email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 152 March Oxford’s Music Magazine 2008 FOALS! Oxford’s rising stars talk about their mad year and being the most hotly tipped band on the planet. Interview inside NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 year’s event will feature over 40 hosted by local hip hop duo GTA, acts across three stages. runs from 1pm through to 4am; Tickets for Cornbury are on sale bands confirmed to play are Bad NEWNEWSS from Friday 7th March on the Science, Q.T. & The Reservoir Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU festival website at Dogs, Mean Poppa Lean, Tonic, www.cornburyfestival.com or from Sub-Func, Swervin Merv, Kojo, Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] various outlets around the county. Bad Sandwich and Funky Justice, plus DJ sets from Rob Life, Indecision and Count Skylarkin. THIS YEAR’S TRUCK FESTIVAL takes place over the weekend of Tickets are on sale now, priced 19th-20th July at Hill Farm in Steventon. Tickets for the event will go on £16, from wegottickets.com sale locally on Monday 31st March, ahead of national sales. Last year’s festival sold out in under a week and local fans wanting to get a ticket THE SKITTLE ALLEY relaunches should register their details at www.thisistruck.com to get priority this month after a couple of information on booking. Line-up details for Truck will be announced in months in hibernation. The next month’s Nightshift. Last year’s event – which was initally Abingdon-based live music club postponed due to the flooding that hit the county in July - featured lost its monthly acoustic night headline sets from Grant and Maud Hudson and Idlewild. when the King’s Head and Bell Truck are also running a new festival called Wood, which takes place at closed down late last year but Braziers Park in south Oxfordshire over the weekend of 16th-18th May. returns with an acoustic session at The festival will feature two live music stages as well as workshops and the Venue in Abingdon on Saturday activities for all ages, plus organic food and drinks stalls and compost 1st of March, followed by an all- toilets. Tickets for Wood go on sale on Monday 3rd March, priced £45 THE FAMILY MACHINE release day event at Abingdon British for three days (including camping); children under 13 get in free. Day their debut album, ‘You Are The Legion on Sunday 23rd, featuring th tickets, priced £25, are also available. Tickets will available from Family Machine’ on 17 March Superdeadlyninjabees, Superloose, wegottickets.com, Videosyncratic, the Inner Bookshop, Scribbles and the and are planning a series of guerrilla Running With Scissors and more. Music Room. gigs and assorted stunts to mark They also host a gig at the Stocks the occasion. Events already Bar at the Crown and Thistle on planned include a Family Machine Saturday 29th March featuring BLENHEIM PALACE is set to BANDS wanting to play this treasure hunt following a trail of Nightshift favourites Little Fish host one leg of this year’s year’s OXFORD PUNT have until trees decorated with “Family and The Epstein. The Skittle Alley th Wakestock Festival in June. Friday 14 March to submit Machine fruit” as well as copies of will also be starting a regular live Wakestock has been running as a demos. This year’s Punt takes the album launched on computer music night at the Jericho Tavern in th live music festival for eight years in place on Wednesday 14 May memory sticks down the Isis. Visit Oxford from Thursday 3rd April, north Wales, celebrating the sport across six venues in Oxford city www.myspace.com/ featuring Superdeadlyninjabees and of wakeboarding (a cross between centre. The Punt aims to showcase thefamilymachine for updated This Is My Ship. Bands wanting to surfboarding and water skiing), the best new unsigned talent in news on gigs and events. play any Skittle Alley nights which is the fastest growing Oxfordshire; the event runs from Fans who missed last month’s should email Nigel at watersport in the UK. Wakestock 6pm at Borders through til Nightshift interview with The [email protected]. will run over the weekend of 27th- midnight at the Cellar, taking in the Family Machine can read it online th 29 June with a capacity Purple Turtle, Wheatsheaf, QI at nightshift.oxfordmusic.net. An AS EVER, DON’T FORGET TO somewhere around the 15,000 Club and Thirst Lodge along the extensive archive of old Nightshifts TUNE INTO THE DOWNLOAD mark. A host of big-name indie, way, featuring some 20 acts. Bands in available