[email protected] @NightshiftMag nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 231 October Oxford’s Music Magazine 2014 “Nothing makes our hearts sink more than a soppy

photo:Johnny Moto boy/girl acoustic duo” photo:Johnny Moto

THETHE AUGUSTAUGUST LISTLIST OXFORD DUPLICATION CENTRE Oxford’s first couple of [email protected] Office: 01865 457000 Mobile: 07917 775477 Supporting Oxfordshire Bands with porch folk come down Affordable Professional CD Duplication from the hills. FANTASTIC BAND RATES Also in this issue: ON ALL SERVICES Introducing PEERLESS PIRATES Professional Thermal Printed CDs Full Colour/Black & White Spring Offensive split. Silver or White Discs OxfordOxford cancelled Design Work Support Digital Printing plus Packaging Options Fulfilment

All your Oxford music news, previews and Recommended by Matchbox Recordings Ltd, Poplar Jake, Undersmile, Desert Storm, Turan Audio Ltd, Nick Cope, Prospeckt, Paul Jeffries, Alvin reviews, and six pages of local gigs. Roy, Pete The Temp, Evolution, Coozes, Blue Moon and many more... NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net

month. The festival, due to be held in South Park at the end of September, with a day of live music featuring The Klaxons, Gaz Combes and Katy B among others, was planned as the first in a series of annual festivals in the park, but poor ticket sales and issues with one of the main acts apparently left organisers with no WILD SWIM provide the option but to pull the plug. soundtrack for Fast Track, a new A statement on the festival site play which runs at The North Wall said, “A number of factors in in Summertown this month. Jamie September, including an uncertainty Jay and Carlos Posada from the with a previously confirmed artist, band have composed the music alongside poor local ticket sales, for the play, written by Catriona have forced this decision. The Kerridge and directed by Lucy whole team, including partners, has SPRING OFFENSIVE look set to split following a final show in Maycock, and will perform it live at tirelessly worked around the clock Oxford. Although the band say their parting of the ways is not definitely each performance from the 2nd – 4th to try to make the event work, but permanent they have no plans to work together for the foreseeable October. unfortunately we are not in the future. The pair’s work comes as Wild position to continue any further.” Speaking to Nightshift, guitarist Theo Whitworth, explained the Swim –who won BBC Introducing’s Ticketholders can get refunds from band’s decision to go on indefinite hiatus: ““After November, all five Band of the Year Award in 2013 point of purchase. of us are going to start spending our time on other things. We have no – prepare to return to action after plans to play any more shows, or to record any more music. We can’t university courses finished. Jamie STORNOWAY have added a say that these things will definitely never happen again – our astrology told Nightshift, “I finished uni this second night to their concert at the skills aren’t what they could be – just that we can’t promise you’ll hear summer, and am now permanently Sheldonian Theatre next month. After anything from us after 2014. We put more years than we care to name based back in Oxford, which is great their show at the historic theatre on into the all-consuming musical dream factory, and in return it gave us an for the band. The album recordings Thursday 13th November sold out in album and a half, two EPs, a sackful of singles and recordings, endless have been put on the backburner, a matter of hours, the band added a touring to incredible places, a carbon footprint the size of a medium- but the songs we wrote for it are second show on Wednesday 5th. The sized country, five sets of dusty lungs and unhappy livers, and a load of still very much in play. I guess concerts mark the fifth anniversary truly amazing friends and fans. And we wouldn’t give any of it back, we thought we should regroup of Stornoway becoming the first non- no matter what you’re offering. We cannot think of a better way to have after we had all finished our other classical act to play at the Christopher spent this time. We did it all ourselves, and we are very fucking proud. commitments, then do something Wren-designed venue. Tickets for We’ve loved every minute, which, in a weird and unexpected way, is smaller and stronger like an EP, with the show are on sale exclusively why we decided we just had to take a break.” a view to doing an album much later through Wegottickets.com, priced £18 Having formed at school in Oxfordshire, Spring Offensive rapidly on. So we’re currently in the studio (+booking fee). rose to become local favourites, selling out a series of hometown getting the EP down, which will Mean while the band’s Pledgemusic shows, playing various festivals, touring Europe, gracing the cover hopefully come out sometime early campaign for their third album, of Nightshift’s 200th issue in 2002 and earlier this year released their next year. currently being recorded with acclaimed debut album, `Young Animal Hearts’, financed by an “The play, Fast Track, is looking producer Gil Norton, is ongoing. inventive Pledgemusic campaign that even gave fans the opportunity really great. Carlos and I have Visit www.pledgemusic.com/ to be kidnapped by the band. Last year they relocated to London but done some musical work for Lucy projects/stornoway to contribute remained an Oxford band at heart, and they will play their final show at Maycock’s productions in the past, and maybe nab yourself a treat. the O2 Academy on Thursday 20th November but this will be our first original “There’ll be old songs and a few surprises,” promises Theo, “come and score. We’ll be performing live GLASS ANIMALS release a sing along with us. Who knows when we’ll get to do it again.” throughout the play. There are even new single this month. `Hazey’, Tickets for the O2 show should be on sale soon from the venue box some songs interspersed over the released on the 13th October on office. Check the band’s Facebook for updated news. course of the action, which will Paul Epworth’s Wolftone label, is hopefully add to the overall feel and the latest track to be taken from the tone of Kerridge’s wonderful script. band’s debut album `ZABA’, which over the Wheatsheaf over the AUDIOSCOPE returns next We’ve had a fantastic time working has now been streamed 8million weekend of the 3rd-5th October. month. The mini-festival, which with such inspiring and unique times globally. Following on from Friday night features sets from since its inception in 2001, has people in such an inspiring and their showing at Bestival, Glass Osprey’s OX4 Allstars, These Are raised £30,000 for homeless charity unique space; there’s a very distinct Animals toured in the US throughout Our Demands, Gemma Moss and Shelter, takes place on Saturday 8th sense of family in Maycock’s September and will head off on a Purple May, while Saturday night November at The Jericho Tavern; productions.” UK tour, starting in Liverpool on the sees Fracture, Knights of Mentis, the line-up will be announced Tickets for Fast Track are on sale 10th October. Visit glassanimals.eu Des Barkus and Charms Against in early October. The festival, now, priced £12 (£10 concessions), for more gig dates. The Evil Eye performing. Sunday renowned for its adherence to from www.thenorthwall.com. takes the form of a free session in leftfield and esoteric music, has KLUB KAKOFANNEY celebrate the downstairs bar from 2pm, with previously featured the likes of OXFORDOXFORD FESTIVAL their 23rd anniversary with a sets from Puppet Mechanic, Twizz Four-Tet, Wire and Damo Suzuki. was cancelled a week before the weekend of live music this month. Twangle, Beard of Destiny, Les Visit www.audioscope.co.uk for event was due to take place last The long-running club night takes Clochards and Moon Leopard. tickets and line-up news. PMT on Cowley Road to travel showing of the award-winning Delian round the Greek Islands with two Mode film by Kara Blake. friends, recording their adventures Talking about the event OCM on camcorders, the results of which programmer Tim Ferguson Hand can be seen in ten-minute snippets said, “This is something I’ve wanted NEWSrd at c90dreams.wordpress.com. to do for a while, to acknowledge numbers on Friday 3 October at the east Oxford cinema. Tickets are The all-Oxford soundtracks to each some of the individuals within on sale now, priced £10, from www. episode also feature Manacles of contemporary music who have had uppcinema.com Acid, Message to Bears, The Tamily a significant impact, perhaps people Machine, Beta Blocker and the who are lesser known or are generally PEERLESS PIRATES release a Bodyclock and We Aeronauts. seen not to have had the recognition new single this month. `El Gringo’ they deserve. Delia Derbyshire is b/w `For Queen & Country’ was DONNINGTON COMMUNITY a case in point really, employed by Nightshift’s Demo of the Month FESTIVAL runs over the afternoon the Radiophonic Workshop, who th in August and is now available to and evening of Saturday 11 produced huge amounts of electronic download from soundcloud.com/ October. The mini-festival, in its A TRIBUTE TO DELIA Radiophonic Workshop and best music and effects for the BBC, she peerless-pirates. And you can read second year, features a full day DERBYSHIRE provides the known for creating the theme arranged the Doctor Who theme more about the band in this month’s of free live acoustic music at centrepiece of Oxford Contemporary tune to Dr Who. Unrecognised tune into the version we’re familiar DUOTONE release their long- Introducing feature on page 21. Donnington Community Centre Music’s autumn series of Pioneers and unrewarded in her lifetime, with. Her influence has spread far awaited third album next year. The in Townsend Square. Acts playing events. The shows aim to Derbyshire died in 2001 but has and wide, from Aphex Twin to Sonic “band”, the work of cellist Barney OXFORD MUSIC FESTIVAL include Des Barkus, Beard of acknowledge significant pioneers lately been hailed as one of the Boom. As well as this she was a Morse-Brown, will release `Let’s has announced the names of the Destiny, Charms Against the Evil in musical history through live most important figures in electronic woman in electronic music at a period Get Low’ in March 2015. If you first acts to be announced for CATWEAZLE CLUB celebrates its 20th anniversary with a special show Eye, Daisy, Mark Atherton and performances, art installations and music. when it was predominantly male can’t wait til then, Barney will November’s week-long celebration at The Holywell Music Room next month. Friends, Moon Leopard, Oxford films. As part of the event there will be and was turned down for some jobs be playing at Oxjam this month, of Oxford music. Desert Storm, The weekly club has earned a reputation as the best open mic night Ukuleles, Phil & Sue, Richard Delia Darlings host the Derbyshire new musical compositions by Daniel because of it too. Many people have launching the city-wide takeover at Balloon Ascents, The August List, in Oxford, showcasing local and travelling singers, musicians, poets, Brotherton, STEM, Superloose, and evening at the North Wall on Weaver, artist Andrea Pazor will be heard of Berio or Stockhausen but I’d th the Turl Street Kitchen at 3pm. He Peerless Pirates, Knights of Mentis, storytellers, performance artists and more every Thursday at East Oxford Tony Batey. Thursday 9 October, the creating digital visual artwork, and put Delia up there with them in terms will also be joining in Catweazle’s Vienna Ditto, Man Make Fire, Community Centre, which has been its home for the past decade. It Manchester collective having there will be live performances by of intellect and creativity.” 20th anniversary celebration at the Northeast Corridor, The Kites, Twat has been hailed in The Times and Guardian as well as on Radio 4 as an THE JACK RUSSELL in Marston composed several new pieces of Caro C and Mailis Ni Riain, as well Tickets for the event are on sale now, Holywell Music Room on Saturday Daddies, The Sea The Sea, The essential part of Oxford’s cultural make-up. is set to close this month to make music inspired by the electronic as an immersive audio-visual collage priced £14 (£10 concessions) from 1st November. Find out more at Mighty Redox, The Shapes, Death Musicians Matt Sage (pictured) started Catweazle in 1994 after moving way for flats, leaving the weekly music legend, part of the BBC’s of the Delia Derbyshire gallery and a www.ocmevents.org. www.duotonemusic.com. of Hi-fi, Crayon, The Matt Edwards to Oxford from London, initially at the Victoria pub in Jericho, before blues jam without a home for the Band and Go On, Do It, Jump will moving to Jude the Obscure and later Northgate Hall and the Wheatsheaf, forseeable future. The Thursday jam AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into interviews and sessions with local musicinoxford.co.uk. The site also THE DREAMING SPIRES be joined by a host of other acts before finding its current home. He talked to Nightshift about the club’s has been running for over 15 years BBC Oxford Introducing every acts. The show is available to features interactive reviews, a photo present a special screening of the at venues across the city in the beginnings and longevity and what has made it such an essential part of at various venues and organisers Saturday night between 8-9pm on stream or download as a podcast at gallery and gig guide. documentary Big Star: Nothing week of the 25th-30th November. the local scene, offering an intimate and welcoming outlet for aspiring are looking for a suitable venue. 