email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 128 March Oxford’s Music Magazine 2006

From smalltown

belarusTo bigtime Meet Faringdon’s finest, inside

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

LOCAL BANDS have until March 15th to City Girl. This year’s line-up will be announced submit demos for this year’s Oxford Punt. The on the Nightshift website noticeboard and on Punt, organised by Nightshift Magazine, takes Oxfordbands.com on March 16th. place across six venues in Oxford city centre on All-venue Punt passes are now on sale from Wednesday 10th May and will showcase 18 of Polar Bear Records on Cowley Road or online the best new unsigned bands and artists in the from oxfordmusic.net. As ever there will only county. Bands and solo acts can send demos, be 100 passes available, priced at £7 each (plus clearly marked The Punt, to Nightshift, PO Box booking fee). 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Bands who have previously made their reputations early on at TRUCK FESTIVAL 2006 tickets are now on the Punt include The Young Knives and Fell sale nationally after being made available to Oxfordshire music fans only at the start of STEVE GORE February. Tickets for the two-day festival at Hill Farm, Steventon over the weekend of the GARY NUMAN plays his first Oxford show 1965-2006 22nd and 23rd July are priced at £40 and are on for 12 years when he appears at Brookes th Steve Gore, bass player with local ska-punk sale from the Zodiac box office, Polar Bear University Union on Sunday 30 April. The act The Drug Squad, has died after a battle Records, Windjammer Music in Didcot, synth-pop pioneer, who enjoyed a string of Top with cancer. Steve had been a popular Dawson’s Music in Abingdon, The Music Box 10 hits and chart-topping albums, including character on the Oxford music scene for in Wallingford and Rapture in Witney. Festival ‘Are Friends Electric’ and ‘Cars’, has many years, playing bass for Swim The updates are available online at undergone a critical renaissance in recent Atlantic, Pickitupandkickit and Goodbye www.truckfestival.org. years after being credited as a major Jane before he joined The Drug Squad. His inspiration by the likes of Nirvana, Beck, Blur, illness was diagnosed shortly after the band OXFORD CONTEMPORARY MUSIC have Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Most played one of the highlight sets of last announced their spring programme. Amongst recently Sugarbabes had a number 1 hit with summer’s Truck Festival. the highlights is a performance by Senegalese ‘Freak Like Me’, based on a sample of ‘Are Gary Good, sax player with The Drug musician Nuru Kane at the Zodiac on Saturday Friends Electric’, while Armand Van Helden st Squad and a friend of Steve’s for twenty 1 April, Bellowhead at Oxford Town Hall on and Bassment Jaxx have also sampled Numan th years told Nightshift: “Steve was the nicest Saturday 8 April as part of the Oxford Folk songs for Top 10 hits. Numan’s new album, bloke you could ever know and we’re all Festival, plus live music events at Modern Art ‘Jagged’, is released this month on Cooking going to miss him. In all the time I’d known Oxford including Sleeps With Oysters (Thurs Vinyl. Tickets for the Brookes gig are on sale th him he never said a bad word about anyone. 13 April) and John Etheridge and Dylan now, priced £16, from the Brookes box office th He was the sort of bloke who would never Fowler (Thurs 4 May). Full details of all (10865 484750) or online from let you down – even if he had to play three OCM events can be found at wegottickets.com gigs in one day with different bands. He was www.ocmevents.org Other forthcoming gigs at Brookes include st th a great musician who could play any style Mogwai (Sat 1 April), The Rakes (Sun 14 nd and would always fit in with every band.” AUDIOSCOPE 2005 raised over £3,000 for May) and The Shins (Mon 22 May). Tickets Steve’s wife Julia gave birth to triplets in the homeless charity Shelter. The two-day for all events are available from the above December and Nightshift extends its deepest festival at the Zodiac featured headline sets sources. sympathy to them all and his many friends. from Four Tet and Luke Vibert and brings the total amount raised by Audioscope over the A benefit gig for Heads Up, the charity THE ROCK OF TRAVOLTA return to live helping peple diagnosed with cancer of the past five years to well over £12,000. This year’s event is in the process of being organised; action this month when they play at the Cellar head or neck, is currently being organised in (Thursday 9th March). The band (pictured, Steve’s memory. in the meantime people are encouraged to visit Shelter’s website at www.shelter.org.uk to below) have been quiet since the departure of participate in the charity’s Give It Up event, founder member Phill Honey and keyboard raising money to help homeless people while player Dave Crabtree but have now recruited giving up a bad habit for one day. two new members, Matt Spooner, formerly of South Sea Company Prospectus, as well as AKUABA RECORDS continues to release new cellist Jenny Bates. They join Joe, Jon and singles by up and coming Oxford bands on their Handsome Dave, who are promising a host of monthly singles club. Recent releases have new material and a fresher approach to featured Jaberwok and Tinderbox, with new songwriting, while retaining the core style of the singles by Smilex and King Furnace coming band. soon. All Akuaba releases are available from HMV Oxford and Polar bear Records or online from www.akuaba-records.co.uk.

AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into The Download each Saturday evening at 6pm on BBC Radio Oxford 95.1fm. The long-running local music show showcases the best new Oxfordshire music and features interviews, gig reviews, club listings and demo reviews. You can listen to the show all week on the BBC Radio Oxford website at bbc.co.uk/oxford BELLOWHEAD AND FLOOK have been announced as the headline acts for The Charisma Bar this year’s Oxford Folk Festival, which Upstairs @ The City Tavern runs over the weekend of Friday 7th – Sunday 9th April. Both bands will play at Friday 3rd: RIVER + Arctic Wolf Oxford Town Hall with Bellowhead Come and check out some of the best up’n’coming local talent. Doors 8pm. £3 entry (pictured) topping the Saturday bill and Friday 10th: GOODFELLAZ Flook the Sunday. Other acts already Party rock with lots of energy… these guys really will have you confirmed for the third annual folk festival dancing on the tables! Doors open 8.30pm, £4 entry include Waterson: Carthy, Andy Irvine and Wednesday 15th: KOHOUTEK Black Umfolosi. The festival has also been Wanta good vibe? Check out these energetic funky boosted by a £10,000 Arts Council grant tunesmiths. Doors 8.30pm. £2.50 entry to expand its free street entertainment Melomania and jazz-inflected street band DELICIOUS MUSIC AND UP’N’COMING programme which will centre on the new Tongues Of Fire. Line up and ticket details ENTERTAINMENT EVERY SATURDAY Oxford Castle Development and will are available online at Oxford’s finest up and coming bands live every week! feature marching melodeon band www.oxfordfolkfestival.com. 4th THE BEASTMEN + MOOCHER + BEN E. COOK 11th AMBER STATE + FOXES + TRUE RUMOUR 18th BLUE JUNK + TURBULENCE + JOE SATRIANI TRIBUTE 25th TRANSMISSION + NOT MY DAY + CHEERLEADERS IGNITION, Witney’s new live music Doors 8pm, £4 entry or 3 persons for £10 venue, launches this month. The new 200-capacity venue, based at Witney DELICIOUS MUSIC Utd’s Marriot Stadium, hosts its first gig Tasty Jam Night Every Tuesday on Saturday 11th March. Half Rabbits will Come and jam with other players. Doors open 8.30pm, be the headline act with support from £2 entry fee, £1 for artists. Nuvola and Laura Lost. Admission for the JAZZ NIGHT EVERY THURSDAY Jazz night with Oxford University’s finest, everyone welcome. Doors opening night is free. Bands interested in open 8pm. Small fee occasionally when guest musicians are playing. playing at Ignition should call Rich or The Charisma Bar, upstairs @ The City Tavern, Nath on 07812 948 965. 8 Market Street, Oxford Phone: 01865 248388. Email: [email protected] DIVE DIVE are set to play two nights at the Wheatsheaf over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. In conjunction with Exeter Hall Pub Spill Magazine, the band will play the Corner Cowley / Marsh Road venue on Saturday 15th April alongside 01865 776431 former-Million Dead frontman Frank www.thex.co.uk OXFORD WELCOMES two genuine Turner and local indie rockers This Town legends of Jamaican reggae to town this Needs Guns, but with the gig already sold Live Music in March month. Eccentric vocalist and DJ Eek-A- out, a second night has been added on the Every Tuesday Open Mic 8.30pm FREE Sunday. Tickets, priced £5, are on sale Every Wednesday Folk Session 8.30pm FREE Mouse plays at the Zodiac on Saturday Every Sunday Unplugged Acoustic Song Session 4th March, while Max Romeo (pictured) now from wegottickets.com. Dive Dive, 3pm-7pm FREE meanwhile, have been demoing new songs performs at Skylarkin’s reggae and ska Thu 2nd Gwyn Ashton + Osprey Door 8.30pm £3 th extravaganza on Thursday 30 . Romeo for Island Records after parting company Fri 3rd Shaker Heights + Transmission + Ben Dugard enjoyed a single Top 10 hit in the UK in with former label Diablo. Door 8.30pm £3 1969 with `Wet Dream’, which was Sat 4th Lethal Comedy Store Door with Giggles, THE BLOCKHEADS have been James & More Door 8pm £5 banned by Radio 1 at the time, but he is Sun 5th Electric Jam - All welcome 8pm FREE best known for his work with Lee confirmed to play at The Bullingdon on Thu 9th Kitt + Matt Beasley 8.30pm FREE `Scratch’ Perry in the 70s. Tickets for Sunday 2nd April. The band are best Fri 10th Tony Jezzard & Friends 8.30pm £3 known as the late Ian Dury’s backing Sat 11th Sam Kelly’s Station House Blues 8.30pm £3 both gigs are priced £14 and are on sale Sun 12th Wittstock Fund Raiser with Lagrima + New from the Zodiac box office or online band. Tickets for the gig are on sale now, Moon + Anton Barbeau + Maeve Bayton 7.30pm £4 fromwegottickets.com priced £15 from the venue. Thu 16th Diverse Divas + support 8pm FREE Fri 17th Inflatables 8.30p, £3 Sat 18th Rip The Joint + Meat & Potatoes 8.30pm £3 DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE’s gig at Sun 19th Electric Jam 8pm FREE Thu 23rd The Clerks + True Rumour 8:30pm £3 Brookes University Union is now Fri 24th Gerry Gillard + Anton Barbeau 8.30pm £3 completely sold out. The Washington Sat 25th Mary’s Garden + Sckin + Fork 8.30pm £3 State indie rockers (pictured) have enjoyed Sun 26th Green Onions 8.30pm £3 Thu 30th Marsha Swanson + Rebecca Mosley + Laima growing popularity in the UK with last Bite 8.30pm £3 year’s ‘Plans’ becoming their biggest- Fri 31st The Porter Boys 8.30pm £3 selling album to date. Meanwhile Razorlight’s semi-secret gig at the Zodiac at the end of January became that venue’s fastest ever sold out show, with tickets all gone within an hour of going on sale. Ex-Libertines frontman Carl went on sale at 9am on Monday 30th Barat’s new band, Dirty Pretty Things, January and by the afternoon were meanwhile sold out their gig at the Zodiac fetching up to £200 on ebay. Other local on Sunday 26th March in just under a day. gigs sold out include The Go! Team at They will now return to Oxford on Friday Brookes on Sun 5th March, Graham 21st April with a gig at Brookes Coxon’s show at the Zodiac on Friday ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- University Union. 31st March, and Panic! At The Disco’s SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- Morrissey’s gig at the New Theatre on show at the Zodiac on Friday 28th April. DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- May 25th sold out in just over two hours The Zodiac now has a ticket exchange and 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 on the day tickets went on sale. Tickets non-profit resale site on its website. each. Brand new chart CDs £5 - £10 each A Quiet Word with belarus

