email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 118 May Oxford’s Music Magazine 2005

TheTheThe YYYoungoungoung KniKniKnivvveseses “Shortly afterwards the knocking began and I shit myself” - Interview Inside plus 4-Page Punt Guide Truck Fest line-up Announced inside NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255

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

THE OXFORD PUNT takes place this month, promising to be the definitive showcase of new unsigned local music talent. The Punt will feature 24 acts across eight venues in Oxford city centre on the night of Wednesday 11th May. In previous years the Punt has featured the very cream of Oxford’s unsigned bands and made the reputations of many bands who have played it, including Goldrush, Winnebago Deal, The Young Knives and Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia. Inside this issue you will find a handy pull-out guide to the Punt which kicks off at Borders bookshop with acclaimed songstress Laima Bite and finishes six hours later at the Cellar with chaotic industrial noisemakers The Walk Off. There are still a handful of the 100 all-venue Punt Passes available as we went to press, on sale, priced £7 (plus booking fee) from oxfordmusic.net, Polar Bear Records or the Oxford Music Shop on St Aldates. Don’t miss out on the one of the best nights of live music you’ll BIFFY CLYRO AND THE MAGIC NUMBERS have been hear all year. confirmed as the headliners for this year’s Truck Festival. The festival takes place over the weekend of Saturday 23rd / Sunday 24th July at Hill Farm in Steventon. Biffy will headline the main stage on AT TIME OF GOING TO press it Cowley. The two-day mini-festival the Saturday night with The Magic Numbers closing the festival on looks likely that The Download will will feature 26 acts for a bargain £4 Sunday. be given an extended run on BBC per day. The Gs headline the Other name acts booked so far include Yourcodenameis:milo, Radio Oxford. The weekly local Saturday with support from Capdown and Jetplane Landing, while Truck Festival regulars like music show, presented by Tim Kohoutek, Reverend Moonshine, Goldrush, Piney Gir, Nervous Test-Pilot and MC Lars return to Bearder, has had a successful initial Film Noir, Overflow, Red Bubble what once again proimises to be the best live music festival of the eight-week run and it is hoped that Club, Redox, Oxford Drum Troupe, summer. continued support from local music Opaque, Script, Smug Jugglers and The full alphabetical list of acts confirmed so far for Truck is: A fans will keep it on air for longer. Show and Tell, with the first act on Scholar & A Physician, Alva, Biffy Clyro, Black Nielson, Capdown, The Download is broadcast every at 3pm. Sunday’s proceedings kick Captive State, Cassette On Cassettes, Cherubs, Chip Taylor & Friday evening at 7pm on 95.2fm. off at 2pm and feature Kaled Carrie Rodriguez, Chris McMath, Chris T-T, Dive Dive, Face The show is also available to listen Bahloul, Drift, Ali, Stem, Laima Bite, Meets Grill, Fonda 500, Fork, Gabe Minnikin, Goldrush, Jetplane to online at bbc.co.uk/oxford. Keep Mauro and David, The Epstein, Landing, Jim Moray, KTB, Luke Smith, Lux Luther, MC Lars, supporting the show and keep local Harry Angel, Veda Park, Lagrima, Mindlobster, Neil Halstead, Nervous Test-Pilot, Patrick Wolf, music on the radio. Frei Zinger and Chris Hills, Jeremy Piney Gir, Sara Hawley, Stuffy & the Fuses, Susan Hedges The Hughes and Glenda and Sam, plus a Black Madonnas, The Edible 5ft Smiths, The Editors, The Epstein, THIS YEAR’S CHARLBURY headline set from The Drugsquad. The Magic Numbers, The Mon£yshots, The Open Mouths, The Riverside Festival takes place over Call the Ex on 01865 776431 for Operation, The Schla La Las, Towers Of London, Trademark, the weekend of Saturday 18th and more details. Whalebone Polly, Yourcodenameis: milo and Zoë Bîcat. In all there 19th June. The organisers are looking will be over 100 acts appearing across five stages. for local bands to play. Demos can HANGING OUT WITH THE Cool Tickets for the weekend are on sale now, priced £27.50 until 1st be sent to Tom Sharp c/o 40 Kids Records release a four-band June, and £37.50 thereafter, subject to booking fee from Stonesfield Road, Combe, Witney compilation album on 13th June wegottickets.com or in person from The Zodiac, Avid Records, OX29 8PE. featuring four 17-minute EPs on one Polar Bear, Modern Music (Abingdon), Music Box (Wallingford) CD. The bands involved are and Windjammer (Didcot). Over half the tickets have now been YOUTH MOVIE SOUNDTRACK Sextodecimo, Holiday Stabbings, sold, with the majority bought by fans outside of Oxfordshire, so Strategies re-release last year’s Gunnbunny and Deguello, each local festival-goers should hurry to secure their tickets. album, ‘Hurrah! Another Year. band’s contribution has been As ever, all profits from Truck Festival will go to charity. Last Surely This One Will Be Better produced by Winnebago Deal’s Ben year’s beneficiaries were The Mali Development Fund, The Darfur Than The Last: The Inexorable Perrier and Ben Thomas, while the Crisis Fund, The NSPCC, Amnesty International and The Truck March Of Progress Will Lead Us All album is currently being mastered in Club Juniors project. Check out www.truckfestival.org for updated To Happiness’, this month, with Seattle by Jack Endino. listings and other festival news. extra tracks, including new single `Ores’, on Fierce Panda. Also included on the re-released version of the album is a 65 Days Of Static remix of `Spook The Horse’ and a video for `Ores’.

KLUB KAKOFANNEY stage their annual May Bank Holiday Weekend Festival over the weekend of the 30th April and 1st May at the Exeter Hall in a quiet word with The Young Knives

WE FELL IN LOVE WITH THE the recording that we wouldn’t Young Knives from the first necessarily choose to and that’s moment we ever saw them. Of what he did. It meant that the course they weren’t called The songs sound fresh to us and that’s Young Knives then, they were really exciting. Also because it’s called Ponyclub, they’d just moved been so long since we last recorded to Oxford from the cultural anything for release we had time to nowhere that is Ashby-de-le- get together a really good bunch of Zouche, they looked like the sort songs that we are confident in. of geeks who might wear lab coats These are just four of our songs in their spare time and they that hopefully give a good idea of stopped their set mid-song so they the sort of things we do.” could scream some old Throbbing HENRY: “It has grown on me a lot Gristle lyrics at the bemused since I first heard it . It was really audience. clean and revealing so you could In the intervening four years hear all the imperfections. That’s they’ve become the best unsigned pretty scary, it’s like looking at band in Oxford and have twice your face under a really bright light, topped Nightshift’s end of year you always think you look like shit Top Twenty, something only The Young Knives (l-r): House, Henry, Ollie but it can also show you in all your Radiohead can equal. And now, at glory – if you are as beautiful as me last, the rest of world is starting to that is.” sit up and take notice. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE tour. The funniest thing was House Young Knives are in essence: a stabbing the nice singer out of the HOW DID YOU GET TO BACK IN 2002 THE YOUNG great pop band. Musically they Noisettes in the eye with a guitar work with Andy Gill and what was Knives released their debut album, can be awkward, brash, off-kilter string when she went to kiss him. he like to work with? Have you ‘The Young Knives… Are Dead’, and oblique, but they only get The most dangerous thing I can taken away any great ideas or on the local Shifty Disco label. The away with all those things because think of is probably our van; it’s attitudes from spending time with relationship with a label undergoing their songs are so sharp. Sharp like beyond roadworthiness. The him? financial and personnel meltdown The Pixies or Supergrass or suspension doesn’t work anymore HENRY: “We sent him our self- proved fraught however and what Buzzcocks at their best. The mad, and makes a noise like someone is released thing, `Nolens Volens’, should have been a major stepping crazy fripperies that echo Gang Of smacking the underneath of the van which had a mix of home recordings stone to greater things came to Four or Wire or Pere Ubu are just with a sledgehammer. Oh, and we and studio stuff. He just really nothing. Last year’s split-single icing and cherries on a have written some new songs and liked it, I think and phoned us the with Smilex on Hanging Out With monumentally sweet pop cake. shit like that, which House can tell next day. He’s pretty trendy at the The Cool Kids kick-started the And that’s why The Young Knives you all about.” moment, which is something I band’s fortunes back to life and keep turning up on top of the pile HOUSE: “Well we have been hadn’t fully realised but you know they haven’t looked back. Earlier in our end of year charts. writing songs and playing gigs. it’s better than going for Steve this year the Knives (Henry Lots of gigs. Plus we got ourselves Albini or insisting that it all be Dartnall – vocals and guitar; SO ANYWAY, BEFORE WE GET management and they are been recorded on analogue equipment House Of Lords – bass and vocals, too carried away and have come really instrumental in getting us that Mott the Hoople once used. and drummer Ollie Askew) went round to your house to shake you into the studio. We played a gig in a The main thing I took away from into the studio with Andy Gill – and shout at you about just how great big old hotel in Leeds last the whole experience was, legendary guitarist with The Gang great The Young Knives are and week called the Faversham. The wouldn’t it be nice to have a big Of Four and currently the most in- how you should buy the new EP promoter of the venue took us up house and go out to restaurants demand producer in the country. the day it comes out because you’ll to a room in the top of the building every night and have people think The result is a limited-edition 10” simply love it and won’t ever want and told us about how people had you are really cool and pay you vinyl EP featuring four songs, to sell it even though it’s going to heard lots of funny noises in the loads of money for doing ‘Coastguard’, ‘Weekends And be worth hundreds of pounds in a building and seen children at something you really like doing, in Bleak Days’; ‘Trembling Of The year or two when they’re massive, windows. He then showed us the a nut shell.” Trails’ and long-time live favourite let’s catch up with Henry, House unused rooms with no lights and HOUSE: “It’s really interesting to ‘Kramer Vs Kramer’. The EP will and Ollie and let them tell you then he left us. Shortly afterwards watch him work. He’s so serious be released at the end of May on what a mental year it’s been for the knocking began and I shit about what he’s doing and he sits hot new indie label Transgressive, them... myself.” very quietly thinking about things the label that launched The OLLIE: “It made me scream like a for long periods which can really Subways. The Young Knives HENRY: “IT’S BEEN A PRETTY pre-pubescent boy. I hate jokey put you on edge. I think that has officially launch the new EP with a mental year for us; we’ve been promoters. This year I moved into rubbed off on these recordings a headline gig at the Zodiac on Friday performing sexual favours on the a room the size of a coffin, didn’t bit. These songs don’t have any of 6th May, another chance for local music industry. I have also got a kiss any girls and got deafer.” the throwaway jokey bits that we fans to witness one of the most new dog and broke two cars. The What are your feelings about the sometimes fall back on. I think inventive, witty, unpredictable and most revolting things so far this new EP? Andy has similar tastes to us and accomplished pop bands Oxford year are watching House crack on HOUSE: “I think the EP sounds that really worked out well too. has ever produced in full to some 18-year-olds and having to really good. We went to Andy Gill Plus he knows when it’s time to widescreen live action. sleep in the same bed as his feet on wanting him to do something with stop thinking and start drinking.” AS WELL AS SECURING MR after but it all goes to show that Gill’s services and touring the the opportunity is there for bands country, The Young Knives have to make it. I just wish it had also started picking up some happened when I was 19; I am seriously good national press starting to get bad knees and a bad reviews, suggesting that their time back.” might finally have come. With OLLIE: “I’m sorry. We invented it Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads first, before anyone else.. la la la.. I in the ascendancy the atmosphere can’t hear you.” is just right for a British band of Have you been able to give up their character and style to break your day jobs yet? through. HENRY: “You are fucking joking HENRY: “It’s funny to see us aren’t you? I hope we get to do being called `hot new band The that soon. We really want to finish MAY Young Knives’, which I imagine is the album with Andy and get it out quite funny to people in Oxford this year. In the meantime we will too who think of us as part of the be touring with our miserly quota Every Monday: THE FAMOUS MONDAY furniture. But you know you can’t of annual leave.” NIGHT BLUES – The best in UK, European knock it, it’s what we always OLLIE: “Yes, still working during hoped for and we knew we could at the day in an office. It definitely and US blues. 8-12. £6 least have a stab at getting some gives you the impetus to make it as 2nd GILES HEDLEY & THE AVIATORS recognition outside of OX1. a band. You just think ‘there must 9th LES WILSON & THE MIGHTY HOUSE ROCKERS Trouble is it’s never enough, I’m be more than this’ and then you 16th JIMMY GRISWOLD always thinking about what we can realise you’re in band, and there is. 23rd NEVER THE BRIDE do next, I don’t really like to dwell Then you go on tour for a week 30th THE HITMAN BLUES BAND on write ups and stuff, just read it and forget that that world exists.” and move on. I hope to get to a HOUSE: “We are going to do a point where I don’t even feel the couple of weeks tour in May with Every Tuesday: THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB – need to read what is written about Special Needs and a few headline Free live jazz, plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and us. I think it is important to keep gigs of our own and hopefully after focused on what we are doing and that we would like to go back into soul until 2am. rd not worry too much about what the studio and complete the album 3 - PADDY MILNER this or that person thinks of it, you before the end of this year. There is 10th - THE TOM GREY QUINTET would end up self obsessed and a talk of other tour supports with 17th - DENNY ILETT Jr & KATYA bit sad.” some famous bands and stuff but 24th - THE TOM GREY QUINTET HOUSE: “You can’t really get too we will have to wait and see. We 31st - ALVIN ROY excited or depressed about other will definitely be playing a lot people’s opinions of your music or more around the UK this year and you’d end up sounding like possibly some other countries.” Every Friday: BACKROOM BOOGIE – Funk, Stereophonics.” soul and R&B. 9-2am Free B4 10pm; £4 after. WITH EVERYTHING THE STYLE OF MUSIC looking so positive for the band you’ve been making for the past now, can they look back at the time Every Sunday: THE CHAPEL. 8-11pm. £3 st few years has come back into around the release of ‘…Are 1 - LED ZEPELLIN TRIBUTE with Denny Ilett Jr, Jerry fashion in a big way; do you find it Dead’, which really took the wind Soffe, Ady Davey, Hugo Deganhart & Andy Crowdy exciting or frustrating that there are out of their sails? 8th - LOCAL BANDS SHOWCASE (acts TBC) bands now getting so much acclaim HOUSE: “We are now in a 15th - A TRIBUTE TO BURT BACHARACH with Denny for drawing on similar influences to position where we are working Ilett Jr & Friends. yourselves? closely with other people that 22nd - THE ZIMMERMEN – Quality Dylan tribute. HOUSE: “No, I find it really keep us informed about everything th frustrating when you read in that they are doing on our behalf 29 - A TRIBUTE TO JIMI HENDRIX with Denny Ilett Jr magazines that Are: Weapons are and we have a say in what & Guests the new Suicide or something like happens. We get straight answers that. You can’t really start from them. They are trustworthy.” Plus comparing bands from new with HENRY: “`…Are Dead’ is still a the bands they are influenced by pretty good record. I think. We Wednesday 4th - STAND-UP COMEDY 8.30-12 because they are working in a would probably take a bit more th completely different time and time over some of the decisions Saturday 7 - SIMPLE with Jupiter Ace – funky space.” that we made if we got our time house. 9-2am HENRY: “I say good luck to them; again, I’m not too worried about Wednesday 11th - BROOKES ROCK SOCIETY it’s a great opportunity for us and what we’ve done or not done in the BANDS NIGHT. 9-12 other bands that this style is `in past and like I said, we like to look th vogue’. There are loads of bands forward to what is next.” Saturday 14 - DEPTH CHARGE FIFTH that won’t survive this new lease And for now, though, The Young BIRTHDAY PARTY – drum’n’bass. 9-2am of life in British music. The bands Knives simply don’t have to look Wednesday 18th - HOWARD’S ALIAS + CHIEF that only have one style will just back at the past. For them the LIBIDO + NAGATHA KRUSTY + FLOATING burn out and hopefully we’ll get a future is as bright as a flashing FACE DOWN 8-12 handful of really good ones. It’s all blade. st really exciting at the moment, it’s Saturday 21 - BLAG – New club night. 9-2am like you play with a band in a The Young Knives play the Wednesday 25th WARHEN + supports seedy club (for example we played Zodiac on Friday 6th May. The Saturday 28th STICK IT ON (Open Decks Night – with Hard-Fi) and the next week new EP is released on DJs welcome) – 9-2am they are on Popworld. All right Transgressive on Tuesday 31st maybe Popworld isn’t what we’re May. Sponsored RELEASED by