95.2fm. The dedicated local music bbc.co.uk/oxford. Nightshift’s online form is open to Can Hurt Me this month as part Bands wanting to play should visit local artists, including Stornoway and Foals’ Yannis Phillipakis, who Hopefully some good news next show plays the best Oxford releases Regularly updated local music all local music fans and musicians of The Ultimate Picture House’s the Oxford City Festival page on made their earliest live outings at Catweazle. month. and demos as well as featuring news is available online at www. at nightshift.oxfordmusic.net. autumn programme. The Dreaming Facebook. “I’m not sure how we have lasted so long, to be honest. I’ve just kept Spires, formed by Truck Festival turning up every week and so, thankfully, have quite a few other people. founders Robin and Joe Bennett, JONQUIL, FIXERS AND Those weeks and months have somehow turned into twenty years. Many will bookend the screening of the TOLIESEL contribute to the of those who come – both audience and performers – tend to feel very film about the highly influential soundtrack of a series of travelogue fondly about Catweazle, and have made it their own. This has helped the Memphis band, featuring previously videos being serialised online by club to grow some deep and sturdy roots in our community. Since 1994, unseen footage of the band, with Family Machine frontman Jamie it hasn’t really changed at all – and I think that may well be part of its sets of their own songs and Big Star Hyatt. The singer quit his job at charm. SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER “We don’t actually have a mic, so we are not really an open mic at all, we are more of a listening space. This is the crucial difference: as a THE JERICHO TAVERN, OXFORD HUDSON TAYLOR join Oxford supergroup Burning Bees and a host musician myself, I have always felt that performers being heard is of the of other local acts for a charity gig at the Isis Farmhouse this month. The utmost importance, and it may be counter-intuitive, but for this to happen gig, titled We Love Highfield, which aims to raise money for the Highfield you don’t need a PA, you just need to create an environment and a culture LINEUP TO BE ANNOUNCED VERY Adolescent Mental Health Unit at the Warneford Hospital, takes place at the in which simply listening to the performers is normal. At Catweazle, we SOON: JOIN THE MAILING LIST AT Isis Farmhouse, near Iffley Lock on Saturday 4th October. Irish folk-pop almost always have a packed room in which you can clearly hear every brother Hudson Taylor signed to Polydor earlier this year and will support Jake note and phrase of the performer. There is nothing in the way, no barrier WWW.AUDIOSCOPE.CO.UK TO BE Bugg on his UK tour later this month. Burning Bees, fronted by singer Stuart between performer and audience. That’s what makes Catweazle different. THE FIRST TO FIND OUT! Hobbs, feature Candyskins former drummer John Halliday, The Samurai 7’s “It’s been both exciting and a drag to change venues. We have been in singer Simon Williams, Zodiac founder and sometime Ride keyboardist Nick East Oxford – our eighth venue – for ten years now. Cowley Road is the Moorbath and erstwhile Sinead O’Connor bassist and current tour engineer real centre of Oxford, and it feels like home to us. The community centre for Newton Faulkner Spike Holifield in their ranks. They’re joined by The is still on vulnerable ground as we speak, but we aim to be there for the music music Family Machine, ToLiesel, Jess Hall, Peerless Pirates, Talc Daemons and foreseeable future. at for a good for a more. Tickets, priced £20, are on sale from Wegottickets.com. “We had our tenth birthday at the Holywell because someone at home good three home oxford Northgate Hall – our home at the time – had gone on holiday with the edition keys, and with only 48 hours to sort out an alternative, I got lucky. This time we’re there by design and we are going to have around 20 different TWO AMAZING COMPILATIONS Come and say hello, buy Music For A FEATURING THE BEST LOCAL acts, friends old and new, to help us celebrate this quirky little creative AND INTERNATIONAL MUSIC! community of ours, in suitably spectacular fashion. Good Home limited edition CDs and enjoy live music from VIENNA DITTO, WITH AMON TOBIN, FUTURE OF “I think it’s the atmosphere, the deep sense of community and the trust JORDAN O’SHEA and TAMARA! THE LEFT, UNDERSMILE, THE that even if one or two people on the bill are not your cup of tea, there ORIGINAL RABBIT FOOT SPASM BAND, CHROME HOOF, JESS HALL will always be something on that is guaranteed to blow your mind that SUNDAY 28 SEPTEMBER AND LOADS MORE keeps people coming back to Catweazle every week. It is these factors SOUTH PARK, OXFORD BUY THEM ONLINE AT upon which our reputation has been built, and that is also a reliable 11.00 AM–2.00 PM • FREE! WWW.MUSICFORAGOODHOME.COM reason that people feel inspired to come – and to keep on coming.” th Catweazle’s 20 anniversary celebration takes place at the Holywell WWW.AUDIOSCOPE.CO.UK on Saturday 1st November. Tickets, priced £10, are on sale from WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/AUDIOSCOPEFESTIVAL WWW.TWITTER.COM/AUDIOSCOPE Wegottickets.com. The weekly club takes place every Thursday at East WWW.SHELTER.ORG.UK Oxford Community Centre. Visit catweazleclub.com. photo:Johnny Moto unsettling, basedontraditional classic Americana: homelybut The pair’s songsaresteeped in Carolina. a logcabininthemiddleofNorth Mountains ofNew York State,or they’d juststeppedoutoftheCatskill to listentheirmusic,you’dthink (not farfromChinnortobeprecise), on ahillsideinruralOxfordshire existence, livinginaconvertedbarn to ouridealisedpictureoftheir Martin –doconformveryclosely List –Kerraleighandhusband Because whileThe August racoon. sat onit. And maybeanelk. And a long asthere’s alarge, sad-eyed dog room willhavetosuffice.Justso Still,abatteredoldsofaintheliving porch folk. of theirfabulouslyrusticbackwoods harmonicas inhand,composingmore hammock ofanevening,banjosand vision ofthepairlaidupina Nightshift The August List,hasjustdispelled half ofmarriedcouplemusicalduo, Kerraleigh Childs,one so weprefer tositinthelounge.” chair underit.Italsoleaksprofusely would bedifficulttofita rocking “We have THE AUGUST LIST ’s possibly overly-romantic A quietword with a porch,but it

What Oxfordshire setting. music traditionuptodateandintoan duo bringingatraditional American Ditto, anotherlocalmale-female Project Records,hometooto Vienna released thismonthonUbiquity List’s debutalbum,`OHinterland’, Bothsongsappearon The August and JuneCarter. White StripesasitistoJohnnyCash Rod OfLightning’ isascloseto The signature tune,thesteely`Forty- by DollyParton,whilethecouple’s Sabbath’s `Paranoid’ reinterpreted by Nightshift single, `All To Break’ wasdescribed energy andattitude. Their recent and runthroughbyrock’n’roll invaded bymoremodernsounds, acoustic instrumentsbutoccasionally little hangdog, Kerraleigh’s voice While Martin isunderstatedanda into theirmusictogether canmuster. only twopeoplewho havegrown harmonising withachemistrythat turns toleadtheline,orduelling comes tosinging,eithertakingitin the twoshareequalbillingwhenit often andjustifiablycompared, Handsome Family, towhomthey’re and Martin.Unlikesay, The vocal partnershipbetweenKerraleigh August Listapart,though,isthe really ’s reviewer asBlack sets The long torealise theyhadplenty in circumstances, it didn’t take thepair Despitethoseearly difficult married.” together and,afewyearslater, got was thatwehadmeteachother, got The onlygoodthatcamefromit bitten off farmorethanIcouldchew. experience andsoonrealisedIhad full-length featurefilmwithnoreal I gavemyselftwoweekstofilma from directingittofeedingeveryone. was fundingitanddoingeverything me withstressandmalnutrition.I film wasterribleandithospitalized an actress,”explainsMartin,“the on boardasshewasstartingout of myscriptsandKerraleighcame to shootalowbudgetversionofone “Ithoughtitwouldbeagoodidea actress. Kerraleigh hadambitionstobean Martin wasdirectingatatimewhen met duringthemakingofafilmthat here acoupleofyearsago. The pair where theyliveduntilmoved August List’s rootslieinDorset “backwoods porch-folk”act, The standing asOxford’s favourite Despite their heart. own words,anacousticbullettothe Lynn. Puttogethertheyare,intheir is startling,akintoayoungLoretta current well.” ground andfedus creativelyas environment suited usdowntothe day ornightandthe wholerustic meant wecouldplaymusicloud and wetookitstraightaway. It middle ofnowhereinOxfordshire tiny barnthingtorentonahillinthe Maidenhead house,sowefounda divorced andneededusoutofthe couple ofyearsourlandlordgot moved nearMaidenhead. After a She movedupwithme,thenwe down inDorsetandmetKerraleigh. due toworkwhenIdidmyfilm I wasalreadylivingin Twickenham Martin:“We’re bothfromDorsetbut camp inOxfordshire. List lefttheirDorsetrootsandsetup Grant Conspiracysong, The August Taking theirnamefrom a Willard to Metallicaveryloudly, though.” me. Istilldooccasionallylisten songs andwhosheisreallyinspired Coat’, really The JennyLewisalbum,‘RabbitFur then Iwouldgoouthuntingforstuff. the moreitseepedintomybloodand But, themoreIwasexposedtoit, didn’t getit;IlistenedtoMetallica. He’d playmeSilverJewsandI much allweird Americana stuff. had avastcollectionofmusic.Pretty Kerraleigh:“Whenwemet,Martin common. gottome:thelyrics, a wideraudience. We alsofound us withgigsandgetting usoutto his Pindropenterprise, hashelped nights heputon, and Seb,through his Truck daysandthe Tertium Quid have alsohelpedusalot,Mattfrom Matt ChapmanandSebReynolds to playshows,whichwasfantastic. a suddenweweregettingbooked in January2013)meantthatallof Skin wasaDemooftheMonthback Nightshift Store helpedtopushthatEP and never havegotanygigshere. Truck of thosetwoinstitutionswewould Truck Store,butwithoutthesupport scared toapproach EP, ‘HandsomeSkin’,andwewere time wehadjustrecordedourfirst to notwanttaketherisk. At the it’s understandableforapromoter but ifyou’reanunknownquantity, for awhileitwasviciouscircle, Oxford togetagiginOxford.So that youneededtobegiggingin would tryandgetagig,butfound the promotersandvenues. We daunted byit,thebandsand scene. When wearrivedwere years nowandwelovetheOxford Martin:“We’ve beenhere two scene? how didthecouplefindlocal Moving toOxfordshire, with it.” infecting oursongsandwejustrun dangerous andwefindthosethings grand scalethat’s bothbeautifuland saw elkandbearsnatureona some ofthatoldweird America. We dancing infrontofhim,wesaw bench, didsome Appalachian clog day beforewesawsleepingona while a90-year-old man,whothe saw RaymondFairchildplaybanjo aren’t reallyonthetouristtrail. We back porch;wedrovetotownsthat immersing ourselvesin America’s it’s donethere! We thenspenttime by acreekbecausethat’s justhow took placeoutsideawoodencabin Smokey Mountainsandtheservice in NorthCarolinaonthesideof grown counterpart. We gotmarried Stateside stuff morethanthehome- culture, wegetsustenancefrom From films,novels, TV, musicand much greaterthanthatofEngland. The influenceof Americaonusis in isamythical Americana setting. the frameworkthatwepresentthem feelings anddreamsideas.But of usandtheyareourthoughts Kerraleigh:“Oursongscomeout wilderness, moreinfecttheirsongs. particularly theisolationand songs andstorieslandscapes, for The August List,orif American wonder ifthereissimilarinspiration inspired herwordsandmusic;we there andOxfordshirehowthey similarities anddifferences between the cover, andshetalkedaboutthe Country-born singer, JessHall,on Nightshift Earlier ’s kindwords(`Handsome featuredanother West this year Nightshift and recording music,so The August List, committed tothe old analoguewayof Just grateful tohimfortheexperience.” and whatwe’reupto. We’ll beforever from timetoseehowweare the recordingprocess.Hestillcalls us started tolearnwhatwewantedfrom on songs,grewastrongersetand a lotandwewentawayworked of thatsession. We didlearnahellof patience withusandnothingcameout proficient enoughandhekindoflost We didn’t havethesongs,weweren’t went backbutwejustweren’t ready. do atwo-daysessionwithhim. We enjoy himselfandheinvitedusto recording ourselves!Heseemedto was crazythatthisourfirsttime Grammy awardsknockingaround.It from areverbroomupstairsand analogue gear, all thereverbcoming of fire,recordingonto2”tape,all him asproduceranditwasabaptism We spentadayrecordingsongwith east Londonatthislegendarystudio. and beforeweknewit,werein back, butherespondedstraightaway we thoughtwe’dneverhearanything video ofusplayingafewsongsand Sartain. We senthimanemailwitha Golightly, BillyChildishandDan ‘Elephant’, weloved The Kills,Holly Liam Watson and Toerag. We loved the resultsof?’ Top ofthelistwas in Englandhaveweheardofandlike happen. Sowethought,`whatstudios ourselves athomewasnotgoingto useless withtechnology, sorecording to ask.Bothofusareabsolutely didn’t knowanyothermusicians any goodasatthetimewereally we hadnowayofknowingifitwas went toonewefoundontheinternet, any recordingstudiosandifwejust recorded anything. We didn’t know been goingawhilebuthadn’t when wewentto Toerag. We had Kerraleigh:” We werereallynaïve and daunting. that calibremusthavebeenexciting `Elephant’. Working with someone of had engineered The White Stripes’ London withLiam Watson, who legendary Toerag Studiosin recorded thatfirstdemoatthe from theoff, The August List Musically to helpandnurturebands.” scene ingeneral.Oxfordseemsbuilt support usandthewholeOxford reasons. BBCRadioOxfordreally doing her ATP nightsforalltheright inspiring forceinthemusicscene, Tamara Parsons-Bakerquitean dangerous andwefindthosethingsinfecting “ T as We saw elkandbearsnatureona grand scalethat’s bothbeautifuland our songsandwejustrunwithit.” oerag ambitious remains

couple, withthemusical andonstage Despite being to haveplayin time withothers!” experience forus.It’s anovelconcept of abandthereis,butit’s allanew drums; themostbasicingredients So wehavebass,electricguitarand go liveandtheyallfoolishlyagreed. album ifthey’dbewillingtogiveit a asked everyonewhoplayedonthe sound liketheydoontherecord. We a coupleofshowswherethesongs different. We wanted todoatleast Martin:“It’s goingtobevery as wellafewguestappearances. musicians whoplayedonthealbum, with afullband,featuringmanyofthe the habitofalifetimeandplayset Hinterland’s’ launchthepair will ditch And thismonth,tocelebrate`O widescreen feel.” longer timearrangingtogiveitamore one trackonthealbumthatwespenta it couldbebiggerandsowasthe drum beat,butitalwayssoundedlike with justacousticguitarandbasic We usedtoperform‘LongDivision’ a bitofpedalsteelonitandmandolin. the recordingprocess;firstEP has We neverwanttoruleanythingoutof fuckin’ loud!’,asajokeynodtothat! live wealwayssaytoeachother, `play Kerraleigh:“Haha!Beforeweplay shout “Judas!”atyounextgig? synths onafewtracks.Dowegetto on `LongDivision’ onthealbum,and Sayingthat,you’vegotelectricguitar backs orcollapsingfromexhaustion.” car tostagewithoutbreakingour manage tocarryaroundwithusfrom amount ofstuff wecancomfortably a duo,wenowhavethemaximum children’s toys!Forustoperformas and alltheotherbitsweusearecheap some woodandakickdrumpedal the tambourinemachineImadefrom 1950s andcostusabout£30onebay, and percussion. The drumisfromthe melodicas, stylophones,kickdrums texture aswecouldwithharmonicas, so wewentaboutaddingasmuch we don’t wanttoborethecrowd, cover anythingup. At thesametime, twenty minuteelectricguitarsoloto it, becausethereisn’t goingtobea and thesongbestwecanmake forced tomakewhatthereisgood, the audienceandsong,sowe’re There’s verylittletogetbetween cut orwe’reoutsidesomewhere. same showevenifthere’s apower of beingacoustic. We canplaythe Martin:“We likethedirectness instruments, whiletryingtorockout. acoustic, withanarrayofhome-made live atleast,arecommittedtostaying a married the Bullingdonon Thursday9 August Listlaunchthealbumat Ubiquity ProjectRecords;The `O Hinterland’ isoutnowon managerial role.” Flatbed truck.Iwouldtakeapurely Hillbillies anddrivea1922Buick course. They’d becalled The Oxford names onandstrawhats.Noshoesof could allweardungareeswiththeir We’d havetogetabiggerbarn. They Martin:“That’s afrighteningthought. country-folk bandtogether? dozen kidswhoallgrowuptobeina Canyouimaginehavinghalfa skills. where wecanperfectourhermit place soit’s nicetohaveabolthole much, wealwaysfeelabitoutof than people. We don’t socializethat and cowsoutofthewindowrather thing forrent.It’s nicetoseehorses lucky tostumbleonfindingthebarn Kerraleigh:“Prettyclose. We got together? a woodyhillsideandmakingmusic romantic idylloflivingtogetheron So,howcloseareyoureallytothat can bepainful.” them onFacebook. theaugustlist tohear songs,orfind October. Visit soundcloud.com/ married coupleatanopenmic. That & Johnny. The worstarenormallya Brokeoffs, Shovels&Rope,Jenny Carter/Cash, HollyGolightly& The the divorce!– The White Stripes, Family, Low, Sonic Youth –before Martin:“Bestare The Handsome and wifecouplesinmusic? Who arethebestandworsthusband your presentationtohowwedoit.” just theoppositewayofdealingwith exaggerate it,thenthatiscool–it’s that perceptionbutthenplayonitand & HannahLouarealsoconsciousof blown row!Ithinkif Trevor Moss other couldescalatelaterintoafull the feelingthatthesejibesateach Handsome Familydoreallywell– deadpan andthatissomething The on stagethenthehumourisoften other. Ifwearefeelingtalkative whispering tweelovesongsateach attitude tohowweplayandnotbe wanted tohaveabitofrock’n’roll + acousticguitar=nausea. We always sometimes aperceptionofboy+girl are justveryconsciousthatthereis way weinteractwitheachother. We on stage;nothingisplannedinthe Kerraleigh:“We don’t haveashtick on stage? crime amusicalcouplecancommit Lou, andwhat’s thesingleworst soppiness of Trevor MossandHannah or The LovelyEggs,andtheOTT humour of, say The Handsome Family fit inwiththeonstagechemistryand on stage? Where dotheyfeel balance rightinthewaytheyinteract a How harddotheyfindittoget girl acousticduotakingtothestage. hearts sinkmorethanasoppyboy/ and Martinsaynothingmakestheir thatcanbring,Kerraleigh chemistry th

