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email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 139 February ’s Music Magazine 2007 photo by Squib

RichardRichardRichard

Oxford’sWaltersWaltersWalters master of melancholy on his incredible ten-year musical journey - interview inside.

Plus - News, reviews and six pages of local gigs

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

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

BANDS AND SINGERS wanting to play this most significant releases as well as the best of year’s Oxford Punt on May 9th have until the its current roster. The label began as a monthly 15th March to send CDs in. The Punt, now in singles club back in 1997 with Dustball’s ‘Senor its tenth year, will feature nineteen acts across Nachos’, and was responsible for The Young six venues in the city centre over the course of Knives’ debut single and mini- as well as one night. The Punt is widely recognised as the debut releases by Unbelievable Truth and REM were surprise guests of Robyn premier showcase of new local talent, having, in Nought. The box set features tracks by Hitchcock at the Zodiac last month. Michael the past, provided early gigs for The Young Unbelievable Truth, Nought, Beaker and The Stipe and joined bandmate Pete Knives, Fell City Girl and Goldrush amongst Evenings as well as non-Oxford acts such as Buck - part of Hitchcock’s regular touring others. Venues taking part this year are Borders, Beulah, Elf Power and new signings My , The Venus 3 - onstage for the encores, QI Club, the Wheatsheaf, the Music Market, Device. including a brace of REM , the Purple Turtle and the Cellar. The event runs `Electrolyte’, plus a new, as yet untitled , from 6pm in Borders through to 1am down at team up with former-Can plus Hitchcock’s classic `Listening To The the Cellar. Bands, duos or solo artsits should legend Damo Suzuki for a one-off gig at ’ and a cover of `’. send demos, with a short biog, to The Punt, c/o Cellar on Sunday 1st April. Damo has played a With also in the audience, it Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. number of improvised gigs in Oxford with made for a star-studded night - see full gig The only rules for inclusion are that bands must various local musicians, including members of review, page 14. be unsigned, resident in Oxfordshire and have Nought, Dive Dive, Ride and Fell City Girl. some gigging experience. Bands that played last Tickets for the show are on sale now, priced £6, year’s Punt cannot play this year. As ever a from wegottickets.com. Support comes from Machine and Foxes! play a launch gig for the limited number (100) of all-venue Punt passes Fuck Buttons, Swordwind and Traktors. album at the Cellar on Thursday 8th February. will be on sale from mid-February, priced £7, from Videosyncratic on Cowley Road, QI Club THE WALK OFF release their debut single, QI CLUB in Turl Street are looking for more on Turl Street and online from oxfordmusic.net. ‘Vader Fader’, on Feburary 26th on Norwich- acts to play their fortnightly gig nights. Bands based indie label Hungry Audio, home also to and solo acts can email Stewart at Telescopes. The new single is released on 7” [email protected] or call on vinyl as well as a download. The band launch 07939592732. the single with a gig at the Zodiac on Saturday 24th February, with support from last month’s DON’T FORGET TO TUNE IN to the Nightshift cover stars Baby Gravy, plus ex- Download every Saturday evening between 6- Suitable Case people Mephisto Grande. Go to 7pm on BBC Radio Oxford 95.2fm. The local www.thewalkoff.com for further tour details. music show features the best new Oxford releases, plus interviews, a club and gig guide OXFORD GALLERY hosts another and a regular demo vote. The show is available masterclass with renowned guitarist Sid to listen to online all week at bbc.co.uk/oxford. Jacobs on Wednesday 21st March. The class starts at 6.30pm with tickets, priced £10, strictly limited. THE MUSIC MARKET Contact 01865 553777 for details or Upstairs @ The Market Tavern 8 Market St, off Cornmarket St visit www.oxfordguitargallery.com Tel: 01865 248388 Email: [email protected] JOHN CALE’s gig at the Zodiac on Monday 29th January has now been re-arranged for THE FAMILY MACHINE AND February Monday 19th March. The former-Velvet FOXES! contribute to a new DMR + UP’N’COMING ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS compilation mini-album on Big Scary Underground man pulled the Oxford show due to Every Saturday 8.30pm, £4. Local live bands night. “unforeseen circumstances”. All tickets remain Monsters’ Alcopop singles club this 3rd Caminus / One Dollar Peepshow / The Wildflowers Tour valid for the new date. Similarly Thirteen Senses month. The six-track, 3 CD is 10th Hip Hop Night with Mr Shaodow / Nonsense / have re-arranged their February Zodiac show for available to singles club subscribers / Sly / more Thursday 22nd March due to recording from late January or by mail-order 17th Shaker Appeal / Juxtsar / The Castrates / The Iliterates commitments. from www.ilovealcopop.co.uk from 24th Off Kilter / The Underside 26th February. The other acts SHIFTY celebrates ten years of musical included on the CD are , DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT Every Sunday 8pm, FREE ENTRY independence this month with the release of a Midget, Beauty School Dropout and three-CD box set featuring some of the label’s Popular Workshop. Family OXFORD UNIVERSITY JAZZ SOCIETY Every Thursday 8pm. FREE ENTRY

SCOTT MATTHEWS plays at FRIDAY FOOD Brookes University Union on Every Friday 12-3pm. £2 (includes a bowl of fresh home-made soup) Sunday 1st April following two sold- 2nd BORDERVILLE 9th BROTHER BEN & JAMES BELL out shows at the Zodiac by the 16th AMBERSTATE 23rd MONDO CADA Midlands-based singer-songwriter last year. Tickets, priced £10.50, DEADBEAT SOUNDS - Live bands th th are on sale now from Friday 9 / 16 . 8pm, £4 wegottickets.com or from the DMR TUESDAY NIGHT CLUB 8pm, £3 Brookes Union box office, on 01865 13th GREEN ONIONS (unpeeled) 27th BLUE MAMA 484750. A Quiet Word With Richard Walters

