email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 153 April Oxford’s Music Magazine 2008

OfOf daffodilsdaffodils andand lionslions -- meetmeet Oxford’sOxford’s poppop naturalistsnaturalists JONQUILJONQUILJONQUILJONQUILJONQUILJONQUIL

Plus - FESTIVAL MANIA All the line-up news from Truck, Cornbury, Wakestock, The Punt, Wood, Cropredy, Oxford Folk Festival - inside

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

NEWNEWSS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected]

Nightshift’s guide to the latest on this year’s local festivals THE OXFORD PUNT THE LINE-UP FOR THIS YEAR’S OXFORD PUNT has been announced. The annual showcase festival for the best local unsigned acts takes place on Wednesday 14th May and features 18 acts playing across five venues in Oxford city centre. The Punt kicks off at Borders at 6.15pm with nu-folk act Faceometer and finishes at midnight with one-man digital hardcore riot Clanky Robo Gobjobs. In between the Punt captures styles as diverse as Arabian dub reggae, garage rock, experimental noise, funk, blues, electro and CORNBURY violin-led indie rock. The full Punt line-up is: CROWDED HOUSE are set to headline this year’s Cornbury Festival. The BORDERS: Faceometer / Desmond Chancer & The Long Memories Australian pop favourites top the Sunday night bill at the festival which runs THE PURPLE TURTLE: International Jetsetters / Cat Matador / Elapse-O / over the weekend of the 5th / 6th July at Cornbury Park, near Charlbury. Raggasaurus Other acts confirmed to play include Beverley Knight, The Bangles, THE WHEATSHEAF: Tristan & The Troubadours / Non-Stop Tango / KT Tunstall and 10cc, while the second stage features headline sets from Alphabet Backwards / Rubber Duck Toots & The Maytals and Bellowhead as well as appearances from Salsa THIRST LODGE: Black Skies Burn / Little Fish / Sikorsky / King Furnace Celtica, Nick Lowe, Half Man, Half Biscuit and The Beat. Saturday night’s THE CELLAR: Eduard Sounding Block / David K Frampton / 50ft Panda / main stage headliner as yet to be announced. Clanky Robo Gobjobs. Cornbury Festival organiser Hugh Phillimore spoke to Nightshift about this Each act will play for thirty minutes with set times staggered so fans can try year’s event, which is expected to be the biggest in the festival’s history. and catch as many bands as possible. There will be a limited number (100 “I’m pretty excited about my Saturday headliner as he has a great live only) of all-venue Punt Passes, which are on sale now, priced £7 (plus reputation although I’ve never seen him. I’m sure you’ll share that booking fee) from Videosyncratic on Cowley Road, or online from excitement when we can reveal it! My personal favourite is Tift Merritt on the oxfordmusic.net. Alternatively, passes are available without booking fee direct Oxford Folk Festival Stage (2nd Stage) on Sunday – she’s a US new country from Nightshift – simply send a cheque, made payable to Nightshift, to PO star and fantastic live – I just pray I get a chance to see her on the day. Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Admission to individual gigs will be £4. Fingers crossed we’ll sell out this year – we got close last year and I think With the Punt having previously given early exposure to future local stars our bill is stronger.” such as The Young Knives, Goldrush, Fell City Girl and Winnebago Deal, as For updated news on the festival and tickets (weekend tickets start at £90 for well as early incarnations of Foals and Jonquil, it’s a great way of discovering adults and £55 for under-16s with under-5s free) visit the most exciting new music in the area. www.cornburyfestival.com or call the booking line on 0871 472 0420.

Wakestock, which has been running CROPREDY in north Wales for the past eight years, takes place over the weekend SUPERGRASS AND THE of the 27th-29th June within the LEVELLERS will join Fairport picturesque 2,100-acre grounds of Convention in headlining this the palace and will feature displays year’s CROPREDY FESTIVAL. of the growing sport of The annual folk festival, now in wakeboarding alongside the live its fourth decade, has become an music. annual pilgrimage for folk fans Among the other acts already around the world with English folk- confirmed to perform across three rock pioneers Fairport traditionally topping the Saturday night bill. stages at the festival are The This year’s Cropredy Festival takes Streets, Supergrass, Funeral For place from Thursday 7th – Saturday A Friend, The Young Knives, 9th August. Other acts announced to Hadouken, Audiobullys, The play include former-Ultravox Futureheads, Metronomy, frontman Midge Ure, Julie Lightspeed Champion, Fowlis, Joe Brown, Paul Brady, Pendulum, Jazzy B, Brandon Stackridge and John Tams & Block, Calvin Harris, In Case Of Barry Coope. Fire and Royworld. Tickets for the event are on sale Wakestock will have a capacity of now, priced £72, for all three days, 15,000, making it the joint largest or £62 for Friday and Saturday festival in Oxfordshire, alongside only, online at Cornbury. Local promoters TCT www.fairportconvention.com Music are heavily involved in the organisation and booking of bands for the event. WAKESTOCK Weekend tickets for the festival are on sale now, from SS20 on Cowley GROOVE ARMADA have been Blenheim Palace in Woodstock Road, or Rapture in Witney as well confirmed as one of the headline this summer, featuring a host of big as from the festival credit card acts at the first WAKESTOCK names from the worlds of dance, hotline on 01758 710 000 or FESTIVAL to take place at indie and rock music. online from www.wakestock.co.uk needles in haystacks or whatever else somebody Ian McLagan TRUCK / WOOD needs.” ROBIN BENNETT has been speaking to This year also sees the first WOOD Festival, a Nightshift about this year’s TRUCK FESTIVAL, small-scale family-friendly festival that takes and about Truck’s new festival project, WOOD. places over the weekend of 16th-18th May at This year’s Truck Festival takes place over the Braziers Park in south Oxfordshire, a weekend of the 19th-20th July at Hill Farm in picturesque environmental educational Steventon. Acts announced so far include former establishment. Acts confirmed so far include Get Small Faces keyboard player Ian McLagan & Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, Ashley Hutchings, The Bump Band, punk legends The Television King Creosote, The Coal Porters and Danny Personalities, plus up and coming acts like & The Champions of the World. What was the Noah & The Whale, Camera Obscura, Maps idea behind Wood? and These New Puritans. It has also been “A combination of things: recent parenthood, announced that local promoters Vacuous Pop, and my interest in environmental causes and Abort, Retry, Fail? and Sonic Cathedral will concerns. Rather than being an ‘eco-festival’, be running different stages over the weekend. WOOD is an experiment into how we can Last year’s Truck Festival was washed out in entertain ourselves and our families all together in July’s floods and had to be re-scheduled for one place, just using simple natural things around September. Robin explained the impact that had us: campfires, tents, guitars and other things on the whole Truck organisation and what music mostly made of wood. We also want to do fans can expect from this year’s festival. something new in springtime to put last year’s “In terms of what this event will be like, last flood behind us. year’s flood will not have too much impact. Most “It will be much smaller scale to Truck. This elements of the festival will be the same or better. allows us to try out many new green measures not We managed to break even in the end last year, yet possible on the larger scale at Truck, such as though it was a mighty scare for us. all at the same time. This year’s Sixties keyboard composting toilets, stages powered by solar and “This year will be a more concentrated blast of legend is Ian McLagan of the Small Faces. Some bicycle power, catering with wood stoves, organic fun than ever before... a reaffirmation of the less-known favourites are Gabe Minnikin, a local food and drink. We are even building a spirit of Truck: turning the blitz spirit of last year Canadian singer once in The Guthries, with a very special permanent wooden stage!” into a joyful celebration. We’re involving some low and powerful voice like Johnny Cash, which is For ticket details for both Truck and Wood new local faces like Abort, Retry, Fail and Vacuous no small boast. I’m also excited that there’s a new Festivals, visit www.thisistruck.com. Tickets Pop, and of course the Disco Shed. We’ve got a band from Steventon, Alphabet Backwards, with a for Wood are on sale now online from whole day of shoegaze magic from Sonic release on Vacuous Pop. wegottickets.com. Truck tickets go on sale at Cathedral too, headlined by Maps. “What usually happens is I only see the bands 11am on Wednesday 2nd April from “There are lots of acts I’m really excited about I’m in, the rest of the time I’m running about or Videosyncratic, the Inner Bookshop and Scribbles seeing – if we can manage not to schedule them on one of our famous bicycles, trying to locate in Oxford and various outlets around Oxfordshire.