YOU KNOW THE STORY Martin: “That’s right, he then went – a bunch of mates from the middle on to give us half an hour’s rant on of nowhere form a band, play a few how we needed dub reggae bass lines gigs, get spotted by the man behind in our songs; I still don’t know one of the biggest bands the UK has whether he was being serious to this produced, get a record deal and the day.” next thing you know, there are Matt: “It’s the first time really people in the music industry and the we’ve worked with someone whose national papers touting them as one opinion we value and respect; he of the bands to watch. Happens all achieved so much in the 90s with the time, doesn’t it? Food Records that we feel very No, of course it doesn’t. It’s a privileged to have him on our side fairytale. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe … the Brit Pop Guru that he is.” you could ask Belarus. It’s Lee: “Andy and Jo at Boss Music happening to them right now. Only have been great; they spent months it’s never as simple, or as easy as working really hard to get the ball the fairytale makes out. rolling for us with nothing in return, For starters, very few bunches of they just have complete faith in us mates who form bands can write WITH THEIR LOCAL delicate, romantic pop touch. Live, and our music.” epic, soaring anthems like Belarus popularity firmly established, Belarus are not just accomplished Tell us a bit about Precious Iota. can. Songs like ‘A Silent Film’, their Spacehopper got their big break. performers but also a band you just Matt: “Dave who runs the label intricately crafted, horn-drenched Andy Ross, the man who founded know could fill stadiums with their used to play with Andy in a band pocket battleship of a debut single, Food Records in the early 1990s and sound. years ago, Andy found out that released on local indie label Star discovered and signed Blur, picked Dave was starting this label so sent Harbour back in 2003. Or ‘Standing up on a demo CD the bad had left at NIGHTSHIFT SPOKE TO LEE, him some of our music. They heard In The Right Place’, a billowing, his offices weeks previously. With Matt and Martin as the band put the demo, saw us play a couple of sky-touching torch song, released his experienced management skills the finishing touches to the new times and said pretty much straight this month on Precious Iota behind them the band went to work album. The past 18 months or so away that they wanted to work Records. in earnest. Eighteen months ago they must have been a pretty hectic and with us. For another thing, few bands are changed their name to Belarus. The exciting time. “To be honest it took a long time to prepared to put in the years of work name change coincided with bassist Martin: “The highlight for me was finalise the deal as we had to that have seen Belarus grow and Dave leaving to go travelling, to be finally signing a record contract after appoint a lawyer before we could develop from workaday local indie replaced by Rich Voyce. so many years hard work, and even start talking contracts. I rock tryers called Spacehopper, into With his extensive music industry recording the album.” remember Rich Voyce, our bass the fully-formed band with chart- contacts, Andy Ross was able to Lee: “We’ve spent years striving player, walking out of one of the busting potential and enthusiastic drum up plenty of interest in towards recording an album, I think meetings saying `6 months ago I notices in the Sunday papers. Belarus and when a friend of his it’s what most bands look forward wasn’t even in the band, and now I announced his intention to start up a to most; especially their debut have the same lawyer as Jimi BELARUS FORMED AT THE new record label, Andy put Belarus album. When we knew that it was Hendrix and The Who’.” start of the decade in their forward for the label’s first release. going to finally happen it felt like a Lee: “It was really funny, our first hometown of Faringdon, that last Already ‘Standing In The Right huge weight lifted off our shoulders, meeting with our lawyer we were outpost of Oxfordshire before you Place’ has garnered extensive then moments later we all had a more impressed with their selection hit Wiltshire. The original line-up reviews, and is the perfect launch- moment of panic worrying about of biscuits than actually listening to featured singer Lee Alder also pad for their debut album – recorded whether we had enough songs!” what he had to say about the deal!” playing drums, alongside guitarist with producer Dave Eringa who has Getting picked up by Andy Ross Martin: “We are actually the first Matt Kilford, keyboard player worked with The Manic Street was a major boost. His connections band signed to Precious Iota, Martin Townsend and bassist Dave Preachers ands Ash – due for release and reputation in the music industry hopefully not the last!” Corrigan; Lee quickly realised he in May. can only help a new, young band was struggling to play a full set like Belarus. ONE BENEFIT OF HAVING behind the kit so switched to a more ‘STANDING IN THE RIGHT Matt: “Rich our drummer dropped such a high-profile management traditional frontman role while Rich Place’ is a solid statement of intent off a demo at Boss Music (Andy’s team behind a band is they can get Millin took over the drumming role. from Belarus, a good indicator of label) and we never had a reply from to work with some of the top Spacehopper were always popular – what the band is about and what them as to what they thought of the producers, in Belarus’ case Dave a small army of friends, neighbours they are capable of. They mix up demo. But then we got a call out of Eringa, who can bring out the best in and workmates regularly making the delicate, deft melody writing with an the blue from them asking us to do a a band in the studio. trip to Oxford’s pub venues to instinctive leaning towards pop at first on at 93 Feet East in London. I Lee: “Being our first time working watch the band – but over time its most epic. There may be some think he watched us for one song with a producer we were a tad word spread beyond their partisan obvious and slightly lazy then staggered out. It took three nervous about making a bad choice, following. Point promoter Mac sang comparisons to Coldplay at times, more London gigs before he decided or potentially working with their praises from early on and but closer comparisons would that he wanted to work with us, and someone that didn’t bring out the Nightshift was moved to state in include Feeder, Jeff Buckley and the I still remember him saying `I can’t best in our sound. We had a pretty one gig review that here was a band hugely underrated Puressence, begin to tell you how many things long list of names, all of which had who should be writing the next another band with a firm grasp of are wrong with your band, but positives and negatives, but in the national anthem. both epic rock dynamics and a here’s what we are gonna do’.” end it simply came down to meeting Dave for the first time. A couple of the lads some genre or another, we’ve been met him for a drink and a chat, then he came compared to so many bands now over the down to our rehearsal rooms to get a better years you kind of just smirk and go back to Vinyl Frontier idea of our live sound and how we played watching Family Guy.” together as a band. From the offset he was Martin: “Lately any band in our genre Second hand and really excited about our songs and wanted automatically gets compared with Coldplay to produce the album, his enthusiasm is or Radiohead.” collectable records and CDs what ultimately rubbed off on us.” Do you feel there is any danger of maybe ROCK - INDIE - DANCE - SOUL - JAZZ - CLASSICAL etc. Matt: “He got us to up the tempo of a few being seen as bandwagon jumpers on a of the tracks which felt very weird to play certain sound, despite the fact you’ve been records and CDs bought, sold and exchanged at first, but in hindsight when we now listen playing in this style for a few years? 101a Cowley Road, Oxford to the old demos they sound like funeral Matt: “I’m glad you asked that … when (near corner of Rectory Road) marches. God, he had so many stories of we play ‘Colourless’ people always say the bands that he had worked with, one in how it reminds them of Coldplay, but we tel: 01865 201204 Mon-Sat 11-6pm particular involved the bass player in were playing that before they were even Starsailor, the lead singer of Nickleback and around.” a real good hard kicking! Let’s just say I Lee: “So technically they sound like us, not have more respect for Starsailor after the other way round.” hearing that story.” Matt: “Darn right, the fact is we know the Martin: “We started the album in October type of music we play, we’ll be liked by a and it was completed about six weeks later; lot of people and I’m sure a lot of people all credit to Dave and Sean Genockey for will hate us, but that’s music … we love their hard work.” what we do and there’s no point trying to Lee: “Yeah, thinking back it’s all a bit of a be something we’re not.” blur really as the schedule for recording the Martin: “We’ve always got bad reviews as album was pretty intense, we had no time well as good reviews, who doesn’t? Even to really relax, the days were very long and Nightshift gave us a good slating many years we had to work extremely hard to meet the ago … we probably deserved it, though.” deadline. Don’t get me wrong, it was great fun and we loved every minute of it, but my HAILING FROM FARINGDON, god I’m never working to a schedule like Belarus are pitched equidistant between that ever again … I don’t know how Dave Oxford and Swindon, towns with intense Eringa did it; the man doesn’t sleep!” historical and footballing rivalries. At different times they’ve been referred to as WORDS MOST OFTEN ASSOCIATED an Oxford band and a Swindon band, but with Belarus’ music would be epic, which do they relate to most? majestic, graceful and soaring; there’s Martin: “I’ll have to sit on the fence with nothing timid or half-hearted about their this one as I have fond memories of both. songs and their confidence shines through. Most of my school friends have moved to Lee: “Last year I was on a writing mission, Swindon and I spend a lot of my time there. I spent a lot of time locked away in my spent two great years at Oxford College, bedroom writing and recording demos. went some of the best raves ever during my When I felt I had a song in a good place I time there!” would get the lads round to have a listen Lee: “I’m not a follower of football so I and within a few days we would get in the don’t fully appreciate the rivalry thing … rehearsal rooms to take it further, work on I’m from Faringdon, and to be honest from a the dynamics and details of the song. At the band point of view Swindon and Oxford moment it’s a process that really works for have been as equally supportive. I don’t us and will always work for us, but getting think we’ve ever had any grief because of better and more accomplished is all part of where we are from, and does it really matter being in a band, and it would be great to anyway?” have the opportunity to have our days free Matt: “As most of us are from or have lived 5K to write as a whole band together in one in Faringdon I think it has actually benefited 32 room.” us living in between and not taking a side as Matt: “Even though one or two of us might such. As a place Oxford has a lot more to start a song off, when it gets into the offer, but like Martin I have a lot of friends in practice room everyone has their input and Swindon and lived a lot of my life there.” helps shape the song really.” Maybe with their continued success Who would you say is the most epic band Belarus could usher in a new age of mutual the world has ever seen? love and understanding between Oxford and Martin: “I remember watching ‘Pink Swindon; alternatively all-out war could Floyd’ at Earl’s Court … they could have break out as both sides claim them as their retired epic from the Oxford Dictionary own. Having established themselves so after that gig.” strongly on the Oxford music scene over the You tend to get compared with the likes of past five years, we’ll not be relinquishing Coldplay, Snow Patrol et al. How do you our grip on Belarus for a while yet. And feel about that? anyway, what are petty small-town Lee: “Doesn’t bother me, you’re gonna get rivalries anyway when you’re aiming so compared to someone at the end of the day, much higher? Belarus then: big music and I don’t think we really sound like Coldplay heading for the big time. but whatever really, if it’s not them it will be someone else…” ‘Standing In The Right Place’ is out now Matt: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a on Precious Iota Records. Check out band that hasn’t been pigeon- holed into www.belarus.mu for news and live dates. Sponsored RELEASED by THE YOUNG KNIVES MILE HIGH YOUNG ‘Here Comes The TEAM Rumour Mill’ ‘Distance Between (Transgressive) Them’ There’s a common thread running through The Young Knives’ videos: the twin themes of being (Boreads Music) trapped (mostly in a staid working The barriers fell long ago but the ground environment) and running (away from the between folk and pop is still ridden with shackles that bind them, towards a less prosaic pitfalls. In particular the trend in world, usually full of fields and horses); in contemporary English folk music to polish all many ways they echo the dream sequences the rustic charm away with shiny modern pop from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. production. Mile High Young Team’s debut In ‘Here Comes The Rumour Mill’ the prison finds them picking a delicate path through this walls are made up of constant lies, gossip, minefield. The band were formed by former- conjecture and half truths. Perhaps it’s merely something very slightly sinister while keeping Bridge frontman Colin MacKinnon who here the frustration of being stuck in the small pond its fragile structure intact. The easy option is to provides most of the music but takes a vocal mentality of the office jobs they’ve recently simply kick down the walls and let the noise backseat to Emily Aldworth Davis. been able to escape, but more than that these take over. The Young Knives are too good and It’s a lovingly crafted EP, everything themes seem to reflect The Young Knives’ too smart for that. Instead they wreak a far sensitively, almost perfectly set in its place. frustrations at the limitations of being in a band. more subtle form of havoc and the result is But that’s often the problem with such careful In last month’s Nightshift interview they another malformed gem of a song. And in the constructs – they can sound like they lost claimed they were a band that was always line “But at night he sleeps like a child”, their soul along the way and it’s difficult to striving for the next level and this single bares they’ve created one of those rare moments of warm to the tastefully graceful likes of ‘Keep that out, trying to stretch the walls of the three- pure pop perfection. It Together’, for all its imaginative use of cello minute guitar pop song, trying to infect it with Dale Kattack and piano. On ‘The Bering Straits’ MHYT tip over to the right side of the line, Colin’s rich Scottish accent adding a rootsy counterpoint to Emily’s glacial tones. DUSTY SOUND SYSTEM But the winner here is the EP’s lead track, a ‘Days Of Splendor, Nights Of Horror’ world-weary, country-tinged semi-acoustic lament with Emily’s voice limpid and strident (Truck) like The Mekons’ Sally Timms and the whole If you want done something quickly, ask a busy Despite having recruited temporary bandmates thing nestling up to you in a similar style to man goes the old adage, and so it goes with from the ranks of The Warlocks and Brian the hugely underrated Tompaulin. Robin Bennett. Not content with fronting Jonestown Massacre as well as fellow Truckee For all Colin’s Scottish roots, it’s a peculiarly Goldrush as they continue to make inroads into Piney Gir, it’s no great surprise to find this English affair and if they can just forget their the States, organising Truck Festival and being debut is a raw country-folk outing. The manners once in a while Mile High Young part of Truck Records, he managed to recruit a incongruous barrelhouse blues stomp of album Team will go a lot further towards endearing whole new band and write and record this mini opener ‘The One And Only Lost Boy’ aside, this themselves to us. album in the space of eight days in California. is the rootsy, unpolished flipside to the Goldrush Dale Kattack coin. Robin’s hushed, slightly gravelly delivery suits the more contemplative moments here, such as the basic, acoustic lament ‘Nothing I Can’t Do Without’; similarly the broken-hearted prairie folk of ‘It Takes No Talent To Party’. The twin highlights of the album, though, come with ‘Nation At War’, an acoustic guitar and mouth organ-led protest song that is pure 60s Dylan, and the sweet bluegrass of ‘I’m A Soldier’ with Piney’s delicious backing harmonies. ‘As I Lay Dying’ and ‘You Can’t Fool All The People’ are stock filler, both sluggish and unremarkable, but at its best ‘Days Of Splendor…’ has the same home-made naivety and charm of the best underground country music. Ian Chesterton Selected Oxford releases are now available on the ground floor HMV Oxford supports local music Open Sundays 11-5pm & late Thursdays till 7pm. 10% student discount every day on the back of some rickety tom-heavy WITCHES drumming, fuzzed-up gothy guitars careering ‘In The Chaos Of A from start to finish with little regard for any furniture in the way and everything sounds Friday Night’ splendidly like it’s held together with nervous energy and glittery sticky tape. (Within The Woods) Ian Chesterton Eeebleee were one of the more unassumingly charming bands to come out of Oxford in recent times, with their glitchy, often bruising take on delicate folky pop. Since their split bassist Jo Edge has become more ensconced in The TINDERBOX Evenings, while guitarist Ben Ulph concentrates on The Thumb Quintet. Eeebleee frontman Dave ‘Serenade You’ Griffiths, meanwhile, is only just re-emerging (Akuaba) with his new outfit, Witches. Tinderbox’s debut release on the Akuaba singles This debut release, following a couple of low- club finds them a very different beast to the one key live shows last year, is, if anything, an that turned up in the demo pages a few months advance on Eeebleee’s intricate sound. Relying HARLETTE back. Gone is the shrill, off-key female vocalist heavily on synthesizers, Witches belie their ‘Don’t Call Me Creepy’ and fluffy jazz-pop, in comes a low-rent, gentle exterior with overt passages of noise, the strung-out style of dreamy rock that hints at title track cantering along on a Bo Diddley-style (Freedom Road) some of Radiohead’s more abstract rhythm, replete with Mariachi trumpet, before Inevitable perhaps that every all-girl band with pronouncements. climaxing in a flurry of distorted guitars and a streak of bile running through them like ‘Serenade’ is standard post-‘Kid A’ fare but squalling horns. ‘I Wish I Could Lead Your Life’ Blackpool rock and an armoury of frantic, with a keen use of space about it, while is closer to Dave’s old outfit, with his clear, distorted guitars should be compared to Babes squelchy analogue synths worm their way angelic voice draped over a trickle of bubbling In Toyland and Hole but with south through the bare skeleton of a song that is ‘Cure electronics, soft horn hum and piano, but ‘Liked Oxfordshire teens Harlette the comparisons are For A Fusspot’, with its distressed, distracted The Teacher’s Hair’ kicks in with some ferocity, valid. vocals, creating an uneasy atmosphere, with the like Nought reinterpreted for trumpet. And then Here are four compact strips of spunky, punky odd shard of splintered guitar noise to break the it’s back to the serene pop pool for the closing lo-fi spite with a self-esteem issue. Like riot grrl ice. number. From Nought to Nick Drake, The Velvet precursors like Seven Year Bitch and Frantic A new band still finding their own identity Underground to Belle & Sebastian in the space of Spiders, Harlette put their energies to good use, then, but one prepared to take a sideways trip ten minutes. That’s going some by any channelling it into scratchy three-chord thrash into somewhere removed from the indie rock standards. Witches’ magic, obviously. and vitriol rather than pretty melodies and neat norm, and so much promise for things to come. Dale Kattack musical arrangements. Everything rattles along John Leeson gig guide

