guitar tickling can’t with Jules’ soft backing vocals on a folksy ‘For Utter Beauty’s Sake’ brighten. ‘For Utter Beauty’s Sake’? More like lament that’s leavened slightly by a carefree Oh For Fuck’s Sake. We’re off to become Californian breeziness. (Own Label) postmen. Occasionally adventurous use of strings If anyone knows a good tune it’s a postman. Dale Kattack brings out the best of tracks like ‘Elsepeth’, Partway through listening to Simon Davies’ self- where squabbling violin and cello climax an released album, our postie popped in to deliver otherwise slender ballad, and the album’s title another batch of corpulent major-label releases. track, which scrabbles itself together after “Blimey, what’s this crap?” he proffered, “I’m ALLY CRAIG ambling amiably but with little apparent sense glad I don’t have your job”. ‘Get What You Pays For’ of direction. So, you see, it’s not just us who are complete Perhaps the band stretch their material too bastards when it comes to hounding hapless (Own Label) thin over a full album, slipping too easily into musicians, and at least we made the effort to A 7” vinyl single with a photo of a slumbering MOR fluff on tracks like ‘Twelve’ and listen to this album all the way through twice cat on the sleeve. A half-buried croak of a voice. sounding positively weary by closing number before coming to the same conclusion as Royal A disjointed saxophone squall that flattens ‘Last Goodbye’, but at their best they’re a Mail’s finest. Sorry, but by God this is boring. anything in its path, even the reined-in sheet gently downbeat passing pleasure. Simon Davies quotes Robert Wyatt as an metal guitar chug. Ally Craig is a singer- Ian Chesterton influence and you can understand that with his , sometimes an acoustic singer- reedy, cracked voice, but that’s where the songwriter, but he has as much in common with similarity ends. Wyatt’s genius has always been the bleeding heart whinge’n’whine brigade who in taking the road less well travelled: confronting stifle local open mic sessions as a B52 bomber expectation, sometimes deliberately messing his has with a piece of stilton. songs about and finding beauty in the most In fact, despite the fact in the past Ally has been unusual places. Davies simply whines for fifty compared to the likes of and Robert minutes without respite, like an errant mosquito Wyatt, this single would sit more comfortably in your bedroom at night. In this he’s aided by around a table with the likes of The Very Things ubiquitous local folk talents Colin Fletcher and or Stump, lopsided, belligerent noisemakers who Jane Griffiths, but even they can’t inject any couldn’t walk past a pretty tune without taking a variety into staid acoustic trundles that claw hammer to its skull. Which means he’s increasingly feel like a suffocating blanket of unlikely to end up supporting the likes of navel-gazing tedium slowly cutting off circulation Damien Rice or Joseph Arthur anytime soon. to your brain. But if there’s any justice, a Thurston Moore Only the relatively jaunty, string-led ‘Fly Little collaboration shouldn’t be that far off. Blue Bird’ offers any kind of respite, but that’s Dale Kattack Selected Oxford releases are now available on the ground floor HMV Oxford supports local music Open Sundays 11-5pm & late Thursdays till 7pm. 10% student discount every day thethe portport mmahonahon Live Music in September 6th Quickfix presents 20/20 Vision + Desert Storm + Beelzebozo 10th Oxford Improvisers presents Tim Hodgkinson 12th Fall + South Central Heroes + Cali Collect + Dial F For Frankenstein 14th Off-Field 6 with Baby Gravy + Cenote + Frogspawn + Grundon + The Willow + Eva C 18th Garry Curan + Yo Sushi + Dan & James McKean + The Whiskey Singers – Hank’s Whiskey Night 19th Introverse + support 20th Monkey Puzzle 21st Lonely Joe Parker + Money Tree 27th Permanent Vacation presents Tall Fies + Lovvers + Alastair Brown

82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067 gig guide

MONDAY 1st ferocious, angular post-hardcore to hypnotic THE KYLA BROX BAND: The Bullingdon – SEPTEMBER effect. Canterbury’s Lakes offer post-punk funk, Daughter of British blues legend Victor Brox, Kyla mixed up with Slint and Sonic Youth-inspired has shared a stage with her father many times, guitar noise. rd matching his powerful voice easily and on course WEDNESDAY 3 20/20 VISION + DESERT STORM + to become the UK’s premier female blues singer, TRIBUTE TO MARILYN MANSON: The BEELZEBOZO: The Port Mahon – Local mixing up classic r’n’b, blues, funk and soul. Bullingdon – The electro-goth scourge of metal and hardcore triple bill. Christian parenting groups gets made over. MELTING POT with SLASHED SEAT AFFAIR nd ECLECTRICITY: The Cellar – Weekly mix of + THE BRENTFLOOD + CENSORED: The TUESDAY 2 Jericho Tavern – Radio-friendly grunge-pop JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Free weekly house and electro. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple leaning towards the No Doubt and Avril Lavigne live jazz club, tonight with regular guests The scheme of things from Slashed Seat Affair at Howard Peacock Quintet. tonight’s Melting Pot, alongside ’s th THURSDAY 4 Smiths-inspired indie types The Brentflood. THOMAS TRUAX + BLACK HATS + th TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM Friday 5 COGWHEEL DOGS: The Bullingdon – 101: The Academy – Three clubs in one with Inventive, quirky and poetic mechanical pop classic and contemporary indie at SUMMER from Mr Truax and his menagerie of self-made Transformation; glam-rock, 80s and trash-pop at SLAUGHTER TOUR: instruments at tonight’s Moshka club night. Trashy, plus hardcore, metal and alternative noise Upbeat indie rocking from Black Hats and off- at Room 101. The Academy kilter folk noise from Cogwheel Dogs in support. ROLLERDISCO: The Regal – Rollerdisco COWBOY KILLERS + THE RRRs + JESSICA extravaganza in aid of Helen & Douglas House Reckon you’re tough, eh? Right, stick around GOYDER: The Jericho Tavern – Gloriously Hospice with Tony ‘Naked’ Nanton and Street for the duration of tonight’s six-band package grizzled, whisky-soaked blues and country from Level’s Timmy Johns playing r’n’b, soul, tour without bleeding brain matter through New York’s Cowboy Killers, recalling the low- and house. your nose or running weeping from the venue down drawl of Howlin Wolf and Tom Waits. LEE DAVIES & FRIENDS: The Temple and we’ll give you a medal to prove as much. Leamington’s joyful 50s and 60s bubblegum pop SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house club Following on from the regular US Summer outfit The Rrrs and local acoustic singer- night with Wahalla, James Weston and Si Yeates. Slaughter tours, this inaugural UK outing songwriter Jessica Goyder support. BASSMENTALITY: The Cellar – Funk, soul showcases half a dozen of the best up and CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford and hip hop club night with a live set from Loose coming extreme metal bands around, four Community Centre Grip. from the States, one Australian and one home- OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon grown. Headliners Suicide Silence, from SMASH DISCO: The Academy th California, are as unsunny as that State can SUNDAY 7 OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon create, currently on tour with Slipknot and SOUND IS MUSIC FESTIVAL: The Regal – Disturbed following on from the release of All day mini-festival in aid of Bollocks To th their album, ‘The Cleansing’, mixing death, FRIDAY 5 Poverty with an extensive cast