Sponsored by RELEASED THE AUGUST LIST BLANKDREAD `O Hinterland’ `Blankdread’ (Ubiquity Project Records) (Self-released) From Dorset, via Berkshire, The August List Andrew Jones, aka Asher Dust, the man behind now find themselves in residing in Oxford, but Blankdread, has been around the Oxford music their sound is far more transatlantic. “I’m gonna scene for a long time, bouncing tirelessly travel south by south west,” sings Martin Child around genres with an almost stream-of- on `Long Division’, a statement that hints at consciousness schedule of releases that have the place where many of these songs have their taken in hip-hop, trip-hop, grime, punk and hearts. Like Witney’s Ags Connolly, The August more. List are adept at adopting a Southern States feel ‘Blankdread’ is available free through to their sound while not compromising their Bandcamp, where it’s tagged as “bastardised authenticity, which is testament to the strength of dub jazz spokenword”; not a bad approximation their songwriting. for this free-wheeling, consciousness-expanding It’s perhaps inevitable that the husband and set of tracks. Over recent years it seems as if wife duo of Martin and Kerraleigh Child will each Jones/Dust release has formed an ever- draw comparisons to Brett and Rennie Sparks the lyrics of burying problems (`High Town busier combination of everything that went (otherwise known as The Handsome Family), but Crow’; `All To Break’) or putting emotions in before, both in his own music and in everything there are definitely similarities between them. a box rather than dealing with them (`Wooden he’s listened to. Kicking off with the offbeat The interaction between Martin and Kerraleigh Trunk Blues’; `Long Division’). All of which jazz drum hits of ‘Beautiful Black SheepLE’, both musically and vocally appears to operate means that eventually, there will surely be an the album is as much a confusing mess as it is on an almost instinctive level, and the content album further down the line where the band a glorious evisceration of one man’s musical of their songs, if not quite as grotesque as The really purge. vision. Although there’s a unique and familiar Handsome Family’s, still deals predominantly Still there’s some touching introspection to vocal voice – rooted in dubby hip-hop – at with the darker and more painful aspects of life. be found here, most notably on the standout its core, the music takes in terse, noisy alt- Don’t be misled however, The August List are `Ticking Of The Clock’. Delicate guitar and jungle (‘I Smoke Weed And I Chat Shit’; ‘Too rarely truly dour; in fact, it’s quite easy to miss banjo work provide a haunting backdrop Much Anger Is Causing Me Pain’), inverted the emotional resonance of their lyrics as they’re for Martin and Karraleigh to examine the ragamuffin toasting (‘Buffum Baffum’), elegant often delivered with exquisite vocal melodies fleeting nature of life and love, which turns blues-inflected soul-hop (‘We Are Fucked and inspired harmonies. `Cut Yr Teeth’ is a toe- out to be heartbreaking in the end, naturally. Anyway’) and, well, music that is categorisable tapping, almost pop effort that tries its best to The powerful balladry of `Red Light On The only by an increasingly lengthy list of nouns. be upbeat and generally succeeds. `Open Trunk Tower’ switches through the emotional gears The chaotic nature of the music is helped no Blues’ finds Kerraleigh accumulating emotional effortlessly and serves as a testament to The end by precise arrangements and production. baggage and assessing her life with a vocal August List’s songwriting skills as it makes It’s easy to overlook the complexity and delivered in tones that are an engaging mix of clever use of vocal layering to ensure maximum skill involved with this kind of noise; Public Kate Pierson and Steve Nicks, and possesses a impact. Enemy’s Bomb Squad and Beck’s production sublime hook that almost obscures the meaning If all that sounds too much, there’s always team on ‘Midnite Vultures’ spring to mind. of what she’s singing about. Similarly the foot- `Forty-Rod Of Lightnin’’s hoe-down singalong Overall it feels rather light-hearted and stomping `Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow’ is to perk things up a little. Ultimately, this is experimental, albeit with some contemporary almost too much fun. an assured and quite stunning debut from The or disturbing lyrical pepper spray (mentions Pay more attention, however, and the album August List; what comes next could be very of ISIS, the confrontational sounds of ‘Dutty is a morass of regret, love, loss and sadness. special indeed. Nigga (Suh Dem Seh’), and it’s far from Interestingly, there seems to be a theme within Sam Shepherd easy listening. It is, however, rewarding and fascinating. Hip-hop has been pulled almost to breaking MIKE ABBOTT point in many directions over the past thirty years; ‘Blankdread’ feels almost new, which in `Comfort Zone’ that landscape is no small feat. (Self-released) Simon Minter Having spent the last 15 years since leaving his tearjerkers as `Emma Jean’s Guitar’, `Catalogue native Yorkshire playing bass for various country Dreaming’, and JB Coats’ `The Sweetest acts around the UK, Mike Abbott has finally Gift’, but the real joys of this album are the decided to back tentatively into the spotlight clever phrases on his own numbers and how himself, with this, his first release; a collection of well they stand up against the grand tradition of seven classic country covers and five of his own wry country lyric writing; most notably his up to originals, penned with partner Mary Shakespeare. date take on the impersonal internet, in `Modem Recorded at his east Oxford (shed) studio, with World’ and the wonderful sing-along of `Status the generous help of a very long list of all-star Single’ (“No Dear John letter / No goodbye note local musicians and female backing singers, / Just Status Single / was all she wrote”). `Comfort Zone’ is a sometimes faltering and at It’s often said that a comfort zone is a beautiful other times captivating love letter to the last 70 place but nothing ever grows there. With really years of country music. good alternative versions of Don Williams’ Abbott’s unique vocal style – which I can only `She’s In Love With a Rodeo Man’ and Dylan’s describe as five parts Willie Nelson and five part `Forever Young’ tucked in here too, there are the gruff tones of the `Mahna Mahna’ Muppet definitely seeds in the ground. song – puts a new slant on such Hall of Fame Paul Carrera The Wheatsheaf – Second night of Klub Kak’s SUNDAY 5th birthday celebrations with bluesy indie rockers KLUB KAKOFANNEY with PUPPET Fracture, Americana ensemble Knights of Mentis, MECHANIC + TWIZZ TWANGLE + BEARD rock’n’roll trouper Des Barkus and indie pop OF DESTINY + LES CLOCHARDS + MOON people Charms Against the Evil Eye. LEOPARD: The Wheatsheaf (2pm) – Rounding WHAT YOU CALL IT, GARAGE: The Cellar off the Klub Kak birthday weekender with a free – UK garage, bass and grime club night afternoon session in the downstairs bar. GIG GUIDE TRASHY: O2 Academy – Big pop hits, kitsch faves and dancefloor fillers at the returning th st PEERLESS PIRATES + VIENNA DITTO + weekly club night. MONDAY 6 WEDNESDAY 1 SYNTRONIX: Fat Lil’s, Witney – 80s synth- SOUTHERN: O2 Academy – Dark, airy THE OTHER DRAMAS: The Jericho Tavern – th KOBRA & THE LOTUS: O2 Academy – country-blues from Belfast’s brother-sister duo. Tuesday 7 Rockabilly, rollicking indie and spaghetti western- pop hits. Anthemic, operatic metal from classically-trained OCTOBER BLACKTHORN + BEWARETHISBOY: ERJA LYTINNEN BAND: The Jericho Tavern themed fun from this month’s pirate-obsessed Canadian singer Kobra Paige and band, over in LX One, plus Oxford’s Mr Lager and Greece’s – Return to the Famous Monday Blues for Finnish SUPERSUCKERS: Introducing stars, alongside sci-fi voodoo blues James Street Tavern – Traditional British folk. the UK to promote new album `High Priestess’, Bluez. guitarist Erja who has earned herself an enviable from Vienna Ditto and sweet-natured acoustic pop THE SAM KELLY TRIO + KELLY OLIVER: having been signed by Gene Simmons and Tiddy Hall, Shipton-under-Wychwood – The reputation as a rising blues star in her native O2 Academy from The Other Dramas. If you describe yourselves as “The greatest supported Kiss, Def Leppard and Judas Priest nd Wychwood Folk Club hosts rising singer and country as well as working with British blues stars OKTOBERFEST: The Beacon, Wantage rock’n’roll band in the world,” and title along the way. THURSDAY 2 former BGT finalist Sam Kelly, recalling Seth like Ian Parker and Aynsley Lister. JIMMY LA FAVE & THE NIGHT TRIBE: – Two-day beer and music festival in south your Best Of album `How The Supersuckers OUTER LIMITS: The Cellar – Dubstep, garage Lakeman in his approach to folk traditions. CHRIS LESLIE: Nettlebed Folk Club – The St Alban’s Church – Empty Room Promotions Oxfordshire, with sets across the weekend from Became the Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in and bass club night with a set from Rinse FM’s OKTOBERFEST: The Beacon, Wantage Fairport Convention and Feast of Fiddles chap hosts Austin singer-songwriter La Fave, with his Reckless Sleepers, Adie Cant, Andy Robbins, the World’, you’ve got to be pretty good. returns to Nettlebed after last year’s sold-out solo th self-labelled “red dirt” style of music, adding Back 4, The Black Arrows, Blame Fate, Cam And Supersuckers are pretty good. Very Saturday 4 show. a lively classic rock’n’roll kick to traditional Cole, Jordan Jones, Justin Thomas, Natuma Duo, Saturday 4th good. Sometimes brilliant. They must have TOM VEK: country-folk and blues, a style that’s seen him Nina Schofield, Sara Robelo, The Star Men and been doing something right to last over a compared to Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and UK Tapestry. ROBYN TUESDAY 7th quarter of a century, release five albums The Bullingdon Bruce Springsteen. BLURD: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Blur tribute. SUPERSUCKERS: O2 Academy – Eddie on SubPop during that label’s grunge peak, When Tom Vek arrived on the scene back in WAYNE HUSSEY: O2 Academy – The former DISCO MUTANTES: The Library – Disco, HITCHCOCK: St Spaghetti brings the noise, and his Stetson, to and record and tour with Willie Nelson. 2005 with his debut album `We Have Sound’, Mission singer and Sisters of Mercy guitarist boogie and house club night. town – see main preview Although they formed in Arizona in 1988, on the at-the-time cool Go! Beat label, and heads out on a solo tour, playing songs from his John the Evangelist JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – The Bully’s Supersuckers will forever be known as a subsequently turned up on The OC and the new album, `Candlelight and Razorblades’, as th Robyn Hitchcock is the English psychedelic free weekly jazz night returns, tonight with The Seattle band, relocating there a year later soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto, it seemed well as tracks from across his band career. SATURDAY 4 troubadour’s English psychedelic troubadour. Stuart Henderson Quartet. and joining in with the emerging first wave HUDSON TAYLOR + BURNING BEES + the young graphic design graduate from CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford From his days in The Soft Boys, through A METAL RUBBER BAND: The Loft, Old of grunge, playing alongside Mudhoney et THE FAMILY MACHINE + TOLIESEL + Hounslow, born Thomas Vernon-Kell, was Community Centre – Oxford’s longest-running the creative highs fronting The Egyptians, Fire Station – Oxford Improvisers perform John al. While they never completely left grunge JESS HALL + PEERLESS PIRATES + TALC going to hit the big time. Instead he promptly and best open mic club builds up to next month’s to his extensive run of solo recordings, he’s Grieve’s piece for scraped metal and balloons. behind, the band – forever helmed by bassist DAEMONS: Isis Farmhouse – Charity all-dayer vanished, of his own volition, from the 20th anniversary celebration with a weekly never lost his tight but genial grip on a very Probably not one for Mumford and Sons fans. and singer Eddie Spaghetti – moved more in aid of HighfieldAdolescent Mental Health music industry for six years, and by the time showcase of singers, musicians, storytellers, poets peculiar sense of whimsy and humour. A REICHENBACH FALLS + DUOTONE: and more towards a country-inspired sound, Unit, featuring a headline set from Dublin’s he returned in 2011 with the long-overdue and performance artists. year after his last studio album, `Love From The Old Fire Station – Country rocking their mix of heads-down, no-nonsense rock musical brothers Harry and Alfie Hudson-Taylor, follow-up, `Leisure Seizure’, even many of THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf – London’, Hitchcock has again teamed up from Reichenbach Falls, alongside Duotone’s attitude and energy earning them the `cow- the folk-pop duo gearing up for a tour support his most ardent fans had forgotten he ever The veteran local swamp-blues crew open their with legendary producer Joe Boyd – whose cello’n’loops soundscaping. punk’ label. They’re a band who embrace with Jake Bugg and the release of the debut existed. But then, Tom Vek has never been monthly account with a free unplugged show in credits include Fairport Convention, Nick RECOGNISE: The Cellar – Launch night for cliché and overkill as old friends, from the album, having made their name busking on the an easy one to second guess, as his music the Sheaf’s downstairs bar. Drake and REM as well as being the man new house, disco, funk and garage club night. Stetsons on their heads to the pick-up trucks streets of their hometown. They’re joined by local regularly demonstrates. Possessed of a Beck- HURR SOUNDS: The Cellar – House, garage who plugged in Bob Dylan’s electric guitar OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern in their videos, and they rock in a way that supergroup Burning Bees; indie-folk heroes The like dedication to eclecticism, he can be and drum&bass club night. at that gig back in 1965 – for `The Man has never been in or out of fashion. After Family Machine; Americana starlets ToLiesel; garage rock one moment, synth-pop the next OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Upstairs’, his twentieth solo release (give a brief hiatus a few years ago, the band folk singer Jess Hall; roustabout indie rockers th and anything in between, while his obviously OPEN BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, or take), mixing up new original material