WEDNESDAY 1st Festival by storm. Rambling monologues, DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far punishing electronics and sunshine brass. One of From The Madding Crowd – Weekly all- MARCH Oxford’s best kept musical secrets. comers singers and musicians session. RIVER + ARCTIC WOLF: The City Tavern – Local bands showcase including funk-rockers FOLK SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – former Jesus & Mary Chain singer, whose band Arctic Wolf. Weekly trad folk night in the Ex’s cosy confines. helped obliterate a stagnant pop scene in 1985 THE SHAKER HEIGHTS: The Exeter Hall, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Marlborough with the epoch-making ‘Psychodcandy’, fusing Cowley – Local indie rockers drawing on early- House, Western Road – Weekly open mic honey-dripping Spector-ish melodies with ear- U2 and the mellower side of Loud Reed. session with £50 cash prize. splitting feedback and riotous gigs that make KLUB KAKOFANNEY with CONFIDENTIAL PHONIK SESSIONS: The Cellar – Live funk Babyshambles look like a teddy bears’ picnic. COLLECTIVE + MINIMAX ORCHESTRA + jam. Reid’s new single takes a more considered MARYBENDYTOY + MARK SOLLIS: The nd approach to classic 60s girl group pop and trippy THURSDAY 2 Wheatsheaf – High energy soul, hip hop and Velvet Underground-inspired rocking but still JIM REID + THE FAMILY MACHINE + funk from the expansive local dance collective at retains much of that old magic. The guy’s a LAGRIMA: The Cellar – Rearranged gig for the tonight’s Klub Kak mixed bag of pop noise. legend, go see him. OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon THE SPINTO BAND: The Zodiac – Rising six- rd BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Live jazz, Friday 3 piece band out of Delaware featuring tow pairs of funk, dub and Latin sounds with The Anti Social brothers making sweet, lysergic pop mixed up GOGOL BORDELLO: Club. with leftfield noise and coming on somewhere BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon between Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Flaming The Zodiac ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho Lips. FRIDAY STREET: St Aldates Tavern – New Given that there are precious few proper THE SKIES: The Bullingdon nutters in rock music these days, we should weekly covers night. PORT MAYHEM with EMILY ROLT + th welcome Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene GLENDA HUISH + EDDIE THOMPSON + SATURDAY 4 Hutz with open arms. The bequiffed and MARIANNA MAGNAVITA: The Port Mahon BATTLE + THE ON OFFS + THE DELTA heavily-moustachioed singer and general – Acoustic live music night with local singer- FREQUENCY: The Zodiac – 80s new wave onstage lunatic currently heads up the songwriters. revivalists following hot on the heels of Editors hippest band in New York, as well as just GWYN ASHTON: The Exeter Hall, Cowley (with whom they shared a stage at Truck last starting out on an acting career with – High energy blues rock from the Aussie summer). Drawing on influences like The Cure, Everything Is Illuminated, playing opposite bluesman. The Associates, early Simple Minds and Kitchens Elija Wood. Gogol Bordello is a long way DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES & FOLK of Distinction, as well as Echo and the Bunnymen (hey, they were called Killing Moon until just from Hutz’s Ukrainian upbringing where he NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd – With Latin guitar duo Los Hombres. over a year ago), Battle spent most of 2005 was forced to learn about western rock JAZZ NIGHT: The City Tavern – Weekly jazz earning their spurs on tour with the likes of Bloc music on illegal radio broadcasts and had to session featuring Oxford Uni’s jazz musicians and Party and The Rakes, while a couple of limited- flee his home town after the Chernobyl guest performers. edition singles look set to become collectors’ disaster. Gogol Bordello play what they CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford items as soon as their debut album is released this themselves describe as gypsy punk (also the Community Centre – Long-serving all- spring. title of their new Steve Albini-produced comers club night for singers, musicians, EEK-A-MOUSE: The Zodiac – A rare UK album), a frenzied fusion of traditional Roma performance artists and more. appearance from one of Jamaican reggae’s true wedding music and classic punk. Not a BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney – mavericks and originals. At 6’6”, the man million miles away, in attitude and style, Weekly ‘energy jazz’ residency. christened Ripton Hylton has always stood out from System Of A Down at times, although SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks – Weekly and his free-flowing, sing-song form of scat a closer comparison would be The Pogues’ DJ session with Aidan Larkin and guests (dubbed sing-jay) as well as his bubbling lunacy and mad catchphrasing earned him an enviable punked-up Irish folk or Bela Bartok’s spinning reggae, ska, funk, Latin and Afrobeat reputation in the early-80s when he was one of Eastern European classical folk. A defining tunes. SABOTAGE: The Zodiac – Weekly hard the leading stars of the roots and dancehall scene. moment in Eugene Hutz’s life was seeing rocking club night from The Club That Cannot Sonic Youth play in the Ukraine in 1989, Be Named playing new and old metal, hardcore prompting his eventual move to New York and alternative sounds. where he formed the supranational Gogol FRIDAY 3rd Bordello along with Russian accordion and GOGOL BORDELLO: The Zodiac (upstairs) – violin players, Jewish guitarist and bassist, Ukraine-via-New York gypsy punks – see main and Thai-American and Chinese-Scottish preview percussionists. EBERG + THE E BAND: The Zodiac (downstairs) – Iceland’s ethereal pop elf Einar Tonsberg brings his home-made E-harp back to town for some more glacial psychedelia and misty-eyed electro balladry. Something like a cross between Sigur Ros, the more abstract, ambient bits of Radiohead and Brian Wilson and currently a big favourite on BBC 6 Music. His new album, ‘VoffVoff’ includes possibly the only ode to super-soft loo roll ever - ‘Love Your Bum’. Eccentric but quite lovely. Keeping up the E theme, local electro-improv collective The E band play their first gigs since supporting The Magic Band last year and then taking Charlbury SUNDAY 5th WEDNESDAY 8 th THE GO! TEAM + THE GRATES + SMOOSH: JEL + FUCK OFF MACHETE: The The Zodiac – Sunshine pop and old school hip Wheatsheaf – Anticon-associated Chicago hop party tunes from the Brighton crew – see beatmaker Jel continues to stretch the boundaries main preview of underground hip hop, pioneering the live BUZZCOCKS + THE ADORED + GEAR: The playing of drum machines. Part of a short UK Zodiac – Punk-pop legends still going strong, tour to promote new album, ‘Soft Money’. responsible for some of the finest songs of the Support comes from Scotland’s Fuck Off last 30 years and still sounding fresh and alive on Machete, fronted by former Ganger lass Natasha new album, ‘Flat-Pack Philosophy’. Noramly and cranking out the art-house punk DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: noise somewhere between Sonic Youth and Life The Old School House Without Buildings TAKE THE MIC: East Oxford Music Club (3- BROOKES ACOUSTIC ROCK SOCIETY 5pm) – Open mic session for 8-18 year old NIGHT: The Bullingdon performers. All performers under-18 welcome on OXFORD IMPROVISORS: The Port Mahon a first come, first served basis. DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far FUSED: The Black Horse, Kidlington From The Madding Crowd UNPLUGGED ACOUSTIC SONG SESSION: FOLK SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Cowley The Exeter Hall, Cowley (3-7pm) OPEN MIC SESSION: The Marlborough ELECTRIC JAM SESSION: The Exeter Hall, House, Western Road Cowley (8pm) HIT & RUN: The Cellar – Drum&bass and hip MONDAY 6th hop club night. th CAVE IN + ZICO CHAIN + JACOB’S THURSDAY 9 th STORIES: The Zodiac – Rampaging angsty 65 DAYS OF STATIC + CHRIS CLARKE + Sunday 5 metal from Boston’s hardcore survivors Cave In, THE MIRIMAR DISASTER: The Zodiac – still trying to move the barriers with each release. Sonic grandeur and sensory assault out of Sheffield THE GO! TEAM: New album ‘Perfect Pitch Black’ is some way – see main preview Brookes University away from the band’s excellent ‘Jupiter’, SHOOTING AT UNARMED MEN + MALE + continuing to draw in more melodic influences MULES: The Port Mahon – Former McLusky Union and injecting elements of psychedelia, math- metal and 70s hard rock riffage into the grungey Thursday 9th Go! Team’s rise and rise brings a warm hardcore that typified their earlier work, and it’s a feeling to the hardest of hearts. From welcome return to form after a misfiring dalliance SHOOTING AT underground thrill-givers, riding a reputation with major label commercialism. Support comes for some of the most life-affirming live from Brighton’s hardcore screamers Zico Chain, UNARMED MEN / shows in the country, to national recognition fresh from supporting My Awesome Compilation and a Mercury Prize nomination, they’ve on tour, plus fellow south coast desolate MALE / MULES: remained the sound of eternal sunshine. In soundscapers Jacob’s Stories. Go! Team’s supercharged pop world, it’s BIG DEZ: The Bullingdon – High-spirited The Port Mahon always summer and it’s always time for a Texas-style blues-rock from the Parisian quintet McLusky were one of the great maverick party. Check out their 30-minute, ultra- making their first ever visit to the UK. Despite rock bands of recent years, ploughing a their French origins they’re a band completely compact, fun-packed debut album, ‘Thunder singularly misanthropic and bitingly funny immersed in American blues, singer and guitarist Lighting Strike’ if you’re in any doubt. Here furrow wherever they played. Jon Chapple Phil Fernandez being influenced by the likes of was the unsung star of the band and his re- you’ll find the Brighton crew’s good-time Albert Collins and Johnny Guitar Watkins and emergence with his new band, Shooting At mash up of stolen beats, old school hip hop, having played with Uncle John Turner, Luther cheerleader pop, northern soul and NYC Allinson and Billy Branch, while the band’s new Unarmed Men, ensures the reckless, fists- punk raising the dead and bidding them album, ‘Night After Night’ was recorded in Austin, out rampage through punk rock vitriol and dance. Fronted by a girl simply called Ninja, Texas. bleak, black humour continues. Chapple has The Go! Team (see, even the name bleeds DOWN BY INTERROGATION + THE VANITY a wit as sharp and merciless as a butcher’s positively) hark back to the glory days of SCORE: The Corridor cleaver, added to a disarming geekiness and a uplifting, slightly mischievous hip hop, like ALY BAIN & PHIL CUNNINGHAM: frantic way with a guitar that recalls mentor De La Soul and Salt’n’Pepa, but updated by Nettlebed Folk Club – Near-legendary Steve Albini’s Big Black work. Add a good way of The Avalanches’ bamboozling Scottish fiddle player and former member of dose of Fall-like abrasiveness and a spark of sampladelica. 80s US TV themes mingle Boys Of The Lough, playing traditional Shetland Wire-style pop hysteria and it’s an all- music. action lo-fi brawl that you’ve just got to join with sweet strings and children’s voices and th any urge to resist the temptation to dance TUESDAY 7 in with. Support for tonight’s will be roundly mocked. JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: Oxfordbands.com night are scratchy The Bullingdon – Ever-popular free live jazz Bristolian fem-core urchins Male, fusing club with house band The Tom Grey Quintet Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey bile onto Still going strong, although best known as a DJ getting the crowd moving, plus funk, soul and Tortoise-inspired strangeness, plus local these days, he remains a cult legend. r’n’b DJs til late. punkabilly starlets Mules. A serious bunch SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house with OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, of noise to squeeze into such a small room. DJ Mr C. Cowley SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT + DELICIOUS MUSIC BANDS NIGHT: The SENNEN + HALF RABBITS + ANN ARBOR: City Tavern – New local bands night from the The Cellar – Abrasive electro rocking in a Delicious crew featuring tonight, Not My Day, In/ Shellac-meets-Kraftwerk with extreme prejudice Out and She Cries. vein from Sunnyvale REBECCA MOSLEY + CHRIS BEARD: Ba THE BEASTMEN + EBOP+ IN/OUT + BEN E Ba – Solemn folk pop from Ms Mosley and Mr COOK: The City Tavern – Delicious Music Beard at tonight’s Beard Museum. presents a local bands showcase. DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND THE DIVINE COILS + RATFACE: The Port FOLK NIGHT: Bar Milano, Pizza Express – Mahon – Dissonant rock nastiness. New live music session from Delicious Music. THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Fitzharry, Tonight’s guest is guitarist Pawel Kuterba. Abingdon CHIARINA: Café Rouge – Weekly pop, folk PETE BEARDER: The Magic Café (1pm) and jazz residency. chap Jon Chapple cranks up the LUX LUTHER + FATALLY YOURS: The misanthropometer once again to blinding effect – Wheatsheaf – Sweet, piano-led pop from Lux see main preview Luther, plus Smiths-y rocking from Fatally Yours. THE ROCK OF TRAVOLTA: The Cellar – JAMIE T + MORRISON STEAM FAYRE + YO The new-look Rock hit town again. After losing ZUSHI: The Corner Room – Fresh, eclectic founding member Phill Honey (himself back in new pop talent from West London, Jamie T looks action this month with his new band The Delta certain to be one of this year’s big breakthrough Frequency), TROT have recruited one-time South successes on the back of his excellent new ‘Betty Sea Company Prospectus keyboard player Matt & Her Selfish Sons’ EP. Mixing up a low-rent 70s Spooner and new cellist Jenny Bates and will be punk attitude, early Bob Dylan-style folk and looking to restate their claim to the Oxford rock Streets-y hip hop and electronica, Jamie’s throne. Symphonic instrumental rocking with simultaneously boisterous and sensitive, danceable nods to Add N To (X), Shellac and Stravinsky. and introverted, with a touch of the Arctic DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES & FOLK Monkeys about his observational punk poetry. NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd – NEIL’S CHILDREN + THE VICHY Featuring Chico and the Man. GOVERNMENT + LIFE WITH BEARS + JAZZ NIGHT: The City Tavern SOCK & SHOES: The Port Mahon KITT + MATT BEASELY: The Exeter Hall, HALF RABBITS + NUVOLA + LAURA LOST: Cowley Ignition, Witney Utd FC – Launch night for SAHARA BOAT CLUB + GLASS FACTORY: Witney’s new live music venue, featuring local The Bullingdon – Indie rock night. new wave popsters The Half Rabbits. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford 1990-1999: The Bullingdon – 90s club tunes. Community Centre THE SKYNY NYRDS: The New Inn, Witney SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks ANNA & AIMEE: The Magic Café (1pm) SABOTAGE: The Zodiac SUNDAY 12th th Thursday 9th FRIDAY 10 KANO: The Zodiac – Melodic hip hop and GEMMA HAYES: The Zodiac – Polished folky grime from the rising East London star – see 65 DAYS OF STATIC: pop from the Irish singer-songwriter whose 2002 main preview debut, ‘Night On My Side’, made it onto the MY AWESOME COMPILATION + ADZUKI + The Zodiac Mercury Prise shortlist. A bit more rootsy and A BOY CALLED HERO + MOURNING We’re big fans of stuff being loud here at rocking than the likes of KT Tunstall or Katie GLORY: Confessions, Banbury – Leicester Melua but new album, ‘The Roads Don’t Love emo rockers in an upbeat Get Up Kids style. Nightshift, and Sheffield’s 65 Days Of Static You’, still wanders towards the easy listening side LAGRIMA + NEW MOON + ANTON do loud to an heroic degree. They’ve been of the pop highway. BARBEAU + MAEVE BAYTON: The Exeter frequent visitors to Oxford over the past SLIDE: The Zodiac – House club night with live Hall, Cowley – Fundraiser for the Wittstock couple of years but this is their biggest local set from Hybrid, plus resident DJs Matt Braddock Festival with assorted local luminaries plus gig to date, showing just how much they’ve and Lee Mortimer. American psychedelic pop songsmith Anton grown. And they’ve grown in lots of ways, GOODFELLAZ: The City Tavern – Good-time Barbeau. rapidly outgrowing comparisons with sonic party funk and pop. DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: precursors Mogwai, expanding their esoteric THIS TOWN NEEDS GUNS + KNIVES: The The Old School House instrumental noise to encompass not just Wheatsheaf – Melodic post-hardcore rock. THE BEARD MUSEUM with THE KICKS + rock and post-rock stylings but classical, TONY JEZZARD: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – JANE TAYLOR + KATE GARRETT + DIRTY jungle and eastern sounds. And this with just Blues rock from the local veteran. ROYAL: The Purple Turtle – Mellow pop, folk the traditional rock and roll guitar, bass and OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon and rock at Beard Museum. BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon FAJITA EATERS: The Black Horse, drums line-up and not a laptop in sight. 65 BLUNTED: The Cellar – hip hop, funk, soul Kidlington Days are the perfect repost to anyone who and breaks club night. UNPLUGGED ACOUSTIC SONG SESSION: thinks instrumental rock soundscapes are for ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho The Exeter Hall, Cowley (3-7pm) beardy geeks with no sense of melody. REDOX: The Magdalen Arms MONDAY 13th They’re cinematic, brutal, elegant and MUNGO: St Aldates Tavern BIG JOE TURNER & HIS MEMPHIS BLUES simply thrilling, creating a vast sound that th SATURDAY 11 CARAVAN: The Bullingdon – Memphis blues can literally take your breath away as wave SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT + STIG + legend still going strong after 40 years on the upon wave crashes against the venue walls. DEGUELLO: The Cellar – Brutal art-prog, road – see main preview New album ‘One Time For All’, the follow- doom metal, gospel blues and something nasty NOT MY DAY: + MOOCHER: The Corridor up to 2004’s acclaimed ‘The Fall Of Math’ from the black hit of space from the mighty INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth and industrial is out this month and tonight’s show will be Suitable Case. Local newcomers Deguello are club night. given an added visual dimension by The shaping up into one of the most promising bands NOEL MURPHY: Nettlebed Folk Club – St Media Lounge. Fellow Yorkshiremen The around with a leftfield stab at hardcore. Patrick’s Day party with the Irish folk singer. Miramar Disaster support, bringing a more SOPHIE SOLOMON: The Zodiac – Once TUESDAY 14th dubbed ‘The Keith Richards of the violin’, the metallic form of rock carnage to the stage. JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: former Oxford University history student (and The Bullingdon local drum&bass DJ) and founding member of Oi OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Va Voi (alongside KT Tunstall), takes a Cowley lead role with her new band, promoting DELICIOUS MUSIC BANDS NIGHT: The new album, ‘Poison Sweet Madeira’, City Tavern having worked with the likes of DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND Richard Hawley, Rufus Wainwright and FOLK NIGHT: Bar Milano, Pizza Express – the London Symphony Orchestra, With guests The Bewley Brothers. mixing up classical influences with CHIARINA: Café Rouge sounds from Eastern Europe, Russia, th North Africa, and Romany gypsy WEDNESDAY 15 music. PHYAL + MARY’S GARDEN + BEELZEBOZO SAM KELLY’S STATION HOUSE + JEREMY HUGHES: The Wheatsheaf – BLUES: The Exeter Hall, Cowley Punk-metal rocking from Bicester’s Phyal, with AMBER STATE + FOXES + TRUE support from gothic stadium rockers Mary’s RUMOUR: The City Tavern – Local Garden and doom-metallers Beelzebozo. bands showcase from the Delicious THE BLACK VELVETS + WINTERVILLE: The Music crew. Zodiac – Sing it from the rooftops, kids: 70s rock is back! Led Zep! AC/DC! David Bowie! Oh, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Marlborough sorry, that was two years ago. Someone forgot to House, Western Road tell The Black Velvets. But wait! Come back! PHONIK SESSIONS: The Cellar There is excitement to be had! They sound a bit FREAK OUT: The Bullingdon like a cross between Bon Jovi and The THURSDAY 16th Stereophonics! Could it get any better? Only if they were called Jet, perhaps. THE EPSTEIN + 100 BULLETS BACK: The KOHOUTEK: The City Tavern – Local indie Cellar – Classic country rocking from The rockers. Epstein, plus new wave and synth pop action DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far from 100BB. From The Madding Crowd DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES & FOLK FOLK SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Cowley NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd – With guests The Jazz Emporium. JAZZ NIGHT: The City Tavern Sunday 12th THE ETCHINGS: The Port Mahon DIVERSE DIVAS + ANNA & AMY: The Exeter KANO: The Zodiac Hall, Cowley MARIA ILETT: Abingdon Library (2pm) – Along with Sway, who appeared at the Bookish afternoon outing from the local folk- Coven in Oxford last month, East London’s cum-trip hop songstress. Kano (aka Kane Robinson) is leading the CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford next generation of British rappers from the Community Centre pirate radio underground into the BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney mainstream. In fact there he was onstage at SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks last year’s Smash Hits poll winners’ party SABOTAGE: The Zodiac after he came second in their readers’ best FRIDAY 17th Monday 13th newcomer award. He was also voted best FRESH OUT OF THE BOX with KRAFTY newcomer at last year’s MOBO Awards and KUTS: The Zodiac – Beats and breaks from the BIG JOE TURNER & even Ken Livingston has been singing his FOTB crew, plus a live set from Brighton’s Krafty praises. Not bad for a 19-year-old lad whose Kuts – aka Martin Reeves – veteran club DJ who HIS MEMPHIS debut white label, ‘Boys Love Girls’, has played alongside Fatboy Slim, The Jungle released when he was 16, shipped a tidy Brothers and Roni Size as well as providing music BLUES CARAVAN: sum on the back of pirate radio play alone. for Coca Cola and Playstation ads. His hometown The Bullingdon Kano’s since hit the Top 20 with the Mike Supercharged club night has been a major Quite rightly these days considered as one Skinner-assisted ‘Night Night’. His move influence on the UK breaks scene. SPARKS II featuring HARLETTE + ALL YOU of the true keepers of the Memphis blues into the mainstream is helped in no small MISS + LAST PROPOSAL: The Zodiac – flame, Big Joe Turner has a history in blues part by his suave, sing-song style of rapping Launch gig for the new `Spark’ compilation CD that goes back over 40 years. The renowned that tends to avoid too much London slang, from the Young Women’s Bands Project. Grungey bass player recorded with Chuck Berry as making it more accessible to a wider punk noise from Harlette, plus melodic grunge well as spending many years as a sideman to audience. But there’s a solid underground pop from All You Miss. BB King, Albert King, Al Green and Isaac squelch to the music, reflecting Kano’s roots DYSE: The Wheatsheaf – Roerhedds / Volt side Hayes, with whom he featured in the in the capital’s grime scene where he’s project. legendary Wattstax film. In that time Turner collaborated with the likes of Katie Pearl, THE INFLATABLES: The Exeter Hall, Cowley earned a reputation as one of the greatest and he’s probably the best current hope for – Classic ska, soul and reggae covers. blues players of all time; his list of musical taking grime into more commercial OXFORD FOLK CLUB St PATRICK’S admirers is almost as long as his list of territories. Following on from last year’s NIGHT SPECIAL: The Port Mahon – With musical and civic awards. Over time he debut album, ‘Home Sweet Home’, on 679 Colin Manning and friends. BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Senegalese became a band leader, arranger and latterly Records (home too to The Streets) Kano mbalax, Latin, reggae and jazz from Afrotema. song writer, moving to Europe and recording releases a new single to coincide with this BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon three albums with singer Eugene Bridges. national tour, ‘Brown Eyes’, and he’s got an ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho His Memphis Blues Caravan continues to MTV crew in tow making a documentary THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Magdalen tour the world, delivering passionate, good- about his rise. A rare chance to catch some Arms time southern blues and rock, including his serious quality rap in Oxford. FRIDAY STREET: St Aldates Tavern signature tune, ‘I Am The Blues’. The th SATURDAY 18 current band line-up includes singer Earl YOUTH MOVIE SOUNDTRACK Green as well as guitarist Dieter Jagiela. STRATEGIES + FOALS + TIRED IRIE: The Zodiac – First hometown gig in over a year for local post-rock heroes Youth Movies, back in prolific 80s pop career, putting his Oxford town after a busy year touring the UK. Currently University philosophy degree to good use in his recording their second album for release on Fierce blackly humorous songs. Barbeau, rapidly making Panda later this year and a good chance to re- Oxford his second home, is relentlessly prolific acquaint yourselves with one of Oxford’s most and wilfully oddball, taking Robyn Hitchcock as complex, cathartic and downright thrilling live his primary inspiration, his psychedelic pop also bands. Support comes from promising newcomers recalls the likes of XTC, Julian Cope and Bob Foals, the band made up of former members of Dylan. Local popsters The New Moon open The Edmund Fitzgerald and current YMSS chaps. proceedings. Leicester’s Tired Irie open proceedings, BLUE JUNK + TURBULENCE + JOE promoting debut single on Try Harder Records SATRIANI TRIBUTE: The City Tavern – Funk- and mixing up studied maths-rock with the darker rock fusion from Blue Junk at tonight’s Delicious side of 80s new wave. Music local bands showcase. PAT FISH + ANTON BARBEAU + THE NEW SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house club MOON: The Port Mahon – Another double- night with resident DJs. header from Pat ‘Jazz Butcher’ Fish and RIP THE JOINT: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Sacramento’s Anton Barbeau, displaying two of Energetic rocking blues. the best eccentric songwriters from either side of THE SKYNY NYRDS: The Bricklayers, the Atlantic. Fish is still going strong after his Marston UNPLUGGED ACOUSTIC SONG SESSION: CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford The Exeter Hall, Cowley (3-7pm) Community Centre MONDAY 20th BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks CROWBAR + WILL HAVEN + THROUGH SABOTAGE: The Zodiac THE EYES OF THE DEAD + THE SEVENTH th CROSS: The Zodiac – A night of unforgiving FRIDAY 24 hardcore metal noise with the reformed Will BLACK DICE: The Wheatsheaf – Sonic Haven and chums – see main preview manipulation and abrasive rock experimentation DOUG JAY & THE BLUEJAYS: The from the New York mavericks – see main preview Bullingdon – Florida-born, Washington DC BELL X1: The Zodiac (upstairs) – Irish rockers, resident harmonica player, playing blues and r’n’b previously bandmates with Damien Rice, harp in the style of Slim Harpo and Little Walter. ploughing an epic furrow following support slots ODD ONES OUT + HEADS TO THE WALL: to Bon Jovi and Eliot Smith. The Corridor HIGH & MIGHTY: The Zodiac (downstairs) – VIN GARBUTT: Nettlebed Folk Club One-off reformation gig from the long-time local TUESDAY 21st heavy rock favourites. Excellent, melodic metal with a punky edge. Local emo youngsters The JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: Hero Story support and may well learn a few new The Bullingdon (old) tricks. KUBB: The Zodiac – Epic, heartfelt indie OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon rocking in a post-Coldplay-Athlete-Keane vein. There is melancholy aplenty and hearts worn rd firmly on sleeves. There will be delicately played Thursday 23 piano and towering guitars. There will be heavy radio play and Top 40 action. And at the end of it SECRET MACHINES: all there may even be Brit Award nominations and Monday 20th a Mercury Prize nomination. The Zodiac THE RIVER + BLIND PILOTS + LICKETY Sometimes great music, like great films, can WILL HAVEN / SPLITS: The Wheatsheaf transport you to another world entirely. FORT DAX + THE HUNGRY I + DAVID Along with The Arcade Fire and Mew, New CROWBAR / GOOSEY: The Port Mahon – Leftfield sounds York’s Secret Machines create huge, KINGSIZE BLUES: courtesy of Vacuous Pop. elaborate canvasses of sound that are so OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, expansive that it’s easy to miss the Cowley incredible complex detail involved. Prog-rock The Zodiac DELICIOUS MUSIC BAND NIGHT: The City is a lazy tag to label Secret Machines with, They’re back! Hurray! Four years after they Tavern although they do lean towards the opulence split, the result of singer Grady Avenell’s DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND retirement due to tour-induced exhaustion, FOLK NIGHT: Bar Milano, Pizza Express – of Pink Floyd at times. Even here, though, Sacramento’s finest, Will Haven, have Live jazz from The Jazz Duo. there’s the sunshine melody and mischief of reconvened. So, it’s time to rock again. Rock CHIARINA: Café Rouge Syd Barrett. But beyond the bombast and hard. In an unrelenting, no-prisoners WEDNESDAY 22nd sky-reaching trance rock, Secret Machines are simply a magnificent pop band. Brothers hardcore stylee. Having (according to MY FATHER THE BEAT + CITY LIGHTS JUST guitarist Jeff Urwin) formed in order to BURN: The Wheatsheaf – Baggy beats, synth Brandon and Benjamin Curtis form the core become “the heavy metal Radiohead”, Will rocking and Velvet Underground-influenced guitar of the band, sharing vocal duties as well as Haven became one of the most influential dirges from the promising local newcomers playing guitar and keyboards. For a three- underground hardcore metal acts around, boasting former members of Tiger Club and piece they pack a lot in, stretching their inspiring everyone from Deftones to Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia, plus sound from motorik krautrock grooves to Slipknot. 2001’s magnum opus, `Carpe punky indie noise from CLJB. West Coast melodies, from Neu! To The Diem’, made them a global concern and their DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far Byrds via Guided By Voices. Their last gig From The Madding Crowd last gig at the Zodiac is still remembered at the Zodiac, last spring, was an awe- THE ETCHINGS + HANGMAN’S JOKE: The inspiring show by a band who defy the fondly and fearfully by local metallers. Port Mahon There’s even a new album due in the summer prosaic outlook of most of their peers, FOLK SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Cowley instead putting on the kind of show that as well as a world tour with long-time chums HIT & RUN: The Cellar should be closing huge outdoor festivals the Deftones. Co-headlining a night that is OPEN MIC SESSION: The Marlborough world over. New album ‘Ten Silver Drops’ definitely not for the faint-hearted are New House, Western Road Orleans’ Crowbar, doomy hardcore tyrants rd follows the journey started by their THURSDAY 23 masterful ‘Now Here Is Nowhere’ in 2004. in the lineage of The Melvins and Pantera SECRET MACHINES + PREFUSE 73: The and last seen damaging the Zodiac’s Secret Machines claim to want to connect to Zodiac – Best band on the planet, no arguments the Gods and the cosmos. In their case, foundations in support to Hatebreed. – see main preview they’re right on course. Opening proceedings will be rising UK WHO’S WHO: The Zodiac (downstairs) – metallers Kingsize Blues, aiming for that Superior Who tribute, evoking the live-wire spirit part of your skull marked Raging Speedhorn of the band at their ‘Live At Leeds’ best. and Stampin’ Ground. THE CLERKS + TRUE RUMOUR: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Bouncy female-fronted guitar HQ: The Cellar – Drum&bass with DJs Lee and Sabre. pop from The Clerks, plus atmospheric 80s- MAEVE BAYTON: The Magic Café (1pm) styled pop in a Blue Nile vein from True Rumour. SUNDAY 19th DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES & FOLK JETHRO TULL: The New Theatre – 60s folk- NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd – rock heroes continue to recall the summer of Featuring acoustic duo The Bewley Brothers. love. AND NO STAR + MAI MAYO MAI: The DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: Cellar – Double bill of local post-rock noise, The Old School House with And No Star taking an angular, Billy LINDY, DANNY MICHELL & BOB KEMMIS: Mahonie-influenced route, while Mai Mayo Mai The Port Mahon explore jazzier terrain. THE WORRIED MEN: The Black Horse, JAZZ NIGHT: The City Tavern Kidlington PETE MOORE: The Port Mahon GERRY GILLARD + ANTON BARBEAU: The TUESDAY 28th Exeter Hall, Cowley – Blues, rock and country OK GO: The Zodiac – Cheesy, geeky power- from Gerry, plus eccentric psychedelic pop in a pop hits that’ll stick in the nether regions of your Robyn Hitchcock style from Anton. brain for weeks to come from the Chigaco BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon rockers, somehow managing to remain likeable ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho despite an occasionally resemblance to Good MUNGO: St Aldates Tavern Charlotte. They redeem themselves with nods to th SATURDAY 25 bands like The Cars and the Knack as well as MENDEED: The Zodiac – Fast-rising young cover versions of old Adam & The Ants and Elvis Glaswegian metallers recently seen out on tour Costello songs, and they’re a hoot live, complete with Dragonforce and Cradle of Filth. Melodic with dance routines. OK Go follow in the lineage heavy rock in an updated NWOBHM style, of very American geek-rock bands like Weezer second album, ‘This War Will Last Forever’ is out and Fountains of Wayne, while new single ‘A this month. Million Ways’ is almost lounge music. ROADRUNNER with LONG TALL SHORTY SEXTODECIMO + BEARD OF ZEUSS: The + THE LOST 45s: The Bullingdon – Mod, 60s Cellar – Possibly the most awe-inspiring live soul, r’n’b, ska, funky Hammond, acid jazz and band on the local scene at the moment, th Britpop classics at tonight’s Roadrunner, plus a Sextodecimo’s extreme form of sludgy grinding Friday 24 live set from the recently resurrected Long Tall noise has moved beyond the realms of metal and Shorty, punky r’n’b cheerleaders from the into a world of all-out sonic warfare. BLACK DICE: original 70s punk scene and faves with the mod FEAST OF FIDDLES: Nettlebed Folk Club The Wheatsheaf crowd. Leeds mod revivalists The Lost 45s JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: support. The Bullingdon Experimental music gets a bad name MARY’S GARDEN + FORK: The Exeter Hall, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, sometimes, often rightly with the Cowley – Gothic Euro-rocking from Mary’s Cowley perpetrators so intent on creating something Garden, plus proggy punk from Fork. DELICIOUS MUSIC BANDS NIGHT: The they consider to be art that they forget MURRAY TORKILDSEN: The Port Mahon – City Tavern they’re working in the field of music. New Caustic pop from the former Sweeney frontman. DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND York’s Black Dice have been blurring the TRANSMISSION + NOT MY DAY + FOLK NIGHT: Bar Milano, Pizza Express – boundaries between artful experimentation MOOCHER + IN/OUT: The City Tavern – Featuring special guests Duo Viente Dedos. and full-on rock and roll since 1997 but Local bands showcase. WEDNESDAY 29th they’ve always kept it entertaining as well ROLLERCOASTER Vs CHICKS WITH TV BABY + HOTKNIFE JACKSON + FOXES as challenging. Starting off as a personified DECKS: The Cellar + BAD ACTORS: The Wheatsheaf – Excellent gesture of sheer sonic violence, pumping out KATE GARRETT: The Magic Café (1pm) punk and new wave inspired rocking from TV th cacophonous 30-second lumps of noise, SUNDAY 26 Baby. they’ve continued to move forwards (and SETH LAKEMAN: The Zodiac – Dartmoor DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far sideways), diving further and further into singer-songwriter Seth continues to get used to From The Madding Crowd sound processing, fractured melodies and life in the spotlight after his debut album, ‘Kitty FOLK SESSION: The Exeter Hall, Cowley disorientating dynamics. Inspired by the Jay’ (recorded for £300 in his Devon kitchen) was OPEN MIC SESSION: The Marlborough likes of Can, Throbbing Gristle, My Bloody shortlisted for last year’s Mercury Prize. It’s an House, Western Road album documenting the many myths and legends PHONIK SESSION: The Cellar Valentine and Pink Floyd, Eric and Bjorn of Dartmoor, was launched with a gig at the THURSDAY 30th Copeland and Aaron Warren utilise all nearby prison and unsurprisingly is a doomy, manner of treated guitars, percussion, vocals MAX ROMEO + CHARMAX PLAYERS: The tortured affair, but it’s also seen the fella – who and customised sound machines to create Zodiac – The second genuine Jamaican reggae began his musical career in his teens as part of the music that is easily the equal to its myriad legend to hit town this month. Romeo is probably band Equation, alongside Kate Rusby and Cara best known in the UK for his solitary Top 10 hit influences. Black Dice gigs are probably not Dillon – nominated for two Radio Folk Awards, in 1969, ‘Wet Dream’, an innuendo-laden quite as physically dangerous as they once while later this year he sets off on tour with Billy novelty that made the most of a radio ban. But were, but with the band going further down Bragg as well as releasing new CD ‘Glass Ceilings’. his best work was in the 70s when he teamed up the route of fragmenting music with each PINDROP PERFORMANCE with SUITABLE with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, notably on the now album – notably their landmark ‘Beaches CASE FOR TREATMENT + NAPOLEON III + legendary ‘War Ina Babylon’. One of the genre’s And Canyons’ album – they create a THE PINDROP IMPROV QUINTET: The Port most influential singers, Romeo has covered most Dadaist ballet score that’s every bit as Mahon (5pm) – Suitable Case show off their styles of reggae in his time and is widely regarded sensitive side, while Napoleon III mess with the mentally punishing. as a true godfather of Jamaican music. The electronics. Prodigy extensively sampled him, while Madness GREEN ONIONS: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – st covered him on their recent ‘Dangermen FRIDAY 31 Blues Brothers tribute band. Sessions’. Tonight’s Skylarkin’ promotion also GRAHAM COXON: The Zodiac (upstairs) – BEARD MUSEUM with SCRIPT + PATRICK features DJ sets from Bristolian ska legend DJ Long-since sold-out gig from the former-Blur BRISCOE + BARNABUS: The Purple Turtle Derek as well as host Aidan Larkin playing ska, guitarist-turned-lo-fi troubadour. – Gentle, esoteric pop pleasures as ever at the reggae, r’n’b and funk classics. GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with LOOPY Beard Museum. MARSHA SWANSON + REBECCA MOSLEY + WHERE I’M CALLING FROM + PETER DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: + LAIMA BITE: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – WILKINSON: The Zodiac (downstairs) – The Old School House Folky songstress on tour with her new album, Effervescent guitar pop in a Housemartins style RHYTHM METHOD: The Black Horse, ‘Watershed’, plus excellent local supports from from Loopy, plus highly-promising new wave- Kidlington Rebecca Mosley and Laima Bite. inspired noise from WICF and jazzy acoustic pop UNPLUGGED ACOUSTIC SONG SESSION: KOHOUTEK: The Port Mahon – Local indie from Mr Wilkinson. The Exeter Hall, Cowley (3-7pm) rockers. THE HALF RABBITS + SENNEN: The th MONDAY 27 DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES & FOLK Wheatsheaf – New wave rock with a dark edge THE HAMSTERS: The Bullingdon – Return NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd – from The Half Rabbits. trip to the Monday night blues club for the UK With Los Hombres. OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon electric blues-rock stalwarts, paying homage to THE TREND: The Bullingdon WERK SHOWCASE with ACTRESS + ATKI-2 Hendrix and ZZ Top. LOS DIABLOS + CURTIS ELLER: The + PO-SKI: The Cellar – Wonky, squonky DARK PHASE: The Corridor – Heavy-duty Cellar – Acoustic pop from Evenings chap Mark electro-dance. trip hop electro-pop from Dark Phase with Baldwin. THE PORTER BOYS: The Exeter Hall, leanings towards Sneaker Pimps and Massive JAZZ NIGHT: The City Tavern Cowley – Acoustic guitar pop. Attack. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon FEAST OF FIDDLES: Nettlebed Folk Club Community Centre ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho LIVE Photo: Richard Hounslow