of local bands grind and hardcore into a guttural frenzy of SUMMER SLAUGHTER: The Academy – including Red Valve, Colins Of Paradise, Ivy’s technical riffing and downright brutality. Extreme metal touring package hits the UK with Itch, Sidewinders, Domes Of Silence, Speed Of A Joining them are similarly blunt thrashcore maximum force – see main preview Puma, Hangman’s Joe, Rodeo Beat Machine, merchants As Blood Runs Black; ultra-fast KLUB KAKOFANNEY with NOT TOO Motion Sleep, Drug Squad and Apologies, I Have scream-core devils Abigail Williams (whose SHABBY + EAVESDROPPERS + None. name sounds like they should be an X-Factor- DRUNKENSTEIN: The Wheatsheaf – Reliably DEATHFEST: The Cellar – A night of extreme endorsed r’n’b puppy but have a bassist called mixed bag of off-the-wall sounds at Klub Kak, and death metal with sets from Porkfest, Mindless Plaguehammer, so perhaps not); Chicago’s featuring bluesy rockers Not Too Shabby and Torture, Necrospawn, Sky Burial and The Kooks. more traditional prog-tinged thrash crew funky post-punk heavyweights Drunkenstein. Sorry, got a bit carried away there. Born Of Osiris; the UK’s own Annotations DRUM&BASS NIGHT: The Regal – With DJ VIAROSA + SMITH & BROWN: The Of An Autopsy, with their dark, suffocating Basher and Swaaarm. Wheatsheaf – Dark, wistful alt.country and low-end death metal, plus a long-overdue RELIK + TARGET NINE + CHALK + folk-noir reveries, somewhere between Nick Oxford debut for Australia’s magnificent MOMERATHS: The Jericho Tavern – New Cave, Tindersticks and Low, from the rather great merchants of malignant, murderous mayhem, local bands night at the Tavern with Manics- Viarosa, who were handpicked to support REM The Berserker. An unrelenting night of styled anthemic rockers Relik, plus emo-tinged last year. Joining them are local folk and bluegrass blastbeats, breakdowns and bludgeoning riffage, types Target Nine and quirky lo-fi noisemakers duo Smith & Brown. it’ll sort the men from the boys and the more Momeraths. ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Red gore left on the dancefloor the better. BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon – Lion, Kidlington – New weekly open mic Classic soul, funk and disco. session. SHAKE: The Academy – Funk, reggae, soul, rock’n’roll and jazz from Skylarkin and crew. MONDAY 8th GET DOWN: The Brickworks – Disco, Latin ANGELA BROWN & THE MIGHTY 45s: The and funk DJ session. Bullingdon – Blues, gospel, soul and jazz from the acclaimed singer, compared favourably to th SATURDAY 6 Etta James and Koko Taylor. LAKES + CARETAKER + THE YOUNGS THE ELIZA CARTHY BAND: Nettlebed Folk PLAN: The Wheatsheaf – One-off gig from Club – Another chance to catch the acclaimed Hampshire’s elusive noiseniks, Caretaker, mixing singer and fiddler from the first family of English up post-rock, languid, spacious soundscaping and folk, out on the road in support of her new self- penned album, ‘Dreams Of Breathing Glaswegian folk-pop newcomer Brendan Campbell Underwater’, following on from two previous supports. Mercury-nominated and a string of Radio LIGHTS ACTION + A SILENT FILM + SAID 2 Folk Awards titles. MIKE: The Academy – Joint headline tour featuring London’s delicately anthemic rockers TUESDAY 9 th Lights Action, fronted by erstwhile Oxford boy JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With live Patrick Currier (former frontman with local sounds from The Howard Peacock Quintet. favourites and Nightshift cover stars Days Of INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, industrial, Grace), and now signed to Xtra Mile alongside darkwave and 80s club night. rising Oxford stars A Silent Film, all set to release their debut album later this autumn. th DOVES: The Academy – One-off show from WEDNESDAY 10 Manchester’s alternately euphoric and mournful TIM HODGKINSON: The Port Mahon – anti-rock rock heroes, still exploring the outer Friday 12th Oxford Improvisers host a special gig with reaches of shoegazing soundscaping and hopefully clarinettist, lap steel guitar player and composer set to release the follow-up to ‘Some Cities’ soon. CALEXICO: Tim Hodgkinson, best known for his work with VON BRAUN + THE WAR YEARS: The experimental innovators Henry Cow. Tonight Cellar – Leftfield rocking at tonight’s Big Hair The Academy he’s joined by Chris Cundy on bass clarinet and club. Formed by duo Joey Burns and John Dominic Lash on double bass. MANACLES OF ACID: The Jericho Tavern – Convertino while they were playing with GEMMA HAYES: The Jericho Tavern – The Vintage analogue synth wobbliness with an Giant Sand, Calexico are the sound of the previously Mercury-nominated Irish singer- admirable acid fixation from the local newcomers. desert. Named after a Californian border town songwriter continues her slow and steady rise back CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford and based in , the desert is in their towards the top after a self-imposed two-year Community Centre blood. In fact the pair’s debut album was a exile following her debut album, ‘Night On My OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon concept album based on the Arizona desert. Side’. Folky prettiness meets bitter-sweet rocking SMASH DISCO: The Academy Calexico’s trademark is to take down-home on her new ‘The Hollow Of Morning’ outing. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon country rock and introduce it to other, more ECLECTRICITY: The Cellar exotic cultures. From Morricone to Mariachi, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple FRIDAY 12th via French folk, jazz and bossa nova, their sound is dramatic, expansive and sophisticated th CALEXICO: The Academy – Musical melting THURSDAY 11 pot roots rockers – see main preview while always remaining warm and accessible. CLARE & THE REASONS + BRENDAN SPEAR OF DESTINY: The Academy – Vocal After earning their dues, and an increasingly CAMPBELL: The Bullingdon – Twee pocket battleship resurrects his 80s fanatical fanbase, on tours with Pavement and orchestral jazz and folk-inclined pop from punk-tinged power rockers for a hits tour, Lambchop, Calexico have released half a Brooklyn’s Clare Muldaur Manchon, angelically- featuring ‘Never Take Me Alive’ among their cult dozen studio albums and countless other live voiced chum of Sufjan Stevens, with whom she classics. CDs as well as various collaborative efforts. collaborated on recent album, ‘The Movie’. STREET LEVEL DRUM&BASS: The Regal – Their latest album, ‘’ follows With sets from DJs on from 2006’s ‘’ which found Bryan Gee, Brykie, Tax them ditching the horns and strings in favour Man, Eks Man, Gomez, of more traditional country rock electric Gohne Bravo, Mikee guitars and pedal steel, revealing the strong, Hussla, Kem DMA and old-fashioned songwriting behind their cultural D E L I C I O U S ® Easty. explorations. DELTA FREQUENCY + EUREKA live music festival in the picturesque grounds of MACHINES + Cokethorpe School. Today is rock day with a VIXENS + SONIC M U S I C F E S T I V A L selection of bands with connections to the school BOB: The performing. Wheatsheaf – Return TH BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon S A T U R D A Y S E P T E M B E R 13 2 0 0 8 of electro-glam heavy SHAKE: The Academy T H E W H I T E H O R S E H E A D I N G T O N, O X F O R D rockers Delta GET DOWN: The Brickworks “A 1 2 H O U R L I V E M U S I C B L O W O U T ! ” Frequency at tonight’s Quickfix session, plus 30+ ACTS / INDOOR & OUTDOOR STAGES / JAM STAGE th STALLS / FOOD / BEERS / ALES support from Leeds’ SATURDAY 13 