“I USED TO GET THE JEFF Photo: Squib with Björk, especially on Buckley comparison a lot, that and `’, and his involvement Thom Yorke. They’re two of the best with but that was it. I did vocalists of the last 20 years, so it’s some research and fell in love with always been a taken by me as a the Frou Frou album he did with compliment.They were two of the , that’s an incredible main reasons I started singing. But record, totally underrated. It’s been a really, deep down, I wish I was Scott fantastic experience. I’ve also written Walker.” and recorded with Bernard Butler over the last year. I met him at a festival RICHARD WALTERS IS ONE OF in Ireland in 2005, and pestered him the most talented singers Oxford has until he agreed to do some tracks. I produced and, almost secretly, one of think Bernard’s still untouchable as a the most successful. Still only 24 guitarist, he’s totally unique.” years-old, Richard has been playing on the local scene for ten years now, YOU’VE JUST SIGNED TO BIG originally in the band Polysoul Scary Monsters. How did that come (alongside future members of Witches about, do you see it as a long-term and Jaberwok) and later Theremin, and how does it feel to who released a single on Shifty Disco be involved with a small label in 2001. But it’s as a solo performer compared to Warner Chappell? that Richard is best known and has “I heard about BSM because they enjoyed his greatest successes. In the released a wonderful EP by the past five years he has signed a Swedish band Jeniferever, whom I publishing deal with Warner Chappell became a little obsessed with. Kev Music and been taken under the wing who runs the label was a friend of a of Courtyard Management, who look friend, and I got her to speak to him after and Supergrass. He simple, the latter a solemn, funereal 2001 - Courtyard saw us supporting about the possibility of doing a single. has played gigs as far and wide as the lament that recalls the heart-breaking Medal, who they were managing at I thought he’d instantly dismiss the States, Hong Kong and Sweden and purity of Robert Wyatt at his very the time. I left the band in 2002, idea - the label’s quite rock based and worked with Suede’s Bernard Butler, best. Elsewhere, ‘Ice Skaters’ rides pretty much intent on leaving music I was looking to release what is, Noel Hogan of (in over a bizarre rhythm like the sound alone for a few years. But I started essentially, a pop EP. It’s impossible his Monoband project) and Guy of feet trudging through deep snow, writing again and playing a few gigs to compare BSM and my publishers. Sigworth, producer to Björk and accentuating the gorgeous longing and on my own, and that’s when Kevin’s running a fantastic, proven Britney Spears. loneliness inherent in it. Courtyard approached me regarding label almost entirely by himself, Along the way Richard has A long-time favourite of ours at management. It was a huge simply because he loves music. experienced both incredible highs and Nightshift, reviews of Richard compliment - having been a Signing publishing with a major was equal lows. When his song ‘All At Walters’ gigs and low-key CD releases Radiohead and Supergrass fan for good for the advance, but that’s about Sea’ was used on an episode of CSI: have become a staple of these pages, years. I’m managed by their sister it... unless I suddenly start shifting Miami last year, it prompted an while in his various guises he has company ATC now but it’s all millions of , I’ll never be a unprecedented response in the States appeared at more Oxford Punt events interlinked. I still do the bulk of my priority at a company as big as that.” and the track on his MySpace site than any other artist. As such, it’s recording at the studio over in Sutton received over 30,000 plays. This easy to forget just how much the Courtenay. I re-signed a solo YOU’VE SEEN A FAIR BIT OF came shortly after Richard believed quietly unassuming singer has publishing deal, just with Warner the world in recent times. his chance had slipped after a trip to achieved. For his still tender years he Chappell, in 2005.” “I feel so lucky to have had the the States to meet interested record has seen and done far more than most You’ve worked with some formidable chance to see somewhere like Hong companies was cut short when he musicians will ever accomplish in people in the . Kong, to play there. It’s not suffered a seizure and was later their careers, and it’s all still just “Working with Guy Sigsworth has somewhere I can imagine I would diagnosed with epilepsy. beginning. been awe inspiring; he’s a genius. It have visited otherwise. It did make We met up with Richard as he was initially a strange idea for me, me realise how lucky we are in WITH PLENTY OF MUSICAL prepared to launch his new EP. working with an electronic and Oxford and the UK in general when it irons in the fire, 2007 looks like Befitting of an artist who imparts mainly pop-based producer; he’d just comes to live music. They’re crying being Richard’s most successful year such emotional depth into his music finished work with Britney Spears out for live acts over there, this yet. This month he releases a new and who has been out there and done when I met him. At the time I really massive city and yet, if you’re a EP, ‘Pilotlights’, on renowned indie so much already, he has a lot to say; felt like I’d fallen out of love with music fan, it’s very limited. Playing label Big Scary Monsters, five songs in fact it is possibly the most guitar music, I wanted to move away in the States was fun – it’s a bit of a that showcase everything that is great expansive interview we have from that shitty singer/songwriter teenage dream realised. When we about his voice and his songwriting. conducted for this magazine and it’s scene and try a different direction. played at SXSW in Austin, I just Often – and quite accurately – just a shame we can’t fit it all in. The idea of making assumed, - redneck hell, but it compared to Jeff Buckley and Thom That said, one listen to ‘Pilotlights’ is had always been appealing, but I’d was great. The festival was staggering: Yorke, Richard’s voice possesses a all you need to fall in love with never had the know-how technically an entire city devoted to music for choirboy-like clarity: cracked and Richard’s songs. to do it alone. I’d listened to Björk or one week, it was just fucking keening, run through with Portishead records and thought how mayhem, in a good way. And Austin vulnerability and a real sadness that YOU WERE SIGNED TO the fuck? Cos there are certain sounds was a beautiful, cultural city. I got a can puncture the hardest heart. Songs Courtyard Management; how did that you just can’t pin down, and not taxi from the airport, and before the like ‘We Have Your Head’ and help your career? being able to understand how it’s done driver had even asked where to, he ‘Elephant In The Room’ are “Theremin signed to Courtyard/ is half the appeal. Guy was suggested told me that not all Texans are small wonderfully stripped-down and Warner Chappell publishing first in to me; I was aware of what he’d done minded, gun-toting Bush supporters; he just wanted to make that clear. I huge opportunity, if I can’t get signed thought that was interesting.” from doing this, I never will. I put an incredible amount of pressure on HOW DID IT FEEL TO HAVE ‘ALL myself, the idea of coming back At Sea’ played on CSI: Miami, empty handed terrified me. On my especially with the reaction it second morning in LA, I had a fit - provoked? the first time anything like that had “It’s like having a free music video, happened to me. I woke up in an albeit starring David Caruso. And ambulance and had no idea what was you’ve got a guaranteed audience of going on. The hospital did all the millions; it’s amazing exposure. necessary tests and came to no When it was originally shown in May, obvious conclusions. So I was given I couldn’t believe the reaction. CBS some valium and discharged. I was in said they’d never had a response like LA for another week or so, but my that to a piece of music on the show, heart wasn’t really in it. I got back to which was very flattering. I had an Oxford and just felt totally deflated, email from a couple in San Diego who the whole experience really knocked used the song for their first dance at my confidence. I really felt that I’d their wedding. And a dance company fucked up my one big chance. I saw in Portland have used the song. my doctor and was told it was a one- Those kind of things are odd to think off seizure, probably brought on by about, but it’s the reason I wanted to tiredness and stress. I wasn’t actually write music. I find it comforting to diagnosed with epilepsy until the think that a song I wrote in my living following January, when I started room means something to other having fits again. I found it quite hard people in other places.” to cope with at the time, and it just distracted me from music for a bit but THERE’S A CONSISTENT things went back to normal after a feeling of sadness and loss in your month or so.” songs; do your songs reflect you as a person? YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING IN “They are sad songs but I don’t bands and solo since you were 15; think of myself as a particularly sad what have been the most important person. I have ups and downs like things that have happened to you in everyone else. It’s just that I write that time, and what has been the more music when I’m on a low. most important lesson you’ve They’re not always written from a learned? personal point of view though; “I’m 24 now, so it’s scary to think sometimes they’re stories. I’d like to it’s almost 10 years since Polysoul. I move away from that one day and try suppose, on a personal level at least, a different approach, but at the not much has changed. I still love moment writing happy songs for the singing, I write in the same way and sake of it just wouldn’t be true. yeah, music’s still the biggest part of ‘Elephant In The Room’ is obviously me. The only difference really is it about the end of a relationship but I can be harder, without that safety net think, despite the lyrics, it’s uplifting, you have when you’re younger, to hopeful even. Someone shouted find the time and drive to push `Why don’t you set yourself on fire?’ yourself to the next level when right in the middle of `I’m Sorry’ at you’re working 35 hours a week, in a one gig last summer and I thought, job that you have little or no interest shit, this really must be unbearable to in, but that’s how I know it still watch, but that happens sometimes. matters to me. My opinion of the On the good nights it comes out as music industry has changed massively just, I don’t know... an aching, the in that time though; I’m probably right side of sadness. I think a lot of getting more and more cynical every the time people can find something year. I signed my first publishing deal they relate to in that. I’d feel when I was 19, and at that time, in ridiculous if I suddenly started writing my mind at least, the idea of political protest songs, it’d be totally achieving anything notable without contrived. It’s not that I don’t care the backing of a major was out of the about big world issues, it’s just… there question. But I found out pretty aren’t that many words that rhyme quickly that majors aren’t necessarily with Bush.” what you need to start a career, certainly to sustain one. That’s YOU WERE DIAGNOSED WITH what’s amazing about the current epilepsy in 2004 just as things were musical climate, this whole DIY, looking to take off; how did this home-made ethos that’s growing - the THE ANY DAYS affect you and what was going on at idea that you can gain a global the time and has it had an effect on following, potentially without even your songwriting? leaving your house, is just incredible. “When it first happened it was a bit Music still feels fresh to me. It still of a shock. In spring 2004 I’d been feels brand new.” invited over to to meet some labels. It was bizarre, labels in ‘Pilotlights’ is released on 26th the states hear a CD and if they like February on Big Scary Monsters. www.theanydays.com it, rather than coming along to a gig, Richard plays the Zodiac on they’ll ask to see you play in their Saturday 23rd February. Visit www..com/theanydays office. When I was invited over to www.myspace.com/richardwalters (check websites for local gig dates) LA, I remember thinking, this is a for news and downloads. Sponsored RELEASED by

and songs that seem to be trying to soar skywards even when they’re treading LAIMA BITE timorously behind Robin Bennett’s reedy, just- ‘Spiderweb’ got-out-of-bed-after-several-bottles-of-whisky voice. His is the faltering vulnerability amid the (Own Label) new, bold acid-pop tendencies. A couple of years ago the then completely Having acted as Mark Gardener’s backing band unknown Laima Bite absolutely slayed us for much of the last three years, it’s not with one of the most beautiful, heart- surprising that there are hints of Ride in tracks wrenching demos we’ve ever received, like ‘Every One Of Us’, where those country including the peerless ‘Did You Used To roots are a distant dust cloud on the horizon, Love’. Since then her solo work has taken a while ‘The Story of the City’ recalls Mercury backseat to vocal duties with The Factory Rev’s finest moments, with its gorgeous, and latterly Mary’s Garden. With a voice childlike, swooning melody. Having threatened that can convey both portent and sadness to stagnate completely for a while, it’s great to with consummate ease Laima has taken each hear how fresh Goldrush can sound on ‘The band to a higher level but it’s still her Heart Is The Place’, the pastoral psychedelic stripped-down solo material that shows her GOLDRUSH trip of ‘Can’t Give Up The Ghost’ and the talents off best. kooky ‘Heaven’s My Destination’ with its This eight-song mini-album features backing ‘The Heart Is The Place’ scraped strings and backwards guitars and from Junkie Brush’s Tim Lovegrove, plus (Truck) Robin sounding like Robert Wyatt just two of Mary’s Garden bandmates Moty Dimante In which our protagonists journey far from the its understated highlights. Only when they and Colin MacKinnon, but they never Shire to take on the American beast, lose two of slump back into mode, as on ‘Yours And impose on Laima’s warm, soulful folk songs, their band of brothers, come within an inch of Mine’ do they sound lethargic, Robin singing a lyrical world of love and loss. Sometimes splitting up and finally return home full of like the death-rattle of a 40-a-day smoker. the words have a clumsiness that trips up the spirituality and with a new-found love of As Goldrush lurch off the road in a squall of emotional outpouring, as on ‘The Milkman’, psychedelic prog-rock. horn stabs and flailing heavy rock guitars on but at others, such as ‘Hear You Breathing’ Not that Goldrush’s third album escapes its ‘Sun In Your Eyes’, you can feel that far from she can cut to the very quick of what love is prairie roots entirely, from its grandly sapping the life out of them, their global trawls all about, and that’s a rare gift. symphonic intro, of which Spiritualized would have set them on another journey altogether. Despite the romantic nature of these songs, be proud, to its layers of swirling, shimmering Sue Foreman it’s slush-free; Laima’s take on it all is resolutely pessimistic, but then happy music is for stupid people and you could lose your head and heart in songs like ‘Twisted Angel’ THE WALK OFF CHANTELLE PIKE or the gorgeous ‘Wait For Me’, gently bucolic flute and acoustic guitar creating a shroud of ‘Vader Fader’ ‘Ain’t It Just A Cigarette private melancholy. (Hungry Audio) EP’ Too often singer-songwriters have either a Hissing factory beats, synth squelches with great voice or great songs. Laima has both. A edges as rough as shattered glass and a voice (Own Label) rare talent. One that demands wider like Marilyn Mason coughing up a lungful of Oxford is currently awash with talented young exposure. cigarette tar; it’s fair to say The Walk Off female singer-songwriters, amongst them Dale Kattack won’t be invading the consciousness or wallet Chantelle Pike, who eschews bedroom of yer average fan of The Feeling any time introspection in favour of a more showy, jazz soon. But they should. They should be inside style. That said, the strongest track on this their heads screaming and pummelling and Mark Gardener-produced EP is ‘Isabella’ with making them cry for it all to stop because it its swooning and deep-set melancholy. But hurts. Hurts like ten tons of hammers and otherwise Chantelle seems more at home belting rusty razor blades landing on you when you’re out tear-stained torch songs in a basement jazz tucked up snugly in bed. Hurts even though at club, her strong, velvety voice often at odds heart it’s a snappy little disco number with a with her humdrum subject matter. chorus that sounds like N.E.R.D’s ‘Lapdance’ You do get the feeling though that she’s not after a contretemps with an industrial chicken making the very best of her vocal strength with meat processor. slight material that lingers only briefly in the If was indeed the Devil, and memory. The more playful ‘Dropping Stitches’ Aphex Twin and Atari Teenage Riot had is sweet enough but lightweight and only when produced ‘Bad’, this is what it might have Chantelle darkens the mood doe she begin to sounded like. shine in her best light. Dale Kattack Dale Kattack

