[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 279 October Oxford’s Music Magazine 2018 “What was it like getting Kate Bush’s approval? One of the best moments ever!” photo: Oli Williams

CANDYCANDY SAYSSAYS

Brexit, babies and Kate Bush with Oxford’s revitalised pop wonderkids Also in this issue: Introducing DOLLY MAVIES Wheatsheaf re-opens; Cellar fights on; Rock Barn closes plus All your Oxford music news, previews and reviews, and seven pages of local gigs for October NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk

host a free afternoon of music in the Wheatsheaf’s downstairs bar, starting at 3.30pm with sets from Adam & Elvis, Mark Atherton & Friends, Twizz Twangle, Zim Grady BEANIE TAPES and ALL WILL BE WELL are among the labels and Emma Hunter. releasing new tapes for Cassette Store Day this month. Both locally- The enduring monthly gig night, based labels will have special cassette-only releases available at Truck run by The Mighty Redox’s Sue Store on Saturday 13th October as a series of events takes place in record Smith and Phil Freizinger, along stores around the UK to celebrate the resurgence of the format. with Ainan Addison, began in Beanie Tapes release an EP by local teenage singer-songwriter Max October 1991 with the aim of Blansjaar, titled `Spit It Out’, as well as `Continuous Play’, a compilation recreating the spirit of free festivals of Oxford acts featuring 19 artists, including Candy Says; Gaz Coombes; in Oxford venues and has proudly Lucy Leave; Premium Leisure and Dolly Mavies (pictured). The continued its open-minded, compilation will be available as a limited edition of 30 pink cassettes, anything-goes policy ever since. exclusively from Truck Store. Cassette Store Day sees Max Blansjaar as While its early years were nomadic well as Dolly Mavies playing live in the Cowley Road shop from 6pm. it has been at The Wheatsheaf for Meanwhile, All Will Be Well will be making a host of their releases THE WHEATSHEAF reopens its the last 17 years. available on cassette for the day. Little Red’s debut album `Draw Blood’; doors this month after being shut for The Other Dramas’ `The Future is a Holiday’; The Dollymops’ `Gap almost two months. The pub, which VIENNA DITTO will play their Year Tourist’; Master of None’s eponymous EP, and Moogieman’s underwent a major refurbishment last ever Oxford gig this month. `Dopplegager’ will all get limited edition releases. over the summer, was supposed to The band, made up of singer Hattie Shan Sriharan of All Will Be Well said: “People are pretty divided on be closed throughout August but Taylor and multi-instrumentalist cassettes, when they remember them at all. Audiophiles dismiss the limited building work overran meaning Nigel Firth, have announced they bandwidth, variable speed and unreliability, although some serious hi-fi most gigs in September were either will split at the end of October. enthusiasts used to tape their record collections on hi spec cassette machines cancelled or moved to other venues. Before that they play at Ritual to preserve the vinyl. I like their crunchiness. And you know that when th In extra good news, a new lease on Union on Saturday 20 October, someone fondly listened to their favourite bands on cassettes over the years the pub has been signed, meaning followed by a brace of shows in then the songs must have really been able to come through.” live music there is safe for the Reading and Deptford. foreseeable future. The duo have been huge favourites on both the Oxford and Reading CORNBURY FESTIVAL has amount raised to over £250,000 over THE CELLAR, meanwhile, scenes over the past decade, confirmed its dates for 2019. The the last five years. 15 charities will continues to live in hope of renowned for their livewire, often festival returns over the weekend of benefit, including Teenage Mental surviving as a music venue. The chaotic live shows and an exotic the 5th-7th July at Great Tew Country Health, St Richard Hospice, the venue was granted a lease extension sound that fused synth-pop, jazz, Park. Details of earlybird tickets are Downs Syndrome Association and until the end of December last blues and rockabilly, earning them due to be announced soon – follow Blue Skye Thinking. month and is continuing to work the tag `sci-fi voodoo blues’. the Cornbury Facebook page for Earlybird tickets for Truck 2019 with architects to plan for an Vienna Ditto released one album – news updates. This year’s Cornbury are on sale now. Next year’s additional fire exit, with plans 2015’s `Circle’ – as well as a host featured headline sets from Alanis festival will run over the 26th-28th then to be submitted to the fire of singles and EPs, and appeared on Morissette, Squeeze and UB40. July. Earlybird tickets are £90.50, service and Oxford City Council’s the cover of Nightshift back in June available from truckfestival.com. planning committee. A fundraising 2014. Their final song, `Ticks’, was OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL campaign to help raise money for released in May. returns in November. The week- EARLYBIRD TICKETS are on the extension is due to be launched long, city-wide live music festival sale now for WOOD Festival 2019. by the start of October – check THE AUGUST LIST play their celebrates its sixth year across The pioneering eco festival returns Nightshift’s Facebook and Twitter final gig of 2018 when they launch the last weekend of November. to Braziers Par over the weekend of for news as soon as we get it. a new single in December. The Organiser Mark O’Brien is keen to the 17th-19th May. This year’s event alt.country duo headline The hear from any acts wanting to play. was headlined by Treetop Flyers, KLUB KAKOFANNEY celebrate Bullingdon on Friday 14th December Message the Oxford City Festival Grace Petrie and Bennett, Poole, their 27th birthday with a weekend to promote the release of `Distorted Facebook page to get involved. Wilson. Find tickets on the WOOD of live music at The Wheatsheaf this Mountain’, the lead track from a 2019 Facebook page. month. The long-running live music new EP due early in 2019. Support TRUCK FESTIVAL raised over club hosts three days of gigs over for the Future Perfect-promoted £70,000 for charity this summer. VERBAL KINK release a new EP the weekend of the 5th-7th October. show comes from The Other The sold out weekend at Hill Farm this month – thirteen years after Friday night (the 5th) sees a headline Dramas and Catgod. The new in Steventon, the 21st Truck, was they split up. The garage rock band, set from Knights of Mentis, plus Be single follows 2017’s `Ramshackle attended by over 10,000 music formed in West Oxfordshire in Still, The Scissors and Richie Sticks Tabernacle’, which was hailed as fans and featured headliners The 2002, released two albums in their and the Brain People. Saturday one of the best albums of the year Courteeners, George Ezra and lifetime, including debut `Day of (6th) features Deadbeat Apostles, with the song `Wilderness’ topping Friendly Fires. The money raised Syphons’, and earned a reputation The Mighty Redox, Fracture, Nightshift’s end of year Top 25. was mainly from the Feel Good for their ferocious life performances. Country For Old Men and Glenda Tickets are on sale now, priced £8 Food tent as well as guestlist They recorded a final EP in 2005 Huish, while Sunday sees KK (+bf) from Seetickets.com. donations. The money takes the Continued overleaf... NEWS but split up before it was released. But now Quickfix Recordings have made the five-song FIRST CLASS LIVE MUSIC AND EP, `Temazepam Alcohol Suntan’, mastered by local rapper Half Decent, available via ENTERTANMENT ON YOUR DOORSTEP Bandcamp. Hear it at quickfixrecordings. bandcamp.com.

SAX BANDITS are looking for new members. The group’s Rob Digweed explained: “Sax OCTOBER MARCH 2019 Bandits are an all-saxophone community band SIXTIES GOLD Tue 2 THE ILLEGAL EAGLES Fri 1 for adults of all ages and abilities, playing rock and pop songs in a relaxed and supportive BOWIE EXPERIENCE Thu 4 MIKE AND THE MECHANICS Tue 12 environment. It’s ideal for beginners, bedroom- RIP IT UP Fri 5 THE SENSATIONAL 60S Sun 17 dwellers and those returning to the instrument EXPERIENCE after an extended absence. We meet once a MUZOAKADEMY in Witney has lost its home at The Rock Barn after West Oxfordshire District LEVEL 42: Sun 7 ETERNITY ROCK OF AGES Tue 19 – Sat 23 month on a Sunday afternoon; your first Council passed an application to build six “luxury” (for which, read unaffordable) flats on the site. session is free.” Get in touch at hello@ MuzoAkademy, which teaches music to over 100 people in Witney as well as hosting regular gigs, was RICHARD THOMPSON: Sun 28 THE GLENN MILLER Sun 24 DEACON BLUE saxbandits.co.uk or visit www.saxbandits.co.uk given two weeks to leave the premises it has occupied for the past four years by its owner, town and THE 13 RIVERS TOUR ORCHESTRA Mon 19 Nov for more info. district councillor David Harvey, and is now looking for a new permanent home. An application to have the venue listed as an asset of community value was unsuccessful. AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into BBC John Berry who helps run the music sessions said: “It’s not going to be an easy thing to find somewhere Oxford Introducing every Saturday night appropriate for the number of people that we’re working with and the range of needs that we’ve got,” NOVEMBER APRIL 2019 between 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated local while in the aftermath of the council’s planning committee decision, Muzokademy tweeted: “We have a ONE NIGHT OF ELVIS: Fri 9 THE BOOTLEG BEATLES: Sun 14 music show plays the best Oxford releases couple of temporary options available to us, so we can keep Muzo’s Muzo-ing, but we need a home.” LEE ‘MEMPHIS’ KING LIVE IN CONCERT and demos as well as featuring interviews and The cost of financing a new venue is the main stumbling block for the organisation which works with a sessions with local acts. The show is available number of people with physical and mental disabilities among its musicians, and a JustGiving page has SEASICK STEVE Sat 10 KATHERINE JENKINS Fri 26 to stream or download as a podcast at been set up to help secure a new home. “We have looked at industrial units but it becomes financially JESSIE J Sat 17 bbc.co.uk/oxford. difficult to secure a unit as we have to apply for planning for change of use, which includes traffic and noise assessments,” said a spokesperson for the Akademy. “On top of this we have to find a deposit plus SHOW OF HANDS Sun 18 MIKE & THE MECHANICS OXFORD GIGBOT provides a regular local rent. This quickly amounts to up to £10,000 just to secure the unit. And of course we have to modify it to MAY 2019 Tue 12 Mar gig listing update on Twitter (@oxgigbot), make it into an accessible creative space.” DEACON BLUE Mon 19 Mon 20 There are more details of the saga at www.7csfoundation.com, and anyone interested in helping or RUMOURS OF bringing you new gigs as soon as they go live. THE MAGIC OF MOTOWN Thu 22 FLEETWOOD MAC They also provide a free weekly listings email. volunteering with the project can contact Adrian via the website. Just contact [email protected] to join. The fundraising page is at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/savetherockbarn. THE AUSTRALIAN PINK Fri 23 FLOYD SHOW

