[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 242 September Oxford’s Music Magazine 2015

photo:Pier Corona GIRL POWER “Too many bands in Oxford over-think things and try and play `intelligent’ music. We just wanna play dumb fast punk”

Oxford’s hardcore heroes keep it fast and furious

Also in this issue: Introducing VERA GRACE SUPERNORMAL reviewed Three pages of local releases and Five pages of local gigs NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk

Meanwhile, local splatter-metallers Beelzebozo reform for one show to support Black Candy at the sold-out reunion show at the Wheatsheaf on the 5th of September.

AGS CONNOLLY heads off on JOAL SHEARING celebrates 15 years promoting gigs at THE a co-headline tour of the UK and WHEATSHEAF this month and has been talking to Nightshift about his Ireland this month with Jack Grette. decade and a half running what has become one of the UK’s best-loved ONE NOTE FOREVER host a Witney’s Ameripolitan songsmith small venues. series of gigs at Modern Art Oxford has teamed up with Missouri ‘s Joal is marking the occasion by hosting reunion shows with two of the starting this month. The local record country, folk and honky tonk local bands who helped make the venue’s reputation back in the early- label and website have enticed rising musician Grette for the 18-date noughties. BLACK CANDY play an already sold-out show at the Sheaf indie-noise crew Sauna Youth to tour that kicks off in Ireland at the on Saturday 5th September, with support from metallers BEELZEBOZO, town for the first time on Friday th9 end of August before coming to who are also reforming for the event, while on Friday 18th, SEXY October, where they’ll be joined England at the Cellar in Oxford BREAKFAST reconvene for a one-off show. by Mutes, Poledo and Telegrapher. on Saturday 5th and finishing with “While I was studying in Nottingham my band at the time couldn’t get Before that, you can see Lowws, a hometown show at Fat Lil’s in gigs for love nor money,” explains Joal on his decision to start promoting Catalona and Kid Kin at MOA on Witney on Thursday 17th. Find out gigs, “so I decided to hire out a few venues and put on nights myself. When Tuesday 1st September and James more at agsconnolly.com. I moved to Oxford I fell into it again via Nick Moorbath of Zodiac fame, Blackshaw with Jali Fily Cissokho who trained me up and threw me into The Elm Tree. on Tuesday 22nd September. VANGOFFEY’S show at the O2 “I started at The Sheaf in 2000 after The Elm Tree was closed down but Advance tickets for all three shows Academy this month has been have been promoting on and off for about 20 years now. at on sale now from rearranged. The band, fronted “The highlight for me is seeing the venue still going strong 15 years later. www.modernartoxford.org. by former Supergrass drummer It was a crappy sports bar when I moved there and over the years I have uk, with the Sauna Youth show Danny Goffey, come to town on managed to turn it into a thriving music venue. There have been too many likely to sell out quickly. Go to Wednesday 2nd December. Tickets, great gigs here to pick a favourite, but among them would be Trans Am onenoteforever.com for more news priced £12, are on sale from the O2 with early Foals; Frank Turner’s two night sell out, and more recently on the gigs and loads more. box office. Raging Speedhorn’s reunion show. I tend to forget the bad gigs very quickly.” SWIM THE ATLANTIC are AUDIOSCOPE returns for its It hasn’t all been plain sailing for Joal at the venue, which has regularly the latest Oxford band to hit the fifteenth annual outing on Saturday been under threat of closure or transformation into something else over the comeback trail. The local rock trio, 21st November. The one-day years, but he feels the Sheaf is now safer than it’s ever been. led by Spike Holifield, who played festival in aid of homeless charity “We now have both an owner and a manager who understand the business bass for Sinead O’Connor and Shelter marks its anniversary with a and fully support live music, so as long as they are happy it will stay open. currently works as on tour soundman change of venue, taking place at the And I’ll carry on promoting until the cider runs dry. for Newton Faulkner and Hudson Bullingdon on Cowley Road. Last “Seeing both Black Candy and Sexy Breakfast again after so many years Taylor, spit up in 1998 and also year’s sold-out event featured sets just about tops it for me. Black Candy sold out in a week and I’m expecting featured future Little Fish drummer from Public Service Broadcasting, the same with Sexy Breakfast; both nights will be an absolute blast.” Neil Greenaway in their line-up. psychedelic legends Silver Apples They play a one-off charity show at and Wrangler, the new band formed th BLAKE REMIXED is a new evening, though they don’t say if The Wheatsheaf on Saturday 16 by Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen original stage play from world you’re meant to go in Halloween January next year to mark the tenth Mallinder. To hear line-up news record holding beatboxer and rapper fancy dress or in a Mike Oldfield anniversary of the death of bass as soon as its announced join the Testament which comes to the North costume. player Steve Gore with all proceeds Audioscope mailing list at Wall in Summertown on Friday going to Sobell House. No advance www.audioscope.co.uk. tickets as yet, but it’s a fiver on the door. 2nd October. Made in collaboration AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into with Scratch DJ world champion BBC Oxford Introducing every KONE release a double a-side DJ Woody, the show mixes hip hop Saturday night between 8-9pm on single this month. `No Colour with the poetry of William Blake, 95.2fm. The dedicated local music World’ b/w `Bauhaus Table’ is incorporating live DJ-ing and show plays the best Oxford releases the debut release from the three- interactive video. More info and and demos as well as featuring piece band formed by former- tickets at www.thenorthwall.com interviews and sessions with local Youthmovies drummer Graeme acts. The show is available to stream Murray alongside singer/guitarist BLACKWELL’S host a special or download as a podcast at Alice Ream and bassist Jonny Halloween party on Saturday bbc.co.uk/oxford. Mundey. The single was produced 31st October featuring a full by Young Knives’ Henry Dartnoll quadraphonic play-back of Mike OXFORD GIGBOT provides a in his studio in Kirtlington. The Oldfield’s classic `Tubular Bells’ regular local gig listing update on band make their live Oxford debut album. Tickets are £5 from Twitter (@oxgigbot), bringing you with a gig at The Cellar on Friday Blackwell’s in Broad Street. The new gigs as soon as they go live. 2nd October. Watch and here them at event starts at 7pm and anyone in They also provide a free weekly www.interkone.com fancy dress gets half price beer all listings email. Follow them. A Quiet Word With up; I wouldn’t want be in a straight emergence of monthly free club – Shellac and Fugazi-influenced anger and not realising your down the line band.” night Smash Disco, which takes – but their new EP is pure straight- privilege. Pete came up with the Going back to that original place downstairs at The Library ahead blitzkrieg. Why’s that? title `We Are White Goods’ and I question about hardcore’s pub on Cowley Road and has Oli: “I’d say we’re mainly a fast came up with lyrics in response to apparently permanent place on hosted Girl Power regularly – a hardcore band, though we’ve people who blame foreigners for music’s furthest margins, do Girl suitably dark and intimate venue always had elements of the slower taking jobs. Perhaps they expect Power think this is inevitable? for the band’s underground stuff too, without overcomplicating some sort of loyalty from national Oli: “I’m by no means an expert hardcore. Oli was instrumental it. Our next stuff will continue industry and government, and GIRL POWERAgness Pike. Oli was part of but I think punk or hardcore punk is in starting the club along with a more of the same. We’ve got a think being British gives them Sextodecimo – the heaviest band an attitude or an ethic as opposed to bunch of friends who hankered for ton of new fast songs and the odd a privilege over outsiders. And Oxford has ever produced – and a prescribed sound. And that ethic the genuine DIY gig scene so long slower one. I’d say our songs are undoubtedly they’re struggling. also plays in quirky pop-punk is DIY and anti-establishment. So associated with punk and hardcore. getting less complicated – if that’s But the real reason they’re starlets Rainbow Reservoir, while no contracts, major labels, booking Smash Disco is tailor-made for possible – but more slick.” struggling is because the economic Steve fronted anarcho/crust punk- agents, no dickheads getting in the a band like Girl Power. Do they Steve: “We deliberately selected powers that be will do anything to metallers Bersicker and prior to that way trying to make money or take think that kind of small-scale DIY our more brutal tracks for this make money more cheaply and use drummed with Government Mule ownership. So if that’s what proper type scene is something that’s release. No messing about – cheaper labour. So the fight should and Faith In Hate. The three have hardcore is, yeah it’ll always stay been missing from the Oxford gig straight for the jugular!” be against those in power putting been friends for some time and with like that regardless of bands that scene? Rage seems to be the pre-eminent everyone in that situation, not backgrounds like that they were `make it’ because it’s about having Oli: “Yes, that’s why it started. mood of the EP; who are Girl against those who are in the same seemingly destined to play hardcore the ethic rather than sounding like There are others in Oxford doing Power’s prime targets and what boat – and probably actually have punk rock with each other. whatever band you think is a real good DIY stuff, but no one was personally drives you to the it worse – working their arses off So what initially prompted them to hardcore band. Though playing putting on the DIY punk bands greatest extremes of anger in the to put food on the table.” form Girl Power? sloppy and fast and sounding we wanted to see and there didn’t world? Pete: “My original idea behind Oli: “Steve and I were chatting for crappy certainly helps.” `White Goods’ was people defining ages about doing something and at Steve: “Of course hardcore should themselves by what they own, but one stage I was going to join him remain underground. When it “Of course hardcore should remain Oli took that and shifted it to where in Bersicker, who were awesome. doesn’t you get shite like Gallows it is now, and it works better for it.” They were on hiatus though and at and Fall Out Boy.” underground. When it doesn’t you get `Monday Sport’ seems to see an that point Sextodecimo were long shite like Gallows and Fall Out Boy.” end time through a different lens. gone, and we were twiddling our Regular local gigging Oli: “It’s about being force-fed thumbs. So Steve twisted Pete’s arm has earned Girl Power a small but shit through popular media. We’re and we got together and it worked.” loyal fanbase, but they remain seem to be a hub for what we Oli: “For me two main influences ticking all the angry righteous punk Steve: “To be honest, I just wanted on the margins as far as more wanted to do, and we wanted are feminism and situationism. boxes, as you can tell!” to play drums again. I had devoted mainstream gig audiences go. For something so local bands can do People think the name is a total so much energy to Bersicker and a city that’s always harboured a gig-swaps. Also The Library pub is joke because we’re all men. But Given the unrelenting was ready to take more of a back strong heavyweight contingent a perfect venue, and they’ve been a we’re only laughing at ourselves. anger that drives their songs, seat – literally – and let someone among its bands Oxford has massive help. And it’s been great, So a lot of lyrics are about gender Nightshift wonders if Girl Power else write lyrics and gob off at gig- strangely never really taken to pure we’ve had some awesome bands roles and what’s traditionally believe people can people actually goers.” hardcore big time compared to down from DIY scenes elsewhere, expected of men and women make a difference any more – metalcore or what’s labelled post- and we always try to promote new in society, and how people are provoke real change, rather than Given their collective hardcore. Why do they think that is local like-minded artists who just oppressed and ostracised because just clicking `like’ on yet another backgrounds musically, involving and can Girl Power change the way want to have a blast. And we try of this. Personally I find it really Facebook petition that no-one bands with often far from things are locally? and get the bands involved too; unsettling. We also liked the will take any notice of, or is that straightforward approaches Oli: “I do think many bands in they’re part of it, we just tell them idea of seeing a bunch of macho how the populace has finally been to heavy music, was there a Oxford have got a tendency to to bring their friends along to party men – and punk can be a very tamed? determination to do something a bit over-think things and try and play at a free gig, and we give them the macho genre – wearing Girl Oli: “Yes. Just keep sticking true more simple with Girl Power? `intelligent’ music. I just wanna opportunity to bring their friends’ Power t-shirts. Also, consumerism, to your values and speak out when photo:Lomo Steve Oli: “I think we just wanted to do play dumb fast punk that isn’t bands down from out of town if everyday banality, hating yourself, you think something is wrong. something we were good at and overcomplicated and doesn’t possible.” and any social convention Also, the more people become “Hardcore is one of the Corbyn’s pet tomcat paying a visit no-nonsense seven minutes that reflected what we listened to. try and be technical or smart or Pete: “You need somewhere like that makes you or anyone feel aware of the privileges they are few genres of music that hasn’t to Margaret Thatcher’s grave. on glorious seven inch vinyl. All I was listening to was Gauze, whatever – it just is what it is. the Library and Smash Disco worthless because of gender, born with, the better.” been co-opted into the mainstream The band, formed by Pete with Seven minutes in which they lay Black Flag and grotty D-beat Having said that there are some shows; other venues are good but sexuality, race, economic status, or Steve : “I’m far too cynical to and it never should be. I certainly guitarist and singer Oli Hewett and into gender stereotypes, social at the time. So we were talking real good post-hardcore bands you cannot get the same level of whatever.” answer this question. Live your life hope that it stays on the margins; drummer Steve Frame, stick close privilege, the hopelessness of the about doing straight up hardcore, around. As for changing things? connectivity. Playing on the floor There’s a real No Future feel about – leave me alone.” the margins have always produced to the sound and spirit of hardcore young and poor, the dumbing down influenced particularly by fast 80s Hopefully, though we’re not trying with people literally in your face, the track `Buying Cigarettes For Go on then, who is the most some great music. It’s about the punk’s originators from both sides of the media and plenty more in a stuff from the USA and Japan, – we just wanna do what we’re in a sweaty box of a room, you Kids’ from the EP. Are the younger hardcore person ever? ethic not money.” of the Atlantic – UK pioneers non-stop tirade of utter fury and and D-beat and stuff. And we also doing. We could definitely do with don’t get much more intimate generations in this country fucked? Steve: “Charlie Harper of the UK and genre godfathers Discharge, noise. Guitar solos and proggy chatted about the slower punk more punk bands in town, though. than that without taking your Oli: “No more so than any Subs. 71 years old and still singing Pete Marler, the and American bands like Halo of musical diversions? They shit ‘em. stuff like Flipper and bands on There are enough people in Oxford clothes off! More bands should try generation that preceded it. If “I don’t wanna be teenage” in shaven headed, amply bearded, Flies, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys The EP is Girl Power’s second Amphetamine Reptile or Touch who are into it.” it, it removes a lot of that ‘were you’re born into a shitty lifestyle, clubs up and down the country.” heavily tattooed and liberally and Minor Threat. It’s fast and release, following on from last & Go in the 80s. So we put them Are there other local bands you the band, you’re the audience’ it’s easy to have no hope or Oli: “I can’t decide between the pierced vocalist and bass player by god it’s furious. It can also, on year’s equally uncompromising in the mix. No fucking about, just rate, or local bands who can malarkey; it feels more whole.” opportunity and turn to quick-fixes person who invented fireworks or with Girl Power is setting out his occasion, be clever, with hints of debut single, `Consumers’, but hardcore punk.” seriously call themselves hardcore? Steve: “Smash Disco has been a and short term highs to make you the person who invented peanut band’s place in the world of music. Shellac and Fugazi and the nastier while Girl Power is a relatively Pete: “Despite being a lot more Oli: “Hate-Filled Kids.” breath of fresh air – or maybe that feel better. We all know what it’s butter.” Suffice to say, it’s some distance side of post-punk popping in to new name on the local scene, straightforward than some of our Pete: “Junkie Brush!” should be muggy, foetid air, given like to feel shit and have no hope, Pete: “Peanut butter? Nah, from the middle of any road or show their muscle before being between the three of them they previous efforts, I think we still Steve: “No hardcore bands come the venue. I consider the Library to and we’ve all done shitty and whoever invented Marmite. That’s comfort zone. carried along in the tide of D-beat have one of the finest pedigrees use those ideas of not doing the to mind, but Black Skies Burn, be Girl Power’s home turf.” destructive things when our needs hardcore.” Girl Power are hardcore to, mayhem on show. in Oxford music. Pete’s band obvious; they’re scattered through Mother Corona, Undersmile, aren’t being met.” well, the core. No compromise, history takes in grunge-core our work. As far as hardcore is Beard of Zeus are my personal The last couple of Girl The EP’s stand-out piece is `(We `Girlpower’ is out now on musically or lyrically from a Last month Girl Power heroes Underbelly, prog-jazz- concerned we take influences from favourites.” Power shows Nightshift has Are) White Goods’; it seems Richter Scale. The band support band who approach complacency, released their eponymous new blues-core tyrants A Suitable the whole spectrum and then throw witnessed seemed to indicate the to carry an abstract anti-racism Blacklisters at The Wheatsheaf on privilege, prejudice and idiocy with EP on Richter Scale Records. Case For Treatment, and more in stuff from other genres we listen Hand in hand with the moving towards a slightly more message. Friday 25th September. Hear them all the due deference of Jeremy Five tracks clocking in at a cool, recently arch thrash merchants to. I like the fact that we can mix it rise of Girl Power has been the complex, angular style of hardcore Oli: “That song is about misplaced at girlpower.bandcamp.com.