THE FIFTH OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL OXFORD PLAYS HOST TO ITS OWN th th takes place over the weekend of the 11 -13 LADYFEST on Saturday 24th May at the Port April, with headline acts including The Mahon, a non-profit event showcasing female Kathryn Tickell Band, Brass Monkey, musicians and artists from the area, following on Bellowhead, Martin Simpson and Danny from over 50 other Ladyfests in cities around the Thompson, Three Daft Monkeys and world. Any female musicians or artists wanting to Rafael and Lola. get involved should email Lucy at Concerts take place at venues across the city [email protected] or visit with the main events at Oxford Town Hall and www.myspace.com/ladyfestoxford08. the Holywell Music Room. Additionally there will be sessions at the Port Mahon and a STUDIO 45 are now offering special discount ceilidh up at Brookes University Union. rates for short order CD and DVD duplication for As well as three days of live music there will THE X HAS REOPENED with a new temporary bands, starting from runs of only 25 CDs. Their be the usual array of street performances and manager and plans to continue live music at the special local bands loyalty card also qualifies workshops hosted by many of the festivals venue. The X closed down in January when customers to a free order on their fifth order. For performers, including Jon Boden and John landlady Alison was declared bankrupt following a more details call Cheryl on 01865 457000 or Spiers, Kathryn Tickell, and Chris Newman, dispute with the Performing Rights Society over visit www.studio45mediapromotions.com and including special workshops on flamenco unpaid royalties. New manager Pippa Dodds is and African music. keen to hear from any bands or promoters CROSSWORD RECORDS release a Season tickets for the folk festival are on sale wanting to put on gigs at the pub. You can call her compilation of experimental hip hop, spoken now, priced £62 from wegottickets.com or on 07748 904 693. word poetry, guitar pop and electronica this from Tickets Oxford at the Playhouse. Day month. The locally-based label have collected 23 tickets are also on sale, with prices ranging LOVE MUSIC HATE RACISM launch a series tracks by artists from around the UK, including from £14 to £39. of fundraising gigs ahead of the special carnival in projects from Oxford acts, including Plosives For full festival line-ups and ticket details visit London’s Victoria Park to mark the 30th (featuring Youthmovies’ Andrew Mears) and www.oxfordfolkfestival.com anniversary of the first Rock Against Racism Jonquil side projects BirdriB, Eleven/Twenty-Two rally. This year’s event features The Good The and Poems While Drowning. ‘Crosswords Records Bad and The Queen, Babyshambles and Lethal Volume 2’ is available from www.myspace.com/ Bizzle amongst others. The carnival is free and crosswordsrecords. the Oxford branch of Love Music Hate Racism will be running coaches to the event, leaving St AS EVER, DON’T FORGET TO TUNE INTO Giles at 8am. Coach tickets are £10 (waged) or £5 THE DOWNLOAD every Saturday evening concessions. The Oxford shows booked so far between 6-7pm on BBC Radio Oxford 95.2fm. take place at the newly reopened X in Cowley on The dedicated local music show plays the best Friday 11th April, with Shirley and InLight and Oxford releases and demos and features interviews Friday 25th with Not My Day; more acts are due with local and touring acts as well as a gig and to be confirmed. Check out www.myspace.com/ clubbing guide. The show is available to listen to oxfordlmhr for more details. online all week at bbc.co.uk/oxford Cornbury A Quiet Word With JONQUILJONQUILJONQUIL esoteric and experimental nature at THE FIRST COPY OF JONQUIL’S times, is the almost complete lack of new album, ‘Lions’, never arrived at electronics in the music, the myriad Nightshift’s office. Neither did the sounds on the albums created entirely second. Initially we suspected organically on traditional Oxford’s notoriously inefficient instruments. postal service, but finally getting to “I used to have a particular interest hear the album, with its tangible in acoustic instruments. There was a feelings of longing and escape, we had time when any weird zither or reed to conclude that the lost CDs had organ would spark inspiration, but simply gone off to live near the sea, now I don’t feel any desire to keep or in the middle of a remote forest. things ‘organic’. We’ve gone from We can only empathise; Jonquil make using almost exclusively acoustic us feel a bit like that too. instrumentation to a more happy medium. The way our songs are put WITH ITS MIXTURE OF together is very much the same way bucolic tranquillity and uneasy that any electronic music is put menace, ‘Lions’ is a minor together. We’ll record riffs and sounds masterpiece of modern ambient before we’ve decided how to use them music. Moods and textures are as most of the time. It’s all in the important as melodies in Jonquil’s editing. I’ve been writing electronic music, something the band have music for years… I still write more honed from their debut album, 2006’s Wait For Coniston, while there is a studio. A European tour to promote dance music and electronic stuff than ‘Sunny Casinos’. fair amount of cross-pollination with the EP includes a hometown show at anything for Jonquil, but I don’t get More than one Nightshift scribe has other local bands: trumpeter Sam also the Cellar on Wednesday 9th April. as much out of it.” been moved to hail Jonquil as the best plays with Youthmovies, while Nightshift spoke to Hugo about the What would you say are the main band in Oxford over the past couple Youthmovies’ singer Andrew Mears origins of the band and his original differences between ‘Sunny Casinos’ of years, and their reputation has and This Town Needs Guns’ Stuart vision for Jonquil. and ‘Lions’, both musically and in the spread beyond the city, from online Smith also features on guest vocal “I started fiddling around with sounds way they were written and recorded? indie bible DrownedinSound to Wire duties for the new album. To confirm on my computer in the summer “I can’t listen to `Sunny Casinos’ magazine who featured Jonquil on a the link with Youthmovies, both before I went to university. At this anymore; we didn’t really know what cover-mounted CD showcasing the Jonquil albums have been released on time, Jonquil existed as a completely we were doing back then, we were just best new experimental acts around. At Try Harder Records, the label run by different entity, a live band. Because learning. `Lions’ was us trying to be a the end of March the band were Youthmovies guitarist Al English. most of us were leaving Oxford for pop band, but not quite committing invited into Radio 1’s Maida Vale universities, we felt the need to fully and coming out slightly askew. studios to record a special live NAMED AFTER A TYPE OF record all of this material before it They were recorded both in very concert for broadcast on Huw daffodil, Jonquil balance skilfully on disappeared, and it seemed logical to much the same way, the main Stephens’ show. Jonquil have also the cusp of sweet-natured folk music me to combine what we had been difference being that Sam was in the toured around France and Spain and and wayward experimentalism. Listen doing live with what I had been doing band for recording `Lions’. Another appeared on French television. to ‘Lions’ and you’ll constantly find by myself on the computer. We made strong addition with `Lions’ is a yourself picking out new experiences, `Sunny Casinos’ without even greater lyrical focus. Some sort of JONQUIL STARTED OUT AS A from the childish simplicity of ‘Babe, considering how to play live, or ‘meaning’ within the songs has bedroom project, and in many ways it So Now Why No?’, through the expecting it to get released. The become a little more tangible because still is. Singer and multi- tender, ghostly atmospherics of night we finished it we gave a copy to of it.” instrumentalist Hugo Manuel recorded ‘Pencil, Paper’, to the rousing, heroic Al, and the next day he said that he How difficult have you found it to much of ‘Sunny Casinos’ by himself shanty that is the album’s title track. wanted to release it… and so then we transfer your recorded sound into live at home, playing everything from In between there are sampled thunder realised that we could make shows? guitar and accordion to bouzouki and storms, Gregorian chanting, Bulgarian something of this!” “Our live shows can bear only glockenspiel, with a few contributions folk and lonely acoustic laments. The name Jonquil comes from a type passing resemblance to our from friends. ‘Lions’ finds Jonquil Jonquil follow no formula in their of daffodil, is there a conscious effort recordings. We’re pretty weird in that now fully expanded into a highly- songwriting, appealing equally to trad to relate to the delicacy and we work the wrong way round. We accomplished multi-instrumental six- folkies and fans of leftfield rock. complexity of nature? write stuff in the studio with no eye piece, featuring flutes, drums, organ, They’ve toured with Youthmovies “Yeah, totally. That sounds right, on how to perform it live. Then we melodica, trumpet and flugelhorn. As and supported A Silver Mt Zion and A `Sunny Casinos’ was all about the have to go to Kit’s garage to ‘learn’ well as Hugo, Jonquil feature the Hawk & A Hacksaw, fitting in beautiful lush sounds masked by our own songs, which can be multifaceted talents of Jody Prewett, everywhere and nowhere and streams of noise and hiss… it was infuriating, but often we’ll discover Ben Rimmer, Kit Monteith, Sam impossible to pigeonhole. very much influenced by all the something in the song that we hadn’t Scott and Robin McDiarmid. Kranky Records stuff and Animal noticed before.” Jonquil emerged out of the ashes of THIS MONTH JONQUIL Collective’s early stuff.” Jonquil seem to be free from the two local post-rock bands: The release a new EP, ‘Whistle Low’, formulaic constraints of a traditional Modern (led by Hugo and who played again on Try Harder. It is the first CD A NOTABLE FACET OF rock or pop band, particularly in the at the Oxford Punt back in 2003) and the band have recorded in a proper Jonquil’s sound, especially given their way your music is structured; is that a conscious thing, and who would you much like us, but its so much more say are your biggest influences in this fun than playing with a bunch of and other respects? folkies, sitting down and being silent.” “As I said before, Kranky Records Jonquil’s upcoming tour will take in stuff (Stars Of The Lid, Keith more dates in France and Spain, after Fullerton Whitman etc.) and Akron/ previous successful excursions; how Family were really influential in the have they been and how different is it early days. I think `Lions’ is very playing there to in the UK? influenced by people like Neil Young, “It’s better in just about every way. Joni Mitchell and Judee Sill. I listen to Its really invigorating, because after a lot of 60s pop, Motown and Stax playing so many gigs in the UK to soul and I think that has maybe come apathetic audiences, we go to Europe across in the new EP, that and our and people seem to appreciate live love of electronic music. We all have music so much more. They make it such differing musical tastes and financially viable for bands to tour interests alongside what we create in and you are treated like kings. We are April Jonquil. Three of us run an releasing our next EP on Acuarela experimental hip hop label called Records in Europe who are based in Crossword Records and it dominates a Madrid. They asked us to play at Every Monday lot of what we do musically outside of their festival in Castellon, in a THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES the band. I think that has an effect beautiful concert hall, and as soon as The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. £6 on how the band might appear a little we finished our set they said that they 7th FAMILY STYLE (Italy) less conventional or formulaic. The wanted to release us in Europe.” 14th THE JAKE WALKER BAND (USA) label is based around an idea of st continuous collaboration between JONQUIL SEEM TO BE PART OF 21 HAMILTON LOOMIS (USA) musicians and so the standard ‘band a community within the Oxford 28th GREGG WRIGHT (USA) roles’ disappear a little when we scene, along with the likes of return to Jonquil.” Youthmovies, Foals etc. How Every Tuesday supportive has this network been and IF THERE IS ONE OVER-RIDING what do you feel about the Oxford THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB mood hanging over ‘Lions’ it is one scene as a whole given your Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am of longing and separation. It’s a experiences in Jonquil, and before 1st / 22nd / 29th THE HOWARD PEACOCK QUINTET feeling perfectly encapsulated in the that in The Modern? 8th ALVIN ROY & REEDS UNLIMITED track ‘Shore’, at the very end of the “I think it’s a really important thing 15th THE HUGH TURNER BAND album, a desolate accordion-led hymn to have a community of musicians that captures the feeling of being lost around you if you are in a band, or and alone on a deserted beach. Does writing music. So much amazing Thursdays Hugo ever feel he’d like to escape to music has come out of dense 3rd SWISS CONCRETE presents HONK KONG IN THE somewhere far from the towns and communities… I don’t know whether 60s / MY SAD CAPTAINS / MODERN CLICHES cities? it’s just being in the right place at the 10th MOSHKA presents JOE ALLEN & ANGHARAD “I lived in the countryside until I was right time, but it certainly helps. We 14, and can easily say that I much share Sam with Youthmovies and used JENKINS / TRACY CURTIS (Levellers Day Fundraiser) th prefer the city, by a long stretch. I to share Jody with This Town Needs 17 SWISS CONCRETE presents SUPERMAN guess maybe it’s the record’s Guns. It’s also nice having a band like REVENGE SQUAD / EN MOREAUX / folksiness that might suggest the Foals who are doing so well on their JAM ON BREAD / HELEN PEARSON country, but I’ve never really felt own but are still totally conscious of that connection strongly myself. I the music and people that surrounded don’t think it’s a particularly up-beat them at the beginning. It’s cool that Every Friday record, but I don’t know about how they’re so keen to help out bands like BACKROOM BOOGIE that came about or anything. It’s all us and Youthmovies now that they Funk, soul and R&B. 10.30pm-2am; £4. sound to me.” have platform to do it from.” The new EP promises a bigger, JONQUIL APPEAL ACROSS THE studio production; have you found Friday Early Shows board to both traditional folk music limitations in the way you’ve 4th COO COO CLUB & VACUOUS POP present fans and fans of more esoteric rock. recorded until now, at home? How do EFTERKLANG For example you’re as at home you envisage Jonquil’s next album 25th MOSHKA presents SHIRLEY & special guests playing with Youthmovies as you are sounding? Bands 8-10.30pm. £4. Includes entry to Backroom Adem or A Hawk And A Hacksaw. “We’re very happy with the way Boogie afterwards Why do you think that is? that we record, it allows us so much “I don’t have any interest for the freedom and I think that it is almost folk revival thing anymore. There intrinsic to the existence of Jonquil. Saturdays was time, when Devendra Danhart, We went to Warehouse studio in 5th SIMPLE – Funky House with BLOODY BEETROOTS Joanna Newsom et al first came out Kennington to re-record `Whistle 9-3am. that it was really interesting, but now Low’ for the EP as a kind of 12th OX4 – Drum’n’Bass with TEMPER D. 9pm-3am it seems to have turned into a very experiment. I’m so glad we did, and th middle-of-the-road easy-listening. I’m really pleased with the results, but 19 EXCESS – House club night with MICKY SLIM Like trip-hop in the mid-90s, it’s I think we would be a very different 9-4am. £8 before 11pm become totally coffee table. Our live band if we did everything in 26th SOUL & REGGAE NIGHT set-up is now almost entirely electric, professional studios. The next album and in our new EP, hopefully there is will basically be a doo-wop record. nothing to let reviewers call us Seriously.” ‘Folk’. Last year we played an all- Upcoming shows th dayer in London with people like ‘Whistle Low’ is out this month on Thursday 15 May – SPIERS & BODEN Adem and The Earlies and that really Try Harder. Jonquil play the Cellar Thursday 12th June – MAD ABOUT THE 80s SKA TOUR killed it for us. We’ve done tours with on Wednesday 9th April. Visit This Town Needs Guns and www.myspace.com/jonquiluk for Youthmovies, neither of whom sound news, tracks and tour dates Sponsored RELEASED by YOUNG KNIVES dreamily carouselling psychedelia of ‘Rue The Day’. Something ‘Voices…’ hinted at was a love ‘Superabundance’ for 60s acid-fuelled folk, and the odd, almost a capella ‘Flies’ dives into that world head-on, (Transgressive) paving the way for one of ‘Superabundance”s And so Young Knives reach their difficult third twin high points, the airy ‘Mummy Light The album (if we’re including their debut mini-album Fire’, full of wide-eyed childlike wonder and a ‘…Are Dead’, which we are), that point at which quintessential Englishness that you’ll only ever bands face a career dichotomy. Admirably Young find in the worlds of Syd Barrett or Julian Cope. Knives have chosen the less open path but one The other high spot is ‘I Can Hardly See Them’, that leads to far greater opportunities. with its monstrous electro pulse that reminds us Not that you’d think it after the opening few of Blur’s finest moments, hidden away on the b- numbers on ‘Superabundance’. ‘Fit 4U’ is dry and sides of their more commercially viable singles, a deadpan but worryingly pedestrian, while recent place where the band could get away with their single, ‘Up All Night’ is utterly bereft of the more obliquely imaginative indulgences without clever, weird edge that has always made even the frightening the sheep. That these two tracks are most throwaway Young Knives song a pleasure. It at the polar extremes of Young Knives’ sounds like it’d be more at home hanging out with middle-class, middle-aged, middle-management songwriting styles promises so much more for a bunch of 1980s mod revival bands. Luckily the frustration and escape remains from ‘Voices Of the future, especially when held up against the stridently militaristic march of ‘Terra Firma’ Animals And Men’, and Henry Dartnell’s formulaic laziness of the most recent punctuates this underwhelming introduction and wonderfully arcane use of language and odd Futureheads material. And as ‘Superabundance’ by the time they reach ‘Counters’, with its Devo- phrasing is another constant, but for the most climaxes with the clamouring drama of ‘Current ish yelp and its emotionally disengaged first- part they’ve left well behind the post-punk pop Of The River’, the future for Oxford’s most person account of middle-management suicide, frivolity in favour of more understated noises and cynically observant band appears more they’re breaching fresh frontiers. a maturity that retains a playful edge, like the optimistic than ever before. The lyrical obsession with suburban ennui and string-laden ‘Turn Tail’, or the Dale Kattack

SUPERGRASS garagey blues rock, but its ballsy stomp is closer WINCHELL RIOTS to Led Zep, something they’ve leaned towards as ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ far back as the likes of ‘Lenny’, and they still ‘Histories’ (Parlophone) kick it out with great gusto. Similarly ‘Bad (Andrew The Great) Blood’, which blatantly steals from Iggy’s ‘The Supergrass stoned in a field are far less fun than The first release from Winchell Riots, the band Passenger’, whilst remaining very much a Supergrass armed with beer and fags and ready to formed by former-Fell City Girl frontman Phil Supergrass song, and ‘Rebel In You’, a twilit glam- party, which is why 2005’s ‘Road To Rouen’ was McMinn and drummer James Pamphlion, is very rock number with noticeable echoes of ‘Late In something of a disappointment. ‘Diamond Hoo much the son and heir of its predecessor, with The Day’. Ha’ is something approaching a return to form, at Phil’s petulant yelp striving for an almost biblical Where ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ disappoints is in the least in part, with the band generally doing what sense of epic, while the hollowed-out production same way previous albums have - the band they do best – pillaging rock’s past and adding on the drums and the serrated guitar sound echo wandering off in a fug of spliffed-out their own discernible character to the best parts. contemplation, as on the slowed-down honky Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’. The abrasive ‘Diamond Hoo Ha Man’, the first single from tonk ‘When I Needed You’, or the good-natured grandeur of ‘Histories’ will obviously draw this, Supergrass’ fifth studio album, attracted haze of ‘The Return Of…’. Here they’re little comparisons to Muse, but Winchell Riots feel criticism for supposedly aping White Stripes’ more than functional rockers lost anywhere more intimate than that, never in danger of between 1968 and the present day, still hoping heading out on a 15-minute space-rock solo as it The Who are pumping on everyone’s stereo. clocks in at a very compact three minutes, while That old mischief has never gone away though, its graceful turbulence hides an inner darkness however much Supergrass have ‘grown up’ in the more akin to Echo & The Bunnymen’s earliest past 15 years. ‘Rough Knuckles’, with its post-punk days, and there are few things that psychedelic keyboard squelch is straight out of a make us happier. 60s head movie freak scene, while ‘Whisky & ‘The Man Who Mapped The Oceans’ and ‘I’d Green Tea’ is weird and wired, the guitar Lower You Down’ find The Winchell Riots rapt threatening to go all ‘Crazy Horses’ and ending in in glacial self-contemplation, like a pop- a squall of crazy horns. conscious Sigur Ros, while Youthmovies’ remix of Survivors of the first wave of Britpop, Supergrass ‘Histories’ guts the original with android precision are now godfathers to its current offspring, and adds a sinister electro sheen as Phil’s cut-up especially Arctic Monkeys. ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’ vocal lines stutter in and out of focus, and we’ll never sounds ahead of the game but for the most even gloss over the fact the drums sound like part it sounds like Supergrass are still on top of they’re about to launch into Phil Collins’ ‘In The their own game. Still life in the old dogs, yet. Air Tonight’. Sue Foreman 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