Selected Oxford releases are now available on the ground floor HMV Oxford supports local music Open Sundays 11-5pm & late Thursdays till 7pm. 10% student discount every day DR SHOTOVER: Missing, Presumed Deaf Yes, yes, I heard you the first time, no need to rub it in, you smug bugger. I know, I missed THE gig of the year the other week, when REM showed up at the Zodiac to jam with . Now, young Hitchcock’s a sound cove – I was at school with his father – and I usually pop along to pay my respects, but sadly I was unavoidably detained, so had to forego the pleasure. What’s that? Where WAS I? In the cells, you nosy blighter. For cheeking a police dog, actually... Anyway, last night the chaps at the club bar and I found ourselves discussing great events which we have missed due to circumstances beyond our control... Binky Harmondsworth was on the guest list, but drank so much egg-nog he failed to make it to the Strokes at the Zodiac, February the one where Kate Moss joined them on backing vocals (I was there and I don’t remember that, but who’s to point the finger of doubt when a good story is involved...?)... Every Monday Algy Fortnum had tickets for the 1966 World Cup, but was THE FAMOUS MONDAY hospitalised due to falling off a Spacehopper the day before... and NIGHT BLUES Soupy Southwold had to miss his The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. £6 own wedding after being mauled 5th ROB TOGNONI (Australia) by a lion at Longleat. That was 12th FUNKYDORY (UK) HIS excuse, anyway, though he th looked fine to me when I saw him 19 THE LEE RYDER BAND (UK) the following week with that 26th HONEYBOY HICKLING & THE DTs (UK) Brazilian popsy at the Isle of Wight Festival... Now, where was I? Ah yes, most amusing, in the Every Tuesday cells... your turn to buy the next THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB hogshead of claret, you ghastly little oik... Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, and about to make a surprise guest appearance at the Next month: Gigs we WISH soul until 2am th Nettlebed . we’d missed, part 1: The Vines 6 KATYA GORRIE featuring DENNY ILETT Jr 13th THE TOM GREY QUINTET 20th THE TOM GREY QUINTET DELICIOUS MUSIC 27th THE NUMBERS RACKET Live In February Every Thursday Saturdays @ The Music Market GET FUNKED Delicious Music Entertainment in association with Up’n’Coming Entertainment presents 03 Caminus + One Dollar Peepshow + The Wildflowers Tour Electromash, bastard pop, broken bass. 9.30-2am. £3 including Tom Corneill, Blair Chadwick & Tamara Parsons 10 Hip Hop Night with Mr Shaodow + Nonsense + Chris Martin + Sly + more Every Friday 17 Shaker Appeal + Juxstar + The Castrates + The Iliterates 24 Off Kilter + The Underside BACKROOM Funk, soul and R&B. 9-2am Free B4 10pm; £4 after. Sundays @ Market Tavern (23rd – with guest AIDAN LARKIN) Weekly Electric Open Mic Jam / 8pm Free! Bring your own instruments - amps, PA & drums provided. Acoustic Saturdays open mic artists welcome 3rd SIMPLE – . 9-3am Tuesdays @ Pizza Express, Golden Cross 10th OX4 – Drum’n’bass. 9-3am LIVE JAZZ & MORE – Downstairs in Bar Milano / 7.30pm / Free Entry 17th TBC 06 Luis D’Agostino 24th SKAVILLE + THE ELEMENTS. £8 13 Tamara Parsons & Adam Dutton + Pawel Kuterba 20 Neil Mason’s Masonic Groove 27 Blue Mama Sundays Tuesday Night Blues Club @ The Music Market 4th LIVE STAND-UP COMEDY. 8pm. £7/6 13 Green Onions (unpeeled) 11th THE DIVINITY SCHOOL + LOKEI + 27 Blue Mama & guests HANGMAN’S JOE. 7.30-11pm. £4 th Wednesday 14 - Valentine’s Massacre with Black Skies Burn + 18 HI FLYER + support. 8pm. £3 Thirty Two + more brutal metal acts. 8pm; £3 25th THE DOUGHNUT KINGS DEMOS to: DMR LTD 99 St ALDATES – T 01865 242784 M 07876 184623 FOR BOOKINGS email [email protected] gig guide Sponsored by