Sponsored by VERA GRACE `Novella’ (Self released) We’re not making this a dedicated hardcore RELEASED issue of Nightshift a la the recent reggae issue, but in the same month we stamp Girl Power FOALS AIRSTAR forceful on the front cover, this splendidly splenetic offering arrives in our inbox, sets `What Went Down’ `Retrospect’ about kicking the shit out of all the other (Warner Brothers/Transgressive) (Self-released) emails and frankly makes most of the other A lot has been made of Foals’ decision to Old Oxford bands are reforming or coming back local releases in the pile sound a bit, well, record their fourth album in Saint Remy-de- out of the woodwork at quite a rate right now. wimpy. Provence, a place closely associated with Van The last Nightshift entry we have for Airstar is We reviewed Vera Grace in the demo pages Gogh’s incarceration as well as Nostradamus’s back in 2005, while their last demo was featured a few months ago and marvelled at their birthplace. Coupled with the naked aggression in the January 2003 issue, but, they tell us, unbridled rage – a spittle-flecked, spasming of its teaser title track we’ve been led to believe they’ve finally finished their debut album. Don’t noise storm fronted by a singer whose personal this is where Foals go off the rails and into strain yourselves, kids. FAMILY MACHINE ferocity dial seemed to be stuck at 11. ZURICH the bullring, fists clenched, the smell of blood The fact that the three songs that featured on And this new EP suggests they’ve got even in their nostrils. If anything, it’s their mostly that last demo make it on to the album suggests `Houses That You Lived In’ better. And angrier. At least on the strength `Small Wars’ tightly controlled album to date. the band really haven’t put themselves out to (Beard Museum) of opener `Exposition’, an opulent slab of (Self released) They’ve always been restless, shaking off the write a hatful of new material. It’s also, sadly, There’s a moment listening to the gorgeous metalcore that manages the near Herculean task Formed by three-quarters of promising local fidgety indie disco of `Antidotes’ to head off symptomatic of how dated much of this sounds. `Quiet As A Mouse’ when we realise that it of reminding us of Fucked Up at times with starlets The Scholars (and possibly now into the desert for `Total Life Forever’ (“a dream towards a style of 80s pop ballad that few are Opening brightly enough with the jolly, sounds like something from a vintage Oliver its dense, shifting sea of guitars and rasping renamed due to the moderate success of a of a dying eagle,” as Yannis described it), before brave enough to consider heralding as cool even summery `Wake Up’, with its Christian happy- Postgate TV show. vocal. In fact the production here is excellent, similarly monikered but considerably less muscling up big time for the rockier `Holy Fire’, this far removed. With its swirling, shifting clappy pop feel, all smiley harmonies and ooh- Listen to that wiltingly simple vocal melody bringing the songs into stark focus while piling appealing band) Banbury’s Zurich offer no showing off their well-earned stadium chops in synthetic textures and twilit atmosphere it’s a oohs (plus some incongruous scratching), it’s all and those urbanely bucolic drizzles of guitar, on the pressure layer by brutal layer. huge sideways leap from their old sound. In the process. `What Went Down’ feels less like stark contrast to the opening title track but its harmless enough if nondescript, but a full album and couldn’t this be what Gabriel the Toad But what’s equally impressive about the fact their new name reinforces their leaning another sideways step as a more considered equal as an album highlight. quickly becomes a trawl, `Beautiful Thing and might sing if he had to explain something band is their attention to texture and nuance, towards a stately form of Europop with its advance on `Holy Fire’, the beastly riffage, Without getting to bogged down in Yannis’ `Still In Love’ nothing more than bland, non- intangibly complex like regret or melancholy, leaving the onward rush into battle aside roots in the early 80s. bulldozing groove and carefully channelled maturing emotional outlook, `What Went descript 90s, possibly early-noughties, landfill instead of hot air balloons and sharing. What when necessary to explore darker worlds, as `Small Wars’ also continues the band’s aggression of the title track marking it as a close Down’ is an album that sounds like Foals are as indie, wandering into full-on boy band balladry makes this album beautiful is not just the lovely on the oblique, industrial/gothic `Act II’ and apparent ambition to fill giant stadiums with cousin to `Holy Fire’s twin high points, `Inhaler’ comfortable with what they are now as they’ve at times. Is that a hint of The Levellers we hear? sound – although the sound is lovely, from the the sombre, growling `Griever’ that reminds dark pop noise, Adrian Banks’ rich, sombre and `Providence’. ever been – willing and able to marry Stooges Or maybe Razorlight? Cast? Who knows, we 60s soundtrack horns and Bacharach bass of us of the much missed Xmas Lights in parts vocals alternately recalling Neil Hannon and Just like `Holy Fire’, `What Went Down’ finds and Led Zep rocking to acid house exuberance underwent years of therapy to try and forget `Long Way From Home’ to the Golden Syrup and which blossoms gloriously into something Matt Berninger as he switches from arch to Foals switching between the pent-up frustration (as on the searing climax of `Mountain At My some of these bands. `Abbey Road’ warmth of `Morning Song’ – but seriously epic. It all ends in a boiling pit of rage portentous. and well-aimed firepower of their big rock Gates’), bubbling afro-flavoured pop, cocky They up it all a notch or two with `Chromium’, the way that the deftly constructed miniature of course, with `Catharsis’, spleens vented as Zurich’s music matches him at every step: numbers, and the fleet of foot and nimble- jam-outs and a stadium-sized knack for a hook but sounding a bit like something Radiohead songs seem to say a lot about huge topics in Vera Grace spread their wings and bare their lush, fulsomely-produced synth-heavy new fingered funky, poppier pieces like `Albatross’ or singalong chorus. might have stuck on the end of `Pablo Honey’ very few words, like indie folk as written by teeth and set out their claim to the local hardcore wave that leans unabashedly but spiritedly and `Birch Tree’. There’s room again too for far Along the way, they’ve become one of the is something even Muse left behind a decade Saki. Or Yoda. throne with extreme prejudice. towards Editors and Killers. more personal songs where the often cryptic and biggest and easily one of the best live bands ago. Thereafter we’re into more solid, vaguely The key concept that resurfaces throughout Ian Chesterton Songs like `Alone’ radiate an almost gothic contrary Yannis reveals his deeper emotions. on the planet, almost without anyone noticing. anthemic indie rock that sounds a lot like the records is home, whether as welcoming elegance while keeping their feet firmly in pop `London Thunder’ finds the singer sat in a The raucous, celebratory nature of their gigs someone else you can’t quite put your finger on. shelter after a hard journey, or as mute witness territory, while the EP’s title track is easier, deserted airport departure lounge contemplating will always elevate their songs to a level above Possibly every guitar band to get a major label to painful absence; the title track could easily with its fleet piano lead, more like a sullen returning to a home and relationship that can’t and beyond what you hear on record, but while deal between 1995 and 2005. Or, in the case of be a rewriting of Philip Larkin’s `Home Is So cousin to The Divine Comedy who’d quite like ever be the same as they were before. Foals’ it’s a tamer beast than we’ve come to expect of `All For You’, Deacon Blue. Sad’ over a melancholic melody that somewhat to invite Andrew Eldritch round for tea and ongoing rise and rise to rock’s heady summit, Foals on stage, `What Went Down’ sounds like Ultimately `Retrospect’ is timeless in all the recalls early 90s R.E.M. It’s not always easy to snakebites. coupled with Yannis’ impending thirtieth an album tailor made for anything the big time wrong ways: stuck in a place in pop history hone in on what specifically these allusive little As the song saunters enigmatically along before birthday seem to weigh heavily on him, and has to offer. that’s been forgotten for good reason. If it songs mean, especially `We Ain’t Going Home’, rising through a dashing string crescendo, the song’s honesty is enhanced by its leaning Dale Kattack had come out a decade ago maybe we could which simply repeats its title in reverberant you get a good view of Zurich’s grand plan have been kinder (in fact that demo review harmony like the world’s most elegant footie and even grander ambitions, and if you worry credits Aistar with “some pleasantly aspiring chant, but perhaps they are not supposed to be this breed of pop might be yesterday’s news, It’s been close to three years since we last heard pop”); offering it to the world now feels like a tied down. Most great pop music is brash and there’s also the reassurance that existentially from The Shaker Heights and by the sounds of desperate gig promoter trying to flog an arena cocksure, but The Family Machine’s intimate uncertain, black-clad youths will forever crave this new single they’ve spent that time finding a package tour featuring Bush, Ace of Base and intricacies are more haiku than high kick, and such darkly-proportioned poetry and pomp and, whole new musical path to rove down. Hootie & the Blowfish. should be cherished as amongst the county’s sure as the sun sets in the west, the dark will rise Where 2012’s `Little White Doll’ was Neil Ian Chesterton very best. again. Young-inspired epic country rock, here they David Murphy Ian Chesterton sound closer to Teleman’s repetitive rob-pop married to downbeat indie. It’s slight but agreeable, the repetitive, minimalist groove helped along by an arty FRANCIS PUGH & THE WHISKY SINGERS plucking, swaying fiddle and dreams of a place video from local singer and director Laima called home. The banjo becomes positively Bite, involving a balletic masked robot girl who `A Place Back West’ infectious on `I Saw the Light’, a sparky looks like a cross between Hazel O’Connor counterpoint to the edge of regret that lines each in Breaking Glass and Leeloo from The Fifth (Self released) song here. Element. Not so much formed as gradually coming travellers like Great Western Tears and Ags If there’s a criticism to be made it’s that James And this being Youtube, when the video finishes together over a number of late-night pub Connolly. This EP finds them doing what they Robson’s voice tends to sounds less like Tom the algorhythms decide Shaker Heights and sessions, gathering new members as they went do best – bringing some of Tom Waits’ gutter Waits and more like Horrible Histories’ take on `Body’ should move us onto news footage about along, local bluegrass sextet Francis Pugh & blues to old-time bluegrass, giving Hank Henry XIII, but since Horrible Histories is just THE SHAKER HEIGHTS the jailing of a man for murdering a make-up the Whisky Singers have made a name for Williams’ `I Saw the Light’ a quick brush down about the only thing worth watching on telly artists in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Hopefully not themselves as hosts of the regular Roots Ramble along the way. these days, we’ll let that slide and simply pour `Body’ the make-up artist from the video. events, taking rootsy Americana for pub crawls Lead track `A Place Back West’ is steeped in ourselves another two fingers of sourmash. (Skag Harry) Sue Foreman around parts of the city alongside fellow bitter-sweet down-home jollity – jaunty banjo Dale Kattack Sponsored by RELEASED KILIMANJARO BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS reflection, tidily arranged and polished neat as LITTLE BLOOD a pin, but struggling to pull you into its world. Quarterman’s songs in particular, like `All Those `Ancient Enchantment’ Moments’, sound like Richard Hawley’s street- (Q Thing) walking ballads, but without the rain and poetry. When Val Doonican passed away in July the It’s pretty at times, but there’s a certain soul old jokes about rocking, but gently, resurfaced, missing. Elsewhere you sense echoes of Elvis but truth is the man left a greater legacy than Costello’s more doleful ruminations and the soft many would care to admit. There are legions of night-time jazz of Steely Dan, but while songs men (always men) for whom the life of a soft- like `All Those Moments’ might be heartfelt hearted crooner appeals more than the dangerous, and the shimmering `Bleeding Life’ displays an turbulent waters of proper rock and roll. occasional ability to create something better, you The genial spectre of dear old Val hovers in the long for a bit of dirt, or dust or some sense of peripheries of our hearing throughout this second deeper hurt. album from Little Blood, a band formed by Mike While we’re not suggesting for a minute that Allen, Paul Quarterman and Giles Farley, who every band should sound like The Ramones’ each share vocal duties, but which also features Tartrazine-addled kid brothers and sisters, such Ride’s Mark Gardener on bass and backing comfy slippers from the very first track and rarely relentlessly soporific fare fails to ignite even a vocals, and mighty beatmeister Tim Turan on even suggests it’s up for a walk down to the pub spark of excitement as it somnambulates across drums. As such you’d hope there’d be a bit more for six pints of Stella and a punch-up in the car eleven tracks and forty minutes of rocking. But, get up and go about `Ancient Enchantments’; park. of course, very, very gently. instead it settles down with its mug of cocoa and The overwhelming feel of the album is wistful Dale Kattack