grungy, epic rockers HARVEST FESTIVAL: Isis Tavern (11am) – D E L I C I O U S M A I N S T A G E : Eureka Machines and First day of Truck’s latest mini-festival, featuring NINE STONE COWBOY / NABLE / LAW ABIDING CITIZENS / MOOCHER / spiky indie fuzz from country swingers Hot Club Of Cowtown, plus Jali Vixens. Fily Cissokho, Piney Gir and many more. DESERT STORM INVISIBLE VEGAS / HANGMAN’S JOE / THE UNKNOWN / BOSSAPHONIK: DELICIOUS MUSIC FESTIVAL: The White CRUSADER / KIM CHI / SHAKER THE STIFF LIPS / NICKY 3DEE / K-LACURA / APERTURE / TARQUIN / CHRIS MARTIN & NONSENSE / BABY JOHN The Cellar – Live jazz Horse, Headington (10am) – Full day of live CROSSHEADS dance. music over two stages from Delicious Music. On THE MIGHTY the main stage there is Nine Stone Cowboy, K E Y 1 7 R E C O R D S S T A G E : REDOX + THE PETE Nable, Law Abiding Citizens, Moocher, Desert FRYER BAND + FILM Storm, Hangman’s Joe, The Unknown and more, ADY DAVY / TAMARA PARSONS - BAKER / MIKE DAVIES / SCOTT E COOPER NOIR + ANTONIA: while over on the Key 17 Records Stage Ady MARTHA ROWSELL / SUPERLOOSE / MARS & THE OTHER PLANETS / MICHAEL PEACE The Magdalen FULL METAL WAISTCOAT / TOOL & THE GANG / THE MARK & MORE + AFTER HOURS PARTY TBC! Davey, Tamara Parsons-Baker, Mike Davies, JAM STAGE: OPEN MIC & JAM SPACE –JUST SIGN UP & JAM! ORIGINAL RABBIT Martha Roswell, Superloose and others will be FOOT SPASM BAND keeping it acoustic. Visit www.myspace.com/ Tickets £10 @ gate or call 07717585335 / buy online @ www.myspace.com/delicioususicpro Or by check to: ‘Ian Allison’ (Site manager) @ Delicious Promotional Events / + INIGO JONES deliciousmusicpro for full line-up and ticket 205 Headley Way, Headington / Oxford OX37SU. BAND + details. Funds are available for charity / Stalls £30./ £20 Students Family Ticket £25 / Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. SCARAMOOSE: The DODOS + EUROS CHILDS: The Academy – Tickets are non-refundable. Gates open 10am close close midnight Jericho Tavern San Francisco’s psychedelic folk duo Dodos plug FESTIVAL ENQUIRIES: 07717585335 / 07703246913 WITNEY MUSIC their new album, ‘The Visiter’, their sound FOR FULL LINE UP, MORE INFORMAION AND TICKETS GO TO: www.myspace.com/delici ousmusicpro FESTIVAL: The festival organizers reserve the right to make alterations to the advertised featured acts & arrangement. dominated by percussionist Logan Kroeber, Sponsored by : The Whitehorse Pub Headington / Delicious Entertainment / Key 17 Records / Saree Clothes / A C Disco Light & PA Hire Cokethorpe School – mixing up rock and West African rhythms around Didcot Rocks! / Red Hot Blues Club / Oxford Rocks! & more to be announced! First day of a three-day singer Maric Long’s light, airy acoustic songs. Long Insiders, leaning toward the Julee Cruise JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With guest and Chris Isaac school of dreaminess. singer Alison Bentley. BEELZEBOZO + INCARNA: The Wheatsheaf – Local metal double bill. WEDNESDAY 17th TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM HAMFATTER: The Academy – Oh Christ. 101: The Academy Proof positive that capitalism is, if not utterly WITNEY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Cokethorpe evil, completely devoid of taste. Cambridge School – Jazz day at the music festival. rockers of little discernible character decide to go on Dragon’s Den and ask for cash to finance th SUNDAY 14 their new album. Peter Jones promptly stumps HARVEST FESTIVAL: Isis Tavern (11am) – up £75,000 and Steve Wright plays their new Magic Numbers headline the second day of single every day for a month, idiotic bilge- Truck’s mini-festival; joining them are Danny & drinking dumpling that he is. Musically The Champions Of The World, Coley Park and somewhere between Badly Drawn Boy’s clumsy more. kid brother and the least interesting bits of The THE MODEY LEMON + SENNEN + 50ft Hoosiers’ whimsical laddishness. Nightshift says, PANDA: The Bullingdon – Demonic garage- Here’s sixpence, now fuck off! Saturday 13th synth-core noisemakers return to Blighty – see IVYRISE + PAPER HEROES + ALISTAIR main preview GRIFFIN: The Jericho Tavern – Keane-lite MANATEES: OFF-FIELD 6: The Port Mahon – piano pop from Ivyrise, plus annoyingly chirpy Experimental music day with punk, pop and jangle-rock from Paper Heroes. The Port Mahon electro from Baby Gravy, sound explorations ECLECTRICITY: The Cellar Rising like an imperious black mountain out from Cenote, improv noise from Frogspawn, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple of Carlisle, Manatees are the sort of band who metal from Grundon, folk from The Willow and can flatten puny pub venues with a single, electronics and sax-based noisemaking from Eva THURSDAY 18th C. well-aimed riff. The band’s last showing in JUBILEE + LES GARS + THE DRESDENS: SHEARWATER + LITTLE FISH + Oxford – a Vacuous Pop gig at the The Bullingdon – Aaron North from Nine MORRISON STEAM FAYRE: The Academy – Wheatsheaf – was one of the gigs of last year; Inch Nails and Icarus Line teams up with Sparse, doomladen folk, strident country and certainly the loudest, and the even more QOTSA’s Michael Shuman in Jubilee, mixing up proggy melodrama from Austin’s Shearwater, intimate setting tonight should make for an grungy heavyweight rock in the vein of their over in the UK to promote fifth album, ‘Rooks’, even more extreme encounter. Manatee’s collective former bands and 60 pop melodicism. having originally started out as an Okkervil stock in trade is vast, doom-laden drone-core, Ferocious garage-metal rocking from The River side project. Top-notch support comes ambitious but monumentally heavy, taking Dresdens in support. from rising local stars Little Fish, soon to head inspiration from daddies of sludgy noise like BORDERVILLE + FOXES!: The Cellar – Stateside to record their debut album for Linda Isis, Neurosis and Swans, but equally Theatrical vaudevillian rocking from Perry’s Custard label, plus folk, skiffle and ambitious, with nods to King Crimson’s Borderville, plus jangly cute-core from Foxes! rockabilly outfit MSF. adventurous squall and God Machine’s melodic BLUE JUNK + BAXTER + JAY ALICE: The QUICKFIX JUMBLE SALE: The X, Cowley portent. Anyway, what you really need to Jericho Tavern – Prog-funk from Abingdon’s (4-11pm) – Return of Quickfix’s jumble sale gig, know s that it’s UNRELENTING. Not to Blue Funk, plus indie-rock from London’s featuring a full day of live music, from the likes mention ALL-CONSUMING. Like the Baxter. of Black Hats, Maria Ilett, Mark Bosley, Tristan soundtrack to an Extreme Demolition Jobs CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford and the Troubadours, Phantom Theory and DVD turned up full in the middle of a Community Centre more, plus a chance to sell your unwanted odds, thunderstorm. The band have just signed to OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon ends, middle-eights, dodgy records, yesterday’s Eyes Of Sound and a second album is on its SMASH DISCO: The Academy fashions or home-made sock puppets, or have a way. In the meantime, lose your hearing, your OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon mind and possibly control of your bowels to good old rummage through your local fave rock their malevolently brooding low-end bass stars’ tat. th attack. Support at today’s Permanent WITNEY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Cokethorpe FRIDAY 19 Vacation Winkstock mini-festival are London School – Classical day. THE WOULD BE GOODS + SPARKY’S organ-and-loops duo Gentle Friendly, whose ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Red MAGIC PIANO + THE LOVELY EGGS: The feedback and atmospheric noise comes in Lion, Kidlington Wheatsheaf – Rare, one-off live show from somewhere between Animal Collective and Jessica Griffin’s indie cult stars The Would Be Fuck Buttons; Leeds’ Chops who mix up MONDAY 15th Goods, the singer previously backed by The fidgety synth-core with dissonant squall; local Monochrome Set but now featuring Talulah Gosh THE OLI BROWN BAND: The Bullingdon – experimental noise starlets Elapse-O; Joey and Heavenly guitarist Peter Momtchiloff, Thee Norfolk’s rising blues singer and guitarist, Chainsaw’s dissonant chaos; You’re Smiling Headcoatees’ Deborah Green and one-time Adam recently signed to Ruf Records and displaying a Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons’ & The Ants bassist Andy Warren. Together their musical debt to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric psychedelic stomp; Clara Kindle’s quintessentially English indie sound harks back Clapton. atmospheric spoken word and American Gods’ to a time when that word actually meant MODERN CLICHÉS + GOODBYE STEREO Liars-inspired noise. The fun starts at 4pm. something, recalling the pure pop sounds of + I CALL SHOTGUN: The Academy – Young Marble Giants and their ilk. Tonight’s Unsigned bands showcase. Swiss Concrete gig also features sweet, summery Gorkys chap Euros Child brings his own CHERISH THE LADIES: Nettlebed Folk electro-pop duo Sparky’s Magic Piano and idiosyncratic twist on folk-pop along in support. Club – All-female Irish-American folkies led Lancaster’s alternately twee and brattish lo-fi HI-FI HAND GRENADES: The Bullingdon – by flautist and tin whistle player Joanie garage-popstrels Lovely Eggs. A great chance to Melodic punk-pop from Detroit’s Hi-Fi Hand Madden. wallow in the true spirit of classic indie music. Grenades, keeping the spirits of The PETER & THE WOLF: The Jericho THE ACADEMY IS + WE THE KINGS + THE Replacements and Descendents alive and Tavern MAINE: The Academy – Depressingly generic kicking. punk-pop from Chicago’s Fueled By Ramen- WINKSTOCK with MANATEES + GENTLE TUESDAY 16th signed The Academy Is, back in the UK to FRIENDLY + CHOPS + ELAPSE-O: The Port Y&T: The Academy – San Francisco metal promote new album ‘Fast Times At Barrington Mahon (4pm) – Monolithic narcotic stoner veterans still out on the road having formed in High’. Support comes from Florida’s We The rocking from Manatees – see main preview 1974 and helped inspire and Mötley Kings, a band so polished they make Good LONG INSIDERS: The Jericho Tavern – Crüe along the way; over the years they’ve Charlotte sound like Discharge. Cinematic pop shimmer, torch songs and toured with Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith and AC/ TOUPE: The Bullingdon – Inventively showtunes from the elegantly-proportioned DC. madcap funkery from Southampton’s Toupé. KING FURNACE + INTRAVERSE + I AM GYM CLASS HEROES: The Academy – New THIEVES: The Port Mahon – Showy rocking York hip hoppers signed to Fueled By Ramen, out from the increasingly great King Furnace. mixing crudely witty lyrics with laid-back beats, ANDENSUM + IONNIX + SEROTONIN + A somewhere between Outkast and Bloodhound SWEETER OUTPUT: Court yard Youth Gang. Centre, Bicester – Bicester young bands night TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM with heavyweight noise from headliners 101: The Academy Andensum. MINISTRY OF SOUND ELECTRO HOUSE THE BABY JOHN BLUES BAND: Didcot SESSIONS: The Regal – DJs from the mega Labour Club – Live blues at Didcot’s monthly club franchise play electro and house tunes. Red Hot Blues club. 1877: The Jericho Tavern – Hardcore-tinged TRIPWIRES + ECHO BOOMER + MESH 29: new wavers. The Jericho Tavern – Fidgety alt.rock from OX4: The Bullingdon – Drum&bass club night. Reading’s Tripwire, leaning towards the SOULJACKER: The Temple Youthmovies school of mathsy emo rocking. Delicately powerful emotive rocking from local st boys Echo Boomer in support. SUNDAY 21 THE MIGHTY REDOX + THE PETE FRYER ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Red Monday 22nd BAND: The Chester Arms Lion, Kidlington BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon ROBERT FORSTER: SHAKE: The Academy MONDAY 22nd The Academy GET DOWN: The Brickworks ROBERT FORSTER: The Academy – Former- FRESH OUT OF THE BOX: The Cellar – Go-Betweens songwriting hero plugs his new solo Along with the late, great Grant McLennan, House, breaks and techno. album – see main preview Robert Forster was the songwriting axis of RIETTA AUSTIN BAND: The Bullingdon – Brisbane’s brilliantly timeless Go-Betweens, SATURDAY 20th New Zealand-born, London-based singer with a the band the pair formed while at college after S.C.U.M: The Cellar – Electro-goth noise four octave range belting out the blues, r’n’b, discovering a mutual love for literature, films, from S.C.U.M coming on like Suicide invading soul, jazz and old-fashioned rock in gutsy style, and American punk. All the while The Batcave back in 1980. having previously sung backing vocals for the that band were on the go the pair were likes of Shirley Bassey and members of INXS. creating their own solo albums, although while Sunday 14th More recently she’s supported Bryan Adams and they rarely actually collaborated on Go- Joe Cocker, while her new album, ‘Cut Me Betweens material the competition between THE MODEY LEMON Loose’, was produced by Mark Stevens who has two such talented raised both previously worked with Sugababes and Gabrielle. games. 2005’s ‘Oceans Apart’ was The Go- / SENNEN / 50ft SPIERS & BODEN: Nettlebed Folk Club – Betweens final album, and arguably their The English folk revivalists continue to give finest, but McLennan’s death spelled the end PANDA: The Bullingdon traditional songs their energetic workover. for the band and Forster is now out on tour in Back at the turn of the decade, when the support of his first solo album in twelve years, revival provided some of the best TUESDAY 23rd ‘The Evangelist’, an often mournful but beautiful album that pays due respect to his old thrills in town, Pittsbugh’s Modey Lemon FIGHTING WITH WIRE: The Academy – were demons among boys. The trio’s synth- friend. Three of the songs on it were co- Return to town for Derry’s Foo Fighters-styled written with McLennan. Always the more heavy metallic crunch was a terrifying joy to grunge-pop hopefuls, formed by ex-Jetplane detached foil to McLennan’s wistful dreamer, behold as they blew the likes of The Von Landing guitarist Cahir O’Doherty. After playing Forster shared a similar fascination for Bondies offstage. After the release of at Radio 1’s One Big Weekend and Download romance, his songs emotional and heartfelt, relatively mellow third album, ‘The Curious this summer they head off on tour in support of the man himself fearsomely fey. If The Go- City’, back in 2005 they seemed to disappear, debut album, ‘Man Vs Monster’. at least as far as the UK was concerned but Betweens were always more of a cult concern JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – The Howard than a commercial success, and Forster’s solo with a new album due they’re undertaking an Peacock Quintet perform live at the free weekly work is of even more specialist interest, the extensive European tour. Somewhere between jazz club. The Sonics, Suicide, Stooges and Scientists, songs themselves deserve far greater exposure – pure, shimmering pop that’s inspired more The Modey Lemon manage that elusive mix WEDNESDAY 24th of guitar and electronic