THURSDAY 1st PETE FRANKLIN + IAN STAPLES: The HELLOGOODBYE + PLAIN WHITE T + FEBRUARY Wheatsheaf – Goth-grunge banshees Ivy’s Itch HOUSTON CALLS: The Zodiac – Electro- tear up Klub Kak’s monthly session. pop and sunny Orange County pop-punk ANGHARAD + PETE CHADWICK: The X, BANDS & SINGERS NIGHT: The Victoria, collide in unlikely but quite fun union in Cowley – Delicate, doleful acoustic pop in the Jericho HelloGoodbye’s world. Tonight’s show by the vein of Jeff Buckley and Red House Painters INLIGHT + LONELY ECHOES + L- Drive Thru-signed types is already sold out. from True Rumour, plus support from trippy SHAPED ROOM + SUB FUNC: The Cellar GRINNING SPIDER with TRUE RUMOUR cocktail jazzers Colins of Paradise. – RAG battle of the bands. + COLINS OF PARADISE + JOE & JOHN ADREW FREDERICK + THE NEW BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon – MOON: QI Club – LA singer-songwriter and Weekly club night featuring classic soul, funk Tuesday 6th Black Watch frontman Frederick comes to town and disco. as part of a short UK tour to promote his 11th OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon JAMIE T: Brookes album, ‘Tatterdemalium’, plying eloquent, TONY BOWEN + SLASHED SEAT AFFAIR University Union psychedelia-tinged pop and backed by Pat + SOMAHIGH + THE BANDINIS: Jericho ‘Jazz Butcher’ Fish. Local acoustic duo The Tavern – Rock and acoustic night. MySpace may have launched him on the rd New Moon support. SATURDAY 3 road to fame and fortune but it’s a path PORT MAYHEM: The Port Mahon – GYM CLASS HEROES + MADINA LAKE + that’s been well beaten by endless tours and Acoustic night. HANGAR 18: The Zodiac – New York hip one that shows no sign of ending any time BUCKY + LITTLE FISH + TWAT TROT hoppers, signed to Fueled By Ramen, mixing soon. In fact, with his debut album, ‘Panic TRA LA + MEPHISTO GRANDE: The crudely witty lyrics with laid-back beats, Prevention’, due at the end of January, Jamie Cellar – Leftfield rock from the Big crew, somewhere between Outkast and Bloodhound T is looking more and more like one of including post-rockers Twat Trot Tra La and Gang. 2007’s biggest stars. The champion if the rabid blues mayhem from former-Suitable Case THE DeBRETTS + HAMMER Vs THE disenfranchised has so far furnished us with chaps Mephisto Grande. SNAKE + GEORGE PRINGLE: The X, a handful of limited edition EPs, each packed CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Cowley – eX-Posure club night with frothy to the gunnels with blurry, boozy suburban Community Centre – Oxford’s long-running cabaret punkers The DeBretts headlining, plus narratives. Like a south Arctic open-mic club keeps going strong with a varied jerky post-punk synth rockers Hammer Vs The Monkeys he’s got an eye for detail and a selection of singers, poets and performance Snake and current MySpace star George way with a rhyme that would shame most artists every week. Pringle, sprinkling stream-of-consciousness rappers. Jamie blurs the line between rap DIRTY SCI-FI + MONDO CADA + monologues over minimalist electro-pop. and folk, not to mention punk and reggae, as FATALLY YOURS: The Hobgoblin, Bicester THE GREEN: The Port Mahon – Darkly- much indebted to and Desmond – Bicester gets its monthly dose of the heavy inclined indie rockers. Decker as he is to The Streets and The stuff, this time courtesy of doomy rockers Dirty ONE DOLLAR PEEPSHOW + CAMINUS + Clash. His music often seems as gangly and Sci-Fi, full-on grunge thrashers Mondo Cada and THE WILDFLOWERS TOUR: The Music awkward as its creator but really it’s pin- Smiths-inspired rockers Fatally Yours. Market – Sweet Cardigans-styled pop from sharp and always utterly charming, imbuing OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Reading’s One Dollar Peepshow at tonight’s everyman tales of booze and pills and love GET FUNKED: The Bullingdon Delicious Music new bands night. and chippies with great romanticism. He nd THE DUGOUT: The Cellar – Soul, rare may come backed with Apple technology FRIDAY 2 groove and funk with eight-piece band The but Jamie T is a real troubadour of the old BEN LEE TYLER + ALEX VARGAS + THE Specifik, Sir Beans OBE and Dugout. school. Get used to loving him. IDEA: The X, Cowley – Classic 60s-influenced power rock from Cheltenham’s Ben Lee Tyler, SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house with support from bluesy acoustic pop singer club night. Alex Vargas. SKITTLE ALLEY ACOUSTIC NIGHT: ROSY BENEFIT: Emperor Ballroom, King’s Head & Bell, Abingdon – Unplugged Romanway, Cowley – Benefit gig for Respite night with Mark Bosley and Morrison & Nursing for Oxfordshire’s Sick Youngsters, Wheat. featuring a night of hip hop, r’n’b and jazz MELTING POT with KING FURNACE + music, including soul starlet Jada Pearl, rapper PARKER + GRIM LAKE FACILITY: Jericho Zuby, G Buck, Teressa Edwards, Alvin Roy, Tavern – Chili Peppers-style funk rocking from plus a special Def Jam guest. King Furnace. DAN SARTAIN: The Zodiac – Colourful, SKYNY NYRDS: Killingworth Castle, dramatic story-telling singer out of Wotton with an authentic 1950s Tex-Mex sound that SUNDAY 4th mixes with mariachi and a country METRIC: The Zodiac – Toronto-based quartet twang. Stylishly stripped-down stuff from fronted by collaborator another age, performed with genuine flair. whose effervescent vocals and KLUB KAKOFANNEY with IVY’S ITCH + keyboard playing breathe life into the band. Album ‘’ was nominated for well as his appearance at last summer’s Truck Canadian album of the year in 2006, while Festival. Pastoral hymns cut through with single, ‘’, is a great anti-war analogue sounds and electronic beats with a anthem. Alternately sweet and noisy, they’ve sweeping elegance coupled with as his yearning, got some of the fizz and fun of early Breeders doomed lyrics and wonderfully limpid voice about them. mark him out as a successor to Nick Cave or DELICIOUS MUSIC ELECTRIC JAM John Cale. A talented multi-instrumentalist, SESSION: The Music Market Wolf tends to lead with , viola or , ELECTRIC JAM: The X, Cowley – Jam along but utilises more exotic instruments, such as a with the in-house band, The X-Men. Finnish kantele. Now signed to Loog Records, DEAD SPIES: The Port Mahon he released his third album, ‘Magic Position’, MONDAY 5th late last year featuring collaborations with ROB TOGNONI: The Bullingdon – Driving Marianne Faithfull and and blues-rock from the Tasmanian guitarist and his mainstream success finally looks like his for the power trio band. taking. GRACE + CLOCKS: The Zodiac – Package JAZZ CLUB with KATYA GORRIE & tour of two up’n’coming indie acts. West DENNY ILETT Jr: The Bullingdon – Free London’s Grace, unsurprisingly, owe a debt to weekly jazz club with resident and guest bands, Jeff Buckley, while Surrey’s Clocks, recently plus r’n’b DJs til late. signed to and managed by SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, former-Menswear guitarist Chris Gentry, have a Cowley th melodic, jangly 60s edge akin to The La’s and COTTON BLONDE + YOUR FAVOURITE Tuesday 13 Shack. WEAPON + THE IDEA: The Port Mahon REGINA SPEKTOR: SUGAR’N’SPICE + THEO + DJ VERTIGO: The Cellar – Indie and electro HOMELESS: The Port Mahon club night with live bands. Oxford Town Hall th DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ SESSION: Bar TUESDAY 6 An unusual venue for a gig, Oxford Town Milano, Pizza Express – With jazz guitarist JAMIE T: Brookes University Union – The Hall’s high ceiling and miniature grandiosity Luis D’Agostino. Bard of Wimbledon continues his unstoppable is well suited to Regina Spektor. The wild- OPEN MIC NIGHT: Mangos rise – see main preview haired Muscovite-turned-Bronx resident is ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Hobgoblin, PATRICK WOLF: The Zodiac – Return of well in the ascendancy now after years Bicester London-based folktronica songsmith after his spent cultivating a cult following amongst th excellent show at the Zodiac back in October as WEDNESDAY 7 the anti-folk and art-rock crowd in her FOLK SESSION: The X, Cowley adopted New York, mixing up gypsy folk, Thursday 8th HIT & RUN: The Cellar – Hip hop and jazz and grungy pop. Her big break came in drum&bass club night. 2003 when she supported The Strokes on CHRIS JAGGER & OPEN MIC SESSION: Marlborough House tour and she hasn’t looked back. Last year THURSDAY 8 th she sold out the Zodiac and headlined the BEN WATERS: The X BEN WATERS & CHRIS JAGGER: The X, barn stage at Truck and this time around Jagger: a big name for a small venue but the Cowley – Renowned blues and duo should have little trouble selling out such a perfect environment to appreciate Mick’s play an intimate show at the X – see main venue as this. As with another of this younger brother’s earthy brand of swamp preview month’s star turns, , Regina’s blues, zydeco and cajun. The Somerset- AEROGRAMME: The Zodiac – Symphonic, appeal lies both in her quite stunning voice based singer and harpist has been recording oceanic and sometimes bruising prog-grunge and her twisted take on songwriting. Vocally and performing since the 70s, including two excellence from Glasgow’s mighty Aerogramme, she veers from little girl lost to ominous cult albums for David Geffen in the 70s. As a band who ought to be selling several million majesty, all the while rivalling for well as this he contributed lyrics to two more albums than they currently do, despite the title of Queen of Whimsy; she’s prone Stones albums, ‘Dirty Work’ and ‘Steel being beloved of everyone from Flaming Lips to beating her piano stool with a cane and Wheels’. Most recently he’s been exploring and Pavement to Charlie from Busted. Inspired singing about Hans Christian Anderson world and roots music and 1994’s ‘Atcha’ by the likes of Talk Talk and The God Machine, “Having his way with me”. After 2005’s album saw the fulfilment of this in they’re ambitious, extravagant and complex but breakthrough album, `Soviet Kitsch’, her collaboration with long-term musical partner packing a great melodic punch. C’mon, make reputation is enhanced with fourth album Ben Waters, a world-renowned pianist them famous! `Begin The Hope’ and it’s not beyond whose CV is a who’s who of blues and rock. NIGHT: The Zodiac – New club reason that next time she’ll have outgrown A boogie-woogie pianist inspired by Dr night with Loz Colbert spinning classic indie even this venue. John and Ray Charles as well as the and rock anthems. showmanship of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little rocking with his own band, keeping the punk ZELEGA: The Port Mahon Richard, he’s also possessed of a strong, and garage rock flag flying. And they still play LOUISE SETARA: The Living Room, raunchy blues voice. The duo’s new album ‘New Rose’, in case you were wondering. Oxford Castle – Rising teenage jazz singer, ‘Act Of Faith’ is recently released and SLIDE: The Zodiac – House club night with recently signed to Blue Note offshoot label tonight’s gig should get the X well and truly special guest DJ set from the renowned Manhatten, promoting debut album, ‘Still rocking. producer and remixer Paul Woolford. Waters’. BLUNTED Vs BOOGIE BASEMENT: The CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Zodiac – Breaks, funk and reggae on the decks Community Centre as the two club favourites go head to head for OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon the night. GET FUNKED: The Bullingdon th GAMMY LEG PRODUCTIONS with FRIDAY 9 RAGGASAURUS + WILSON + LES CAPDOWN: The Zodiac – Once more into CLOCHARDS: The X, Cowley – Gappy the breach for Milton Keynes’ politicised - Tooth Industries’ side project presents a jolly punk battlers. party mix with lively reggae / Arabic groovers BRIAN JAMES GANG: The Zodiac – Raggasaurus, deceptively brilliant Northampton Original Damned guitarist Brian James keeps on baggy revivalists Wilson and local Gallic Club, plus DJs. rapper in a vaguely Streets-like vein. BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon QUINTET: The Bullingdon TREV WILLIAMS + THE KING’S + THE NEW MOON: SHILLINGS + OFF THE RADAR + THE The Port Mahon – Psychedelic-tinged 60s- BROCKS: Jericho Tavern – Acoustic pop styled pop from Mr Barbeau. and night. SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, SATURDAY 10th Cowley FORK + HEADCOUNT + 32 + ALLY INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth and CRAIG: The X, Cowley – Wittstock industrial club night. fundraiser with prog-punkers Fork teaming up DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ SESSION: Bar with punk-metal titans headcount, plus Sonic Milano, Pizza Express – With guests Tamara Youth-via-Jeff Buckley style pop from Ally Parsons, Adam Dutton and Pawel Kuterba. Craig. BLUES NIGHT with GREEN ONIONS MIDAS: The Port Mahon UNPEELED: The Music Market – Unplugged MR SHAODOW + NONSENSE + CHRIS set from the Blues Brothers tribute act. th MARTIN + SLY: The Music Market – Hip WEDNESDAY 14 hop night from Delicious Music and Half MARCIO MATTOS: The Port Mahon – Decent Entz. Brazilian cellist, a renowned figure on the BASSMENTALITY: The Cellar – Ska, reggae London and European improvisation circuit, and funk with guests Planet Man and teams up with members of the Oxford Improv Internationalz, plus DJs. Collective. Tuesday 13th OX4: The Bullingdon – Drum&bass club VALENTINE’S MASSACRE with BLACK night. SKIES BURN + THIRTY TWO: The Music NME AWARDS TOUR: BARAKA: Coven II – Psy-trance club night Market – Extreme metal night in celebration of with DJs Aeon, Petran and LSDan. St Valentine’s Day, featuring former-Faith In Brookes University BLACK JACK TABAC: The Duke, St Hate people Black Skies Burn. One of two NME Awards-branded tours Clements – Blues, funk, soul, jazz, reggae, and FOLK SESSION: The X, Cowley currently doing the rounds, this one is punk from DJs Van Mule and Aidan Larkin. PHONIK SESSIONS: The Cellar – Funk dubbed ‘The ’, a lazy and SUNDAY 11th open jam session. inaccurate label for a collection of bands FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL + OPEN MIC SESSION: Marlborough House th playing dancefloor-friendly rock. South MESAPLEX + LAST DAYS OF LORCA: THURSDAY 15 London’s probably come closest to The Port Mahon – Swiss Concrete night with THE ROCK OF TRAVOLTA + WITCHES + fitting the label, taking gonzoid alternately urgent and ambient synth’n’guitar SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE: The riffs and playing them with guitars instead of instrumentalists Flies Are Spies, plus Depeche Cellar – The resurgent Rock are re-stating synths. There are obvious nods to Guru Mode-inspired electronics from Mesaplex and their case as the best live band in Oxford with Josh and Baby D, while they also cover epic, angular rocking from Chichester’s Last their incendiary blend of rock theatrics, novelty rave hit ‘The Bouncer’, but their days of Lorca. orchestral pomp and electronic edginess, drunken, hyperactive pop is as close to DELICIOUS MUSIC ELECTRIC JAM pitching them somewhere between Stravinsky, Kasabian at times. Leeds’ Sunshine SESSION: The Music Market Shellac and Trans Am, in a galaxy far, far Underground Band keep the frantically THE DIVINITY SCHOOL + LOKEI + away. Witches provide more genteel leftfield funky post-punk noise count high, where HANGMAN’S JOE: The Bullingdon: - Local pop fun, while newcomers Space Heroes could Killers meet Radio 4, while New Young rock bands night. be one of this year’s star turns, mixing up Pony Club, fresh from supporting Lily SALSANEROS: The Cellar – Salsa club glitchy electronics with metronomic drumming Allen, style themselves closer to Tom Tom night with live band. and sci-fi samples. Club with an alluring blend of electro-pop MONDAY 12th ROLO TOMASSI: The Port Mahon – and 80s funk. Best of the lot, though, are Sao Shouty, shouty, yelp, yelp 236MPH wobbly Paulo sextet CSS (pictured). While it’s not FUNKYDORY: The Bullingdon – Rough and raw blues-rock with a soul edge from the UK Beefheart-gone-gabba extreme gibbering surprising to see the media get into a froth synthcore mayhem from the Sheffield nutters about an (almost) all-girl Brazilian band, rising stars, drawing on Led Zep, Frank Zappa and Tina Turner for inspiration. wot sound like The Locust getting cooked in a their dirty, sexy robo-disco-punk is spin dryer by Melt Banana. Bring yer mum. irresistibly infectious, nowhere more so than : The Zodiac – North on recent single, ‘Alala’, where Hot Chip London rockers named after the road they live meets Go! Team. Just can’t get them out of on, plying more sprightly post-Libertines indie our head…. punk with a slice-of-city-life lyrical bent. MAIRE Ni CHATHASAIGH & CHRIS songsters Les Clochards coming on like a cross NEWMAN: Nettlebed Folk Club – Ireland’s between , Elvis and The premier Celtic harpist teams up with the th Pastels. influential acoustic guitarist for a night of 17 BANDS & SINGERS NIGHT: The Victoria, Century and reels as well as contemporary Jericho originals. QUICKFIX presents VESTIBULE + TUESDAY 13th BROTHER FRANCISCO + GANGER REGINA SPEKTOR: Oxford Town Hall – DRAFT + BLUE RIDERS: The Wheatsheaf Kooky New York-based Russian singer returns – Post-rocking from headliners Vestibule, plus to town – see main preview heavy-duty drone rock action from former- KLAXONS + CSS + NEW YOUNG PONY Black Neilson types Brother Francisco. CLUB + Newcomers Ganger Draft feature members of BAND: Brookes University Union – NME’s Verbal Kink and At Risk, while Didcot’s Blues ‘New Rave’ Awards tour comes to town – see Riders opt for some classic heavy rocking. main preview BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Brass-heavy JUST JACK: The Zodiac – Urban folk ska, funk and jazz with Smerin’s Anti-Social narratives from the North London singer-cum- 01865 311723 + DIVE DIVE + BEANS LOST ALONE + ARMSTRONG: The DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ SESSION: Bar ON TOAST: The Zodiac – Former Million Zodiac (downstairs) – Return of former- Milano, Pizza Express – Tonight’s guests are Dead frontman Frank heads off on tour in Intentions of An Asteroid frontman Steven Neil Mason’s Masonic Groove. support of his new solo album, Sleep Is For Battelle with his new band Lost Alone, aiming OPEN MIC NIGHT: Mangos The Week’, now plying a more rootsy style high with a stadium-sized brand of punky WEDNESDAY 21st with a political edge. Local punk-pop heroes metal, where Aerosmith and Muse meet Green DISCO DRIVE + AN EMERGENCY: The Dive Dive are acting as his backing band for the Day. Wheatsheaf – Melodic punk-pop, where The duration and also playing a support set, having WHISKEYCATS: The X, Cowley – Funky Clash meet from Turin’s Disco Drive; released their second album, ‘Revenge of the good-time rock and roll from ’s cult Exeter’s post-hardcore guitar manglers bring Mechanical Dog’ this month. Beans on Toast stars. their Q And Not U-influenced punk along in should provide suitably wholesome support as UP C DOWN C + EDWARD SOUNDING support. well as valuable roughage. BLOCK + TWAT TROT TRA LA + FOLK SESSION: The X, Cowley JESSICA GOYDER: The X, Cowley – NEVEREST SONGS: The Port Mahon – HIT & RUN: The Cellar Sweetly exotic singer-songwriter based in Myanalog night with good bill of leftfield OPEN MIC SESSION: Marlborough House Oxford and Barcelona, mixing Joni Mitchell, rockers, including former-Suitable Case types nd Sade and Emmylou Harris with bossa nova. Edward Sounding Block, plus math-rockers THURSDAY 22 SABOTAGE: The Zodiac – Now fortnightly Twat Trot Tra La. ALTON ELLIS + INTENSIFIED: The Zodiac rock club night playing new metal, hardcore and SHAKER APPEAL + JUXSTAR + THE (upstairs) – Rocksteady legend makes his first alternative releases. ILITERATES: The Music Market – Delicious ever visit to town – see main preview CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Music new local bands night, including the DUKE SPECIAL: The Zodiac (downstairs) – Community Centre ironically-named Iliterates. Dreadlocked Belfast-based musical hobo Peter ROGER TARRY: QI Club – Tender, ABDULLAH CHADEH: Chipping Norton Wilson explores the romantic underbelly of melancholy folk-pop in a Nick Drake style Theatre – Big Village presents the Syrian pop, mixing ’s downbeat humour from Mr Tarry, with support from The Qanun maestro. with a lush, piano-led Keane-styled sound. Epstein’s Olly Wills. TURNTABLEISM: The Cellar – Hip hop and Recently he’s toured in support of The Divine OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon drum&bass club night. Comedy and Beautiful South. GET FUNKED: The Bullingdon MELTING POT with BEAR IN THE AIR + FRIDAY 16th BRANDAN STEEP: Jericho Tavern Monday 19th th GRINNING SPIDER with SUNDAY 18 SMALLTEASERS + PHYAL + + GHOSTS + SNOWFIGHT AND YOU WILL BACKPOCKET PROHET + AGENTS OF IN THE CITY CENTRE: The Zodiac – Piano- KNOW US BY THE JANE + TREV WILLIAMS + SCELFIE: The led punk from Bournemouth’s Air Traffic, X, Cowley – Benefit gig for mental health newly signed to EMI after casing a stir with TRAIL OF DEAD: charity MIND, featuring MOR popsters their debut single, ‘Just Abuse Me’ on Fierce Smallteasers, punk-metallers Phyal, plus Panda’s Fandango singles club last year, and The Zodiac balladeer Trev Williams. more recently seen on Jools Holland and on It seems half a lifetime since we were MANATEES + YOU JUDAS: The tour with . dodging flying cymbals and well-aimed Sonic Wheatsheaf – Awesome black-hearted prog HI FLYER: The Bullingdon Youth riffs down at the old Point when the rock, doom-metal and drone-core from Carlisle’s DELICIOUS MUSIC ELECTRIC JAM Austin, Texas band whose name will always Manatees at tonight’s Vacuous Pop night. SESSION: The Music Market be truncated to Trail Of Dead first hit town. Ambitious and incredibly heavy, leaning ELECTRIC JAM: The X, Cowley Despite much critical praise and plenty of towards Swans and Neurosis but with King MONDAY 19th those frantic life shows, the band never Crimson’s adventurous squall. They’ll take AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL really took off (eventually earning your bleedin’ head off, so they will. Derby’s OF DEAD: The Zodiac (upstairs) – Texan themselves the music industry tag And You You Judas will give them a good run for their sonic destroyers return – see main preview Will Know Us By The Trail Of Debt) and money with their vitriolic brand of proggy BLOOD RED SHOES: The Zodiac you could be forgiven for thinking they’d hardcore, where Radiohead collide head on with (downstairs) – Raw-edged bubblegum grunge- simply died and gone to indie rock heaven. . pop from Brighton duo who’ve released singles But here they are back again, with new DARTZ: The Zodiac – Spiky, angular post- on Drowned In Sound and Youthmovies’ Try (fifth) album, ‘So Divided’, something of a punk funk in a Q And Not U-meets- Harder label. return to form after 2005’s self-destructive Dismemberment Plan vein from the Teeside THE LEE RYDER BAND: The Bullingdon – ‘Worlds Apart’. Nerdy gothic cowboys they newcomers. 60s-style biker blues from the London-based might be, with a penchant for Dungeons and BANDS & SINGERS NIGHT: The Victoria, guitarist and former leader of 60s cult act The Dragons, but they still kick out a fair old Jericho Hush who played with Led Zep and Fleetwood racket, powerchords and guitar vandalism BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon Mac amongst others. After a 20-year break being the order of the day, an almost TURL STREET FESTIVAL: The Cellar from music, Ryder returned in the early-90s to orchestral amalgam of so much that’s good OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon establish himself on the UK blues scene, about classic American alt.rock. Swaggering JESSICA GOYDER + ROLAND drawing favourable comparisons with Peter raunch-rock played loud and things getting CHADWICK + WIDDOS: Jericho Tavern Green. broken: would you really rather go and see AMOROUS: The Magdalen – Live jazz. THE BATTLEFIELD BAND: Nettlebed Folk Thirteen Senses? SKYNY NYRDS: The Chester Arms Club – Scotland’s premier folksters return for th SATURDAY 17 another intimate gig. THE EGG: The Zodiac (upstairs) – After their TUESDAY 20th last, curiously muted, showing at the Zodiac, HELL IS FOR HEROES: The Zodiac – Spiky the one-time local trance-funk favourites return punk rocking in a Dischord vein from the DIY to Oxford, still riding high on the back of their crew, set to release their third self-released collaboration with David Guetto, ‘Love Don’t album this month. Let Me Go’, used on the ice-skating Citroen JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY advert. These days stripped down to twins Ned QUINTET: The Bullingdon and Maff Scott, they still manage to inject a live SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, rock vitality into . Cowley Zodiac – Brighton’s indie funkers hoping to ZUBY + FUGAZIRUM + SCROOBIUS PIP live up to their NME-infected “Best New + MY SHAODOW: The Port Mahon – Band In Britain” tag, and looking ever more Swiss Concrete presents a night of hip hop likely to make it big with a livewire live show with ace local rapper Zuby’s slick, that leans towards and XTC. accomplished delivery recalling Nas and Jay-Z. RICHARD WALTERS + THE FAMILY Support comes from six-piece blues-hip hop MACHINE + WITCHES: The Zodiac band Fugazirum, laidback jazz poet and (downstairs) – This month’s Nightshift cover humourist Scroobius Pip and possibly best of star Richard Walters launches his new EP, with all, newcomer Mr Shaodow, armed with a dark, support from lachrymose country-popsters raw style, excellent use of samples and, with The Family Machine and esoteric rockers ‘Look Out There’s A Black Man Coming’, a Witches – see main interview feature brilliant, funny, uncomfortable piece of social GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with commentary – a new local star in the making? Thursday 22nd STORNOWAY + KANUTE + THE THE EPSTEIN + DANNY GEORGE GULLIVERS: Moody’s Pool Bar – Change of WILSON + MORRISON STEAM FAYRE: ALTON ELLIS / venue for GTI tonight due to a double booking Holywell Music Room – Country rocking of at the Zodiac, so it’s off round the back for the the old school from local favourites The INTENSIFIED: eclectic live music club night, tonight featuring Epstein at tonight’s special Holywell . The Zodiac celtic-tinged rockers Stornoway, atmospheric OFF KILTER + THE UDNERSIDE: The trip-hoppers Kanute, plus skanking indie- Music Market Courtesy of Skylarkin, comes a rare chance to punks The Gullivers. CHICKS WITH DECKS: The Cellar – catch a glimpse of a genuine reggae legend, FRESH OUT OF THE BOX with PLUMP Indie, new wave, riot grrl and 80s club night. Alton Ellis, the Jamaican singer widely DJs: The Zodiac– Special FOTB tonight as credited with inventing rocksteady back in multi-award-winning DJ team Plump DJs, the 60s. According to legend, while recording from Fabric’s Eargasm club, spin the best in Tuesday 27th the song ‘Get Ready – Rock Steady’ stand-in nu-skool breaks. Plus sets from First Contact bassist Jackie Mitoo couldn’t keep up with and Soundz. You are requested to wear a hat. ¡FORWARD, RUSSIA!: the ska rhythm so it was slowed down and a Or a wig. new genre was born. With a career stretching BANDS & SINGERS NIGHT: The The Zodiac over 40 years, including some legendary Victoria, Jericho Having been the saving grace of last year’s sessions at Studio 1 and classics like ‘Duke BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon NME tour at Brookes, followed by one of Of Earl’, Neil Sedaka’s ‘Breaking Up Is Hard OXFORD FOLK CLUB: The Port Mahon the star turns at , Leeds’ To Do’ and hit single ‘Girl, I’ve Got A Date’ HQ: The Cellar ¡Forward, Russia! (and, God, don’t we hate to his credit, Ellis, possessed of a smooth, REDOX + PETE FRYER BAND: The having to keep inserting them upside-down passionate soul voice, is rightly considered Magdalen – Swamp funk from Redox, plus exclamation marks) return for a headline one of the figureheads of traditional reggae; in eccentric blues-rocking from Mr Fryer and show in their own right. Here is a band for 2006 he was inducted into the Reggae & chums. whom the word frenetic was possibly Awards Hall Of Fame. NIGEL BROWN + COTTON BLONDE + invented. With little room for subtlety or Tonight’s support, Intensified, could headline CUSTOM GUITAR REBELS + THE LONG slowing down they take At The Drive-In for in their own right, with fifteen years of live WEIGHTS: Jericho Tavern a breakneck ride through late-70s / early-80s performance behind them, earning a th new wave, calling at stations marked The reputation as the UK’s leading trad ska band SATURDAY 24 Pop Group, The Associates, Joy Division and favourably compared to The Skatalites. EL TANBURA: The Zodiac (upstairs) – and even Dexy’s; it’s a frantic, slightly Tonight’s gig is followed by Skylarkin’s Traditional Egyptian music from the collection crazed form of disco all scuzzed up by white regular ska, reggae and soul session with of fishermen, musicians, storytellers and noise and spiky hardcore before being legendary Britolian DJ Derek. poets. shovelled into a washing machine for a full THE WALK OFF + MEPHISTO GRANDE spin cycle. Combative to the point of + BABY GRAVY + PALACE OF SAVING BLUE + MIMI NOIR: The Port awkwardness, ¡Forward, Russia! offer lyrical RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE: The Zodiac Mahon – Double bill of touring Swedish political conjecture and songs about Einstein (downstairs) – Launch gig for The Walk Off’s bands. but smother them in so much guitar mess new single. Punishing mayhem, THE LIES & HOW WE TOLD THEM + you’ll have your work cut out picking the death disco brutality and dancing bears all ZELEGA + APERATEC: The Cellar – nuggets of wisdom out, and they’ve a round. Mephisto Grande sees the return of Leftfield and experimental rocking. tendency to simply number their songs former-Suitable Case For Treatment frontman SELECTASOUND with FOXES! + IZIT-U + rather then give them names. They’re not Liam Ings-Reeves and drummer Pete Ward THE SIREN’S CALL: The X, Cowley - especially new tricks, but they are immense with a stripped-down brand of grotesque Sweet jangly electro-pop from Foxes! plus indie fun. And faced with a rock show like this, blues-core, while Baby Gravy add further rocking from Banbury’s Sirens Call. fun is what it’s all about. lopsided lunatic genius to the party with their MARK BOSLEY: QI Club – Local gothic dubby synth-punk racket. pop troubadour. SKAVILLE + THE ELEMENTS: The CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Bullingdon - Top-flight ska, reggae and punk Community Centre from former-Bad Manners chaps Nick Welsh, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Louis Alphonso and Martin Stewart, who, as GET FUNKED: The Bullingdon well as penning the band’s 80s hits, have also rd FRIDAY 23 played with and produced Lee Perry, Prince 100 BULLETS BACK + MARY BENDY Buster and The Selecter. Dust off your TOY + ANTON BARBEAU: The X, Cowley monkey and get ready for some serious – Synth-rocking action in an Underworld- moonstomping. meets-Sheep On Drugs vein from rising stars SHAKER HEIGHTS + SAM ISAAC + 100 Bullets Back, with support from industrial SIMPLY LUKE + LEIGHFIELD: The X, pop weirdos Mary Bendy Toy and 60s Cowley – Infectiously melodic country-tinged -pop from Anton Barbeau. rock and shimmering from MACCABEES + GOOD BOOKS: The Aylesbury’s Shaker Heights. SUNDAY 25th experimental and easy jazz with drum&bass, FOALS: The Zodiac – Having signed to funk, and world sounds. -of-the-moment Transgressive and : The Zodiac – relocated to Brighton, Foals return to their Lighters aloft, kids, Reading’s epic soft rockers former hometown for their biggest headline gig return, armed with a cache of and to date. The former-Nightshift cover stars look stadium anthems and an eye on ’s set for a very bright 2007 with an album due throne and looking likely to make a fair out later this year and their highly-rhythmic attempt at capturing it after support tours blend of new wave funk, post-rock and disco- with them as well as Snow Patrol and Bloc fied pop set to light up the musical skies. Party. They may have fled to the seaside, but we’ll BILLY MITCHELL & BOB FOX: Nettlebed keep them for our own for now, spiritually at Folk Club least. LOGH + VESSELS: The Port Mahon th PINDROP PERFORMANCE with THE TUESDAY 27 KEYBOARD CHOIR + JUNK PLANET + ¡FORWARD, RUSSIA! + CURSIVE + LITTLE COSMONAUT: The Port Mahon – SOMETREE: The Zodiac (upstairs) – Electronic ambience, digital experimentation Uptight, up’n’at’em rock and roll from the and analogue brilliance from the synth rising post-hardcore heroes – see main preview orchestra at tonight’s Pindrop. Little BAT FOR LASHES: The Zodiac Cosmonaut bring a healthy dose of twee to the (downstairs) – A trip into folk’s heart of table in support, along with John Brainlove’s darkness with songstress Natasha Khan. electro mash-up ensemble Junkplanet. JAZZ CLUB with THE NUMBERS Tuesday 27th THE DOUGHNUT KINGS: The RACKET: The Bullingdon Bullingdon – Big band jazz from the VEDA PARK + RICHARD BROTHERTON: BAT FOR LASHES: university collective. The Port Mahon – Gentle rocking from Veda The Zodiac DELICIOUS MUSIC ELECTRIC JAM park with a hint or two of Steely Dan in the SESSION: The Music Market mix. Nightshift’s favourite album of 2006 came BEARD MUSEUM: The Purple Turtle – SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, from that dark, dark corner of Psychedelic blues and folk from Morrison Cowley where love and death go hand in hand in Steam Fayre at tonight’s Beard Museum, plus THE BLACK HATS + NUMBERNINE + beautiful union. Singer-songwriter Natasha downbeat local rockers The Moneyshots and THE QUARTERFINALS: The Wheatsheaf Khan is Bat For Lashes and ‘Fur and Gold’ The Robot Heart. – Benefit gig for Amnesty International. is one of the most stunning debuts of recent SALSANEROS: The Cellar DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ SESSION: Bar times, a twisted, haunting and completely th Milano, Pizza Express – With Blue Mama. magical journey through smouldering MONDAY 26 sensuality and raw emotion. Natasha herself HONEYBOY HICKLING & THE DTs: The DIRTY BEAUTIFUL: The Cellar – club night. was born in Pakistan and now lives in Bullingdon – Renowned UK blues harpist Brighton but really, this is music that comes and singer who’s worked with Steve Marriot JACK HAINES + ANAIS MITCHELL: Jericho Tavern – Double bill of American from a far corner of a distant galaxy. and Bo Diddley along the way In his own right Everything centres on Khan’s exquisite mixing up covers of classics by Chuck Berry, singer-songwriters. th vocals, which are wrapped in inventive, Charlie Musselwhite and Canned Heat WEDNESDAY 28 often arcane, musical , creating amongst others. PIGEON DETECTIVES: The Zodiac – a dreamlike feel with portentous piano, viola COURTNEY PINE: The Zodiac – Another Possibly the band most likely to get everyone and harpsichord dominating the treated visit to town for the UK’s leading jazz saying ‘Arctic who?’ in 2007. Leeds’ laddish, guitars and marching drums. Thus far she’s saxophonist and bandleader, mixing rabble-rousing rockers are already experiencing been compared – not unfairly – to Bjork, gig mayhem on the back of MySpace-inspired and Sinead O’Connor, but gender cultdom, kicking out buzzsaw indie-punk in aside, she’s as close to Nick Cave or Marc the vein of and Buzzcocks. Almond at times. The truth is, though, that A SILENT FILM: The Wheatsheaf – she’s a unique talent in her own right and Oxford’s band-most-likely-to gear up for a after such an auspicious debut, this is one busy few months, attracting plenty of record fairytale that has us well and truly gripped. label interest for their epic, inventive stadium- sized pop, mixing epic, introverted piano ballads with sky-touching guitar workouts, somewhere between Queen, Elton John and VENUE PHONE Muse. Get ‘em while they’re hot. FOLK SESSION: The X, Cowley NUMBERS DIVINE COILS: The Port Mahon – Drones, The Zodiac: 01865 420042 dissonance and ambient spookiness from the The Bullingdon: 01865 244516 experimental collective. The Wheatsheaf: 01865 721156 PHONIK SESSIONS: The Cellar OPEN MIC SESSION: Marlborough The X: 01865 776431 House The Cellar: 01865 244761 THE BANSHEE + MEENIES: The Jericho The New Theatre: 0870 606 3500 Tavern Black Horse: 01865 373154 The Port Mahon: 01865 202067 Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for Delicious Music: 07876 184623 inclusion in the gig guide is the 20th of each Point Promotions: 07711 628021 month - no exceptions. Call 01865 372255 The Victoria: 01865 311723 (10am-6pm) or email listings to Brookes: 01865 484750 [email protected]. All listings are The Music Market: 01865 248388 copyright of Nightshift and may not be reproduced without permission QI Club: 01865 261500 LIVE photo: Scott Harrison