POLEDO THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER `Egg Ccun Catpil Butfli’ BIRMINGHAM THE INSTITUTE (Deadbeat And Down) Four tracks of neo-grunge fuzzpop from Poledo, TICKETS: MYTICKET.CO.UK | SEETICKETS.COM who eschew precision and sheen, and instead splurge up gloriously messy melodic noise that’s a RIDEMUSIC.NET/LIVE f/RIDEOX4 T/RIDEOX4 ton of fun to sprawl wasted on the floor to. With less of a nod to Pavement and Sebadoh – more of a delighted and delightful mossy headbang – what we have here is a paean to the simple life of mid-90s America-skewed indie rock. ‘Ultimate Fearing Champion’ kicks its post-rock introductory bars to the curb with a riff leading effortlessly to several minutes of `Slanted And Enchanted’ guitar squiggling and curious vocals; ‘Phoenix Fire Protection’ is half moody grumble, LIU BEI half hopeful grasp, wrapped in an almost Th’Faith THE WATSON FAMILY `Mind Over Matter’ Healers-esque rhythmic shuffle. ‘Comfortable SINGERS Life’ switches back up to Urusei Yatsura / Built To (Famous Friends) Spill mode – it’s the best track here, a journey of `Dulverton Fair’ More heartache, fragility and delicately crafted melodies and feedback barely held together by a musical snowfall from Richard Walters and his panoply of guitar effects. Finally, Loser’ (they had (Tipsy Bodger Records) Will we ever – can we ever – be set free from the fellow travellers in gentle grief. `Mind Over to have a track called ‘Loser’, obviously) introduces sounds and colours that continue to bescumber our Matter’ comes on 7” vinyl on Famous Friends, a touch of Sonic Youth `Goo’-style guitar glide senses like the baritone chuckle of a filthy-minded the new label set up by three fifths of Spring to energising effect. `Egg Ccun Catpil Butfli’ is bearded furniture maker? Onward friends to Offensive, Liu Bei’s sparse tumbling beats, righteously available on splatter vinyl 12”. Slackers Dulverton Fair! But as the light fades and we fear starlit guitar twinkle and distant buzzing never went away, they just take their time. we shall be forced to camp, a broad-shouldered electronics a shifting backdrop to a voice so Simon Minter pure you could probably use it to wash away all former innkeeper is at first seduced then later the sins of the world. There’s something almost tied down by gothic witches, his splayed form uplifting about it all, as if Walters is convincing tormented, yay tortured, by waxy exfoliant before himself that life ain’t so bad after all, but at its the desolate, despairing eyes of pale pre-pubescent core that sense of desolation remains resolute and boys. Now hairless, the evening unfolds before unshakable. him in an orgy of boxed wine and stilton wheels. The b-side, `Philip Seymour Hoffman’, is a Darker still the butler’s room: dank and rarefied eulogy to the late, great actor, with foreboding, despite the Vim under the sink and Richard reflecting “Who’s gonna play me now?” both bars on. Up the back passage traipse doomed It’s too good to be a b-side in truth, but even if it maidens, heads lightened and senses dulled by were the lead track, and even if it did somehow cheap Pinot Grigiot – into the clutches of the low accidentally end up being played on the breakfast chuckling carpenter, emerging, minds torn asunder show, it’d be banned immediately for sending by base double entendres and tales of Windsor a nation back to bed to weep softly into their Chairs. The salty tang of indeterminate blue cheese pillows. If you want to know what a symphony upon their tongues, forever. Escape! To Denton of broken hearts sounds like, listen no further. Hill! Too late? To let? Toilet. Victoria Waterfield Magic Ian folk and more, hosted by Moon Leopard’s Warlocks and Super Furry Animals. Suitably Jeremy Hughes. lysergic support from space-rockers Flights of Helios, plus an ambient set from acid house th meister Manacles of Acid. In the words of Jarvis MONDAY 7 Cocker – what if we never come down? JON AMOR & JOEL FISK: The BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Dancefloor Bullingdon – The Hoax’s Jon Amor and Latin, Afrobeat, Balkan beats, global grooves guitarist Joel Fisk, who’s served time in GIG GUIDE and nu-jazz club night, hosted by DJ Dan Ofer. LeVenore Rouge and Hokie Joint, return to Tonight’s live set comes from Belgium-based The Haven Club for an electric/acoustic blues st th outfit Black Flower, reinventing the Ethio-jazz TUESDAY 1 SATURDAY 5 get-together. The former spent the 90s touring sounds of Ethiopia of the 60s and 70s, adding GUITAR SUMMIT: The Bullingdon – Guitar BLACK CANDY + BEELZEBOZO: The with high-energy, volume-heavy blues outfit th SEPTEMBER psychedelic funk to the mix for a trippy, exotic Friday 4 jazz at the Bully’s free weekly jazz club night. Wheatsheaf – Oxford’s early-noughties metal The Hoax who reformed a couple of years ago, groove ride. LOWWS + CATALANO + KID KIN: Strummerroom Project show with Aylesbury heroes reform for a one-off show – see main previously compared to The Rolling Stones ORANGE VISION + FOX CHAPEL + V2’s: HAYES CARLL: Modern Art Oxford – First of One Note rockers Callow Saints, Ant Kelly from The preview and Yardbirds. The latter grew up inspired The Wheatsheaf – Post-punk and indie rock Forever’s residency at Modern Art, kicking off Shapes’ new side project Factory Lights, AGS CONNOLLY + JACK GRELLE: The by Eric Clapton, JJ Cale and BB King, being The Bullingdon from Orange Vision. with fidgety local electro-tinged indie popsters and north Oxfordshire’s rising young singer- Cellar – Witney’s Ameripolitan singer Ags nominated for Best Guitarist in the annual Great satirists are often misunderstood, MOGMATIC + THE AUTUMN SAINTS + Lowws. They’re joined by dense, atmospheric songwriter Charlie Leavy. Connolly heads out on a co-headline tour of the Blues Awards twice. particularly by those they’re mocking. You post-rock and electronica chap Kid Kin, and UK and Ireland with Missouri’s Jack Grelle, the THE AUREATE ACT + COSMOSIS: The only have to see the lads who see Sid the psych/krautrock crew Catalano. pair taking country music back to its raw, earthy Jericho Tavern – Blues-rocking from Mogmatic rd th Sexist as a role model rather than a piss- BASS NATION: The Cellar – Weekly trap, THURSDAY 3 roots, away from the sheen and bright lights of TUESDAY 8 and Autumn Saints at tonight’s It’s All About the take, or bands who seem to think This Is AUTOBAHN: The Bullingdon – Post- US and UK hip hop, garage and house club Nashville. THE EWAN BAIRD GROUP: The Music gig, plus inventive prog from The Aureate Spinal Tap is an instruction documentary industrial post-punk bleakness from Leeds’ night, with DJ Platinum. THE POLYPHONIC SPREE: O2 Academy Bullingdon – Free live jazz at the Bully’s Act. to realise as much. And so it is that Texan rising harbingers of doom – see main preview OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern – Celebrating fifteen years since their inception, weekly club, tonight with local saxophonist CONTEK + SLATE HEARTS + TOO MANY songwriter Hayes Carll’s `She Left Me For SINFICTION + IAGO: The Wheatsheaf Tim DeLaughter’s choral-rock ensemble return Ewan Baird and his band. POETS + BREEZE + PUNCHDRUNK Jesus’ and `Another Like You’ have become – Funky, grungy rocking from Sinfiction at nd to the UK, the occasionally 20-strong troupe’s INTRUSION: The Cellar – Monthly goth, MONKEY CLUB: O2 Academy – Metalcore singalong anthems for the small-minded tonight’s It’s All About the Music show. WEDNESDAY 2 euphoric orchestral pop inspired by The industrial and ebm club night with residents and post-hardcore from Contek, heading up rednecks they so succinctly skewer. As CALLOW SAINTS + FACTORY LIGHTS THE UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF Beatles, Beach Boys and ELO and making them Bookhouse and Doktor Joy on the decks of tonight’s It’s All About the Music showcase. traditionally Texan as they come, Carll is a + CHARLIE LEAVY: Fat Lil’s, Witney – GREAT BRITAIN: The New Theatre – The a mainstay of film soundtracks, ad campaigns doom. HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: James Street bundle of contradictions – a literate slacker UK’s longest-surviving and best known Uke (particularly `Light & Day’), American football OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern Tavern –Americana and bluegrass from the local history graduate whose lyrics are influenced orchestra comes round again, with their massed Thursday 3rd games and even a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. regulars. by Kerouac as much as Bob Dylan, his mini-string arrangements of classic pop, punk, To mark their fifteenth anniversary they’ll be th THE GUNS’N’ROSES EXPERIENCE UK: music steeped in traditional country while jazz, soundtrack and classical interpretations. WEDNESDAY 9 AUTOBAHN: playing debut album `The Beginning Stages of Fat Lil’s, Witney – Tribute act. poking fun at its entrenched attitudes, a big THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Cellar – BASS NATION: The Cellar The Polyphonic Spree’ in its entirety. THE MIGHTY REDOX + PUPPET favourite in country clubs but also at SXSW. Weekly funk, hip hop, r’n’b and garage club The Bullingdon FUNK JUGGLERS: The Bullingdon MECHANIC: The Black Swan His early self-released records attracted Given their chosen name you’d expect night with 80s, 90s and noughties classics. th CHRIS LESLIE + MARK HARRISON: THURSDAY 10 the attention of Lost Highway – home to Autobahn to be all sleek, linear synth CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Tiddy Hall, Ascott-under-Wychwood – FORMIDABLE VEGETABLE SOUND th Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams – and grooves and man-machine sterility, but Community Centre – Oxford’ longest SATURDAY 12 Wychwood Folk Club hosts an evening with SYSTEM: The Bullingdon – Ukulele-based he’s gone on to garner some serious critical the Leeds quintet sound more like the running, and best, open club night continues to OXFORD RABBIT HOLE FESTIVAL: The Fairport Convention’s Chris Leslie, a singer eco-tainment from Western Australia’s FVS, acclaim, `Another…’ winning the 2011 post-industrial landscapes of Yorkshire showcase singers, musicians, poets, storytellers, General Eliot, South Hinksey (1pm) – Free and multi instrumentalist but best known plying what they call ukulele electro-swing, American Songwriters top spot. His album and Lancashire than Dusseldorf or performance artists and more every week. all-day festival in aid of local charities Hog Acre for his fiddle playing, which has also found with a planet-saving message. Speakeasy `KMAG YOYO’ was the Americana Music Cologne. Formed in 2013, an early support THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf – Common and Oxford Friend (it’s free to get in him playing with The Albion Band, Feast of swing, glitchy uke wonk and big horn sounds, Association’s Number 1 album, while to Merchandise won them a deal with Free unplugged show in the Sheaf’s downstairs but donations welcome). Quality local line-up Fiddles, Julie Matthews, Ian Anderson and spreading the world-saving message by way of Rolling Stone and The New York Times have indie label Tough Love and a couple of bar from the local swamp-rock/blues/ska/funk with Folksy indie/electro/dub starlets Balloon Whippersnapper over the years. dance music. Oh yes. similarly lauded him. He’s a serious artist, well-received EPs. Their debut album, stalwarts. Ascents, widescreen country rockers The Epstein BEER & CIDER FESTIVAL: The Perch, THE HAZE + THE STRING PROJECT + then, but one out to skewer pomposity, `Dissemble’, is released this month. Given OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon playing a rare hometown show, quirky singer- Binsey – Live music all day as part of the MUDSLIDE MORRIS: The Bell, Bicester hypocrisy and small-minded attitudes and their origins it’s no surprise to hear echoes BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, songwriter Matt Winkworth, emotive country- picturesque pub’s festival, including local duo – Strummerroom show with teen rockers The tonight’s Empty Room show is a great of classic goth in their stark, urgent post- Sandford folksters Great Western Tears, Brazilian dance Greg and Gordo. Haze, strings’n’electronics ensemble The chance to see him in his natural environment punk noise, but there’s a heavy Manchester- ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure from Ran Kan Kan offshoot The Illustrious WHAT YOU CALL IT, GARAGE?: The String Project, and blues and boogie man Sambisters, Chicago-style blues-rockers The – a cosy backroom venue. influenced feel to them too, with Joy Cellar – Garage club night Mudslide Morris. Division, Magazine and The Chameleons an Howling Taildraggers and a late, indoor set th BREEZE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Rock covers. THE PETE FRYER BAND: The – Detroit guitarist Marcus Malone returns to obvious inspiration. All reverbed to buggery FRIDAY 4 from string folk ensemble The String Project. HAYES CARLL: The Bullingdon – Redneck- THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Dolphin, Wheatsheaf – Free gig in the Sheaf’s town for a show at The Haven Club, kicking guitars and fronted by Craig Johnson’s The acoustic stage features Charlie Leavy, Matt baiting classic country from the Texan Wallingford – Eccentric electric blues-rock downstairs bar from the local blues veteran. out a hard-rocking form of blues and soul that hollowed-out baritone, they were the perfect Chanarin, Adam McMillan and Susi Illingworth troubadour – see main preview from the ever-gigging local veteran. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford borders on metal at times, having made his choice of band to support Eagulls on tour among others, plus there’s an open mic stage. KLUB KAKOFANNEY with UK:ID Community Centre name on the UK and European blues circuit in last autumn. His lyrics dwell on the darker BAD BEHAVIOUR + HELL’S GAZELLE’S: + COSMOSIS + GHOSTS IN THE th THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Cellar recent years. Fabulous local support from recent side of bleak, with death, frustration and SUNDAY 6 The Cellar – OxRox host a tribute night to 70s PHOTOGRAPHS + CHEROKEE: The OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Punt stars Little Brother Eli, taking White ennui chief among his favourite topics. THE ANDREW COMBS TRIO + BARNA glam, with Preston’s glam-rock extravaganza act Wheatsheaf – Excellent rap-rave-electro- BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Stripes and White Denim down to the banks of There’s a rabble-rousing punk side to the HOWARD: The Bullingdon – A darker Bad Behaviour, plus support from local rockers punk craziness from Glastonbury’s UK:ID Sandford the Mississippi for a party with Red Hot Chili band too, with hints of The Clash and even shade of Americana from Nashville songwriter Hell’s Gazelles taking their own trip back in at tonight’s Klub Kak, the festival regulars ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the The Ruts about them at times but mostly it’s Andrew Coombs at tonight’s Empty Room time after their showing at Bloodstock reminiscent of early-90s rave crossover acts like Obscure a journey into the black heart of oblivion show, the singer touring his second album, his Festival. Senser and The Shaman at times. Heavy-duty along this particular autobahn. mix of American folk, country and r’n’b having EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar th rocking from Cosmosis in support, alongside drawn comparisons to Paul Simon, Jackson FRIDAY 11 – House, garage, drum&bass and epic post-rock noise from GITP. Browne and The Eagles. WHITE NOISE SOUND + FLIGHTS techno club night. EDGE MICHAEL: The Cellar – Classic roots MOJITOS + SINFICTION + THE LOST OF HELIOS + MANACLES OF ACID: RORKE’S DRIFT: Fat Lil’s, Witney reggae from Pete Tosh’s nephew Edge Michael, ART + CALLOW SAINTS: The Wheatsheaf The Bullingdon – First trip to town in half a – Rock and metal covers. out on tour to promote the legalisation of (2.30pm) –Free afternoon of unplugged live decade from Swansea’s White Noise Sound, cannabis, joined for the duration by trumpeter music hosted by Klub Kakofanney in the with the emphasis on the word trip, because SUNDAY 13th Frank Aird. Sheaf’s downstairs bar. the band’s pulsating, blissed-out wall of sound CITY OF THE RED NIGHT: Joe Perk’s, St BEARD OF DESTINY + MOON LEOPARD owes a huge debt to gods of psych-drone rock th Clement’s – New club night playing EBM, cold + THE FIREGAZERS + SONG AND Spacemen 3 – Sonic Boom even produced MONDAY 14 wave, electro, future rock, post-punk industrial SUPPER ROOMS: Donnington Community their last album, while they’ve played live MARCUS MALONE + LITTLE disco and dystopian psychedelic sounds. Centre (6pm) – Free evening of acoustic blues, with him, as well as Mark Gardener, The BROTHER ELI: The Bullingdon covers and originals. SATURDAY 19th brought up on gospel before discovering jazz, JAMES BLACKSHAW + JALI FILY OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street ROYAL PARDON 2015: The Bullingdon then Hendrix and Steely Dan. A meeting with CISSOKHO: Modern Art Oxford – Inventive Tavern – All-day local bands showcase with sets singer Al Blake of the Hollywood Fats Band fusion sounds from renowned twelve-string from grandiose indie-electro rockers Zurich, led to an introduction to the Thunderbirds’ acoustic guitarist James Blackshaw at tonight’s th industrial hip hop and electronic soundscaping Kim Wilson, which in turn led Fletcher to play One Note Forever gig, mixing folk, minimalism WEDNESDAY 16 with Charlie Musselwhite and Pinetop Perkins and classical sounds, inspired by John Fahey BASS NATION: The Cellar from Tiger Mendoza; samba and afropop from amongst others. As leader of his own band he’s amongst others. Locally-based Senegalese kora SPARKY’S JAM NIGHT: James Street Duchess; post-rock and electronica from Kid released five albums, and earned himself four player and griot Jali Fily Cissokho supports. Tavern – Open mic and jam night. Kin, plus 31 Hours, Bel Esprit, Pipeline and more. Blues Music Award nominations. OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern THE BLUE SWAMP BAND: The Jericho th ALPHABET BACKWARDS + WATER THURSDAY 17 PAGEANT + FELIX: The Cellar – Sweet Tavern – Ex-Animals man Jonny Guitar WEDNESDAY 23rd SASHA McVEIGH: The Bullingdon – Williamson comes to The Famous Monday and sunshiny electro-indie pop from Alphabet MERZ + THE FAMILY MACHINE: The Classic Nashville-style country from the Blues. Backwards, launching their new EP, `A Book Bullingdon – Last month’s Nightshift cover rising young UK singer who’s been doing the About Foxes’, alongside harmonious folk- stars Family Machine officially launch their Thursday 24th country music equivalent of taking coals to nd rockers Water Pageant and nu-folkster Felix, second album, `Houses That You Lived In’, Newcastle by wowing Stateside fans with her TUESDAY 22 leaning towards the Laura Marling, Ben STUART HENDERSON BAND: The alongside Merz, the work of singer and multi- GZA: O2 Academy sweet, smooth take on trad sounds. Blooded Howard and Stornoway school of nice things. Bullingdon – Free live jazz from trumpeter instrumentalist Conrad Lambert, out of self- One of the most literate and lyrical rappers in Nashville bars like The Rutledge and The CHURCH OF THE HEAVY with Stuart Henderson and band. imposed musical exile to promote his new on the planet, it shouldn’t come as too Bluebird, she’s gone on to perform at the VIOLENCE IS GOLDEN + LAST RITES album, the follow-up to `No Compass Will Find much of a surprise that GZA’s latest album, 40,000-capacity Country Jam Festival and + 1000 CHAINS: The Wheatsheaf – Heavy th Home’. `Dark Matter’, is a concept album about the prestigious Academy of Country Music Sunday 20 th rock and metal gig night from It’s All About the THE HAZE + GEE BIRD + DANIEL a science-heavy journey through time Saturday 5 Kick Off Party in LA. Having released her Music. EAGLE + ALAN JAGGS: Fat Lil’s, Witney and space. Here’s the man, after all, who Kickstarter-funded debut album `I Stand JAH WOBBLE’S BLACK CANDY: FALLEN FROM GRACE + AMBUSH AT – Strummerroom showcase night with teenage recorded an album, `Grandmasters’, about Alone’ earlier in the summer, she’s off on DAWN + A NIGHTMARE UPON US + INVADERS OF THE rockers The Haze and more. chess as a metaphor for the hip hop game. her biggest UK tour to date. Catch her before The Wheatsheaf CHASING IMMORTALITY: O2 Academy BASS NATION: The Cellar The man born Gary Grice, and sometimes Friday 18th America claims her for its own. – Back after a summer break, Skeletor bring HEART: O2 Academy known simply as The Genius, has had hip THE WOAHNOWS + SHIT PRESENT When Jah Wobble turned down the chance the noise once again with a showcase of local th hop in his blood since he attended block SEXY BREAKFAST: + TENTH LISTEN + RAINBOW metal, heavy rock and metalcore bands. to rejoin PiL, the band he formed with THURSDAY 24 parties back in the 1970s with his cousins RESERVOIR: The Library – More punk BEDROCK: The Bullingdon – Skeletor’s childhood friend John Lydon, in 2010, GZA: O2 Academy – Solo show and science RZA and Ol’Dirty Bastard, with whom he The Wheatsheaf rock action for free courtesy of Smash Disco, monthly rock and metal club night plays classic it was reported that he wanted too much lesson from the lyrical Wu Tang man – see main went on to form Wu Tang Clan. Sometimes Oxford music sees to be going through a tonight with Big Scary Monsters-signed and new releases from across the heavyweight money. He’s never denied it but possibly preview considered the spiritual godfather of the bit of a nostalgia boom right now following angular indie punks The Woahnows, plus spectrum. more important to him was his own restless CARDBOARD FOX: The Bullingdon – Folk group, he’s enjoyed more solo success and the reformation of Ride. We’ve already had Exeter’s pop-core trio Shit Present, local OXFORD BEARD FESTIVAL: The James creativity, a character trait that means he and bluegrass from the Bath-based quartet. acclaim than most of his compadres, while Sextodecimo’s awesome reunion show this skate-punk scrappers Tenth Listen and pop- Street Tavern – A day of music and more in simply never looks back. Equally he’s been COVER ME with REG BERRY & THE continuing to collaborate with most of them year and this month two of the late-90s/ punk anti-folk faves Rainbow Reservoir. celebration of facial hair, with live sets from a leader in his own bands for too long to go CHERRIES + SUDDEN GUNFIRE: The over the years. Arguably his finest moment early-noughties local favourites are coming AGS CONNOLLY + JACK GRELLE: Fat Americana outfit Superloose, electro crew back to being a sidekick to anyone. Wobble Jericho Tavern – It’s All About the Music was his 1995 solo album `Liquid Swords’, th back for one night only. On the 5 it’s Black Lil’s, Witney – Final night of the co-headline STEM, Burlesque troupe Scarlet Vixens and, (born John Wardle, allegedly nicknamed covers night. though he’s maintained a high standard all Candy, one-time leaders of Oxford’s metal tour from local Ameripolitan songsmith Ags of course, local bluesman Beard of Destiny, Jah Wobble by a drunken Sid Vicious) has THE BIG BLUES NIGHT OUT: The Cellar along the way. He’s also continued to defy revolution and, along with the mighty JOR, and Missouri troubadour Jack. among others, plus competitions for best beard, led an eventful life, almost replacing Glenn – Live blues. expectations of a big name rapper, with a band synonymous with the legendary CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford moustache, facial hair and even best ladies’ Matlock in the Pistols before forming PiL EMILY SMITH: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Scottish a collaboration with Devendra Banhart, Club That Cannot Be Named. Combining Community Centre beard, plus beer and cider festival, all in aid of and then going seriously off the rails in the singer and actress Smith tours her fifth album, disowning profanity in rap as “unnecessary” elements of 90s nu-metal, grunge and even OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Prostate Cancer UK. early-80s, which