BE YOUR OWN PET The Zodiac Despite hardly being a household are stolen off the peg from name in the UK – their output so Buzzcocks, The Undertones and far adding up to a couple of limited Dead Kennedys, including one edition singles and a tour support heroic rip-off of Buzzcocks’ to The Kills – when Be Your Own ‘Boredom’, while they share Pet’s drummer Jamin Orrall similar traits to fellow Texans The hobbles on stage to set up his kit Painteens in their ability to turn after the support band, he receives rudimentary thrash into pop gold. a chorus of idolatry screams. Word In between songs they go in for a spreads quickly these days. spot of youthful sloganeering that Be Your Own Pet are a four-piece rarely gets beyond the “Fuck band from Texas, all barely 18 and George Bush” school of political the focus of a frenzied record thought, but simply endears them company signing scramble last year even further. after blitzing the South By South Amid the smash-and-grab pop West music conference in their storm the focus of the band home state. And you simply have remains singer Jemina Abegg, a to love them. vision of spunky, punky Their cup flows over with a exuberance with her blur of frenzied punk-pop froth that goes peroxide hair, Karen O squeal and a long, long way to covering up a frantic frugging. Pet careering through one last There’s nothing big or clever to lack of substance in the songwriting She’s prettier than Britney and fizzbomb of noise with the house analyse about it all, but accusing Be department. In fact the gaps with several continents more lights turned on full before afro-ed Your Pet of lacking substance is between songs tend to be longer personality and destined for pin-up bassist Nathan Vasquez hurls missing the point. You might as than the minute-long bursts of status any week soon. himself into the crowd, to be well dismiss Tom & Jerry for not frantic, spasmodic noise their The gig, little more than half an carried over their heads to the being Citizen Kane. music consists of. Riffs and hooks hour of it, ends with Be Your Own dressing room. It’s called fun. Dale Kattack