ROBYN HITCHCOCK AND THE VENUS 3 Oxford Zodiac Well, you know what happened next, but we didn’t then. It was never going to be just another Robyn Hitchcock gig – he’s played in Oxford quite a lot recently, but this time he is backed by the Venus 3, who are REM guitarist along with bass player Scott McCaughey and drummer , who are also in REM these days. Sadly the advertising hadn’t made this terribly clear, and the Zodiac was no more than half full. Apart from a few old Hitchcock favourites like ‘Madonna of the Wasps’ and ‘Kingdom of Love’, much of the material tonight is from the new `Olé! Tarantula’ album, and leans towards the jangly, dreamy side of Hitchcock, rather than the grinding stuff that mentions ‘thorax’ a lot. Buck is happy to strum modestly in the background on a vintage twelve- string and look on indulgently during Hitchcock’s surreal song introductions, which, as a friend remarks, are becoming very reminiscent of a less nasty Peter Cook. This would have been a great gig if it had ended there, but when the band come back for an encore, who appears but Mike Mills and bloody Michael Stipe! Cue much girly shrieking, and not just from me. Stipe is wearing a Norman Wisdom suit, with a cap and what can only be described as a handbag, and, in the way of celebrities, he’s very small. The affable-looking Mills picks up a spare guitar and Stipe makes his way to the side of the stage, all eyes following him. The ensemble start with REM’s ‘’, with Stipe and Hitchcock singing the chorus, “You are the star tonight”, to each other, then ‘Listening to the Higsons’ freeform twelve-string lead. They all look like they are having the best (Michael Stipe + a song that mentions Norwich = surreal!) and an time together, and I suspect the residents of the Randolph or Old Bank unreleased REM song called, I think, ‘DJ At the End of the World’. Stipe are disturbed that night by long renditions of Fast Show sketches and leaves and everyone starts swapping instruments, finishing with a requests for toast at 3am. Quite extraordinary. fabulous ‘Eight Miles High’, where Buck finally lets rip with the Angus Stevenson