led to him quitting music `Echoes’. and teaming up with Mogwai for their All rap, they had rage and riffage and even some BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, BENDRIX: The Cornerstone, Didcot – for years before sobering up and going on CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Tomorrow’s Parties this summer. Given his funk to spare and played one of the great Sandford Bellowhead and Faustus man Benji Kirkpatrick to collaborate with a vast array of musicians Community Centre love for science it’s also no surprise that early Truck Festival shows. They could also ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure plays Hendrix on bouzouki, banjo, mandolin from around the world, including Brian Eno OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon he’s set up a partnership to help improve pack out any local venue you fancied to THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Cellar and acoustic guitar, taking those classic and Can’s Holger Czukay, his reputation BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, science teaching in New York schools and mention, and will do once again, tonight’s psychedelic blues riffs on a rootsy journey. and influence growing with each new Sandford colleges. So expect to be educated as well gig already sold out, hopefully with slightly FRIDAY 18th MOVE: The Cellar – House, garage and grime project and passing year. In particular his ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure as entertained, and maybe slightly awed, at less carnage than was the norm back then. exploration of myriad styles of music from THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Cellar SEXY BREAKFAST + WHITE BEAM + club night. tonight’s show. Later in the month the less brutal but no around the world, right back to his Invaders CAMERON AG: The Wheatsheaf – Reunion less spectacular return of Sexy Breakfast, of The Heart band in the 1980s, preceded th show for the former local electro/prog/pop th FRIDAY 25 tonight’s opening bill are fast-improving local the teenage mutant electro-pop turtles whose SUNDAY 20 many of his peers’ interest in world music. heroes – see main preview BLACKLISTERS + GIRL POWER: The post-punk/indie rock crew Orange Vision, genius reworking of Aled Jones’ `Walking in JAH WOBBLE’S INVADERS OF THE Having played with The Chinese Dub MAD LARRY + VINCENT WHITE BAND Wheatsheaf – Blacklisters have come to and they’re joined by London-based Ugandan the Air’ remains one of Oxford music’s great HEART: O2 Academy – Bass legend John Orchestra in 2009, he last came to Oxford + GET LOOSE: The Cellar – OxRox does wreck everything and ruin your life. God sent r’n’b singer Haula, fresh from her acclaimed lost high points. A band whose complex, Wardle brings the dub – see main preview with The Nippon Dub Ensemble, fusing his the blues, with classic r’n’b from Mad Larry. them – see main preview showing at Truck Fest; funky, folky popsters idiosyncratic melding of synth-pop, prog, ONE GIG FRESHER: The Bullingdon (2- beloved dub with the traditional sounds of BEN OTTEWELL: O2 Academy – The VIENNA DITTO + GO ON, DO IT, JUMP Homeplanet Earth; slick stadium-pop types dub and stadium rock grandiosity constantly 10pm) – One Gig Closer To Wittstock hosts a Japan. Going out this time as Invaders of Gomez frontman returns to town in his solo + EASTER ISLAND STATUES + KUIPER Leader and rather lovely folk-rockers Water felt like it was on the verge of collapse, Freshers special all-dayer in aid of the annual the Heart suggests a return to some of his guise to promote his recent album `Rattlebag’, + WE HAVE A DUTCH FRIEND: The Pageant. their local gigs were frenzied fan fests full free festival. Bluesman Beard of Destiny, heavy older material, but with Wobble, you simply his deep, soulful voice bringing rootsy life to Bullingdon – It’s All About the Music show DUOTONE + SIMON DAVIES & COLIN of hysterical girls, and boys, and there’ll rockers Cosmosis and emotive acoustic singer- never know what you’re going to get, and his blues and folk songs and doubtless a few with synth-crazed voodoo blues duo Vienna FLETCHER + STEPH WEST: Albion likely be a few tears shed and underwear songwriter Trevor Williams all play, alongside that’s the real mark of the man as a musical Gomez favourites. Ditto, plus fidgety indie pop from Go Ahead, Beatnik Bookstore – Amnesty Acoustic dampened in the suitably sweaty Sheaf’s surf-rockers Phat Cardinals, acoustic metal duo pioneer. JESS HALL: Mallam’s Auctioneers, Do It, Jump and more. evening with virtuoso cellist and loopmeister packed confines tonight. Kyle and Glenda and more. Abingdon – Well there’s a thing – a local NONSTOP TANGO: The Bullingdon – Front Duotone joined by folk duo Davies and musician playing at an auctioneers. In the case bar gig from the experimental jazz/electro Fletcher among others, all in aid of Amnesty Peppers and several kegs of classy cool. st of the lovely Jess Hall and her serene, angelic MONDAY 21 improv outfit. International. NIGEL KENNEDY PLAYS HENDRIX: The songs of true love and the sea, there can be no KIRK FLETCHER: The Bullingdon – a UPRISING with ORANGE VISION + RURA: The Cornerstone, Didcot – New Theatre – The rebel string plucker takes bid high enough. She’s priceless. Return to the Haven Club from renowned HAULA + HOME PLANET EARTH Barnstorming traditional Scottish folk dance on the greatest string-mangler of them all. ZURICH: aka, Banbury – Banbury’s blues guitarist Fletcher, previously part of The + LEADER + WATER PAGEANT: O2 from the Highland quintet, out on tour after a dark’n’shiny indie/electro rockers, taking Fabulous Thunderbirds as well as performing Academy – The O2 resurrects its showcase summer of festival appearances. TUESDAY 15th influences from Editors, Killers and Interpol, with blues supergroup The Mannish Boys. team-up with BBC Introducing, now renamed LUKE PICKETT + ELOISE REES: The HEAVY DEXTERS: The Bullingdon – Free launch their new EP, `Small Wars’, kicking off From his earliest days, playing guitar at his Uprising (because, like, the acts involved are Cape of Good Hope – Electro-acoustic pop live jazz from Heavy Dexters, playing jazz-funk a 13-date UK tour. father’s church, he’s made the blues his life, rising, like, upwards. Obviously). Heading up and r’n’b from London singer Pickett, plus local acoustic singer-songwriter Eloise Rees. DUBKASM: The Bullingdon – Bristol’s DIRTY EARTH BAND: Fat Lil’s, Witney – long-standing roots and dub duo Digitiser Rock and indie covers. and DJ Stryda play a club set, mixing live instrumentation and lo-fi dubwise textures for a th tasty rasta roots vibe. SATURDAY 26 THE TEXAS FLOOD + SKY VALLEY GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with MISTRESS + HELL’S GAZELLES: The GHOSTS IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS + Cellar – OxRox rock night with south Wales’ NEUROHARP + FOCI’S LEFT: The balls-to-the-wall rockers The Texas Flood. Wheatsheaf – Top-notch local post-rock noise BETA BLOCKER & THE BODY CLOCK from Ghosts in the Photographs at tonight’s + KITSCH + ESTHER JOY LANE: The GTI show, the band channelling the influence Jericho Tavern – Daisy Rodgers Music th of Godspeed and Explosions in the Sky to Friday 25 celebrate their sixth birthday with a night of fine effect. Cerebro-drone from Brighton’s quality local noise. There’s lo-fi slacker squall SKYLARKIN Neuroharp, featuring Caravan of Whores’ and baggy psych-pop grooves from Beta astonishing former drummer and kicking out Blocker and the Body Clock; delicate indie SOUNDSYSTEM seriously heavy stoner jams. Atmospheric, noise from Kitsch, plus trippy, soulful r’n’b and occasionally abstract minimalist electronica electro-pop from Esther Joy Lane. with LAID BLAK: and pianism from Foci’s Left making a rare live EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar showing. The Cellar EYECON: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Classic mod BRONWYN LEONARD & GEORGE So summer’s over, as if it ever really and Britpop covers. HUXTABLE: The Bullingdon – Smooth and began, and it’s time to pack up your tent THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Dolphin, sultry jazz, blues and soul in the old school vein and slowly but surely let those festival Wallingford of Billy Holiday from Bristol singer Bronwyn memories fade into the ether. Alternatively Leonard. you could say to hell with such talk and SUNDAY 27th keep the carnival-flavoured party going a WLODI: The Bullingdon – Fancy a bit of little bit longer. Tonight’s monthly edition Friday 25th Polish rap? Well here you go – in the form of of Skylarkin’s soundsystem club night Warsaw’s Wlodi, making a rare trip over to the sees everyone involved back inside after a BLACKLISTERS / UK. summer playing to festival crowds. Club BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) – Open host Count Skylarkin has been here, there GIRL POWER: blues session. and everywhere with his Disco Shed, and tonight celebrates his birthday on the decks, The Wheatsheaf playing his trademark mix of big and bouncy th Take a rusting, serrated barrel of classic 80s MONDAY 28 reggae, dancehall, hip hop and drum & bass and 90s American hardcore and coat it in GRAINNE DUFFY: The Bullingdon – till the small hours. He’s joined once again Yorkshire soot and grime and you’ll get an Powerful blues and soul from the County by Bristol’s seven-strong party reggae outfit idea what Leeds’ Blacklisters sound like. Monaghan singer, whose debut album, `Out Laid Blak, who have similarly spent much They sound nasty. Wipe your hand along Of The Dark’, was recorded with members of of the summer in assorted fields, earning their shrapnel-sharp edges and your fingers Sharon Shannon and Van Morrison’s bands, themselves a reputation as one of, if not the, will fall off and you’ll contract tetanus. They her husky blues voice drawing comparisons best live reggae band in Europe. Smash hits are snarling, sneering, sullen and seriously to Bonnie Raitt. In her native Ireland she’s like `Bristol Love’ and the near-anthemic brutal, a clanging metal-into-flesh industrial supported everyone from Little Feat to Ocean `My Eyes Are Red’ have raised their profile melting pot of Shellac, The Jesus Lizard and Colour Scene and returns to the Haven Club to yet higher, while they’ve shared stages Pissed Jeans – confrontational and angular promote her `Out of the Dark’ album. with The Wailers, Massive Attack, John but possessed of a dark humour. Formed Legend and Julian Marley along the way. So back in 2008 they’ve remained firmly th whichever way you want to do this – pretend under the radar of all but the most devoted TUESDAY 29 the summer’s still here, or Christmas has ALVIN ROY & REEDS UNLIMITED: The hardcore underground fans, though they come early – just keep those dancing shoes Bullingdon – Trad jazz, swing and bop from have earned themselves tour supports to on a little longer. Pulled Apart By Horses and Kong along the veteran clarinettist Alvin Roy and his reeds way, as well as gigs with kindred spirits Melt band. Banana and Rolo Tomassi, and this summer OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern others, tonight playing songs from his extensive they nabbed themselves some space on the back catalogue, including most recent album, `Mesabi’. BBC Introducing Stages at Reading and WEDNESDAY 30th Leeds Festival. Seeing them live at the Sheaf 31 HOUSE + SEVEN O’CLOCK JUNKIES TOM RUSSELL: St John the Evangelist – will be like deliriously throwing yourself + KID KIN: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Spacey afro- Tex-Mex and traditional Texan country music onto barbed wire while high on crystal meth. pop from 31 Hours and mathsy electronica from the el Paso-resident veteran, whose been And if that don’t sound like fun, you’re a from Kid Kin at tonight’s Strummerroom covered by the likes of Johnny Cash, Nanci giant marshmallow softie and no friend of showcase. Griffith, Guy Clark and kd lang among many ours. Awesomely brutal blitzkrieg support BASS NATION: The Cellar from Nightshift cover stars Girl Power, launching their new eponymous EP.