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138909_Oxford_NightshiftMag_FullPageAd_Oct2018_v1.indd 1 07/09/2018 16:58 A Quiet Word With band’s first set of comeback songs `London’, taken at face value a sweet- a greater insight into how streaming encourage everyone to start a tape were decidedly downbeat, seriously natured pop song, finds Julia’s more and downloads can best work for label.” reflective and with a sense of fatalism raw and turbulent emotional side independent artists. about them. revealed once again for the first time “I was a huge fan of Bandcamp and Candy Says will launch Ju: “In 2013, I wanted to write since Little Fish split in the wake their way of doing things long before their new cassette release with a CANDY SAYS music that was tongue in cheek, and of an exciting but ultimately torrid I started working there in 2012. The series of low-key gigs at The Library and still does. My mum is French; I nod to the music industry’s bullshit time signed to Linda Perry’s Custard idea of musicians being able to sell throughout November, each show went to the European School; all my of craving a hit. I had been in an Records. How does she feel when she music directly to fans online was featuring a different set of guests friends are weirdoes, free thinkers, environment where I had been told by looks back on that time? fairly revolutionary ten years ago, but and support acts (“Each gig will feel artists, foreigners, outcasts. I grew my label that the songs I was writing “That’s a very complicated question Bandcamp created this platform and different. We have so much material up in a totally European community were good but that there wasn’t a and it probably depends on which day over the years bands just gradually to dip in and out of, so we may dig up and so I suppose I don’t see myself as hit. Why the fuck did they sign me if you ask me. I suppose a lot of it is a gravitated towards it. I think it’s a some oldies,” says Julia). photo: Oli Williams British. I feel a little French, a little they wanted a hit? I was just writing blur – when you are in something, very natural home for the misfits One song that won’t sadly be English, but more than anything, the what I wrote. I never even thought of you don’t really see it for what it is. of the music world: the tape labels, included on the new EP but we’re referendum made me realise how writing hits. My music was just about We played some huge stages and the ambient loopers, the bedroom particularly looking forward to European I felt. I don’t have one emotion. I hadn’t really seen the toured with some mega stars like pop stars, as well as the music that hearing live is Candy Says’ brilliant country to be nationalist about. I just bigger picture. I was naïve. So yes, Blondie, Courtney Love, Placebo, just isn’t served well by mainstream cover of Kate Bush’s classic believe in people. I truly believe in 2013 Candy Says was just a series Alice In Chains, Them Crooked marketing. And once the weird bands `Running Up That Hill’. The pair the richness of life and in embracing of pop songs that I would never have Vultures, Juliette Lewis, Eagles of were there, the cool bands showed up. were recently commissioned to record all cultures and learning from each written for Little Fish. They were Death Metal and Supergrass, and we And once the cool bands were there it for a forthcoming Netflix film other as a beautiful thing. So yes, fun, lo-fi, anti-hit pop songs. The got to hang with all kinds of famous the indie labels started appearing. “It’s always about who you know,” the referendum result exposed a side music was silly at times, and most coolies like Patti Smith and Brodie Now we have legendary labels like says Julia; “a film composer friend, to British culture that I hadn’t felt of the lyrics were purposefully light Dalle. But even when you experience Sub Pop and Anti- Records putting Marc Canham, who we worked with before and made me incredibly sad. and impersonal. I had given my heart stuff like that, the inside story was releases out through Bandcamp, on the Burn Burn Burn soundtrack, I suppose as a European, it made me to the Little Fish songs and burned happened to need a cover of `Running feel rejected and unwelcome. On a out; 2013 Candy Says was all about Up That Hill’ for the score he was political, cultural and economic level protecting myself and detaching from “I tried my best to be normal. I worked for working on, and asked us. The film I also find the whole thing ridiculous it all whilst still creating. a soap company for three years, but then is called Close and will be out on and unjustifiable. There are lots of “Now in 2018, I’ve gone full circle Netflix in January. It stars Noomi problems in this country, but leaving and found the strength to expose my something inside me broke and I realised that Rapace who was in The Girl With The the EU isn’t the solution. I wanted heart again. I feel that I’ve found a Dragon Tattoo. She’s amazing.” to write songs and play them where balance between Candy Says and if I continued it would break me.” Covering an artist as unique as Kate people could come and listen to them, Little Fish, that I’m now in a place Bush must have been daunting; how “At the time, mothers her new role as a mother. faster than me and I couldn’t keep up. find refuge, feel reflective and sad, where I can take all the bits I like and very different and at the time I found which I totally wouldn’t have seen did you set about putting your own making music was a big no-no. I was In the wake of the Brexit referendum I was at home with my baby boy. and feel okay being in a room with merge them; Candy Says has more it all very hard. I realised how messed coming five years ago. It has become stamp on the song? supposed to become a big star and and inspired by the issues it threw up, “I loved making `Not Kings’; it others who all felt the same. It was musical layers where Little Fish just up a lot of these people were and the sort of non-industry standard.” “With a lot of fear. It was pretty being a mother didn’t go hand in she began writing again and Candy was an awesome, lo-fi antidote to hugely cathartic. Brexitwave was a had guts. But the most important what they had sacrificed to become stressful as we didn’t want to copy hand with that. Five years later, being Says Mk.II was born – now just a everything I had done musically period in time: bleak pop songs with difference is that I now feel I have a who they are. I decided that it wasn’t Ben’s experience with her version and we were well aware a mother and being in music seems duo of Julia and Ben and with a new to that date. Ben inspired me and a glimmer of hope. reason to write. I want to tell people for me and when we were asked to Bandcamp also provided the how big and important the song is. more acceptable. There are so many sound: spacious, downbeat and with showed me how to explore new “I also started music again when I a story and deliver a message of hope move out to America to make another inspiration and impetus for Candy When I do a cover I strip it to its bare different scenes and ways of making Ju singing through a harmoniser, sounds and new ways of making realised how much I missed it. I had and belonging, that it’s okay to feel record, I decided that I wanted out. Says to launch their cassette label bones. I sat with a guitar and sang the music now and people are more ghostly and detached. music. He introduced me to a whole tried my best to be normal. I worked shit; let’s take the punches, stand and I had met Ben and when I looked Beanie Tapes. Their own release next song over and over alone in a room openly speaking of the realities of life. The pair released a single last year new alternative world and I wanted for a soap company for three years fall together.” at how I wanted my future to be, month follows releases for Premium all afternoon until I started to hear So now I suppose I feel okay about – `Looking In From the Outside’ to embrace that world because it was and gave it everything, but then Can you feel a sense of optimism it was with a family and not alone Leisure, Michael Fox and, this month, my voice singing it and possibly the playing and being me: being an artist – which was voted Number 3 in free. I tried my best with `Not Kings’ something inside me broke and I returning? The new EP’s title on stage… So yeah, sometimes I young local singer-songwriter Max nugget of what the lyrics could mean whilst also being a mother.” Nightshift’s end of year Top 25. Next to take this new sound out to the realised that if I continued it would suggests a sunnier outlook. do wonder what my life could have Blansjaar. to me had I written them. I suppose month Candy Says release a brand world, but couldn’t. And afterwards break me. When the referendum “`Looking In From The Outside’ been had I taken the other route, but I “In the last few years all the we opened up the song and exposed So says Julia Walker, new EP, `You Are Beautiful; We Are I had nothing more to say. You can’t happened, everything just kicked me was the first song I’d written in years didn’t go there so what would be the interesting new music I’ve discovered its fragility and human touch.” singer, guitarist and one half of Candy All Beautiful’, on their own cassette make music if you have nothing to in the head. It made me think and feel that had meaning and sentiment. I point in that?” on Bandcamp has been on tape The song had to be approved by Says. And yes, proud mum. Twice label Beanie Tapes. say.” life for what it really was and sitting felt hugely detached when I started labels, and my Twitter feed is full Bush herself, but she loved it. How over. Four years after her band’s at the piano and writing a song just writing again. It wasn’t downbeat or For his part Ben, whose of bands putting out limited runs of did it feel to get that sort of approval debut album, `Not Kings’, and after “Touring with so many To Nightshift’s mind Julia settled me. It felt more purposeful. If pessimistic, it was just the truth and I intricate synth and percussion interesting recordings that are happily from a musical genius like that? a self-imposed hiatus during which incredible artists, icons even, in the is one of the greatest singers Oxford there was anything that I could give hadn’t told anyone the truth for a long arrangements provide the beautifully existing under the radar. The sense “Oh, probably one of the best Julia pretty much gave up on the Little Fish days was a complete has ever produced: possessed of a the world to help make it a better time. I was sad and probably heading atmospheric machine-sheen of community is amazing: everyone moments ever. Yep. We’ve been dream of writing and playing music, privilege and amazing fun, but raw, emotional edge and a sense place, then it was music. I started for depression. I really wanted to be counterpoint to Julia’s all-too human is very open and supportive and I personally blessed by Kate Bush she’s back doing what she’s always in doing so I got a sneak peek at of vulnerability, and a vocal range writing song after song, and didn’t a good, normal mother, but I failed. It vocal performances, continued really think it’s the vanguard of truly herself! It was quite nerve racking done so brilliantly and making some what their personal lives were that enabled her to sing punked-up stop. I felt like I had shit that I wanted almost killed me. playing music even after Candy Says digital age music. There was a week thinking not only that she was going of the best music she’s ever made. like,” continues Ju, reflecting with rock anthems with Little Fish, and to say. I sat at the piano for the first “The new stuff is a mix of everything Mk.I stopped, including time spent late last year where we had almost to hear our music but also that we And that’s really saying something. Nightshift on her previous brushes ethereal, insular electro-ballads like time in years, and cried as I wrote I have learned over the years. I’m as Gaz Coombes’ on-tour keyboard finished recording Michael Fox’s EP were interpreting one of her songs. We with fame and fortune and the effect `Looking In From the Outside’ with `Looking In From the Outside’. back to being honest and I have more player. and then we saw Premium Leisure wondered if she would be okay with Julia formed Candy Says it had on her decision to, briefly, quit equal ease and conviction. To have “I am worried. But by making music energy than ever. I’m tired of seeing “Gaz was looking for someone to play a magical gig for the Ritual the vulnerable side to the song being with husband-to-be Ben back in music. simply lost her to music would have again, I have found my people and all the kids being too cool for school replace his brother Charlie, who Union after-party. We got home after captured. So yeah, big moment.” 2013 after her previous band, Little “I decided quite consciously that I been a tragedy, so Candy Says’ return a community where I realise that I and worrying about how they look. was moving abroad. That was a that show and were buzzing about Fish, disbanded, badly stung by their wanted to put family first, that I didn’t was cause for celebration, and a am far from alone in my thoughts Hopefully I can maybe inspire other fun adventure, mastering the whole how much we loved Michael’s music Just another triumph dealings with a major label. want to be alone when I was older. change of musical direction further and feelings. Ben and I certainly see people to just be themselves. Yes I Ableton setup and playing some huge and the Premium Leisure show and to add to Candy Says’ catalogue Back then Candy Says were a Until I met Ben, I had never done that proof that they are one of the most ourselves emigrating some time; we am optimistic: not for politics and the shows. We toured Europe, flew to it didn’t take long before we decided of magical musical moments. It’s four-piece, Julia and Ben joined by and my personal life was a mess. We potent creative forces around. think of it often but haven’t yet bitten economy but I believe in the essence Japan for a single show and played to start a label. The next morning we brilliant to have them back. However singer and keyboard player Eliza recorded `Not Kings’ and released it the bullet. Who knows? There is so of life and in people. That’s what I to 12,000 people at Glastonbury. got an email out of the blue from a much of a shit storm Brexit turns out Zoot, also of Black Casino & the around the same time that we had our So we guess that if much to explore in the world.” want to focus on.” Eventually the world caught up with girl in France who was offering to do to be, it will have at least given us one Ghost, and drummer-about-town first child and I guess I simply ran out nothing else, we can thank the nation- the genius of Gaz’s solo work; he was some designs for us, and it was like thing to celebrate. Mike Monaghan, whose CV includes of steam. I had no energy or space to dividing Brexit vote for giving us The 2018 Candy Says are Two of the new songs getting booked for more and more a sign from the gods of rock’n’roll. touring with Gaz Coombes, Willie J cope with looking after a newborn back one of our favourite bands. Half very different to Candy Says 2013; Nightshift has heard from `You shows and I’d used up all my days off Léa has designed all of our artwork `You Are Beautiful; We are All Healey and St Etienne. That line-up whilst running a band. Bands take French (on her mother’s side), Julia where once were sunshine songs like Are Beautiful…’ do seem to find at work so I handed the torch over to and posters and created the whole Beautiful’ is released on Beanie released `Not Kings’ as well as a slew a lot of time. I tried my very best to felt the impact of the referendum `Favourite Flavour’ and `Melt Into the Candy Says coming out from their Tomas Greenhalf.” Beanie Tapes visual style, and we’ll Tapes on the 8th November. Candy of singles but went into hibernation find it, but really couldn’t. It was just particularly hard. Sun’ – all fluff and fun and optimism `Brexitwave’ shells. `Crave Easy’ At the same time Ben began working have somehow released six tapes by Says play The Library on the 8th, shortly after, Julia concentrating on impossible. The industry was moving “The referendum deeply affected me with an unabashed pop heart – the has an almost punk-disco vibe, while for Bandcamp, which has given him the end of the year! It’s so fun; I’d 15th and 22nd November. Sponsored by free bands over the past decade or so. But not The Dollymops. The band might have grown up listening to those bands but you’d hardly notice on the strength of their songs which come infused with the spiky awkwardness and snarky RELEASED political observations that are all too rare in WORRY ART THEEFE modern indie rock. Instead they’re closer to the mid-80s likes of Big Flame or even McCarthy ‘Confidence EP’ ‘Dig Deep’ who took classic guitar jangle into more abrasive places while having a pop at the Tories (Self released) (Self released) or whoever else got in their sights. Awesome stuff from noisenik trio-turned- As founder and host of Catweazle Club, Matt There’s also strong traces of The Smiths, quartet Worry, who eschew recent trends for Sage’s place in the Oxford music pantheon is Orange Juice and The Wedding Present in The being slick’n’tidy, opting instead to swill our assured. His own music career has always been Dollymops’ sound, particularly in Sean Stevens’ ears out with some top-quality proto-grunge. solid if lacking the individuality of Catweazle, slightly overdramatic vocals, at its best while This EP crams five tracks into around nine but the single `I Trained a Spy’, released back picking apart faux socialist activists on lead track minutes, and it’s all the better for its in-out Hulk in January, suggested both a marked change of here `Plastic Proletariat’ (“In his Che Guevara Smash approach to music-making. style as well as a leap up the quality ladder by hat / What a condescending twat / He’s a plastic DOLLY MAVIES The title track sounds like a great lost several rungs. THE DOLLYMOPS proletariat”). Guitars scurry, fly off at angles and, Amphetamine Reptile or Sub Pop release from So expectations for this debut album from Art ‘Gap Year Tourist’ if they do occasionally sound like their more ‘Drown Me Out’ the late 80s: chunky guitar riffs battle for space Theefe, led by Matt and featuring Little Brother contemporary influences (as on `Pied Piper’) (Self released) with a thick, pounding rhythm section and Eli’s Josh Rigal on bass, are higher than they (All Will Be Well) exude an air of prickly defiance. The title tack After a brace of exceptional singles earlier in pained, shouted lyrics; it all brings to mind might have been. That single is unsurprisingly The general reaction at Nightshift Towers to the arrival on the scene of another blokey provides an almost flamboyant Smiths-y finale the year, Dolly Mavies continues her march Tad or early Mudhoney in its sloppy intensity about as musically reflective as things are likely a highlight among the ten songs here, its pop indie rock band is a slightly contemptuous to the EP, The Dollymops’ second since they towards a full EP release with this more strident and its brevity. Things are even speedier with to around these parts, before reprising that noir and smoky surf shimmer suggestive of shrug, especially when the band in question emerged just a few short months ago and further offering. If previous releases – `My Buoy’ and the 43-second ‘Small Mind’, ramping up the opening. The final bludgeon of ‘Angry & Bitter’ afterhours sleaze and with some dirt under its unashamedly admits to the influence of proof that what we have here is a rare thing in this the gorgeous `Distance’ – suggested a singer tempo with its fuzz bass-led circle pit of a tune. is even more hectic, with a hardcore-like tempo fingernails. The Libertines, The Strokes and The Arctic day and age: a bunch of guitar-wielding blokes cutting herself adrift from the world and its The mood settles down – comparatively – for making it feel like a meatier Minor Threat have Album opener `I Have Named You the Monkeys – all good bands in their own right but with something to say and who say it in style. worries, `Drown Me Out’ finds Dolly facing ‘This World’ and ‘Just Friends’, which top the popped in, before power-chording its way into Queen’ too is impressive: from its sparse John the go-to touchstones for a gazillion inspiration- Dale Kattack her issues head-on. “I won’t sit down, I won’t two- and three-minute mark respectively. The another surprisingly inventive ending. The final Williams-style beginnings, and with Matt’s shut my mouth / I’ll learn to swim so you can former opens with the charming lines “This lyrics on the EP? “I hope you die / Sad and solemn yet airy croon suggesting an elegant never drown me out” she calls out to the object backroom meeting between Jeff Buckley mansplaining, fraternity hazing and a plain world makes me sick, you’re all fucking pigs alone.” DEATH OF THE of her ire in what could also be a clarion call for and Roy Orbison. `Afterglow’ is delicate and and simple inability to keep one’s distance and / Shallow, impatient, ignorant pricks,” before This is a fantastic piece of work. It feels like the #MeToo movement. The oceanic imagery emotionally fine tuned but best of all is `Cold take no for an answer, ‘Horses’ is defiant but grinding angrily along in the same way that the right time for bands to quit worrying about MAIDEN of those earlier singles remains but now she’s Dark Night’, a slice of gravelly gospel-tinged embattled. Nirvana did around the time of ‘Bleach’. The their social reach, personal brand or tidy image. rowing furiously to shore to have it out. You gothic folk-blues that best reveals Sage’s ‘Horses’ Three guitars provide the layers while the power latter has a stunningly intense opening, with a Worry sound like they mean it, like they’re go, girl. One of Oxford’s brightest rising talents affection for Mark Lanegan and Tom Waits. of Tamara Parsons-Baker’s vocal chords soar wall of noise flying into a hardcore-like vocal just getting on with it, and that they’ve got no (Self released) without a doubt. Elsewhere though there’s a tendency to taking above the gorgeousness to provide the sense squall. It even crams in a quiet middle eight (of choice but to make this music. In March, the release of Death of the Maiden’s Dale Kattack sorts), followed by a second movement that gets Simon Minter things just a bit too easy: the cracked but casual debut single ‘Soldier’ was greeted by Nightshift of grandeur of a renaissance palazzo. There country rock of `Right Thing’ is pretty but as the birth of something very special and an are ridges and undulations, moments of quiet unimposing and the anonymous Bob Dylan eventful summer further forward, ‘Horses’ and episodes of anguish – for this is a dramatic become more accomplished since his previous country blues of `Broken Angel’ and `Golden provides another significant step on a path to release indeed, creating keen anticipation as we KANADIA outing, though those musical comparisons Switch fail to linger long in the memory. potential greatness. The band’s set at Common move towards those foreboding winter months. ‘Masterplan’ stand the test of time (albeit a whopping four `Steely Jam’ gives itself away with its title but People festival in May provided hints of the Rob Langham months). could have been more than it actually is if it ongoing plan and the band have delivered a five (Self released) Appropriately for a release on a fledgling could find a proper sense of direction, properly minute palace of rococo musical flourishes with The third single this year from Kanadia as they homespun cassette label, Max’s EP comes ramp up the prog-rock tendencies and bring the the follow up. build up to their debut album in 2019 finds with a ramshackle bedroom vibe, all fuzz synths more to the fore rather than sounding Musically and vocally the comparisons might them cementing their reputation as one of and flurry and lopsided tunes held together like a bit of filler left over from the end of a lie with Bat for Lashes whose 2006 track Oxford’s brightest bands. If you’ve not heard with gaffer tape and hope, lo-fi indie punk rehearsal session. Album closer `Don’t Let the ‘Horse and I’ is a touchstone – although it’s also them by now, it’s well worth your while making squeezed tight into pocket money-friendly World Go By’ brings back the soul and sense within Natasha Khan’s other outfit Sexwitch the effort: that way you can pretend you were pop tunes with Toytown synth-pop bloops for of purposes, even as it sails off into the sunset that hints of the same extravagant stucco palate on to the band early on before they were selling company. `You’re Always on My Mind’ is all and is a pointer to where some other songs can be detected. Content wise, it’s grim and out stadiums and appearing on national TV. awkward garage rock crunch; `Standardized here might have turned. Rewind to `Cold Dark foreboding stuff, the narrator finding herself `Masterplan’ is a fairly straight up, slow Collision’, with Max’s drawled vocals, could Night’ though and there’s where Art Theefe at the mercy of wild horses and wolves with burning, anthemic rock tune, but this is Kanadia be a grunged-up Jeffrey Lewis, while closer shine brightest, even as they play it darkest. no escape likely – a possible metaphor for playing to their considerable strengths. Cut `Marble Arch’ sees him slow things down and Dale Kattack the noxious masculinity that the band have from the same cloth as early Muse or `The soften them up, sounding like it’s being sung been bravely calling out over recent months, Bends’-era Radiohead, they utilise many of the and played from beneath a 16-Tog duvet on including their regular No Tolerance gigs at same tricks to create a lasting impact: a gentle MAX BLANSJAAR the day the central heating broke down. Best The Jericho Tavern. In a world that is grotesque intro, a smouldering introspective vocal verse of the lot is the breezily raucous `Stage 1’ enough to provide house room to upskirting, from James Bettis, and then a carefully executed ‘Spit It Out’ again with a strong hint of Jeffrey Lewis about move into polished stadium rock bombast. (Beanie Tapes) it. It’s a more sophisticated twist on the quiet- that heralds the start of the song, through Ben Prior to this debut release on local cassette- If we say Max’s songs often sound not loud-quiet template, but it possesses exactly LEADER Edginton’s lung-bursting holler as he seemingly only label Beanie Tapes Max Blansjaar was completely finished, it’s not meant as an insult, the same impact. If Kanadia have a masterplan, best known round these parts for being Silke more a nod to his proudly-worn lo-fi bedroom ‘Open Skies’ tries to sing the clouds into submission and the chances are it’s drawn on a blackboard from Self Help’s younger brother and for being pop badge. Charming rather than challenging, (ANV) onto the none-more-rousing climax (by way of in a deserted warehouse. In bright red chalk, the go-get-‘em young fella who organised last quaint rather than truly quirky, `Spit It Out’ is If John Lewis famously boast they are just the briefest pensive pause). It’s a bit on the surrounded by scribbles mentioning “quiet year’s Oxjam Oxford show aged just 14. Back possessed of both childlike naivety and old- never knowingly undersold, Leader are hammy side for sure but `Open Skies’ knows guitar intro” and “impassioned vocal” are the in June he performed admirably against stiff head-on-young-shoulders assurance, promising never knowingly understated. This is more in its heart it was built to soundtrack footage of words “HUGE EARWORM HOOK”. That’s opposition on Nightshift’s Demo World Cup even better from a chap who at just 15 has unabashedly sky-searching, chest-beating warplanes returning from some heroic mission what `Masterplan’ has and once you hear where we compared him to Iceland’s Euro already had more decent musical ideas than mountain-top rockorama from the band who over occupied Europe. Much like Professor Ashworth repeating “Break” it’ll be stuck in