DENISE MARIE / MARIA ILLETT SEXTODECIMO / SOW / SKULL The Exeter Hall THRASH “I thought if you had an acoustic New Orleans visitor Denise Marie The Wheatsheaf guitar it meant that you were a has a wider repertoire, drawing on Tonight’s Quickfix showcase of easily enough weaponry to move protest singer,” sang Morrissey country, blues, jazz and the odd local metal should have been called onto bigger things. twenty years ago. How times have Latin rhythm. Denise’s voice is One Heavier, with each band But then Sextodecimo render all- changed. Nowadays there’s only sweet and almost reedy with a cranking up the pressure as the comers redundant. Even a man one subject that gets most acoustic husky edge and it’s equally suited night wears on. down as they are tonight theirs is slinging singer-songwriters grabbing to cajoling, romancing or haranguing Witney newcomers inject the most terrifying noise around. the compositional pen, and that’s - hell, she even does a protest song, moments of considered psychedelic Witness two-thirds of the crowd doleful self-pity. Refreshing, then, if you’re reading, Morrissey. Her wobbliness into their squalling evaporate as the band’s all- to discover a pair of talented guitar technique is intricate without thrash, or fly off on classic Iron consuming grind spirals in on itself singers with a larger agenda and sacrificing any fluidity, making Maiden guitar solo trips, while the like a sonic back hole. Sextodecimo some real songwriting ability. most local strummers look singer has an admirable range that have travelled so far into rock’s Maria Illett is a surprise initially, woefully clumsy. She even sings veers from guttural growl to black heart they’ve emerged on the as my previous experience of her is two songs accompanied by nothing operatic Ronnie James Dio falsetto. other side in another world a lovely louche recording brushed but a tambourine, and if you’ve They do suffer a bit from looking altogether. Now they’re closer to with faintly Bristolian electronics, only seen tambourines waggled like they should all be working in a the likes of Throbbing Gristle than but tonight she’s left all that stuff lamely by simian frontmen or some vegan café, but otherwise it’s a any cartoonish death metal racket. at home. Her great strength is her guitarist’s girlfriend you’d be promising show. Their dissonance is almost winning, naturally accented vocal, amazed at the rattling almost Sow have beards, hair and riffs. symphonic. It’s like the radioactive and by dispensing with the self- mechanical rhythmic lattice that Proper, full-on beards, lots of hair fallout from Chernobyl has formed conscious warbles that similar acts Denise produces, reminding me and seriously savage riffs. Pitched a band; it’s the Aberfan disaster employ it allows her to achieve a oddly of Truck favourite Thomas somewhere between Meshugga and made into a musical. And it’s far greater range of sophisticated Truax. Perhaps things get a tiny bit At The Gates theirs is an unrelenting. Sextodecimo are the phrasing. She’s not quite a Laima twee at times - visions of Denise untempered hardcore assault, a single most awe-inspiring live band Bite or a Chantelle Pike yet, and a serenading Kermit The Frog in pavement saw buzzstorm topped in Oxford at the moment. The little more diversity wouldn’t go some synthetic mangrove - but this off with primordial vocals from venue is almost deserted by the amiss, but it’s still an impressive is a minor quibble. Watch out for some lower level of Hades. Formed time they finish. Here is a band performance...but bring the synths this spirited and individual from the ashes of Days Of Grace, that genuinely scares people. along next time, Maria. We like musician on her next visit. Jor and Miazma they’ve got great Worship them. those. David Murphy local pedigree, but beyond that Dale Kattack WITCHES / NATIONAL SNACK / MULES The Cellar Former-Eeebleee frontman Dave Fringe. Three girls and two boys, Griffiths’ fresh six-piece project, pitched somewhere between the Witches, is both intimate and B52s and Electric Six, they claim charged with the kind of epic not to be students while touting us atmospheric and conscientiously for votes for them in this year’s crafted musicianship you’d expect Student Music Awards. Still they under his stewardship. ‘In the make me smile fit to burst, as Chaos Of A Friday Night’ creeps anyone would if a girl sang to you on with a gently-bassed, Tony repeatedly to “Lick me all over and Iommi-esque riff that slowly make me wet”. March blooms to a mushroom cloud Amazon.com does this spooky ‘if Every Monday: crescendo of crooning British you bought this, then you’ll like trumpet and feedback. ‘I Wish I this’ thing which you could almost THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES Could Lead The Life You Lead’ is apply to the Mules’ electro-billy The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. £6 like Al Stewart fronting post- workout. So if you’ve bought 6th BIG DEZ (France) rockers iLiKETRAiNS, while Space’s album ‘Spiders’, anything 13th BIG JOE TURNER & HIS MEMPHIS BLUES personal favourite, ‘Putting You by the Bonzo Dog Doo Da Band, CARAVAN (USA) Back Into The Ground’, is a `Monster Mash’, `Great Balls Of 20th DOUG JAY & THE BLUEJAYS ( USA / Germany) delicate shimmy between early Fire’, ‘Mickey’ by Toni Basil and 27th THE HAMSTERS (UK) Genesis’ ‘Harlequin’ and Madness’ ‘House of Fun’, then Radiohead’s ‘Lucky’. With ‘I’m you’ll just love Mules. Happily Every Tuesday: Taking Myself Home Again’ admitting to being students, they rocking out in a faintly grand have gleefully rummaged through THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM Coldplay way, Witches oeuvre is the canon of eccentric punk to GREY QUINTET so comprehensively masterful, it’s create their party of originality, and Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am hard to call them a new band. driven forward by drummer Ed London’s National Snack Seed’s compelling vocals they are Every Thursday: immediately strike you as the sort well on their way towards being a of knowing, “how bizarre” fruit top knees-up. BULLSEYE loops that inhabit the Edinburgh Paul Carrera Student Indie, Festival, Funk (10pm-2am - £2 or free entry with flyer from The City Arms) IDIOT PILOT / THE SEAL CUB Every Friday: BACKROOM BOOGIE CLUBBING CLUB Funk, soul and R&B. 9-2am Free B4 10pm; £4 after. The Zodiac Tongue-twistingly monikered, The Plus serrated guitar crunches. The result nd Seal Cub Clubbing Club bring both is like taking the verse and chorus Thursday 2 THE SKIES – live band, followed by Bullseye the frustration and complexity of parts of Linkin Park songs and club night their name to their music. The five- polarising them as much as Saturday 4th SIMPLE – Funky House with Mr C (9pm-3am) piece from The Wirral are possible. The effect of this Wednesday 8th ACOUSTIC ROCK SOCIETY NIGHT refreshingly imaginative, if a little juxtaposition is at times a little (8pm-1am) baffling the first time you hear disjointed but works well, Thursday 9th SAHARA BOAT CLUB + GLASS them. Singer Nik Glover isn’t afraid especially in ‘Spark Plug’, the FACTORY – live bands, followed by Bullseye club night to be unconventional, and his heaviest track Jesus Jones never Saturday 11th 1990-1999 – The Original 90s club night yelping and falsetto is sometimes did. startling. Their strange (9pm-2am) The power of the performance is, th amalgamation of Pavement, Talking however, slightly tarnished by the Wednesday 15 FREAKOUT – Rock night. th Heads, prog, punk and pub-rock is execution. Arrogance which must Saturday 18 SIMPLE – Funky House, residents night at times non-sequitur, but this make their recorded output sound (9pm-3am) makes it both interesting and passionate and exciting just comes Saturday 25th ROADRUNNER featuring LONG challenging to listen to. across tonight as annoying; a fair TALL,SHORTY + THE LOST 45s – Mod, northern soul, Idiot Pilot also veer from one style amount of confidence is necessary, ska, 60s freakbeat, funky Hammond and Britpop (9pm- to another and back many times but some of the duo’s behaviour 3am) within the same track, but in a tonight – aggressively complaining Thursday 30th THE TREND - live band, followed by rather more conspicuous way. The about the sound system and so on Bullseye club night duo from Bellingham, Washington – is of the type that can alienate an are two distinct parts of the same audience. Downstairs at the Zodiac whole: Michael Harris might be small fry for a band Sunday 2nd April THE BLOCKHEADS – Tickets on commandeers plinky, bleepy whose debut album, ‘Strange We sale now from the Bully (£15) synths and glitchy, frenetic drum Should Meet Here’, is out on Thursday 6th WHO’S NEXT – Who tribute band (£5) machine rhythms with his soaring, Reprise, but this isn’t the best way th impassioned (and sometimes over- to win new fans. It’s a shame, Sunday 30 LISA FITZGIBBON QUINTET + the-top) vocals, while Daniel because Idiot Pilot are otherwise JOHN LESTER (£6) Anderson punctuates proceedings quite impressive. with his screeching voice and Kirsten Etheridge DAMO SUZUKI The Cellar As the frontman of Can at their talented but also amongst the most most creative, Damo Suzuki’s free thinking musicians around. status as a musical visionary is Despite having just a brief, hour- beyond doubt. Unlike so many long rehearsal the night before, the former rock innovators the man has band lock into a tight groove remained on the cutting edge of immediately, egos subsumed in music making ever since, most favour of an organic one-ness. In recently embarking on a never- particular the way Loz and Nigel ending world tour of interact is a spectacle in itself.