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Email listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may not be reproduced without permission. Abjectsphoto: Paul Carrera invited. It’s cosy, but as the band’s The rhubarb cider, and Pimm’s, loud anthemic rock bursts from the D-FEST is taking its hold on us too, as LIVE Bully’s refurbished back room, so it Lockway, Drayton Reading’s Palm Honey seize reminds us how they’ve outgrown Community and music will always make the mid-afternoon slot and send most of Oxford’s venues. As lead everyone off the planet with their

photo: Jo Cox the happiest of bedfellows, and D-Fest organiser singer Robert Stevenson points out, Craig Evans continues to bring his love of his home psychedelic phasing and faraway they played almost everywhere in village and new up and coming music together, for vocals; it’s pure summer loving, the city in their early days and love the sixth annual D-Fest. free festival gold, as we tune in and to be back for a walk down memory This year finds it in its expanded new home at drop out, lying back to watch the lane, but now seem to have found a Drayton Football Club, giving it space for a vast, Red Kites circling overhead. greater following and commercial flatbed trailer as a main stage, and acres of extra In the acoustic tent Boon Mew & viability for their music Stateside. room for an acoustic tent, as well as a village hall Wooster, with their fast running With a relatively short set and no doubling as the Ministry of Sound. country and slick picking, spoon encore, tonight is a succinct and The day gets off to a pacy start with local gruff- out honey-rich Everly Brothers- fast-paced tour of their hits to date rockers, The Illuminati, whose own songs style harmonies over songs of which includes ‘Anastasia’ and click well with the obscure Oasis numbers they love and breezy heartache, before ends on a high with ‘Danny Dakota cover. The bar is then immediately set even higher Beard of Destiny’s Graham And The Wishing Well’. Despite with Three Empty Domes becoming new ones Barlow, brilliantly accompanied this, and with the aforementioned to watch. Looking barely out of short trousers, by Ian Carmichael on wooden new album in the offing, it’s and with the fabulous Esme Wright playing out percussion box, ramps up the little surprise that newer material of her jazz drumming skin, this smacks of quality psychobilly swamp blues, finishing features heavily in the set with musicianship and songwriting, mixing up the sonics with an odd song about a budgie all four tracks from their recently of Jeniferever and Alt-J. called Keith being eaten by one released ‘New Year’ EP getting an The excellence continues to multiply when we are called Ted. airing. caught between watching Water Pagent, with Abjects, three girls out of east Stevenson throws himself about Nick Tingay’s pained, Nick Drake-meets-early- London, but hailing from Spain, the stage as if he’s playing to Neil Young vocals haunting the home penalty Japan and Italy, send the wasps A SILENT FILM an arena, as well he might be, spot, and the even more astonishing, 12-year-old into a frenzy with their main leaving us to ponder how long Daisy West, making jaws drop in the acoustic tent stage blitz, somewhere between The Bullingdon it will be before the band return with her surreal Nina Simone-like baritone take where The Ramones left off, and Tonight sees A Silent Film back footage (presumably for Youtube). again. Having been drawn into later in the year. With this lengthy on such songs as Massive Attack’s `Teardrop’ and Sky Saxon took over. This is crowd whooping stuff, finally the late running bumps up against the local playing on home turf for the first Inevitably then the atmosphere is their signature crashing drums and absence in mind, the Bully is packed Leadbelly’s `In The Pines’. and there is little more amusing than the ironic sight licensing laws, leaving Reading’s The Amazons time in a long old while, slipping in somewhat akin to a wedding; largely building synths the set feels all too to bursting with friends, family and Ester Joy Lane bravely battles both the bright of a gaggle of toddlers dancing to The Pleasure just half an hour to set out their stall of far- Oxford and London shows around everyone is connected or knows short, much like their run of UK a smattering of hardcore fans with sunshine on her computer screen and the garrulous Seekers’ `What A Way To Die’. reaching indie pop, taking the best bits of Embrace recording for their third full length someone else, save for a few random dates. We want more. video cameras, preserving what increase in beer-lubricated noise from the hundreds The Fruit Tones are one of the exciting new mashed up with first-rate bands like Tame Impala album, which is due for release guests no one is ever quite sure who would now be considered rare Jo Cox of wannabe after dinner speakers sprawled on the wave of young acts currently proliferating in and Pond. It’s a suitably epic resolution to a top garden furniture and straw bales. Her beautiful Beth Manchester and they quickly set about plugging bombing community event. Gossip is exchanged, Orton-meets-Lilley Wood & The Prick sound is into the remaining Abjects buzz, with their reverb- bonhomie shared, and the music wraps it all up into dispense with the vocals. Actually, they should gorgeous `You Know’, from a new EP due in probably one to savour more closely in the intimate heavy take on Richard Hell’s mid-70s CBGBs vibe. a proper field day. TANGLED HAIR / arguably dispense with the guitar and bass too. October. So really, Esther, thank you. The pleasure venues that abound in Oxford. Weird moustaches and hungry hearts abound til Paul Carrera The stupendously talented James Trood, who was all ours. ALPHA MALE TEA also drums for former Colour bandmate George Cameron A.G. is equally possessed of a voice to Reid in AlunaGeorge, is the undisputed star of die for – captivating and run through with delicate POLEDO / TENTH LISTEN / A RELUCTANT ARROW / PARTY / 100 ONCES the show. Little wonder that not one but two of but raw emotion that means his songs, played his drumsticks feel so overworked as to give up out simply on electric piano or acoustic guitar, RADICAL BOY THE LOST ART / HUCK The Cellar the ghost, splintering and snapping mid-song. simply don’t need any great adornment. They Gawd bless the good eggs at Idiot King. Not only Collectively, Tangled Hair’s set is like being taught might appear slight, as if they’d fall apart in a stiff The Library The Cellar have they brought a taster of the forthcoming maths by a really cool supply teacher wearing a breeze, but their emotional depth and melodic Free gigs, like free juke boxes, can time’ rather than adulation that Evan Given the southern gothic charm the stage. weekend’s ArcTanGent festival to Oxford for the Dismemberment Plan T-shirt – ultimately, it’s still strength shine through, and you wonder how be a mixed blessing and The Library Clements and the band are greeted. of his `Alexander the Great’ trilogy From the off it’s evident she has benefit of those of us distraught at missing out on a maths lesson. This is music that, in its audacious James Blake can be playing arenas and winning is doing a fair impersonation of a The music is brilliant of course last year, we’d best simply brush a very good voice, one that rightly the likes of Deafheaven, Deerhoof and Blanck time signatures and self-conscious complexity, is industry awards while Cameron is playing to 40 Northern Line train carriage with the and right up there with anything off Huck’s showing tonight, which dominates the band’s music as it Mass, but they’ve done so in aid of Macmillan very easy to admire but rather harder to actually punters in a basement bar. Such injustice can only lights dimmed for Poledo’s launch any Oxford band has to offer at illicits the brief, disparaging notes bubbles between jangly folk-pop and Cancer Support. love. fuel his heartache and songwriting fire, surely. of their lavish vinyl release for the the moment – ‘Comfortable Life’ “Kermit the Frog impersonating darker blues rock. The set opener Heading back to Bristol for a second consecutive Ben Woolhead Jack Goldstein has always seemed like a man bafflingly named `Egg Ccun Catpil is especially powerfully delivered, Morrissey” and “Chris Isaak having treads a similarly fine line between year are 100 Onces, who kick the evening off with who runs from commercial success however hard Butfli’ EP. Scalps connect with the hinting at a youth misspent a stranglewank.” Simply an off night, stridency and whimsy to Edie the sort of set that screams “Follow THIS!”. At it tried to catch him. As soon as Fixers looked like ceiling, elbows jab into backs and listening to Archers of Loaf but we hope. Brickell, before `Howl Like A Wolf’ first the duo come across like fellow LA natives JACK GOLDSTEIN making the big break he transformed them into punters murmur as stand-in support so overwhelmingly indebted to The Lost Art’s more tender approach edges them into more intimate, almost No Age if they’d not skipped so much school to a mutant improv beast before seemingly putting act Tenth Listen treat us to a fifteen Pavement that one is left straining to acoustic blues and soul marks a sultry lounge swing, Claire semi smoke pot, but later a discernible affection for / CAMERON A.G. / them to bed for good. His latest solo album, `Tonic minute burst of cartoonish skater to see if it is Rory Bremner or Mike step up in quality, the duo’s fleet- successfully trying to get the audience the technicalities of thrash metal edges in. No of Wilderness’, is similarly wilful, with its mix punk, the singer’s t-shirt announcing Yarwood on stage. As an influence footed jazz-pop, folk and occasional to howl along in the chorus. bad thing, we assure you. When guitarist Barrett ESTHER JOY LANE of grandiosity and whimsy. Ranging from soft- the legend ‘Unabomber’. It’s a to pick, it’s a good one though flamenco flourish revealing nimble There’s an occasional tendency Tuttobene declares that it’s time to get serious centred 70s rock, through vintage synth-pop, onto set delivered with about as much and songs such as ‘Phoenix Fire fingers and close harmonies. They’re towards innocuous balladry, like `The and there should be no laughing or smiling, he’s The Library airy psychedelia and raw garage rock, everything subtlety as that particular individual’s Protection’ do have a labyrinthine at their best in their more maudlin Silence’, where A Reluctant Arrow are fighting a losing battle. Esther Joy Lane’s punk crop and abundant tattoos about Jack’s music feels restless if not exactly oeuvre and one is left to bemoan the quality and invention that confirm moments, reminding us of Mark inseparable from a trillion other bands If their name alone isn’t enough to recommend can’t prepare you for her music, particularly her nervy. One minute he’s conjuring a singalong pop late withdrawal of the Beckoning their welcome return. It’s odd Eitzel at one point, while a cover of and where only Claire’s voice holds Alpha Male Tea Party (and let’s face it, it bloody voice, which is as soft and welcoming – sultry anthem, the next indulging in grungy lo-fi noise, Fair Ones. therefore, that they should choose Radiohead’s `Climbing Up the Walls’ them above water and they’re at their well should be), then how’s about song titles like even – as her appearance can initially seem to a point Nightshift’s notepad become a litter of Earlier, Sheffield’s Radical Boy had to include the song ‘Loser’ on the is respectable enough. Their set does most engaging on the bitter, bitchy, ‘I Haven’t Had A Lunch Break Since Windows confrontational. Equally her unassumingly cheery fleeting reference points that veer from Beck, The provided a more than competent set current EP. Having first seen the light tend to drift into safe, easy busker pop blues numbers where her vocal talent Vista Came Out’? Revelling in the luxury of onstage persona that sees her coyly saying “thank Beta Band and Aerial Pink, to Todd Rundgren, of elongated punk bursts so by the of day back in 2013, it thankfully has at one point but they rouse themselves really bites. At least they’re ready and having both a sound engineer and a hotel for the you for being nice,” at the end of her set, as if Brian Wilson and Ty Segal. Typically though time Poledo pronounce themselves nothing to do with Beck, which would at the end with a taut, bluesy finale. willing to switch styles and when they night, the band may not need to worry about day she really hasn’t deserved such a warm reception. he leaves us with something sincere and utterly fully content with the venue’s sound have taken the early 90s signifiers Tonight’s gig is a launch show for close on a swampy surf piece with jobs for much longer. They’re at their best when Musically her mix of glitchy synth pop and lovely, a pale, fragile cousin to Mercury Rev’s arrangements – a process that in too far. As far as the gig goes, it’s a A Reluctant Arrow’s debut album LeMaster ranting witchily over the most uncompromising – a shame, then, that their gossamer r’n’b isn’t quite what you expect to `Deserter’s Songs’. You see, it doesn’t matter how all honesty takes a little too long as highlight of the show, a sprawling mix and they’re obviously in the mood top you wonder if maybe there’s a bit thuggish, stomping instrumentals start to take encounter in a non-more-intimate venue like The hard he tries, Jack Goldstein can’t help but write particularity and fussiness threaten to of poppiness and fuzz - but a complete to enjoy themselves, singer Claire of star quality here just waiting for unnecessary detours into the drearily epic with Library, sounding like Everything But The Girl’s great pop songs. He can run all he likes, but one envelop the evening’s entertainment new palate of material might have LeMaster exuding bonhomie and the right songs to make its presence increasing frequency. sad-eyed soul filtered through FKA Twigs’ 21st day fame and glory will find him. with a bout of lockjaw – it is with been more welcome. seemingly on first name terms with fully felt. Headliners Tangled Hair, meanwhile, should Century invention. She closes with the absolutely Dale Kattack relief and a mood of ‘about flippin’ Robert Langham most of the crowd packed in front of Dale Kattack Ggu:ll Spectres Deathcount in Silicon Valley all photos by Giulia Biasibetti