WEDNESDAY 8 reconvened for tours with Thin Lizzy and Peerless Pirates and bluesmen Talc Daemons, plus meticulously planned albums exude a feeling Marston with a selection of covers. These range PATENT PENDING: O2 Academy – The New Nashville Pussy and now they’re off around more. of being haphazardly thrown together. Via from the characteristically obscure (I Was York state pop-punk veterans come to town as Europe for a series of headline club dates. TOM VEK: The Bullingdon – Impassioned, lurching guitars and electronic squiggles, A King’s `Ferries’), to better known cult part of a UK tour to promote new greatest hits Come on, how can you not love a band rd eclectic electro-rock chaos from the disappearing hints of Aphex Twin and LCD Soundsystem FRIDAY 3 classics like The Doors’ `The Crystal Ship’ mini album, `Mario & the Brickbreakers’, coming with lyrics like “you can use my dick as a KLUB KAKOFANNEY with OSPREY’S OX4 man – see main preview mingle uneasily with Iggy Pop and Weezer and Psychedelic Furs’ sublime `The Ghost in somewhere between Green Day, NOFX and walking stick”? ALLSTARS + THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS ROBYN HITCHCOCK: St John the on new album `Luck’, and he’s not afraid to In You’. To each he brings the deep, rich Blink 182. + GEMMA MOSS + PURPLE MAY: The Evangelist – The Psychedelic troubadour brings let his distinctly unmusical voice hold centre autumnal mood that has lately become his CRAYON + DON’T GO PLASTIC + IDEAL Wheatsheaf – Kicking off a full weekend of his new `The Man Upstairs’ album to town – see THE AUGUST LIST + CO-PILGRIM + stage, and he’s a refreshingly unpredictable stock in trade. Robyn has been a semi regular KOALA + RAYZO: The Wheatsheaf – Indie celebrations for its 23rd anniversary, Klub Kak main preview VIENNA DITTO: The Bullingdon – This artist within the boundaries of the traditional visitor to Oxford over the years, including rocking pitched partway between Radiohead’s plays host to local scene stalwart Osprey and his FONTI & MIGHTY MOE: The Bullingdon – month’s Nightshift cover stars launch their debut rock song. Make the most of tonight’s show a notable visit to the Academy in 2007 awkward electro-tinged doodling and Belle band, alongside pensive rockabilly noisemakers Garage, dancehall and drum&bass from the one- album, `O Hinterland’, with a full band show at – his first Oxford visit for nine years – it may where he was joined by most of REM, while & Sebastian sweetness from Crayon, plus These Are Our Demands, and freakazoid time Heartless Crew duo. the Bully where they’ll be joined by fellow local be the last you see of him for a decade or so. Radiohead watched on from the front row. funtime punk rocking from Don’t Go Plastic and ULTIMATE GENESIS: O2 Academy – Classic country crew Co-Pilgrim and sci-fi voodoo blues burlesque popster Gemma Moss. It’s a measure of the man’s standing as an cello’n’drums duo Ideal Koala. Genesis tracks performed by Los Endos. duo Vienna Ditto. FROM THE JAM: O2 Academy – The ones inspiration for generations of musicians and OXFORD ACOUSTIC CLUB: The Jericho th JOHN WHEELER: The Cellar – The Hayseed NINE BELOW ZERO: O2 Academy – The who aren’t Paul celebrate the 35 anniversary of if he’d balk at the idea of being a national Tavern – Unplugged night with sets from Ben Dixie frontman takes time out from his bluegrass near-legendary r’n’b pioneers return to Oxford `Setting Sons’ by playing it, without Paul. treasure, such a status can’t be far away. Avison, Samuel Edwards, Lucy Almond and SWITCH featuring DUKE DUMONT: O2 rendering of classic rock and metal anthems to go Hugh McManners. after supporting The Stranglers here back in Academy – Deep house and techno from Blasé out on a solo limb, travelling into jazz, punk, funk March, founding singer and guitarist Dennis Boys Club honcho Duke Dumont at tonight’s and electro. th Greaves still leading the band’s high-energy Switch club, the DJ and producer best known for THE ORIGINAL RABBIT FOOT SPASM THURSDAY 9 blues charge alongside fellow 9BZ veterans Mark Number 1 hits `Need U (100%)’ and `I Got U’. BAND + BALKAN WANDERER + DELIA DARLINGS: The North Wall – A Feltham and Brian Bethall. Having hit a creative DUCHESS + RUSSIAN COWBOYS + ONE ANASTASIA GURBUNOVA: The Jericho special tribute to electronic music genius Delia and commercial peak in the early-80s with albums WING LEFT + MOMENTO: The Bullingdon Tavern – Oxford’s finest gin joint-rocking hot Derbyshire – the woman behind Dr Who’s `Live At The Marquee’ and `Don’t Point Your – Samba-pop and Township dance from musical jazz and jump blues outfit host a Cold War and timeless theme tune, but a musical visionary Finger’, it’s always been live that the band have sunshine band Duchess, alongside funk-pop crew Soviet Russia-themed party, so you can queue beyond that particular piece. Sadly a genius and made their reputation. Russian Cowboys and indie rockers One Wing at the bar for bootleg vodka and stale bread and visionary who was never fully recognised in her JOHN OTWAY & WILD WILLY BARRETT: Left. dance to the band’s authentically 30s-sounding lifetime. With the discovery and examination of Old Fire Station – The old punk-era sparring SKYLARKIN SOUNDSYSTEM: The Cellar New Orleans r’n’b until the KGB cart you off to her extensive archive of music, which proves just partners reunite for the first time in many years to – Count Skylarkin’s monthly reggae, dancehall the nearest Gulag. how far ahead of the curve she was in the 1960s, promote Rock’n’Roll’s Greatest Failure – Otway and rocksteady rave-up, with live band to be KLUB KAKOFANNEY with FRACTURE Manchester’s Delia Darlings host an evening of the Movie, the pair having enjoyed their sole confirmed, plus the Count and chums on the + KNIGHTS OF MENTIS + DES BARKUS music inspired by her work, plus art, visuals and chart hit together, `Really Free’, in 1977 before decks. + CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE: films. Essential viewing. going on to joint and solo careers buoyed by a OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon The genial Jeremy Hughes hosts a full day of ebm club night with residents Doktor Joy and studiedly dishevelled young man plays acoustic HURR SOUNDS: The Cellar free live acoustic music, from blues and folk to Bookhouse. guitar and opens his heart with thrilling BAD REIGN + JACK LITTLE + ROB Americana and psychedelia, with sets from Des OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern consequences. Probably. We stopped listening LANYON: The Bell, Bicester – Hard rock and Barkus, Beard of Destiny, Charms Against the after about a minute and a half. metal from Bad Reign at tonight’s Strummer Evil Eye, Daisy, Mark Atherton and Friends, th LORRAINE McCAULEY & THE Room Project show. Moon Leopard, Oxford Ukuleles, Phil & Sue, WEDNESDAY 15 BORDERLANDS: Albion Beatnik Bookstore Richard Brotherton, STEM, Superloose, and ALEXIS TAYLOR: The Bullingdon – – Lush folk music from the Scottish and northern Rearranged from June, the Hot Chip pop boffin th Tony Batey. English traditions from singer McCauley and her returns to playing solo in support of his new FRIDAY 10 LEVEL 42: The New Theatre – Last time band in the intimate confines of Albion Beatnik BOSSAPHONIK 10th ANNIVERSARY album, `Await Barbarians’, the follow-up to we previewed a Level 42 gig in these pages bookstore. PARTY: The Cellar – The world jazz dance 2008’s `Rubbed Out’. While he has form in jazz we received a hilariously unhinged missive CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford club celebrates its decade anniversary in style improv (previously working with Pat Thomas th from one of their superfans, informing us that Community Centre Friday 10 with The Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra and and Charles Hayward in About Group), early “Mister Mark King would be very angry” with OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon th more – see main preview indications are that his new album is a more Thursday 16 th what we’d written. Turns out Mister Mark King A TRUST UNCLEAN + I, THE DECIVER: BOSSAPHONIK 10 CHUCK PROPHET & THE MISSION intimate form of the electro-pop he’s made his actually has an injunction against said superfan Fat Lil’s, Witney – Death metal and grindcore EXPRESS: The Bullingdon – Return to town name for. THE ORB: O2 which, given you’d imagine Level 42 would from rising local stars A Trust Unclean. ANNIVERSARY for the cult Americana songsmith – see main SPARKY’S JAM NIGHT: James Street be glad that anyone at all is still interested in preview Tavern Academy PARTY: The Cellar their soulless, dated cod-funk-pop bilge, goes th The first thing a friend of Nightshift asked SWITCH featuring DIGITAL SOUNDBOY: We love a good birthday party here at to show just how deranged the fella is. Should FRIDAY 17 when they saw The Orb were playing in town O2 Academy – The O2’s weekly electro club GUNS 2 ROSES + METALLICA Nightshift, and in the same month that we be worried? Worried that maybe he’ll turn th was, “I wonder if they sound any good when th night plays host to the label behind Shy FX, B THURSDAY 16 RELOADED: O2 Academy – Double dose of Catweazle celebrate their 20 anniversary, up at Nightshift Towers armed with his green you’re not stoned out of your mind.” It’s a Traits, Youngman, Macus Visionary and more, THE ORB: O2 Academy – All the old classics, rocking tribute acts. the very excellent Bossaphonik are putting up biro and a couple of pounds of high explosives from `Pretty Woman’ to `I Drove All Night’ – see fair question given the band, in their early-90s th with an electric approach to electronic dance, SWITCH featuring SHADOW CHILD: O2 the bunting for their 10 . As host Dan Ofer strapped to his body, determined to show us the heyday, were the head music of choice for from drum&bass and dubstep to funky and main preview Academy – Deep house and bass from Simon made clear in last month’s Nightshift feature error of our ways and a shortcut to the afterlife? anyone keen on some blissed-out tripping or house. BILLY LOCKETT: The Bullingdon – Earnest, Neale/Dave Spoon in his Shadow Child guise at on local club promoters, Bossaphonik is in a Possibly, but being blown to smithereens is spliffing, and their spectacular showings at EMPTY VESSELS + CARDINAL + tonight’s Switch, the Rinse FM DJ best known field of one as far as promoting jazz-world- surely preferable to having to listen to one single Glastonbury back then were woozily religious PEERLESS PIRATES + FRACTURE: The for his hits `Bad Girl’ (with Lisa Maffia) and dance sounds in Oxford. Which is a shame in minute of one of Level 42’s godforsaken slap- th experiences. In a way they were the rave Wheatsheaf – Rifftastic proto-metal blues Friday 10 `Baditude’. a way but then again maybe not when they’ve bass-riddled shitstorms. In fact the only thing generation’s Pink Floyd, as much about the rocking from Empty Vessels, rekindling the spirit BAD FOR LAZARUS: The Bullingdon – Dirty been doing it so well for so long. A host of that could make this month worse is if UB40 are elaborate light shows as the music, the whole of Led Zep, Blue Cheer and Hendrix, alongside CHUCK PROPHET garage-rocking and scuzzy punked-up Motown acts who would never otherwise have come coming to town too. Oh…. thing transcending a simple gig, but slightly timber-rattling indie-rockabilly ne’er-do-wells from Brighton’s Bad For Lazarus, who have to Oxford have passed through the Cellar’s OUT OF HARM’S WAY + ORANGE VISION reliant on the audience’s altered state.. While Peerless Pirates and Arctic Monkeys-styled indie & THE MISSION supported Liars, The 80s Matchbox B-Line doors since 2004 and tonight’s celebrations + MOGMATIC: The Wheatsheaf – Album Alex Paterson remains at the helm of the rockers Fracture. Disaster and Winnebago Deal along the way. will bring three of the best back to town in launch show for Out Of Harm’s Way. EXPRESS: The band, fellow founder Jimmy Cauty, alongside LORD MOUNTAINS + BILLY T’RIVERS ABSOLUTE BOWIE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – the form of Dele Sosimi’s Afrobeat Orchestra TRASHY: O2 Academy Kris Weston and a host of others, have been + OHUKI + WALTZ IN THE SHALLOW Tribute band. (pictured), Wara, and the Dunajska Kapelye FRESH OUT THE BOX: The Cellar – Bullingdon and gone. From the trippy, ambient dub vibe END: St Aldates Tavern – Daisy Rodgers Empty Room Promotions continue to do what Duo. Sosimi is the UK’s chief ambassador Glowstick rave night with Shades of Rhythm. of their finest albums – notably `The Orb’s Music and Bear on a Bicycle team up to host they have long since done best – bringing the for Afrobeat, taking in West African hi-life, THE PETE FRYER BAND + HEADINGTON th Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld’ and an Oxjam fundraiser upstairs at the St Aldates cult heroes of Americana to Oxford. None SATURDAY 18 funk and jazz, to create a richly polyrythmic HILLBILLIES: The Red Lion, Eynsham OXJAM TAKEOVER: Various venues – The `U.F.Orb’ – with their sci-fi motifs, the sound Tavern. There’s pop-friendly Americana from more so than Chuck Prophet, back in town music. Dele played for seven years with the DIRTY EARTH BAND: Fat Lil’s, Witney – annual Oxfam fundraiser takes over The Cellar, has changed as members have come and Lord Mountain; a solo set from local country- after his show at this same venue a year ago. legendary Fela Kuti before leading his own Rock Covers. Wheatsheaf, Purple Turtle, Turl Street Kitchen gone, and few will remember `Cydonia’ with bluesman Billy T’Rivers; ukulele orchestra Chuck is a very much in the A-list of cult band, recently signed to the hip WahWah45s STEAMROLLER: The Vine, Cumnor – Blues and White Rabbit, with myriad local bands and too much fondness as vocals and `proper’ action from Ohuki and Belle & Sebastian- American roots-rock heroes, having made his label and fresh from their Hackney residency rocking from the local veterans. solo acts on show – see main preview songs took over. Thankfully a return to form meets-Buddy Holly fun from Waltz in the name in the 1980s fronting Green On Red, where epic four-hour sets are the norm. EAGULLS: The Jericho Tavern – Noise. came with the likes of `Baghdad Batteries’, Shallow End. before going solo in the 90s. Since then he’s Wara take Cuban salsa and timba and fuse it Buckets of noise. Giant buckets of noise – see its minimalist electro feel closer to Kompakt WHOLE LOTTA DC: Fat Lil’s, Witney – AC/ th played alongside Jonathan Richman, Warren with British funk, hip hop, soul and reggae SUNDAY 12 main preview Records’ output and Paterson’s first love, DC tribute. Zevon, Lucinda Williams and country singer for a fusion that’s heavy on the grooves, NICK MULVEY: O2 Academy – The former- AGNESS PIKE + PHYAL + MARY Kraftwerk. So we guess it’ll be some kind of Kelly Willis, widely renowned as a master of while opening the night, The Dunajska Portico Quartet chap returns to town to promote BENDYTOY: The Bullingdon – Lunatic, a trip whether your poison of choice is finest th the Telecaster, a versatile guitarist inspired Kapelye Duo bring some gypsy jazz to the debut album `First Mind’, with his intimate theatrical thrash-metal from Agness Pike, whose mescaline or a nice mug of cocoa. SATURDAY 11 by the likes of Dick Dale, Neil Young and party, featuring Polish violin virtuoso Piotre DRY THE RIVER: O2 Academy – London’s brand of folk-pop, having previously