online in PDF format. every Saturday evening between 6- dance and rock bands are set to or solo artists should send a CD, The site also features an online 7pm on BBC Radio Oxford play across three stages within the clearly marked Punt, to Nightshift discussion forum for local music 95.2fm. The dedicated local music 2,100 acre palace grounds, although at PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 fans. show plays the best Oxford no names have officially been 1ZU, or email a MySpace link to releases and demos and features announced as yet. Local promoters [email protected], again WINCHELL RIOTS play a launch interviews with local and touring TCT Music will be heavily clearly marked Punt and including a gig for their debut ‘Histories’ EP at acts as well as a gig and clubbing th involved in the organisation. Last contact phone number. the Wheatsheaf on Saturday 12 guide. The show is available to year’s festival featured Mark All-venue Punt passes are now on April. The band, formed by listen to online all week at Ronson, The Bravery, Dirty Pretty sale from Videosyncratic on former-Fell City Girl people Phill bbc.co.uk/oxford Things and Scratch Perverts. More Cowley Road or online from McMinn and James Pamphlion, are news next month. Oxfordmusic.net. Passes are limited currently on tour around the UK. to 100 and cost £7 (plus booking Support for the gig comes from Her NIGHTSHIFT fee). Name Is Calla and This Et Al. presents The full Oxford Punt line-up will Tickets, priced £6, are on sale from The Oxford Punt be announced on the Nightshift Wegottickets.com. Visit forum at nightshift.oxfordmusic.net www.myspace.com/ 1 Night, 6 Venues, 20 Acts on Monday 18th March. thewinchellriots for more news and Quite simply the best showcase of gig dates. unsigned local music of the year THE LINE-UP FOR THIS Want to play? YEAR’S CORNBURY THE HALF RABBITS were Send Demos, clearly marked Punt, FESTIVAL will be announced on featured on MTV last month after to Nightshift, PO Box 312, Friday 14th March. This year’s reaching the semi-finals of the Kidlington, OX5 1ZU event takes place over the weekend MTV/Oxjam bands competition. A Or email MySpace links to [email protected] of the 5th and 6th July at Cornbury new round of Oxjam events is set Country Park near Charlbury. Last to be launched in April, with details Deadline for inclusion is 14th March year’s festival saw headline sets online at www.oxfam.co.uk. All-venue Punt Passes now on from David Gray and Blondie as sale. £7 from Videosyncratic well as appearances by The THE BULLINGDON hosts (Cowley Road) or online from Waterboys, Echo & The Oxford’s first all-day funk festival Oxfordmusic.net. Bunnymen and Seth Lakemen. This on Saturday 24th May. The event, Only 100 available A Quiet Word With foalsIT SAYS EVERYTHING ABOUT really hard to impress people. how the world has gone mad for Foals “Being able to afford a proper van recently that Nightshift is with a driver is something that we’re interviewing Oxford’s most exciting pretty complacent about now, but 12 band in years while they’re in New months ago it was a new luxury, and York. The band are over in the States we remind ourselves how privileged – where they recently signed to the we are. It wasn’t all that long since legendary Sub Pop label – for a couple we were putting the entire fee from a of showcase gigs and another round of show back into petrol money for our press and radio interviews. The mood clapped-out old ex-Royal Mail van is a mixture of exhilaration and just so we can drive back home to get exhaustion; they’ve barely paused for a few hour’s sleep before we had to go breath this past year, rising from to work the next morning. I’m pretty word-of-mouth bright new hopes on sure we’ll never forget that.” the back of endless gigging, to across- Foals have been everyone’s tips for the-board media darlings and 2008’s this year. How do you feel about that? Band Most Likely To. Do you feel it puts any pressure on the band as far as people’s FOALS’ RISE AND RISE HAS Foals get in party mood at the Cellar in January - photo by Paul Tipping expectations go? been little short of phenomenal. In “We feel flattered and anxious January they were tipped as the band just starting to attract the attention ‘ANTIDOTES’ WAS RECORDED according to who’s saying what. None to watch by everyone from NME to of Transgressive Records, with whom in New York with producer Dave of us have ever been into the NME. the Observer to Mojo; they’ve been they signed a deal soon after.