DOUG HODGE THE CORSAIRS ‘Cowley Road Songs’ ‘The Man In Black’ (Right Back Records) (Own Label) The latest talent to emerge from the Exeter If you haven’t caught The Corsairs live yet Hall’s weekly open mic sessions is actor-turned it’s some kind of freak accident since they singer Doug Hodge, whose debut album has seem to be playing some pub or other in some been practised and showcased up the far end of benighted part of Oxfordshire every night of Cowley Road on Tuesday nights over the past the week. Such is the trio’s commitment to year. A shame given the album’s title and the keeping the flame of classic rockabilly alight location of its gestation, that the sleeve has through the storm of changing fashions. Doug posing outside that monument to To an unenlightened heathen like myself, corporate folly, The Pub, Oxford at the other whose interest in pop didn’t curl up and die end of Cowley Road. when The Stray Cats last graced the charts, The most encouraging thing about Doug Hodge The Corsairs’ dogged revivalism is heroic but is that, unlike too many singer-songwriters ultimately a curious sideshow, although their around, he doesn’t see himself as the new Bob English folk singers, is trying too hard to be a constant gigging suggests plenty would Dylan, not a bit. Instead he’s most comfortable, bit kerrazy. Like on ‘Onward Christian disagree. There are alehouses country-wide and effective, when he’s riding an easy jazz or Soldiers’, which we know is meant to be a where they still want to do the twist or the swing groove, as on ‘Wish I’d Found You pastiche of redneck American attitudes post-9/ mashed potato, where Eddie Cochran is still First’, which, along with ‘The Same Men’ could 11, but simply gets on your tits after a the pin-up of choice and where it is forever pass for Harry Connick Jr. Doug’s got a fine painfully short time. Not as much as the ‘joke’ Happy Days and Bobbie Soxed girls need voice, reminiscent of Sting at his post-Police hidden track at the end of the album, though. their bags carried to high school and back. world jazz stage, and that helps to carry slender ‘Who Killed David Beckham’ is so self- ‘The Man In Black’, The Corsairs’ latest CD tunes like the world-weary ‘This Civil War’. He consciously clever in a Richard Stilgoe sort of release, gathers together seventeen tracks, does sometimes fall into that trap that so many way you could throttle him. split equally between originals and covers that singers do of simply strumming his acoustic That aside, a palatable enough exercise in easy stretch from old rockabilly standards like guitar too hard and almost shouting when he’s folk, jazz and acoustic pop, although too many Larry Williams’ 1958 hit, ‘Slow Down’ to the trying to convey more agitated emotions, but more daft songs like that last one and I’ll be more contemporary likes of The Cars’ ‘My the likes of the Hammond-driven ‘Don’t Go’ right behind Mr Beckham himself in the queue Best Friend’s Girl’ and Undertones’ ‘My prove he doesn’t need to. Doug’s other to kick his arse. Perfect Cousin’, although the less said about downfall, as seems obligatory for so many Ian Chesterton the latter the better. Really, though what’s to be achieved by criticising something that sets out to be unashamedly retro. Like those bands cranking YOUTH MOVIE SOUNDTRACK STRATEGIES out the old blues standards, or the 80s theme weekends at Butlins, it’s simply harmless ‘Ores’ nostalgia, and it’s more honest than the lazy (Fierce Panda) rock rehashing passed off as something new The ever prolific Youth Movies follow up last ‘Hurrah! Another Year. Surely This One Will Be that is Razorlight or The 22/20s. year’s expansive mouthful of an album, Better Than The Last: The Inexorable March John Leeson Of Progress Will Lead Us All To Happiness’, with a new single that fits neatly into four minutes and comes with a title that doesn’t eat up the review’s entire word count. Produced by Hope Of The States’ Ant Theaker, ‘Ores’ puts its head down and gets on with the job in a rush and flurry of sharp metallic guitars, velocity drumming and belligerently harmonic vocals in a post-hardcore kind of way that bridges the gap between At The Drive-In, Yourcodenameis:milo and Duran Duran (really). Still, this being Youth Movies, they take various diversions and abrupt left turns, meddle with the song’s dynamics along the way, as well as imploring, “please give him a cuttlefish”. All this and the kitchen sink too. A fine old racket. Victoria Waterfield 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 probably be said of this new material; engaging though the EP is you come away each PORT MAHON time with admiration for the vocals, sweet 82 St Clements, Oxford. 01865 202067. and tender or strident and powerfully restrained by turns, as Gigs in May well as the intelligent and imaginative use of Every Friday - Oxford Saturday 14th - strings – the Folk Club with guest My Initials Club with malevolent scraping musicians and open nights. climax to ‘Star’ and the Toad & guests minimalist, Sunday 15th - atmospheric viola Sunday 1st - 6am - Pilchid / Leo Brazil / hanging in the air on May Morning Madness Stuart Smith (acoustic THE KATE GARRETT ‘The Boatman’. But the with John Otway night in aid of Motor tunes are often slender, Neurone Disease BAND mere vehicles for the Thursday 5th - Association) ‘Homefront’ vocal and string The Dharma & Friends acrobatics at times. Saturday 7th - Thursday 19th - (Beard Museum) That said, it’s a Boywithatoy presents: Box Theatre After making such a strong charming affair in the time you lose Mr G & Rich / Saturday 21st - yourself in it. ‘The Boatman’ is showing on the recent Blue Kite Turncoat / Daughters Osprey & guests album, as well as contributing one moody and seductive, gilt-edging Saturday 28th - of the stand-out tracks to The traditional English folk with dark Courageous / Beard Museum’s compilation 60s pop, while title track Bockscar 0 Oxfordbands.com album earlier this year, hopes are ‘Homefront’ manages to be both Tuesday 10th - presents: Shoji Haro homely and brooding, the sombre high for this new EP from Kate Badly Built Boy presents & Gary Smith / Garrett with her own band. cello underpinning a Kathryn Pinkie MacLure & Williams-style folk skip. It’s an EP Burning Blue / Ben Undoubtedly Kate has one of the John Wills best voices in Oxford but as her that rewards repeated listening, but Calvert / The Ed the Blue Kite album is ultimately a solo debut album a couple of years Finch Band Doors: 8.30pm ago proved, her songwriting isn’t more fulfilling experience. always its equal. The same can Dale Kattack gig guide