gig guide

TUESDAY 1 st CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford AKALA + BLACK CHERRY + MR Community Centre SHAODOW: The Academy – MOBO Award- APRIL OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon winning rapper out of London, and brother of SMASH DISCO: The Academy Miss Dynamite, comes to town in support of th recent second album, ‘Freedom Lasso’, rapping. Local rap star Mr Shaodow opens the FRIDAY 4 sampling everyone from Siouxsie and the show. EFTERKLANG + OUR BROKEN GARDEN: Banshees to Zombie Nation (on his excellent JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With regulars The Bullingdon – Glacial Viking electro-pixies ‘Shakespeare’) behind his fast-paced, wordy The Howard Peacock Quintet. ride their longboats into town – see main preview nd WEDNESDAY 2 ENVY & OTHER SINS: The Academy – nd Wednesday 2 THE FUTURE OF THE LEFT: The Jericho Sprightly Kinks-inspired guitar pop from the Tavern – Misanthropic malcontents put the recent Channel 4 Unsigned competition FUTURE OF THE world to rights with a well-aimed hammer – see winners. LEFT: The Jericho main preview KLUB KAKOFANNEY with THE MIGHTY IAMX: The Academy – Former-Sneaker Pimps REDOX + TWIZZ TWANGLE + Tavern fella Chris Corner, now relocated to Berlin, ABORIGINALS + THE SHAKELLERS: The returns with his new band, mixing up heavy- Wheatsheaf – Swampy festival funk and In what sorry excuse passes for the world of duty synth-rock and dancefloor electro, witchy psychedelia from The Mighty Redox at punk rock in this day and age, there seems somewhere between Depeche Mode, Nine Inch tonight’s KK, plus decidedly off-kilter pop to be little room for real eloquence, anger, Nails and Chemical Brothers. New single, ‘The from Twizz and funky reggae dance from humour and intensity. Attributes that Future Alternative’, is out now. Aboriginals. Of The Left have in abundance. The south JESSIE GRACE + OLLY NEASHAM + DIFFERENT STATIONS + THE YOUNG Wales three-piece formed from the ashes of RAMI: The Purple Turtle – Acoustic night. RUNAWAYS + BRENTFLOOD + THE McLusky (singer/guitarist Andrew Falkous OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple TEABO SHOW: The Jericho Tavern – and drummer Jack Egglestone) and Jarcrew Libertines-style indie punk from Stratford’s (bassist Kelson Mathias) and have already rd Different Stations, plus Wolverhampton’s proved equal to their previous incarnations THURSDAY 3 AIDEN + KILL HANNAH: The Academy – Britrockers Young Runaways. with debut album ‘Curses’ and a series of THE EPSTEIN + ANTON BARBEAU: The live dates that have managed to alienate a Seattle emo rockers in a similar vein to My Chemical Romance and AFI, which hasn’t Corner Club – Exotic country rocking with a sizeable proportion of their old fanbase Mariachi twist from The Epstein, somewhere (they sometimes use synthesizers! stopped the band becoming seriously big news in recent years. Sporting AFI’s mall-goth look between Neil Diamond and The Flying Burrito Splitters!) and upset almost all of Against Brothers, plus psychedelic folk-pop in a Robyn Me!’s fanbase when they supported them and with frontman Wil Francis utilising the patented “feel my pain” lyricism they neatly Hitchock vein from Mr Barbeau. on tour. From the rumbling, industrial bass DUM SPIRO SPERO + PARIS BIANCA: and sheet-metal guitar noise to Falkous’ package melodic punk-pop into easy to digest three-minute bursts. Signed to Victory Records The Purple Turtle – Indie and post-rock from snarling, hectoring or preaching vocals and on the back of a recommendation by Silverstein, Dum Spiro Spero. lyrical misanthropy and evil wit, Future Of Aiden have gigged their way to emo supremacy. RICH CHASE: Fat Lil’s, Witney The Left feel like the true heirs of bands like BLOOD RED SHOES: The Academy – OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon PiL, Big Black and Beastie Boys, with track Scrappy, pop-friendly rowdy garage rocking BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon – titles like ‘The Lord Hates a Coward’, Real from the Brighton duo who’ve most recently Weekly dose of classic funk, soul and disco. Men Hunt In Packs’ and ‘Fuck The been out on tour with Biffy Clyro and Maximo SHAKE: The Academy Countryside Alliance’. Theirs is the real Park. DUGOUT: The Cellar – Soul, rare groove and spirit of punk rock and if you don’t like the HONG KONG IN THE 60s + MY SAD funk with guest DJ Fingathing. way it laughs and spits in your face, there’s CAPTAINS + MODERN CLICHÉS: The GET DOWN: The Brickworks – Disco, funk a world of corporate manufactured Bullingdon – Swiss Concrete club night with and Latin sounds. alternatives out there in MySpaceland to London’s HKIT60s blending pastoral acoustic th soothe your fevered brow. folk with synth-pop and krautrock rhythms to SATURDAY 5 create dreamy pop reveries in a vaguely EVERY TIME I DIE: The Academy – Return Strereolab-gone-acoustic fashion. Countrified of the New York State metalcore faves, back indie pop in a Pavement vein from My Sad with a new, southern rock-influenced album, Captains, plus moddish rock from Bicester’s ‘The Big Dirty’. Modern Cliches in support. SERJ TANKIAN: The Academy – Former- OUTCRY + I SAID YES: The Wheatsheaf – System Of A Down frontman goes solo – see Epic acoustic pop from the local headliners. main preview STORNOWAY + POLLY & THE BILLETS NINE-STONE COWBOY: The Wheatsheaf DOUX + ANTON BARBEAU: The Cellar – – Slice-of life indie rocking from Mark Cope Folky celtic pop in a Belle & Sebastian vein and co. from local faves Stornoway, plus Winchester’s BACK POCKET PROPHET: The Purple jazz and blues combo Polly & The Billets and Turtle – Old school thrash metal. psychedelic Sacramento songsmith Anton SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house Barbeau. with Bloody Beetroots. ELECTRIC JAM SESSION: The Jack TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM Russell, Marston 101: The Academy – Special rock night with Guitar Hero championship at Room 101 and a SUNDAY 6th power ballads theme night at Trashy. Classic ENJOY DESTROY: The Academy – and contemporary indie tunes at Blustering grunge-pop noise from Basingstoke’s Transformation. Enjoy Destroy, coming on somewhere between MELTING POT with THE ANYDAYS + Foo Fighter and Feeder, perhaps not SKETCHBEAT + THE HEYS + JAMES unsurprising since Grant Nicholas produced the FORDE: The Jericho Tavern – 60s-styled band’s new album, ‘Little Dreams’. popsters The Anydays headline Melting Pot’s SHOW OF HANDS: The Academy – mixed bag club night. Traditional English folk from veteran duo Steve LEE DAVIES & FRIENDS: The Temple Knightley and Phil Beer. SCOTT ROWSON + ALPHABET BACKWARDS: The Fitzharry’s Arms, th Abingdon – Skittle Alley acoustic session. MONDAY 7 HEADCOUNT + BEARD OF ZEUSS + FAMILY STYLE: The Bullingdon – Genuine FOURTEEN-TEN: The Final Whistle, family blues band out of Milan and now Bicester – Killing Joke-inspired punk-metal recognised as Italy’s premier blues band, taking behemoths Headcount and stoner-metal beasties in a little bit of soul and whisky-soaked Saturday 5th BoZ take their monstrous noise to Bicester’s balladeering along the way. unexpecting peripheries. NO USE FOR A NAME: The Academy – 20 SERJ TANKIAN: years on the road now for California’s melodic punk-poppers, out on tour in support of new The Academy Friday 4th album, ‘The Feelgood Record Of The Year’. Even amid the late-90s metal resurgence, DAN LE SAC Vs SCROOBIUS PIP + LA’s System Of A Down stood out from the EFTERKLANG: GIDEON CON + PRODUCERS WITH pack, one of the most flamboyant, COMPUTERS: The Academy – Heavily- innovative, politicised and downright bizarre The Bullingdon bearded performance poet meets geeky knob- bands of the time, formed by a group of Tonight’s show is a collaboration between twiddler and a genuine cult hit single is born. If Armenian-Americans and drawing on the Coo Coo Club and Vacuous Pop and you live in a cave in Borneo you might have traditional folk sounds of their ancestral provides Oxford gig-goers with their first missed out on last year’s superb ‘Thou Shalt homeland as much as the punk and metal Always Kill’, a minimalist electro-punk satire chance to catch Danish electro noise that surrounded them in the States. on all things supposedly cool and trendy. experimentalists Efterklang live. `Electro Leading the band was the magnificently There’s more to the London-based duo than this experimentalists’ gives you about one operatic fire and brimstone preacher Serj though especially the excellent Radiohead- quarter of the full picture for this eight-piece Tankian, a man who lived the impassioned sampling ‘A Letter From Man To God’. Poetry, collective of course. Like Sigur Ros, Mum activism of his songs, forming the grassroots eh? You might even just learn to love it. and even Mew, Efterklang’s music seems humanitarian campaign group Axis Of CHRIS BATHGATE + JEN CHARLTON + intended to capture the majestic landscapes Justice with Rage Against The Machine’s UTE: The Jericho Tavern – Michigan-based of Scandinavia’s bleaker outposts, full of Tom Morello. While SOAD’s first couple of folkster Bathgate plugs his new album, ‘A Cork glacial ambience and hushed, choral vocal Tale Wake’, with support from London acoustic albums were minor masterpieces, their last arrangements that lend a ghostly atmosphere folk singer Jen Charlton. two were disappointing, with Tankian to pieces of music that take in pop, classical HUSH THE MANY (HEED THE FEW) + overshadowed by guitarist Daron Malakian, and acid folk along the way. On CD they can CAT MATADOR + TRISTAN & THE and in 2006 they went on indefinite hiatus. be a fragile experience but Efterklang are a TROUBADOURS: The Purple Turtle – But now Serj is back with his new (mostly) more robust proposition live, marching Dreamy indie folk-pop coming on like a cross solo project and a new album, ‘Elect The snares, exuberant brass and strings between Galaxie 500 and Magic Numbers from Dead’. And don’t go expecting no poncy embellishing the evocative electronics. Even Hush The Many, plus promising local rockers acoustic change of direction, because even if the band’s name sounds like an exotically Cat Matador and ska-tinged indie-punks the album finds our man sat behind a piano arcane instrument designed entirely to reflect Tristan and the Troubadours. or strumming an acoustic guitar some of the the sound of glaciers and tundra. Their ALY BAIN & PHIL CUNNINGHAM: time, it contains as much rage, eccentricity, second album, ‘Parades’, is a suitably Nettlebed Folk Club – Former Boys Of The colour and furious propulsion as his old episodic affair and has already garnered Lough fiddle virtuoso Bain continues his band. He may be criticised for being a bit across-the-board critical acclaim, including a exploration of traditional Scottish Islands folk too self-serious at times, but that’s only rare 10/10 review on DrownedinSound, and with long-term musical partner Cunningham. because he believes so vehemently in what has drawn comparisons with everyone from he’s doing and singing about, and music Bjork and Radiohead to Steve Reich and TUESDAY 8 th could do with a fair few more like him. Arcade Fire. All of which are valid enough, ELBOW + TWO GALLANTS: The Academy but Efterklang are out on their own and – Reliably wonderful Mancunian masters of all artist following a folky, politicised musical fabulously original. things poetic, dreamy and downbeat, back with course very much in the vein of Billy Bragg. As another cracking album, ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, ever, local lads Dive Dive provide rocking back with frontman Guy Garvey’s poetic lyrics up. Support comes from erstwhile Unbelievable managing to mix the personal and political Truth singer Andy Yorke with his rather lovely brilliantly. If there were any justice in the Jeff Buckley-inspired folk-pop. world, Elbow, not Oasis, would be FRAUD + COREY MWAMBA & ORPHY Manchester’s multi-million-selling kings of pop. ROBINSON: Wesley Memorial Church, Excellent support too from Two Gallants – raw Jericho – Free-thinking jazz and funk from melodic blues and folk racket from San recent BBC Jazz Award nominees Fraud, plus Francisco singer-guitarist Adam Stephens and vibes and marimba duo Corey and Orphy. drummer Tyson Vogel, sort of the Delta JETHRO TULL: The New Theatre – counterpart to White Stripes’ Chicago blues Enduring English folk-rockers continue to sound. explore their new-found world music sound. FRANK TURNER + ANDY YORKE + JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With special CIARA HAIDEN: The Academy – Another guests Alvin Roy & Reeds Unlimited. trip to town for former-Million Dead frontman SIMON DAVIES DUO + JANE GRIFFITHS Frank Turner, now firmly established as a solo & COLIN FLETCHER + SUSANNAH THURSDAY 10th the 30th anniversary of the first Rock Against YOUNG HEART ATTACK + IN SO FAR + Racism rally, which featured The Clash, X-Ray YOUNG LOVERS: The Academy – All-out Spex and Tom Robinson. Local 60s-flavoured old-fashioned rock’n’roll mayhem from Texas’ rockers Shirley headline tonight’s show. Young Heart Attack, back in action after being OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon dropped by XL Records and splitting up for a MIGHTY REDOX + THE PETE FRYER while. New album ‘Rock & Awe’ features their BAND + FILM NOIR + TOMMO + trademark blend of bluesy metal and punk JEREMY & KEVIN: The Magdalen spirit, where AC/DC and The Runaways meet BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon The Sex Pistols. BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Live soul and MOSHKA with JOE ALLEN & ANGHARAD jazz dance from Sun Ensemble, plus resident JENKINS + TRACY CURTIS: The DJs. Wednesday 9th Bullingdon – Levellers Day fundraiser with SHAKE: The Academy local electro-acoustic duo Joe and Angharad. GET DOWN: The Brickworks CIBELLE: CARLOS TOSADA + SWING SISTER: The Port Mahon th The Academy MIRROR! MIRROR! + THE GREAT Friday 18 Another musically exotic offering from ESKIMO HOAX + EDUARD SOUNDING Oxford Contemporary Music in the shape of BLOCK + LAKES: The Cellar – Jerky post- THE LONG BLONDES Brazilian singer, composer, poet and video punk noise from Birmingham’s Mirror! Mirror! / XXTEENS: artists Cibelle, once a member of the radical plus quirky leftfield pop in a Youthmovies vein Sao Paulo Confessions set, formed by the from Great Eskimo Hoax and heavyweight The Academy late Suba. Since that time she has moved to prog-core from ESB at tonight’s Big Hair club. Long Blondes’ debut album, ‘Someone To MUMFORD & SONS + OWEN TROMANS keep the experimental nature of that group Drive You Home’, was undoubtedly one of + DIAL F FOR FRANKENSTEIN + VON going, attempting to reinvent bossanova in the best pure pop albums of the last five BRAUN: The Jericho Tavern – Rootsy various unlikely and often thrilling ways. If years or so, packed as it was with the leftfield bluegrass and folk from London’s you think sugar cubes, coffee spoons, eggs band’s joyously bitter-sweet anthems like Mumford and Sons, plus campfire folk rock and “wood on cardboard with a scarf” are ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ and ‘Weekend from Truck favourite Owen Tromans and simply the random stream-of-consciousness Without Make-Up’, tales of unreliable men promising local alt.rockers Von Braun. thoughts of a stoned nutter, you’d be wrong, and rallying cries for female empowerment. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Jack Russell, they’re a selection of the instruments Cibelle As such, new album ‘Couples’ is a bit of a Marston utilises on her most recent album, last year’s surprise, Long Blondes taking a downward `The Shine Of Dried Electric Leaves’, which CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community Centre turn mood-wise and touching on apparent featured Devendra Banhart on guest vocals. influences such as Goldfrapp, St Etienne The results of her experiments can be OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon SMASH DISCO: The Academy and even Propaganda more than their uneven, particularly live, but more often previous tendencies towards all things they’re beguiling – swaying tropical th Blondie. But on repeat listenings, it’s a great rhythms, bizarre lyrical imagery, unsettling FRIDAY 11 move, the band staying a step ahead of the vocal chants, incongruous piano riffs and a OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL: Various game and still able to craft intricate, wonderful attention to atmosphere all add Venues - First day of the fifth Oxford Folk intelligent but irresistible pop songs, singer up to an intimate and haunting whole, a Festival featuring concerts, workshops and Kate Jackson alternately strident and strange kind of agitated lounge-folk music ceilidhs across town. Tonight’s offerings include coquettish and each song dealing with the from an oddly out-of-focus psychedelic sets from Three Daft Monkeys and The subject of couples (or more frequently, ex- world. Christminster Singers. For full listings visit couples). 80s synth-pop, krautrock and www.oxfordfolkfestival.com. disco all get a look-in on an eclectic, esoteric STARLING + JAMES BELL + CLARE DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL: The but genuinely fun album. And with her ROWKE: East Oxford Community Centre – Academy – Solo acoustic show from Florida’s incisive lyricism, Jackson has the potential Acoustic night in aid of Amnesty International. sensitive bedwett… sorry, emo-folk poet Chris to do for disenfranchised teenage girls what INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, industrial Carrabba. Come, sing along, laugh, cry, feel the Morrissey did for the boys previously. and darkwave club night. pain. Go home alone. Put the CD on. Cry a bit Tonight’s support band are called XXTeens more. and have a singer called Danny Fancy. Go th KING FURNACE + SCARAMANGA SIX + WEDNESDAY 9 on, Google XXTeens and Fancy and just DOMES OF SILENCE: The Wheatsheaf – CIBELLE: The Academy – Brazilian wait for the cops to come round. Luckily Quickfix night with ripsnorting heavy rockers experimentalist – see main preview they’re worth the effort, electro-heavy King Furnace, plus South Yorkshire’s raw, JONQUIL + HREDA + THEO + death disco and funk that’s partway operatic garage punks kicking it out in the style GOSSAMER ALBATROSS: The Cellar – between The Pop Group and Prodigy. No, of The Damned and heavyweight electro- This month’s Nightshift cover stars play a seriously, officer. hometown gig to celebrate the release of their rockers Domes of Silence. new EP, with support from jazzy post-rockers LIDDINGTON + RUN WALK: The Purple Hreda and loops’n’effects experimentalist Theo Turtle – see main interview feature IMPERIAL VIPERS + PLUKO + CHALK + OXFORD IMPROVISERS: The Port Mahon ETERNAL SUNSHINE: The Jericho Tavern – Freeform virtuosity from the local improv – Classic hard rock out of Bedfordshire. troupe. THE FAMILY MACHINE + ROB LEVER + NAT JOHNSON + JAMES SEVERY + JOHN NIVEN: The Corner Club – Wry, RORY McVICAR: The Jericho Tavern – lachrymose countrified rock and cinematic pop Monkey Swallows The Universe singer Natalie from the ace Family Machine, plus a special goes solo as her band go on an indefinite hiatus, book reading session from music industry conjuring up sweet-natured, dreamy acoustic satirist John Niven. pop. THE MIGHTY PIE: Fat Lil’s, Witney OXJAM: The Wheatsheaf – Benefit gig for SHIRLEY + INLIGHT: The X, Cowley – Oxfam’s nationwide musical jam session. Benefit gig for the forthcoming Love Music Hate OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple Racism festival in London this month to mark SATURDAY 12th currently being looked after by Mika’s THE WINCHELL RIOTS + HER NAME manager, but don’t let that put you off. IS CALLA: The Wheatsheaf – CD They’re great, in a dead sweet 80s soul- launch gig from The Winchell Riots with pop kinda way, part S Club 7, part B52s, great support from majestic Leicester part Scissor Sisters. Expect a string of rockers Her Name Is Calla. Number 1 hits very soon. SIA: The Academy – Aussie-born, New SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT York-based singer, best known in the UK + HREDA + THEO + 1877: The Purple for her 2000 Top 10 hit, ‘Taken For Turtle – Excellent bill of local leftfield Granted’, and Wookie-remixed club hit noise, with headliners Sunnyvale coming ‘Little Man’, as well as her work with on in abrasive Kraftwerk-remixed-by- Zero 7. Having moved on from her early Shellac style. Hreda bring the jazzy math- jazz and r’n’b sound to a folkier, more rock, while loopmeister Theo breathes soulful style, she’s drawn comparisons to fresh new life into experimental post- the likes of Lauren Hill and Dido, and rocking. Darkly-inclined new wavers 1877 she’s over here promoting recent album open the show in noisy fashion. ‘Some People Have Real Problems’. Just don’t go listening to her cover version of MONDAY 14th ‘Paranoid Android’. THE JAKE WALKER BAND: The OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL: Various Bullingdon – New York-based guitarist Venues -Full day of folkie goings on at and singer in the vein of Otis Rush and Oxford Town Hall, Holywell Music Room Freddie King, injecting a soulful warmth to and beyond with sets from folk big band his electric blues. Bellowhead, plus veterans Martin I AM KLOOT: The Academy – Simpson and Danny Thompson, flamenco Masterful 60s-inclined pop, rock and soul from Raphael & Lola, plus The Oxford from Manchester’s underrated mavericks, Fiddle Group and many more. There’s also back with a new album, ‘I Am Kloot Play a full day of music workshops. Moolah Rouge’, following on from 2005’s EDDIE RICHARDS + SI YEATS + excellent ‘Gods & Monsters’, replete with KOSTAS G: The Cellar – The their usual dark, twisted lyricism and Godfather of UK house and techno plays understated psychedelia. a rare Oxford gig, having pioneered his RUTH NOTMAN with HANNAH trademark deep bass-driven techno and EDMUNDS & SAUL ROSE: Nettlebed tribal house sound since the mid-80s, Folk Club playing legendary nights at The Hacienda and Heaven while acid house was in its th infancy and subsequently providing TUESDAY 15 remixes for the likes of Orbital and The PAOLO ANGELI + NOSTROMO: The Shamen. Port Mahon – A rare UK gig from KAMIKAZE TEST PILOTS + THIRTY Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli at tonight’s TWO: The Purple Turtle – Heavy rock Oxford Improvisers show, the virtuoso and old school metal from KTP plus player creating a multi-layered sound of metalcore noise from Thirty Two. bowed lead, plucked bass and tapped BLACK POWDER + TWAT DADDIES: rhythm as he tackles songs by Fred Frith The Port Mahon and Bjork amongst his own compositions. OX4: The Bullingdon – Drum&bass Flautist and saxophonist Pete McPhail’s with Temper D. Nostromo quartet provide support. THE KING & QUEEN SHOW: Fat THE BLESSING: The Academy – Jazz Lil’s, Witney – Double tribute band night horns meet rock rhythms with Bristol’s with Queen and Elvis’ greatest hits given a The Blessing, featuring former-Portishead royal airing. rhythm section Jim Barr and Clive TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / Deamer, plus brass players Pete Judge and ROOM 101: The Academy - Indie and Jake McMurchie, whose CV includes rock club nights with live sets from Super Furry Animals and The National local elegant prog-pop faves A Silent Film Youth Jazz Orchestra. Their new album, and Wolverhampton’s indie-rockers ‘All Is Yes’, somehow finds a meeting Yelps. point between Ornette Coleman and The Stranglers. SUNDAY 13th TWISTED WHEEL: The Jericho OFF-FIELD: The Port Mahon (4pm) – Tavern – The Tavern is increasingly Special session of leftfield pop and noise becoming the place to catch rising indie including sets from Brazilian chanteuse stars at ground level, with Manchester’s Mariana Magnavita, tape-led psych-outs recent In The City sensations Twisted from Clara Kindler, dynamic synth fuzz Wheel very much on the up and up with from Foetus 502, atmospheric electronics their laddishly poetic mix of Arctic from Euhedral, crunching improv from Monkeys and The Coral. Toad and grotty stadium metal from JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With Chocolate Nuts, plus more. guests The Hugh Turner Band. OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL: Various INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- Venues - Final day of the festival with a industrial and darkwave club night. SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- headline set from The Kathryn Tickell DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- Band, plus Brass Monkey and more. WEDNESDAY 16th 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 ALPHABEAT: The Academy – LETHAL BIZZLE: The Academy – each. Brand new chart CDs £5 - £10 each Infectiously jaunty Danish popstrels, Return visit for the rabble-rousing rap and grime showman with an eye on the indie music FRESH OUT OF THE BOX: The Cellar – dollar following a series of collaborations, Nu-school breaks with guest DJ Will Saul from including with Gallows. Simple Records. MARTHA ROSE + MINWAH: The Port GET DOWN: The Brickworks Mahon – Sneaky Pete club night with folk and country lullaby crooner Martha Rose and 60s SATURDAY 19th American folk-influenced singer Minwah. JAMES: The New Theatre – Reformed SHIRLEY + DEPUTEES + BEN PHILLIPS: Manchester hitmakers get back on the road in The Jericho Tavern – Feelgood rock’n’roll and aid of new album, ‘Hey Ma’, their first in seven harmony-heavy guitar pop from the local years. Expect songs from that, plus all the old stalwarts. hits, including ‘Sit Down’ and ‘Laid’. TOM MIDGELY: The Purple Turtle – RED LORRY YELLOW LORRY: The Acoustic night. Academy – Utterly great hardcore gothic OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple Wednesday 23rd rocking from the reformed Lorries, spawned from the same Leeds scene that produced The th GOGOL BORDELLO: THURSDAY 17 Sisters Of Mercy, Skeletal Family and The SUPERMAN REVENGE SQUAD + EN Mission (Lorries drummer Mick Brown left the The Academy MORCEAUX + JAM ON BREAD + HELEN band to form the Mish). Cavernous and Given that there are precious few proper PEARSON: The Bullingdon – Acoustic night aggressive in a way that leaned as much towards nutters in rock music these days, we always at Swiss Concrete’s club session, featuring Killing Joke and Wire as it did their black-clad welcome Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Croydon’s agit-folk one-man-band Superman contemporaries, the likes of ‘Monkeys On Hutz back with open arms. The bequiffed Revenge Squad, taking a downbeat look at the Juice’, ‘He’s Read’ and ‘Walking On Your and heavily-moustachioed singer and general humdrum nature of life. Local minimalist Hands’ are classic 80s alternative disco hits. onstage lunatic heads up New York’s Gogol popstrels En Morceaux support, alongside DEGUELLO + MONDO CADA: The Bordello, Madonna’s favourite band, for Manchester’s ukulele-toting lo-fi adventurer Wheatsheaf – Excellent experimental hardcore better or worse, and one of the best party Jam On Bread. noise from Deguello, with support from uber- bands on the planet – if you like your THE DRESDENS: The Port Mahon – grunge monsters Mondo Cada. parties hot, sweaty, dangerous and hosted Blitzkrieg garage-punk bop from the unholy EXCESS: The Bullingdon – House club night by a man who might be the lovechild of union of Winnebago Deal and Jack Goldstein. with Micky Slim. Borat and Johnny Rotten. Gogol Bordello is They rock. Like bastards. D-BLOCKERS: The Port Mahon a long way from Hutz’s Ukrainian TAMBORINES + INTERNATIONAL REVELATOR: Fat Lil’s, Witney JETSETTERS + THE LEFT OUTSIDES: TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM upbringing where he was forced to learn The Jericho Tavern – Wall-of-sound 101: The Academy about western rock music on illegal radio devotional psych pop from London’s VIXENS: The Temple broadcasts and had to flee his home town Tamborines, somewhere between Ride, The ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?: The Cellar – after the Chernobyl disaster. Gogol Bordello Byrds and My Bloody Valentine, ably Electro and post-punk club night with live play what they themselves describe as supported by Oxford’s own shoegazing bands and guest gypsy punk (also the title of their Steve maestros International Jetsetters. Albini-produced debut album), a frenzied SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf th fusion of traditional Roma wedding music SUNDAY 20 MARVIS RAVOLT + STRANGERS IN and classic punk. Not a million miles away, Bugger all. On a stick. With a side order of POLAROIDS + UTE: The Cellar boiled onions. in attitude and style, from The Pogues’ ONE NITE STAND: Fat Lil’s, Witney punked-up Irish folk or Bela Bartok’s ELECTRIC JAM SESSION: The Jack st Eastern European classical folk. A defining Russell, Marston MONDAY 21 moment in Eugene Hutz’s life was seeing CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford HAMILTON LOOMIS: The Bullingdon – Sonic Youth play in the Ukraine in 1989, Community Centre Young Texan bluesman who was mentored by Bo prompting his eventual move to New York. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Diddley, Clarence Brown and Albert Collins. A Expect washboards, fiddles and accordion, SMASH DISCO: The Academy virtuoso multi-instrumentalist as adept at piano, band members crowd surfing on top of bass drums and blues harp as he is with his trademark drums and plenty of old-fashioned showbiz FRIDAY 18th Strat guitar, and adding a funky dash to fun. traditional Delta blues. STANTON WARRIORS + SOUL OF MAN: BEN’S BROTHER + A FINE FRENZY: The The Academy – Internationally-renowned nu- Academy – Lightweight soul-pop from the skool breakbeats duo Dominic Butler and Mark inexplicably popular Ben’s Brother. Yardley hit the decks. ELLE MILANO + UNTITLED MUSIC TOM HINGLEY & THE LOVERS: The PROJECT + THE GULLIVERS: The Jericho Academy – Soulful garage psychedelia from the Tavern – Worryingly thin angular indie rockers Inspiral Carpets frontman, ably assisted by out of Brighton and recent support to Bloc Party. former-Fall chaps Steve and Paul Hanley. ROY BAILEY & JOHN KIRKPATRICK: THE LONG BLONDES + XXTEENS: The Nettlebed Folk Club Academy – Exuberant girl-pop from Sheffield’s rising stars – see main preview nd THE STANLEY BLACKS + SEVEN YEARS TUESDAY 22 ON + TALC DEMONS + SHATTERED THESE NEW PURITANS: The Academy – DREAMS: The Jericho Tavern – Brighton’s Inscrutable, stern and stripped-down funked-up rootsy folk-rockers. post-punk from Southend’s Fall-inspired TAKE ON THAT: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Special electro twitch-rockers. tribute to Take That. JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With regulars PETE BOSS & THE BLUEHEARTS: Didcot The Howard Peacock Quintet. Labour Club – Local Clapton-inspired electric bluesman. WEDNESDAY 23rd OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon GOGOL BORDELLO + SKINDRED: The BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon Academy – Fantastically mayhemic gypsy SHAKE: The Academy punk – see main preview INIGO JONES BAND: The Wheatsheaf – JOSH KNIGHT: The Jericho Tavern – MISO ENSEMBLE: Jacqueline du Pre Acoustic funk, soul and blues. Poetic trad folk in the Fairport traditional from Building – First of two nights of LUCY & THE CATERPILLAR + YOU & local troupe Telling The Bees. contemporary Portuguese music from OCM, ME: Baby Simple – Winsome acoustic folk OPEN MIC SESSION: The Jack Russell, tonight featuring composer, poet and and country-pop. Marston percussionist Miguel Azguime providing a PHIL KING + THE SHIFT: The Purple CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford multi-medium show of electronics, words and Turtle – Acoustic night. Community Centre projections. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon MOSHKA with SHIRLEY: The Bullingdon SMASH DISCO: The Academy – Featuring a – Cheery harmonic pop and Latin-tinged THURSDAY 24th live set from Baby Gravy. rock’n’roll. ILIKETRAINS + CAT MATADOR: The ELECTRICITY: The Cellar – Electro and OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon Academy - Leeds’ iLikeTrains must be one of house club night. DANIEL HAMMERSLEY + MARTHA the most unusual bands in the UK at the ROSWELL + TAMARA PARSONS + th moment, and not just because they tend to FRIDAY 25 FACEOMETER: The Jericho Tavern – dress in vintage British Rail uniforms and spell KARINE POLWART: The Academy – Pure, Sensitive acoustic pop balladeer Daniel their name with an annoying grammatical glitch, dark-edged traditional folk from the Scottish Hammersley headlines an acoustic songwriters but because while their indie counterparts are singer and guitarist and former member of The night. getting rich quick singing about going to Battlefield Band, who recently won the Best NOT MY DAY: The X, Cowley – Love McDonald’s or fighting at taxi ranks, Original Song title at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Music, Hate Racism benefit. iLikeTrains are making ten-minute epics Awards for ‘Daisy’, this following on from her DIAL F FOR FRANKENSTEIN: The Purple documenting everything from the assassination three gongs at the 2005 awards for her debut Turtle of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, to album, ‘Faultlines’. POWERTRAIN: Fat Lil’s, Witney the Beeching Report to chess champion Bobby NIZLOPI: The Academy – Back in Oxford THE PETE FRYER BAND + THE MIGHTY Fischer. All of which are conveyed by way of after last October’s low-key Jericho Tavern gig, REDOX: Jack Russell, Marston funereal epics that marry goth, shoegazing and Luke Concannon and John Parker kick out their BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon new wave. They’ve been coming to Oxford soulful folk-pop with an odd array of SHAKE: The Academy regularly over the last couple of years and each instruments, including Parker’s human GET DOWN: The Brickworks time to larger crowds. beatboxing and double bass, while nearly- th MEPHISTO GRANDE + KEYBOARD Christmas Number 1, ‘The JCB Song’, is sure SATURDAY 26 CHOIR: Freud’s – Wonderfully guttural to be the night’s big singalong moment. GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with ONE gospel blues racket from Mephisto Grande, SLIDE: The Academy – House club night with DOLLAR PEEPSHOW + VOLKENFUNK + launching their debut CD tonight, with support guest DJ James Holden. JOE ALLEN & ANGHARAD JENKINS: The from atmospheric electro ensemble Keyboard THE HALF RABBITS + SENNEN: The Wheatsheaf – Good-natured Cardigans-style Choir. Wheatsheaf – Oxjam gig from the local gothic indie synth-pop from One Dollar Peepshow at SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf pop favourites The Half Rabbits, plus tonight’s reliably mixed GTI bill. Joining them TELLING THE BEES + CHRIS & ROXY + shoegazing sonic spiralists Sennen. are Teutonic electro dance duo Volkefunk and THE EPSTEIN: The Jericho Tavern – Local WEDNESDAY 30th country rock favourites headline tonight’s Coo HEALTH + ELAPSE-O + JAYETAL: The Coo Club. Wheatsheaf – First date of a mammoth RESERVOIR CATS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – European tour for LA’s primal noise Good-time hard rocking blues. experimentalists, taking on influences from THE RUINS + STORNOWAY + DEATH BY krautrock to pagan industrial folk to create a ORCHESTRA: Stocks Bar, Abingdon – savage but inventive clatter of metallic electro Skittle Alley bands night with indie rockers The noise that leans at times towards the likes of Ruins and celtic-tinged pop starlets Stornoway. Liars and Gang Gang Dance. Local experimental SOUL & REGGAE NIGHT: The Bullingdon starlets Elapse-O support, along with fuzzy TRANSFORMATION / TRASHY / ROOM Mactronica two-piece Jayetal. 101: The Academy THE SCRIPT: The Jericho Tavern – Genial Sunday 27th SOULJACKER + DEAD LEG: The Temple soul and r’n’b from the rising Irish hopefuls. HQ: The Cellar – Drum&bass club night. MAY WARNING: The Port Mahon – May THE KILLS: eve musical party. th SUNDAY 27 INFLATABLE BUDDHA: The Purple Turtle The Academy THE KILLS: The Academy – Dark-hearted lo- – Acoustic set from the cabaret-poetry collective. If you’re really shallow or bored or simply a fi garage noise from the deadly duo – see main OPEN MIC SESSION: The Temple Heat-reading mouth breather, you could preview come along tonight just to see if Kate Moss THE AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD: The is in the crowd – the Burford-dwelling stick New Theatre – Extravagant tribute to the gods Tuesday 29th person being the current squeeze, Jamie of prog. Hince, one half of The Kills, alongside ZANGRYUS + SACRED DIVIDE: The Port ULRICH SCHNAUSS / Florida-born musical partner Alison Mahon Mosshart. But really, there are several AIRIEL: The Cellar dozen better reasons to make the trip down MONDAY 28th Sonic Cathedral presents another quality night of shoegazing noise with German to tonight’s gig. The Kills have, suitably GREGG WRIGHT: The Bullingdon – electro-noise starlet Ulrich Schnauss out on enough, remained in the darker shadows of Rocking blues from California’s Gregg Wright, a tour with recent collaborators Airiel, from pop’s underworld since their garage-rocking left-handed guitarist playing a right-handed Chicago. Schnauss’ most recent album, debut album, ‘Keep On Your Mean Side’, guitar upside down. A renowned session ‘Goodbye’, his first for Domino Records, the duo sharing a love for all things Velvet musician who has played with Spencer Davis finds him in his trademark oceanic ambient Underground, Beefheart and Suicide and and Michael Jackson, cranking out classic blues territory, mixing up tender melodies with with follow-up album ‘No Wow’ sidling and rock anthems as well as his own songs. huge washes of noise and underpinned by further into lo-fi electro minimalism. But MYSTERY JETS: The Academy – Back with discreet Balearic beats, like a hybrid of now their new album, ‘Midnight Boom’, a second album, ‘21’, but without dad – Henry finds them opening up their musical vista Harrison. Where now for Eel Pie’s psychedelic Tangerine Dream, Chapterhouse and My and discovering the joy of dancing, produced prog-pop weirdoes? Towards a more jangly, Bloody Valentine, while there are still hints as it is by Alex Epton (aka Armani contemplative sound if recent singles are of his ambient drum&bass origins. Schnauss’ XXXchange). With those beats come a anything to go on. dreamy soundscapes are given an even more heightened sense of melody and increased ANGUS & JULIA STONE: The Jericho ethereal feel by Judith Beek’s vocals and his emotional resonance, with odes to east Tavern – Sweet-natured, childlike acoustic pop, expansive arrangements make it music to London clubbing alongside tales of failed with elements of Fleetwood Mac and Simon & lose yourself in. You could say the same romance. Even with the new glam girlfriend Garfunkel, from the Sydney-based brother/ about Airiel, who arrive in the UK to and lighter musical tone, it’s not going to be sister duo, whose recent ‘A Book Like This’ promote their debut album, ‘The Battle Of a laugh-a-minute party tonight, Jamie and album went top 10 in their native Australia, Sealand’, armed with titanic waves of Alison remaining an almost closed-off unit having been recorded in Fran Healey from distorted guitar noise, the better to relive the on stage, their introspection serving as a Travis’ living room. gloy days of Ride and Slowdive, and they’ll defence mechanism against the world that LITTLE JOHNNY ENGLAND: Nettlebed be chuffed to find Loz Colbert from Ride only serves to heighten the abundant tension Folk Club – English folk-rockers utilising playing with tonight’s opening band, in the music. squeezebox, fiddle and slide guitar to add a trad International Jetsetters, formed with fellow edge to their more contemporary rock sound. current Mary Chain chap Mark Crozer, the emotive folk-pop duo Joe and Angharad. JAZZ JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston band complementing tonight’s line-up fully THE SMITH QUARTET: Jacqueline du Pre as they delve into the heavily-flanged world Building – Continuing Oxford Contemporary TUESDAY 29th of Spacemen 3 and Magoo. Indie music as it Music’s celebration of new Portuguese music, DJ YODA’S MAGIC CINEMA SHOW: The was made before the corporations stole it The Smith Ensemble provide electronics and Academy – Scratching, breakbeats and general away. string-led interpretations of Miguel Azguime turntable mischief from DJ Yoda. and Caros Caires. ULRICH SCHNAUSS + AIRIEL + JUSTIN ADAMS & JULDEH CAMARA: The INTERNATIONAL JETSETTERS: The Academy – Excellent marriage of rootsy blues Cellar – Eyes down, there’s your shoes, have a and rock and Gambian folk music tonight as good gaze – see main preview guitarist and producer Justin Adams (who plays JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With regulars with Robert Plant’s band) teams up with singer The Howard Peacock Quintet. and riti player Juldeh Camara, the pair having HEADINGTON CATWEAZLE: Kiln Lane just a released an album, ‘Soul Science’, together. Community Centre, Risinghurst – The HARRY ANGEL + JONNY DARE: The Purple longstanding open mic club takes a short Turtle – Fuzzcore pop from Harry Angel. vacation out of the ring road for the night.