Damo Suzuki photo by Miles Walkden improvisational gigs with an array What is quickly apparent, and of what are rather pretentiously absolutely fascinating is how called sound carriers. similar the band’s sound and Before his headline set, Damo structures are to Can. As if by their joins support act Sunnyvale Noise very proximity to Damo Suzuki Sub-Element for a couple of some of that krautrock spirit has numbers, improvising over the top infected them. Damo himself of their far more mechanical knows this terrain intimately, soundscaping, which displays more locking himself into a freeform of a clash of styles but oddly cycle of chants, like Captain works. You feel he could freeform Beefheart jamming it up with a sect over a soundtrack of the speaking of Gregorian monks. clock. In fact there’s probably a Pressed together at the front the CD for sale on the inernet already. lucky ones in a packed crowd are Tonight’s sound carriers are the drawn in to the studious intensity absolute cream of Oxford’s musical on the small stage; tonight is the talent: Nought guitarist James sort of gig that makes you want to Sedwards, Ben Ulph from The go home and form a band without Thumb Quintet also on guitar, delay. There are moments later on Evenings bassist Phil Oakley, plus in the set when it all gets a bit Loz Colbert and Nigel Powell, Weather Report but anyone who easily the two most talented thinks this is a glorified funk jam drummers this city has produced. isn’t listening properly. A joyous The genius behind this band is that experience. not only are they individually Dale Kattack