16 team as well as to Courtney Barnett and plenty of 40-somethings will ever know. would be kings of their stadium domain, from Peach in The Italian Job, Leader like ‘em big. your head all day. Graham Coxon. Unlike that Iceland team he’s Sue Foreman the chiming Big Country-style guitar flourish Ian Chesterton Sam Shepherd

Sponsored by THE NIGHTINGALES DERMOT KENNEDY IDLES BLOXX The Jericho Tavern O2 Academy Oxford O2 Academy Oxford The Bullingdon RELEASED 20.09.18 | SOLD OUT 14.10.18 | SOLD OUT 29.10.18 | SOLD OUT 20.11.18 | £8 TIGER MENDOZA VIOLENT CHIMES LOW ISLAND CLAP YOUR HANDS BC CAMPLIGHT SAINTSENECA ‘Old Ideas 2’ ‘414i’ O2 Academy2 Oxford SAY YEAH The Bullingdon The Jericho Tavern (Self released) (Self released) 21.09.18 | £8 The Bullingdon 30.10.18 | £12 21.11.18 | £8 “If `Old Ideas 1’ was the night before, `Old There are few things less forgivable in rock and 16.10.18 | £16 Ideas 2’ is the morning after…” says Tiger roll than sounding like you’re trying too hard. It’s Mendoza’s Ian de Quadros of his brief to his cast a trap that Violent Chimes singer Joel Adkins too of collaborators on this new EP. That’s slightly regularly falls into across this debut album. AIRWAYS WILLIE J HEALEY SHE MAKES WAR DANNY GOFFEY misleading since it suggests last year’s part 1 The band, reduced to a three-piece in recent times O2 Academy2 Oxford Ultimate Picture Palace The Jericho Tavern The Bullingdon release was a set of party bangers when the and seemingly having dispensed with their early reality was considerably darker than that, with prog tendencies, never sound like they quite know 27.09.18 | £7 17.10.18 | £5 01.11.18 | £8 22.11.18 | £12.50 songs featuring the likes of poet Pierquin, singer what they want to be or which direction they’re Asher Dust and rapper Half Decent having more heading in across ten tracks that veer alarmingly MULL HISTORICAL TOM GRENNAN THE BLINDERS OUGHT in common with Deftones, Arab Strap and Burial towards bombastic, occasionally opening up than anything you might mistake for feelgood. enough to show where they might find more SOCIETY O2 Academy Oxford The Bullingdon The Bullingdon `Corpus’, the opening track on part 2, does fertile ground. The Jericho Tavern 18.10.18 | SOLD OUT 05.11.18 | £8 23.11.18 | £15 offer a lighter, spacier mood than the dense fog or purpose and feels like a missed opportunity The album opens with `X Over infinity’, with 29.09.18 | £10 of industrial electronics, though: it sounds like between two of local electronic music’s best a big chiming guitar intro that then thumps in a stoned, gothy Vangelis navigating the cosmos operators. with epic intent; it’s a decent start and `Cross by way of a reimagining of The Orb’s `Little Instead it’s `Jazzer’ that provides the EP To Bear’’s delicate spangle suggests a kind of TELEMAN CASSIA SEAMUS FOGARTY EASY LIFE Fluffy Clouds’ at times and is certainly a warm highlight, the loop-happy mix of scrabbling beefed up shoegaze, at least until it ramps up… O2 Academy2 Oxford The Bullingdon The Jericho Tavern The Jericho Tavern awakening from the first EP’s alternately dirgy beats, chants and expansive synths creating a everything, wringing every last drop of rock and urgent abrasiveness. `Maverick Souls’, hypnotic afro-hop babble, while closer `Quiet intensity out of the tune. And from here we’re 29.09.18 | SOLD OUT 19.10.18 | £6.50 05.11.18 | £8 24.11.18 | £8 featuring Asher Dust on vocals, darkens the My Heart’ (with Little Red’s Ian Mitchell) and off into a rock and roll power show that’s all huff horizon a little, while his `Silly Boy’ lends the bonus cut `Human’ serve as suitably comedown and puff, overwrought vocals and lyrical portent PINEY GIR RITUAL UNION SAINT RAYMOND SUNFLOWER BEAN EP its most soulful and melodic cut. The future codas. For the most part `Old Ideas 2’ is a decent and short of subtlety or decent tunes. At their factory chatter of `Wheedle Scratch’, featuring EP and its diverse set of guests keeps it fresh best Violent Chimes hint at Ride’s propulsive Truck Store Cowley Road - Oxford The Bullingdon The Bullingdon Yaya Jojo brings a scratch-heavy cinematic throughout, but when you set it alongside part 1, indie rock, as on `Try Me’, or even something 04.10.18 | FREE 20.10.18 | £30 11.11.18 | £12.50 25.11.18 | £13.50 hip hop vibe to proceedings but things threaten it’s easy to conclude that the darkness suits Tiger approaching Husker Du’s proto-grunge psych- rock shimmer, but more often they’re stuck in to derail with the overlong, overwrought `So Mendoza better than daylight. some kind of gloopy, goth-inflected mid-80s LA What’ (with Kid Kin) which lacks atmosphere Dale Kattack THE MAGIC GANG PUMA BLUE BARNS COURTNEY SHAME rock mire where everything is hurled into the mix O2 Academy Oxford The Jericho Tavern The Bullingdon O2 Academy Oxford in the hope that something might gel. `Just In 05.10.18 | £13.50 22.10.18 | £8 14.11.18 | £9.50 27.11.18 | £13.50 we’re looking forward to Walkman-wielding Time For Autumn’ is clumsy, clunky, disjointed and heavy handed, the chaotic feel accentuated MEANS OF hipsters discovering that little sonic treat in a few by some kind of studio glitch that adds a random years). Fred Ugly’s remix is simpler, a chunk of WESTERMAN YELLOW DAYS COURTNEY BEAK> PRODUCTION clunking noise throughout, while `Things Fall colourful, handmade, slapdash fun, like spending Apart’ sounds like something just about salvaged The Jericho Tavern The Bullingdon BARNETT O2 Academy2 Oxford a drunken hour running on airport travelators, ‘The Depths’ half intact from a first ever rehearsal session. At 10.10.18 | £8 23.10.18 | £11 O2 Academy Oxford 28.11.18 | £15 which lightens the mood, and yet, in its own (Self released) least `To the Light’ has a decent hook about it and way, also has an inherent queasiness. Any tips 15.11.18 | £22.50 Means of Production’s first two EPs are all `Better Days’ flashes the merest glimpse of the for getting vomit stains out of this leatherette? steady forward propulsion and glaring intensity, punk spirit the band’s Facebook pages promises. David Murphy like taking Model 500’s night drive down an Ultimately it’s all a bit of a mess that seems intent HOLLIE COOK ROLLING BRIX AND THE NOTHING endless underpass on a hospital gurney, staring on bludgeoning you into submission so you forget O2 Academy Oxford BLACKOUTS C.F EXTRICATED The Bullingdon up at the strip lights. On. Off. On. Off. `The music is meant to have some kind of substance or Depths’ is different, having a greater feeling SELF HELP sense of purpose about it. There are moments here 12.10.18 | £13.50 O2 Academy Oxford The Bullingdon 04.12.18 | £10 of space, with the individual notes as discrete that suggest the band are capable of better things, 25.10.18 | £13.50 16.11.18 | £16 events, tiny self-contained dots of digital ‘1,000,000 Miles An Hour’ but they seriously need to work out where they sound, which hover around you like a pointillist (Self released) really want to go rather than sounding like they’re mist. The vocals are also a development, Tim Moby once released a single clocking in at trying to be everything at once and ending up RHYTHM OF WE ARE SCIENTISTS HINDS THE AUGUST LIST Day having put aside the wounded elk OMD 1000bpm, making it the fastest single ever being nothing you really want. THE 90’S The Bullingdon The Bullingdon The Bullingdon yelp of Space Heroes Of The People for a flat released. Self Help can’t quite outstrip that Dale Kattack The Bullingdon 28.10.18 | £18 19.11.18 | £14 14.12.18 | £8 and understated intonation (think luke-warm beast (Moby had the help of electronic beats 12.10.18 | £15 leatherette), which perfectly suits the lyrics’ for starters), but the intent is evident not just impersonal Ballardian cataclysm of landslides in the title of this new single but its execution and “inescapable fluorescence”. The track builds too. Bang! It crunks in with sheet metal intent; to a wonderful TARDIS materialisation swirl, skrong! It piledrives through an intense drag leaving you uncertain quite what this cyber- strip of Slaves-styled hardcore post-grunge; oracle is warning about, but eager to hear more. kkkkkrrrrrkkkkk! It grinds down the gears for The depths? We’ve barely scratched the surface. a brief few moments before, bang! (again), Tiger Mendoza’s remix brings out the it slams to a halt, taking just two minutes to @FUTUREPERFECTT track’s melodic core, adding a tiny cuddle of complete its three minute six second journey, harmonisation to the vocals, making them which has got to be some kind of record, right? @FUTUREPERFECTT inviting and perhaps even comforting (heart- Maybe one day when someone publishes a sonic FUTUREPERFECTLIVE warming leatherette), and placing them over dictionary this song will be what you hear when a sassy strut of a rhythm. Even here, though, you look up the word belligerence. By the time FUTURE THEFUTUREISPERFECT.CO.UK the friendly aura is dispersed when the phrase that happens Self Help will be out of sight the [email protected] “She has gone into the sea” is repeated with the rate they’re going. travel-sick wobble of worn out tape (and how Dale Kattack PERFECT TICKETS FROM SEETICKETS.COM from newcomers The Overload at tonight’s It’s Mella Dee brings his trademark warehouse vibe All About the Music showcase. Dark-hearted to Basic’s house and techno night. indie rocking from The Foliants in support. KLUB KAKOFANNEY with DEADBEAT GORDON GILTRAP: Woodstock Social Club APOSTLES + THE MIGHTY REDOX – Guitarist and composer Giltrap plays a low- + FRACTURE + COUNTRY FOR OLD key solo acoustic set as well as discussing his MEN + GLENDA HUISH: The Wheatsheaf life and work with author Steve Pilkington as he – Second night of KK’s 27th anniversary GIG GUIDE launches his autobiography. weekender, tonight with ace country rock meets DAVID NACHMANOFF: The Unicorn, soul revue ensemble Deadbeat Apostles, with MONDAY 1st JON SHENOY: The Wheatsheaf – Spin jazz Abingdon – Rare local showing for the a well-earned reputation as one of the best live VIRGINIA WING + PET SEMETARY + club with London saxophonist and clarinettist American folk singer, songwriter and regular Al bands in Oxford. They’re joined by KK hosts MARGO : Jericho Tavern – Woozily euphoric OCTOBER Shenoy. Stewart sideman, taking inspiration from Peter and veteran rock and blues party starters The THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf electro-pop from Alice Richards and Sam Pillay OPEN MIC SESSION: The Castle Seeger, Fairport and John Martyn among others. Mighty Redox and more. Tuesday 16th at tonight’s Divine Schism show, the band – The local swamp blues, funk, rock, ska and F.U.D: The Black Horse, Gozzards Ford – SISTERAY + GETRZ + DRUSILA: The out on tour to promote new album `Ecstatic nd pop veterans kick off a busy month as they Classic rock covers. Cellar – Scuzzy indie rocking inspired by The TUESDAY 2 th CLAP YOUR HANDS Arrow’, following a tour support to Hookworms, launch their new album and celebrate the 27 Velvet Underground, Replacements and The TTNG: O2 Academy – First hometown show Richards’ coolly detached style recalling anniversary of their Klub Kakofanney. Tonight’s th Smiths. in almost a decade from the mathsy post- SATURDAY 6 SAY YEAH: Broadcast’s Trish Keenan at times, while the gig is a free show in the downstairs bar. SPARKY’S SPONTANEOUS SHOWCASE hardcore outfit, set to head off on a tour of the THE SMYTHS: O2 Academy – Smiths tribute. loping pop tunes, serene synths and sax skronks MOOGIEMAN AND THE MASOCHISTS & SPOTLIGHT JAM: The White House States to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their FOREVERLAND: O2 Academy – The The Bullingdon draw on the diverse influences of Talking Heads, + PINK DIAMOND REVUE: The Library – Sparky hosts his monthly bands night, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s 2005 debut is album `Animals’, but stopping by to reacquaint touring rave spectacular comes to town. Madonna and Young Marble Giants. – Oddball electro-pop and esoteric storytelling tonight joined by indie rock newcomers The an indisputable minor masterpiece of indie themselves with Oxford where they started life. BASIC featuring MELLA DEE: The CHRIS LESLIE: Nettlebed Folk Club – from genuine pop maverick Moogieman, Dollymops, acoustic pop duo Waterfahl and rock, an emotionally racked, melodically SIXTIES GOLD: The New Theatre – Classic Bullingdon – Yorkshire/London producer Nettlebed hosts Fairport Convention’s veteran alongside splendidly acid-frazzled techno surf The Scott Gordon Band, followed by a jam cracked set of songs centred on singer Alec 60s hits at tonight’s retro package tour with folk hero Chris Leslie, a singer and multi rockers The Pink Diamond Revue. session. Ounsworth’s stretched-out keening, cawing chart-topping nostalgia from The Searchers, instrumentalist but best known for his fiddle CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community th CRANDLE + BLACK MASK: Modern Art voice that reaches the point of hysteria at The Merseybeats, The Fortunes, Steve Ellis Friday 12 playing, which has also found him playing Centre – Oxford’s oldest open club night Oxford – A rare live showing for kitsch Casio times, all the better to bring extra depths and Vanity Fare, plus what will be a farewell with The Albion Band, Feast of Fiddles, Julie continues to showcase local singers, musicians, goth pop duo Crandle, turning low-rent covers to his despair. Thirteen years on from that performance from trouser-splitting hitmaker PJ HOLLIE COOK: Matthews, Ian Anderson and Whippersnapper poets, storytellers and performance artists every of Tom Petty, Leonard Cohen, Rachel Sweet opening gambit, one that bypassed record Proby. over the years. Thursday. O2 Academy and more into melodramatic cabaret pieces and labels and extensive touring in favour of blog FIRST IMPRESSION: The Bullingdon ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure – When it comes to musical pedigree Hollie lopsided torch ballads. acclaim and the fulsome support of Pitchfork, Weekly open mic night. Cook has some lineage. For starters the West AMNESTY ACOUSTIC: Isis Farmhouse – Ounsworth is the only remaining member of th rd Thursday 4 WEDNESDAY 3 BLUE JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford London-born singer is the daughter of Sex An evening of acoustic music in aid of Amnesty the band, based between Philadelphia and HAIKU SALUT LAMP CONCERT + KID SPARKY’S NEW MOON: The Half Moon – Pistols drummer Paul Cook and Culture Club International, with sets from Noreen and Adrian New York. The fidgety, off-kilter, emotionally MAHALIA: KIN: The Deaf & Hard of Hearing Centre Sparky hosts an open mic session on the first and backing singer Jeni Cook. As a consequence Burns, Simon Davies and Colin Fletcher, taut nature of the music and lyrics hasn’t – Charmingly oddball folktronica invention third Thursday of every month. Boy George is her godfather. Back in 2006 Samantha Twigg, and Owl Light Trio. changed too much: at his best Ounsworth O2 Academy Hollie was part of the reformed Slits line-up Odd to think that a 19 year old could be a from Derbyshire’s instrument-swapping trio, HOPE & SOCIAL: The Cornerstone, sounds like David Byrne, Thom Yorke and th (taking the place of the late Ari Up) and in music industry veteran but Mahalia Burkmar back in Oxford after their sold-out Christmas FRIDAY 5 Didcot – Uplifting blues, country and soul-rock John Cale trapped in a darkened basement, 2011 released her eponymous solo debut began her musical life playing open mic show at The Friends Meeting House last year, GENTLEMAN’S DUB CLUB: The from Yorkshire’s blue-suited sextet and recent wired on speed, fretting over whether it’s album with producer Prince Fatty. She was nights in her native Leicester when she their whimsical homespun journeys utilising Bullingdon – Leeds’ livewire nine-strong roots Bunkfest headliners, who’ve been described as safe to go back outside or if everything they picked to support the reformed Stone Roses was just 12 (performing her own songs, accordion, ukulele and trumpet alongside laptop reggae, ska, rock and dub collective bring the The Yorkshire E Street Band, with influences of ever knew and loved might now be gone. on tour in 2012 and has sung with Ian Brown mostly written about one particular boy she electronics to create a sound that takes traditional party back to town after their show here a year Dexy’s and The Faces in their old school sound. New album `The Tourist’ is typically erratic, and Jamie T along the way. It’s increasingly fancied) and was signed to Atlantic by the folk music into the realms of Kraftwerk, Bjӧrk ago, the band having spent the summer doing the OXFORD CITY FARM FESTIVAL: Oxford mixing blooming indie anthems with urgent been in her own right that Hollie’s shone. time she reached her 13th birthday. It’s been and Yann Tiersen, the show lit by an array European festival circuit and having previously City Farm, Cornwallis Road (11am-4pm) synth-funk and a clutter and clatter of oblique That debut album saw her acclaimed as one a bit of a riot of good things since: she’s of second hand lamps, adding to its intimate played alongside Madness, Roots Manuva, – Benefit gig for the local community farm, tunes and awkward rhythms. Being the only of the UK’s brightest young reggae stars and toured with Ed Sheeran, Emili Sandé and atmosphere. Instrumental electronica and math- The Streets and The Wailers. Tonight’s gig is with live sets from Deadbeat Apostles, Band of member of the band left standing doesn’t `Vessel of Love’, her third album, released musical kindred spirit Jorja Smith; she’s rock support from Kid Kin. followed by a GDC club night. Hope, Sea Green Singers and Oxford Ukuleles, seem to have held Ounsworth back too earlier this year, produced by Youth and recorded with Rudimental, worked with one RODDY WOOMBLE: The Jericho Tavern THE MAGIC GANG: O2 Academy – plus family activities etc. much, having worked with the likes of The featuring contributions from Jah Wobble, of Drake’s producers and featured in Noel – The Idlewild singer plays an acoustic show, Brighton’s pop-friendly slacker-grunge gang JUNO: The Brewery Tap, Abingdon – Rock National’s Matt Berninger in recent times, Keith Levene and Alex Paterson, went to Clarke’s 2016 film Brotherhood. That’s not including songs from last year’s solo album `The return to town after their sold-out show here in and pop covers. and a slow but steady succession of quality Number 1 in the US reggae charts. She to mention the sixteen million and counting Deluder’, able to take a more tender, insular 2017 and their set at this summer’s Truckfest, albums over the years has maintained a cult describes her music as tropical pop and it Youtube plays for signature tune `Sober’. Its musical path to his band’s often epic songscapes; following up the release of their eponymous th following. Woomble’s rich, dolorous voice continues to takes in classic reggae, dub, trip hop and SUNDAY 7 drunk-dial story is typical of Mahalia’s sultry, debut album, their breezily fuzzed-up guitar pop KLUB KAKOFANNEY with ADAM & shine through though, his previous collaborations rocksteady, inspired by the likes of Phyllis subterranean at The Library alongside folk duo honeyed neo soul style and slick r’n’b vibe, and ebullient four-way harmonies managing ELVIS + MARK ATHERTON & FRIENDS with the likes of Kate Rusby, Karine Polwart and Dyllon, Minnie Riperton and Janet Kay as Wednesday’s Wolves and indie rockers Flatlands. tinged by lightweight reggae and, on recent to find that sweet spot meeting point between + TWIZZ TWANGLE + ZIM GRADY + Kris Drever and John McCusker feeding into his well as 60s girl groups. `Vessel…’ suggests OPEN MIC SESSION: Harcourt Arms – single `Proud of Me’, sweet gospel samples. Brian Wilson, Weezer, Teenage Fanclub and Mac EMMA HUNTER (3.30-7pm) – Rounding solo work. she’s getting better and better with each Weekly open mic night. For someone whose fame rests heavily on Demarco. off their 27th anniversary weekend, Klub new record and while the star names that FOLK SESSION: The Half Moon – Weekly Youtube, Mahalia isn’t averse to back-to- IMPERIAL LEISURE + NEW TOWN Kakofanney host a free afternoon of acoustic th have surrounded her life and career so far folk music night. basics touring; backed by a basic live band, THURSDAY 4 KINGS: O2 Academy – Ska and rap-inspired music in the Sheaf’s downstairs bar. won’t have done her any harm at all, she’s she’s more than earned her dues on the club MAHALIA: O2 Academy – Neo soul and r’n’b party rocking from London’s enduring live faves, LEVEL 42: The New Theatre – Last time we undoubtedly star quality with or without their venue circuit, and if she sings lines like “This from Leicester’s rising Youtube sensation – see touring their return-to-form `Lifestyle Brand’ attempted to preview a Level 42 gig we received th help. MONDAY 8 business is all about survival of the fittest / If main preview album. a lengthy letter from one of their fans written in KATHERINE ROBERTS & SEAN you don’t go viral you should quit it” she’s WILDWOOD KIN: The Bullingdon – KLUB KAKOFANNEY with KNIGHTS OF actual green ink, informing us that “Mr Mark LAKEMAN: Nettlebed Folk Club – Husband got the skills and work ethic to back it up. Daytime radio-friendly folk-pop in the vein of MENTIS + BE STILL + THE SCISSORS + King would be very angry with you,” which and wife duo Kathryn and Sean return to the Haim, Fleetwood Mac and The Staves from RICHIE STICKS & THE BRAIN PEOPLE: cheered us up no end. So, with the hope of Shire after their show here a year ago, the pair Exeter’s close-harmony trio and recently backing The Wheatsheaf – Klub Kakofanney celebrates provoking of more such missives, tonight’s almost winner of Best Duo at the BBC Folk Awards off band for Seth Lakeman, touring their slickly 27 years of free festival-inspired idealism and sold out show is firm evidence of why so much the back of the acclaim accorded their `Hidden produced debut album `Turning Tides’. musical inclusivity with a full weekend of live 80s music is held in less than fond regard, why People’ album, mixing tender folk ballads with THE BOWIE EXPERIENCE: The New music. Among the cast of friends old and new slap bass should be classified as a crime against stomping acoustic rock, the couple having Theatre – Big stage tribute to The Thin White playing are tonight’s headliners, Americana crew human decency and why some people shouldn’t previously formed Equation with Kate Rusby Duke. Knights of Mentis, plus grungy garage rockers be allowed to vote for important things. and Sean’s brother Seth. PINEY GIR: Truck Store – Grungey 60s girl Be Still. THE EPSTEIN + WEDNESDAY’S WOLVES OXFORD CLASSIC JAZZ: Harcourt group pop from Piney Gir, launching this year’s THE OVERLOAD + THE FOLIANTS: The + FLATLANDS: The Library – Oxjam warm- Arms –Classic jazz and ragtime from the local Ritual Union with an instore set. She’ll also be Cellar – Virulent poetic punk, where Sleaford up show with veteran local country and folk- ensemble. playing the main event on the 20th. Mods meets early Happy Monday and The Fall rock heroes The Epstein getting intimate and OPEN MIC SESSION: The Castle Laura Marling, Kaiser Chiefs, Tom Jones and region tribute to the northern polar region indie MOLLY KARLOFF + STRIKE ONE + th Kings of Leon among others, as well as playing rock documenters of temperate northern life. STARBELLY + SUBJECT TO CHANGE: Saturday 20 with Ryan Adams and Rufus Wainwright. He’s CHASE & STATUS DJ SET: O2 Academy – The Wheatsheaf – It’s All About the Music back in town as part of a full venue tour after DJ set from billion-selling, collaboration-crazy local bands showcase with Bicester’s heavy RITUAL UNION: his instore set at Truck Store in the summer, duo Saul Milton and Will Kennard, back at the rockers Molly Karloff, plus punk-pop from promoting new album `Anamnesis’, bringing O2 after their full set here last year, keeping Didcot’s Strike One and gothy glam-rock from Various venues In what’s looking like one of the best months an intimate campfire vibe to his American folk true to their underground roots while making Starbelly. for gigs in Oxford in an age, this is still the music. platinum-selling albums and teaming up with ALPHABET BACKWARDS + DADA stand-out event. After last year’s successful INTRUSION: The Cellar – Monthly goth, stars as diverse as Rihanna, Tinie Tempah, Tom PARADOX + GOOD CANARY: The Jericho inauguration, featuring a headline set from industrial, ebm and darkwave club night with Grennan and Slaves. Tavern – Melancholy-tinged harmony-heavy Peace and superb shows from Josefin Öhrn residents Doktor Joy and Bookhouse. SAY SUE ME + WE AERONAUTS + folk-pop with a bubbly synth-pop edge from + the Liberation, Bo Ningen and Toy among SCHANDE: The Wheatsheaf – Classically cute local stalwarts Alphabet Backwards, playing others, Future Perfect bring Ritual Union back th th indie jangle, surf pop and shoegaze shimmer songs from their most recent album `Friends, Thursday 18 WEDNESDAY 10 to East Oxford again, taking over both rooms in the vein of Camera Obscura, Alvvays and Lovers & Empty Beds’. Support from quirky WESTERMAN: The Jericho Tavern – Starlit of the O2 Academy as well as The Bullingdon, Allo Darlin from South Korea’s Say Sue Me lo-fi electro-pop duo Dada Paradox and Regina TOM GRENNAN: folk-tinged psychedelic pop from the London The Library and Truck Store for a full day of so at tonight’s Divine Schism show. Indie-folk Spector-inspired songstress Good Canary. singer-songwriter, mixing up influences of Nick much that is wonderful about music. melancholy from We Aeronauts in support. BOOTLED ZEPPELIN: The Cornerstone, O2 Academy Drake and John Martyn with Arthur Russell on This year’s event sees the only hometown Nightshift wouldn’t normally pay much heed RHYTHM OF THE 90s: The Bullingdon – Didcot – Led Zep tribute. recent single `Confirmation’. headline full band show for GAZ COOMBES to anyone whose chief inspiration was Adele Live renditions of classic 90s club hits, taking THE INFLATABLES: Fat Lil’s, Witney BRUK OFF with CHRIS SATTA + following a year touring his new `World’s and whose live musical debut was covering in Underworld, N-Trance, Robin S and Faithless – Classic ska and Two Tone covers from the DANCEHALL GENERALS: The Bullingdon Strongest Man’ album, continuing to see his a Kooks song, but Tom Grennan sort of along the way. longstanding live faves. – Dancehall, bashment, r’n’b and trap club night. career flourish after Supergrass. draws you in, both with his personality and RAVING TRIPPY: The Bullingdon – THE A-WATTS: The George, Littlemore – DAVE GORDON: The Wheatsheaf – He’s joined atop the bill by pop-noir poet collective GNOD and the brilliant, brilliant, his voice. The former is likeably laddish: Psychedelic house and techno club night. Classic rock and roll. Keyboard player Dave Gordon joins the Spin GHOSTPOET, back in Oxford after his brilliant witchcore quartet MADONNATRON enthusiastic and confident without the ART THEEFE: Modern Art Oxford – Album Jazz Club in-house band. sold-out show last year, mining a dark well (pictured, below). Seriously, we feel dizzy just arrogance that often goes alongside it; the launch show from the local 60s rock, surf and th PUZZLE CREATURE: The Cornerstone, SUNDAY 14 of trip hop and post-punk neurosis on his trying to think how we’re going to see all of latter is an alternately weather-beaten and funk-pop band, led by Catweazle host Matt Sage. Didcot – Neon Dance’s multi-media DERMOT KENNEDY: O2 Academy – brilliant `Dark Days & Canapés’ album; the those. smoothly soulful croon and holler that’s seen GRACE PETRIE: Old Fire Station – Witty, contemporary dance performance comes with an Introspective, bluesy acoustic soul-pop from the sublime JANE WEAVER, whose psych- And there’s a pretty special local contingent him compared to Rag’N’Bone Man, Paolo protest folk from singer, comedian and activist eight-speaker surround-sound score from local fast-rising Irish singer-songwriter whose singles pop masterpiece `Modern Kosmology’ was on the bill too, including venomously spindly Nutini and Jamie T – blokey and bluesy in Petrie, who released her debut album `Heart keyboard wiz and composer Seb Reynolds. `After Rain’ and `Young & Free’ have seen him Nightshift’s album of the year in 2017 and noise-rock brothers CASSELS; effervescently equal measure. Having sung in public for First Aid Kit’ recently and has toured with Billy rack up over 200 million Spotify plays and earn whose last show in town was supporting Public punky pop pups SELF HELP; sleazy mutant the first time at a house party while drunk Bragg and Emmy the Great as well as Josie th almost ten quid in the process. Service Broadasting at the New Theatre, plus post-punkers HAZE; noisy indie rockers after finishing his A-levels and discovered he THURSDAY 11 Long and Robin Ince; she’s back in town after STILL PIGEON: The Bullingdon – Soul indie the brilliant NADINE SHAH, (pictured, top) LACUNA COMMON; twinkly electro-jazz had serious talent, Grennan bought a guitar ART THEEFE: Truck Store – Album launch headlining at WOOD Festival back in May. and r’n’b from the local student band. whose `Holiday Destination’, which explored popstrels CATGOD; gothic emo-blues crew and moved to London – escaping his native instore from Matt Sage’s surf-rock, country blues OTTO: The Cellar SUMMER SESSION: Florence Park immigration and identity through the prism of LE FEYE; recent Nightshift covers stars Bedford where he was savagely beaten up in and 60s-styled rock crew. Community Centre (2-5pm) – The return of the Syrian refugee crisis, saw her shortlisted for GHOSTS IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS; an unprovoked attack by a gang of strangers CORKY LAING: The Bullingdon – The th SATURDAY 13 the family-friendly afternoon music sessions this year’s Mercury Prize. gothic glam rockers MOTHER; garage rock (“that experience made me,” he’s since said, legendary Canadian drummer