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion in the gig guide is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Call 01865 372255 (10am-6pm) or email listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright of Nightshift and may not be reproduced without permission NIGHTNIGHTSHIFTSHIFT presents The Oxford Punt 1 Night, 5 Venues, 18 Acts Quite simply the best showcase of unsigned local music of the year Wednesday 14th May

Borders Thirst Lodge 6.15 Faceometer 8.30 Black Skies Burn 7.00 Desmond Chancer & 9.30 Little Fish The Long Memories 10.30 Sikorsky 11.30 King Furnace Purple Turtle 7.45 International Jetsetters Cellar 8.30 Cat Matador 9.00 Eduard Sounding Block 9.15 Elapse-O 10.00 David K Frampton 10.00 Raggasaurus 11.00 50ft Panda 12.00 Clanky Robo Gobjobs Wheatsheaf 8.15 Tristan & The Troubadours 9.00 Non-Stop Tango 9.45 Alphabet Backwards 10.30 Rubber Duck

All-venue Punt Passes now on sale. £7 from Videosyncratic (Cowley Road) or online from Oxfordmusic.net. Only 100 available Photo: rphimages LIVE

GARY NUMAN The Academy Nearly 30 years since ‘Are by Numan’s emotionally detached ‘Friends’ Electric?’ launched him android sneer and potently sparse onto a journey as one of the lyrics. biggest, and yet most critically Playing the album in its entirety reviled, pop stars on the planet, means some favourites, like ‘Are and in the week he celebrates his ‘Friends’ Electric? (saved til last), 50th birthday, Gary Numan is the monolithic ‘Down In The Park’ performing in front of a sold out and the swirling, paranoid ‘Me, I Oxford audience for the first time Disconnect From You’ get yet since the early 80s. Rarely has a another airing, while more obscure musical star shone so brightly, tracks like ‘The Machman’ – the fallen so spectacularly and risen highlight of tonight’s set with its again so defiantly as his. abrasive proto-industrial lunge and Numan’s current tour is a sexually ambiguous existentialism – celebration of ‘Replicas’, his 1979 and ‘It Must Have Been Years’ – masterpiece from which ‘AFE?’ Kurt’s fave, with its guitars a was taken, and which has become a throwback to Tubeway Army’s benchmark in electronic and early punk sound – are rarer treats. industrial music, inspiring everyone For the fanatical Numanoid from Nine Inch Nails, Kurt Cobain connoisseurs (and few fanbases are and Beck to Blur, Dr Dre and more fanatical than Numan’s) it’s Afrika Bambaataa, sampled and the outtakes from that period that covered to death, its dystopian sci- make the show: ‘We Have A fi imagery seemingly as potent now Technical’, previously covered by as it was back in those pre- Damon Albarn and Weezer’s Matt although the latter’s title could And as he finishes his set with a Bladerunner days. Electronic music Sharp, is almost playful electro- theoretically sum up Numan’s song from a much more recent has advanced phenomenally since pop, while ‘We’re The Crazies’ music in one. Before ‘Replicas’ album, ‘A Prayer For The Unborn’, ‘Replicas’ was created, but its raw, sounds every bit the lost new wave electronic music was mostly the it’s obvious that creative spark is brutally linear sounds have dated gem it was never credited as. Two preserve of lab-based boffins, back after so long in the wilderness. well and with a full live production, instrumental pieces, from the tail- leftfield experimenters and prog- Good things come to those who the power that leaks from tracks end of ‘Replicas’, throw contrasting rock fantasists. Numan’s Philip K wait, and after 30 years of waiting, like the set-opening album title lights on the album: the haunting, Dick-inspired concept album about it seems Gary Numan has finally track is incredible, waves of eerie atmospheric ‘I Nearly Married A a decaying future world changed earned the respect and acclaim that bass synths cut through by Human’, and the throwaway the musical landscape was so long due to him. serrated guitar noise and topped off ‘When The Machines Rock’, immeasurably. Dale Kattack

GRAVEPAINTINGS / ALEXANDER THOMAS / EUHEDRAL / DTV The Port Mahon Tabletop improv often has the excitement of its keyboard drones is agreeable, but doesn’t seem number manages to somehow create crunchy vast range of sound options tempered by the to boast much depth, in contrast with other beats from the theremin, and sounds like a lost inevitable gap between musical events that is Euhedral gigs we’ve witnessed. Euphonious but Mu-Ziq classic. Plus he’s a dapper dresser; dictated by the time taken to put one thing hardly euphoric. The final track shows what he there’s too much scruffiness in alt music. All down and pick another up. Copious use of can achieve, shoving sandpapery rasps about hail. delay can mask this to a certain extent, but it beneath a slow copter blade pulse to eerie Birmingham’s Gravepaintings have a tough act still imposes a rhythm on the music that can effect. to follow, and initially their samples of choice – result in predictability. DTV manages to avoid Some people claim that making music from snake charmer reeds and tropical bird warbles – this pitfall, sampling himself bowing strings and loops and effect pedals is too easy. Alexander make them sound unpleasantly like a queasy bashing metal pipes to create a surprisingly Thomas counters this by using only theremin update of world trancers Loop Guru. dynamic soundscape that can rush from heavy for his sound sources, which is one of the Thankfully these elements soon get lost in a static to something delicate that sounds like hardest instruments to play well (if a guitar vast wave of trouser-flapping noise the likes of ivory raindrops falling into a tin bucket. This with no frets sounds difficult, imagine one with which we’re amazed the Port PA can handle. kind of performance can be fascinating, but is no neck or strings either, and that’s how Physically powerful, then, but nothing here to rarely this exciting. awkward a theremin is to control). Quickly stand out from other droneheads doing the Euhedral isn’t in our dictionary, but logic bypassing the b-movie cliches of the rounds. Gravepaintings’ music may be about dictates it should mean “having pleasing instrument, Thomas builds up a sensual series building to a climax, but they’re a bit of a squib surfaces”. Pretty apt, when his miasma of of sonic constructions, that are alternately at the end of a satisfying and eventful evening. reverbed voice, rubbed guitar strings and scouring and beautiful. Unbelievably his last David Murphy Son Of Dave photo: www.myspace.com/johnnsphotos SON OF DAVE / TOM MANSI & THE ICEBREAKERS / LIAM INGS- REEVES The Jericho Tavern An unholy roar greets my pasty woman”. He also calls it ‘porno ears walking up the Jericho Tavern music’ – charming. Not only does stairs, folky echoes and thundering he provide ace columns for music drums. Ah, good, Liam Ings- paper The Stool Pigeon, he looks Reeves, Oxford’s prime growler, just like the cowboy from with Mephisto Grande and before Mulholland Drive. Uncanny. that Suitable Case For Treatment, The one-man Son Of Dave machine tonight on his solo project. Reeves is a multi-tasking polyglot of the is the wonderfully obscure zenith musical world: a left foot steadily in the muddy pool of the Oxford stomping, right hand waving a scene mediocrity – his vocal chords crackly shaker apparatus, other have done more for the local scene hand holding a harmonica and than [insert dull Oxford band here] funny-shaped mic thing. What could ever do, and praise be to him pours out of his knackered lo-fi for it. Crazed blues chugging is VOX amp is a rambunctious, familiar territory and he looks belly-pummelling medley of beat- smashing also – black stripy shirt boxing gospel noise, loop-pedal with fuzzy tiger tie can’t be argued blues; a manic alcoholic with. merrymaking. Son Of Dave is a Tom Mansi & The Icebreakers are high priest of crowd involvement, a slightly dull rock n’ roll affair, but inviting one straight-laced lass and it’s always nice to see a double a jovial chap onto the stage for bass. Next. apples, Kronenbourg, and a good In his own words, Benjamin go at the shakers. It’s when he Darvill, aka Son Of Dave, does admits near the end: “Okay, I’m he’s a legend. Music this absurdly us part with: hail, hail Son Of “drinking, lovemaking and fighting going to play the next song and fuss free should pass without any Dave! songs... over a pool game... or a then pretend to leave,” you know philosophising last sentence, so let Pascal Ansell

CHARLIE DARK’S AFRICAN BEATS The Academy Charlie Dark is a prolific musician never quite fulfilled their potential and poet, part of now defunct band as a band. Attica Blues and founder of the Dark’s digital beats and samples Blacktronica collective of artists are actually quite understated, laid spanning various creative arts. This down more as a tapestry for the short tour was billed as a culture other instruments to weave on. As clash of African rhythms and digital a strategy it’s proved beats and features guitar, African controversial historically: Salif percussion and electronics. The Keita got a lot of stick in the 80s pieces are mainly instrumentals, for wanting to record his classic varying in mood and revealing a ‘Soro’ album in a state-of-the art band very much in tune with each studio with full digital facilities, other’s ideas. Early on we get a and I remember having bad- great number that recalls tribal deep tempered conversations with house, lazy but insistent, with the hardcore world music types who emphasis on each instrument thought this was outrageous. working together to create one Intriguing though tonight’s show sound. At other times individuals is, it would have been more take prominence, notably Chief enjoyable to have come pre-armed Udoh Essiet, a Nigerian master with knowledge of the material, as drummer who demonstrates the there’s clearly new ground being talking drum and explains its place broken, but as it happens they’ve in traditional life. He used to play yet to commit this project to an in Fela Kuti’s band, which is about album. If this all works out they as cred-worthy as you can get in could become the new darlings of African terms. Later on things get a the summer festival circuit. If it bit more freeform and bring to mind doesn’t, well, Charlie Dark’s got Weather Report, the 70s jazz- plenty of other projects to chance fusion collective whose members, his arm at. though hugely talented individually, Art Lagun Photo: rphimages The Academy V referencing ofThePolice and some heavy-duty musical Orange Juice,truth betold). Add in to dress(abitlike Haircut100or of recentIvyLeaguegraduatestend dresses itselfexactlylikeabunch when, like Even opener ‘MansardRoof’). obscure pointsofarchitecture(set (‘Oxford Comma’)orequally about obscurepointsofgrammar classless, evenwhenit’s singing that greatpopmusicistruly band’s fanaticalreceptionprove tonight’s sold-outshowandthe fans tohatethemfromtheoff,but be daringclass-obsessedUKmusic sleeves, Vampire America rootsfirmlyontheir educations andwell-to-dosuburban Wearing theirIvyLeague new bandaround. Weekend tobe thismonth’s hottest time forBrooklyn’s Vampire continent, nowisexactlytheright rhythms andharmoniesofthe Foals toDamon Albarn pillagingthe late-80s, butwitheveryonefrom Boys andFourBrothersbackinthe championing thelikesofBhundu this countrysinceJohnPeelwas African musichasn’tbeenashipin AMPIRE Vampire W Weekend seemto WEEKEND eekend, it Sue Foreman the feelgoodhitof thissummer. Vampire Weekend aregoingtobe possible toget.No doubtaboutit, Detectives andtheirilkasit’s witless lyricalnothingnessofPigeon it’s aboutasfarawayfromthe Oxford comma”,becauseinitsway yelps “Whogivesafuckaboutan Be GiantsassingerEzraKoenig for remindingyouofTheyMight kitsch. You canevenforgive them quickstep awayfromretro AOR simple popgems,asprightly and they’dstillstandupassweet, tonight oftheirmoreworldlyedge Strip virtuallyanyofthesongs beyond tokenisticcherry-picking. littered throughoutthesetgowell while the Township guitarsounds ju musicispuremusicalsunshine, to Ghanaianhi-lifeandNigerianju- Cod KwassaKwassa’,withitsnods music wasn’tsodamngreat-`Cape sound contrivediftheresultantpop West SideSoweto”stylemight The band’s self-styled“Upper British indiescene. geared almostentirelytowardsthe phenomenon, an American band once rarebutincreasinglypopular Vampire Weekend seemlikethat Emily Gray pharmaceutical researchbodiesafterall. product engenderingpurehappinessisn’tjustamythspunbydodgy soda-pop exuberance, The Go! Team areenoughto convince youthata them, especiallyasitdetractslittlefromthefun.Withtheirirrepressible enviously outside.However,itwouldbechurlishtoholdthisagainst times whenyoufeellikethekidwithoutaninvitewhoislefttoprowl stuff. To cranksomemoremileageoutoftheteenpartyanalogy, thereare wrong endofachisel,yetit’s impossible tomakeoutanyofthehigh-end sound. It’s soloudthatyoufeelyoureardrumsarebeingpoundedbythe lets faceit,astart-to-finisheulogycanbebittiresometoread)isthe Theonebitoffault-findinghere(andIfeelmustincludesomebecause, It’s impossiblenottolovethem. without themachostruttingthattendstoaccompanysuchexcursions. with allthegiddyeffervescenceofafratpartyinUSteenmovie- tossing instrumentsamongstthemselveslikerelaybatons.Theybuzz junk rush,thebandgleefullycavortaboutstage,disco-dancingand Rhythmes Digitalesand,erm, The SmartE’s. Caughtupinthiscandy- Cherry. OtherguiltypleasuresinevidenceareBis,Salt-n-Pepa,Les manga cartoonaesthetic-inastylestronglyreminiscentofNeneh delivered byNinja-whosemonikerjustaboutsumsupthekitschy side. Thesepick’n’mixgrabbingsaresugar-dustedbyburstsofrap playground games.Withaheftysmatteringofkids’TVthemesonthe indie rock,cheerleaderchants,early80ship-hopandclap-inclap-out Brighton, theirmusicalreferencepointsareanunlikelyassortmentof day-glo bright,theyarepureauralserotonin. A six-piecehailingfrom Goodthingtherearebandslike The Go! Team around.Fizzy, frothyand measure ofenjoymentoutlife? helped itgodown. What’s apersonsupposedtodosqueezeany unveil thenewsthatProzacisaseffectualspoonfulofsugar reported sightingsofLordLucanthanthesun,mediadecideto so muchthatwinterisnowayear-roundeventandtherearemore Great. Justwhenitseemsthathumanactivityhasscreweduptheclimate The Academy THE GO!TEAM a bizarre butentirelysatisfying ambience withgenuine menace,like screams lacingthe doomyindustrial Umair Chaudhry’s distortedvocal synth-led territory, NickBand noise intodarker,moreatmospheric that night’s morehardcore metal was nofluke,steeringawayfrom month’s King, XmasLightsprovethatlast MissingleadguitaristJamesGray- edge. while retainingasullenmelodic exactly wheretheirstrengthslie, instrumental passagessignposting own, acoupleofrumbling to ittheyreallycomeintotheir let themselvesdigagrooveandstick slightly messywhole,butoncethey new waveand American punkintoa mixing upelementsofpost-rock, entirely surewhattheywanttobe– half oftheirset,thatthey’renot suspicion, particularlyinthefirst corner admirably. There’sa And, onbalance,theyfighttheir not togetbulldozedintothetarmac. Burn havegottheirworkcutout musical power,CityLightsJust On anightofquiteastonishing The Wheatsheaf CITY LIGHTSJUSTBURN EINSTELLUNG /XMASLIGHTS sublime showattheCellar Dale Kattack fuel dependency inaninstant. you couldsolve the world’s fossil the energypouring fromthestage, and ifyoucouldcapturebottle Pumpkins’ virulentgrungepop, Neu!’s steelyglideandSmashing intricate butlinearcoursebetween in theirhour-longsetasitsteers an thunder. There isn’t asinglebreak tightly-orchestrated musical contempt forhumanityinto but insteadtheychanneltheir some megalomaniacBondvillain, providing muscularback-upto another life,lookliketheymightbe looking, black-cladmenwho,in Einstellungarefourearnest- singularly hypnotic. motorik grooves,becomes driven alongbyunforgiving blanket ofcrescendosandplateaux, zombie-like astheband’s sonic every headintheroomnodding nonchalant relentlessnessthathas but theyhaveacasual,even not possessXmasLights’ brutality, instrumentalists Einstellungmight Birmi collision ofEnoandNeurosis. ngham’s krautrocking thethe portport mmahonahon Live Music in April 4th Oxford Folk Club 6th Joe Allen and friends 9th Oxford Improvisers 10th Carlos Tosada + Swing System 11th Oxford Folk Club Witney’s Premier Live Music Venue 12th Black Powder + Twat Daddies 13th Off Field 4 with Mariana Magnavita + Clara Kindle + Foetus 502 + Euhedral + Toad + Bop + Chocolate Nuts (4-11pm) APRILAPRIL th APRILAPRIL 15 Oxford Improvisers with Paolo Angeli 16th Sneaky Pete Presents Martha Rose + Minwah 17th Dirty Boys Presents Fri 4th RICH CHASE 18th Oxford Folk Club 19th D-Blockers Fri 11th THE MIGHTY PIE 25th Oxford Folk Club th 27 Zangryus + Sacred Divide Sat 12th THE KING & QUEEN SHOW 30th May Warning (Tributes to Elvis and Queen) Book your band into play at Oxford’s best small music venue! Plenty of dates free. Thu 17th ONE NITE STAND 82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067 Fri 18th TAKE ON THAT (Tickets £15)