st SUNDAY 1 SUB-ELEMENT + THE SOCIAL: The Cellar – KLUB KAKOFANNEY MAY FESTIVAL: The University Indie Music Society club night with Exeter Hall, Cowley (2pm) – Second day of local post-rock electro experimenters Sunnyvale Klub Kak’s annual May Weekend mini music MAY in session. festival. As ever it’s a great chance to see all CHIARINA: Café Rouge – Weekly acoustic manner of musical strangeness and charm for a All these, plenty more besides and all played out jazz, pop and folk residency. budget £4 entry. After yesterday’s opening in the usual relaxed Klub Kak atmosphere. Take a WEDNESDAY 4th session, things get off to a gentle acoustic start breather from the world outside, why not. GIGSWAP UK with THE KICKS + with the likes of Glenda and Sam, Jeremy Hughes A TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN: The DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS + MEET HER and host Frei Zinger, before culminating in The Bullingdon – Tribute to the rock legends with SISTER: The Wheatsheaf – Local bands play Drug Squad’s upbeat ska-punk and spaghetti contributions from Denny Ilett Jr, Jerry Soffe, hosts to unsigned bands from around the country. western rock. Along the way there’s full-blooded Ady Davey, Hugo Degenhart and Andy Crowdy. COROFIN & FRIENDS: Exeter Hall, Cowley country rocking from The Epstein, virulent guitar LOADED: Black Horse, Kidlington – Weekly trad Irish folk residency. noise from Harry Angel, inspired gothic folk from nd MONDAY 2 P.Y.E + HARLETTE + LAST PROPOSAL: The Laima Bite and spacey electro-pop from Drift. MELANIE C + WIRE DAISIES: The Zodiac Vibe Youth Centre, Didcot – Young local bands (upstairs) – While the Indie Spice tag has long night, with jazz-core rockers PYE, goth grungers Thursday 5th since become redundant as Ms Chisholme Harlette and all-girl punkers Last Proposal. becomes more and more of a soft rock balladeer, HEADCOUNT + JUNKIE BRUSH + YOURCODENAMEIS: Mel C can at least retain the title Credible Spice SUBMERSE: Kiss Bar – Punk rock triple bill having made the effort to tour her solo show with local heavyweights Headcount kicking out a MILO / THE MODEY around the country a number of times, marking Killing Joke-inspired racket. Support from old- herself out as some kind of successor to Pat school punkers Junkie Brush and Submerse. LEMON: The Zodiac Benatar’s throne. The new album’s hardly CATWEAZLE CLUB: Northgate Hall – We like it when bands turn round and knock breaking any fresh ground but you’ll still get Weekly all-comers live music and poetry night. us off our heels when we’d gone and got cracking oldies like ‘Never Be The Same Again’, BARCODE: The Hollybush, Osney – Weekly and Mel looks like she’ll be still be out there ‘energy jazz’ residency. them safely pinned down. So it is with doing her thing long after Geri’s starved herself to THURSDAY 5th Newcastle’s much-vaunted but until recently the point of singularity. YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO + THE MODEY underwhelming post-hardcore manglers MARTHA WAINWRIGHT: The Zodiac LEMON + FALLOUT TRUST: The Zodiac – Yourcodenameis:milo. Our last encounter (downstairs) – If Melanie C’s brand of soft rock is Armour-plated rock killing machines go head-to- with them at the Zodiac suggested a better- just a little too saccharine for your tastebuds, pop head at The Club That cannot Be Named – see then-average bunch of emo chancers but new downstairs instead to witness the rather more turbulent Martha Wainwright, daughter of Loudon main preview. album ‘Ignoto’ – produced by master of SCANTILY CLAD + DEAD HORSE WILD: grand sounds, Flood – is a belter, fulfilling all (and folk singer Kate McGarrigle) and sister to Rufus. She dedicated her recent single to her The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Debut gig for local that early hyperbole: call-to-arms vocals, estranged father, which would be sweet if it teenage metallers. wrecking ball guitars and battle-ready weren’t called ‘Bloody Motherfucking Asshole’. THE TREAT + WARHEN: Kiss Bar – 60s- rhythms. Both discordant and highly Martha’s is a world of unhinged emotions and low influenced rock from The Treat, plus heavy indie melodic, it touches on both Radiohead and self esteem, set to a gentle folk soundtrack that’s rocking from Warhen. Fugazi but with a zeal all its own and a inspired as much by the likes of Cyndi stuttering political menace to tracks like Lauper and Kate Bush as it is her own ‘Rapt.Dept.’, with its echoes of Killing talented but dysfunctional family. Joke; it’s already one of Nightshift’s GILES HEDLEY & THE AVIATORS: The Bullingdon – British blues favourite albums of the year. Even better, legend and mainstay of the European you get Pittsburgh’s demonic narco groovers blues festival circuit, Hedley has one of The Modey Lemon in support. Big, big the biggest voices in contemporary riffs, even bigger volume, casually relentless blues and is a mean slide guitar player. noise in a Stooges-meets-Suicide way and Funky, swampy Delta blues in the synths so heavy they eat the guitars grand tradition of Son House and halfway through the set as the band spiral Robert Johnson. off on elongated psych-rock wigouts. PIGPEN with FRANKO’S CHARIOT + KOHOUTEK + DJ Awesome stuff. PATSY DECLINE: The Elm Tree TUESDAY 3rd TOM VEK + CLOR + RED PONY: The Zodiac – Jack-of-all-trades genre- hopping from Londoner Tom Vek, much in the vein of Beck, switching from garage rock to synth-pop and all stations in between. Quirky electro punk-disco from Devo-inspired Clor. JAZZ CLUB with PADDY MILNER: The Bullingdon - Special guests at the Bully’s excellent, long-running jazz club. And it’s free. OPEN MIC: Exeter Hall, Cowley DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: Old School Inn VERTIGO with THE PHOENIX DRIVE + SUNNYVALE NOISE SATURDAY 7th Belarus, until recently known round these parts as Spacehopper, continue their own upward journey BIKINI ATOLL + PICASTRO: The with an epic melodic rock sound that looks Wheatsheaf – Gorgeous melancholy at tonight’s increasingly likely to be filling stadiums. Vacuous Pop club night – see main preview. JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: CARAVAN: The Zodiac – One for connoisseurs The Bullingdon of vintage English psychedelic rock tonight as OPEN MIC SESSION: Exeter Hall, Cowley legends of the Canterbury scene return. Poppier DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: cousins to Soft Machine, but employing similarly Old School Inn tricksy time signatures and lyrical eccentricity. VERBAL KINK + CORPORATION BLEND + Not sure exactly which original members remain FORMALDEHYDE: Kiss Bar – Nirvana- but expect dreamy melancholy and extended influenced grunge from Verbal Kink. highly-textured soirees into the rock ether. ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Hobgoblin, Cowley Rd MILLION DEAD + DAYS OF WORTH + CHIARINA: Café Rouge ENERGICA: The Zodiac – UK hardcore INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth club night. scrappers return with their loud’n’hairy hard th rocking noise, promoting new album, ‘Harmony WEDNESDAY 11 th No Harmony’. THE OXFORD PUNT – 24 acts, eight venues, Friday 6 BOYWITHATOY presents MR G & RICH + one night – the best showcase of unsigned Oxford TURNCOAT + DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS musical talent you could hope for – see preview THE GO! TEAM: + BOCKSCAR 0: The Port Mahon – Another pullout. eclectic mixed bag at tonight’s BWAT club night. LAIMA BITE + KATE CHADWICK: Borders The Zodiac Local Radiohead-inspired duo Mr G & Rich (6.15pm) Well, now that it’s finally Summer, it’s time headline. Support comes from Brighton’s THE FACTORY + A SILENT FILM + THE The Go! Team paid us a visit. Because in Turncoat, labelmates with Winnebago Deal and EVENINGS: Jongleurs their supercharged pop world, it’s always Charlotte Hatherley; Southampton’s Daughters CHANTELLE PIKE + THE THUMB QUINTET + summer and it’s always time for a party. Courageous go for some Sebadoh-style guitar ZOE BICAT: Far From The Madding Crowd noise while Bockscar 0 look to Nirvana and JUNKIE BRUSH + FELL CITY GIRL + THE Check out their 30-minute, ultra-compact, Placebo for inspiration. HALF RABBITS: The City Tavern fun-packed debut album, ‘Thunder Lighting RAMI’S FLYING CIRCUS: The Exeter Hall, CONFIDENTIAL COLLECTIVE + VENA Strike’ if you’re in any doubt. Here you’ll Cowley CAVA + P.Y.E: The Wheatsheaf find the Brighton crew’s good-time mash up SIMPLE with JUPITER ACE: The Bullingdon FILM NOIR + THE FAMILY MACHINE + of stolen beats, old school hip hop, – Monthly funky house club night. MOOCHER: The Purple Turtle cheerleader pop, northern soul and NYC YYZ: The Barn, Red Lion, Witney punk raising the dead and bidding them SKITTLE ALLEY ACOUSTIC with NICK th dance. Fronted by a girl simply called Ninja, CHAMFER + TOULOUSE + JEREMY Saturday 7 HUGHES + REDOX + LAGRIMA: King’s The Go! Team (see, even the name bleeds Head & Bell, Abingdon BIKINI ATOLL / positively) hark back to the glory days of SUNDAY 8th uplifting, slightly mischievous hip hop, like PICASTRO: De La Soul and Salt’n’Pepa, but updated by ALEXISONFIRE + RISE AGAINST + RED LIGHTS FLASH: The Zodiac – Double-header way of The Avalanches’ bamboozling tour from Canada’s sensitive screamo types The Wheatsheaf sampladelica. 80s US TV themes mingle with Alexisonfire, no strangers to the Zodiac, although One of the highlights of last October’s sweet strings and children’s voices and any Chicago’s rise Above will be making their Oxford Audioscope were Chicago’s Bikini Atoll, urge to resist the temptation to dance will be debut, kicking out a more straightforward prime purveyors of a dark-hued form of roundly mocked. hardcore racket in the vein of Minor Threat and alt.country with a tendency to veer Bad Brains. Aussie hardcore outfit Red Lights menacingly into the realms of krautrock. Flash open the bill. Singer Joe Gideon is a man with a voice like SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks – Weekly dose THE AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD: The New Theatre – Original and probably still the best of cigarettes stubbed out in whisky, some way of dub, ska, funky house, Latin beats and electro between Lou Reed and Johnny Cash, but from host Aidan Larkin and guest DJs. the tribute bands, moving from pubs up to the big SABOTAGE: The Zodiac – Weekly rock club arena circuit with full-on light shows, playing with an ear for a solemn and simple tune. night spinning the latest metal, hardcore and indie classic Floyd hits. The band teamed up with Steve Albini – sounds. THE CHAPEL: The Bullingdon – Local bands who else – to record their new album, ‘Liar’s FRIDAY 6th showcase night. Exit’, due for release in June. A such they’ve ELECTRIC JAM: The Exeter Hall, Cowley captured the downbeat intensity and THE GO! TEAM: The Zodiac – Sunshine party (5pm) – Jam along with the in-house rhythm suffocating atmosphere of their live show vibes from the feelgood Brighton hip hop crew – section – all musicians welcome. see main preview ANOLA TRIBE: Black Horse, Kidlington perfectly. Seriously top grade support at THE YOUNG KNIVES + THE NOISETTES + MONDAY 9th tonight’s Vacuous Pop night comes from HARRY ANGEL + THE GULLIVERS: The Canada’s Picastro, who make Bikini Atoll LES WILSON & THE MIGHTY HOUSE Zodiac – This month’s Nightshift cover stars sound like The Cheeky Girls in the jollity launch their new EP. Support from The Noisettes, ROCKERS: The Bullingdon – Gutsy slide guitar veteran of 25 years on the UK blues scene stakes. A swooning, ghostly cross between plus local gothic guitar manglers Harry Angel and Cat Power, His Name Is Alive and the sparky indie punks The Gullivers – see main with a style learned from the likes of Buddy Guy, interview feature. Hound Dog Taylor and Albert King. spookier bits of Sonic Youth, they’ll have SOULBURN + JUNKIE BRUSH + FLICK TUESDAY 10th you checking your heartstrings are still KNIVES + SPLINTER: The Exeter Hall, BURNING BLUE + BEN CALVERT + THE ED intact throughout their set, and probably Cowley – Punk and hard rock showcase. FINCH BAND: The Port Mahon – Female- checking under the bed for ghosties later on. KLUB KAKOFANNEY with TRANSMISSION fronted jazz duo Burning Blue return to the Port’s + PHYAL: The Wheatsheaf – Arabian-tinged acoustic club with support from soporific, Muse-like indie rocking from Transmission, plus autumnal songwriter Ben Calvert and raucous punky metal from Bicester’s Phyal. folkies The Ed Finch Band. ENRICO RAVA: Jacqueline Du Pre Building THE BAYS + RICHARD BARBIERI + DAVID – OCM presents Italy’s leading jazz musician, now TORN: The Zodiac – Improvisational virtuosity in his 66th year, on his first UK tour, promoting from the anti-marketing free-range collective – acclaimed new album ‘Easy Living’ see main preview. SOUNDS OF THE JAM: The Barn, Red Lion, MORNING RUNNER + BELARUS: The Witney Zodiac – Fast-rising Reading indie starlets BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon – recently signed to Parlophone after tours with Weekly club night playing classic soul, funk and Athlete and Ian Brown and soon to be seen disco. supporting Coldplay this summer. Faringdon’s on top of the pile with the absolutely ace and the English folk legends. completely OTT old school metal warriors Three TUESDAY 17th Inches Of Blood as back-up. Iron Maiden riffs and TEENAGE FANCLUB + LUCKY LUKE: The songs about vikings and orks? They gotta be Zodiac – Back with another new album, ‘Man proper metal, innit? New Roadrunner signings Made’ and an extensive UK tour, Mssrs Blake, Still Remains open proceedings. Love and McGinley, the Scottish granddaddies of SELFISH CUNT + SMILEX: The Zodiac – Ooh, indie sweetness and light, continue to write and I say, such profanity! Here we go again then, play gorgeously fluffy Byrds-inspired pop. You London anti-fashionistas get angry and gotta love ‘em, yes? confrontational over old punk and industrial noise SILVERSTEIN + THE BLACK MARIAS + backdrop and shout misanthropic stuff about how AIDEN: The Zodiac – Emo/metal crossover ‘Britain Is Shit’. The complete collapse of th crew, backing up their sparky, melodic Get Up Tuesday 10 civilisation can be only days away. Kids-style songs with Slayer-inspired riffage. SLIDE: The Zodiac – Monthly house club night. JAZZ CLUB with DENNY ILETT Jr & KATYA: THE BAYS: MOFO: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Local hard The Bullingdon – The local guitar virtuoso rock regulars. guests at this week’s jazz club. The Zodiac OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL: Various Venues OPEN MIC SESSION: Exeter Hall, Cowley “The performance is the product”, runs The – see main preview BEAVER: The Barn, Red Lion, Witney Bays’ musical manifesto. Here is a band th th BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon Friday 13 – Sunday 15 who never rehearse and have never released WOODSTOCK LIVE: Various Venues, a record. And yet they’ve headlined The Big Woodstock – First night of the two-day live OXFORD FOLK Chill, played a near-legendary live set on the music festival, featuring everything from blues John Peel show, performed Arts Council- and rock to opera. FESTIVAL funded shows at the Royal Festival Hall and SATURDAY 14th The second Oxford Folk Festival sets the toured the globe with their wholly OXFORD FOLK FESTIVAL: Various Venues event in the local annual music calendar with improvised shows. Formed by virtuoso – Second day of the second annual festival, three very busy days of concerts, ceilidhs, drummer Andy Gangadeen (who has played including a headline set from Ireland’s Danu – see workshops, open mic sessions, DJ sets, with Massive Attack and The Spice Girls), main preview trade fairs and, of course, real ale. As with bassist Chris Taylor and keyboard players NICK KENNY & THE PIG IMPROVEMENT last year’s festival, the main attractions are Jamie Odell and Simon Richmond (and COMPANY + BLUEWAX + LOOPY: The at the Town Hall, where festival headliners occasionally augmented by former-Japan Wheatsheaf – Genteel country rocking from the former Four Storeys fellas. Danú perform on the Saturday night. synthist Richard Barbieri), The Bays’ PETE FRYER + MOZ: The Exeter Hall, Currently the hottest young things in Irish improv is a world away from free jazz or Cowley – Local rock eccentric. folk, they were voted best band in last elitist abstract electronica, more concerned BOOT-LED-ZEPPELIN: The Zodiac year’s Radio 2 Folk Awards for their with exploring the simple melodies and DEPTH CHARGE: The Bullingdon – The youthful updating of traditional sounds. malleability of dance music. With no pre- drum&bass club night celebrates its fifth birthday Among the multitude of world acts joining programming, sets swerve through trance, FUSED: The Barn, Red Lion, Witney them over the weekend are English folk duo jungle, house, dub and ambient electronica, RAT IN THE KITCHEN: Romanway, Cowley – Show Of Hands (voted best live act in the structured like a master DJ set and usually UB40 tribute band. LEGENDARY: Wantage Town Football Club Radio 2 Folk Awards), Flamenco guitarist culminating in a frenzy of high energy WOODSTOCK LIVE: Various Venues, and composer Juan Martin, fiddle legend drum&bass. One of the most remarkable Woodstock – Full day of live music in its myriad Frankie Gavin, a capella harmony trio live bands out there, but you’ll have to see forms across the town. Cooper, Boyes and Simpson, eclectic them live to discover as much. There’s no SUNDAY 15th Belgian outfit Jaune Toujours, mixing up point trying to track them down in HMV. ALLISTER + HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW + everything from gypsy swing, ska, jazz and HALIFAX + I AM THE PIER: The Zodiac – Balkan folk to brass band sounds, barn Drive Thru pop-punkers continue to dish it up in dance sensations Whap Weasel and Orkney SCRIPT + HARRY ANGEL + TV BABY: Kiss heavy handed lumps with usual attendant support Bar twins The Wrigley Sisters. As well as the bill of similarly-minded fret hackers. THE WALK OFF + BIG SPEAKERS + THE E Town Hall concerts their will be gigs and A TRIBUTE TO BURT BACHARACH with BAND + BLUE KITE: The Cellar music sessions of all kind at the Wheatsheaf, DENNY ILETT Jr & GUESTS: The Bullingdon COROFIN & FRIENDS: Exeter Hall, Cowley Exeter Hall and Port Mahon, plus late night - Classic easy listening gems from the renowned BROOKES ROCK SOCIETY BANDS local guitarist and guests. DJ sets at the Cellar. Ticket details are NIGHT: The Bullingdon BADGE: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Blues and available online at BARCODE: The Hollybush, Osney funk rock. www.oxfordfolkfestival.com/2005 th THURSDAY 12 BEARD MUSEUM with OX + KATE GARRETT SILD: Modern Art, Oxford – Welsh-Estonian + ANDY LOVEGROVE: Purple Turtle – duo playing traditional folk sounds. Pretty, downbeat alt.country melancholy in the IN THE FLESH: The Exeter Hall, Cowley vein of Giant Sand from Toronto’s really rather LIMEHOUSE LIZZY: The Zodiac – Thin Lizzy great Ox (aka Mark Browning) at tonight’s Beard tribute. Museum club night. Local folkstress Kate Garrett ENGINEERS + BABEL: The Zodiac – Oceanic launches her new EP, while producer Andy proggy pop and introverted shoegazing noise Lovegrove goes live and solo for the night. from Manchester’s rising stars. PILCHID + LEO BRAZIL + STUART SMITH: JEFFREY LEWIS: The Cellar The Port Mahon – Acoustic night in aid of SKYLARKIN with ASHER PHUTURESOUL: Motor Neurone Disease Association. The Zodiac – DJs Aidan Larkin and Jason King TASTE OF PURPLE: Black Horse, Kidlington play a varied mix of reggae, soul, jazz, Latin, dub, MONDAY 16th Afrobeat and ska, while local star AJ brings his JIMMY GRISWOLD: The Bullingdon – latest musical project to the stage. Energetic blues rock guitaring from Tampa Bay SABOTAGE: The Zodiac resident Jimmy Griswold, playing in the style of th FRIDAY 13 T-Bone Walker, BB King and Jeff Beck. TRIUMVIUM + THREE INCHES OF BLOOD HAL: The Zodiac – 70s FM rock revivalists and + STILL REMAINS: The Zodiac – The latest recent tour partners with The Magic Numbers. Roadrage package tour celebrates 25 years of Soft rock and Hall & Oates retro kisch are the Roadrunner Records, the label that is a byword for order of the day. Oh dear, oh lore… quality, innovative hard rock. This time round it’s FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Nettlebed Folk technical, hook-heavy hard rockers Triumvium Club – Intimate and already sold out gig from OXFORDOXFORDOXFORD PUNTPUNTPUNT 200520052005