brings his band CASSETTE STORE DAY: Truck Store (6pm) sees live sets from fiddle and guitar duo Adrian Each of those acts would be worthy of riffmeisters CHEROKII; euphoric stadium although it also likely lends him a more to The Haven Club, having started his career – A celebration of the resurgent cassette scene Burns and Noreen Cullen, playing gypsy dance, selling out the biggest venue in Oxford, but rockers LIFEINC.; big-hearted and abrasive vulnerable edge musically and lyrically). playing with The Ink Spots before forming metal with live music from Max Blansjaar, Dolly country, blues, pop and rock, plus jazz trio the supporting cast across today’s festival is harmony pop trio EASTER ISLAND Still just 23 he’s sung for Chase & Status (on forerunners Mountain and later playing in bands Mavies and more, plus limited edition cassette Hummus Crisis. just unmissable. There’s Montreal’s scouring STATUES, and, sadly, a final chance to see their hit `All Goes Wrong’) and worked with with John Cale, Bo Diddley, Mick Ronson, Noel releases. OPEN MIC SESSION: Harcourt Arms psychedelia/krautrock outfit SUUNS; sci-fi voodoo blues duo VIENNA DITTO who Charli XCX and grime MC Bugzy Malone Redding and Ian Hunter along the way. DONNINGTON COMMUNITY FESTIVAL: FOLK SESSION: The Half Moon exuberantly spiky punk-pop husband and are calling it a day after almost a decade of and now he heads out on his biggest headline SUBCULTURE: The Bullingdon Donnington Community Centre (2-10pm) – THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Tree, Iffley wife team THE LOVELY EGGS; Cardiff’s being one of the best live bands in town. tour to date to promote Top 5 debut album TABLE SCRAPS: The Library – The seventh Donnington community festival (4-6.30pm) funked-up psych-rockers BOY AZOOGA; The festival’s after-party takes place at `Lighting Matches’. Singing Kooks songs Birmingham’s heavy-duty scuzz-psych rockers features live sets from Franklin’s Tower; garage rock and post-punk Fat White Family the Bullingdon with a DJ set from world while drunk might not be the most auspicious Table Scraps return to Oxford after opening for Superloose; Beard Of Destiny; Mark Atherton & th offshoot-gone-feral WARMDUSCHER; snooker champ-turned-electro-and-prog start to a pop career but he’s on the right path garage rock cult heroes The Gories here in 2017 MONDAY 15 Friends; Delnavaz; Des Barkus; The Jesters; Sue eclectic literary pop maverick KIRAN godhead STEVE DAVIS alongside KRAVUS now, one that looks like going all the way to the band featuring former members of local GET CAPE, WEAR CAPE, FLY!: O2 & Phil; Matt Sewell and Uke-In Be Anything LEONARD; London’s experimental electro/ TORABI as well as live acts. the top. faves The Scholars Academy – Sam Duckworth returns to town, BAD SIDEKICK + DIDI + JOELY: The Ya Wanna. Additionally there are kids activities touring his sixth album, `Young Adult’: his first jazz/disco-pop crew ALASKALASKA; Obviously there’s other stuff we haven’t the Jericho Tavern – Rough and ready garage and food from Waste2Taste. It’s free entry but since reviving the band name he retired back previous Idles tourmates LICE; belligerent space to squeeze in, but it’s essentially the TUESDAY 9th rocking and glam-stomp from London’s Bad donations, a raffle, merch and food all goes to in 2014, his slick electro-indie-folk mix of the darkwave nightstalkers FONTAINES DC; most essential musical happening of the year, raise money for the Donnington Doorstep project JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR: O2 Academy Sidekick at tonight’s All Tamara’s Parties’ personal and political having boasted an eclectic Italian funk/post-punk/hardcore/harmony pop an ambitious statement of intent about the sort and Donnington Park. – Sultry, soulful blues from the star of the UK Zero Tolerance show, the band joined by set of collaborators in the past – Nitin Sawhney; jammers HUSKY LOOPS; Wigan’s one-man of event Oxford can and should be hosting. THE CARPET CRAWLERS: O2 Academy – blues scene, Brummie singer and guitarist Hertfordshire’s punk-pop one-woman band Baaba Maal; Shy FX; Kate Nash – while he’s psych-shoegaze army TVAM; punk-noise duo We’ll see you in there somewhere. We’ll The Genesis tribute band perform `The Foxtrot’ Taylor having risen and risen through the DIDI, and local jazz-pop artist Joely. continued to perform under his own name JOHN, who have toured with Pulled Apart By probably be rushing off somewhere, but we’ll and `Selling England By The Pound’ in their ranks to become one of the country’s most ELLES BAILEY: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Rootsy and keep up his anti-fascist and pro Fairtrade Horses, and best of all, the astonishingly black- likely have a bloody huge grin all over our face entirety. successful young performers, coming on like blues, country and soul-rock from the Bristol activism over the years. hole heavy Manchester experimental art-core while doing so. THE BRITPOP BOYS: O2 Academy – Tribute a cross between Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie singer and guitarist whose debut album ANCIENT SHAPES + LUCY LEAVE to Oasis, Blur, Pulp et al. Raitt and Dusty Springfield, with a vocal `Wildfire’ earned her four British Blues Awards + JUNK WHALE: The Library – Free / 90s-00s with N’TRANCE: O2 Academy – delivery that matches her much-admired guitar nominations; tonight’s Glovebox show comes pay-what-you-can show from the reliably Following on from last night Rhythm of the 90s playing, Joanne started playing at the age of 14 as she returns from recording the follow-up in DIY Smash Disco, tonight hosting Canadian gig, another retro run through of club classics, around her native Black Country clubs and was Nashville. power-pop chap Daniel Romano’s new band with Manchester’s million-selling hitmakers performing at Ronnie Scott’s by the time she was CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community Ancient Shapes, kicking it out in a Buzzcocks N-Trance reliving `Set You Free’ and `Forever’ 16. Discovered by Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, Centre / Ramones / Only Ones style. Support from as well as covers of `Stayin’ Alive’ and `Da Ya she spent the summer on tour with him, Candy ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure post-punk/jazz-rock/grunge/weirdo-pop stars Think I’m Sexy?’. Dulpher from Prince’s band, Jimmy Cliff and BLUE JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford Lucy Leave and Weezer-inspired fuzzpopsters SIMPLE featuring LENA WILLIKENS + Parliament’s Mudbone Cooper in the supergroup Junk Whale. JUJU & JORDASH: The Bullingdon – Simple D.U.P and has also played alongside Bill Wyman th SOFAR SOUNDS: Venue TBC – The pop-up FRIDAY 12 plays host to esoteric German producer, DJ and and BB King on her way to becoming a table- HOLLIE COOK: O2 Academy – Star-quality gig crew host an Oxjam warm-up show ahead remixer Lena Willikens, exploring the darker th topping star in her own right. of the festival on the 27 with low-key and tropical pop from the one-time Slit and daughter corners of house, techno and electronica, having ETHAN JOHNS & THE BLACK EYED acoustic sets from some of the acts playing. of Pistols drummer Paul – see main preview made her name at Dusseldorf’s legendary Salon DOGS: The Bullingdon – Empty Room STICK IN THE WHEEL: Nettlebed Folk ANTARCTIC MONKEYS + THE des Amateurs. Free-ranging support on the decks Promotions host the BRIT Award-winning Club – Fierce, passionate updated trad English DOLLYMOPS: O2 Academy – Southern polar comes from techno explorers Juju & Jordash. producer, who’s worked with The Vaccines, folk from the East London outfit led by singer – Local lo-fi slacker pop hero Willie plays an Witney – Lively folk and roots from the MASP & FRIENDS: The Cellar – crew – see main preview acoustic live set and previews the short film acclaimed quartet, out on another mammoth Drum&bass and jungle club night. ROSS REDFERN HUTCHINSON: The for his new EP `666 Kill’ in Oxford’s only UK tour, fusing global sounds, from traditional FOOZ FIGHTERS: The Brewery Tap, Bullingdon – Hats, beards and blues from independent cinema. English and Celtic, to Eastern European, Abingdon – Tribute act. Mike Ross, Troy Redfern and Jack Hutchinson, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC Middle Eastern, Afrobeat, Indian, Cuban, SUNDAY 21st teaming up for new album `Mahogany Drift’, SHOWCASE: The Wheatsheaf bluegrass and funk into their jigs, reels and BUGZY MALONE: O2 Academy – mining a groove-led southern blues rock in the songs. Manchester’s grime star launches his vein of the Allman Brothers at tonight’s Haven THURSDAY 18th debut full album, `B.Inspired’, following a Club show. TOM GRENNAN: O2 Academy – Sold-out SATURDAY 20th succession of acclaimed EPs, his true crime JONATHAN KREISBERG QUARTET: The show from Bedford’s soul man – see main RITUAL UNION: Various venues – Star- tales and articulate raging against poverty Wheatsheaf – Spin jazz club with American pianist Kreisberg and his band. preview studded multi-venue festival along the Cowley and dysfunctional families born of personal th th Wednesday 24 THE DANIEL WAKEFIELD Road, with Gaz Coombes, Ghostpoet, Nadine experience as he redresses the Londoncentric LAKE ACACIA + THE ADY BAKER Saturday 27 EXPERIENCE: O2 Academy – Defiantly Shah, Jane Weaver and many, many more – see balance of grime. SOUND + STOP MOTION: The Jericho SINK YA TEETH / upbeat 60s-inspired pop and r’n’b from main preview OPEN MIC SESSION: Harcourt Arms Tavern – Post-grunge rocking from local crew OXJAM FESTIVAL: Brighton’s Wakefield, emerging from THE HOPE BURDEN + DEMOCRATUS: FOLK SESSION: The Half Moon Lake Acacia, alongside Reading rockers The THE ETON CROP: Ady Baker Sound. Various venues Brighton’s fertile learning disabled music scene The Wheatsheaf – Stately, superfuzzed post- OPEN MIC SESSION: Florence Park After a year off last year Oxjam’s annual and earning a sizeable cult following after his rock and post-metal from Banbury’s Hope Community Centre – New monthly open mic CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community The Library Centre multi-venue extravaganza is back on Cowley Nightshift fell in love with Sink Ya Teeth appearances on The Undatables. Burden, mixing up influences from Mogwai on the third Sunday of every month. Road, part of a nationwide web of events THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf and Explosions in the Sky to Pelican and ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure the moment we heard their debut single `If BLUE JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford that have raised almost £3million for anti- You See Me’ last year – it’s woozily dubbed- – Free gig in the downstairs bar for the local Isis. Melodic death metal outta Wales from MONDAY 22nd poverty charity Oxjam since 2006. Kicking blues, rock and psych veterans. Democratus, the band’s progressive brutalism off at midday, Oxjam Festival features over out electro pop equal parts discomforting, VILLAGERS: O2 Academy – Songmeister th seductive and hypnotic, like the greatest lost CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community inspired by Amon Amarth, Opeth and At The Conor O’Brien and band return with their FRIDAY 26 40, mostly local, acts across six venues – gem from post-punk’s first flowering. Its Centre Gates. fifth album, `The Art of Pretending to Swim’, THE TOM ROBINSON BAND: The The Bullingdon’s front bar; James Street follow-up `Glass’ was even better, a slinkily ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure following a brace of Mercury-nominated Bullingdon – The punk-era troubadour, radio Tavern; The Library, Café Tarifa; Truck propulsive slice of crystalline Moroder BLUE JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford outings in the form of `{Awayland}’ and DJ, new music champion and human rights Store and East Oxford Community Centre. th disco-pop. Then came `Substitutes’ – fidgety SPARKY’S NEW MOON: The Half Moon Thursday 25 acclaimed debut `Becoming a Jackal’, the activist heads back on the road, playing classic Among the highlights are conscious hip hop electro-punk-funk that sounds like it REMEMBERING EDDIE: The Cornerstone, title track of which earned him an Ivor hits `Glad To Be Gay’, `2-4-6-8 Motorway’ and collective INNER PEACE RECORDS; shimmied out of the same late-70s wormhole Didcot – Veteran local jazz man Alvin Roy ROLLING Novello award. The new album finds him `War Baby’, as well as songs from across his electro-heavy space-pop crew FLIGHTS as LCD Soundsystem. Here is a band who pays tribute to Chicago and Dixieland-style in characteristically hushed and sensitive extensive 40 year career, including `Only the OF HELIOS; metalcore brutalists can do no wrong. Hailing from Norwich, the guitarist Eddie Condon. BLACKOUTS mood, with an earnest and confessional soul- Now’ – his first album in 20 years, recorded MSRY; elegantly lo-fi folk-rock ensemble duo – Maria Uzor and Gemma Cullingford COASTAL FEVER: searching. He remains as literary as ever, with with Billy Bragg and Ian McKellen amongst THE COOLING PEARLS; cinematic – are veterans of their hometown music FRIDAY 19th his wistful, witty, worldly tales. others. instrumental post-rockers GHOSTS IN scene, with Gemma previously a member of BOYZLIFE: O2 Academy – In a fusion more PUMA BLUE: The Jericho Tavern – Woozy, TOOTS & THE MAYTALS: 02 Academy – A THE PHOTOGRAPHS (pictured); O2 Academy long overdue return to town for the Jamaican KaitO and Maria in gothic blues outfit Girl horrific than Jeff Goldblum and that insect in If you’re after ideas how to make straight- sensual bedroom r’n’b from the London hardcore ragers WORRY; atmospheric reggae legends – their first visit to Oxford since in a Thunderbolt, but together they’ve found The Fly, Keith Duffy of Boyzone and Brian laced indie rock sound fresh and even songsmith, taking inspiration from Jeff industrial hip hop/electro outfit TIGER 2001, although they did play at Cornbury in something magic: a bedroom-made update McFadden from Westlife become a single fun again, ask Rolling Blackouts Coastal Buckley, D’Angelo, Billie Holiday and Burial. MENDOZA; old school indie rockers 2016. Legend has it the band could have been on those sublime bands like Bush Tetras, organism and turn pop music into a vile vomit- Fever. The Melbourne quintet’s brace of OPEN MIC SESSION: The Castle THE DOLLYMOPS; twinkly indie-electro the biggest reggae act on the planet, if only The Au Pairs and The Delta 5 that came up style gloop. Suck it up, kids. EPs, including last year’s `The French fidget-popsters 31HOURS; guitar-pop Chris Blackwell hadn’t signed Bob Marley in the wake of punk, ignored rock’s cast-in- BROKEN EMPIRE + YORE LAST RITES Press’, along with this year’s debut full rd janglers FLATLANDS; darkwoods folk- TUESDAY 23 because he didn’t believe he’d get Toots’ stone rules and cut a swathe of fresh air and + SLEEPER UK + SEMPER VERA + album, `Hope Downs’, is as classic in its pop crew LITTLE RED; wayward post- YELLOW DAYS: The Bullingdon – signature. Still, they haven’t done badly for sounds through a male-dominated scene. HARDWAY: O2 Academy – Church Of The influences as you could get but the band punk/jazz-grunge shapeshifters LUCY Harrowing, anxiety-ridden wayward blues and themselves, enjoying global success that’s They’ve lately been on tour with A Certain Heavy rock and metal showcase, including bring those classic sounds fully to life. LEAVE; elegant and abrasive electro/ electro-pop from Surrey songsmith George Van lasted over 50 years now, including the stone Ratio and we’ve had to wait all this time to rising Alter Bridge-inspired rockers Broken Having three singer-songwriter-guitarists post-rockers KID KIN; melodic garage Den Broek, whose `Harmless Melodies’ album cold classic `Reggae Got Soul’, and becoming see them come to Oxford, so cheers Divine Empire. helps, Fran Keaney, Joe White and Tom rock duo WOLFS; gothic blues/shoegaze is an emotional musical bloodletting informed a chief influence on Two Tone as well as Schism for making it happen. And as an CASSIA + THE WHITE LAKES: The Russo each bringing their individual stories songmeister PET SEMATARY; oddball by depression, romance and his synaesthesia, subsequent generations of artists. added bonus reformed Dutch indie stars The Bullingdon – Tropical and afro-pop in the vein and personalities to bear on the songs, while electro-popsters MOOGIEMAN & THE inspired by Howlin’ Wolf, King Krule, Mark FREYA RIDINGS: O2 Academy – Emotive Eton Crop are supporting, the former Peel of Vampire Weekend from Macclesfield outfit providing a cleverly layered guitar sound MASOCHISTS; 80s-inspired indie Hollis and Mac Demarco. balladeering from singer and pianist Ridings, faves’ awkward take on post-punk having Cassia on tour. that harks back to Aussie legends The Go- rockers EASTER ISLAND STATUES; STEVE FORBERT + MOLLY touring her new `Live at Omeara’ album, seen them support The Three Johns and The MUSICAL MEDICINE with LATE NITE Betweens as well as Television, The Only heavyweight math-rockers NO DICE ARMSTRONG: The Jericho Tavern – following the chart success of last year’s `Lost Membranes in a previous life. An awesome, TUFF GUY: The Bullingdon – Disco Ones and pretty much the entire 1980s GRANDMA; elegantly downbeat post- Intimate show from the veteran Mississippi Without You’ single. unmissable show. party with re-edit behemoth LNTG, whose Flying Nun catalogue, and makes them rockers YEAR OF THE KITE, and teen pop, folk and Americana singer-songwriter, IAN FELICE: The Deaf & Hard of Hearing remodelling of Prince, Chaka Khan, Fleetwood contemporaries of White Denim, Parquet punks SPRUNG FROM CAGES. Loads best known for his 1979 hit `Romeo’s Tune’, as Centre – A solo Oxford debut for the Felice Mac and Diana Ross among others has seen Courts and even Brit jangle pop veterans more besides and another great opportunity Nicola Kearey, whose debut `From Here’ was well as for playing Cyndi Lauper’s boyfriend Brothers singer and lyricist, over in the UK to him releasing on Razor-n-Tape, House of Disco The Wave Pictures. Their wistful, romantic to spend an entire Saturday immersed in Folk Roots and MOJO’s folk album of the year. in the video to `Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. promote his solo debut album `In the Kingdom and Disco Deviance. tendencies come with a bit of pop-punk music in a good cause. All-venue passes are OPEN MIC SESSION: The Castle He’s touring new album `The Magic Tree’ as of Dreams’, albeit recorded with the original SONS OF LIBERTY UK + CIRCUS 66 dynamic and a tension that comes from on sale from Weggotickets, or on the door well as playing songs from his extensive career, Felice brothers line-up and produced by brother + SCARLET REBELS + BE STILL: The having three distinctive leads, and it’s made on the day. th including the acclaimed `Streets of This Town’. and erstwhile bandmate Simone. Ian’s songs, TUESDAY 16 Wheatsheaf – Southern fried rock in the vein them huge favourites with 6Music’s Marc Support from Cambridge’s acoustic singer- heavily inspired by Dylan and Springsteen and CLAP YOUR HANDS, SAY YEAH: The of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and The Riley among others. They’re probably as plus high-intensity mathcore from Masiro at songwriter Molly Armstrong. his Catskill Hills upbringing, are romantic, Bullingdon – Nervy alt.pop from Alec Allman Brothers from Bristol’s Sons of Liberty deeply unfashionable as it’s possible to get in tonight’s Jam City promotion. dark and bleakly humorous as he sings about Ounsworth’s enduring cult stars – see main UK at tonight’s OxRox show. They’re joined terms of the current music climate, but who CUT THE TRAP: The Bullingdon – Hip hop th the great American blue collar dream slowly preview by London’s funk and blues rockers Circus 66 doesn’t love an anti-fashion underdog? Great WEDNESDAY 24 and trap club night. collapsing. MARIBOU STATE: O2 Academy – Soulful, and south Wales melodic hard rockers Scarlet pop music is beyond time and trends. SINK YA TEETH + THE ETON CROP ROCKET MAN: The Cornerstone, Didcot – CHARMS AGAINST THE EVIL EYE + pastoral r’n’b and electro-pop from Hertford Rebels. + NERVOUS TWITCH: The Library – Tribute to Elton John. THRUST + LAIMA BITE: The Cellar – production duo Maribou State – and assorted HALF DECENT + TIGER MENDOZA + Norfolk’s post-punk-synth-pop-collision stars guest singers – out on tour to promote second Psychedelic Paisley pop from Charms Against THEORETICAL: The Cellar – Quickfix host make their Oxford debut – see main preview th the Evil Eye, alongside Anton Barbeau’s new SATURDAY 27 album `Kingdoms in Colour’, the follow-up to a night of hip hop and electro, with rapidfire IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC project Thrust, mixing Brit-psych influences OXJAM FESTIVAL: Various venues 2015’s acclaimed debut `Portraits’ which drew rapper Half Decent appropriately playing at The SHOWCASE: The Wheatsheaf like Julian Cope, The Bevis Frond and Robyn (midday-11pm) – Over 40 acts across six comparisons to The xx, James Blake and Mount Cellar as he launches his new single `Save Our Hitchcock with krautrock, plus gothic acoustic venues along Cowley Road in aid of Oxfam – Kimbie, mixing breakbeats, vintage surf riffs and Culture’, dealing with the closure of venues th THURSDAY 25 singer-songwriter Laima. see main preview world sounds into their club-friendly sound. around the UK. He’s joined by atmospheric ROLLING BLACKOUTS COASTAL BLOODSHOT + MASIRO + BONES OF YOU ARE WOLF + DAVID BRAMWELL’S industrial hop hop soundscapist Tiger Mendoza FEVER: O2 Academy – The spirit of 80s Oz- MINERVA + KEYED UP: The Wheatsheaf – THE CULT OF WATER: Modern Art th and more. WEDNESDAY 17 pop stays strong and fresh in the Melbourne Super-heavyweight deathcore from Bloodshot, Oxford – Another gem of a show from Irregular WILLIE J HEALEY: Ultimate Picture Palace URBAN FOLK QUARTET: Fat Lil’s, Folks, with the emphasis on irregular. Tonight’s VOLUME D&B: The Bullingdon – show is themed around Britain’s waterways Drum&bass club night. and sees a more than welcome return to town A-M BAND: The Cellar for singer and musical experimenter You Are FAT ORANGE WOLF + STEVE OR SAM + Wolf, aka Dr Kerry Andrews and band, whose ELLIE ARD: Harcourt Arms – Jazz, blues and poetic songs about folklore and nature, set to psychedelic rock from the headliners. exploratory loops, strings and percussion are MIGHTY REDOX: White Hart, Eynsham exotic, hypnotic and otherworldly. She’s joined F.U.D: The Village Inn, Berinsfield by Brighton all-rounder and consummate eccentric David Bramwell – musician, spoken SUNDAY 28th word performer, writer and radio presenter RICHARD THOMPSON: The New Theatre – th whose eclectic and esoteric CV includes his own The uncrowned king of English folk rock returns Tuesday 30 band Oddsfellows Casino, the Cheeky Guides, to town, the former Fairport Convention star Sing-along-a-Wicker-Man and the Odditorium, having carved out a particularly individualistic BC CAMPLIGHT: as well as radio shows about Ivor Cutler. musical career, from that pioneering folk-rock, The Bullingdon GUNS 2 ROSES: O2 Academy – Yet another through his early solo albums like `Henry the tribute to the worst band ever. Self destruction and music have long been Human Fly’, the candid collaborations with his uneasy bedfellows and BC Camplight has GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with (now ex-) wife Linda in the 70s and early-80s, ORDER#227 + TAPE IT SHUT + BROKEN embraced both with equal fervour. Born through a further 20+ years of critically-lauded, in New Jersey, the child named Brian EMPIRE: The Wheatsheaf – Heavyweight award-winning solo outings, collaborations action at this month’s GTI, with virulent, Christinzio and raised on a diet of opera, (David Byrne, Shirley Collins, David Thomas) showtunes and rock’n’roll, was prone to politicised hardcore from Order#227 alongside and live shows. Thompson is widely regarded as GAZ COOMBES scrappy Pennywise and NOFX-inspired punks depression and hypochondria from an early one of the greatest guitarists the UK has produced, age. Later in life he would cancel tours Tape It Shut and epic hard rockers Broken easily mixing the dynamic with the delicate, as convinced he was suffering from serious Empire, taking inspiration from Alter Bridge. well as being a wry, emotive lyricist, switching illness and after releasing two critically GHOSTPOET from personal to political with a keen knowledge acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful of musical and social history. Tonight’s show sees albums (his backing band went on to become th him touring his latest solo album, `13 Rivers’, as Monday 29 War on Drugs) and being dropped by his well as celebrating 50 years since he played in JANE WEAVER label, One Little Indian, he turned to drink IDLES: O2 Academy Fairport’s classic incarnation. A musical national and drugs, compounding his mental health Idles’ first visit to Oxford, back in 2016, was treasure. problems. By his own admission he would watched by a grand total of 37 people at The WE ARE SCIENTISTS: The Bullingdon – probably have ended up homeless and worse NADINE SHAH Bullingdon, mostly there to see the support The irony-heavy indie-punks tour new album but when a fan on Facebook recommended acts. When they returned a few months later `Megaplex’, the follow-up to 2016’s acclaimed relocating to Manchester he went for it and the venue was sold out and the show was `Helter Seltzer’, their infectious, chorus-heavy it changed his life. He found new bandmates SUUNS . THE LOVELY EGGS . gnod widely regarded as one of the gigs of the fuzz-pop, inspired by everyone from Bowie and a partner and released another well year. This time round they’ll be playing to a and Weezer to Hall & Oates, never less than received album, `How To Die In Manchester’. BOY AZOOGA . warmduscher . tvam sold-out O2 Academy. This on the back of fun, although it’s often the witty onstage banter But of course it all went wrong again. He a Top 5 placing for album `Joy As An Act between Keith Murray and Chris Cain that suffered a severe leg injury and couldn’t fly; KIRAN LEONARD . FONTAINES D.C. of Resistance’. The army of the punk rock provides the best entertainment. consequently he overstayed his visa and was revolution is growing. Following up the ADY SULEMAIN: O2 Academy – Funked-up low island . gently tender deported, missing not only the chance to play extraordinary `Brutalism’, with its virulent Latin-flavoured pop, soul and reggae from the mix of rage, disgust and absurdist humour, Grantham-born Anglo-Tanzanian singer, touring Green Man, End of the Road and Later… but alaskalaska . lice . CASSELS was never going to be easy but `Joy…’ debut album `Memories’ following supports to also his own wedding. Finally, though, he is a triumph, Idles exposing their own Michael Kiwanuka, Lianne le Havas and Laura seems to be back on course with his fourth, Husky loops . MADONnATRON . grand pax vulnerability and in doing so encouraging Mvula. and best, album, `Deportation Blues’, with their audience to do likewise as they take on KLUB KAKOFANNEY with FRANKLIN’S its urgent, frazzled earworm of a lead single THE HOMESICK . SELF HELP . piney gir . haze toxic masculinity, loss and love alongside TOWER + FIREGAZER + SEBASTIAN `I’m Desperate’, on Bella Union and his mother . be good . drug store romeos face-on confrontations with class, racism JAMES + PETER GARDINER + MARK unpredictable mix of piano pop, 70s soul, and Brexit. The emotional centrepiece of the SOLLIS: The Wheatsheaf (3.30-7pm) – Free Beach Boys harmonies and skewed rock and catgod . john . life inc . lacuna common album, meanwhile, is `June’, which deals afternoon of live music in the Sheaf’s downstairs roll is almost an act of self destruction in itself BROOKE BENTHAM . le feye . cherokii . PEANESS with the death in childbirth of singer Joseph bar hosted by Klub Kakofanney and featuring as much as it’s a creative triumph. Talbot’s daughter Agatha. Like Fucked Up, Grateful Dead tribute Franklin’s Tower alongside EASTER ISLAND STATUES . vienna ditto Idles make hardcore punk both cerebral trad folksters Firegazer. collective play some songs for your MIIIIND. VIVE LA VOID (Sanae Yamada - Moon Duo) and intensely visceral. Born in Bristol’s OPEN MIC SESSION: Harcourt Arms BC CAMPLIGHT: The Bullingdon – Light at underground music scene the band had been FOLK SESSION: The Half Moon the end of the tunnel for the troubled troubadour GHOSTS IN THE PHOTOGRAPHs . JUNIPER NIGHTS around a fair while and even undergone a BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) – see main preview lengthy hiatus before returning to action and DR FEELGOOD: The Bullingdon – Disco, DJ SETS FROM STEVE DAVIS + KAVUS TORABI garnering the right sort of attention, initially MONDAY 29th afrobeat and house club night. plus DROWNED IN SOUND DJS from DJs like Steve Lamacq and Huw IDLES: O2 Academy – The punk rock THE OVERLOAD + STILL PIGEON + Stephens, and increasingly gig goers. If that revolution is reborn – see main preview LUCY MAIR: The Wheatsheaf – Funnel last show was anything to go by tonight will NANCY KERR + LUKE DANIELS: Records showcase show. be a gig that’s talked about for years to come. Nettlebed Folk Club – Multiple folk awards OXFORD winner Nancy Kerr comes to Nettlebed, joined WEDNESDAY 31st by local lad Luke Daniels, whose CV includes IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC COWLEY ROAD time spent in Jethro Tull and De Dannan HALLOWEEN PARTY: The Bullingdon – OPEN MIC SESSION: The Castle Live bands and fancy dress. LEST WE FORGET + DOOMTRODON: SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER TUESDAY 30th The Wheatsheaf – Heavyweight Halloween fun SUPERORGANISM: O2 Academy – The with local metalcore crew Lest We Forget and 14 + . £25ADV international electro / psychedelia /art-pop old-school metallers Doomtrodon.