noise, the synths other bands than most people would ever often threatening to eat the guitars halfway BEGGARS: The Bullingdon – Harmony- realise. So, a night to see the master in action. through one of the band’s extended heavy, 60s-styled rocking from Reading’s rising psychedelic wigouts. If they’re on form, there hopefuls, hinting at The Coral and Charlatans are few more fearsome spectacles. Norwich’s along the way. Sennen, meanwhile, might have named THE JOHN YOUNG BAND: The Jericho themselves after a Ride song but their narcotic Tavern – Terrifyingly mature classic and soft take on shoegazing takes few prisoners, rock from the long-maned Aylesbury guitarist. relying on the power of hypnotic persuasion OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple to suck you into its fug of heavily flanged FREE RANGE: The Cellar – Dubstep and guitar noise which subsumes the introverted drum&bass club night. melodies and backseat vocals. A more th considered, but equally powerful storm to the THURSDAY 25 headline. DRAGONFORCE + : The Academy – Metal as it used to be forged. By Vikings – see main preview THE DIRTY ROYALS + COLOURS: The Jericho Tavern – Ebullient punk-tinged harmony-heavy pop from The Dirty Royals, plus epic stadium-pop from Reading’s Colours. BIG HAIR: The Cellar – bands to be confirmed. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community Centre OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon SMASH DISCO: The Academy likes of The Rock Of Travolta, Scribble and OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Soulcraft. Fuzzcore demons Harry Angel support, plus mash-up fiend Nailbomb Cults. FRIDAY 26th TALL FIRS + LOVVERS + ALASTAIR THE SHAKER HEIGHTS + SOIREE FOR THE BROWN: The Port Mahon – Gently lysergic BUSKERS + MEAN POPPA LEAN + THE LATE slow-core rocking and a neatly rustic take on GREATS: The Jericho Tavern – Melodic roots post-hardcore wandering from Brooklyn’s Tall rocking and Americana from Shaker Heights, Firs, over in the UK to promote new album ‘Too plus 60s-style rock and r’n’b from Soiree For the Old To Die Young’, taking cues from acts as Buskers. diverse as Neil Young, Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500 FLARE: The Regal – Mystery Jets play a and Codeine. Lo-fi punk brats Lovvers return to special guest DJ set. town in support after their showing at Truck BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon Festival. SHAKE: The Academy XMAS LIGHTS + SHIELD YOUR EYES + HQ: The Cellar – Drum&bass with guest Alix EDUARD SOUNDINGBLOCK + Perez. NITKOWSKI: The Cellar – Awesome extreme GET DOWN: The Brickworks metal, industrial soundscaping and doomy ambience from the mighty Xmas Lights, now back at full strength with the return of guitarist th th SATURDAY 27 James Gray-King. Prog-core hairies Eduard Monday 29 EASY TIGER + LISA FITZGIBBON: The Soundingblock lead the supporting cast. Bullingdon – Album launch party for the local GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES: The THE HOLD STEADY: melodic rockers pitched somewhere between The Wheatsheaf – Mixed bag of goodies from the The Academy Eagles and Supertramp. GTI crew. Bands to be confirmed. MANYEUNG + HARRY ANGEL + NEARLY DAN: The Academy – Tribute to Brooklyn’s The Hold Steady might just be the NAILBOMB CULTS: The Jericho Tavern – Steely Dan, celebrating the band’s 30 years in epitome of conservative bloke-rock. With the Ten-year-anniversary reformation for Witney’s music. band’s members all now in their mid-to-late- Manyeung, the band who went on to spawn the TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM thirties, they’ve worked their way up from 101: The Academy nothing to the point where they’re opening for Thursday 25th BEHAVEYA: The Temple through sheer grit and hard work. Last year alone they played over 200 DRAGONFORCE / th shows. They tend to get rave reviews from SUNDAY 28 critics in the broadsheets and more mature TURISAS: THE AUTOMATIC + DINOSAUR PILE-UP + music monthlies and it’s impossible not to listen OPERAHOUSE: The Academy – What’s that to them without the words Bruce and The Academy coming over the hill? Why, it’s the new-look Springsteen popping into your head at least a Automatic. Gone is screechy keyboard monkey Heavy metal has expanded and mutated into dozen times. But that aside, The Hold Steady Alex Pennie, in comes former- so many sub-genres over the past 25 years it’s are great; just great. Because in frontman Craig Yourcodenameis:milo guitarist Paul Mullen. Not hard to know what’s what sometimes, so Finn they’ve got an everyman storyteller par surprisingly the band’s new album, ‘This Is A maybe Dragonforce are exactly what the excellence, recounting tales of lives crashing Fix’, is more diverse and aggressive than their world needs – a proper old-fashioned heavy and burning to drugs and drink or lost to age, debut and a new lease of life may yet be theirs metal band. A heavy metal band who not only and about people’s struggles to escape in for the taking. Dinosaur Pile-Up bring their have proper old-fashioned heavy metal hair whichever way they can, through sex, religion scratchy lo-fi noise pop along in support. but actually have special fans put on stage to or whatever. The stories are delivered in Finn’s THE SPINTO BAND: The Bullingdon – blow that hair in proper old-fashioned gruff, bluesy drawl while behind him deft use of Sweetly geeky college rocking from Delaware’s windswept style while they indulge in proper mandolin, harpsichord or horns add colour to Spinto Band. old-fashioned axe solos. Possibly with their the plaid backdrop of traditional bar-room rock ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Red feet up on the monitors. The English and roll which never sounds old or tired, Lion, Kidlington metallers are on an unstoppable rise at the recalling moments of Husker Du, The moment with new album ‘’ set Replacements and Buffalo Tom. The band’s new th to keep up the momentum of critically- MONDAY 29 album, ‘Stay Positive’, is aptly titled, reflecting acclaimed predecessor ‘’. THE HAMSTERS: The Bullingdon – the attitude which has got them to where they Their speed-heavy brand of power-metal Enduringly likeable Southend r’n’b and blues- are now. Their steadfast orthodoxy is their seems to owe as much to Kiss and Europe as it rock trio The Hamsters, 20 years out on the greatest strength. When The Ting Tings are a does Iron Maiden and Metallica, but at its road now and still knocking out their Hendrix shadow of a fleeting memory, The Hold Steady heart it is music from another time. And the and ZZ Top-inspired racket with trademark will still be out on the road telling their timeless only thing more metal than that is a band gusto. One of those bands you really ought to see tales. from Finland who dress as Vikings and play at least once before you die. So why not this songs about, well, being Vikings. That’s what time round? JOHN McCUSKER, KRIS DREVER, HEIDI Turisas do and their folky brand of symphonic THE HOLD STEADY: The Academy – TALBOT & BOO HEWERDINE: Nettlebed battle metal is so stirring you almost expect Standard-bearing blue-collar rock romantics – see Folk Club Kirk Douglas to leap out of a passing longship main preview during the chorus. It’s all very Spinal Tap, but BROMHEADS JACKET: The Academy – TUESDAY 30th more importantly, it’s immense fun. Surf-inflected old school punk rocking from JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With guests Sheffield’s documenters of all things humdrum The Howard Peacock Quintet.