PART CHIMP / TODD / SWAY / SKINNYMAN HEY COLOSSUS / LORDS Kinetic @ The Coven The Wheatsheaf Kids these days, eh? Everything amusing sense of humour. Another moves so quickly with them. I can which bemuses most here is a Tonight’s gig is billed as the loudest sequel to that but tonight they hardly keep up, and believe me I mash up of the Rainbow theme, gig in Oxford this year. This is sound like they’ve never met one try. Which is why I had heard along with Teenage Mutant Ninja good; loud is good. It all starts another before and the whole thing very little of Sway before I turned Turtles, rounded off with another rather inauspiciously though with is a complete mess. A loud, up tonight. Admittedly I had amusing freestyle over the Magic Nottingham’s Lords. Not sure just grinding, rocking mess, but a mess bought his first single a few Roundabout theme. Even more how much of this stop-start nonetheless. Shame. months back but the mind boggles humorous is the fact he actually jazzed-up post-hardcore stuff we No matter though, because here are as to how fast this guy has taken tried to clear the sample - Some can take any more. Confined in its Part Chimp, gods of loud. This is the UK Hip-hop scene by storm. things are better left for the live own self-congratulatory little box, what it’s all about: the soundtrack His album, ‘This Is My Demo’, show, mate! it’s a dead end sound destined to be to all-out war conducted through was one of the most eagerly Rounding off the live sets tonight played by overly-serious young the medium of guitars and effects awaited UK urban releases for is a bizzare performance from men with bad facial hair for years pedals and deciphered through a some time, preceded by the Skinnyman, which includes a DJ to come. But we need a noise that hailstorm. Formed from the ashes mixtape, ‘This Is My Promo’. And who doesn’t have a clue about his washes you downstream and of the brilliant Ligament a few to live up to all the hype must be cues, ten guest MCs shouting deposits you dazed and confused years ago, Part Chimp have taken quite a task but tonight it’s easy to random words every few lines, and outside a disreputable liquor store, that band’s modus operandi to its see why there is so much. weirdly enough, Skinnyman’s ten- not one that meekly offers to come ultimate conclusion, dispensing Immediately engaging the crowd year-old son on stage. At 3am? home and help you with your with the last vestiges of melody in from the moment he steps on stage, Surely he should be in bed? And maths homework. favour of an all-out volume attack, Sway knocks out a few of the harping on about Bush and Blair So thank the lord for Hey vocals completely drown out by recent singles with a completely and how we’re all done for isn’t Colossus. The singer has thick- the onslaught of distorted guitar fresh approach, sounding nothing something I want to hear between rimmed specs and a full-on bushy noise. If the venue’s fire alarm went like the flows on the album, but every song. beard but the band’s sheet-metal of now we’d know nothing about still tight, clean and crisp. A few If there was just an instrumental noise attack carries a pulverising the encroaching conflagration and exclusives also are a highlight, running and no-one apart from power, sludgy and dark, the vocals we’d all die. But we’d die happy including a hilarious freestyle over Skinny I’m sure he would have lost like a howl in the bleak eye of with the sound of music at its most J-Kwon’s ‘Tipsy’ - A particularly enough stage presence to hold the the storm and it’s bloody great. brilliantly brutal ringing in our ears. annoying tune, but made all the crowd. Todd should have been the perfect Dale Kattack more entertaining by Sway’s Indecision THIS AINT VEGAS / THAT FUCKING NIGHTSHIFT presents TANK / AND NO STAR The Wheatsheaf They may have barely shed their and confrontational, they serve up OXFORD puppy fat, but young contenders fractured volleys of noise that And No Star are fast developing hurtle along at a gut-churning pace into a force to be reckoned with. and threaten to decimate everything Bursts of frantic, blistering noise in their path. Unfortunately, their PUNT are lined up alongside almost shrugging off of synchronicity poppy guitars-skirls and occasionally looks less like a unexpected cornet solos. At times deliberate rejection and more like cheeky and teasing, at times general half-arsedness. wilfully disruptive, they throw the The bill is topped by Sunderland 2006 audience off at every corner. A quartet This Aint Vegas. Sticking to One night, six venues, eighteen bands guitar-driven feed of escalating the theme, they hurl a Molotov The best showcase of new Oxford music of the year stops-and-starts will grow cocktail of distorted noise and increasingly frenzied until, just lethally jagged edges into the Borders The City Tavern when the whole thing threatens to audience – yet This Aint Vegas The Wheatsheaf The Purple Turtle explode into the stratosphere, the spike the mix with a double- band frustrate expectation by whammy of vocals. More duel than Jongleurs The Cellar shifting down several gears into a duet, the shouted thrusts and th laid-back, end-of-summer lilt. It’s a parries work wonderfully with the Wednesday 10 May tribute to the communication music, the massacred guitars and between them that they never hacked-about rhythms forming an Want to play? become unseated by their own anarchic battlefield for their vocal Send your demo, clearly marked The Punt, to sudden side-swerves and whiplash- combat. Sonic Youth, At the Drive- Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. inducing speed-changes. in and hints of early Dustball are all Deadline - 15th March Also instrumental and tapping a sucked into the tornado of noise. similar vein, That Fucking Tank An exuberant primordial energy Want to see everything? suffer a little through the inevitable gallops through their set like the comparison. Brimming with Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Get an all-venue Punt Pass. urgency, they nonetheless appear Like And No Star, they prove Only 100 available. £7 each (plus booking fee) from Polar Bear to lack some of the necessary adept at riding it. Records on Cowley Road or online from oxfordmusic.net invention and freshness. Abrasive Emily Gray thethe portport mmahonahon Live Music in March Thu 2nd Port Mayhem with Emily Rolt, Glenda Huish, Eddie Thompson and Marianna Magnavita Fri 3rd Oxford Folk Club Sat 4th Divine Coils and Holiday Stabbings Wed 8th Oxford Improvisers Thu 9th Oxfordbands.com presents Shooting At Unarmed Men Fri 10th Oxford Folk Club Sat 11th Neil’s Children + The Vichy Government + Life With Bears + Socks & Shoes Thu 16th The Etchings Fri 17th UPSTAIRS - Oxford Folk Club - DOWNSTAIRS ST PATRICKS PARTY, Live Music with Colin Manning and Friends Sat 18th Pat Fish + Anton Barbeau + The New Moon Sun 19th Lindy, Danny Michelle & Bob Kemmis Tue 21st Vacuous Pop presents Fort Dax + The Hungry I + David Goosey Wed 22nd The Etchings and Hangman’s Joke Thu 23rd Peter Moore Fri 24th Oxford Folk Club Sat 25th Murray Torkildsen Sun 26th The Pindrop Performance (5pm to 8pm) with Suitable Case For treatment (Unplugged) + Napoleon III + The Pindrop Improv Quintet Thu 30th Kohoutek ‘The Poet Show’ Fri 31st Oxford Folk Club

Book your band into play at Oxford’s best small music venue! 82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067

BELARUS / A SILENT FILM / 100 BULLETS BACK The Zodiac Tonight’s gig is the first to be put on by Oxford Radio’s Download show; a fine declaration of intent if ever there was one. Quite what listeners will make of 100 Bullets Back when their set flutters across the airwaves is anyone’s guess. They’ll probably check their radios out to see if there’s a switch marked 1984, and whether it has been glued in place. 100 Bullets Back are pretty much out there on their own Belarus photo by Sam Shepherd tonight, favouring slabs of frozen 80s synth pop over the warmth of stadium-filling rock or the mind-boggling complexity of prog. It’s all very well executed, if slightly derivative, although the spectacle of two blokes poking keyboards (and occasionally thrashing at a guitar) does eventually become a little tiresome, When A Silent Film take to a stage, they appear to have filled it to bursting with effects pedals. No chilled electro pop for them, instead they fill the air with colossal songs of ridiculous grandeur. You could call it anthemic rock, but really A Silent Film have taken their lead from Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’, deconstructed the guitar sounds, expanded the waistlines of their songs, and have well and truly dipped their toes in the prog pool. They’re awash with confidence, and their performance tonight would certainly suggest that they could well find themselves one of the bands to watch in the coming months. No strangers to the odd anthem themselves, Belarus are similarly capable of creating tidal waves of sound. There’s nothing prog about them though; Belarus trade in big pop songs packed with muscle and choruses littered with hooks. Current single ‘Standing in the Right Place’ sounds considerably more intense tonight, flying in the face of those Coldplay comparisons, whilst ‘Colourless’ stands out as a perfectly written heartwrencher. `Standing In The Right Place’ is almost a prophetic title, with the music buying public in thrall to the likes of Keane, Belarus are most certainly in the right place at the right time. Thankfully, on the basis of this showing at least, they’ve got the songs, and a sound that will stamp the simpering of Chris Martin et al into the ground. Allin Pratt

JEREMY SMOKING JACKET / METRONOMY NAPOLEON III The Cellar Metronomy is the creation of one Mount’s name is spreading fast and The Cellar Joseph Mount, who describes he’s caught the eye of Franz Jeremy Smoking Jacket are a three- coughs and sighs. When the pieces himself as a disillusioned Ferdinand, Roots Manuva and piece, as much concerned with the fall into place, this is a breathtaking rock‘n’roll drummer from Devon, Ladytron, who’ve all booked him process of constructing their songs band to experience. now relocated to Brighton. He for remix duties. Maybe his as they are with the finished Napoleon III are altogether a more makes instrumental, lo-fi electronic destiny lies as tweaker of other product. The majority of their set mainstream proposition, but it pop using an old computer, adding people’s music, yet his own songs is centred around the repetition and would be difficult not to be. A one- touches of guitar, melodica and sax. are certainly worth a listen, manipulation of live samples, over man outfit utilising live guitars, Joined tonight by occasional combining child-like simplicity which a variety of instruments and vocals and keyboards over backing backing band The Food Groups, he with complex underlying items (drums/bass/trumpet/ tracks fed from an impressive reel- plays a short but engaging set structures, the result being great melodica/violin/shop dummy) are to-reel tape deck, he intriguingly involving multiple instruments and background music that doesn’t hit, scraped and played. combines utterly underground and even a few synchronised dance quite make you want to rush out Soundscapes are created as one brashly overground conceits. moves. and buy the records. watches, growing from faltering Confident, Elbow-style vocals tell There’s a kinship with bands like This leads to the big question sketches into almost knowingly naïve stories of a bored They Came From The Stars, I Saw facing all musicians today – how overwhelmingly dense swathes of young man’s life – Arctic Monkeys Them, who also prefer the hell are they going to make any relentlessly rhythmic noise. could take a leaf or two out of this unselfconscious expression to money in a climate where anyone Musically they refer to the free- chap’s social commentary stark, digital modernism. They with a computer and a broadband folk improvisations of notebook – over a musical backing represent the continuing reshaping connection can listen to unlimited Vibracathedral Orchestra et al, which hacks together well-crafted of digital and rock music into a new free and legal music of any kind, alongside the live manipulations of songs and crazed, bubbling DIY ethic, involving a more human without ever having to leave their Manyfingers or Ill Ease and Pram’s electronica. The result is musical, approach to technology. seat. scrabbling, scattershot toytown melodic, weird and funny. Like the The hardest thing about To be honest I’ve had more fun stylings. Singer Rose Kemp has a Flaming Lips and like Oxford’s Metronomy’s music is trying to listening to Metronomy’s tracks on powerful, flexible voice and lurches own The Evenings, Napoleon III form an opinion about it – it’s just Myspace than I did hanging around from Josephine Wiggs-style has hit that perfect balance – too un-pin-downable, except till midnight waiting for his set. impassioned lyricism, through the weirdo music which non-weirdos maybe a hint of early-80s Rough Time will tell whether it was worth ghostly chants of Christina Carter, can get down to. Trade. Though there’s a lot of it. to a Björk-like use of vocal tics, Simon Minter people doing this kind of thing Art Lagun setup is a bewildering array of laptops, samplers, and assorted rackmounts at whose purpose we can but guess. The real-time live VJing is undeniably impressive and makes for a terrific live show, and although the ‘text us your mobile phone videos’ schtick smacks of zeitgeist, c’mon it’s the guys who invented Pirate TV ferchrissakes. Musically, however, much of the set is grounded in the same outmoded political sloganeering that mired material like ‘Pan Opticon’, all soundbite with little substance.

Coldcut photo by Richard Hounslow Mid-set guest spots from pioneer Robert Owens and new girl on the block Mpho Skeef are characterized not by forward-thinking sound sculptures, but by some pretty dreary house. Thankfully, there are highlights aplenty – excellent contributions from the genial MC pairing of Mike Ladd and Juice Aleem are welcome throughout, and ubiquitous Ninja collaborator Roots Manuva is as fabulous as ever, albeit in absentia. The retailored ‘Atomic Moog 2000’ owes more than a little to Cornelius’ excellent remix, while snippets of everything from AC/DC to Live and Let Die are a reminder that Coldcut, more than anyone else, are masters of stealing the perfect hook and COLDCUT using it to get your feet moving. More of a nostalgia trip than a glimpse into the The Zodiac future in some respects, perhaps, but there’s A decade ago, Coldcut were so far ahead of electronica in which anyone with a penchant for enough here – just – to suggest that Coldcut their time, technologically and musically, that it sampling and two ideas to rub together could might be just as influential in another ten years. seemed like they, more than anyone else, were make waves. The 2006-model Coldcut are still Keep it steel, indeed. pointing the way towards an anarchic future for paving the way on the tech front – tonight’s Stuart Fowkes DELICIOUS MUSIC Presents LIVE IN MARCH SUNDAYS @ The Old School House, Gloucester Green Open Mic FREE!!! 8:30pm

TUESDAYS @ The City Tavern’s Charisma Bar - upstairs Live Local Bands Beginning March 7th with Not My Day + In/Out + She Cries 9:00pm £4 NEW! Also on TUESDAYS Live Jazz, Blues & Folk at Bar Milano (Downstairs – Pizza Express) 7th Pawel Kuterba 21st The Jazz Emporium 14th The Bewley Brothers 28th Duo Viente Dedos

WEDNESDAYS @ Far From the Madding Crowd, Friars Entry Open Mic FREE!!! 8:30pm til 11:00pm

THURSDAYS @ Far From The Madding Crowd Free Entry, Live Jazz, Blues & Folk 9:00pm 2nd Los Hombres 9th Chico & The Man 23rd The Bewley Brothers 16th The Jazz Emporium 30th Los Hombres

FRIDAYS @ St. Aldates Tavern Cover Bands 3rd & 17th Friday Street 10th & 24th Mungo

SATURDAYS @ The City Tavern’s Charisma Bar – upstairs (In association with Up & Coming Entertainment) 4th The Beast Men + eBop + In/Out + Ben E. Cook 11th Amber State + Foxes + True Rumours 18th Blue Junk + Turbulence + Pawel Kuterba plays Joe Satriani Tribute 25th Transmission + Moocher + Not My Day + In/Out