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month, no exceptions. Listings are copyright of Nightshift and may not be used without permission. ritualunion.co.uk PEERLESS PIRATES / STEEVO NUISSIER LIVE / OLD ERNIE / SEBASTIAN JAMES BAND Modern Art Oxford A last minute venue relocation for Klub by guitarist Marc Burgess. Not only are Kakofanney tonight makes a welcome they sporting matching t-shirts but they’re change, as Modern Art Oxford is an his own designs. This isn’t the only nod exceptional venue and its current to multimedia in evidence; Steevo clearly minimalist white décor means there’s sees visual style as a key element in his little to distract us from the music. craft, and there’s nothing more French Rolo Tomassi by Helen Messenger Rolo Tomassi Sebastian James is best known as the than that. His self-professed love of The guitarist from Aylesbury’s Callow Saints Cure shows through in his pleasingly and tonight he fronts his own three- bouncy bass playing, particular on one piece band. The hard rocking, bluesy long number in that also references Can. material is aided by some precise, deft New single ‘Through The Walls’ is less bass playing and James’ mature, lived- successful: a rather dense, plodding, in voice. The lyrics, though sometimes workout that seems a lot longer than it hard to make out, are partly driven by actually is. his recovery from cancer, and there’s Peerless Pirates used to rely too much on certainly an element of anguish in the dressing up, possibly an attempt to distract gutsy, compelling performance. us from the reality that they weren’t Old Ernie try to balance a bit of loose particularly good. Time has moved on wildness with some stripped-back and now, less costume dependant, though metronomic interludes to add tension, still well turned out, the band are a much leading us somewhere approaching Pixies more satisfying and enjoyable proposition. territory. Singer and guitarist David Kahl A cover of Tenpole Tudor’s ‘Swords of has an unnerving stare that seems to go a Thousand Men’ is nicely pitched and right through you and he channels anger tightly played, showing the rewards to be and dislocation into the music, though had from playing dozens of gigs in small it sometimes seems a little unfocused. It venues. The original material is worthy would all probably be more effective in a enough but the room takes off with a take bigger, brasher environment, but they need on Madness’ ‘One Step Beyond’, which to work their way through the small venue finally gets everyone dancing. The name phase first. and clothes may limit their progress and A complete change of atmosphere for potential, but tonight everyone’s having Parisian-in-Oxford Steevo Nuissier’s far too much fun to care. electronic-based musings, accompanied Art Lagun