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Mark Lanegan photo by rphimages LIVE

THE GUTTER TWINS / The Academy Carina Round seems like an odd choice to support . She’s a bit too nice and fluffy for starters. And quiet. They can’t even turn the venue’s air conditioning on lest it drowns her out. Still, it’s hard not to warm to her, even if she plays the dippy card a bit too strongly, her odd breathless gasps and knowing PJ Harvey-isms momentarily engaging if instantly forgettable. She’s the light before the darkness, though. For here are and Greg Dulli, respectively former frontmen for and Afghan Whigs, original grunge outsiders. And they’re not happy. Not tonight, not ever. Dulli is rounded and genially menacing, like a drinking chum of Tony Soprano. Lanegan is chiselled and statue-esque, his eyes firmly closed for the majority of the gig, a picture of brooding intensity, like a grizzled, sociopathic old ranch-hand who you’d only need to glance at in the wrong way to end up with your intestines wrapped around your throat. are simultaneously coruscating and claustrophobic: melodies shine through But it’s Lanegan’s voice that really takes your breath away – a low-slung the oppressive gloom like eerie rays of sunlight through black rain clouds growl that sounds like it worked its way to the Deep South and started and they mine the great traditions of gospel, blues and country, from digging. Between them, Dulli and Lanegan’s voices are so weather-beaten it Muddy Waters to Johnny Cash, while the band are impressively propulsive could be the sound of rusted corrugated iron singing, and when the rest of and orchestral. the band join in on backing vocals it’s like choir practice in Hell. Songs The encores pick and mix from Lanegan’s solo material (‘Hit The City’) like ‘The Stations’, from recent album ‘Saturnalia’, swell with easy and Dulli’s Twilight Singers project (Bonnie Brae’ and ‘Number Nine’), but portent, while ‘Idle Hands’, with its scouring synth-strings, is the musical the mood remains characteristically funereal. Occasional piano intros equivalent of staring into the void as it stares right back at you. “We are tease the rapt crowd before making way for blacker, bleaker soundtracks the Devil’s playthings” growl Dulli and Lanegan and you feel that while so and when Lanegan offers a casual wave before striding from the stage it many bands will paint themselves up or scream ‘til their lungs burst to try feels as much like a hex as a thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the and scare folks, this pair could suck out your soul without raising a sweat. darkness has left the building. It’s not some unrelenting gothic thunderstorm, though. The Gutter Twins Dale Kattack

DR SHOTOVER: Future Daze (Part 2) WHITE NOISE SOUND / SPIRAL 25 For those of you who have never paid a visit here, the East Indies The Cellar Club is a fine edifice, a combination of crumbling Victorian Tonight’s drug of choice is acid and an age between songs faffing about Gothic and 70s Neo-Brutalist ... a the flange pedal is king. Both bands or tuning up. Their sound is a trancy, bit like me?... MOST amusing, are well named, each hinting at the tripped-out splendour, burning with Nethergrove... don’t give up the journey they’re set upon. an intense but distracted psychedelic day job. Where was I? Ah yes, Spiral 25 are making their first live frenzy, or shifting like the eternal describing my favourite haunts in outing tonight, formed by various sands of time, three guitars and the Club. They are 1) the bar, 2) members of the much-missed keyboards sometimes interweaving the billiard room, and 3) the bar, Factory and tonight intent on or leaving space for each other, or obviously. We do have a few digging a deep, dark hole of slow- simply piling on top of each other unexpected surprises here motion narcotic groove rock. to increase the pressure cooker feel too...what was once an elegant They’re hairy and blissed-out, of the more single-minded tracks. Edwardian ballroom was, in the spaced-out vocals riding the heavily With White Noise Sound we feel we inter-war period, turned into an opiated guitars, often recalling might finally have discovered a band opium den... then into a smoky “Hot brandy - lots of it!” - Dr S is Loop’s more dark-minded take on who could emulate Spacemen 3’s jazz venue... then back into an visited by his personal physician psychedelia. The highlight of their savage elegance, but there is a opium den in 1967. Funny, that. in The Growlery set comes near the close when, just frustrating tendency towards brevity We call it The Growlery, for as you’ve got their spiralling mantra about them that stops them making obvious reasons. (Not to you, nailed the guitarist picks up a the break into real greatness. Charlesworth? Here’s a pair of stick-on whiskers - now go and read harmonica and they hit an even Oceanic mini odysseys swell up and “Bleak House”, why don’t you?). More recently it has served as a more claustrophobic groove. Barring promise starship voyages only to sanatorium on occasion - many’s the case of brandy-poisoning which has been dealt with in here... and indeed, case of brandy. Ha. another implosion, Spiral 25 will be peter out or stop dead when your Meanwhile plans are afoot for a warm-up for Woodstock-amont, our one of the local bands to lose your every synapse demands another ten, nasty 70s-themed festival... we intend to use The Growlery, having mind to in the coming months. twenty minutes of heavenly painted it in horrible day-glo purple swirls and filled it with orange Swansea’s White Noise Sound, escapism. Either they’re deliberately beanbags... Rumour has it that Damo Suzuki will be popping in with his initially at least, might as well be tantalising us or White Noise Sound latest back-up band. They are called CAN’T. They feature the pick of Spacemen 3, such is the debt they simply haven’t discovered the local old-timers from the heyday of Oxford’s pub-rock scene, and the pay to the gods of lysergic drone- confidence yet to take it to the next event promises to be a “stone groove” (as we used to say). We rock. Hell, their guitarist even sports level. Either way, if they can really literally CAN’T wait. the same haircut as Sonic Boom, cut loose, the universe is theirs for Next month: Neil Young’s Hey Hey My MySpace Site while the band occasionally have a the taking. similarly frustrating way of spending Dale Kattack photos by rphimages MGMT The Academy Young, arty and American, we can stops tonight’s gig becoming the probably forgive New York duo absolute triumph it could be. MGMT some of their indulgences. But that’s not to say much of the gig Like the fact that they – tonight isn’t simply brilliant – when augmented by a four-piece band – ponderous psychedelia blossoms into look worryingly like a dodgy 80s soft joyous power pop as on ‘Electric

MGMT photo by rphimages rock band. Even the fact that they Feel’, you feel that within the occasionally sound like a dodgy 80s confines of electro-rock and prog- soft rock band. We forgive them tinged pop, they are unrestrained. So because in ‘Oracular Spectacular’ much so that this review could easily Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben turn into a simple list of references Goldwasser have released one of the points, whether they’re mixing up most eclectic and downright fun Grandaddy with Gary Numan or albums of the year, and in ‘Time To resurrecting The Cars. Pretend’, they’ve written easily the The gleaming synth intro to ‘Time best song of 2008. To Pretend’ gets a rapturous Tonight’s gig is a one-off festival reception, it’s sheer power and warm-up and the Academy is untainted sense of joy making it an predictably rammed, enthusiasm irresistible moment of pop brilliance tempered by expectation. ‘Pieces Of that’s only slightly tainted by the What’ is a gentle but powerful pointless, elongated jam that follows, opening gambit, displaying MGMT’s finishing the set. rootsier side, the ethereal whimsy of An encore sees them bring support Galaxie 500 filtered through Crosby, band The Television Personalities on Still and Nash’s country rocking. The stage for a dire, directionless dirge, set is littered with euphoric electro- Dan Treacy seemingly unfit to be on pop and space-rock gems, from a stage or even out in public, but they ‘Weekend Wars’ to ‘The Youth’, but redeem themselves at the finish with the succinct album versions are often the wondrous ‘Kids’, as perfect a expanded and jammed out, sometimes summation of what MGMT do best as effectively, as on the darker, denser you could hope for. Perhaps one day almost krautrock passages, or they’ll realise themselves what they frustratingly, when they threaten to do best. But until then, we’ll indulge turn into Toto or Journey. It’s this their indulgences. tendency towards self-indulgence that Ian Chesterton