Wednesday 11th May

24 acts, 8 venues, 1 night.

The essential showcase of new Oxford music.

Borders, Jongleurs, Far From The Madding Crowd, City Tavern, Kiss Bar, Wheatsheaf, Purple Turtle, The Cellar

Pull-out Punt guide TTHHEE WWHOHO,, WWHAHATT ANANDD WWHHEE BORDERS Laima Bite JONGLEURS As is now traditional, we kick the Punt off in Best known as Oxford’s premier comedy the civilised environs of Oxford’s most rock for some serious rocking. THE EVENIN and roll bookstore. Given the location and the Punt bill to have played the Punt before early hour, we keep it relatively sedate for last time round, when they had 400 fans starters but it’s a real pleasure to present two at the climax of the 2003 event, we just h of the very best young female singers on the supergroup locally, featuring members o scene. LAIMA BITE completely blew us Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element as well as away with her debut demo last year and has their brand of visceral electronic experim gone on to impress everyone who has seen her for a full-blooded analogue assault. In an perform live since, with an intoxicating blend SILENT FILM did grace a former Punt of downbeat, gothic folk and startling then. If you’re looking for the next bunc emotional depth in the great tradition of Heidi could start here: Queen riffs, piano balla Berry and Kendra Smith. KATE harmonies. They’re made for stardom. B CHADWICK, by contrast, takes a more FACTORY are gonna blow your brains upbeat but no less enthralling take on life with sonic storms you’ll hear this year or next a simple but engaging blend of folk and her head above water as Spacemen 3 and acoustic pop that recalls Edie Brickell. You’re halfway there.

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD One of two free entry venues on this year’s Punt and like the other, Borders, a comfortable setting for some of Oxford’s more gentle pop pleasures, brought to you in conjunction with our friends at Delicious Music. ZOË BICAT has rapidly become a favourite on the Oxford folk circuit, offering a lyrical maturity that defies her years as well as a gracefully portentous style of traditional acoustic music that’s both hypnotic and soulful in its melancholic warmth. Newcomers THE THUMB QUINTET have a pedigree that takes in some of the best hardcore and electronic bands from Oxford’s recent past but in this incarnation quiet is the new loud as acoustic guitars and cello blend with electronic beats and textures to create pleasingly odd new folk hybrid of Four Tet and Pentangle. CHANTELLE PIKE is one of Oxford’s real vocal stars, singing with a strength and range that defies 3 easy categorisation, ranging from rootsy and raw to delicate and ethereal and given plenty of room to 8 breathe by her accomplished but minimalist band.