gone out on heavy-duty Anthrax and Machinehead-inspired Clarence White, while in his own right he’s Jordan and Oxford graduate and multi- expansive indie-folksters on the rise return tour with Laura Marling. noise is offset by frontman Martin Spear’s pursued a career that’s found favour more with the 60s folk scene, comes to the Wychwood Folk instrumentalist Zac Gvirtsman. As well as to town having previously headed the bill surreal lyricism and performance. Heavy-duty critics than the public at large, in the main due Club. the live music, Bossaphonik’s resident DJs at Gathering, increasingly defying the early th grunge-rocking from Phyal and industrial gothic MONDAY 13 to his unwillingness to get too comfortable or will be bringing the world’s dancefloor to the Mumford comparisons with a rockier sound rocking from Mary Bendytoy in support at MATT EDWARDS + TOM MITCHELL: The play too fully to fans’ expectations. Notable th Cellar, just as it has done for a decade now. that’s closer to Arcade Fire and My Morning tonight’s One Gig Closer to Wittstock fundraiser. Bullingdon – Blues rocking from local singer high points over the years have been `Age SUNDAY 19 Jacket, following up the launch of their own BEDROCK: The Bullingdon – Skeletor and guitarist Matt Edwards at tonight’s Haven Of Miracles’, where country and rock’n’roll Mammoth beer with new album `Alarms In The Club show. launches its new rock and metal club night, serious cult following. Otway celebrated the 25th mixed unexpectedly with blues and hip hop, Heart’. SUBVERSE: The Cellar – Techno, and house playing everything from old rock anthems to anniversary of that hit in 2002 with a second and the political `Let Freedom Ring’, which, DAN CROLL: The Bullingdon – Sleek, club night Subverse celebrates the premiere of new metal tunes. chart success, `Bunsen Burner’, but few if any like Springsteen, took the disenfranchised exuberant afro-pop-tinged electro balladry from Pillowman at the Oxford Playhouse. PASTEL FRONTIER + ATREVIDO + rock stars have made such a virtue of enduring blue-collar worker as a starting point for the Liverpudlian singer and former nightclub MARTIN CARTHY & DAVE SWARBRICK: WILFUL DREAM + BIG TROPICS: The non-success. If you’ve witnessed either or both a wider comment on American society. bouncer, out on tour to promote his debut album, Nettlebed Folk Club – Two of the founding Wheatsheaf – Oxjam takeover night. of them in action before, you’ll know what to Comparisons to Ray Davies, Tom Petty and `Sweet Disarray’, following a tour support to fathers of the British folk revival of the 60s ROOTS RAMBLE: The Chester Arms – expect. If not, see them at least once before you Alex Chilton point to the high esteem the man Haim. team up again, singer and guitarist Carthy, the Swindlestock, Francis Pugh and the Whisky or they kick the bucket – such unabashed onstage is held in, but over a 30 year career, he’s never SIMPLE with BODDIKA: The Bullingdon – lead man of UK folk and renowned interpreter Singers and guests head off on another moving lunacy is a sadly rare thing. been anything other than his own man. The Bully’s long-running house and electro night of traditional tunes, alongside former Fairport musical feast, taking Americana and country BRIGHTWORKS + JACK & THE GIANTS hosts Boddika, the solo guise of Al Bleek, one fiddler Swarbrick. blues to the masses, starting at the newly re- + JEFFERSON DUKE + BLUESHIFT: The half of drum&bass faves Instra:mental and head opened Chester Arms, to The Star, via the Fir Cellar – Afrobeat-inspired electro-indie from honcho of Nonplus Records. Tree. th Brightworks at tonight’s It’s All About the Music K-LACURA + MORASS OF MOLASSES TUESDAY 14 TRASHY: O2 Academy showcase. + CONTEK: The Cellar – OxRox present a BLIND: The North Wall – Beatbox theatre EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar PETER ANDRE: The New Theatre – Pointless night of metal with Didcot’s thrash-core crew production featuring UK beatbox champion THE PETE FRYER BAND: The George, fucking twat. K-Lacura pulling no punches in their pursuit of Grace Savage. Littlemore CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford The Riff. They’re joined by Reading’s Morass of JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Free live DAMN GOOD REASON: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Community Centre Molasses. jazz from local veteran Alvin Roy & Reeds Classic blues-rock covers. THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Wheatsheaf DONNINGTON COMMUNITY FESTIVAL: Unlimited. PETE JOSHUA: The Swan, Shipton-under- – Blues rocking from the eccentric local veteran. Donnington Community Centre (2-10pm) – INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, industrial and Wychwood – Local singer Joshua, a veteran of Cellar – Balkan folk from Balkan Wanderers. Americana crew Swindlestock. SUNDAY SESSION: Florence Park OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern SURREAL PANTHER: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Community Centre (2-5pm) – Live music and th RECOGNISE: The Cellar Tribute to LA comedy rockers Steel Panther. family activities. TUESDAY 28 BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) DEAD PREZ: O2 Academy – Politicised rap from the underground stalwarts – see main nd th preview WEDNESDAY 22 SATURDAY 25 th RIXTON: O2 Academy – That whining, that MAVERICK SABRE: O2 Academy – MONDAY 27 RAW IN SECT + ANNERO + awful whining – what is it? Is it a rusty hinge? Is Hackney’s Anglo-Irish rapper-turned-soul-singer THE SPELLKASTERS: The Bullingdon RETRIBUTION + I, THE DECEIVER: The it the wails of the eternally tormented? No, it’s returns ahead of his new album, the follow-up to – Pete Green’s rhythm section, The Pirates, Wheatsheaf – Ultra-heavy-duty prog-thrash Rixton. And that other sound you can hear – that 2012’s `Lonely Are the Brave’, trying to find a reform with new singer Pete Edmunds for some from Athens’ Raw In Sect at tonight’s metal unpleasantly gloopy sound – that’s us scooping place between his early jazzy hip hop roots and a high-energy r’n’b in the vein of Dr Feelgood at night, alongside local death-thrash crew Annero our brain matter out with a spoon so we’re more slick and soulful vibe. His former flatmate tonight’s Haven Club show. and more. th Saturday 18th lobotomised enough to hear Rixton without Plan B remains a major influence, alongside UB40: O2 Academy – There’s a rat in the JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With Alvin Tuesday 28 serious psychological damage. Amy Winehouse and Professor Green. kitchen, what am I gonna do? I know, chop Roy & Reeds Unlimited. EAGULLS: THE STEPHEN GREW QUARTET: St PALM READER + MUTAGENOCIDE UB40 into tiny pieces and feed them to the rat. OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern DEAD PREZ: Michael @ the Northgate – Oxford Improvisers + SANITY LOSS + DEVIL INSIDE + Rat promptly dies of bad reggae poisoning. hosts jazz pianist Stephen Grew’s band. TWISTED STATE OF MIND: O2 Academy Problem solved. Time for a nice glass of red, red th O2 Academy The Jericho Tavern While it’s easy to believe hip hop has Guitar music is, we’re forever being told, THE DEPUTEES: The Jericho Tavern – Skeletor’s monthly metal showcase brings wine. WEDNESDAY 29 ROCKSOC NIGHT: The Wheatsheaf – Live descended into a sterile quagmire of bling, dead or at least dying. Usually by people who – Bluesy rocking in the vein of Cream and Woking’s dark-edged metalcore crew Palm CHRIS WHILE & JULIE MATTHEWS: rock and metal from the Uni rock society. beefs and booty calls, the fringes continue are incapable of looking beyond the upper Hendrix. Reader to town; they’re joined by tech/thrash Nettlebed Folk Club – The two former-Albion to produce some of the most intelligent and echelons of the mainstream where its corpse ROB LANYON + KATY JACKSON: The tyrants Mutagenocide, Aylesbury’s metalcore Band singers and current leading ladies of politicised lyricists around. Dead Prez – New can be smelled slowly decomposing. Even the Banbury Cross, Banbury – Strummer Room merchants Sanity Loss and local teenage grunge- English folk return again to Oxfordshire’s th THURSDAY 30 York duo stic.man and M-1 – have been most cursory glance further down and you’ll Project and Banbury Folk Club team up. metallers Twisted State of Mind. premier folk club. ALASTAIR ROBERTS + JESS HALL: The firing broadsides from those fringes for close discover all manner of green shots emerging, GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with Cellar – A welcome opportunity to witness on two decades now, their militant socialist not least from the UK, whether it’s Royal rd MENDOZA & GRIFFITHS + MOTION Scottish folk singer Alasdair Roberts in an th and pan-African ideology recalling Public Blood, Hookworms, Drenge, Evil Blizzard THURSDAY 23 STATIC + PUPPET MECHANIC: The Saturday 18 DAVE & PHIL ALVIN: The Bullingdon intimate venue, the one-time Appendix Out Enemy at times (check out the song titles or myriad others. Chief amongst the latest Wheatsheaf – A one-off collaboration between – Famously combative brothers Dave and experimentalist now one of the finest interpreters - `Police State’; `Propaganda’; `We Need a new breed are Leeds’ Eagulls, a band who local techno-trip-rock-hip-hop sound mashers OXJAM TAKEOVER: Phil Alvin reunite for their first studio album of traditional Scottish folk tunes around, starting Revolution’). Though there’s a tendency to look like first year marketing degree student Tiger Mendoza and former-Witches and together since 1985, an album of covers of Big with is superb `The Crook of My Arm’ album, lapse into the clichés of rap vocabulary at and who sound like the rage and angst of an Eeebleee frontman-turned-poet Dave Griffiths at Various venues Bill Broozy songs. Back in the 80s they were and most recently `A Wonder Working Stone’. times, the messages are clear and the targets entire generation is being funnelled through tonight’s GTI, the two acts coming together to Back for its annual takeover of assorted venues helming renowned Californian roots-rockers And as if that weren’t treat enough for you, he’s of their ire often highly specific, from the US their guitars and words. Singer George launch their new EP. Evenings mainman Mark in the city centre, Oxjam Oxford forms part The Blasters, mixing up blues, rockabilly, r’n’b joined tonight by local folkstress Jess Hall, the school system to alcoholism and their affects Mitchell is seemingly incapable of a singing Wilden joins them on stage alongside a host of of a network of similar events across the UK, and punk. Alvin left at the band’s peak to pursue recent Nightshift cover star playing her songs of on black Americans. The duo are best known style anything less than obstinate fury (think other guests. More mash-up noise in support raising money for the anti-poverty charity. This a solo career that saw him playing with the the sea from her debut album `Bookshelves’. for their anthemic `Hip Hop’, and they worked an unhinged Robert Smith wrestling with from London’s Motion Static, blending dubstep, year the event follows the exact same route as likes of The Gun Club as well as making his LIMEHOUSE LIZZY: O2 Academy – Thin with Kanye back on 2004’s `Revolutionary his inner Jaz Coleman), while the band’s electro, metal and punk into a sort of post-Atari May’s Oxford Punt with The Cellar, Purple own records, but, as Dave said, “We argue, but Lizzy tribute. But Gangsta’, but their dedication to various squalling super-fuzzed melting pot of grunge, Teenage Riot noise soup. Rather more sedate Turtle, Turl Street Kitchen, White Rabbit never about Big Bill Broozy’, and they’re back CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford political causes has always overridden the goth, hardcore and post-punk is a wall of sounds to open tonight’s show in the form of and Wheatsheaf involved. The Cellar hosts together to breathe new life into the legendary Community Centre lure of fame and they remain on those fringes. joyous noise, one that loosely joins the dots local literate pop types Puppet Mechanic, leaning a dedicated reggae takeover with Jamatone, pre-war blues man’s songbook. REDLANDS PALOMINO COMPANY: Fat As much as their militancy Dead Prez are between Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Horrors towards the likes of Lloyd Cole and Prefab Zaia, Jah Lion Movement and The Dublings, GIRL POWER + MEN OH PAUSE + CAM Lil’s, Witney – Country-rockers Redlands renowned for their exuberant live shows, where and Nirvana. The band had barely put their Sprout. while Turl Street Kitchen is home to assorted A.G: The Library – Virulent hardcore of the Palomino Company return to the Shire after dollar bills are burned and fruit is thrown to debut album out earlier this year than they ELLA MARTINI: The Bullingdon – Sultry local solo artists and duos, including Duotone, old school from Girl Power at tonight’s Smash their show for Empty Rooms earlier in the audiences – with messages to eat healthily – were going out live on Letterman in the pop and r’n’b from the local singer. Megan Henwood, Sam Brett, Lisa Kenny Disco, taking their cues from Discharge and year, evoking memories of Gram Parsons and and the mix of diatribe and critique with more States, and if there’s anything at all right SAVAGE MESSIAH + THE MORE I SEE and Helen Sanderson White. The White Halo of Flies, and joined tonight by Brighton’s Emmylou Harris. affirmative clarion calls make them one of the about this world, Eagulls won’t be playing + BLACK LIGHT MACHINE: The Cellar Rabbit too makes room for mostly solo acts, brooding lo-fi post-punk crew Men Oh Pause, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon most potent rap acts around. gigs this intimate ever again, so damn well – OxRox metal night with London’s thrash with Nightshift fave Jordan O’Shea (pictured) as well as a debut show from local singer and CALL MR ROBESON: The Old Fire Station make the most of it. See, even we’re getting merchants Savage Messiah, signed to Earache joined by Andy Robbins, Little Red and Phil guitarist Cam A.G. – Musical tribute to Paul Robeson amid a play slightly furious now. Good work, Eagulls. and on tour to promote fourth album `The Alexander. Between them The Purple Turtle ZOE: The Bullingdon – Folk-tinged pop from CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford telling the story of the singer, actor and civil Fateful Dark’, having previously supported and Wheatsheaf feature a selection of local Wiltshire’s Port Erin at the Bully tonight, with Community Centre rights activist’s incredible life. Soulfly, Onslaught and Overkill. bands, from indie to blues, prog to electronica, Peerless Pirates playing the last of half a dozen th OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon WHITE MAGIC SOUND: The Bullingdon with the likes of Noe & the Pastel Frontier, MONDAY 20 st local shows this month to promote new single, HEATHER PEACE: O2 Academy – The THE MIGHTY REDOX + Big Tropics, Loud Mountains, Little Brother FRIDAY 31 `El Gringo’. actress – who’s cropped up in everything from th HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: James Street Eli, Sinking Witches, Zurich, Leader and SUBWAYS + MAX RAPTOR: O2 Academy TELEGRAPHER + JUNKIE BRUSH + FRIDAY 24 Wilful Dream among those playing. Like the Emmerdale and Corrie to London’s Burning and SKELETAL FAMILY + SALVATION: O2 Tavern – Double headline tour