SAM COOKE GROUP Feat. ADAM MARY’S GARDEN / DIATRIBE / SCRIPT WALDMANN / ALEX HUTTON TRIO The Zodiac It is problematic when a band likes of Blur. Their take on ‘indie’ is Spin Jazz Club, The Wheatsheaf reminds you of your shady musical far more spiky and interesting than They say the problem with jazz Quartet, featuring soprano past. Take Script, whose gentle you’d expect: they cover Pixies’ today is that there’s plenty of saxophonist Adam Waldmann, start songs are full of hushed melody. `Gouge Away’, so I guess the band young blood coming in but only old their introductory theme; They constantly threaten to break is winning this particular war. people watching. Oxford’s finest Waldmann’s head-bobbing followed your heart before soaring off Mary’s Garden have had to live in (and most credible) jazz club, The by a jilting yet soulful bass groove. skyward, bursting open like the the shadow of The Factory for Spin, disproves this view: they Herbie Hancock-esque chimes greatest fireworks you’ve ever some time, but on tonight’s manage to get young bands and pull reverberate from Sam Cook’s seen; and then without warning evidence it won’t be long before in plenty of students, providing keyboard and a tidy little drum line they remind you fondly of The we’re grateful they split when they warm jazz on a cold and fatally fills it in. A fuller and more rounded Beautiful South. Remembering you did. These songs are dark and dense windy night. sound is achieved, perhaps because actually like The Beautiful South and in lesser hands could seem And warm jazz it is indeed. of Cooke’s deep honky tonk setting could be a traumatic experience if cumbersome and heavy. However, London’s renowned Alex Hutton offset by Waldmann. Yet this Script weren’t there to usher you the band are so tight that they Trio opens with ‘Yellow-Blue doesn’t mean more variety: the through the whole affair with well make these songs roar. Centre stage Waltz’, double bass acting as the quartet’s only letdown is that the observed lyrics and perfectly is Laima Bite who looks as if she’s focal point of the song, plucking material is rather same-y. Still, the written tunes. dressed for a wedding and a funeral tender melodies whilst Hutton’s band holds great unity, the Diatribe take you back a few years at the same time. Such get up embellished piano chords provide a virtuosity of each member is too. An instrumental introduces unsurprisingly suits the band who background. As far as oxymorons undoubtable, and the subdued their vocalist as eventually he are capable of creating an go, there’s a certain melancholy- groove they bring is a refreshing swaggers to the stage and leans unforgiving dirge whilst Laima’s upbeat mood – ‘Another Good change. awkwardly on the mic stand, a pint voice takes their songs to a Reason’ expounds this odd Endless nostalgia trips and of water sitting unconvincingly in passionate high. They finish their ambivalence better than the English revisitations could be the downfall his hand. Diatribe soon prove set with the eponymous `Mary’s language could. Hutton ends with a of jazz. Perhaps the most important themselves to be an amalgam of Garden’, a seven-minute epic that quiet contrapuntal piano line, a factor for keeping modern jazz alive both sides of the Britpop war. The epitomises the band. It’s awash finale held silent a moment too long is the importance of new, original vocalist tries very hard to with dynamics and opulent ideas - adding tension; the last chord material, and this is why Hutton’s assimilate the likes of and it sounds gigantic; hopefully bringing a resolute end with Trio prove to be the highlight of the (plenty of bravado and barely able grand things await this enchanting chuckles all round. night. to hold a note) while the band seem band. The even younger Sam Cooke Pascal Ansell to have taken their lead from the Sam Shepherd photo: Scott Harrison instrumental andledbyLondon-based music. TheVoyagersEastern purely are Village gigsofMediterraneanandMiddle The Voyagers isthefirstoffourBig after alow-keystarttotheset. in thisstylewithmuchmoreconfidence seems trueforMatttoo,ashesings‘Lilia’ starts songsalmostunaccompanied.This Matt setupacontrast,especiallywhenhe played. 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The The Zodiac ORCHESTRA OFLOVE THE tendencies subtlyrakedthroughwith almost operaticportent,theMOR breathlessly asshepoundsthekeyswith least anelectricdisguisedas),exhorting behind herdecorativegrandpiano(orat the stageinherbestballgown.Nextshe’s looped tobuggeryassheflouncesaround caterwaul, voice,effectsandrhythmsall You’, layeringonhertrademarklysergic hand-held synthon‘I’mInLoveWith dirty, squelchyanaloguesoundsoutofher appearance inthefrontrow, shewrenches Leadingintohersetwithanimpromptu filled avenuethissizebyaccident. the-street wayshemaybebuthasn’t mad-woman-with-ten-cats-at-the-end-of- musician. Self-consciouslykookieina she’s asmartoperatorandhighlyinventive courtesy ofahelpfulroadie.Inreality, her, ohandhere’s anicecupoftea, all hertechnologyisgettingthebetterof than anyoneinthecrowd,makingoutlike away intohermicrophone,moretoherself bimbo. 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each A SILENT FILM The Cellar A Silent Film must come under the marvellous new zeitgeist banner of a big, fat guilty pleasure. Some nights you just want to go out and see A Show, in the safe hands of a band whose frontman is an out and out trooper. And anybody who has witnessed Rob Stevenson’s grandstanding at Your Songs over the years, especially the stellar set of Elton John covers that saw in this New Year at the Zodiac, will know that the fame photo: Richard Hounslow train has long been overdue. Most bands find themselves in the gutter, and some indeed are looking up at the stars, but after a first stab at it as Shouting Myke, ASF weren’t just going to lie there. They pawned everything they had and have built themselves a giant booster rocket out of the history of pop and rock and they are as sure as hell going up there. They may well be a music hack’s spot-the-influences wet dream, but to their credit they are like some fantasmagorical recycling machine, one where everything comes out shiny new and original. So ‘Lover’s Ride’, a curious simile on relationships via a rusting car, fairly gushes like the Manics’ ‘Design For Life’; ‘Rascal Of Love’ is pure A-Ha by way of John Barry, replete with Jonny Greenwood-style guitar, and ‘Aurora’ is as much Scott Walker balladeering as Keane, where only Rob could sing “I am your patient / you are my shrink” and make it sound like heartbreaking songsmithery. But if maturity has finally fluttered down on the shoulders of Oxford’s boyish answer to Robbie Ross and Chris Martin, you can rest assured that his heart, like Mika, still belongs to Freddie and his production values, fully displayed when the band all take to drums for the piano stomping finale, ‘Chromatic Eyes’, with its echoes of ‘It’s A Kind Of Magic’ and ‘We Will Rock You’. Tonight they deserve every stadium they want to lay their hands on. This isn’t just music, it’s Baroque and Roll! Paul Carrera