The Half Rabbits

1. Borders 2. Far From The Madding Crowd 3. Jongleurs 4. The City Tavern

THE PURPLE TURTL Most of the time The Purple Turtle acts as the U Oxford’s very own student union bar, but when T THE CITY TAVERN Museum take over twice a month, it transforms i The pub formerly known as Bar Oz is tucked neatly away behind the Covered Market and has great pop music. So thanks to the Beard people f a great upstairs venue that too few people even know about. And where better then to hear this great little venue on board for tonight’s Punt three of Oxford’s best kept secrets? THE HALF RABBITS are already making a lie of that have long been mainstays of the Delicious Music with their contributions to Jetplane Landings’ ‘Public Service Broadcast’ compilations of their solid melodic rock deserves a wider audience unsigned UK talent. Harking back to alternative pop’s glorious dark days of The Chameleons guitar work binds with intelligent use of keyboar and The Banshees as well as the gloomy dreaminess of The Doors, they’re a girl-boy indie tight sound over which singer Mars’ powerful vo band in the classic mould. Also making a noise that is becoming impossible to ignore beyond well. Beard Museum hosts THE FAMILY MAC the confines of the Oxford scene are University band FELL CITY GIRL. The word here is often languorous path through countrified pop th epic and epic is the word. Sky-touching squalls of intense guitar noise all funnelled through fresh as approaching summer, and appropriately Muse’s theatrical big rock filter. They’re big and clever and very soon they’ll be even bigger, averse to having a bit of birdsong in their best tun so tell everyone you were there at the start of it. Punk rock, now is that clever? And does it would probably rather stare at their shoes than u matter when it’s fired out as raw and authentic as the real deal, just like JUNKIE BRUSH do. their affection for bands like Ride and The Smith Junkie Brush say “Pah!” to fake American accents and second-hand Green Day riffs. Three cool, delicate way with a downbeat pop song tha chords, some serious attitude and foot to the throttle; that’s what it’s all about. suited to the Turtle’s labyrinthine subterranean e EERREE OFOF TTHHEE OXOXFFORORDD PUNTPUNT

A Silent Film THE WHEATSHEAF y club, tonight Jongleurs is the setting Now firmly established as Oxford’s favourite small gig NGS are the only band on this year’s venue, the Wheatsheaf hosts a varied bill of jazz-rock, , but such was the impact they made metal and soul tonight. The jazz rock, if you could dancing like grinning monkey loons really call it that, is P.Y.E, instrumental guitar manglers had to get them back. Something of a who follow in the footsteps of Oxford legends Nought, f Sexy Breakfast, eeebleee and producing passages of dynamic guitar noise that bolster s main man, drummer Mark Wilden, their alternately meandering or jagged journeys with mentation eschews laptop glitchiness tight funk rhythms. A young band stretching their nother incarnation, Shouting Myke, A musical boundaries and creating something special. The but they’ve come on some since even metal comes courtesy of VENA CAVA, named after the ch of stadium-filling rock tykes, you major vein to the heart and pumping ferociously ads, rock star poses and four-part through a convoluted sound that’s equal parts old But before that happens, THE school riffage and virulent 21st Century hardcore, with a s out with one of the most incendiary proggy attention to detail. And the soul – that’s t: imagine Grace Slick trying to keep CONFIDENTIAL COLLECTIVE’s territory, featuring d The Stooges do battle around her? strong female soul vocals and an MC, as well as a full brass section and scratch DJ. Funky hip hop blends seamlessly with acid jazz and it’ll be all you can do to keep your body still for the final half hour of tonight’s bill.

KISS BAR Park End Street’s Kiss Bar has been an integral part of the Punt for the past few years but it’s 2 1 only just become a fully-fledged live music venue, and so it’s a particularly warm welcome to the Punt for them tonight. And a warm welcome too to TV BABY, a band unknown to most but formed by three of Oxford’s most legendary figures. Ellis, Andy and Steve were once three- quarters of The Bigger The God. Their new lease of musical life finds them breathing fresh life 6 into the classic New Wave sounds that first inspired them. The power of Killing Joke and the 7 4 angular energy of Gang Of Four and Wire battle for supremacy but in the end everyone’s a winner. Dark New Wave leanings too from HARRY ANGEL, noisemakers of no little ferocity. 5 You might spot Radiohead’s epic guitarscapes trying to make a bid for freedom in the midst of the noise but you’ll hear them dragged back into the deep, dark earth by Bauhaus’ gothic din and some serious Sonic Youth-inspired wiggery. Relax though, for SCRIPT’s tender if sometimes histrionic brand of rock. Drawing on everything from The Beatles to Muse to 60s folk-pop, they’ll guide more tenderly through the later part of the evening, but don’t try and get too comfortable in their presence – plenty of surprises along the way.

5. The Wheatsheaf 6. The Cellar 7. The Purple Turtle 8. Kiss Bar THE CELLAR And so we come to the Punt’s late-night venue. Here’s where things will finally, not so much wind down, as come to an almighty head. LE Fell City Girl Still, there’s a whole evening of fun to had along the way. Opening a University of four-band bill are long-standing local enigmas BLUE KITE, a The Beard previously reclusive bunch of musos now taking their gently exotic into a haven for dream pop into the live arena. With the addition of local siren Kate for helping us get Garrett into their ranks Blue Kite have hit new creative heights with . MOOCHER recent third album, ‘Resolution’ bridging the gap between the 60s c club nights but hippy dream and a dark English folk edge. Equally enigmatic are the e: some excellent nebulous E BAND; even they don’t seem to know who will be playing ds to make for a at any given gig or what form the music will take. Programmed beats, oice can work so wilful improvised mayhem and whisky-sodden heartache, all in the HINE steer an key of E. Expect the unexpected. And expect some quality UK hip hat’s as sweet and hop from BIG SPEAKERS, an increasingly expansive crew who take enough, aren’t in four MCs as well as the powerful soul voice of local veteran AJ and ne. FILM NOIR a backing mix that takes in live drums and guitar as well as samples and up at the sun, but scratching. And then it’s the last band of the night – the mighty WALK hs has lent them a OFF, a storm of industrial electronics and hardcore guitars and the at will be well band we most wanted to close the night since absolutely no bugger, environment. however loud and drunk, could possibly talk over the top of them. OXFORDOXFORD PUNTPUNT 20052005 Line Up & Set Times

Borders City Tavern Magdalen Street - 203901 Market Street - 248388 6.15 – Laima Bite 8.30 – Half Rabbits 7.00 – Kate Chadwick 9.30 – Fell City Girl Free 10.30 – Junkie Brush £4

Jongleurs Hythe Bridge Street - 722437 Wheatsheaf 7.30 – The Evenings Wheatsheaf Yard, High Street - 721156 8.15 – A Silent Film 8.00 – P.Y.E 9.00 – The Factory 9.00 – Vena Cava £4 10.00 – Confidential Collective £4

Far From The Madding Crowd in conjunction with Delicious Music Purple Turtle Friar’s Entry - 240900 In conjunction with Beard Museum 8.15 – Zoë Bicat Frewin Court, Cornmarket - 247086 9.15 – The Thumb Quintet 8.30 – Moocher 10.15 – Chantelle Pike 9.30 – The Family Machine Free 10.30 – Film Noir £3.50 (or free with a full beard)

Cellar Frewin Court, Cornmarket - 244761 Kiss Bar 9.00 – Blue Kite Park End Street - 200555 10.00 – The E Band 8.30 – TV Baby 11.00 – Big Speakers 9.30 – Harry Angel 12.00 – The Walk Off 10.30 – Script £4 £4

All acts will play for 30 minutes Got your Punt Pass?

Get the most out of Punt night with an all-venue Punt Pass For just £7 you’ll be able to get into every venue on the Punt (unless the venue is already sold out). So you can catch as many bands as you want. Get your Punt Pass from Polar Bear Records on Cowley Road, The Oxford Music Shop on St Aldates or online from oxfordmusic.net. There are only 100 available so don’t delay.