GUITAR / SONGWRITING TUITION

Most styles, acoustic and electric, and bass Vicky Langan Beginners welcome - full-time teacher Trembling Bells Sturle Dagsland author of How to Write Songs on Guitar and many other guitar books

www.rikkyrooksby.com [email protected] Tel. 01865 765847

THE OXFORD RECORD DVD & CD FAIR St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP Saturday 17th October SUPERNORMAL FESTIVAL to pop up. They play a bewildering, exhilarating one- evocative guttural picture. 10am-4pm TRASH KIT are an energetic bundle of stop 45-minute set of repetition, complex Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres Braziers Park polyrhythms; if a little one-dimensional, interplay and head-down riffing along with Sunday, and noted promoters Qu Junktions Accessories/memoriabillia/books. At most festivals, on approaching any stage at sculptures and disappearing into the woods with they know how to get a crowd moving. some bagpipe loops for good measure. install an ambitious project called Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl random you can be pretty sure of what you’re it, cackling as he goes. We’re promised quite the opposite by PAUL TREMBLING BELLS, who struggle PLAYPEN, a live show/happening held www.usrfairs.co.uk about to see - some kind of band, most likely, PURGAS, who tempts us with the idea of to follow that, are almost a band with in the round, with each performance playing instruments and all that boring stuff. From its ramshackle, stages-held-together-by- ‘extreme time manipulation’, but what we get two heads. Half of their set is acceptable, blending into the next without a pause. At Supernormal, whether you’re entering the Sellotape beginnings as an enclave of people is some pretty basic 909 techno with one of the psych-tinged sixties freakery; the other is From a straightforward Spectres mini-set old barn or exploring the new Vortex tent, going mental in the woods, Supernormal has delay knobs turned up. But no matter, because a mawkish, limp slice of overly-polite folk to two men in orange suits auditioning anything could happen. Sometimes what you slowly become more professional, higher the EXPLODING CINEMA is a hyperactive with little to say for itself. for Eurovision to half the tent bursting see is little short of bonkers, like a performance profile and a bigger deal all round. The most cabaret of audiovisual experimentation, whose into song, it’s a three-hour experience to by VICKY LANGAN combing her own hair notable addition this year is the replacement short performances vary dramatically in quality Bristol’s SPECTRES, though practically behold. over a bed of drones, accompanied on stage of the second stage by a dedicated audiovisual but are arresting enough to keep you watching a pop band by Supernormal standards, Likewise STURLE DAGSLAND on the by what we assume is her daughter doing tent that becomes an imaginarium of some of until an hour has passed without you realising give a brisk and stirring account of main stage, who truly defies description. her homework as part of the performance. At the weekend’s most outlandish and inventive it. themselves, whisking up a mixture of He eats lemons on stage. He plays an other times, it’s sublime: DEATHCOUNT performances. `Evol’-era Sonic Youth with a shoegaze upside-down skateboard. He croons, gurns IN SILICON VALLEY’s live soundtrack What come to be known as ‘happenings’ Supernormal headliners can be a variable wall of guitar noise - perhaps the best and shrieks his way through a set of solid- for Nosferatu defies the near-30 degree heat pop up all over the site - both official and bunch, quite often coming in the form of main stage set of the weekend. gold madness. Look him up on YouTube. outside to create a cold, threatening and unofficial. There’s a space deep in the woods unearthed legends of experimental music’s Headliners AR KANE haven’t played a Seriously. hauntingly minimal backdrop to Murnau’s dedicated to sinister synth washes and abstract long past, off-the-wall freakery or a mixture of show for twenty years, and are boosted For any bands looking to earn their classic. Either way, it’s this sense of pure film projections, planned events like drone the two. ANONYMOUS BASH are a loose up to a seven-piece line-up, several of psychedelic stripes, you could do worse anything-goes exploration and freedom that yoga and unplanned madness like a man in collective of improvisers led by This Heat icon whom appear to have met for the first time than taking a few tips from BLOWN makes Supernormal a unique proposition to be a bear costume being led around by the neck CHARLES HAYWARD. When they hit an tonight, so ramshackle is the performance. OUT, who take a groove and submit treasured. by someone playing 8-bit chiptune from a instrumental, bass-led groove it’s diverting Even the band are self-aware enough to themselves entirely to it, forever. In Gameboy. By the end of the weekend, you’re enough, but the frequent appearances by an acknowledge that some of their songs effect, they play three riffs over the course Such is the spirit of freedom that one punter not sure if a man sitting on a hay bale with outlandishly-clad, autotuned vocalist bellowing “probably need a bit more work,” but of 45 glorious minutes, a miasma of brings along two of his own sculptures of a a pint is just enjoying the sun or part of an tunelessly to the skies mean it’s time to give it a really it feels like watching a rehearsal feedback and hypnotic noise that leaves giant hand and a pair of buried legs (we’d love elaborate cider-based performance piece. miss and head into the woods, where doubtless session from a band who haven’t quite the drummer exiting stage right, bolting to have seen him getting those onto the bus) and there’s something more interesting going on. clicked yet. across the grass and collapsing on his back Three state of the art rehearsal rooms. plonks them in front of the main stage, causing Oh yes, there were some bands too, lest we A much finer end to the night is delivered halfway up the field, staring at the sky and one of the more unusual security interventions forget. Friday’s highlight is perhaps the drum Saturday’s first real treat is the hugely by Dutch sludge-metallers GGU:LL gasping for air. For bookings. of recent times (‘Oi mate, you can’t leave that and Hammond duo TRUMMOR & ORGEL, impressive GUAPO, a long-standing kraut/ (run that one through your spellcheck, After three days like this, we feel exactly Call Jamie on 07917685935 psych/math-rock outfit who previously counted Nightshift editor), sandblasting riffs the same. Long live Supernormal: a sculpture of a demonic hand bursting forth playing driving, Jimmy Smith-style organ funk, Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford from the earth there’). Later in the weekend, a transporting us back to the 1960s until we’re Grumbling Fur’s Daniel O’Sullivan and flaying the skin off the front rows, while festival like no other. glasshousestudios.org different punter is seen unearthing one of these half-expecting ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’ Nought’s James Sedwards among their number. their Jeff-Bridges-alike frontman paints an Stuart Fowkes INTRODUCING.... Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under Vera Grace Who are they? Vera Grace are a metalcore/hardcore/prog-hardcore band from Witney, originally forming in 2011 and a constant gigging presence locally and beyond ever since. The idea to use the name Vera Grace was inspired by bands like Norma Jean and Gwen Stacy. “We honestly just thought it was cool.” A succession of demos and self-releaed EPs have gone alongside a tour support to prog-metallers The Sun Explodes as well as dates with 36 Crazyfists, Feed the Rhino and Devil Sold His Soul. Their new EP, `Novella’, is out this month with a tour to coincide. What do they sound like? least for himself. But in all honestly, I don’t think we’ve had anything awful On the one hand a splenetic, spittle-flecked rage machine that comes out happen… yet.” the traps at 150mph with all guns blazing. On the other, a highly textured, Their favourite other Oxfordshire act is: atmospheric prog/goth/industrial metal beast that eyes you up menacingly “Our friends in A Trust Unclean: they’re an absolute behemoth of a band. before devouring you. Metalcore but with plenty more angles besides. They’ve taken that deathcore sound and just moved it to the next level.” What inspires them? If they could only keep one album in the world, it would be: “Just the thought of being able to play songs that we’ve written to people on “`Lost In The Sound Of Separation’ by Underoath. Fantastic album; it really stage is enough to keep us going. Hearing people come up to us after shows pushes the boundaries of the genre, whilst still ticking all the essential boxes.” and honestly tell us that they really enjoyed what they’ve just watched and When is their next local gig and what can newcomers expect? heard is very humbling. Musically we take a lot of influence from very chaotic “We’re not too sure just yet! We’ve just played in Oxford. We might have metal and hardcore, as well as really atmospheric post-rock. We enjoy being one soon, depending where the tours we’ve got being sorted take us.” able to create a cohesive contrast between the two. We’re all very fond of Their favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: music that conjures an emotional connection between itself and the listener. “The best is that there’s so much of it! Oxford seems to have a scene for We all love a good cry, y’know.” almost every type of music. Least favourite would be that there just doesn’t Career highlight so far: seem to be that younger scene that was around when we were 13 or 14. “Supporting 36 Crazyfists at the O2 Academy. It was the biggest gig we’ve Maybe that’s due to the lack of venues that cater to that age range, or that kids done! Although Aaron couldn’t play the gig due to health issues, so we had to that age just aren’t into it as much. play without a bassist. We’ve been featured in Metal Hammer magazine this You might love them if you love: month and last, which is a big thing for us! Devil Sold His Soul; Underoath; Defeater; Architects; Fucked Up; The Chariot. And the lowlight: Hear them here: “Aaron not being able to play the 36 Crazyfists should probably be one, at veragraceband.bandcamp.com.