Sat 19th REVELATOR

Fri 25th POWERTRAIN

Sat 26th RESERVOIR CATS

Fat Lil’s 64a Corn Street, Witney 01993 703 385 www.fatlils.co.uk frenzied nostalgia. Directing Traffic and Ian Chesterton Dreadzone photo by Sam Shepherd DREADZONE / DUBWISER The Academy Dubwiser have seemingly been around for so long that vocalist Jonas’ son has been recruited as percussionist for the band. Still, such longevity can only point to the quality of the band or their dogged determination. Facing a crowd that are initially hard work Dubwiser never stop their attempts to get everyone moving. Part of the problem might be that their material can be found hanging around the fringes of roots and rocksteady. At times it’s just a little too laid back to set the crowd alight, but their performance is faultless. As an example of perfectly executed reggae you won’t find better. In Jonas, Dubwiser have a frontman who is eminently watchable. There he is lost in his music, dreads flying, grin on his face and foot up on the monitor willing the audience to move to the solid bass lines. Okay, so his slightly dodgy socks throw us off a little bit, but when he starts to play a bongo solo with his son on their closing track you can’t help but feel a little warm inside. That warmth is quickly dispelled by Dreadzone’s vocalist who falls into the trap that so many stumble into having read Bass Culture. His faux patois is irritating beyond belief. If he didn’t then treat us to additional impressions of “Northern Comedian” and floor of the Academy is bouncing under the New songs such as the awful `MySpace’ are “Cockerney Barrow Boy” later on, you’d weight of frantic skanking. They may not have messy and lacking cohesion, but when you’ve assume he was just an ignorant fool. This minor huge record sales, but you can tell that got the likes of `Little Britain’ in the bank and a niggle aside, Dreadzone are nothing short of Dreadzone honed their craft on the festival live show that pleases every time, such things stunning. The older songs help the audience find circuit as they keep the tempo high and the are unlikely to be a concern. their dancing feet, and within seconds the people dancing. Sam Shepherd THE LONG INSIDERS / The Jack Russell THE BLACK HATS 21, Salford Rd, Marston, OX3 0RX The Jericho Tavern Electric Jam Session rd th Ah, the Nineties. The current accepted One peculiar Nineties sub-genre which is 3 and 17 April 2100 – 2300 musical view of this much-maligned decade quite understandably overlooked is the Sing or play with our house band re-imagines it as an embarrassing pile of cod-spy theme. As the Bond films ‘Rough Mix ’providing support regurgitated vomit, chunks of previous gathered pace the rapidly-aging Britpop th th decades swilling about in shiny, kids seemed to fall over themselves to Open Mike 10 and 24 April th overproduced bile. What’s remarkable is write tunes for the soundtracks – and fall Jazz Jam Monday 28 April how we ever managed to escape such they inevitably did. Though clearly Tel 01865 791899 postmodernist trappings – if indeed we soundtracking some imaginary spy film, ever did. The Long Insiders are thankfully made of Email [email protected] The Black Hats’ oeuvre seems to straddle sterner stuff. Nick Cave’s shadow looms the divide between the previous decade and large, lending genuine menace to familiar, the present day, half of it moulded in the reverb-soaked guitar lines and classically image of the Foo Fighters, the other half clattering drums. The cherry on the cake, sounding like a meaty Young Knives. The however, is the passionate wail of singer effect of this dual purpose is a little Sarah Dodd, who is the single most unsettling, giving the impression that the glamorous individual to grace an Oxford band are desperately seeking commercialism stage in living memory. While a forty-five by hopping genre to match the zeitgeist, minute set tires a little towards the end rather than sticking to their guns. They due to a limited tonal palette (a couple needn’t worry – they can pen a great indie more tear-jerkers wouldn’t go amiss), pop song and their grasp of dynamics and there’s still more than enough musical structure is commendable. Lacking the gruff substance here to transcend the wilfully Grohl growl or any discernable oddball dated aesthetic. charm to match their all-too-obvious And that’s the answer, kids – playing cool musical influences mean they appear to fall music does not make you cool. Playing short when, with a little less focus on good music lets you get away with being CREATIVE AND SOLID DRUMMER making it big and a little more time cool. How nice to leave a gig having developing their own take on things, they learned something. URGENTLY NEEDED should be up there with the best of ‘em. Joe Swarbrick for Dr Slaggleberry, techmetal/jazzcore/ progressive/experimental based nr Thame Oxfordshire. Band now recording their album. www.myspace.com/drslaggleberry JOHNNY FOREIGNER / THE YOUNGS check out the website and if you like the tunes PLAN / RECONCILIATIONS then please get in touch [email protected] The Jericho Tavern [email protected] Now, I’ve been known to enjoy many they build and build and build and build; tel: 01844 353154 ext 2 strands of weirdsville music in the past; they do that high-guitar-small-bowing- from sheets of unabated white noise, to manouevre movement that is as familiar as miniscule scraping at minimal volumes, to the Jericho Tavern’s wall-painting is VENUE PHONE NUMBERS hyperscreaming idiocy. Sometimes I garish. They’re totally competent and Oxford Academy: 0844 477 2000 (ticketweb) wonder why even I listen to half of the slick, but in a world drenched with the The Bullingdon: 01865 244516 music that I do. So with that on my mind, alternative, it’d be nice to have something The Wheatsheaf: 01865 721156 we start with Reconciliations, who are normal. The X: 01865 776431 either (a) a glorious journey into the And that’s where Johnny Foreigner come The Cellar: 01865 244761 furthest reaches of super-delayed guitar in. They’re the one band tonight that The New Theatre: 0870 606 3500 arpeggio; or (b) what it sounds like when doesn’t seem to be striving to prove a The Port Mahon: 01865 202067 the guitarist that you’re thinking of point of musicianship, coolness, The Jericho Tavern: 01865 311775 ditching from your band just won’t stop weirdness or originality. They just are all Brookes Union: 01865 484750 playing with his new Boss DD-6. With of those things, wrapped up in a ball of The Purple Turtle: 01865 247086 The Temple: 01865 243251 this kind of sound it’s up to you to decide Huggy-Bear-Heavenly-Bis indie pop East Oxford Community Centre: 01865 792168 – as Chuck D would say – what side noise that’s incredibly infectious and YOU on. Personally, I may have enjoyed baggage-free. Eschewing the oft-made this more if I lived inside the band’s mistake of not having the skills to back NIGHTSHIFT speaker cones, and wasn’t a casual up the chaos and mess, they romp observer supping a quiet pint at the back through an outstanding set of high-speed, THEPO Box 312,ANY Kidlington, DAYS OX5 1ZU of the room. boy/girl shouty cute aggression that Tel: 01865 372255 The Youngs Plan come at their passes by as quickly as a good hour in CD singleemail: [email protected] `MONDAY MORNING’ experimentalism from a different the indie 7”s section of a quality Online: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net perspective: they’re offcuts of the same independent record store. They’re like at Polar Bear Records, Cowley Road material that helped to construct both bands used to be – and hopefully will be Editor: Ronan Munro Youthmovies and This Town Needs Guns, again soon. Weirdsville is going to be over Contributors: Sue Foreman, Victoria Waterfield, if one needs to place this local band in a soon, and if this band and their playing Steve Thompson Kirsten Etheridge, Simon Minter, local context. They do what any self- things old school style is what’s coming Sam Shepherd, Stuart Fowkes, Katy Jerome, respecting Oxfordian would expect of an back, I’m looking backwards to a bright Ian Chesterton, Pascal Ansell, David Murphy, alterno-guitar-rockist-band: they change future. Emily Gray, Russell Barker, Colin May, Art Lagun, Richard Hounslow, Joe Swarbrick time signatures with awkward confidence; Simon Minter ELIZA / COGWHEEL DOGS / WE AERONAUTS The Bullingdon It seems that everyone is looking for the next Arcade Fire these days. Apparently Black Kids were in the running despite the fact the difference couldn’t be more apparent. It would appear that We Aeronauts are willing to step up and attempt to follow in the footsteps of Win Butler and co. There’s enough of them, the quirky instrumentation is in place

Eliza photo by Sam Shepherd (Glock(enspiel) and Roll is the next big thing, apparently) as is the cacophony of backing vocals and yet something is missing. Having elaborately-titled songs doesn’t matter a jot when the arrangements aren’t as tight and interesting as they should be. Their songs certainly have more ideas than some indie chancers out there, but poor timing and worried signals after missed cues conspire to betray them. It’s a shaky night for them, but the signs are that with a little polishing We Aeronauts could be a little gem. Cogwheel Dogs is essentially Rebecca Moseley and cellist Tom Parnell as we’ve known them for some time, but they’ve augmented the sound with the addition of some well placed drums. Initially we’re not entirely sure it works, but slowly come round to the fact that whatever percussion there may be, it is never intrusive. Musically Moseley is still taking folk music to a different level. This is avant folk, and while it may not always be an easy listen it is certainly beguiling and haunting. Eliza Newman, one time singer with Icelandic popstrels Bellatrix, manages to avoid all the usual baggage that you would associate with an artist from that country. There are no ethereal soundscapes here, merely straightforward indie pop. Ordinarily this would not be a problem but Eliza’s songs never quite hit the mark. New single ‘Change My Name’ highlights her way with a sultry croon and a spiky tune, and the sorrowful ballad ‘Return To Me’ tugs at the heart strings effectively, but elsewhere her material lacks bite. It’s a real shame but when you’re capable of the kind of beauty that lies at the heart of ‘Return To Me’ only a churl would write Eliza off just yet. Sam Shepherd

INSPIRAL CARPETS PETE BOSS AND THE BLUEHEARTS The Academy The Bullingdon Inspiral Carpets never really got styled harmonies playing off a Pete Boss and the Bluehearts are Rush and Little Milton numbers their critical due first time round – strident marching snare beat. held in particular affection by they do. But also they play a not as hard as Happy Mondays, or The bowl cuts of yore are long Oxford blues fans. This is partially couple of more r’n’b funk sounding as cool as The Stone Roses, they gone, both frontman Tom Hingley down to being an Oxford band with tunes and the second half opener were always treated as poor and Clint Boon now close-cropped a twenty-year history of keeping has a country rock feel. Pete Boss is cousins on the late-80s Manchester and looking slightly gaunt, but the blues flame burning locally since a blues guitar virtuoso who even in scene despite a musical canon that Tom’s voice has held up well and their start as The Elmores in 1987. the most high-speed licks is able to easily eclipses the Mondays’ much when he sings the first line of ‘This As well as Pete Boss, singer Tex make nearly every note crystal clear. overrated output. That they’ve Is How It Feels’, the band’s Elmore and drummer Danny In ‘City of Angels’, his guitar soars survived intact (tonight’s line-up is heartbreaking paean to depression Gonzalez were from the original like a trumpet, which could be the same as their commerical peak and unemployment, it’s only the band. But mostly, on a good night, thought showboating, but actually 18 years ago) says a lot and means crowd’s determination to join in their no-nonsense, let-the-music-do- feels more like Dr Boss serving the tonight’s gig is much more than a that keeps a lump from every the-talking approach just warms music. Tex Elmore’s voice now has a run through the hits by an ageing throat. your heart. stronger, lower register, making his frontman and a bunch of session There’s a similarly tangible rush Tonight is one of those nights, vocals sound better than ever. With musicians (hello, Shaun Ryder). of emotion for ‘Move’ but it’s the which is remarkable as they have Tony Jezzard of Reservoir Cats Initially, though, it’s all a bit of a frantic buzzing grooves of not long emerged from a two-year deputising on the keyboard, the mess, the band clambering through ‘Butterfly and ‘Joe’ that really cap hibernation from gigging, and night is a summit conference of top the first few numbers clumsily, a show that defies any potential anyway they only do occasional local blues talent. only Clint Boon’s sparkling Farfisa for disappointment. It’s gigs. They come out of the traps so The only slight disappointment for organ lifting them above pub rock undeniable that this latest fast and tight, reeling off the first sentimentalists is that the band standard. But when they hit their Inspirals tour is nothing more and three numbers without a break, with don’t do Steve Ray Vaughan’s stride and start picking the best nothing less than an exercise in fluency and confidence, it makes me ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’, a bits off debut album, ‘Life’, they earning a few quid reliving past think they must have spent most of signature number for the Elmores. come to life and a surprisingly up glories, but when that past is those two years doing nothing but Conversely the highpoint is the for it crowd (who have spent much awash with minor pop classics, rehearsing. It’s six numbers in before slow blues ‘What Love Can Make of the half hour before the band it’s well worth reliving and tonight we get the first slow blues, by You Do’, with Boss’s guitar and arrive mooing loudly in tribute to proves that Inspiral Carpets have which time the audience at The Jezzard’s keyboard bouncing call the band’s legendary old Cow logo) not only survived the passage of Famous Monday Night Blues is and response back and forth before is lost in frenzied nostalgia. the years far better than most of theirs. Tony launches into a fine jazz-funk- ‘Directing Traffic’ and ‘Real Thing’ their contemporaries, they were Stevie Ray Vaughan and John influenced keyboard solo. The buzz with psychedelic garage-rock always superior to their bigger, Mayall’s Bluesbreakers are big verdict of the room: don’t go back energy, while ‘She Comes In The tougher contemporaries. influences on how they play their into hibernation again. Fall’ shimmers hazily, its 60s- Ian Chesterton own compositions and the Otis Colin May GUILLEMOTS / IDA MARIA DR SHOTOVER The Academy The Piss Artist Formerly Known As… Tonight is part of a promotional introspective singer-songwriter, he ...Hugo-Hugo Ffoulkes-Morrison! That was his name. I was tour for Guillemots’ about to be is attention grabbing. His solo undercover in Chittagong at the time, and this chap in a crumpled released second album ‘Red’. version, with only his acoustic linen suit, allegedly attached to the Consulate, was always in the hotel ‘Red’ lights are draped over amps guitar, of ‘We’re Here’ induces an bar knocking back the Johnnie Walker-and-orange like it was going out and speakers and are hanging intense silence in the crowd. of style... He claimed to be related to Sterling Morrison, but I couldn’t behind the bands from the top of The second half of the set is a see it, somehow... especially when he mentioned that Jim and Van the stage in loops that just might whole lot better. Now the fine were his cousins, too. I gather he went troppo later, married a local be nooses. jazz-inflected double bass lines are girl and set up shop as a “Buddha-polisher”, whatever that might Ida Maria, from the far north of audible and snatches of, albeit be...Now, where were we? Ah yes, you wanted to know more about Norway, is in a red dress too. I rather ineffectual, floaty sax the Oxford Music Scene. It’s full of animals, absolute animals these only catch her last two breathless, making the dirty flamenco / fado days. Foals, Mules, Guillemots, Half-Rabbits, 50 Ft. Pandas, back-of-the-throat Björk-tinged trash metal guitar, and the Reservoir Cats, Easy Tigers, you name it, not to mention Brickwork Scandie songs. Ida has a publicity pounding drums of Greig Stewart Lizards and er, Little Fish. (Are fish animals? I don’t bloody know, I picture designed as a police mug – ex-drummer with Suitable Case just drink like one). Now, someone of an academic persuasion might shot, and the beginnings of a For Treatment – far less say that this aspiration towards “the animal” in the naming of Oxford reputation for hyperactive gigs, dominant. Also, much needed, the bands reflects something in the Zeitgeist. Perhaps it comes from a but tonight, without her band, she excitement level rises several desire to be wild, free and yet innocent; perhaps it echoes a deep- is a demure and well-mannered notches during ‘Trains in Brazil’ seated need to identify with nature in an increasingly technological support act who is no threat to and ‘Sao Paulo’, though the band’s and impersonal world...Still, you know what? Frankly I couldn’t give the headliners. low-key encore means a an Arctic Monkey’s. Whose round is it? For no apparent reason it is an disappointingly flat finish. Next month: The return of Indie Disco. age, and three false starts in the This is a much more straight-up crowd, before the cheer can go up rock gig than expected, with Fyfe for Guillemots taking to the stage. out front with a guitar, the They launch into a dirty, saxophones having little impact aggressive mashed-up siren sound and no quirky stage antics. The that I don’t like but their hardcore improv and jazz influence remain fans lap up. I can’t tell how much but only in snatches. What next, of the mash is deliberate and how even more of a stadium sound for much such rotten sound balance, headlining big festival stages, or that Arista Hawkes on double Fyfe playing at an Oxford bass, plus the sax duo, needn’t Improvisers gig in a minuscule have bothered for the early venue as he did in 2004 when numbers in the set. known as Hutchins? It is only Fyfe Dangerfield’s great What’s interesting is it may not voice that shines through this part be either-or, but just might be FOALS: “We wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna of the set. Whether singing both. get loaded, and we wanna have a good time!” falsetto, resentful, angry rock or Colin May