with Welwyn Garden BLACK TISH: The Wheatsheaf – Scary Punt, it’s a good way to wander around seeing Waterloo Road – returns to her first love, music, Academy – Double dose of vintage goth tonight TRASHY: O2 Academy City’s enduring pop-punk trio The Subways Halloween noise-making at the Sheaf tonight and hearing stuff you’ve maybe not picked up the classically-trained pianist and singer touring as Yorkshire’s early-80s doomsters Skeletal EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar returning to town alongside Burton’s brutal, with dissonant cacophony makers Telegrapher on before, and with all the ticket money (all- her new album, `The Thin Line’, which features Family return with original vocalist Anne- SHEPHERD’S PIE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Rock militant but melodic rock and roll warriors Max going up against firebrand punk rockers Junkie venue wristbands are a tenner) going to Oxfam, anthemic single `We Can Change’. Marie Hurst, the band amongst the first wave of covers. Raptor, kicking it out in the vein of New Brush. everyone’s a winner, right. THE BILLY WALTON BAND: The goth bands in the UK, making a darkly witchy STEAMROLLER: The Nag’s Head, Abingdon Model Army, Therapy? and Queens of the Stone- RECKLESS SLEEPERS: The Hollybush, Bullingdon– Blues-rock in the vein of Hendrix, noise in the vein of Siouxsie and the Banshees Age. Osney – Halloween party with the local Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan from the and Xmal Deutschland and touring with The th SWITCH featuring GORGON CITY: O2 psychedelic folk-rockers. New Jersey guitarist, who has played around SUNDAY 26 Academy – The O2’s weekly electro club HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: James Street Sisters of Mercy before Hurst went off to form KIDS IN GLASS HOUSES: O2 Academy – his local scene since his early teens, jamming night hosts north London production duo Tavern Ghostdance with the Sisters’ guitarist Gary Cardiff’s punk power-pop crew return to the with Springsteen, Gary US Bonds and Double Gorgon City, the pair’s smooth, soulful deep STRAIGHTEN OUT: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Marx. Shire as part of their farewell tour after their Trouble along the way. house anthem `Ready For Your Love’ having Stranglers tribute. MAN MAKE FIRE + KYSHEA + THE showing at Truck Festival back in July. THE SHEE: Nettlebed Folk Club – The six- gone Top 5. STEAMROLLER: The Catherine Wheel, MARK + LAST RITES: The Wheatsheaf – EMPEROR YES: The Cellar – Quirky strong Scottish all-female folk and harmony Heavy blues-rocking from Man Make Fire and PORT ERIN + PEERLESS PIRATES + RAE Sandford group make the trip into the heart of the Shire psychedelic electro-pop from Alcopop! Records old-school metal from Last Rites. new signings. with their clog-led traditional songs and SWITCH featuring CALLIGRAPHY: O2 instrumentals. LEIGH ALEXANDER + MEGAN JOSEPHY Academy – House, bass and techno club night. + LAIMA BITE + MOORE & CLARKE THE TRAVELLING BAND + THE SHAPES + ECHOIC + MARK ATHERTON & st TUESDAY 21 + SWINDLESTOCK: The Bullingdon – FRIENDS: The Wheatsheaf (2pm) – Free JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Guitar Summit Return of Manchester’s rootsy psychedelic afternoon of unplugged music hosted by Klub perform at the Bully’s weekly jazz club. folk-pop collective, in the vein of Crosby, Stills Kakofanney and featuring Beaverfuel’s potty- Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each mont - no exceptions. Email BALKAN WANDERERS + RODNEY and Nash and The Band. They’re joined by local mouthed troubadour Leigh Alexander, sultry listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may not QUAKES + WEDNESDAY WOLVES: The 60s-styled r’n’b crew The Shapes, and rootsy gothic folk singer Laima Bite and more. be reproduced without permission. psychedelic grunge, or persuading them to wander eerily and prettily LUKE SITAL-SINGH into the deep, dark woods, forgetting O2 Academy LIVE quite what they set off to do in the A couple of days before seeing him Part way through the set, he plays an earlier first place. In this she wears her love live, I came across an interview with song, ‘Honest Man’, and though it might be of The Velvet Underground, with Luke Sital-Singh, in which he professed “just about love”, as so many of his songs their obstinate refusal to bow to The photo: Jenny Sparks surprise at the fact that in his graduating are, it’s more raw and subtly vulnerable Rules, on her sleeve, and `Sad Sad class (of music students), he alone had than anything he’s played yet. This is later Feet’, her sole pick tonight from made notable headway into the industry. echoed in another early song, ‘Luna’, about superb debut album, `Me Oh My’, Indeed, it’s difficult to pin point exactly a stranded killer whale he read about in the has more than a hint of `Sunday why he’s succeeded where so many others paper, and which he introduces as one that Morning’ about it. have failed, the twin behemoths of every “didn’t make the album, as songs about But you’ll never quite pin her early music success (good luck and good killer whales don’t tend to do very well.” down. The nursery rhyme clarion contacts) aside. And therein lies the crux of the problem. call of `Are You With Me Now’, the It’s not immediately evident when the set In focusing on what “will sell well” (no humming, buzzing bouncy castle starts either. Opener ‘I Have Been a Fire’ doubt on label advice), Luke has swapped psych-rock mantra `Sisters’, and the builds from a gentle guitar intro to a vast, unpolished chords and eccentric subject rarefied, almost folky lament of `No falsetto-ridden chorus, and, though pleasant, matter for epic choruses and songs about God’ are musical siblings, immersed and vaguely Buckley-esque, the lyrics are girls, and in the process, lost whatever it is in their creator’s gene pool, but not tepid, and it’s hardly remarkable. That he that made him stand out in the first place. ones you’d ever recognise as such cites Damien Rice as a major influence is He finishes with ‘Fail For You’, a simple from the family portrait. almost a given; a few songs into the set it’s ballad, full of delicate guitar and vocals Such wilful waywardness stands difficult not to draw a straight comparison, that soar then drop to almost nothing. And Cate le Bon in good stead as far particularly through the weight of emotion while lyrically languid – he rhymes the as making her stand out from the he infuses into every line. Later on he lines “this is getting hard to bare / I don’t crowd goes: if anyone chose to try brings out another instrumentalist, whose think you even care” – it manages to retain and follow her they’d be lost within second guitar rounds out the sound – some of that musical fragility that separates moments, and if it’s held her back as alongside accompanying vocal harmonies him from being just another honey-voiced a commercial proposition – despite – and a slight percussive element to his acoustic guitar-welding songwriter, singing the enduring love of 6Music and playing means the lack of a drummer isn’t a songs about love. others for her music, tonight’s palpable limitation. Caroline Corke show is sparsely attended – you imagine she cares slightly less than a jot. She’s happier hanging out YELLOW FEVER / BIG TROPICS / and collaborating with her mates, whether Gruff Rhys, or H Hawkline BE GOOD and Sweet Baboo, who make up her backing band and with who she The Wheatsheaf plays bass and keys during their In a world that’s increasingly market-tested we’ll take Debbie Gibson over Stevie Ray CATE LE BON support set. It’s artists with this one of the great pleasures of small gigs Vaughan any day – matters aren’t helped attitude that are remembered for is not knowing what to expect. When Be by bands like this who churn through up- O2 Academy years, decades later: the ones who Good take to the Daisy Rodgers stage, beat tunes with dead-eyed resignation in There’s simply no-one else like voice found her described early of odd corners while remaining a ploughed their own furrow or stood most often frequented by well-kempt indie place of gay abandon. The gratuitous synth Cate le Bon. With a voice, a way on as “the Welsh Nico,” but it’s thing of genuine wonder. As for her their ground. And tonight, however poppers, we hadn’t predicted reverby late- parts, straight from the 12” disco mix of the with a tune and, let’s be honest, more versatile than that suggests, songs, le Bon seems unwilling or reserved and self-deprecating she 50s balladry that sounds as if it should be theme from CHiPs, go some way towards the looks, to be an A-List pop star, a heady, playful mix of sadness, unable to simply let them settle into might appear on stage, Cate le Bon about milkshake and eroticised motorbike excusing the limply anonymous vocals, she’s chosen the road less travelled imperiousness, mischief and devil- anything resembling complacency, proves yet again she is worth every crashes. They deliver this post-doo wop but Big Tropics seem to have forgotten the with a vengeance. may-care that can find it soaring or stabbing sweet fairytale melodies second of your time. very well, throwing in a little surf tremolo, golden rule of pop performance: always get Hailing from Carmarthenshire, her simply veering into all manner with shards of howling Dale Kattack some brash 80s colours and even a droplet high off your own supply. We see a punter of grunge slackness, and if it sometimes at the bar wearing white socks with trousers BUNKFEST 13 feels as though Marty McFly put the band that are too short, which just about sums together by nipping into his high school them up: it’s fun, it’s retro, but it doesn’t SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER Wallingford prom at ten year intervals, the effect is really fit together. THE JERICHO TAVERN, OXFORD Bunkfest has grown from a marquee in a pub car park to a full-blown it’s happy, smiling faces all around. surprisingly cohesive: a few more gigs There are no shocks in Yellow Fever’s set. festival that fills Wallingford’s big open space, the KinCroft. With its main On Saturday night the alternative folk and world band 3 DAFT to settle the nerves, and another couple They’ve become just as excellent a band as LINEUP TO BE ANNOUNCED VERY sponsor still a local removals firm, locals running it and pubs and clubs MONKEYS feature fine fiddle playing and a drummer pounding away of tunes as strong as `I’d Have Told You we knew they would be when we first saw SOON: JOIN THE MAILING LIST AT across the town also hosting gigs, part of Bunkfest’s charm is that despite just with his hands, but their set is made by the huge crowd, including a Anything’ and we’ll have a real contender. them a few years ago, finding their teenage WWW.AUDIOSCOPE.CO.UK TO BE its expansion it retains the feeling of being a community celebration that is substantial quota of men in dresses, who make it beyond the beer tent and A few years ago Big Tropics’ sound would feet. Again their sound, melding chiming more fish and chips than celebrity chef, and amazingly it continues to be work themselves up into a dance frenzy. have been an eyebrow-raiser too, but hi-life guitar parts to A Certain Ratio-style THE FIRST TO FIND OUT! almost entirely free. Sunday night is less tumultuous, even though TARRAS are much inexplicably in recent years the default introspective indie-funk, has become more The music is predominately of the folk and roots variety but the first act improved on last year when they occupied the same slot but seemed tired. setting for young bands in this town seems prevalent in the intervening years, but they music to catch our ear is a young jazz vocalist, FLEUR STEVENSON, who They use keyboards in their take on fusing the traditional and contemporary to have become sterilised, wipe-clean soul- manage to make the mixture smoother at for a music good for a possesses a very natural feel for a jazz standard. She’s one of several and we find the more contemporary they are the better they hold our pop in the vein of 5 Star and New Edition. than many, by building it around a core of home good three home While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – well-written tunes (indeed, a one-off cover oxford female voices away from the main stage this year who have something to attention. edition offer: JESS MORGAN, from Norfolk, has an American inflection to her None of the headliners match the telling lyrics and intensity of MARTYN of `Rip It Up And Start Again’ fits snugly TWO AMAZING COMPILATIONS powerful back-of-the-throat vocals, which she combines with a driving JOSEPH, though. Sometimes labelled “the Welsh Bruce Springsteen”, and amongst their best tracks). The sound has Come and say hello, buy Music For A FEATURING THE BEST LOCAL guitar style. LOUISE JORDAN, another singer songwriter, has a purer with a concern for social justice, he intersperses songs about profiteering got heavier and denser in recent times, Good Home limited edition CDs and AND INTERNATIONAL MUSIC! enjoy live music from VIENNA DITTO, WITH AMON TOBIN, FUTURE OF voice, a bit like a young Joan Baez, plus a quirky set list, while ROSIE bankers, the state of religion, and what has befallen Palestinians with every jam block break counterbalanced JORDAN O’SHEA and TAMARA! THE LEFT, UNDERSMILE, THE EDE is confident and relaxed fronting her folk-rock band. No doubt KATY by a crushing crescendo, but it’s an ORIGINAL RABBIT FOOT SPASM poignant songs of love, friendship, and hope and a burst of ‘Dancing In The SUNDAY 28 SEPTEMBER BAND, CHROME HOOF, JESS HALL ROSE BENNET would be on this list too, except unfortunately we miss Dark’. He’s never going to be everyone’s cup of tea but he truly seems to unforced charm, a sort of polite insouciance AND LOADS MORE SOUTH PARK, OXFORD BUY THEM ONLINE AT her set. leave it all out there in what is undoubtedly the set of the weekend. emanating from the stage that really proves 11.00 AM–2.00 PM • FREE! WWW.MUSICFORAGOODHOME.COM The headliners all deliver this year. The formerly Oxford based BAKA However after that we’re in need of a bit of light relief, so thanks to PETE how this band has grown in stature. Like we say, character: it could be the most WWW.AUDIOSCOPE.CO.UK BEYOND, self-described as “the original Afro Celt dance band”, are ORTON for his take-off of Morris Dancing. It’s definitely the belly laugh WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/AUDIOSCOPEFESTIVAL important thing your band will ever have. WWW.TWITTER.COM/AUDIOSCOPE possibly better heard outdoors than in and on Friday night their jangly of the weekend and, like Bunkfest itself, a whole lot of good fun. WWW.SHELTER.ORG.UK