and soul from the headliners, with punk mayhem FAJITA EATERS: Black Horse, Kidlington from Whores of Babylon. MONDAY 23rd KERSHAW & KJØLBY: Modern Art, Oxford SUPER FURRY ANIMALS: Brookes – Idiosyncratic, minimalist contemporary jazz University Union – Eclectic Welsh pop heroes from the Anglo-Danish duo (guitar and double hit town as part of an intimate club tour – see bass) mixing traditional acoustic instrumentation main preview. with modern technology. TSUNAMI BOMB + HOPESFALL + NAME SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT + CAMP TAKEN: The Zodiac – Female-fronted melodic ACTOR + THE DHARMA: Kiss Bar – punkers headline tonight’s package tour of Dissonant electro noise and nasty guitars from American noisemakers. the reliably esoteric Sunnyvale. Synth-pop from NEVER THE BRIDE: The Bullingdon – London’s Camp Actor, plus hippy folk-rock from London-based blues-rockers fronted by vocalist the Dharma. Nikki Lambourn and songwriter Catherine SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks th Feeney, plus band who’ve backed Elton John and Sunday 15 SABOTAGE: The Zodiac Dido. Power ballads and soft rocking in the style th FUTUREHEADS: FRIDAY 20 of Melissa Etheridge, plus old rock standards from A + INSTRUCTION: The Zodiac – The grand Led Zep to the Stones. Brookes Union old men of UK skate-punk come round again to SHOW OF HANDS: Nettlebed Folk Club – Another one of those bands we bumped into show the kids how the big boys do it. The duo recently voted best live band in the THE FACTORY + 100 BULLETS BACK + country in the Radio 2 Folk Awards show how it’s at Truck Festival some years ago who have NINESTONE COWBOY: The Zodiac – Fresh done at the legendary Nettlebed club. since gone onto become megastars in the from playing the Punt the hottest new band on TUESDAY 24th making, Sunderland’s Futureheads are still the local live scene crunch up those big, dirty MC LARS + MY AWESOME COMPILATION playing the same musical game as they were Stooges riffs and Spacemen 3 mantras once again + THE WALK OFF + THE CLIFFHANGERS: back then – short, sharp, jerky shocks to the and let the storm pour down. They’re great, go The Zodiac – The return of Truck Records’ US and see them. Support from New Wave synth- system – but, by way of a series of limited hip hop anti hero, more Tom Waits than 50 popsters 100 Bullets Back and former Candyskins edition 7” single releases, some Xfm Cent, promoting his new single, ‘Signing Emo’ a guitarist Mark Cope’s new band, Ninestone patronage, national tours of working men’s great piss-take of the entire music industry. Cowboy (named after an Arthur Turner’s clubs and an NME package tour, they’re Somewhat ironically support comes from Lovechild song, trivia fans). Leicester’s emo rockers My Awesome now one of the hottest young guitar bands SOURCE: The Zodiac – Drum&bass club night Compilation, with a Get Up Kids-style upbeat in the UK (and beyond if their successful with big name guests and resident DJs. American tour last month is anything to go LUX LUTHER: The Wheatsheaf – Former rd by). That their debut album squashed 14 Meanwhile, back In Communist Russia bassist Monday 23 tracks into 33 minutes gives you an idea of Ollie Cluet returns with his new band. Piano-led where they’re about, firing out their pop with an Elvis Costello and ELO leaning. SUPER FURRY infectious New Wave pop in frenzied, no- THE GOOD + LAIMA BITE: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Touring Australian acoustic folk-rock ANIMALS: frills blasts. Basically an amalgamation so duo in the vein of Crowded House. Local gothic many great 80s things (XTC, Housemartins, folk songstress Laima supports. Brookes Union Devo, Adam and the Ants, Gang of Four) SKETCHY with JABERWOK: The Cellar – What’s left to say about a band who have stuck through the Fugazi blender, they’re Live funk from Jaberwok, plus hip hop, and consistently been one of the most feisty and immediate, while recent Top 10 drum&bass sounds from Sketchy DJs. innovative, inventive, eclectic and eccentric hit, a barking cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds WHO’S NEXT: The Barn, Red Lion, Witney in recent British pop? It’s perhaps ironic – Who tribute. of Love’, proves that where classic pop is that the Welsh heroes were born into life at concerned, The Futureheads don’t mess BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon st the same time as most of the Britpop crowd about. SATURDAY 21 and have existed in uneasy parallel ever THE MAGIC NUMBERS: The Zodiac – since – similarly defined by their regional Blissed-out sugar-sweet 60s pop revivalists in a THE RICHARD WALTERS BAND + origins but never constrained by the retro Mamas and Papas and Lovin’ Spoonful vein from WOODIN SHADES + CHARLOTTE JAMES: the soon-to-be Truckfest headliners. musical traditions of those other bands. Last Kiss Bar – Delicate, divine pop with shades of THE CHEESEGRATERS: The Exeter Hall, year’s oddly-compiled greatest hits, Tim Buckley from Richard Walters and band. Cowley ‘Songbook Volume 1’, is probably only DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: BLAG: The Bullingdon – Funky house and Old School Inn equalled by Supergrass’ ‘Is 10’ compilation more at the monthly dance club. ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Hobgoblin, Cowley Rd in its buoyant celebration of everything a EVOLUTION: The Barn, Red Lion, Witney WEDNESDAY 18th great modern pop band should be about – SUNDAY 22nd always reinventing themselves and drawing HOWARD’S ALIAS + CHIEF LIBIDO + WHO’S NEXT: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – NAGATHA KRUSTI + FLOATING FACE on myriad influences to make for a Who tribute. DOWN: The Bullingdon – Ska punk from genuinely original sound. So, psychedelia, SKA CUBANO: The Zodiac – If Castro’s Howard’s Alias on tour. melancholic acoustic folk, pristine guitar revolution had never happened, this fusion of COROFIN & FRIENDS: Exeter Hall, Cowley pop, nosebleed techno, punk and plenty of Jamaican rhythms and Cuban mambo probably AT RISK + ALL YOU MISS + FATALLY lateral lyrical thinking. It’s all here if you would never have taken so long to evolve. As it YOURS: Kiss Bar – Local gothsters At Risk is, it’s taken Hackney-based ska band leader want it. Along with stories about dogs, launch their debut EP with support from grunge- (Natty Bo of the Top Cats) to bring this project Newton’s theory of gravity, alien pop types All You Miss and Smiths-inspired out into the open and such a fusion of two of the abductions, war and the weather. Some of it popstrels Fatally Yours. most infectious strands of dance music in the CATWEAZLE CLUB: Northgate Hall in Welsh, some in English. Whatever, they world can’t fail. New songs and fresh treatments BARCODE: The Hollybush, Osney speak a universal language of brilliant pop. th of old favourites by the likes of Beny More and THURSDAY 19 Machito get a theatrical and energetic outing. DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS + FANS OF KATY WHOLE LOTTA METAL: The New Theatre – + SI CONNERLY: The Zodiac – No stopping Oh yes, non-stop classic headbanging favourites, the slow but steady rise of the Scottish pop featuring the vocal talents of Tony Martin (Black softies, always guaranteed to hit the spot with Sabbath and The Cage), Carl Sentence (Krokus) pure guitar pop nuggets unearthed from the early- and Matt Moreton (Blaze, TRF) singing the hits 80s halcyon days – Orange Juice, Aztec Camera of Led Zep, AC/DC, Whitesnake, Sabbath, Iron and The Cure get a Dexy’s danceability injection. Maiden, Guns’n’Roses and more. Dust off that ARCTIC WOLF + RED BUBBLE CLUB + denim and prepare for whiplash in the morning. WHORES OF BABYLON + WHERE DO I THE ZIMMERMEN: The Bullingdon – A BELONG: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Funk tribute to Bob Dylan. vibe, plus local industrial agents of chaos, John Wills and Pinky McLure, together The Walk Off. creating dark laments, gothic blues and eerie JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY soundscapes using multi-octave improv QUINTET: The Bullingdon vocals, guitar loops, concertina and OPEN MIC SESSION: Exeter Hall, melodeon. Cowley ALABAMA 3: The Zodiac – Another trip DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC into the Deep South with Brixton’s southern SESSION: Old School Inn gospel-inspired acid house tribe. The Rev VERTIGO with THE HALF RABBITS + Larry Love as ever leads the congregation WE THE STARLING: The Cellar – Local to salvation through Willy Nelson and E. new wavers headline University indie club. THE GREEN + THE FAMILY MACHINE + ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Hobgoblin, TOULOUSE: The Wheatsheaf – Blimey, Cowley Rd the former members of Medal reunite for CHIARINA: Café Rouge the evening, albeit in three different bands. WEDNESDAY 25th Drummer Lemmy plays with Suede-inspired rockers The Green, frontman Jamie now WARHEN: The Bullingdon – Noisy indie ploughs a sweet countrified pop furrow with rocking from the local hopefuls. The Family Machine, while guitarist Mark COROFIN & FRIENDS: Exeter Hall, offers a more bullish form of country rock Cowley with Toulouse. CHINESE FINGERTRAP + DOMES OF PIRATES OF PANACHE: The Exeter SILENCE + ATN: Kiss Bar – Showcase of Hall, Cowley Bicester bands. STICK IT ON: The Bullingdon – Open BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar decks night for aspiring local DJs. DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC ROLLERCOASTER Vs CHICKS WITH SESSION: Far From The Madding DECKS: The Cellar – Good mix of punk, Crowd indie, electro-pop and trash. BARCODE: The Hollybush, Osney SUNDAY 29th THURSDAY 26th ARMOR FOR SLEEP: The Zodiac – THE PORTER BOYS: The Exeter Hall, Teenage New Jersey emo rockers play a Cowley – Celtic acoustic pop. one-off headline gig for The Club That THE EVENINGS: Kiss Bar – An evening Cannot Be Named during a break from in the company of Oxford’s premier supporting Fightstar on tour, following purveyors of electronic noise. similar support duties for Fall Out Boy and HARRY ANGEL + CAPSKEY & Taking Back Sunday. GREASY RED: The Cellar – Dark-edged A TRIBUTE TO JIMI HENDRIX with noise from Harry Angel, plus lo-fi UK hip DENNY ILETT Jr & GUESTS: The hop from Capskey & Greasy Red. Bullingdon SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks ELECTRIC JAM: The Exeter Hall, SABOTAGE: The Zodiac Cowley (5pm) th FRIDAY 27 BEARD MUSEUM with THE SPIRALIST THOMAS TRUAX + IVORY SPRINGER + MARIANAS MAGNAVITA + PHIL + CASSETTE FOR CASSETTE: The McMINN: Purple Turtle – Trip hop and Wheatsheaf – One of the more oddball, if atmospheric electro-dance from The not entirely satisfying attractions at last Spiralist at tonight’s Beard Museum. year’s Truck Festival, New York’s Thomas CAT & FIDDLE: The Barn, Red Lion, Truax creates his own bizarre instruments, Witney but his self-consciously crazy music is often THE INFLATABLES: Black Horse, pure hillbilly folk. Rather better are Kidlington nautically-obsessed artcore types Ivory MONDAY 30th Springer with their angular Fugazi and HITMAN BLUES BAND: The Shellac-inspired noise, plus local riot grrl- influenced rockers Cassette For Cassette. Bullingdon – New York blues band fronted GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with by Russell ‘Hitman’ Alexander, playing FORK + WHISKEYCATS + ZERO Chicago and Delta blues, Texas swing and POINT FIELD: The Zodiac – Punky metal r’n’b in the style of The Allman Brothers, shambling from Fork. Elmore James, Johnny Winter and Stevie BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Ray Vaughan. Bullingdon TUESDAY 31st SATURDAY 28th THE DUKE SPIRIT: The Zodiac – SHOJI HANO & GARY SMITH + Smouldering New Wave pop with the dark, PINKIE MacLURE & JOHN WILLS: The almost theatrical underbelly of later-period Port Mahon – Top class night of Velvet Underground from The Duke Spirit, improvisational music tonight, courtesy of centred around the vocal talents of the Oxfordbands.com. American improv magnetic Liela Moss. guitarist Gary Smith, renowned for his JAZZ CLUB with ALVIN ROY: The pioneering use of on-stage stereo sound, Bullingdon teams up with Japanese percussionist Shoji OPEN MIC SESSION: Exeter Hall, Hano, a member of speed-freak cult stars Cowley High Rise who has collaborated with Eugene DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC Chadbourne and Peter Brötzmann. Together SESSION: Old School Inn they make a violent and explosive cocktail ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Hobgoblin, of sound. Support comes from former Loop Cowley Road and Hair & Skin Trading Company man CHIARINA: Café Rouge

ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion in the gig guide is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Call 01865 372255 (10am-6pm) or email listings to DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- [email protected]. This gig guide is copyright of Nightshift Magazine and may 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 not be reproduced without permission. each. Brand new chart CDs £5 - £10 each Do Me Bad Things photo by Sam Shepherd Sam by photo Things Bad Me Do LIVELIVE

DO ME BAD THINGS /FEABLE WEINER/ TOKYO DRAGONS The Zodiac There are times during Tokyo Dragons’ set where you may well think you’re enjoying a pint at the Marquee in 1983, watching the latest thing from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Long, lank hair, grizzled Lemmy-like features and dueling guitar solos are the order of the day (which year that day is from is an entirely different matter). It’s served up without the hint of irony that certain other bands employ to appear tongue in cheek and acceptable. The question is, can you let yourself go and join in the hands in the air clap-a-long drum solo? Florida’s Feable Wiener, despite having one of the most awful names ever production don’t get in the way. Nine strong, and with three lead vocalists, bestowed upon a band, also deliver. Their take on Blink 182-inspired visually DMBT are a stunning proposition. When Chantal Brown lets rip American ‘punk’ may not be the most original thing in the world, but it is with her note-perfect Skin-meets-Tina Turner voice, it feels like the hairs handled deftly enough to inspire another outbreak of hands in the air on the back of your neck will never stop prickling. Throw in the Bowie/ audience participation. The world may not need another Sum 41, but for Mercury hybrid that is Nicolai Prowse, and the dirty growl of Mark Woods some reason tonight The Zodiac does. against the AC/DC-inspired riffing of the band and you’ve got something Over the next few months you will be hearing a lot of headliners Do Me truly exceptional. Do Me Bad Things seem almost incapable of doing bad Bad Things. Tonight’s gig follows hot on the heels of their somewhat over- things when they’re on stage. Expect them to be doing great things before produced debut album ‘Yes’, but when they hit the stage, they get to show too long. you exactly how good they can be when overdubs and over zealous Allin Pratt