News Extra! OXFORD FESTIVAL SHOCK FURY! Truck and the Punt and maybe another festival OXFORD’S music scene was reeling this An empty field, month from the news that there would be one that rhymes with a very rude word, not to yesterday weekend over the summer when there was no mention Oxjam, Oxfringe and Oxford Folk, plus live music festival anywhere in the county. Elder Stubbs and Elder Stubbs the Younger With Oxfordshire now literally awash with festivals, there is now a festival for every single music festivals, including Cropredy and weekend of the summer. Except one. Probably Cornbury, Wakestock at Woodstock, in June sometime. Wittstock at wherever, Wood Festival, “I’m devastated,” wailed one distraught local possibly a metal festival, a Cheese Festival, gig-goer, sporting a haircut straight out of a Shockwaves advert and wearing a pashmina, “I might even have to watch a bit of Euro 2008, and we all know that’s going to be crap because Scotland aren’t in it.” On hearing the news, Truck Festival organising brother and sister team Robert and Joanne Bennett moved quickly to try and arrange something – anything – to fill the yawning gap in the music calendar, even a fireside singalong. Supergrass were quick to confirm their place on the bill. stand in a dark, sweaty basement while Local gig-going veterans were concerned that everyone else gets to sit by the river drinking the empty weekend might prompt some of ice-cold cider. I preferred their earlier stuff Oxford’s venues to open their doors for anyway.” unseasonable indoor gigs. “That’s all we need,” “Oh for God’s sake, who cares? It’ll probably “Mummy, what in bloody blazes wept Nightshift editor Doughnut Munro rain all summer just like last year,” can we do this weekend?” through tears of pure cynicism, “Having to someone might have said. DEMOSDEMOS Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free day’s recording at Keynote. Call 01189 599944 to claim your prize and get special deals for local bands!

Taking Mr Bungle and The Locust as starting DEMO OF points, they crack on through four tracks in less than 11 minutes, leaving no room for THE MONTH indulgence or trying to be too clever, instead preferring short, sharp angular bursts of noise that segue into each other, delving MARIA ILETT occasionally into more conventional Faith There’s such sweet, naïve charm about Maria No More-style riffage, the vocalist opting Ilett’s voice that only a Dementor could fail for a gimp-in-the-cellar scream, or doing a to be swept along in its summery breeze. She fair old impression of an android goblin being croons like a sad-eyed bushbaby and chirrups sucked down a particularly resonant plug like a frisky songbird in equal measures, her hole, as on ‘Hitts’. They might not always occasional London-leaning accenting sound especially original in all this, but Dr confirming her own comparison to Damon Slaggleberry’s no-nonsense approach to a Albarn isn’t without foundation. CD opener style of rock more commonly awash with ‘Sit On The Sun’ is a gentle semi-acoustic nonsense, means nothing ever gets left long reverie that’s pitched partway between Kates enough to sound stale. Nash and Walsh, but it’s with ‘Hit The Blue’ she really comes into her own, the discreetly scuffed-up electronic backing bolstering her OPAQUE carefree, nursery rhyme-simple melody. Best Ooh, I say, a bit of culture here, and no of the lot, though, is ‘Stars’, which recalls mistake. Or at least a band who sound a little the innocence and exuberance of early-80s bit like they might be French, or perhaps had indie cult stars like Young Marble Giants and lunch in a Parisian café once. Opaque have, Jane. All the while the music whirrs, clicks, at least, got an accordion, an instrument that hums and buzzes the like the intricate but could make even Boltthrower sound French unobtrusive workings of a clock, giving vital and sophisticated. There’s more than a space for Maria’s voice to weave its sweet, soupçon (ooh, get us) of Gallic folk here pretty magic. It’s simple and relentlessly anyway, but such exotic leanings do tend to good-natured and its a like a dose of aural get bogged down in a decidedly four-to-the- Prozac. And, contrary to recent scientific floor rock rumble with the bish-bash-bosh research on such things, it makes us very drumming overwhelming any Parisian happy indeed. flourish from the squeezebox. The drumming continues to dominate everything throughout, along with odd, incongruous widdly guitar solos and the more charming MONKEY PUZZLE elements here, like the breathless, hushed If only others had the lightness of touch of lead vocal, get left to fight for air, although Maria Ilett. By no means the worst thing in the moon-in-June rhyming (Lyin! Cryin’! this month’s demo pile, Monkey Puzzle just Dyin’!) is probably best left mostly unheard. sound lumpen and heavy-footed coming A softer approach on the final track, plus the straight after her CD. Theirs is a sturdy, introduction of a female vocal lead sadly churning form of indie rock, making up in doesn’t help matters, since her voice is sullen bullishness what it lacks in finesse or horribly shrill, like a bad Maddy Prior guile, threatening to knock a few solid impersonator. So, anyway, some good objects out of its onward path but tethered by intentions, but in need of a good dose of an adenoidal, inexpressive vocal drone. subtlety and possibly several focus group When they switch styles to a more acoustic meetings about what the band do best and sound it doesn’t help much, still sounding too what The Kids want from it all. And what we sterile, and unwilling to get out of their hole, want in this case, is less beer and corned beef like they’ve become jaded and tired of the sandwiches and more red wine and Brie whole music-making process and ultimately baguettes, please. coming on like an X Factor idea of what guitar bands should sound like. LES CLOCHARDS Blimey, and arriving right on time to show DR SLAGGLEBERRY how it can and should be done, are Les The proliferation of bands marrying Clochards. Who even have a French band hardcore noise to math-rock complexity is name in case you didn’t quite get where surely a good sign, rescuing guitar music from they’re coming from. The drum intro to first secret – and not so secret – jazz fans. And so song, ‘Tango Borracho’, initially promises/ here are Thame’s Dr Slaggleberry, who threatens Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To The Hills’, possibly own the odd jazz album but also but soon nestles into a more rustic Gallic know more than a thing or two about groove, jazzy bass runs and drum shuffles 07967 229 102 rocking out in pleasingly virulent fashion. underpinning Karen Cleave’s smoky vocal lead and accordion flourishes, while backing egged and over-bearing, the shrill, vacant vocalist Ian Nixon interjects with husky art- songs become so insipid they make Enya flick narratives about crap, half-remembered sound like Janis Joplin. pubs, parties and fights from the night before. “I get drunk and I forget things” croons Karen in a style reminiscent of The THE KARMA Mekons’ Sally Timms and with a similarly This lot are almost a glyph of a rock band, tangible air of whisky-sozzled half-regret. trying to mix up so many ‘classic’ styles that ‘Shallow’ is more straight-down-the-line in the end they sound like no-one and French jazz, so laidback it nearly has us nothing in particular, be it the 60s-styled toppling backwards off the office chair, with vocal harmonies and 80s MOR of opener all the urgency of a rural French lunch hour, ‘Breathe As One’, or the U2-stealing ‘Matter the languid squeezebox augmented by the Of Time’. They do have the odd good idea, wash of waves on a pebble beach, and only and a couple of neat hooks, but even these the more prosaic ‘Simone Signoret’, with its sound they’ve been latched on to the songs fireside and slippers-style duet, doesn’t quite with not enough thought to how the whole keep the mood going. Still, we’re going to thing is going to end up sounding, sacrificing THE COURTYARD STUDIO keep this one spinning until we’ve finished some soul and character in favour of trying this bottle of claret. And after that, it’s time too hard to be clever, while spending too PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/ for… maybe another bottle of claret. much of the time in between these small 24, OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE peaks simply moping about. They’re at their MACHINE, 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB best with the semi-gothic pomp of ‘Matter CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION DEDLOK Of Time’, even if they do overstate their OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR, + MIDI The name screams METAL! And so it does case by a factor of ten, while by the end FACILITIES (INC LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI indeed come to pass. Dedlok’s is a bruising, they’ve sunk into sub-Oasis come-together S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND ETC.) mid-tempo breed of prog-tinged metal-core laddish spirituality. and old-fashioned thrash, harking back to Residential facilities included. Slayer and Pantera, all bulldozing, shredded www.courtyardrecordingstudio.com riffs and chest-beating raging and bellowing. PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS They don’t exactly rush into battle, slowly THE DEMO ON 01235 845800 building up momentum, but by the time they get a full head of steam, they’re grinding and DUMPER growling and giving no quarter. The chugging simplicity of ‘Protest’ owes more to early- 80s protest punk than metal but soon EUTOPIA they’re back to the sound of Motorhead Eutopia describe their sound as “Dedicated kicking it out with no little fury in power emo pop”, which means fuck all to us Metallica’s backyard and all is well with the and is too long-winded to be some new world. movement invented by NME, but since the whole sorry affair sounds exactly like `Kayleigh’ by Marillion, we’ll simply SARA LOWES rebrand it as rustic prog-rock crap. And If Sara had left off the last couple of tracks when we say it sounds exactly like from this six-song CD she might have won `Kayleigh’, we mean exactly. Same dreamy, our hearts a little more; but equally, without pastoral floaty guitars, same keening, the first couple of songs, she’d have roasted constipated vocals, same feeling of nausea alive in the Demo Dumper for all eternity, we used to get when we were trapped in a such is the steep drop-off in quality and hot, sweaty venue with five hundred mouth- descent into the muddy MOR mire that breathing, denim-clad dunces who were occurs from start to finish. Sara’s first track, blissfully unaware that the last 30 years of ‘I Wish’, is a jolly, piano-led jazz-pop piece musical evolution had ever happened. Or of froth that could be a distant cousin of even that the last fifty thousand years of Stereolab from a certain angle, while ‘Down human evolution had occurred. The lead And Out’ carries echoes of Kate Bush, both track here is called `Valentine’, it crops up tracks, bolstered by horns and Hammond twice, once in its `finished’ state and again organ, display plenty of life and imagination as a demo version, even though they both even while aiming squarely for Radio 2- sound identical and if you sang it to your friendly fluffiness. But beyond that there is love done on Valentine’s Day they would be only mawkish sentimentality, soporific quite within the laws of decency to gut you tweeness and the faint odour of Harvest with a fish knife and cop off with the Festival concerts. The more straight Sara nearest sentient creature. “If only I knew plays it, just her, her piano and the odd bit of the way” bleats the singer over and over and electronic trickery, the more she sounds like bloody over again. It’s over there, fool! she’s auditioning for some benighted Saturday Straight through that window. Never mind night talent show where the winner gets to that we’re fifteen storeys up, just make sure understudy the lead role in a new Andrew you stop your whining by the time you get Lloyd Webber schmaltzfest. Over-long, over- to the pavement.

Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1ZU. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact address and phone number (no email or mobile-only). No more than four tracks on a demo. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. Nightshift accepts no responsibility for deflated egos. We currently have a two-month backlog of demos for review. We will try and get round to all of them as soon as we can.