elements; it’s all in there – manic pop thrills OWEN TROMANS / BLACK HATS / THE DEPUTEES with an undercurrent of noise. Top stuff. This kind of focus and style is not apparent The Exeter Hall enough during Owen Tromans’ set, mainly I’ve had my qualms about gigs at the Exeter Hall there just yet – apart from one song, which sees because of his refusal to stick to a particular in the past, mainly because it’s seemed less of a the band draft in more backing vocalists for style. Eclecticism is great, but here it makes for venue and more of a pub that happens to have a some fantastic harmonies over a lilting Crosby, an uneven set of songs, which lurch awkwardly corner where bands can play. Promoters Back & Stills & Nash-tinged tune. from sweet acoustic balladry to epic sweeps of To The Left took a simple step tonight that Proof (if it were necessary) of the worth of that guitar and atmosphere that recall Tromans’ makes me realise what had been wrong before – missing spark of tight musicianship is quickly previous band, San Lorenzo. When he hits the they decided to turn off the main lights. Instant ushered in by Black Hats, who are taut, tight and spot it sounds great, but it feels a little as if he’s switch: pub becomes venue. Who’d have thought super-sharp this evening. They excel in still working out how to do it on purpose. Still, it. Genius. pounding out song after song, with little slack he has a great voice – sonorous and knowing – Anyway. The Deputees seem slightly nervous and next to no wastage: the energy and frenetic and as soon as it’s tied to some killer songs, during their performance. Whilst their keyboard- pace of The Jam filtered through the off-kilter something special will happen. Or perhaps he led melodic, gentle style hints at something that arrangement skills of the Young Knives. They’re just plays better with the lights turned on. could easily become interesting, it’s not quite a three-piece because they don’t need any other Simon Minter BORDERVILLE / THE FAMILY MACHINE / SMILEX / 20/20 VISION The Wheatsheaf As expected tonight’s first band blow all from good to great. The tunes are charming comers clean off the Wheatsheaf’s tiny and beautifully played but they never stage. Recently reformed local rockers 20/ quite deliver the killer punch that could 20 Vision threaten to be a poor man’s Rage launch them into the big league. Still, songs Against The Machine, but once they hit like ‘Ko Tao’ serve as a good example of their stride they’re an unstoppable how they’re tantalisingly close to coming juggernaut of 60s garage rock with a up with a true classic, and I hope one day contemporary metal twist and two throaty they do. vocalists. They should throw out their Borderville are nothing if not ambitious; Metallica albums because they’re better probably not for instant chart success but viewed as a reincarnation of The MC5 citing Gershwin, Brel, Brecht and Weill as (and they come from a motor city). By the influences suggests artistic aspirations that end of the set the heads are down and reach beyond that of most young bands. they’re working perfectly as a tight fireball Like frontman Joe Swarbrick’s previous of energy, and any rough edges only add to outfit, Sexy Breakfast, you never know their appeal. how you’re going to find them, or if the Smilex’s Lee Christian responds to the particular magic they try so hard to weave challenge of following this by hauling is going to work. Sharing a theatrical, himself around the ceiling, hanging off the acoustic leaning with bands like Jonquil, air conditioning. Yet back on his feet the songs are intricate, complex and Smilex come across as somehow politer narrative-laden, making significant than usual tonight. Despite the angry demands of the listener. This is a good nature of their lyrics they’re actually more thing but the Wheatsheaf probably isn’t thoughtful and sophisticated than first the place for such a grand scheme to be impressions suggest. The contrary thing played out. The finale, a cover of ‘Purple about them is that despite their reputation Rain’, seals the impression of over- for being visually arresting they’re best ambition, like a Karaoke singer doing The Purple Turtle enjoyed on a hi-fi at home. ‘Angels’, and that their masterplan needs a The Family Machine are another local little more work. band who can’t quite make the transition Art Lagun Oxford’s Best Student bar Live Bands and DJs LAST SHADOW PUPPETS Open until 3am The New Theatre Thirty years ago Sheffield was a musical northern council estate, moving deftly Happy Hour between 5.30 – 8pm city of the future. Nowadays it prefers to through shimmering surf pop to emerge £1 pints and spirits hark back to a golden age of radio. In the later in the set as keepers of Love’s elegant Frewin Court, opposite Zavvi late 70s The Human League and Cabaret pop flame. Even during a mid-set slump Voltaire offered synthetic sci-fi surrealism; where they lose the strings and rock out, today Richard Hawley explores vintage occasionally clumsily, they hold on to rock’n’roll and lounge pop while with Last their charm. And when they kick back into Shadow Puppets Sheffield’s brightest top gear with ‘Standing Next to Me’, the young hero, Alex Turner, is resurrecting crowd, roused to their feet by Turner after classic orchestral pop of a kind rarely a lone dancing fan is warned by security, heard since the heady days of the The couldn’t care less about the polite Walker Brothers and Saturday Night With surroundings. Lulu. Last Shadow Puppets are masters of Teaming up with Rascals frontman Miles mood and capable of producing music Kane, Turner has left the raucous indie that’s as epic and ambitious as anything flurry of far behind, his Muse might conjure, but condensed into 876084 glorious south Yorkshire vowels and a three-minute mini-epics, and when they hefty smattering of Monkeys fans in announce the last song as ‘In My Room’ tonight’s crowd the only reminders of his we’re slightly disappointed it’s not a cover more lucrative day job. But the scope and of Jacques Brel’s haunting homage to lost ambition of Last Shadow Puppets is so love – it really isn’t beyond Turner’s much greater: from the sixteen-piece string abilities to tackle that mountain. section assembled behind the band, to the Frustratingly, but not unpredictably the ease with which Turner and Kane tackle band don’t return for an encore after a obscure Bowie gem ‘In The Heat Of The galloping hour-long set. Amid the elegance, Morning’ and pay respectful tribute to Lee the attitude is still there. And witnessing Hazelwood in such accomplished style. tonight’s show, you think that this is what Skinny of jean and feathery of haircut they Oasis could, and should, have become after may be but they’re wasted on songs about ‘Definitely Maybe’, instead of rehashing ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- bus stops and burger joints. the same tired formula for another decade. SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- Sweeping into their set, string section in So maybe Last Shadow Puppets do offer a full flow, they’re soon galloping through glimpse of a future, albeit one that never DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- ‘The Age Of The Understatement’, like came to be. 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 The Everly Brothers born and raised on a Sue Foreman each. Brand new chart CDs £5 - £10 each DEMOSDEMOS Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free half day’s recording at Keynote. Call 01189 599944 to claim your prize and get special deals for local bands!