EMILIANA TORRINI I AM KLOOT CHRISTINA KUBISCH The Zodiac The Zodiac Old Fire Station Theatre Out pops little Emiliana Torrini. With great big I have no great expectations of I Am Kloot; the Click. Whirr. Hum. Crackle. Fzzzz. This, by all puppy dog eyes she starts as she means to go on. Manchester trio have been around for six years accounts, is the hidden sound world of Oxford, Quiet. Oh so quiet. and three albums, but haven’t significantly and it sounds like a cross between a somnambulant Which reminds me. Let’s get the comparisons to impinged on my, or the record-buying public’s, member of Einstürzende Neubauten and a broken Björk out of the way. They once shared the same consciousness. One of those bands who build up a washing machine. label (but Emiliana’s moved on from One Little cult fanbase but never get big. A little background might be necessary: Berlin- Indian). They both come from Iceland. They are Suitably for a band who arrive on stage to a based sound artist Christina Kubisch handed out both small and fierce. But now, Emiliana is more classical fanfare, their sound is larger than the eight pairs of modified headphones which record like a Björk on Ritalin. sum of their parts (guitar/vocals, bass and drums, electromagnetic soundwaves, sent eight people She broke into the ‘bigger time’ with her last with occasional keyboards by the bassist), even on off for a wander round town, and now constructs a album, which was produced by Tears For Fears’ the more acoustic numbers. They are very much live, eight-way mix of the results as a Roland Orzabal. The 1999 album is pure pop at tune- and voice-led; the instruments follow and performance. The set-up is utterly minimal in its best. She is showing tonight, though, she’s complement the vocals, rather than try to equal terms of equipment, movement and appearance, doggedly focused on removing any notions of the it or compete. Their songs are complex, leaving the focus entirely on the process of past. As if she is determined to show the world melancholy stories of relationships and situations composition and the sound itself. The boundary she’s all grown up. - sometimes kitchen-sink, sometimes more between an art installation and a live performance Tonight is just one of many nights on a mini tour opaque, like the slow and sleazy, wry and acerbic is blurred, but the question remains as to whether supporting her latest album, `The Fisherman’s ‘Twist’, a song, according to singer/guitarist the piece stands on its own merits. Wife’. Her eyes are closed through every song Johnny Bramwell, about “fucking and disaster”. In places, the duo build the array of throbs and and her voice… Well imagine licking the sweetest The boozy, bluesy ‘The Stars Look Familiar’ and pulses beautifully, each tiny adjustment to their vanilla ice cream while walking barefoot on a ‘Storm Warning’ could be crooned by disillusioned mixing desks layering a fresh opacity to an gravel path on a warm day. Much like the album, bar philosophers at closing time. already-dense collage. Interesting also to note the it’s the sound of ultimate sparseness and there are The twisted tales stick in the mind; the melodies audience’s instinctive attraction to familiarity, some absolute gems that make everyone stir are never overdeveloped or flogged, and the lyrics like eyes seeking out the form of a shop dummy: silently, including ‘Nothing Brings Me Down’ and are succinct and mysterious. Their set is a brisk over the course of an hour, the sense of relief single ‘Sunnyroad.’ But also like the album there’s 23-tracks long, drawing mostly from the new whenever a recognisably-human sound forces its not much momentum and she’s losing the album ‘Gods and Monsters’ and their first, way to the top of the mix is palpable. audience about half way through the set. She ‘Natural History’. Most memorable tracks seem At its most controlled, the organic ebb and flow manages to get them back through pure charm to be the ones where something different happens of sound is redolent of Oval, perhaps, but the and in-between banter. - like cymbal-heavy jazzy drumming (‘Strange random nature of the source material makes As much as I love – no, adore - this woman’s Without You’), prominent falsetto (debut single control of the overall sound a struggle. Sounds voice the songs are just not here. The lyrics ‘To You’) or a prominent keyboard riff (‘Gods fade in and out before they’ve had chance to evoke loss and a heart-felt sadness but the songs and Monsters’). germinate and develop, and as such the piece only meander and become indistinguishable. She has I Am Kloot’s strength is the fact that they are really gets going for five minutes at a time before definitely experienced some life-changing events based around Bramwell, who is a strong it’s unsatisfyingly deflated. It’s by turns in the last few years (including the death of her songwriter; but they come across more like a solo fascinating and flawed as a live performance, and partner) and as a result she has firmly shut the act with a backing band at times. Despite never brimming with potential or pretension as an door on her pop sensibilities. But I know they’re being upbeat, they’re endearing for their honesty installation, depending on your perspective. Me? in there… waiting to get out. She just needs a bit and brevity; but those things may just be what I’m off to buy myself a new pair of headphones of time to see the light again. prevents them from becoming big. and go for a walk. Katy Jerome Kirsten Etheridge Stuart Fowkes GOOD DOG Live & Free @ The Ex Chipping Norton Youth Club Exeter Hall Pub It’s an idle Wednesday evening and I’m in The core of the music is founded on an Corner Cowley / Marsh Road what appears to be a school assembly hall over-exposure to Green Day. What really 01865 776431 that’s taken on the role of Banshee Central makes them special, apart from the quality for the night. I’m being blind-sided by a of all the playing, is the growing maturity May vortex of over-excited teenagers, tables are of the song structures. The basic neo-punk Every Tuesday - Open Mic - all welcome bowing to break with too many dancing template is transformed by guitarist Joe Every Wednesday - Corofin & Friends bodies and the soundman is growling Yon’s stunning riffing, and this is augmented th st protectively as his equipment is on the by liberal slivers of Cooper Temple Clause Sat 30 April / Sun 1 May Klub Kakofanny May Fest - check website for listings point of being swept away and trashed. and Dive Dive. The lyrics too stand out, Thu 5th Scantily Clad + Dead Horse Wild - 8pm FREE Penned in the corner amongst the stacked and throughout there is a healthy awareness Fri 6th C J Rock Presents - Soulburn, Junkie Brush, chairs, speakers and empty musical cases, of being misunderstood that speaks to the Flick Knives & Splinter 8:00pm the focus for all this hormonal heat haze are steaming pressure cooker of fans who like Sat 7th Rami’s Flying Circus - Acts TBC th cranking out a fizzing two-part vocal pop/ them are backed up against a wall of GCSEs. Sun 8 Electric Jam - 5:00pm FREE Thu 12th In The Flesh 8:30pm FREE rock song called ‘Little Miss Oestrogen’. If all four of them can stay together Fri 13th MOFO 8:30pm FREE Never has a number been more apt. through the furnace of academia, and if the Sat 14th Pete Fryer + Mozz FREE Good Dog are a band of 15 and 16 year old singer, through a simple bit of vocal Sun 15th Badge - 6:00pm FREE Oxfordshire lads who, at first sight, may coaching, can lose the worst of the Thu 19th Artic Wolf + Red Bubble Club/Whores of Babylon/Where Do I Belong 8:30pm FREE come over as the Four Paperboys of the adenoidal Billy Joe Armstrong phrasing, Fri 20th The Good - Brilliant Australian Acoustic Duo Apocalypse, but during the course of an then we could be talking less Good Dog and + Laima Bite 8:30pm FREE hour-long set they range from genuinely more Good God! Sat 21st Cheesegraters 8:30pm FREE impressive to eye-poppingly talented. Paul Carrera Sun 22nd Who’s Next - Who Tribute 8:30 pm FREE Thu 26th The Porter Boys Contemporary Acoustic Pop with Celtic vibes 8:30pm FREE Fri 27th TBC - 8:30pm FREE Sat 28th Pirates of Panache 8:30 pm FREE THE E BAND / ASSASSINS OF SILENCE Sun 29th Electric Jam - All Welcome 5:00pm FREE The Zodiac Enter, unexpectedly at a Friday night Point is extremely open-ended and intriguing. event, The Assassins Of Silence, a They may only play in one key (no prizes Hawkwind tribute act. Reviewing a tribute for guessing, I’m afraid) but manage a fair act without extensive foreknowledge of the range of effects. The formula is simple: the tributee is always dangerous work, but it guitar, bass and brass players apparently must be said the gig was rather more tame improvise over an electronic backing, whilst than I was expecting. There may have been a melancholy monologue is recited over the 5K some dayglo amps, but where were the top. Clearly this could have turned into a 6th 32 galaxy-swallowing synth washes? Where Form exercise in self-congratulatory were the nebula-destroying phase pedals? “experimentation”, but luckily the beats Isn’t this sort of mid-paced blues wailing could rock blocks in six dimensions, the just one small step away from roadhouse guitarists weave variegated textures, and the boogie? The Assassins are tight, and play vocals have a real sense of quiet drama. And with an obvious respect for the canon they had a trombone, which is something they’ve adopted, but if this is space-rock, it we can’t encourage enough. Time will tell if felt oddly earthbound. Esteemed passengers, this is a musical one-liner or a serious take off has been delayed indefinitely; we endeavour, but The E Band certainly have a shall be serving complementary lemon knack with freeform soundscapes. So in the DELICIOUSDELICIOUS scented napkins very shortly. end we got a little psychedelia after all. ENTERTAINMENT In complete contrast, The E Band’s music Richard Catherall Live Music in May Every Tuesday - OPEN MIC SESSION The Old School House, Gloucester Green 8.30-11.15 Free! JIM MORAY Every Thursday - LIVE JAZZ & BLUES Far From the Madding Crowd, Friars Entry 8.30-11 Free! The Zodiac Wed 4th / 18th May OPEN MIC & BANDS Jim Moray’s thing is to take traditional to Roddy Frame in the innocence and The Swan, Wantage, 8.30-11 - Free! English folk songs and radically update and wonder it invokes. In many ways it’s a fine Wed 11th May - OXFORD PUNT NIGHT / Wed 25th - OPEN MIC rework them. Tonight’s gig starts perfectly example of what they’re calling Far From the Madding Crowd, Friars Entry 8.30-11 Free! with the quite beautiful ‘Lemady’, Jim folktronica, but it’s much more than that. For bookings/info- Tel: 07876 184623 / 01865 242784 sampling his vocals as the music swirls and The sound is much fuller and expansive cascades around the room. He’s then joined than that term would suggest, whether it’s by his band, which features the most through swathes of haunting electronic minimal looking upright bass I’ve ever seen. noises or blasts of wall of sound folk rock. It’s tribute to Jim’s arrangements of these By the end of the main set the band has songs that the only way you’d still recognise worked up to full on, the sound being as loud their roots is by the lyrics and their old as I’ve ever heard for a good while. The English phrasings. Oh and the fact that Jim encore brings the show full circle, Jim takes time to explain where the songs came appears alone and does one song a capella from and introduces one as “previously a hit that truly highlights his beautiful voice and in 1904”. Most of the songs played tonight finishes on the keyboards with one of his make up the contents of Jim’s last album, own compositions, ‘Longing For Lucy’. If ‘Sweet England’ and there’s a couple from he can write tunes like that let’s hope he the as yet unfinished forthcoming one. finds room to incorporate a few more into Thunderous drums give an ominous feeling his set in future. to the early songs, while Jim’s voice is close Russell Barker THE BLACK WATCH / THE JAZZ BUTCHER / ANTON BARBEAU / LIVELIVE THE NEW MOON Port Mahon BOSSAPHONIK PRESENTS THE The New Moon are a familiar- from the foppish haircut to the looking local duo. Their lively, magpie-like collection of classic pop SUGAR BEATS pacey songs are a bit too 80s-like in influences. He introduces his set as a their use of wacky word-play and karaoke session, which takes the The Cellar funny chord changes, trying to come form of an electric guitar, a backing If anyone’s spied me looking the atmospheric grooves that recall over a bit too clever and knowing. track and a trip through the worse for wear on (many) Thursday Cinematic Orchestra and Two Banks Nice bass from a fella who looks like catalogues of such luminaries as Lou mornings this year, it’ll be because of Four. The pace quickens Barney Sumner but sounds like Peter Reed, Wings and, er, Grandmaster those good people at The Cellar have considerably on ‘MTD’, with Hook, but they need something Melle Mel. Fun though this is, we gone and put my favourite new club trumpeter Leo Altarelli switching to extra to make the leap from pub duo could have done with more than the night on fortnightly Wednesdays. It’s vocals, and the dancefloor is soon to a proper band. solitary Jazz Butcher song, as he has called Bossaphonik, and in addition theirs when the group break into a If it’s wackiness you’re after, then always been savagely underrated. It’s to well-spun nu-jazz and Latin wild rendition of the Stevie Wonder Anton Barbeau turns the all over too soon but great to see grooves courtesy of resident DJs Gil classic ‘As’. But it’s on the original wackometer up to 11. Apparently him back. Karpas and Dan Ofer, I’ve been material that the band truly shine – quite well known in his native the black watch (no capitals for enjoying live sets from some of my ‘French Girl From Luton’ is the Sacramento, he’s produced eight them) is, tonight, main man John favourite Oxford acts: Natureboy, sound of Roy Ayers remixed by albums of intelligent, offbeat Andrew Fredrick on his lonesome. Barcode, The Spiralist and Mariana Madlib; Alterelli scatting like Sammy country-tinged pop with a heavy, Another Californian with a love of Magnavita. Tonight sees the turn of Davis as the drummer and and openly acknowledged, debt to classic British pop, he’s combined a Birmingham-based quintet The Sugar percussionist trade blows and a tenor XTC. Curiously, he acts like a career as an English professor with a Beats, fresh from a successful sax stutters and wails. And elsewhere returning hero playing to a packed sporadic output of seven albums over residency at the city’s Medicine Bar there’s as much for the head as for stadium whereas he is, of course, eighteen years. Well-crafted pop and a critically lauded 12” on Calm the feet; one tune introduced as a addressing a crowd who’ve never gems in the style of Robyn Beast. “ska” piece exits Jamaica for jazzier heard of him, in the smallest venue Hitchcock and our own Jazz Butcher Jazz is The Sugar Beats’ bag, and shores quicker than Hurricane Ivan. in town. Look beyond the flow effortlessly forth, but there’s a with a line-up that boasts drums, The Sugar Beats finally exit the hyperactive showmanship and certain unmistakeable American percussion, horns, keys and double- stage after two encores, and a there’s a real song-writing talent expansiveness. Though bigger on bass, they’re pretty good at it. But a creditable midweek crowd wonder, here. If he could calm down a bit, he enthusiasm than variety, new single closer listen betrays an ear for the what did we do on Wednesdays might come across more Andy ‘Innercity Garden’ has the makings contemporary – set opener ‘Impact’ before Bossaphonik? Partridge and less Kenny Everett. of a summer anthem. gets going with some slow, Aidan Larkin The Jazz Butcher, AKA Pat Fish, Tonight’s theme has been well- lived here as a student and his May crafted pop with elaborate, Morning busking sessions outside the imaginative lyrics. Throw in the free Radcliffe Camera are still fondly black watch single and you’ve got remembered by many. Twenty years the bargain of the month. on and he’s hardly changed a jot, Art Lagun