HOOKWORMS / VIRGINIA WING The Bullingdon IF NOT NOW, WHEN? electronica back to town and Familiarity with Hookworms leaves me influence of bands like Can and Neu! in its hand-in-the-air peaks are a slightly surprised by opening act Virginia the swirling filtered guitars, hypnotic bass welcome counterpoint to what East Oxford Community Centre Wing. Two-thirds of the band take the and the driving thump of the drums, but is elsewhere an almost entirely stage and craft a slow droning synthesiser the new post-`Microshift’ Hookworms are Polaroids of performers past and both of Slint and high-end post- WILLIAMS and the always- guitar-dominated show. rumble that is then layered with effected that much more accessible and engaging; present taped to a wall. A heart- punk, by 5pm we’ve already reliable Sebadoh slacker-grunge It’s no surprise that headliners saxophone, and just as we’re settling in you can almost hear the club-friendly lifting display of poster from every missed many people’s band of the vibes of LUCY LEAVE. Rolo Tomassi tear the roof for a set of soundscapes the veil is pulled vibes of Hot Chip, just with each musical show they’ve promoted. Hand- day in the phenomenal jazz-skronk But it’s the new discoveries off the place, and how surreal to away and as Alice Merida Richards joins idea being explored for ten-times longer in painted stage signs. And their own of SLUMB PARTY, Nottingham’s that are the highlight, and with see them in a venue like this. In the show everything shifts into avant- true krautrock style. festival-branded beer brew. It’s the answer to much-missed OX4 so much on display it’s easy to recent years they’ve tempered their garde dance/pop. The rest of the set is Songs from previous albums are still little touches that mark out If Not avant-gardists Camp Blackfoot. imagine that every single attendee wall-to-wall hardcore madness Now, When? as a festival founded has their favourite. For us, it’s with passages of sweeping synth a mix of pitch-shifted poetry and dark- compelling but the instrumentation purely from a love of music, and While there are a few missteps, NO VIOLET, whose blend of and actual sung vocals, which and-twisty pop songs which sound as if and performance just feels somehow the sheer desire to share that with like the distressingly-beige early Soundgarden riffing and paradoxically only serves to David Byrne has taken to producing early safer, reigned in; it’s not perfunctory as as many people as possible. DIGNAN PORCH or the MOR Babes in Toyland intensity is accentuate the insuppressible Madonna: an odd concept to get your head such, just that the band’s blood isn’t in vibes of NIGHT FLOWERS, utterly compelling. They have a chaos to which we’re more round but surely a very good thing indeed. that material anymore and given how There’s an almost-ridiculous who don’t come off well when diminutive singer who, based on accustomed. Hookworms open their set with `Negative phenomenal the rest of the set is, no amount of music to absorb, with compared with The Corrs, there’s the feral air raid alarm of a voice Space’, the brilliant opening track from matter how much I loved those releases at three stages all within 50 metres of much to love here – more for us she projects right across east Here’s the bottom line: in just their recent third album `Microshift’, the time, I am totally with them. one another; we managed to take to describe than is allowed by an Oxford, must be almost entirely two years, If Not Now, When? building vocal synth sounds over retro `Microshift’ is certain to be in any Ox3 Audio in 17 bands’ sets and still feel like aggressive word count and an even composed of lung. has already moved from being a drum machine staccato and then a full- number of end-of-year Best Album we only scratched the surface. It’s more aggressive editor. fascinating Cowley Road curio to blown barrage of everything that makes lists and tonight Hookworms pull off Audio & Sound Engineer Hire the musical equivalent of trying Compared with their first year, the an essential event in the Oxford Hookworms great. that rare trick of being better live than Events, Festivals, Bands, Weddings to force down a box of Quality CASSELS are in exceptional form, ambition is clear in the headline music scene. In many ways, it’s a `Microshift’ was quite a stylistic shift in the studio. Their boundless energy call or email Spike for a quote Street in one sitting. One of the big adding a nihilistic chug to their acts INNW have brought through throwback to the way shows used for the band, removing the introverted and obvious love of playing this music Christmas boxes. already midnight-black outlook, the door. Local hero Chad to be run, but equally it provides a lo-fi filter from their entire sound to together is unavoidably infectious. 07752 887737 Indeed, while we have no regrets like Magazine playing Sleaford Valley, fresh off the back blueprint for where they could go embrace new sounds and a new sense of Everybody in the room is caught on the about enjoying the measured Mods covers. Their brutality is of a seemingly-endless tour of next. electric energy and enthusiasm; it’s happy riffs, and leaves with a massive smile on [email protected] stylishness of BUG PRENTICE, nicely counterpointed elsewhere by club shows Stateside, brings krautrock. their face. with their firm nods in the direction the restrained menace of SWEET his euphoric Balearic-tinged Stuart Fowkes There is no denying the weight of Matt Chapman Jones