ROSE KEMP / UNDERGROUND JONQUIL / THIS TOWN NEEDS RAILROAD / REBECCA MOSLEY GUNS / STORNOWAY / The Cellar LITTLE COSMONAUT Rebecca Mosley captures an brilliantly as a visual spectacle – the The Cellar extraordinary amount of three band members are unerringly spirit with her taut, at times cool and detached, with each taking New Year is always a good time to doesn’t help that half their songs aggressive, take on the acoustic on vocal duties during, and even discover new bands. And to show collapse amid nervous giggles. singer-songwriter style. Not that her between songs. The obvious off Christmas presents. We know This Town Needs Guns are songs are crude, messy or influences at work here could have what Stornoway got for Christmas, tonight’s most traditional act, particularly loud; far from it, she has easily replaced any sense of since they keep mentioning it: the instrument-wise, one sax-led track a beautifully clear and untainted originality or magic about the band, book, Does Anything Eat Wasps? the only break from their twin guitar voice and delivers lyrics with but they’re better than that – Oh, and a Stylophone, just one of attack. Made of sterner stuff than breathy confidence. There’s real they’re carving the past into their many unusual instruments used their recent EP, live TTNG manage power to what she’s doing, though. own sound and they’re very, very across tonight’s gig. to convey enough power, emotion It may be the arrangement of the good. So anyway, apparently spiders eat and an occasional elaborate grasp of music, going beyond the realms of Following that high, it’s difficult for wasps, as does Stornoway’s singer’s melody to suggest they could go on standard strum/fingerpick into more me to fully appreciate Rose Kemp’s goldfish, he informs us. Such to better things, but you do esoteric areas. It may be the quirky set of comparatively middle-of-the- whimsy is in keeping with the sometimes wish they had a bit more style of her cello player, who hacks road heavy indie-rock numbers. I’ve band’s occasional wackiness, as on simplicity and punch about them. and paws at the strings to add previously seen her performing as ‘The Good Fish Guide’, but they’re Conversely, Jonquil work better on undercurrents of dissonance and an intense, passionate solo artist far better when they beef things up, CD; too much of their subtlety and atonality to the sound. Whatever it (tonight she appears with band in as on a song about catching the sun, atmospherics get lost amid is, Mosley seems absolutely free of tow) and in her wonderful improv/ like a heavier, rootsier Belle & the clutter of a live band. Their faces pretence and posturing whilst drone side project, Jeremy Smoking Sebastian, while their opening track painted like cats and armed with delivering rich, captivating songs Jacket, and so it’s a slight finds them switching between piano accordion, trumpet and that have the crowd in the palm of disappointment how ordinary her urgent funk-rock and scrawny ska upright bass, they’re hardly your her hand. music sounds. Don’t get me wrong, skanking like a bug-eyed speed- common-or-garden indie rock band, Underground Railroad ratchet up it’s perfectly listenable guitar-based freak. The restlessness that sticks and the ideas they have are obvious the noise frenzy quotient with an noise, bringing to mind a relaxed with them throughout their set for all to hear: a mess of sea absolutely outstanding set. This is a fronting The stands them in good stead. shanties, nursery rhymes and acid band that sounds like the entire Breeders, but tonight it lacks a Tonight’s openers Little folk drones. But tonight they sound discography of Sonic Youth being spark that I’m sure Kemp is Cosmonaut are twee beyond belief, like snapshots rather than songs, minced into pieces: feedback- capable of. There are, however, a Korg synth resting precariously rarely given time to breathe before infused barrages of unidentifiable occasional glimpses of something on a lap their only concession to being put to sleep. A more ambient guitar noise showering over special at work, with forays into ‘proper’ instruments amid a setting would suit them, but for relentless basslines and some of the repetitive riffing and distorted tone. melodica, xylophone and various now Jonquil’s ‘Sunny Casinos’ tightest and most inventive Maybe tonight was just not the toys. At their best they evoke the album is the best place to fully drumming I’ve seen for some time. night for it to really happen. spirit of Stereolab playing the appreciate their genuine charms. It’s an incredible show, and works Simon Minter incidental music for Bagpuss but it Dale Kattack Corner Cowley / Marsh Road 01865 776431 thethe portport mmahonahon February Live Music in February Every Tuesday – Shush Open Mic – Come Sing / Play / Listen. 8pm FREE; All Welcome 1 - Port Mayhem 15 - Vacuous Pop present Every Wednesday – Folk Session – Come 2 - Oxford Folk Club Rolo Tomassi + Infants Sing / Play / Listen. 8pm FREE; All Welcome 3 - The Green 16 - Oxford Folk Club st Thur 1 Grinning Spider presents True Rumour / Colins of 4 - Dead Spies 17 - Myanalog present Paradise / Joe & Angharad 8:30pm £4 Fri 2nd Live At The X presents Ben Lee Tyler / Alex Vargas / 5 – Sugar’n’Spice + Theo Up C Down C + Edward The Idea 8.30pm £5 adv / £7 door + DJ Homeless + guest Sounding Block + Twat Sat 3rd eXposure At The X presents TBA 8:30pm £4 6 - Dirty Boys present Trot Tra La + Neverest th Sun 4 Electric Jam - jam with The X Men - All Welcome - Cotton Blonde + Your Songs 8pm FREE Thur 8th Live At The X presents Ben Waters & Chris Jagger Favourite Weapon + 22 - Saving Blue + Mimi 8.30pm £9 adv / £12 door (seated performance – limited The Idea Noir numbers). Tickets now on sale at The X, The Music Box (53a 7 - Myanalog presents 23 - Oxford Folk Club Cowley Road) & on the website at www.theX.co.uk Fri 9th Gammy Leg Productions presents Raggasarus / Toupe / 8 - Zelega 24 - Swiss Concrete Les Clochards 8:30pm £4 9 - Oxford Folk Club present Zuby + Sat 10th Wittstock Fundraiser with Fork / Headcount / 32 / 10 - Midas Fugazirum + Scroobius Ally Craig 8:30pm £4 11 - Swiss Concrete Pip + Mr Shaodow Thu 15th Jessica Goyder / guests 8.30pm Fri 16th Grinning Spider presents a fundraiser For MIND with present Flies Are Spies 25 - Pindrop The Mighty Roars / Santa Dog / Fork / Dirty Sci Fi 8:30pm £4 From Hell + Mesaplex + Performance Sat 17th Whiskeycats / guests 8.30pm £4 Last Days of Lorca 26 - Myanalog present th Sun 18 Electric Jam 8pm FREE 13 - Anton Barbeau + Logh + Vessels Thu 22nd SelectaSound presents TBA 8:30pm £4 Fri 23rd Live At The X presents 100 Bullets Back / Mary The New Moon + more 27 - Veda Park + more BendyToy / Anton Barbeau 8:30pm £4 14 - Oxford Improvisers 28 - Divine Coils Sat 24th Live At The X presents Shaker Heights / Sam Isaac / Simply Luke / Leighfield 8:30pm £4 Book your band into play at Oxford’s best small music venue! Sun 25th TBC 82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067 DEMOSDEMOSDEMOS Please read the conditions below before submitting a demo! DEMO OF SERPICO Anthemic, chest-beating punky metal that, THE MONTH seemingly by force of will alone, makes you cast aside any heard-it-all-before cynicism and punch the air in testosterone-fuelled MONDAY MORNING triumph. Serpico are so steeped in heavy rock cliché it’s almost heroic. From 70s SUN metal, through 80s thrash to the more macho And so we embark on another epic side of grunge, stopping briefly to nab some journey into electronic unpleasantness rabble-rousing slogans from New Model with Xmas Lights lynchpin Umair Army, they kick it out with vigour and no Chaudhry, a man who either has an awful little genuine passion. We’ll brush the lot of spare time on his hands or else has pleading, semi-ballad ‘Glasseye’ under the an awful lot of bile to unload. This latest carpet for now since otherwise this is full- opus weighs in at a full hour and could throttle, balls-out hard rock as it were meant easily have been stripped of a couple of to be. And, in the spirit of AC/DC, we its more ponderous tracks, Gregorian salute them for it. industrial dirges wherein any hope for mankind’s salvation is hoovered up by some vile robotic battle tank, but at its THE COLINS OF best this is pretty awesome stuff, lead track ‘Bad Bones’ in particular, with its PARADISE galley slave beats and eviscerating Ambience of a very different nature to synthetics that, over ten minutes, billow Monday Morning Sun from former B So up into a cavernous cacophony that’s Global chappie Jon Seagroatt and chums. almost operatic in its reach and grandeur, a Colins of Paradise instead transport us to disembodied robot voice your only friend the cocktail lounge of a cruise ship circa- for the trip. Umair is a master of 1972 with crooner Bobbie Watson playing it unrelenting music, doubtless gleaned from sweet and cheerful over an easy jazz backing his love of Swans, a band who took the that’s just spaced out enough to avoid idea of desolation to a whole new level. becoming elevator musak. It’s a smooth ride He’s closest to their grim magnificence on with the best track here the more elegant ‘Be ‘The Quest’, the musical equivalent of Still’, a torch song that could have been a something nasty stalking darkened great Bond theme with a bit more bombast, corridors. He might be in need of some Bobbie’s pure, limpid voice holding sway serious editing at times, but really, give before the band buoy themselves up for a this man a full orchestra and let him loose final track that’s closer to The Cardigans. composing the incidental music for the It’s the sort of stuff you could play to your next series of Dr Who. parents, or even your grandparents. In fact they’re more likely to play it to you. SPACE HEROES OF STRAFE We vaguely seem to remember Strafe’s last THE PEOPLE demo a year or so ago being one of those A very, very close second this month, “are they being entirely serious?” efforts but perhaps only because this demo doesn’t giving it the benefit of the doubt and history quite capture the band’s impressive live repeats itself with this new offering, sound. Formed by one-time Eeebleee wherein a pretty decent tune, shimmering bandmates Jo Edge and Tim Day, Space with early-80s indie-goth sweetness gets Heroes take that band’s glitchy electronic dragged into another place by the singer, a edge, add some seriously metronomic chap who sounds like a repressed bank drumming and sprinkle on the film samples clerk, a timid little chap filled with fury and and antiquated computer game bleeps and a need to express his torment to all around bloops. Jo’s strident double bass playing, him and so gets drunk at the office sometimes warping into a lead instrument, Christmas party and does an Echo & The full of classical portent, holds the ship Bunnymen impersonation on the boss’s steady while synths and samples have a desk. Odd, but oddly likeable, especially free rein. Easily the best of the lot here is since the guitars chime and spangle like The last track ‘Groovy Dancer’, a pounding Banshees or early-Altered Images. They krautrocking groove underpinning a lose it a bit when they attempt to rock out, primitive but poppy sci-fi synth lead, trying too hard to be pained and earnest. where Neu! catch up in time and space Not sure what the line-up of the band is with Daft Punk. (and we’re too bone idle to look on MySpace) but perhaps a new singer might down acoustic ballad that not only doesn’t be in order. What’s that you say? It’s Dave suck like a Dyson full of leeches, but carries Gilyeat from The Download? Oops. some emotional weight. They can be a tad Brilliant stuff. Absolutely blinding. clumsy at times, with the odd unnecessary guitar solo and occasionally you feel they could up a gear, if only to make the PROHIBITION most of what are essentially strong SMOKERS CLUB melodies, but otherwise, a sterling effort. A supergroup of sorts, formed by various members of Smilex (isn’t every local band VEDA PARK these days?), Baby Gravy, Suspicion Of Time for a break from the hectic world of Affray, Verbal Kink and Courtesy Kill, they modern music, so here are soft-centred 70s- centre around Lee Smilex’s songwriting, styled rockers Veda Park, singing about the veering, often with little regard for coherence joy of new babies (`Welcome To The between stripped-down acoustic numbers to World’) and questioning why they, us or more inventive arthouse jazz tracks. ‘Witch’ anyone goes to work everyday with the THE COURTYARD STUDIO is the best of these, a hazy free-for-all possible homage to that piece of M40 PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/ nominally held together by a lazy marching graffiti, Why Do You Do This Every Day? 24, OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE beat that prevents all the different voices Respect must go out for the whistling on the MACHINE, 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB and sax scrawls from disappearing in five first track, although the generally pedestrian CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION different directions. It’s like some post- pace and lack of passion about the whole OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR, + MIDI punk anarcho collective discovering John demo does make you ache slightly for a bit FACILITIES (INC LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI Coltrane. From there we get meandering of va-vah-voom. Still, Veda Park have never S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND ETC.) countrified murder ballads, and a ghostly, been about breaking bones, preferring a more flute-led clamour of lo-fi alt.pop noise languid approach, all wandering sax codas Residential facilities included. before they seem to run out of co-ordination and gently strummed acoustic guitars. www.courtyardrecordingstudio.com completely and sound like a blues-rock take Somewhere between the easier end of Steely PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS on Scissor Sisters. Not entirely sure if that’s Dand and Van Morrison’s less abrasive ON 01235 845800 to be encouraged or not but take the best moments. It’s like proper grown up music! two or three tracks here and the dissonant melting pot of ideas is pretty appealing. THOMAS POORE THE DEMO Simple, straightforward stuff this from DUMPER singer-guitarist Thomas, backed by erstwhile-Factory and now Dirty Sci-Fi drummer Andy Proper. From its initial Can- WASTED POTENTIAL like pulse, this one-song demo breaks into a In another strong month for local demos more punked-up 60s rock chug with faint (what’s going on? Have we scared all the echoes of Spacemen 3 and Joy Division, but really rubbish bands away or are people a more overriding feel of Steppenwolf. finally getting the message and tidying up Despite their stripped-down line-up this is their acts?) we were fretting slightly (but not full-blooded, raunchy stuff in a heads-down, unduly) about which poor sods were going garage drone way and sounds like it could to end up undeservedly dumped. So hats off punch a decent-sized hole in a studio wall. to Wasted Potential for stepping in at the It’s even got a guitar solo that manages to death with this risible effort, wherein retain a sense of purpose, grounded by the someone who cannot sing teams up with throbbing biker bass rhythm. We’re always some people who can barely play and a bit suspicious of one-track demos but scrape, slither and generally drag their sorry Thomas promises it’s a taster for a full carcasses through a mire of inconsequential album, currently being recorded and it’s guitar pop that sound so sorry for itself we enough to get us wanting to hear more. If can only guess it’s been wandering around that album features a jolly medley of Joy town with a wasp in its shoe, searching for Div’s ‘Dead Souls’ and Steppenwolf’s the tenner it lost while being hit by a bus and ‘Born To be Wild’ we’ll send him a shiny laughed at by a group of school children. All pound coin. It’s where his head’s at. this after being dumped its girlfriend. Who we shall call Laura. Because there’s a song here called ‘Laura Fuck You’, which seems THE COUNTERFEITS to have nicked its premise from The Scissor Another band who rise above their Sisters and promptly sucked any vestige of everyman rock standard by dint of actually camp disco energy out of it. That said, it’s managing to write three decent tunes (which, better by far than ‘Just Friends’, the musical on a three-song demo is going some). They incarnation of tepid cabbage water that can do raucous indie punk (‘No whines and sobs like a chastised lurcher and Alternative’), as well as dark-hearted makes The Pastels sound like Metallica. rockaboogie and even slip in a stripped- Wasted Potential? What fucking potential?

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