Demos To: Delicious Music c/oThe Oxford Music Shop, 99 St. Aldates, Oxford. Tel: 01865 242784 / 07876 184623 For bookings Email [email protected] HEADCOUNT / BEELZEBOZO / GWYNETH HERBERT VENA CAVA / NAGATHA KRUSTI The Bullingdon Gwyneth Herbert has a magnificent is not yet strong enough. I love her The Exeter Hall voice and at this Saturday night gig take on Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’. Daft band names and punk rock are bridges onto oncoming traffic. she shows she can use it to really Though it’s not up to that of the order of the evening at the Ex, Mike Gilpin, looking ever more like inhabit her material, whether doing Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, with the appallingly- / hilariously- Tony Christie in his suit and tie, covers or her own songs. Marketed by singing half a beat ahead of her (delete according to taste) named adds a melodic edge, not to mention by her record company as the band real tension is injected into Nagatha Krusti proving a ragged, a degree of sophistication, to the “next Norah Jones”, she is much the familiar tale. Her angry blast at primitive opening salvo, looking a slow-mo thrash, with the end result better than this. Never have I been the corporate music biz,`Going For lot like early-90s fraggle rockers sounding something like Eddie in the Bully with so little chatter A Song’, introduced as being about Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, and kicking Vedder fronting Metallica, although going on. “loony arsehole records”, is the out a row that’s mostly rehashed there are odd moments when the True, Herbert’s beauty and how best of her own numbers. Several thrash-punk riffs but occasionally go-slow dynamics and panto horror she uses it to tease can focus Oxford bands would probably funked up with a bit of slap bass or riffs make you want to scream out attention. But mainly it is down to agree when she sings, “It’s hard to a cod reggae skank. Not bad in short for them to get a bloody move on. the web she weaves with her many sing a note with a golden handshake bursts but they ultimately outstay No hanging about for Headcount, voices: hitting high notes with in your throat”. their welcome. still the best punk rock band in unwavering purity; singing Tom Gwyneth Herbert did her learning Vena Cava, performing tonight for Oxford, despite being nearly old Waits ‘Fallin Down’ from the back fighting to be heard in pubs. She the first time with their new enough to have fathered most of of the throat; doing scat singing; clearly revels in being back at vocalist, are a more full metal racket. the teenage pretenders in town. starting the second half of her set almost eye level with the audience, The new guy, all black and red From the frenetic, belligerent unaccompanied in a very intimate bantering, getting energy from them striped hair, a face full of piercings speed-punk attack of ‘Die Monkey scaled down style, and being the and giving it back: during her song and a Danzig t-shirt, is more Die’, with what is possibly the only singer I have heard to on the corporate music biz, there’s guttural than his predecessor Marco only ever use of the phrase challenge Nicky Lambourne of a seriously loud burst of flatulence. and with the band taking fewer “suffering succotash” ever in rock Never the Bride in the Janis Joplin Gwyneth simply invites the twists and turns than before but the music, to the more darkly-textured soundalike stakes. originator to join the band as wind sound remains uncompromisingly tracks with their big, gothic chorus Gwyneth could sing any style, player. Tonight she seems to be dense and ferocious. pedals, Headcount rarely take from punk (she was once in a teen rediscovering herself and the Similarly reformed are Beelzebozo, prisoners, and there’s no escape punk band) to opera. It is no pleasure of gigging after one too rising from the ashes of Mook. from their expletive-laden humour surprise she resists being pigeon many big concerts at prestige Possibly even more daftly named that’s even more brutal than their holed, by describing herself as a venues. The message from tonight than Nagatha Krusti, they ram the music. Here is where the primal story-teller, and that she fell out is that however big a star you Hammer Horror point home by express train hit of early Therapy? with Universal Records. might become Gwyneth, don’t give taking to the stage in matching meets the tribal squall of Adam & Presently her covers are better up on the small venues. That’s bloodstained work shirts before The Ants’ first incarnation. Did we than her own songs, not because of where the real fun is. crunching out humungous metal mention they’re the best punk rock the singing but because her writing Colin May riffs that sound like breezeblocks band in Oxford by several parsecs? being chucked off of motorway Ian Chesterton DR SHOTOVER: Life In Bars So... yet again one is tempted to ask, “What bloody year is it?” A REGINA SPEKTOR question that is partially prompted by one’s return to the world of booze, but even more so by the confusing nature of the Oxford music The Zodiac scene. One minute it’s Damo Suzuki at the Cellar with some local Regina Spektor presently seems to chair-as-drum, Spektor is on top soap-dodgers pretending to be Can doing `Future Days’, the next it’s be occupying a strange place in the form. The crowd seems most at Nought at the Zodiac pretending to be the Mahavishnu Orchestra popularity stakes. Her name seems home with the material from her doing `Birds of Fire’, followed closely on the same bill by St Julian of to be on everyone’s lips, yet even most recent, ‘Soviet Kitsch’ album, Cope, and suddenly we’re talking `Space Ritual’-era Hawkwind her third full length didn’t come up as the first notes of ‘Ode To combined with Amon Duul II’s `Wolf City’... Aargh! It’s worse than as much more than a blip on the Divorce’ and ‘Carbon Monoxide’ that time when I was used as an army guinea-pig for the new truth UK music radar. This is reflected in are welcomed with cheers, while serum LSD-25 (as revealed in my soon-to-be-published memoir, tonight’s set up. Housed ‘Sailor Song’ even induces a sing `From Porton Down to Wonderland: Flashbacks of a Military downstairs in the Zodiac, but along. But the hold over the Attaché Case’). The colours! The weird sounds! The Marshall tickets easily selling out to a audience is such that even new amps!... What’s that you say? 1973? Ah yes, that was the year. mixture of the curious and material is happily digested. Thanks. I feel better now. Mine’s a pint of Watney’s Red Barrel. committed. The vocal performance is fantastic Next month: Double Diamond Works Wonders When Spektor finally takes the throughout, but the night’s stage anticipation is heavy, and arguably most touching moment is from the first note she hits it is when Spektor sets aside her vocal clear this is going to be something theatrics, on the soft, stark extraordinary. Accompanying her ‘Samson’, for which the hush of soft croon with the simple the crowd seems all the more percussion of microphone taps, the intense. crowd hushes to a near-silence The set is flawless from start to which finally breaks into a finish, and while time constraints rapturous ovation at the song’s keep us from hearing as much as end. This is essentially the pattern we want, we go home knowing we for each of tonight’s songs. will be hearing much, much more in Whether she is accompanying the future. Amon Duul II last week - Julian Cope is out of sight (but you knew that). herself on piano, guitar, or folding- Patrick Casey DEMOSDEMOSDEMOS If you do not supply us with a proper contact number and address as stated below, we will not review your demo.

songs here, coming on somewhere between DEMO OF Eliot Smith and Jeff Buckley, as well as www.appletreestudios.com Feeder’s mellower moments. Perhaps it’s a THE MONTH bit too innocuous to startle the neighbours or upset even the most timid of great aunts, but in its own unassuming way, it gets on XMAS LIGHTS with the job. The CD glides quietly, elegantly into the stereo. The display flashes three times and THIRD ORDER reveals the damage: three tracks; 36 “I’m actually quite a happy person. I just minutes. This is going to be a trawl, right? can’t write happy songs!” says young Wrong! Xmas lights aren’t just head and Daniel Clarke, the man behind Third Order, shoulders above every other demo this as well as the bands Kazor and Reactor month, they’re the height of a giraffe Mind and a fellow who has frequently been wearing a top hat standing on a skyscraper accused of being a bit of an old misery guts above. Opener ‘The Threat Level Is in these very pages. A bit like a reversal of Orange’ is fifteen minutes long and not a the old tears-behind-the-laughter cliché. second is wasted. The five-minute ambient We’ll take his word for it anyway, and he’s industrial grind, full of soporific menace, certainly right about the songs thing. Here that introduces the song gradually emerges are two more of his grim-faced industrial into an almost ghostly slo-mo metal dance anthems, leaning more towards the assault, packed with reigned-in aggression primitive acid house side of things than his and a keen grasp of tension. The sound is more full-on industrial projects of before. dense, almost claustrophobic at times, `Take It’ is all bubbling synth rhythms and three guitars, sequencers and Marco’s digital pulses that remind us pleasingly of rasping, distorted vocals locked in combat Andrew Eldritch’s Sisterhood project (no, with a hammering, incessant piano refrain. we don’t expect you to know what the hell It’s like a melting pot of Earth, Tool, we’re talking about, not unless you’re well Trans-Am and Skinny Puppy and by the versed in obscure 80s goth music, what like time it’s reached monolithic status around we just happen to be), although the vocals the thirteen minute mark, you’re utterly initially sound like the terrified squeaks of hooked on it. After that there’s the clamour someone who’s just spotted a strange face and buzz of ‘Ambience Of The Void’, its at the window at midnight. The snarly, gothic atmospherics, with their touches of growly nasty stuff makes more of an Echo and the Bunnymen’s darker moments, appearance on `Never Stop’, a club- precipitating an avalanche of guitar fuzz. friendly industrial dance slab. Well, just so ‘The Threat Level Is Red’ revisits the epic long as the club in question is Slimelight opener, this time in a more electronic, and the year is somewhere around 1995. almost Eno-ish vein, but it all points to one Which, translated, means it’s actually quite thing: Xmas Lights are an awesome good, if a little dated. prospect. DUPPY KILLA A confusing, amusing demo that has something, but we’re not quite sure exactly MATTHEW COLLINS how much, to do with Nightshift demo Singer-songwriters are ten-a-penny, but page regular Asher ‘AJ’ Dust. That’s his decent ones, even half-decent ones, are an trademark scrawl on the letter at least and altogether rarer commodity. Matthew the lo-fi dub-ragga-electro mix-up is Collins couldn’t be considered a radical definitely his style, but this is a CD of off- departure from the standard folky-pop the-wall rasta tales rapped, toasted or just emoting blueprint by even the most freeform narrated by a series of guest demented crack addict but there’s enough vocalists, mainly in full-on patois. “Duppy gentle charm here to save his tender tonsils Killa does not endorse the lyrics or and fret fingers from surgical removal by sentiments of ‘Ras Whitey’” says the letter Nightshift’s semi-trained team of sonic of the first track, about a white American retribution surgeons. There’s some mellow rasta who moves to America who ends up acoustic guitar and a softly rocking backing getting a right old hiding from the locals, band behind Matthew’s hushed although the sentiments behind the track transatlantic voice, and he seems to be able are open to debate. ‘Black Madeba’ to avoid self pity throughout the three appears to be about masturbating and not having a job, while best of the lot is Badly Drawn Boy for the rest of the time, ‘Bless’, which sounds like a dubbed-out Belgraves, like Beelzebozo, seem unwilling old gospel blues lament over a selection of to go anywhere fast, but unlike electronic bleeps, bloops and boings. It’s all Beelzebozo, they don’t have the punching a bit like stumbling across an old Czech power to make up for it. Instead they animation on Channel 4 at three in the trundle drearily round in ever decreasing morning and if it’s all a bit of a babble circles for what seems like several weeks, you’re somehow pleased that someone the shouty singer struggling to keep up went to the effort of making it. even with this pedestrian rock. Could this music be any more devoid of character, BEELZEBOZO charm or originality? Almost certainly not. Rising from the ashes of much underrated local metallers Mook, Beelzebozo - named LAURA LOST after a Bill Hicks sketch – already find At least this has got a bit of vim about it. themselves the most regularly misspelt Laura Lost (that’s the name of the band, band name in Oxford. But the real darkness although their singer is called Laura and THE COURTYARD STUDIO lies within. Sort of. Understandably, given their website tends to go on a bit about OTARI MTR90 MK11, 24 TRACK TAPE their vaguely satanic moniker, Beelzebozo them being, like, lost. Man) purport to be MACHINE & MTA 980, 32/24/24 CONSOLE, are a glum bunch, clocking in at around the in awe of The Pixies, which is never a bad SOUNDSCAPE DIGITAL EDITOR, SUPERB 25bpm count, seemingly almost too thing, and it’s very apparent on this demo’s CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION OF sluggish to drag their heavy carcass across lead track, ‘Tragic’, which could actually be OUTBOARD GEAR, MIDI FACILITIES INCLUDE the room for the punch-up it vaguely ‘Gigantic’, apart from its bassline, which LOGIC AUDIO, 8 MEG S1000, etc thought of starting. But then like those big appears to be nicked from ‘And Then He old bruisers you encounter in proper old Kissed Me’. Further in there’s some decent RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES OPTIONAL fashioned pubs that haven’t cottoned on to frantic fizz-pop, somewhere between The Nobby’s Nuts and any smoking ban is B52s, Go-Gos and the poppier moments of unlikely to be enforced, they don’t have to Hole; Laura’s voice tends towards the Phone KATE or PIPPA for details move quickly to get the job done. At their sweet-natured girly style, not far off on 01235 845800 most urgent there is an almost militaristic Belinda Carlisle, when she’s not doing the insistency about Beelzebozo. While Mike shouty, screamy bit. The only real Gilpin’s growly croon adds a melodic edge downside is the power ballad, ‘House’, that might steal a little of the guitar’s which is overblown and all a bit like menace, it does make for an interesting end something Gwen Stefani might have penned result – kind of like Neil Diamond finding in a particularly uninspired moment. Other himself at the helm of a death metal band. than that, promising stuff. Now, who fancies a pint and a fight? CITY LIGHTS JUST THE DEMO BURN DUMPER So here’s this month’s obligatory thrashy, trashy, vaguely emo-fied slice of lightweight punky guitar pop. It’s got SEVEN DAYS everything we now expect – yapping vocals, a couple of slow breakdowns and a LATER general feeling of being young and hard Ooh! Metal! Big grungy powerchords! Is done by in life. But it seems to have a bit good! Hurray! But oh no! What’s this? A of bite about it. At least until it loses any sensitive young man with social interaction sense of purpose or direction and starts to issues has is here to spoil the rocking party flounder in a murky sea of pedestrian indie and tell us all how cruel the world has been fuzz, the singer perhaps accidentally to him. In a loud foghorn voice. In the sounding rather like David Gedge when background someone is screaming at his he’s not whining loudly. The whole demo is girlfriend for necking the last can of Stella. a bit like hurling a bucket of soup against a Or it could be the backing vocalist trying to wall – there’s the initial, pleasing splat, tell the guitarist to play something a little followed by an increasingly laboured slither less generic. It’s painful. The song ends. down the tiles. There is silence. For two whole bloody minutes. Then the second track starts. It sounds the same. Mr Old Misery Guts and BELGRAVES Mr Angry are back and now they’re Clunky, almost funky indie rock of the engaged in a tussle, hopefully to the death, most lumpen non-vintage. Fronted by a for the last twiglet. Meanwhile, everyone chap who fancies himself as the new Liam else has buggered off to join Lemmy’s Gallagher for much of the time and the new shindig on the other side of the universe.

Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1ZU. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact address and phone number (no email or mobile- only). No more than four tracks on a demo. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. Aw heck, you’re not taking the slightest bit of notice of this are you?