THE EARNEST COX / THE SPIRALIST The Bullingdon A word to the wise, when you’re possible (although entirely unlikely) starting your set it’s not a good idea that they have been listening to Girls to say “We haven’t finished this Against Boys’ ‘Kill the Sex Player’. song yet, I hope it sounds okay”. Given a healthy audience and a There may only be a few people decent mix, The Earnest Cox could there to see you on a bleak Sunday provide you with a few thrills, but evening, but it does little to inspire for now this feels like a missed confidence. Thankfully The Earnest opportunity. Cox have remembered to complete The Spiralist suffer a similar fate. the rest of their songs, and as the Theirs is a normally a rich sound: venue starts to fill up, so The cinematic and jazzy with huge Earnest Cox grow in confidence. looping beats and smart vocals. Sadly the soundman has chosen to Tonight the beats are lost under a bury the keyboards in the mix which wash of guitar, and at times the means that when they should be vocals are barely audible. sounding a little like the wonderful There’s clearly some clever stuff Tiger, they sound perilously similar going on, it’s just impossible to hear. to Ocean Colour Scene, or worse, There are hints of Massive Attack’s Shed Seven. When the guitars take a dubbier moments, and occasionally back seat, and they slow the pace, it there’s a touch of Portishead, but the sounds fine. mix is so bad it’s pretty hard to There are even a couple of songs make out exactly what is going on. A that could have been written by disappointment then, but The criminally-ignored 90s hopefuls Spiralist are probably worth listening Tiny Monroe, if Tiny Monroe did out for when their soundman gospel. For the last few songs they understands what he is dealing with. break out the big riffs, and it’s Allin Pratt

DEMOSDEMOSDEMOS Demo of the month wins a day’s free recording at Ursa Audio. For special deals for local bands, call Ursa on 01865 242055.

DEMO OF FREE MOJO More retro blues rocking with a grungy www.appletreestudio.co.uk THE MONTH edge and perhaps a band who could teach Atlantic Breakers a lesson or two in how to do it properly. Extremely old fashioned, ASHER DUST highly derivative and almost completely Asher Dust is the laptop / minidisc-based oblivious to anything that’s happened in solo project of Big Speakers frontman AJ the last 25 years, Free Mojo nonetheless who is also involved with Mackating and crank it up with sufficient gusto: forty year used to front dark-edged local funk outfit old riffs played by fists as big as hams and Nortica. AJ has one of the most distinctive the drummer prostrated fully at the altar of voices in Oxford but here it’s his Keith Moon. Sometimes it sounds like Free storytelling and use of electronics that Mojo can’t decide whether to be Lynyrd most stand out. There’s a Streets feel to Skynrd, Jimi Hendrix or the Pistols and both ‘Spilt Milk’ and the excellent ‘Pissed that being the case they generally end up Up’ in the way they tell simple late night sounding a lot like Dr Feelgood. Such tales of going out clubbing (in the latter, the sounds have graced a million stages in a Park End gets a slating while the Bully’s million towns and cites across the globe Depth Charge night gets a big up). The over the past few decades and it’s a almost dreamy chorus refrain of “You’re a certainty they will continue to do so. twat, just accept the fact” on ‘Spilt Milk’ is pure Mike Skinner, while “Every time you’re pissed, you’re like the Exorcist” is a THE GULLIVERS classic rhyme. Elsewhere on a five track A hell of an improvement on their last demo there’s the bobbling synth-heavy hip demo offering, Bicester’s Gullivers seem to hop canter of ‘Stretch Like Elastic’ with its have ditched most of their ill-informed slight reggae edge, and the more bullish rap Libertines influences and now come with a of ‘Wah Gwan’, which unfurls over an bit of proper punk rock spit and spirit. exciteable guitar loop, heavy bass and ‘Flower’ is one and half minutes of spunky chattering beats. With so much UK hip indie fuzz straight out of the Buzzcocks hop now superior in every way to its over- reform school for errant market town commodified US counterpart, it’s great to teenagers. And of course one and half hear someone reflecting the Oxford minutes is long enough for any punk rock experience so imaginatively, even in such a song, ain’t it? ‘She Said He says’, lo-fi style. meanwhile, steals plenty from The Young Knives in its uptight punk-funk style and sounds all wound up and not knowing whether to leave through the door or the window. Nothing remarkably original on ATLANTIC show but plenty of vim and vigour and on this showing, the Gullivers could easily BREAKERS hold their own against the likes of The Ooh, a blues rock band with a bloke called Paddingtons or Thee Unstrung. Jack White in – could be on to a winner here. Well, you live in hope. Sadly lightning doesn’t strike twice as Carterton’s Atlantic SILVER SURFERS Breakers seem to have the original drunken Hey, Silver Surfers – wild adventurers on tone-deaf pub singer on vocals, meaning the dark side of society, combating evil- that however hard the guitarist tries to doers in dynamic style… or a fairly bog- emulate Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page, it’s all standard trundle along the middle of Indie for nothing. The old blues licks are Street? Go on, take a wild guess. This is rudimentary but ballsy, especially on solid enough: jangly guitar, capable vocals, ‘Keeping Emily Happy’, with its nod to slightly fey, slightly disinterested, in need grunge, but the singer’s lack of any either of some serious steroid abuse or emotional depth sucks the life from it. His some equally serious heartbreak, the band passing resemblance to a Dalek on ‘So sound like they can’t quite be bothered to Blue’, however, does add a bit of colour to be any good, letting half-decent songs fluff the Oasis-style plod. And we sincerely about a bit without ever being as ephemeral hope that the injection of a cheering crowd or emotionally engaging as they need to be. into the guitar solo on ‘Goodbye’ is The final track, ‘Simple Things’ comes tongue-in-cheek rather than the work of a closest to getting it right in its Billy Bragg huge frustrated ego. ballad kinda way. improvement on their previous effort since MESAPLEX you can at least glean what’s supposed to Ooh, ooh, slight outbreak of excitement. be going on, but its merits firmly dependent Here is the return of Meanwhile, Back In on your opinion of Liam Gallagher singing Communist Russia, albeit the Russians along to Hawkwind or old punk records without fag-addled poetess Emily up front. played at the wrong speed. Gone are the slow-build walls of screaming guitars and pounding pianos, in come ambient passages of electronic noise that LEAVES IN FALL seems more content to exist in the near It’s easy to be suspicious of one-song distance, like a delicate watercolour demos - is it a novelty or is that all they painting that might get swallowed up got? Or maybe we’re just too cynical and should anyone nail it up against a patterned it’s all they could afford to record. But then wallpaper. There are understated space- Blackbird Leys teenage trio Laves In Fall rock synth whooshes, tinkling piano and are a punk rock band so recording quality is barely-there electronic beats and everything surely irrelevant? But anyway, the track in washes and wafts discreetly or hovers like question is called `Headrush’ and being THE COURTYARD STUDIO a lonely space station, all bleeps, bloops punk rock it bundles along on two simple OTARI MTR90 MK11, 24 TRACK TAPE and whirrs. A loving mastery of subtle fuzzed-up chords and a succession of eager MACHINE & MTA 980, 32/24/24 CONSOLE, textures by the former Russians, then, but drum rolls. To his credit the singer doesn’t SOUNDSCAPE DIGITAL EDITOR, SUPERB we miss those brain-searing crescendos. try and sound American and the whole CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION OF thing sounds absolutely nothing like Good OUTBOARD GEAR, MIDI FACILITIES INCLUDE Charlotte. What it does sound a lot like is LOGIC AUDIO, 8 MEG S1000, etc VENA CAVA `Paint It Black’ stripped of its darkness and Named after one of the two main veins frills, shut inside an old biscuit tin and RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES OPTIONAL carrying blood to the heart, it’d be easy for kicked down a muddy slope. A simple but us to describe Vena Cava as full-blooded only semi-successful exercise in angry, rock and roll. But they’re a rather more angsty noisemaking Phone KATE or PIPPA for details complex beast than that. They’ve got all on 01235 845800 the shouty, screamo bits and the darker, more melodic bits with portentous piano stabs and stuff, but they like to beat the most esoteric path through the metal THE DEMO labyrinth that they can find. Each track clocks in at around the five and half minute DUMPER mark but there’s not much wasted time as they switch between Funeral For A Friend- MEET HER SISTER style pop-friendly post-hardcore to soul- scorching screamfests, taking in almost Look at the photo of the band on the CD hymnal passes of noise, three-second-long sleeve and you’ll be surprised, nay Spanish guitar solos and an almost proggy shocked, that there isn’t a long blonde mane attention to detail. in sight, just five blokes who look like they should be replacing exhausts in Kwikfix. No indication of the flowery guitar licks or MINDEFINE heroically angsty, windswept FM rock that A band who claimed on the internet that lies within. In the first minute of the first however bad their music was, our track alone you can catch echoes of Iron journalism was worse. Mainly because we Maiden, Tool and Poison; in fact Meet Her spelt their name wrong last time out (it’s Sister sound like so many other bands, or pronounced Mindy Fine apparently, as in parts of other bands at different times that Mork and Mindy, but that’s just silly if they ultimately sound like nothing at all, you ask us), but also cos we thought their just a well-oiled, musically accomplished lower than lo-fi sub-T-Rex racket was a bit mush of MOR blandness personified. The much to stomach. As such, we don’t know singer hollers about all manner of terrible why they’ve come back for another review soul-crushing experiences with all the but at least they seem to have recorded this emotion and soul of a New Labour press demo in the same room as the tape machine statement, eventually repeating the line, this time. First up is ‘Retro Electric’ which, “I’m sorry”, possibly finally aware of the as the title sort of suggests, borrows an old assault and battery of blandness he is Hawkwind riff and sticks a snarling Liam inflicting on the listener. Well, young sonny Gallagher vocal on top of it, a trick they m’lad, sorry isn’t good enough. The damage sort of repeat on ‘Insomnia’ but with a Neil is done and we’ll expect you in here first Young riff in place of Hawkwind, while thing every morning for the next month ‘Burn’ could be a long-lost old punk single scrubbing floors and peeling spuds until we played at 33rpm. So, probably an decide you’ve properly atoned.

Hey, stoopid people, read this bit before you send a demo in! Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1ZU. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact address and phone number (no email or mobile- only). No more than four tracks on a demo. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t go sending us bitter little rants like that sad sack Gareth from Les Les Pwe Blo did, although it made us laugh. Aw, boo hoo, mummy kiss it better.