Congolese style guitar riffs and Baka chants prove as uplifting as ever and Colin May photo: JChris Blizzard David Murphy thevenuecollective PRESENTS PREGNANT / LIMBO KIDS / AFTER THE THOUGHT The Cellar After The Thought – the music-making essentially the work of one Daniel Trudeau, moniker of Matt Chapman-Jones – surprises best known for understated, lo-fi music with us by delivering a short set of accessible minimalist guitar, bleeps and percussion pieces, built around simple motifs that seem with repeated snippets of random sounds, a world away from the complex layers the result often pleasingly fragile but of textured sound that typified his early difficult to really engage with. However, appearances. Some even bring to mind tonight’s show bears little resemblance to late-period Cabaret Voltaire, when they last year’s ‘Your Song’ album or this year’s decided they wanted to be a pop band after ‘Lyre Bird #1’, where he collaborated by all. He finishes with two new numbers, the email with a dozen musicians around the first a touch soporific, but ‘Walker’ ends world to produce a Steve Reich-style piece proceedings keeping the simple theme but of iteration. In contrast, we have three introducing some welcome chunky beats. people playing keyboards, guitar and digital Limbo Kids have been described as indie- percussion, still inhabiting musical margins disco, a label that sinks the heart of anyone but now with a bombastic rhythmic base. who lived through the first wave of either The performance is dominated by a female musical episode. Typically heralding chirpy, singer whose strong voice and slinky, upbeat Level 42-style songs with irritatingly expressive dance moves suggests a total fiddly guitar, this, sadly, is precisely what departure from earlier incarnations. Despite we are served up. Things look up when they being much more accessible musically, take the tempo down and allow themselves there remains something intangibly a bit of freedom, but despite a bassist unsettling about the event, in a similar vein practising some nice footwork and a very, to Ultraista, the recent project involving very good drummer they need to listen to Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. the wonderful Fickle Friends for some ideas Trudeau seems bent on keeping us guessing on how to reinterpret 80s pop with a touch as to what’s going on in his head, and there SUNDAY 30TH NOVEMBER FRIDAY 5TH DECEMBER more panache. seems to be plenty there to keep us all THE OXFORD RECORD Doors 7.30pm - Tickets £12 adv Doors 7pm - Tickets £16 adv Hailing from northern California and occupied. making their first trip to the UK, Pregnant is Art Lagun DVD & CD FAIR St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP THE KITES / BRIGHT WORKS / DUCHESS Saturday 18th October / TOO MANY POETS 10am-4pm Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres O2 Academy Accessories/memoriabillia/books. We only catch two songs of Too Many and loose, Bright Works’ funk is uptight Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl Poets’ set, but it’s enough to realise the and urgent, stabs of post-punk electro www.usrfairs.co.uk singer’s Smith t-shirt is misleading. Unlike puncturing any party-starting ideas. It’s their none-more-indie recent demo, live the great stuff, a well-structured set at its best SUNDAY 22ND MARCH 2015 band tend more towards the proggy end of when the singer unleashes his inner Billy Doors 7pm - Tickets £17.50 adv (on sale 10th October) 70s rock, hints of 10cc creeping in at times. MacKenzie, but they could do with a bit Which is no bad thing, and while there’s a more stage presence, and a note to the tendency for instruments to wander over bassist – when you’re singer’s talking to the each other, there are decent songs to be crowd, it’s time to keep your mouth shut. found beneath. Kites singer Owen Stepney would have Such is Duchess’ exuberance and no truck with such insubordination. He’s featherlite musical nature we expected to the centre of attention and don’t we know bump into them at every festival over the it. He’s a big show-off with bad hair – summer. Instead they’re left to bring a little something pop music always needs more light to the altogether darker interior of of – and seemingly has his eye on bigger the O2. With four percussionists in their stages already. He might get them too if ranks (including a giant mounted drum the band play their cards right. With a that we keep thinking is a cask of ale), mix’n’match approach, they find space for their mix of township dance and samba clean-cut guitar pop, afro-favoured dance, is sweet and simple. “This song is about lightweight funk and the odd moment cooking for people to make them fancy of scouring rock, managing to squeeze SATURDAY 20TH DECEMBER you,” announced singer Katie Herring passable covers of Foals and Bombay Doors 6.30pm - 10pm - Tickets £18 adv before `Oven Time’, while set closer Bicycle Club into their set. They’d do well `South Parade’ “isn’t about anything deep to avoid the gruff, gnarly old blues bits, or complicated, it’s just about dancing.” which are frankly fucking awful, and stick They’re true to their mission statement. If to the poppier pieces that have a sizeable we say they’re as infectious as Ebola, don’t contingent of kids down the front dancing in take that the wrong way, they’re also as a way that’s rare at any gig, never mind one irresistible as a cherry and sunshine sponge. by a local band. With a few sharper songs Possessed of a similar afro-pop feel as still needed in their set, The Kites might not Duchess, Bright Works replace that band’s be flying high just yet, but they’ve certainly summery good vibes with a hysterical caught a breeze and are on the rise. TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM WWW.WEGOTTICKETS.COM WWW.THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK level of angst. Where Duchess play fast Dale Kattack Radiohead declare INTRODUCING.... APPLE CRUMBLE war on U2 Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under RADIOHEAD are considering injecting their record label, and in the most startling episode, Peerless next album directly into people’s brains while rapper Rawz proclaimed he would release a they sleep. new album on the first day of every month until Pirates someone bought the last one. Who are they? AT Peerless Pirates are a pirate-obsessed indie-surf-rockabilly band from Thom Yorke has promised to visit every home WASN’T Oxford made up of Cliff Adams (vocals / guitar); Kyle Mundy (guitar on the planet in the dead of night, or at least the Thom Yorke plans to begin his round-the- / vocals); Stu Green (bass), and Barry Short (drums). Named after the more middle class ones, and probably student world-or-at-least-the-more-affluent-suburbs bowling team Cliff’s dad was in in the 1960s, as well as the band’s fondness halls of residents, to neurologically impregnate tour later this month in order to “get in there for rum, they formed in 2008, originally as a three-piece fronted by Cliff, his new songs after U2 upped the global mega- before Santa, who quite frankly looks like a bit before becoming the quartet we know now in 2010, and have become staple band arms race by gluing copies of their `Songs of an amateur when it comes to sneaking into favourites in Nightshift and on BBC Oxford Introducing. Their debut EP Of Innocence’ onto every computer hard drive people’s bedrooms and leaving them stuff they `Thieves & Miscreants’ earned them two sets at Glastonbury in 2013. A And the lowlight: in the western world. The album can only be probably don’t want.” His mission is expected follow-up, `Nelson’s Folly’ followed while `El Gringo’, Nightshift’s Demo “The dark days between the demise of the first band and the kickstarting of the removed with the use of special Bono-Begone to last over two months, leaving no time for any of the Month in August, is released as a single this month. new. I almost couldn’t be bothered and the guitars started to gather cobwebs.” solution, available exclusively from a small gigs or festival appearances. Instead Radiohead What do they sound like? Their favourite other Oxfordshire act is: hardware store in Dublin at a cost of £10 a can. will promote the new album with an abstract art A rollicking, roustabout, shiver-me-timbers mix of classic 80s indie – “Of bands who are currently still playing Sinking Witches were particularly installation at Tate Modern involving a video particularly The Smiths – rockabilly, surf-rock, eastern European folk impressive when we shared a bill with them recently.” Don’t look now but he’s standing at the foot of music, and spaghetti western soundtracks. Cliff’s flamboyant baritone leads LEAST of a stovepipe-hatted Thom feeding £20 notes If they could only keep one album in the world, it would be: your bed. a swashbuckling charge over Kyle’s sing-song guitar lines and the band’s “These days, we’d be lost without anything by Mad Dog Mcrea, who Radiohead allegedly started the whole album to a gyrating dolphin. freight-rain rhythms. “Rum-soaked fun” is a phrase often – and justifiably – consistently provide us with perfect pre-gig limbering up music.” giveaway escalation thing back in 2007 when Oxford acts. Earlier this year local indie rockers bandied about. If you’ve forgotten the time when indie sounded fun, here’s When is their next local gig and what can newcomers expect? they invited fans to “pay what you like” for `In Spring Offensive set about kidnapping random KASABIAN your chance to get re-acquainted. “Friday 3rd October at the Jericho Tavern, and the 10th at The Wheatsheaf. Rainbows’, upsetting the entire music retail local music fans until they handed over a In an almost immediate response U2 have What inspires them? Expect a lot of energy, a great deal of rum and a frenzied desire to dance.” apple cart in the process. Despite the fact that tenner for debut album `Young Animal Hearts’, pledged to distribute their next album, `Bono “History – historical tales and adventures in combination with modern Their favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: most downloaders only paid a penny for a while Gaz Coombes threatened to play gigs and Chris Martin in a Sinking Boat – Who day trials and tribulations. There is a great deal more romanticism in “The thing that strikes us the most about the Oxford music scene is the copy, the band still made more money than they consisting only of random electronic bleeps Do You Throw Overboard First?’, via the the storytelling about historical events but, paradoxically, modern day passion everyone seems to share for live music. It’s a rare thing these days would have if they’d put it on Spotify. unless a million people signed a legally-binding population’s anuses. The album will be occurrences can also be referenced under a historical umbrella. I find tales and should be bottled. Least favourite by far is the parking. Have you ever pledged to buy the next Supergrass album. chemically infused into toilet paper where it of love, heroism and devious wrongdoing to be eternally inspiring even if tried to do a gig at The Cellar? IT Folk singer Jess Hall said she’d force feed fans will enter people’s bloodstreams via a process they are delivered behind a veil of black humour.” You might love them if you love: Since this landmark moment bands have tried to clotted cream scones and fresh sponge cakes of osmosis. Career highlight so far: The Smiths; The Ukrainians; The Monochrome Set; Adam & The Ants; come up with more and more inventive ways of until their livers collapsed if they failed to buy “Shit comes out, shit goes back in,” someone “Playing two shows at Glastonbury last year. Both ourselves and The The Shadows; Ennio Morricone. getting their music heard, including a number of copies of `Bookshelves’ from her pantry-based might have said. Stones were Glastonbury virgins. They got a slightly bigger crowd than us Hear them here: if truth be told. That was so unexpected.” www.peerlesspirates.com T H E W H E A T S H E A F DR SHOTOVER – The Dr Is In THIS MONTH IN OXFORD rd rd Friday 3 October – KLUB KAKOFANNEY 23 ANNIVERSARY WEEKENDER Autumn draw(er)s on, and there is a seasonal chillax in the air. While to many this ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY might mean kicking piles of leaves and cheery conker-playing urchins (though, OSPREY & THE OX4 ALLSTARS careful, people, one can be arrested for urchin-kicking), it also indicates that 20 YEARS AGO Gurus, dEUS and The Flying Medallions, while personal and heartwarming, “ said Matt of the THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS + GEMMA MOSS + PURPLE MAY 7pm/£5 there is a new Doctor on the block. No, I’m not leaving the East Indies Club, local names in the gig guide included emerging club that played host to some of the earliest public th `The Day the Music Died’ ran the headline news Saturday 4 October Belvedere… stop smirking fatuously and get a pint in, oaf. Here’s an audio clue… in October 1994’s edition of Curfew magazine. Britpop stars Thurman and The Candyskins. performances from Stornoway and Yannis FRACTURE DIDDLE-ee-dee, DIDDLE-ee-dee, DIDDLE-ee-dee WEE-OOO. Ah, is that a pint of The new owners of the legendary Jericho Tavern, Philippakis, among others. Manning’s Gusset I see materialising before me? Put it down there on the wipe- the Firkin chain, were set to end the pub’s musical 10 YEARS AGO KNIGHTS OF MENTIS + THE MIGHTY REDOX + DES BARKUS Slurp-o clean formica bar, Belvedere. Excellent, excellent. [ ]… Yes, it’s true, they history in a complete revamp. Meanwhile, across As we all know the local scene did survive, and CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE 7pm/£5 originally asked me to star in Dr Who this time round. I had to turn ‘em down 5 YEARS AGO Sunday 5th October town, a crisis was brewing at The Oxford Venue. a new generation of local stars were born. One of By now firmly established as local heroes, when I realised there would be no swearing, no drinking… and no Karen Gillan. ANTON BARBEAU + MOON LEOPARD + TWIZZ TWANGLE Issues between the venue’s licence holder and whom was Winnebago Deal, who were on the Stornoway announced plans to become the first Plus, one would have to endure the constant hawk-eyed scrutiny of such local THE BEARD OF DESTINY + LES CLOCHARDS 2:30pm / Downstairs Free Entry promoters Nick Moorbath and Adrian Hicks, were cover of Nightshift in October 2004, blasting holes non-orchestral band to perform at the historic Whovians as our Esteemed Editor, Dave ‘BBC’ Gilyeat, Jon ‘BFI’ Spira and Mark Friday 10th October – MD PROMOTIONS ‘DADGAD’ Bosley. What’s that, Lucan? THE WHO? No, we’re not talking about coming to a head as the council cut its capacity to in sold brick walls with their sonic violence, while Sheldonian Theatre this month back in 2009, a THE WHO, you deaf old prannet. You’re as bad as Captain Beaky Townshend 250 over safety issues. violence similarly permeated the duo’s lyrics as feat they are set to repeat this year to mark the fifth EMPTY VESSELS CARDINAL + PEERLESS PIRATES 8pm/£5 The situation at The Jericho would become part of they recounted tales of whisky, knife fights and anniversary of an occasion that remains one of the th himself. Still at least HE can see for miles, whereas YOU… you are a total waste Saturday 11 October – OUT OF HARM’S WAY (EP LAUNCH) of space. And time. Almost as bad as the person who wrote that song which a campaign by local music fans to keep the venue redneck truckers. This month Ben Perrier and Ben greatest gigs by a local band we can remember. goes ‘All that she wants, Is another baybee’ over a simpering cod-reggae beat, alive, promoter Mac having put the Jericho, and Thomas released their latest album, `Dead Gone’, Stornoway also released a new single, `Unfaithful’, ORANGE VISION MOGMATIC + GRIM 8pm/£5 Saturday 18th October – OXJAM TAKEOVER or the composer of that nauseating nasal litany - ‘These are the fings, The fings Oxford, on the musical map through the early 90s on Double Dragon, recorded in America, produced this month, a re-recorded version of the lead track we lost, The fings we lost, In the fire fire fire’. I’d