DR SHOTOVER’s niece takes over THIS MONTH IN OXFORD Hullo, chums, and welcome to the Enid Blyton Room at the East Indies ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY Club. Dr Shotover’s niece Mandie here, holding the fort while my dear indefinite run – ten years on, and now part of the old uncle has a regimental reunion in Dungeness. I say, aren’t the school 20 YEARS AGO 10 YEARS AGO Funny what turns up in the demo pages when you Remember Ash Verjee? Or The Cliffhangers? Or BBC’s Introducing network, it’s still going strong. hols such absolutely SMASHING fun?!? Here, have a big glass of warm look back. In September 1995’s issue of Nightshift Zagu Zarr? Or even Sober Dave? No? Well they lemonade, and take the last cream bun, go on, do! No, we couldn’t possibly there’s a review of a band called Dustbowl, which all released CDs this month ten years ago. We have eat another thing - Dotty made an utter PIG of herself with the Shippams 5 YEARS AGO states that the only redeeming features of the demo proof since they’re all reviewed in the September And just five years later it was announced that the Paste sandwiches earlier and was S.I.C.K. on Pifco the dog. It’ll take Mrs are that it comes on a C90 cassette (showing our age 2005 Nightshift. There was also a review of Fell show’s founder, Tim Bearder, had stepped down Bedingfield yonks to clean his fur - YUK! In a minute we’re going to listen to now, ain’t we), so we can reuse that to tape Mark City Girl’s sublime `Weaker Light’, which would to pursue a career bringing the Liberal Democrats records on the wind-up gramophone – all your favourite dishy crooners, like Radcliffe’s show while we’re out getting pissed, and go on to top our end of year Top 20. Released to their knees. The ebullient presenter made way for Perry Combover, Lena Prawne, Matt Tuxedo and His Margarine Minstrels. that the Royal Mail didn’t postmark the stamp, so on pure, perfect 7” vinyl, the review stated that his co-pilot Dave Gilyeat while leaving a legacy that We might even practice dancing cheek-to-cheek with some of the fifth-form we can reuse that too. The music, we’re informed, “with such an accomplished debut, and a song that we’re all still benefitting from. Cheers Tim! girls… though I want to doesn’t bear thinking about. Dustbowl was actually deserves to become an indie anthem, Fell City Girl In other local music news, This Town Needs Guns see daylight, and plenty of a misspelling of Dustball, a band who would go will eclipse any comparisons to Radiohead very were off on tour with Oceansize, while Huck & it, between you two, Fliss onto become cult heroes in their home town and soon.” Track that song down, dear reader, and weep the Handsome Fee were heading off on a six-week and Bunty! [stern look]… some way beyond before morphing into Dive Dive. at its sheer loveliness. tour of the US. Meanwhile it was announced that What was that? Who do I But back in the very beginning, they were either Sadly Fell City Girl didn’t last, but a band who OX4 would return for a second outing in October, have a pash on? [shrieks of absolute bobbins, or Nightshift had it spectacularly are still going strong are Elbow, who ten years the one-day music fest across east Oxford set to host delighted outrage]… Mind wrong. The latter option is unthinkable. Take heart, ago were coming to The Zodiac, the band Everything Everything as well as Scratch Perverts your own beeswax! You kids, no matter how bad that first review, greatness spearheading the en vogue “quiet is the new loud” and Willy Mason. A slew of local releases included are the LIMIT, Wendy! The can still be yours. mini-movement. Sticking with loud is the new loud, Desert Storm’s beastly metal classic `Forked bar’s open, you say? We- Elsewhere Radiohead released their now-classic Corrosion of Conformity were also at the Zod, Tongues’ as well as Winchell Riots’ `Red Square e-ell, perhaps I will have a single `Just’ (“buy it immediately and make your as were Viking metallers Dragonforce, nu-prog EP’, Dial F For Frankenstein’s `USA’ and Spring small glass of Peardrax, as life complete” ran the review), while Thurman’s hopefuls Pure Reason Revolution, and Frank Offensive’s fourteen-minute concept single `The you’re offering. And one `She’s A Man’ was also out (“Seems the T-Rex Turner’s old band Million Dead. First of Many Dreams About Monsters’. of your Park Drive ciggies revival is in full flood and about time too”). In local music news Young Knives had been Gigs going on included rock behemoths Black while you’re at it. Oh, and At a time when the local venue scene was still picked by Channel 4 and Virgin Mobile to play at Mountain at the O2 Academy, classic girl group let’s treat ourselves to one picking itself up off the floor, highlights of the V Festival, alongside Chemical Brothers, Kaiser The Like at the Jericho Tavern and first lady of my ‘special’ diet pills… gigging month included welsh pop-punks 60ft Chiefs and Doves; the band were currently in the of new folk Kate Rusby at the New Theatre, Mandrax, Peardrax – what’s Dolls and local indie-pop faves Heavenly at The studio recording their forthcoming single `The but it was a bunch of unknowns from Glasgow, the difference? Though Hobgoblin; Zimbabwean chimurengan and pop Decision’ with Gang of Four’s Andy Gill. Ex-Ride DIVORCE, at the Wheatsheaf that will go down I might want to listen to stars Bhundu Boys at Oxford Town Hall, plus a (now back in Ride) man Mark Gardener released as one of the greatest shows we’ve seen in recent some LOUD MODERN JAZZ selection of local heroes at the time – Underbelly, his solo debut album `These Beautiful Ghosts’ years. That they managed to blow Comanechi and really shake my B.T.M. The Bigger the God, Mackating, Cornflower as a limited edition import, the singer on tour in offstage is testament to just how scarily awesome after that! ‘Mm, Coronation Cocktails with extra Concept, Bubbleman and The Nubiles playing the States with Goldrush as his backing band, they were. They just don’t make ‘em like that Next month: Abnormal Sanatogen and just a dash of condensed milk The Hobgoblin, The Wheatsheaf and The Elm while BBC Radio Oxford local music show The anymore, and if that means the world is a safer service is resumed – how scrummy!’ Tree. Download had been given the green light for an place, it’s also a far less exciting one. the merest hint of some flamenco madness so we have to go and sit in the driveway to about it. `Pick Up the Sack’ is positively listen to this demo, even though it makes glum, closer to a slightly strangulated us look a bit weird to our neighbours, who Thom Yorke sat in the corner of a Tex-Mex already think we’re a bit odd because we DEMOS bar contemplating the futility of it all while spend our evenings sitting out in the garden Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free half day drowning his sorrows with cactus juice drinking and talking to the cats and making at Soundworks studio in Oxford, than a wild night dancing the Tarantella the cats talk back in funny squeaky voices, courtesy of Umair Chaudhry. Visit atop tables strewn with the detritus of a which make us giggle like simpleton www.umairchaudhry.co.uk/nightshift heavy Sangria session. The enigmatically- schoolgirls. So anyway, out into the car titled `Blaaah’ is better if no less maudlin, we go, where it’s warm and stuffy if not seems to have been around the local scene again a hint of Radiohead discovering an hot enough to kill a dog and Moogieman’s DEMO OF for as long as we can remember now, hitherto untapped Spanish bar element to trademark mix of self-consciously out of formerly guitarist with Centre Negative, their music, wandering airily through a tune narratives, arch observational humour 01865 240250 Two Thirty and Pistol Kixx before going haze of idle contemplation, more glitchy and general footlights wackiness unfurls THE MONTH solo and providing us with a regular stream than swinging. Passable if ultimately too once again, with tales about eating cold of demos and EPs of variable degrees of insubstantial to linger long in the mind, and cucumber soup by the gallon and futile dishevelment. His name, you see, seems not the party starter we’d maybe hoped for attempts to buy an ice-cream. There’s KANCHO! to be ironic and in truth the guy likes the with that name. Also, we’re always a little some nice squelchy synths on `Ice Cream Coming back from a rare and well- odd snifter or two. In fact, on the strength wary of musicians going off to indulge Van’ but elsewhere Moogieman shifts earned holiday drinking vodka in the of this latest six song offering, a couple of side projects before their chief concern has gears between barbers shop harmony Mediterranean sunshine to discover our stiff ones is how he starts his day before really got going, and Balloon Ascents are singing, stumbling acoustic strumming and trusty old computer’s hard drive had really going to town on the booze. Hence a band we’d hate to see falter so early. Eye generally messy lo-fi arrangements. And gone and died was never going to put `Honour Oak Park’ and `Off Script’ have on the ball, fella, eye on the ball. then, after sitting in the car for half an hour Nightshift in a good mood. Even a life- a similar gruff, blokey, sweary, sarcy feel attracting suspicious looks from passing saving operation involving three bypasses about them to some of Half Man Half parents with small kids, and the well- and finally a full transplant can’t dispel Biscuit’s surlier offerings, ramshackle THUNDER ON THE meaning enquiries of a good Samaritan who the overwhelming feeling of what’s the but coherent enough to work as boozy thought we were trying to gas ourselves, out fucking point given that the repair bill ate singalongs in campfire Wildhearts kind LEFT of the cassette case slips a piece of paper Not named, we presume, after Jeremy up our entire drinks budget for the month of way, while the shouty, almost punky with a Bandcamp download code on it. So Corbyn’s storming of the Labour party and we’re faced with catching up on `Saturday Morning’ is what Smilex might we’ve sat here looking weird for no reason leadership contest, Thunder On the Left are two weeks’ worth of work in three days. have sounded like if they stayed in bed at all? “That’s right,” says a squeaky cat still old school rockers in the way Corbyn What we need is more vodka and lots of all day and drank Buckfast instead of voice. .co.uk is old school Labour. They’ve got a strong, TURAN AUDIO shouting. In a distinctly underwhelming tea. Things tail off a bit towards the end Professional, independent CD mastering jagged post-grunge edge to their sound, month for demos, at least Kancho! give us as the punky chords are replaced with a preferring a staccato attack over big rolling the shouting. Hey, even their band name more acoustic sound and Dave finishes THE DEMO chords, and initially at least they sound Artists mastered in the studio last month include; is shouted. By all that’s holy this is a right on `Poetry From the Hedgerow’, possibly like a meaty old mash up of Therapy? and flipping mess – a disjointed heap of angular the one he fell into on the way home from GO ROMANO, ONE WING LEFT, THE KING Hole, but let them carry on beyond that DUMPER lo-fi hardcore and completely out of tune another heavy session at The Wheatsheaf early short, sharp shock and they revert IS BLIND, JOHN MILES, VALERYAN, THE vocal intensity, all of which adds up to last Saturday. what you imagine a gang of musically to classic rock easily enough, `Fact From AMPLIFIRES Hey, Amplifires – we saw what you did BLACKDROP, RIVERS OF ENGLAND, JOHN ignorant day release types might conjure up Fiction’ overstaying its welcome by way of there. Like Amplifiers, but, like ON FIRE! if their sole exposure to music was an old an elongated guitar solo/wigout that serves RAMON, SCATTER FACTORY. OUR NAMELESS Rock. And. Roll. And it gets better, because At The Drive-In record heard through an only to undo all the good work they’d this one-song offering is called `What Is It old Nokia phone. Exactly the sort of racket BOY done in the first two minutes of the song. Good For? (War)’. A bit like the old Edwin 01865 716466 [email protected] we want to hear right now, then. Yes it’s Another band who sound like they’ve `Pretty Little Victims’, meanwhile is more Starr classic, but, like, not that one at all. barely competent at times, yes it’s tinny been on the sauce, though in this case strident, particularly vocally, and if there’s Something different. Something… a bit and the singer keeps losing control of his we think it’s unintentional, since post- an internal battle raging within the band rubbish. At first we think maybe it isn’t larynx but it’s the sound of frustration and hardcore noodling doesn’t tend to lend for supremacy between those who want to COURTYARD completely rubbish because somewhere nervous tension and bad poetry and thus itself to overt displays of alcohol-fuelled be more Tairrie B and those who want to amid the middling, muddling mess of RECORDING STUDIO HARDCORE. And in a month when we merriment. It doesn’t stop demo opener be Lita Ford, you worry that the balance is shuffling soft rock and sky-searching 2 Tracking Rooms. Superb Control Room with: celebrate Girl Power on the front cover and `King’ blossoming from weary autumnal shifting towards the latter, when any sane NEVE 5106 32 Channel Console. ProTools HD3 guitar is what sounds like Jefferson Vera Grace in the Introducing feature, let’s contemplation into what sounds like a person knows it’s better to be the former. MTR 90 2” 24 Track Tape Machine. Vintage EMT Plate Reverb Airplane’s `Somebody To Love’. Except, Loads of Brilliant Outboard Gear make it a full hardcore house by sticking student rugby club pub crawl attempting as we quickly realise, Jefferson Airplane’s Loads of Great Mics, Vintage and Modern this lot atop the demo pile. After the a communal bray-along of some forgotten `Somebody To Love’ as belted out at Old School Akai/Roland Synth Modules slightly stuttering but pleasingly hysterical Youthmovies track, though. `Won’, MOOGIEMAN Upright Piano, Fender Rhodes, Amps and great vibes. A reasonably regular visitor to the demo some godawful pub karaoke session by a `Suspension’, and the not-angry-enough meanwhile, aims for stately glide but ends Residential recording studio in Sutton Courtenay. pages, Moogieman’s latest offering comes breathlessly overwrought woman making `False Widow’, which ironically lacks a up as tipsy tip-toe initially before building www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk on cassette, that benighted format that come-to-bed eyes at the old ham next to bit of bite, `Paper Boat’ puts the boot in far a head of steam and bringing the noise In-house producer: Ian Davenport www.ian-davenport.co.uk died an unmourned death shortly after the stage who is playing the world’s most Email: [email protected] more firmly, an industrial clang and grind more fully. They leave their best to last, the near demise of vinyl. But while vinyl pointless guitar solo constantly over the Phone: Richard or Kate on 01235 845800 with the singer wired and shouting “you the garbled hysteria and sharp, wayward was always a superior way of listening whole song. It’s so tortuous we contemplate are an engineer!” in the same way we were elbows of `We Are As Ghosts In This’ to music, cassettes were fiddly, prone to going back out to sit in the car a bit more shouting “why won’t you fucking work!” shrugging off their earlier reticence and breaking and generally a bit crap, so why since it doesn’t have internet access and at our poorly PC only days previous. Stay suggesting a few pints of Old Bastard anyone thinks it’s cool and trendy to bring therefore we won’t be able to hear the angry and keep shouting chaps – shouting might actually make decent scrappers out them back is anyone’s guess. Do we even bastard thing. Far more than brown acid at stuff solves everything. And when it of them. have a tape player any longer? Luckily or an entire field of naked middle aged doesn’t kicking them repeatedly at least Nightshift’s shit heap of a car is old and hippies, this is the sort of stuff that gives makes you feel better. ROBERTO Y JUAN decrepit enough to still have a deck, and psychedelia a bad name. Despite the exotic moniker Roberto y Juan aren’t a pair of Latino buskers recently THE DRUNKEN decamped to Oxford to bring a bit of salsa Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links to exotica to Cornmarket Street, instead [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without RAMBLINGS featuring Robin Christensen-Marriott a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you Sober Dave, as we have always known from Balloon Ascents and chum plying an can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t fucking whine about your him and thus must believe is his real name, oddly understated acoustic pop with only review on Twitter either, else we’ll print a screenshot and make you look like a prize tit. thevenuecollective PRESENTS

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