Green Willow Tree’ / `The Golden TOWERSEY FESTIVAL Vanity’, is steeped in contemporary LIVE Thame Showground folk descants and vocal layering – between them the trio’s members THE PROCLAIMERS are the festival’s third stage in the large DNA, is one of the five, and it’s have probably been in every major Towersey’s Saturday headliners. bar. GREAT WESTERN TEARS a pure pleasure to hear her “done folk band in the last 15 years. Would you walk 500 miles to provide a superb performance some livin” voice which has got to Young charismatic COHEN see them? Well, why not, as the of their distinctive English / us ever since she was in a duo with BRAITHWAITE-KILCOYNE’s repeated hooks and strap lines of Antipodean Americana, Dava’s Clive Gregson. The band leave the most of their songs make for pretty beguiling voice again the key to stage to a well-desrved standing solo version is much more akin to perfect festival anthems. The word their appeal. The more traditional ovation. a patter song, but his concertina is that they’re the main reason the MOONRAKERS, featuring a Much of the concert venue had accompaniment puts me in mind of day is sold out and the main venue Celtic harp, weave layers of sound been on their feet earlier applauding Captain Pugwash. Menstrual Cramps by Cheri Clouds packed for ‘Letter from America’ around melodious tunes; it’s brave yet another consummate set from If Braithwaite-Kilcoyne has and ‘Sunshine on Leith’. Angry of them to take on the bar and they MARTIN SIMPSON, whose the good looks, abundance of Cyclist’, the title track of their come out of it in good shape. Then ‘Never Any Good’ is up there with confidence and a real presence, as new album, is a rant about the we get THE AUGUST LIST as a the best father-son songs ever. well as a voice that should make state of our world and its politics, full six-piece band. Their droning, Fellow folk singer Ruarri Joseph, him a nailed on certainty to make while ‘Streets of Edinburgh’ is almost gothic vibe is still there but with help from a couple of young it into the ranks of folk royalty, an ambiguous, impressionistic the much bigger sound is made for friends, is now grungy indie another young Towersey presence evocation of the city and the set’s festivals and the palette of musical English Americana trio WILLIAM is Manx harpist MERA ROYALE, highlight. When we get to ‘500 colours is richer especially with THE CONQUERER. The trio winner of BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Miles’ the crowd pound it out at violinist Ben Heaney in the line up. format is an exposing and tricky award. She hasn’t got the same full lung power. Female singers are at the one but Ruarri’s scuffed-up voice immediate impact, but surprises As one wag points out The forefront of contemporary folk and talent on the guitar, plus solid with a jazz number at the end. Best Proclaimers are just the warm -up music, and yet still not getting the drums and bass on numbers like of the festival’s newbies, though, act for one of Oxford’s finest, THE recognition due. It was tougher the dark `Bleeding on a Soul’ show are PON AELUS, another great BRICKWORK LIZARDS, who still for them back in the day, why the band are now a WOOD band from the Newcastle area. The follow them on the main stage so DAPHNE’S FLIGHT were Festival favourite. Playing the main high energy instrumental sextet and entertain the festival well past doughty pioneers back in the mid- stage in the afternoon they get hints of an acoustic version of midnight, a bloke in a wheelchair 90s when challenging the glass polite applause but are deserving of Peatbog Faries; they write their pirouetting gracefully along. Their ceiling. Twenty years on they’re much more. Perhaps Towersey was own tunes and have an ear for a mix of Turkish and western swing back together, and there’s barely simply expecting “folk Ruarri”. catchy pop like riff, like `Rafa has gone up a level lately and an empty seat at the concert stage One of Towersey’s most fun Benitez’s jig’. Listening to it might THE MENSTRUAL CRAMPS / KISS ME, KILLER / and it’s a revelation – who knew they’re now are one our city’s finest despite them overlapping with The occurrences is two versions of the just be the inspiration his football that 70s thing could be remade so live bands. Proclaimers. Christine Collister, same song telling a story that ends team need to start winning. DEATH OF THE MAIDEN effectively, still sound so fresh, so “Team Oxford” dazzle on what is who’s got blues and jazz in her cruelly. FAUSTUS’ version of ‘The Colin May vital? The band rock hard, taking The Jericho Tavern cues from The Damned, Bikini Tonight is the second of Tamara around Parsons-Baker’s expressive and punk-ish, Cramps-ish rockabilly Kill and Black Flag, and vocalist Parsons-Baker’s Zero Tolerance vocals. The driving ‘You’re So touches. This could sound kinda Emilia Elfrida is a commanding, nights, created in response to the bad Fucked’, a plea to a friend in a bad retro, but it’s remarkable how new charming stage presence, with every experiences she has had as a female relationship, fits nicely with tonight’s perspectives can enliven – as on gesture and articulation framing musician and gig-goer, and if The themes, and ‘Tess’ is a brilliant ‘Sliding Into My DMs’, where wah- her exquisite, funny, pointed lyrics LIVE MUSIC AT Jericho is impressively busy tonight, marriage of sound and substance, wah guitar, straight from an old perfectly. Opening dick-pic diatribe it’s proof that ATP’s inclusive, its heavier moments providing porno is repurposed for a song about ‘Hashtag Sad Penis’, rockier tonight Saturday 10 November Monday 5 & Tuesday 6 November diverse bill and “no-asshat” door something for this tight, dynamic unsolicited dick pics. ‘Kiss Me, than on the band’s debut album, is policy are welcome indeed. band to get their teeth into. Killer’ quotes from that old garage thematically familiar, while the band The big crowd is also proof that the Bristol’s Kiss Me, Killer, rock staple the Batman TV Theme, take aim at political targets on ‘Tory FISHERMAN’S OLD STOCK: buzz around Death Of The Maiden meanwhile, are all racket, all which suits its murder-revenge Scum’ and problematic faves on has built and built over the past of the time. Singer Holly Pops’ subject matter nicely, and a raucous ‘Idols’. ‘Boycott The Lot’ manages FRIENDS A REFUGEE LOVE STORY few months, and for good reason. announcement “this one’s pretty closing cover of The Nuns’ ‘Do to be both sardonic and nihilistic, DESERVING WINNERS Starring Ben Caplan ‘Soldier’ is doomy, dramatic and heavy, so feel free to windmill – You Want Me On My Knees?’ has and ‘Bush’ distils the evening’s OF THE BBC RADIO FOLK AWARD. Humorously dark folktale-cabaret. gorgeous, and new single ‘Horses’ with your arms not your penises,” everyone, well, on their knees. entertainment into a manifesto – KATE RUSBY further deepens the gloom, leavened pretty much sums up the evening’s Also from Bristol, tonight’s “fuck you, misogyny”. Hey, ATP, BEN CAPLAN IS A DELICIOUSLY by Hannah Bruce’s sparkling, lyrical vibe, while the band’s music is all headliners The Menstrual Cramps BOISTEROUS LEADER WITH more please. A PHYSICAL PERSONA LIKE lead guitar as it ducks and weaves NWOBHM changes, B52s camp play lean, powerful, potent punk, Mike Smith TOM WAITS AND A SHREWD, BOMBASTIC ARTISTIC VOICE. Arthur Osofsky stalks onstage and opens the show with some deadpan Tickets THEATREMANIA THE OVERLOAD / STARBELLY poetry about frozen food like some offspring of John Cooper Clarke before O2 Academy the band crank out tight, punked-up krautrock rhythms over which he £27 Tickets £10 to £21 It’s not every day you see a band’s drummer studiously dismantling his kit hectors the audience, a swaggering mix of attitude and nervous energy. during the penultimate song and leaving the venue before the set is over, Early reports likened The Overload to Sleaford Mods and there’s a similar but Starbelly’s sticksman, Sam Spacksman, does have a decent excuse: sense of disgust at the world in the words but really they’re closer to he’s also drummer for Peerless Pirates who have a show across town the `Squirrel and G Man’-era Happy Mondays, particularly `Lucky Man’. same night. Not that his absence for the last number affects Stabelly; if Hands in pockets, reading his rhymes off a crib sheet, Osofsky has an air anything they get better. A solid beast of a grunged-up glam band, replete of chaos about him, matched at times by the band who can switch from with Glitterstomping beats, they’re a pink-haired, black-clad spectacle meandering Crazy Horse-style riffs into militant, staccato punk, throwing in search of a few stronger tunes, but the drummer’s departure sees them paint spatters of The Fall, The Sex Pistols and even Crass into the mix, crank out a dirty great drum-machine-fuelled gothic dirge that is just a culminating in the superb rap punk ramble of `Twat Next Door’. Not the synth line and some operatic female backing vocals away from being the sort of stuff you expect to see a room full of teenage girls dancing to, but 0186 5 30 5 305 meeting point between Sisters of Mercy and Cradle of Filth. the evidence is right in front of us, and while this is early doors for The www.oxfordplayhouse.com The Overload are barely a handful of gigs old and are already garnering Overload, their abrasive star quality and potential is already clear to see. rave reports online – and with good reason. Shaven-headed frontman Dale Kattack photo: Leo Bowder outfits bringthenoise.DJsNikzandGillyGill laptops andCDJsneededonstage. Various local given thesheernumberofDJs,MCs,vocalists, keeps thingsflowingthroughout:noeasytask, EarnestDJandpromoter/compereDrErbz in rudehealth. urban sceneisatthemoment,anditseemstobe diagnostic check-upofwhereOxford’s hip-hop/ event forlastmonth’s Nightshift Tonight feelsnotjustlikeanalbumlaunch O2 Academy RHYMESKEEMZ LIVE OXFORD’SFINESTINDEPENDENTMUSICVENUE CELLAR. THE MUSIC HISTORY BEGINS UNDERGROUND! LIVE MUSICAND DANCE CLUB INDIE, ROCK, HOUSE, GARAGE, TECHNO, DISCO, D&B, DUBSTEP INDIE, ROCK,HOUSE,GARAGE,TECHNO, DISCO,D&B,DUBSTEP cover starbuta even moreyouthfulenergy tothe(turn)table, one tokeepaneyeon.MCFlowtecsbrings bass music. With anEP ontheway, heisclearly UK post-80s and rap redolent alsoofolderUS seasick pianoriffs, hecutsthrough withastyle of Lowkeyinevidence,andafondnessfor wisdom thatbelieshisyears. With theinfluence is arevelation:younggeezerwithworldly tha Activist kicksthingsoff inassuredstyle.Side localbeatswarriorBlackjack before up warm HIP-HOP, REGGAE, SKA&MORE.... Leo Bowder felt likeacollectivetriumph.” Amen tothat. unity withintheOxfordurbanmusicscene.It is thestart,hopefully, ofacontinuedshow show, “theatmosphereallnightwas crazy;this but heseesthewiderpicture,sayingafter bringing theyintohisyang.He’s tonight’s star distinctive co-vocalists Tiece andSaraSilveira, things alittleisthepresenceoftalentedand the performancefocussedandtight. Tempering flow. Whereverhisrageemerges fromitkeeps prowls thestage,spittinglyricswithafurious cap andshadeswithplainwhitetee-shirt,he in theperennialhip-hopuniformofbaseball time weseehim.Performingmostoftheset Rhymeskeemzisgettingmoreassuredevery `Inside Out’ album. much afullhouse,toblazethroughhisdebut Rhymeskeemz boundsontothestagetopretty encouragement fromDJDrErbz, Finally, afterDJLeonidasandsome always goodtoshiftupthechi. beat vibes,andawelcomespatteringofjungle: 2Exclusive Entertainmentfollowwithsomebig and superstarDJBoy(nowMr) Wonder from effects. Then lovablemotormouthMCSpex joins himonthedecksanddubsoundsystem music fromitsRastafarianheritage.Multifari spirituality lyric-wise,whichdevelopsroots dynamic dancer, Elly-Lynne) withapluralistic singer, whofuseselementsofyoga(asdoes UpnextisZenLewis,anenergetic reggae the mostgangstaoftonight’s offerings. polished andhefty. These dudesarecertainly gritty, moreedgy, enterprise,thesoundboth before dynamicduo, YK andEaz. Theirs isa WWW.CELLAROXFORD.CO.UK FREWIN COURT THE CELLAR OXFORD OX1 3HZ rock history butverymuch tearitupwith pass throughany numberofpoints Tonight’s headliners ScreamingFemales another excitableandchaoticpunk ditty. which isthenquicklyoverthrown by together, exploringReich-ianphasing, rumble andthetwoguitarschirping highlight isanextendedsection of rhythm which isquiteaneedletothread. The despite itsexperimentalunderpinnings, Their setfeelsengagingandaccessible the sparsevocalsevokeKimGordon. underpinned withapunkieredge,while and stop-startlikeearlyBiffy Clyrobut cacophony. All theinstrumentsarejagged together intoameticulouslyglorious opposition, whichsomehowcomes part oftheirarrangementsinangular In sharpcomparisonLithicsuseevery Scroobius Pipofthrashnoise-punk? Scroobius Pip;maybeClarkecouldbethe social commentaryspoken-wordworkof comparison asitis,Iamremindedofthe singer Angie Clarke. As muchofanodd all punctuatedwiththepoeticyellsof often transitionsclosetofull-onthrash, power andattitudethatbearthesetalong almost beyondcomprehension. Their grunge intoanenergetic mess,fuzzed an earlyUSpunksoundandSeattle of alotnoise. The four-piece blend From theget-goScrapBrainmakeahell playing toalargely emptyroom,so BythetimeStrangeCagesareonthey’re the headbanging. when we’renottakingnotes,wejoinin tune thatroundsoff theirsetprettynicely; finish thingsoff withafast-paced, punky songs withnameslike`Dopamine’. They from thebassist,fulloffeedbackand enough toallowtheoddgrowl/scream fun. It’s messy, aggressivegrunge,heavy shamelessly nostalgicand good, withariff-driven intensitythat’s performing since2017–butthesongsare slightly self-conscious –they’ve only been shitheads” (theband,notthefans)are These self-described“hardrockgrunge at leastgettheirmatestocomealong. Ofcourse,beinglocals,RatsEat who’ve hungaroundoutofsympathy. those arefamilymembersofRatsEat the audience. their set,wecountsevenotherpeoplein rock bandfromBrighton–havefinished Cages –apost-punk-meets-psychedelic- atmosphere foryou.BythetimeStrange dads andmusiccriticstomakethe That doesn’t meanyourelyonmums, mean youdon’t fuckingshowup,folks. crowd canfilliteasily. Butthatdoesn’t intimate performancespace. A small Okay—we getit. The Libraryisasmall, The Cellar SCRAP BRAIN SCREAMING FEMALES/LITHICS The Library STRANGE CAGES/RATS EAT RATS Seven. And atleastfourof T they likeit. Your loss,Oxford. a goodtime,playingmusictheway showed upforthem. They’re justhaving they don’t careforaminute that noone’s that’s StrangeCages’ ultimatesuccess: played toacrowdofscreamingfans. And drums andguitarthatmightaswellbe we’re treatedtoaclosingbattlebetween could finishagigwithoutgoodjam–so Noreptile-garagebandworththeirsalt taste.) influence, whichticksourboxesforgood Attractions drummerPete Thomas asan the textureofmusic.(Dicksoncites even whenthesongsgetabitlostin physical exertiondrivethebandthrough Dickson, whosemonumentalfeatsof shining lightofthebandisdrummerEllis tambourine tobetakenseriously. The tenseness andminorkeys,justenough MGMT-inspired funwithsynths,lotsof psychedelic rockandpost-punk:lotsof on stagetoanatmosphericmash-upof is “reptile-garage”,whichtranslates StrangeCages’ tokenmade-upgenre tonight.” And theydo. announces; “we’regonnahavefun gig,” leadsingerCharlieMcConnochie opening statement.“It’s ourfirstOxford there’s perhapsanelementofironyintheir Matt Chapman Jones thousands which isnoeasybridgetocross. just aswellinfront ofafestivalcrowd powerful youcanimaginethemworking club tonight,buttheirsoundisso fulland they feelperfectlyathomeinabasement Females generatesuchafantastic vibethat changes allthemoreengaging.Screaming serve tomaketheunexpectedjumps and progressions andstructuresbutthey forward. 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WhatsOn1.indd 1 19/04/2018 22:01:16 still had a great fun night INTRODUCING.... but it was a good learning Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under curve and test of performance endurance.” Her favourite other Dolly Mavies Oxfordshire act is: “Zurich. I was a big fan Who is she? before I knew them, and now Dolly Mavies is the musical incarnation of Molly Davies. She has being as I have worked with been playing on the local live scene for five years. Growing up in rural them I may seem more biased, Oxfordshire she moved to the city and ran a music night at Bar Aroma but in all honesty they are (as was). She has supported Rae Morris at the O2 Academy and played incredibly talented musicians Cornbury Festival, Riverside and Common People. She released her first with such a great sound and set of acoustic songs in 2015 and spent 2016 touring the UK. After a brief incredible live performances.” spell living in London she moved back to Oxford last summer and has been If she could only keep one working on a new EP with Zurcih’s Adrian Banks. Two singles earlier in album, it would be: the year – `My Buoy’ and `Distance’ – are joined this month by new song “`Boxer’ by The National; `Drown Me Out’. Additionally, she sang vocals on Zurich’s single `Where there are so many great songs You’ve Been’ earlier this year. and such wonderful lyrics. What does she sound like? A friend of mine introduced Hushed and ethereal semi-acoustic pop with an edge of drama and a sense me to the band when I was of being cut adrift on an endless ocean. Possessed of a limpid, slightly back in school and I was breathless voice, Molly/Dolly’s song `Distance’ was described by Nightshift instantly hooked, I think Matt as sounding “like it’s only attached to the corporeal world by a strand of Berningers’ vocal delivery and lyric writing are just incredible.” spider’s silk,” while `My Buoy’ was “the sort of song best listened to late at When is her next local gig and what can newcomers expect? night while armed with enough Rioja to sink a small boat and thoughts of “Truck Store for Cassette Day on Saturday 13th October, alongside other sad kittens.” local artists on a new Beanie Tapes compilation.” What inspires her? Her favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: “The everyday; the lives of the people I love; politics and passion. I love all “Oxford has a rich musical heritage and that is such a wonderful thing, kinds of music and am so lucky to witness so much incredible live music.” but at the same time it is a slight curse and seems to sometimes hold back Career highlight so far: newcomers as people can be focussed on the old greats and compare new “Playing a sold out show to a crowd of teenagers when I supported US music against them.” artist Vesperteen on their European tour in London, or having my first single You might love her if you love: of the year, `My Buoy’, played by Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music.” Daughter; Florence & The Machine; Tanya Donnelly; Edie Brickell; Sade; And the lowlight: Everything But the Girl. “When I first started playing I did a show supporting another local band Hear her here: and no one turned up except the people I had brought along with me; we www.dollymavies.com, plus Spotify, Itunes, Apple Music, Google Play etc.