love to set them on f***ing fire fire and helped launch the careers of Radiohead and by the great Jack Endino, who had previously from their `Good Fish Guide’ EP. “A band who THE PASTEL FRONTIER fire… if only if Supergrass. The campaign would rumble on for worked with Nirvana, Tad and Mudhoney. “It was seem to conjure epic, timeless pop songs from ATREVIDO + WILFUL DREAM + BIG TROPICS 8pm/£tbc I could get my another three months before “progress” won the insane. We never expected to pull that one off. We the earth with enviable ease, “ ran our typically Friday 24th October – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC hands on them. day and a new theme pub took the place of a great worked in a residential studio outside Seattle where enthusiastic review. More drinks, venue. Similarly the Venue would close, to re- Soundgarden and Foo Fighters recorded. As soon Enthusiasm was high too for the return to town KYSHERA + THE MARK + LAST RITES 8pm/£6 MAN MAKE FIRE Bell-end, I mean emerge bigger, better and stronger as The Zodiac as we got off the plane Jack was driving us to see of Bat For Lashes at the O2 Academy, as well as Saturday 25th October – GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES Belvedere…? the following year. Mudhoney play to 50 people.” the likes of Idlewild, The Big Pink (as part of the Good idea. All this doom provided the backdrop for one of The uncertainty of good things happening in the inaugural OX4 event, a precursor to Gathering) and MENDOZA + GRIFFITHS Make mine a MOTION STATIC + PUPPET MECHANIC 8pm/£4.50 the brightest times for Oxford bands. Radiohead local scene was still never far from the surface as Noah & the Whale at the same venue, while over th Padbury this Tuesday 28 October – MURDER OF CROWS PROMOTIONS time. With a released their new single, `My Iron Lung’ on the news this month that Passion FM were axing in the demo pages, a bunch of newcomers called Louise Jameson Parlophone this month, while Ride released `I their local music show, The Fortnightly Fix. In the Spring Offensive were narrowly beaten to Demo RAW IN SECT chaser. [Slurp-o, Don’t Know Where It Comes From’ on Creation, days before BBC Introducing, the show, hosted by of the Month by Banbury’s Scholars. “In `Between ANNERO + RETRIBUTION + I, THE DECEIVER 8pm/£5 and Heavenly continued to be genial godparents of Lee Christian, was the sole outlet for local acts to One and One-Nine-Four’, they have an indie disco Wednesday 29th October slurp-o]… Mmm, scrumptious. indie music as they released `The Decline & Fall Of get on the radio. classic in waiting, guitars twitching and twinkling STUDENT ROCK NIGHT Next month: Heavenly on the seminal Sarah label. In slightly happier news Catweazle Club was beneath a vocal that spits out its opening line and ROCKSOC th Friday 31st October Dame Judi While we pondered where the next generation of celebrating its 10 birthday, the long-running open carries a sneer with it throughout… who knows Dench – Now, repeat after me, ‘Is that your sonic screwdriver, Dr Oxford stars would cut their teeth, highlights of mic club run by Matt Sage at the time ensconced how far they might go,” ran the review. Last we S?’… this time with more expression and less hilarity, please. TELEGRAPHER JUNKIE BRUSH + BLACK TISH II 8pm/£5 Thirteenth the month ahead featured visits to town for These in the Northgate Hall. “For many it has become heard they’d gone as far as London, but we still like (Companion for Dr S – auditions continue). The Wheatsheaf 129 High Street, Oxford OX1 4DF / www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford Doctor? Animal Men, Collapsed Lung, The Hoodoo a community focus, somewhere that’s a bit more to call them our own. winning a charity baked bean eating contest: of metal. Metal being something that’s comical and fetid in equal measures. generally guaranteed to shake us out of Anyway, we’ll leave you with this pearl of any doldrums the rest of the pile might wisdom: “You told me that I’m an alien / suck us into. I mean, how can you resist DEMOS You said to me, `I’m stronger than you!’ / a band called Godsbane? Particularly a Sponsored by You rode that bull, rode it in the moonlight band called Godsbane who have a song Demo of the Month wins a free half day at / I wish I could be like you / I’m gonna ride called `Valkyrie’. This one’s gonna rock Silver Street Studios in Reading, courtesy your bull, but I’m still an alien / You said to like supper time in Hades. Hmmm, except of Umair Chaudhry. me, `get off my bull!’ / But I’m riding your it doesn’t seem to. It rocks, but slowly. Visit www.silverstreetstudios.co.uk/ bull, riding bareback / Riding along, riding Heading over to the band’s Facebook page nightshift-demo-of-the-month/ like you.” Oh yes, absolute bull. we learn they’re inspired by Nordic folk music and myths as well as Viking metal Towers. We even have weekly seminars on bands like Turisas. So `Valkyrie’ feels less 01865 240250 QUEST like a modern metal blast as something DEMO OF spite and bile, lest anyone should soften in their worldview. Only this morning we unearthed from more distant times, a lost

pointed at a Labrador puppy and laughed ENSEMBLE Led Zeppelin opus found encased in a “Moments in time, crossing paths, footfall until it cried. Sex With Your X don’t sound burial barrow. It’s a slow-burning slab of THE MONTH of the past and present...” so runs the like the sort of band you’d laugh at. Not to heavyweight folk-rock injected with just introduction to this lot’s Bandcamp page. Is their faces anyway. They even declare that enough of Meshuggah’s brittle grind to it still legal to shoot hippies within the city the recordings are a bit rough round the make it battle-ready. `Shadow of the Storm’ THE PINK walls after sunset? After which they witter edges because they spent all their money similarly feels like an older strain of metal on a bit about ancient leper colonies and on real ale and are too old to care what with its twin guitar attack reminiscent of Iron DIAMOND REVUE urban underground spaces and music that After last month’s, let’s be honest, pretty we think. There is a sozzled and slightly Maiden. They never tip into prog, though is “rooted in a sense of place that inspires wretched demo pile, we had high hopes that haggard feel to these songs, bullish blues you feel they’re tempted at times, and keep the sound and imagination of their stories.” this month would balance things out. Come rock doorstops that sound like they were themselves and the listener on their toes with What’s wrong with just telling us you’re on, the world’s an increasingly festering hacked out of a nearby mountain by burly multi-part songs that, while not quite the a classical piano and strings trio, and let shitheap of religious lunatics, nationalist men armed with sledgehammers and the berserkers you perhaps hope they would be, us enjoy the music without imagining it scumbags and planet-destroying fucknuts, names of their former wives tattooed across kick it out with enough power to hold their being made by pretentious jellyheads on an so we need good music to cheer us up and their broad, hairy shoulders. They’re like heads up in the halls of Valhalla. extended trust fund jolly? Then again given stop us simply opening up the cutlery draw the meeting point between John Mayall’s we’re culturally illiterate gibbons whose and throwing ourselves upon the shiny Bluesbreakers and 80s politico-punks Anti knowledge of classical music starts with that sharp things inside, ending it all in a bloody, Pasti – earthy and unsubtle, the singer’s one they used on the Hovis advert and ends THE DEMO thrashing mess, screaming like a pig in a fags’n’whisky-etched voice draped across .co.uk with the Torvill and Dean tune maybe we TURAN AUDIO war. A sound a fair few of those demos the thundering pub rock chords like a pitbull Professional, independent CD mastering need it all explained to us in short, easy to closely resembled. Sadly it’s not to be; you’re snoozing on a sack of spanners. Their token understand words. As it is, it’s quite nice and DUMPER as likely to witness a moment of defensive ballad is a bit of a mishit and they’re far Artists mastered in the studio last month include; reminds us a bit of Steve Reich in its more brilliance from Manchester United this more effective when they’re simply churning THE DUGZ, THE BERLIN LIGHTS, BEGINNERS, THE MISSING minimal, rhythmic moments, and Penguin TREVOR’S HEAD season than you are to unearth musical genius up the turf around them like on `Take You PERSIANS, JOHN OTWAY, ENGLISH PLUS, ENTHRONED, Café Orchestra at others, but you can’t And here’s how to get all of the above amid this bunch. But there’s one, gleaming Away’. Final number `If I Just Go’ seems to THE OBSESSED, DIO, PAUL RODGERS, SUZANNE VEGA, dance to it and no amount of Jack Daniels completely tits-up wrong. Trevor’s Head PLASMATICS, CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, RY COODER, BOB exception. The Pink Diamond Revue. Who be an existential contemplation of suicide, will convince us it’s as good as Stravinsky’s boast a list of influences that should have any DYLAN, THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND, THE EXPLOITED, aren’t even from Oxfordshire, but from though so gruffly is it delivered you wonder `Firebird Suite’. Or `Ace of Spades’. sane human salivating: Stooges, Motӧrhead, WOT GORILLA, WINTERFYLLETH, ANDREW PEARSE, Caversham and so possibly shouldn’t count. if the band are planning to simply eat Sabbath, Clutch, Queens of the Stone- JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, UK SUBS, THE STRANGLERS, But then we remembered there’s a Caversham themselves to an early grave at the local Age, but appear blissfully ignorant of the TORI AMOS, JOHNNY CASH, DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, MOODY BLUES. team in the Oxford Mail Boys league, and that kebab van. Meaty, in every sense of the LITTLE RED things that make each of those bands such Ox-Berks border is somewhere near there, word. Time for something a bit more restrained. cranium-crushing fun. Like not sounding 01865 716466 [email protected] so they earn honorary exception status and Even Little Red’s name suggests timidity like a workaday pub-rock act for starters. take their place atop the pile like a golden and they are indeed a slightly mousy folk Or sounding like all the progress rock orb resting on top of a fresh dung heap. Mix LUKE PAOLO outfit: pretty, dappled, traditional-sounding music has made since 1974 never happened. “There are two reasons why our offering THE COURTYARD up a dense, doomy palette of robot beats, harmony-based songs that peek out from Bands like this tend to win regional battle may be unsuitable for a demo review: (a) we shimmering surf guitar, queasy electronic their safe little nest into the bigger, scarier of the band competitions because they’re are based in Reading, not Oxford; (b) our wobbliness and stuff that goes hiss and pssst- world of rock’n’roll just occasionally. The highly proficient and the judges are lost- RECORDING STUDIO music is a bit past the ‘demo’ stage and is choooo and top it off with a disembodied threesome are at their best when they strip in-time imbeciles who vomit at the mere all set to be released in the form of a debut PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/24, OTARI voice describing a death-row inmate’s final things down and stick to rustic wanderings mention of words like dubstep or loop pedal. EP,” announces Luke Paolo, missing the MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE MACHINE, 2 TRACKING meal, and some floaty harmonies that seem to and wonderings, the male-female vocal We’ve heard exactly the same demo five point that the main reason it’s unsuitable ROOMS, SUPERB CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELEC- have been nabbed off The Grumbling Fur’s interaction keeping things fresh, though hundred times before and will hear it again for demo review is it’s likely to induce a last album and what have you got? Something they’d do well to give Hayley Bell a more a thousand times more before God in his TION OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR + MIDI FACILITIES (Inc coronary in the hapless reviewer who is approaching absolutely bloody brilliant, is prominent role for the most part. `The mercy allows us to exit this plane of sonic LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND etc.) terminally conflicted over whether to laugh what. It’s psychedelia in its very purest form, Garden’ sees them bring almost surfy electric suffering and ascend to a higher place where uncontrollably, fly into a terrible rage or music designed to induce invasive fractal guitars to play, which suits them well, and experimentalism and imagination aren’t dirty Residential facilities included. simply go and lie under a heavy boulder patterns in the corner of your vision when the autumnal `Cures’ is sweet, though the words. Man alive, this is terrible. Especially www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk until the sun takes our eyes and the buzzards you shut your eyes, a bit of vaguely eastern upbeat `The Cause’ feels awkward and `Chemical Bible’, hideously dated, histrionic, Phone RICHARD WALSH on 01235 845800 our innards. The combination of tinkling weirdiness snaking around the disorientating merely makes you think about how The overlong balls-out macho blues-rocking of jazz lounge ivories, a hefty baritone with mix’n’match tapestry. In two short tracks August List can do this kind of stuff far a kind that we thought Palaeolithic man had all the poise of a hippo on a trapeze, and here, Pink Diamond Revue conjure more better. Such comparisons aside, we’re eradicated alongside Neanderthals. `The an approach to lyrical poetry that makes originality and carefree wonder than most of grateful for a few moments of simple, Deceiver’ is possibly worse: tight-jeaned, him out of Kasabian sound like WB Yeats the other acts this month combined will ever unpretentious music that’s hard to dislike. perm-haired musical arse gas from a time (sample: “Clear water, clear water come up with if you gave them til Christmas when mammoth skin loincloths were still this Clear water, la la la la la / Clear water, clear 2025 and force fed them magic mushrooms season’s must-have fashion accessory and the water / Oh clear water, la-dee da-dee da-dee for breakfast every day. musical instrument of choice was a discarded da-dee da”) gives the abiding impression of GODSBANE It wouldn’t be a demo page without a bit jawbone smashed against a nearby rock. a sturdy heffer trying to give birth to a grand piano. The likes of `Beads on the Floor’ SEX WITH YOUR X might want you to imagine you’re wasting Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links “FAO Nice people at Nightshift,” begins the away the wee small hours in a run-down gin to [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without accompanying letter to this four-song effort. joint with Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you They’ll be bloody lucky to find one of those. but it’s closer to being stuck in a lift with can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t fucking whine about your It’s wall-to-wall bastards here at Nightshift Jamie Cullum after he’s spent the afternoon review on Facebook either, else we’ll print a screenshot and make you look like a prize tit.