developing an almost anthemic feel while DEMO OF retaining its rough, bass-heavy underbelly, while ‘Ratmosphere’ is big and spacious, THE MONTH like a gothic power-pop stomp and hints of U2’s early sky-scraping. A very new band ELAPSE-O in town but obviously one with a whole skipload of talent and potential. And a Very occasionally the first demo we listen timely lesson that expensive studio bills are to makes us feel like chucking the rest of no indicator of real musical class. the pile in the bin because we just know nothing is going to come close, never mind top it. So it is with this four-track offering THE DACOITS from local experimental noise duo Elapse- Now, this is well produced (by Chris O, who have been beguiling and alienating Sheldon, who has worked with Foo audiences around town for a while now. Fighters and Oceansize previously) but Futuristic factory rhythms, heavily-treated thankfully hasn’t had its character polished guitar drones, electronic bleeps and away like some. The Dacoits are a shimmers and panicked, disembodied Faringdon-based band fronted by the not vocals mix and curdle together to form a inconsiderable vocal talents of Carrie dense, hypnotic tapestry of sounds that Rositer and who, initially, seem to be hiss, click, clatter and grind their way with coming from that PJ Harvey school of grim, steely determination to their finales husky, dark-minded garage-pop, the guitars without ever casting sideways glances. At for the most part nimble and atmospheric, six minutes long, opening number ‘Sonny only occasionally getting all histrionic and Lister’ could be a tedious trawl of self- overpowering the vocals when a more consciously confrontational dissonance but understated approach might have worked instead is hypnotic and almost graceful in better. Thereafter it’s a softer, more soulful its brutality, David Roe and Toby Nevitt trip: on ‘Dumbstruck’ Carrie comes on like sustaining the pressure with an iron fist a rocked-up Sade or kd lang, although until it becomes a hypnotic mantra that is ‘Loser Now’ finds them rocking back into impossible to snap yourself away from. punchier territory. They’ve got obvious On ‘Golden Ships’ hollowed-out beats, commercial appeal, although you feel they sluggish, churning guitar and sustained need stronger songs to make better use of glissando underpin the Alan Vega-like the vocals. Work on that and the stadium- voice, while ‘Island’ is a more abstract sized grunge-pop fame and fortune they clatter of metallic textures. Seemingly seem to be aiming for may yet be within inspired by the likes of Liars, Suicide and their reach. Cabaret Voltaire, Elapse-O have created a beast of a demo that stands up well against the very best experimental music around at MEET ME AT the moment. A wider audience is unlikely ever to be theirs, but it bloody well should MIDNIGHT be. Fantastic. Someone who phoned up while we were listening to this misheard us and thought the band was called Eat Me At Midnight, which would be a better band name really PHANTOM THEORY since this here is yer actual HEAVY Another two-piece and another band METAL music, and heavy metal bands do whose musical ambition shames those indeed eat folks, especially if they’re from around them, this three-song demo Norway. This lot are from Kennington but recorded for the princely sum of £22.50, one of the vocalists does sound like he apparently. Money well spent by the might be a Norwegian cannibal troll, being sounds of it with the pair, Aaron and Steve, as what he’s all gnarly and gruff and first off thrashing out a muscular, riff- bellows like an extremely vexed water heavy garage thrash that seems to be buffalo over big, rolling thrash chords, nods constructed from two parts energy to one offered to both Metallica and Iron Maiden part belligerence, a no-frills, all-thrills hit along the way. The other singing chap is and run rumble with a passing nod to Black slightly incongruous, being as what he Flag. But instead of simply rehashing this sounds uncannily like Jamie Stuart from pleasing formula they display other strings Dive Dive, which in itself is no bad thing 07967 229 102 to their bow, the 12-bar blues of ‘Ichiban’ but doesn’t quite sit right with the metalcore scheme of things. Still, minor criticism. Heavy metal, when done right is TEASING G a big dumb simple pleasure – just thrash it Fronted by a woman with the sort of out and then laugh and laugh as it squashes slightly bluesy soul voice you only seem to the ninnies and girlyboys with their get in stage schools or TV talent shows satchels full of angst sandwiches. where anything more leftfield than pure, unrefined vapidity gets shown the door, Teasing G come from that musical world GILLESPIE where technical accomplishment is held in Gillespie is an Abingdon-based rapper who higher regard than real soul or imagination. we’ve reviewed here before and here he And so they go about lulling us into a offers up a mini-album’s worth of rhymes soporific torpor with muted, with a collective title of ‘The Drunk Soul inconsequential songs that for all the world Lover’. Over half an hour it can feel like sound like discarded b-sides from any being forced to sit and listen to someone under-achieving X-Factor runner-up or detailing all their minor irritations in life major label tax loss act. There’s soul-lite, while stuck beside them on a long bus ride. jazz-lite, reggae-lite, even lite-lite, the THE COURTYARD STUDIO The main problem is that without singer, Giovanna, not sure if she wants to PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/ exception each rap is pedestrian paced with be Ms Dynamite or Billie Holiday but 24, OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE an off the peg back-up that ranges from never in danger of being either. It’s like MACHINE, 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB tinkling lounge jazz piano to smooth soul- listening to the musical equivalent of extra CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION lite. It’s like he’s never been exposed to any low fat mayonnaise. And like that noxious OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR, + MIDI hip hop beyond The Streets (and by God food stuff, hold it up to light and it quickly FACILITIES (INC LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI aren’t we all bored senseless by Mike collapses into a watery puddle. Still, S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND ETC.) Skinner by now?). But listen to the lyrics amongst the fascinating facts about the and sometimes Gillespie’s got something to band members in the press pack we learn Residential facilities included. say, whether it’s about homeless kids or that the bassist once dyed her hair to match www.courtyardrecordingstudio.com male insecurity and he generally rhymes her instrument and that the drummer likes PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS convincingly, with a smooth, languid flow. forests and mountains. Crazy people, ON 01235 845800 Then again, it’s never nice to hear girls crazy music. referred to as sluts and trollops or the details of teenage boys’ sexual awakenings, never mind the more intimate details of someone’s mother’s nether regions. THE DEMO Anyway, having picked that to pieces – unlike a metal singer, a rapper rarely has a DUMPER wall of sound to hide behind – a steer towards the political and away from the personal, avoiding his crasser lyrical side BITUNE and some serious work on musical variety Incredibly in this modern age of laser- and Gillespie perhaps has the potential to guided warfare and there make us want to listen a bit more closely in still seems to be plenty of room for future. overcooked, cocksure, histrionic soft rock of the sort that we really, really hoped we’d killed off sometime around 1985. LAURA CRIGHTON Bitune are a bit like something that might We knew we should have followed our gut have fallen out of Bon Jovi’s backside instinct and chucked the rest of the pile in during one particularly constipated toilet the bin since this demo is all the evidence visit. The excitement just never ends on anyone could need that the corporations songs like ‘After The Fire’, which is so have won and music’s soul has been sucked strained it might well be retitled ‘Testicles out and replaced with a giant, carefully In The Fire’, while on ‘Stay’, some lucky polished dollar sign. With her Disney High lady is informed she lights the singer’s fire School girlie vocals and chugging FM rock and takes him higher. And being helpful guitars Laura Crighton aims to be nothing sorts perhaps we too could take him higher. more or less than Hannah Montana, or To the top of Carfax Tower maybe. And perhaps Avril Lavigne’s even less rebellious then give him a good, hard shove and cheer kid sister, and it makes us want to weep. as he lands on the pavement below with a Really. Weep tears of abject despair and splat that would be far more satisfying than defeat. We lost; the bad guys won. Music any sound on this risible, landfill-bothering is dead. The Christian right has won. dungheap of a demo. Bitune would Disney has won. Now shut up and doubtless describe their music as heroic. consume. Herpes would be nearer the mark.

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