Dr SHOTOVER: Punk Floyd THIS MONTH IN OXFORD T H E W H E A T S H E A F Ah, there you are, Hornblower. Welcome to the East Indies Club bar‘n’grill. th ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY Thursday 4 October – 8pm Pull up a burger and get a mighty round in. Now, where were we? Oh yes, refereeing the ongoing ‘debate’ (some would say ‘scuffle’, or ‘full-on eye- 20 YEARS AGO 10 YEARS AGO 5 YEARS AGO th gouging grudge match’) between Lord Gobbington and Baron Mellotron. Friday 5 October – 7:45pm Pioneering local music show BBC Introducing Gracing the cover of October 2008’s issue were Well whaddya know. Who is on this month’s Old Gobby is in the punk corner, naturally, and Mellow, as you might expect, in Oxford’s ongoing success means it’s easy Xmas Lights, making their second appearance on Nightshift cover? Candy Says. And who was on the is sporting the prog/soft rock trunks. To avoid unseemly fisticuffs at our to forget a time, pre-broadband internet, when the cover, described as “the sound of metal into cover exactly five years ago? That’s right – Level advanced time of life, the next instalment of the East Indies Club Battle of th you had to go to gigs to hear new local bands. flesh, future factory brutality and screaming,” in an 42. Just kidding, it was Candy Says, though in a Saturday 6 October 7:45pm the Bands will feature some rather original hybrids. If, like me, you embrace Back in October 1998 another heroic attempt interview that found what was then Oxford’s most radically different guise. Back then Julia and Ben the concept of a Punky Proggay Party, the final heats of this competition to bring Oxford music to the airwaves went brutal band discussing who was the most brutal Walker were joined by a band that included multi- will be very heaven for you. So, get our trusty bar steward Bedingfield to under as Oxygen FM axed Sweet 100. The act in the world, Converge, Napalm Death, Rolo instrumentalist Eliza Zoot and drummer-in-demand th Friday 12 October – 8pm mix you a Merrydown and cherryade cocktail… or, if you are more inclined show, hosted by DJ Curtis, which featured live Tomassi and Swans winning the day. Mike Monaghan, who’s since gone on to play with to the, ahem, medicinal side of things, my personal deal… erm, trainer sessions from Oxford acts, was dropped with the Five years on from their debut album, Gaz Coombes and Willie J Healey among others.

th Saturday 13 October - 7:45pm Spanish Tony will rustle up one of his novocaine/diet pill specials for you in station claiming it wanted to pitch itself at a more Youthmovies were still going strong, Nightshift The quartet were releasing their single `Kiss

Cubicle 3 of the Gents. Thus fortified, take a seat in the four-and-nines, and mainstream audience. The decision followed reporting the now monikeredly-shortened Kill’ on Cool For Cats Records. “One day I was get ready to wrap your laughing gear around THIS line-up: STEELY DAMNED the station’s previous axing of the show Edible, band were set to release a new EP, `Polyp’ for sitting at my desk, three months pregnant and (playing their jazzy/raucous mash-up There’s a Brand New ‘Rose Darling’ in th which prompted a number of resignations from the Blast First, Jonquil’s Hugo Manuel, Oregon decided to leave behind all my anger,” said Julia, Friday 19 October – 7:45pm Town); THE YES PISTOLS (Holidays in the [Heart of the] Sunrise); SIOUXSIE station. And where is Oxygen FM now? Exactly. poet Adam Gnade and 65Daysofstatic’s Joe whose previous band Little Fish had previously & THE BAND-SHEES (The Night They Drove Old Budgie Down); WISHBONE Away from such travails, live music continued Shrewsbury all guesting or providing remixes to been chewed up and spat out by the big fish of the

CLASH (Should to exist and even flourish. Among acts coming the project. music industry; “I decided to start something new, th I Stay or Should Saturday 20 October – 7:45pm to Oxford this month were The Delgados, Also this month A Silent Film released their something I wanted to do and not caring if other I Play A Long supported by Six By Seven; Gorky’s Zygotic album `The City That Sleeps’ on Xtra Mile – also people liked it or approved of it.” The band has

th Twin Guitar Thursday 25 October – 8pm Mynci; Silver Sun and Arab Strap, all home to Frank Turner – while This Town Needs subsequently undergone a hiatus before re-emerging Solo?); BREAD at The Zodiac. Former Galaxie 500 duo Guns released their debut `Animals’ on Big Scary re-energised in the form we now know them.

th KENNEDYS Damon & Naomi were at The Point, as were Monsters. The band return to Oxford this month Big gig of the month was Gathering, a precursor Friday 26 October – 7:45pm (Baby I’m New Zealand’s Mutton Birds, playing two as part of a tour to celebrate its tenth anniversary. to this month’s Ritual Union. Taking over venues A-Want You- nights at the venue above what is now The Roots Manuva, Enter Shikari, Rachel along Cowley Road were Drenge; Temples; Local ber Alles). And Cape of Good Hope. Shed Seven were up at Unthank, Spiritualized, British Sea Power and Natives; Port Erin; Waxahatchee and London th Saturday 27 October – 7:45pm so on. Und so Brookes University Union, where they were Holy Fuck were all coming to town, while over Grammar, while Spring Offensive and Candy weiter. Cheers! comprehensively blown offstage by Puressence. in the demo pages, Spunkle was making a one- Says provided local support. Oxjam’s Oxford th 7:45pm Down the There were local releases for Hurricane #1 off comeback atop the pile, while down at the Takeover this year featured local stars Black Tuesday 30 October Brands Hatch! (`Rising Sign’); The Secret (eponymous debut bottom Deeds of the Nameless were “this month’s Hats; Adam Barnes; ToLiesel; Deer Chicago; album); Blue Kite (`Aleatoric’) and Osprey obligatory unreconstructed soft-rock whipping Alphabet Backwards; Duchess; Empty White Next month: (`Land of Dreams’). Good to know Osprey is still boys, sounding like Whitesnake having a midlife Circles; Listing Ships; Mutagenocide and Desert st Wednesday 31 October – 7:45pm Crosby Stills combining his musical adventures and promoting crisis and trying to turn into Kaiser Chiefs.” Time Storm among a host of others. Good to see a Nash and local shows. The word stalwart barely does him moves on, things change but, dear reader, there couple of those names still holding out against the RUSH Bloke 1: ‘How many necks we got?’ T h e W h e a t s h e a f 1 2 9 H i g h S t, O x f o r d O X 1 4 D F Young Knives RUSH Bloke 2: ‘One two free four!’ justice. will always be shit bands to laugh at. passage of time. folk-tinged pop beast yet. Anglo-Iranian, (well, where the heck else would she keep Oxford-born songsmith James McKean them?) and it goes: “The girl with the tears here shares some airspace with that duo / The girl with the tears / The girl with the and while it’s likeable stuff, it doesn’t really tears /….. / In her eyes,” like some kind of TRACks take off like Auctioneers, plaintive, almost Stewart Lee deconstruction of a half baked, Sponsored by Track of the Month wins a free half day to the point of keening, where they exude a pissed-up karaoke take on a forgotten Oasis at Soundworks studio in Oxford, sense of positivity. He’s got a very decent b-side. “She has cried a million times” courtesy of Umair Chaudhry. Visit voice: not far off Television’s Tom Verlaine whines/groans Garient. Not much time for www.umairchaudhry.co.uk/nightshift or The Wave Picture’s David Tattersall at anything else in life then, eh? Poor lass his best, and the brassy, almost Spanish- must be a desiccated husk by now, not to flavoured `Rocks & Pebbles’ sounds like mention an emotional basket case. A state a bit leaden, lacking their chief influences’ a lost late-period Kinks song, but further we might descend to if we have to endure TOP easy grace, but at best, which is easily most in there’s a tendency to dwell on maudlin another Garient demo submission any time of the time, they’re capable of being rather matters without really revealing any great in the next five thousand years. You had TRACKS lovely really and if we thought for a moment emotional depth, just a vague sense of your chance mate and you blew it. You had that summer had an ounce of life left in it we wistful melancholy, while the production another chance and you blew that too. And might have given this the Top Tracks award. on `Wine Dark Seas’ sounds like it’s trying the next one. There’s the door, off you fuck. SOPHROSYNE to pad out the actual tune too much. The Come anywhere near Nightshift again and Winter is coming. No, really, it is – not Maybe we’ll use its warmth to fire up the sombre, late-night country-flavoured lament we’ll set the cats on you. just in Westeros. Mark our words, we’ll hearth later tonight as we sup our mead and that is closer `Come Hell or Highwater’ is his be drowning in dead leaves before your eat another oak leaf and conker sandwich. best moment, at last sounding like someone heatwave-induced tan has faded and you’ll you could root for in the unrequited love be pining for those hot, sticky summer stakes. Oh dear, think we’re going soft in our TOILET nights when you couldn’t sleep for the sweat VERNA HARK It’s pretty much quality assured from Verna dotage. Let’s be rude about someone… dripping off your pillow. No, darkness is Hark, the work of Iona Roisin, whose the new order of the day, so what better TRACKS musical CV includes being Baby Gravy’s way to top this month’s pile than with singer as well as going under the name Stray WITTERQUICK 25 minutes of bleak. The work of Joe Dog. `Soft 404’ here features her smooth, Witterquick’s email welcomes us to their KAMIKAZI27 Proudlove, previously of excellent post-punk Sometimes as a Nightshift demo reviewer smokehouse r’n’b vocals over grungy bass “feelgood new single” before going on to say noisemakers Too Many Poets, Sophrosyne you can feel like a detective, trying to synths, brassy keyboard stabs and opposing something along the lines of “blah blah… is something to do with ancient Greek ideas unearth the reasoning behind some bands’ trap beats and heavier rhythms, the bamboo- anthemic… blah… hot new rock act… blah of soundness of mind, temperance and motives for existing. Sometimes you can flavoured electronics giving it a slightly 80s blah… honest…” and after we’ve finished purity, but in this musical form probably feel like a sci-fi film noir gumshoe trying to TURAN AUDIO.co.uk vibe even as it luxuriates in a shadowy pool vomiting copiously into a passing bucket we translates as “midnight at the bottom of a work out whether the band in question even Professional, independent of tripped-out neo-soul. There’s a feeling give it a listen. It’s called `Bubblegum’ and audio mastering well on the dark side of the moon”. Four exists, or if the clues laid before you are it’s a bit tethered by the weight of its own it’s apparently a response to “all the darkness instrumental synth-based pieces capture simply leading you into a trap which, when gravity and needs to take flight towards the in the world nowadays”, and obviously the an elegantly gloomy industrial vibe that sprung, will lead to a mate/enemy leaping Mastered in the studio last month; Apple approved end, but it’s a neat mood piece and sounds best way to get rid of that is to make blandly MAX GEORGE, SATAN’S HOST, EAGLES, perches somewhere between the work of out from behind the wardrobe shouting, mastering like a late night meet up between Japan, passable anthemic guitar pop that might CROSBY & NASH, DEAD HORSE ONE, Tim Hecker, industrial-era Numan and “Ha! Gotcha!” We reviewed this lot back in Olive and Mahalia, which has got to be a just pass muster opening for Circa Waves DYSCARNATE, DESERT SHIPS, MOTHER, SMOKE ORANGE that of electronic soundscape pioneers like June and were wowed by a list of influences session worth sitting in on, yeah? or Mallory Knox. Oh yes, we can feel the LATES, THE HAWKMEN, DAVID BOWIE, BACK POCKET Coil and Nurse With Wound. We like the clouds lifting even as we speak. Trump has that included Killing Joke, Kvelertak; PROPHET, RECOVER, THE WOOD DEMONS, THE DOORS, fact there’s no vocals, as if the music is so resigned, the alt.right are running for their Motorhead; Einsturzende Neubauten, Mark METALLICA, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, NEON DANCE sullen it’s in no mood to talk, preferring to C86 lives and the arms trade has ground to a halt, Lanegan and Arbouretum, which we should COMPANY, DEATH OF THE MAIDEN, SELF HELP. glower enigmatically in the shadows. It’s We’re not sure why a dark-hearted electro/ vowing to concentrate on sustainable hemp have recognised as some kind of honeytrap densely but intricately textured but comes hip hop/spoken word artist would name production from now on. And all thanks to when we heard the muffled abomination that 01865 716466 [email protected] with serious bass-heavy power; there’s himself after what was a landmark indie “one of the hottest new bands around”. Then passed for their actual music (and we use the something sleek and alien about it but cassette given away by NME back in the again, turns out they’re actually from Exeter word advisedly). Since then they’ve sent us equally something slightly queasy and grimy. mists of time (1986 in case you were in so that title is hardly hotly contested given two more CDs, neither of which shows the If Netflix hadn’t already made a film of Jeff any doubt) and has since become almost they’re up against Chris Martin, a Wurzels merest smidgeon of an ounce of a shadow COURTYARD VanderMeer’s Annihilation, we’d suggest a byword for none-more-indie janglyness tribute band and old Seth from the rugby of a hint of either improvement or any kind RECORDING STUDIO this as the soundtrack to the scenes in the (even though it featured a whole host of club who plays a mean set of spoons. of familiarity with the concept of musical 2 Tracking Rooms. Superb Control Room with: depths of the underground tower. It’s dark bands, like Stump, Bogshed, Age of Chance talent. All the while they’ve resolutely failed NEVE 5106 32 Channel Console. ProTools HD3 down there. to have any kind of online presence, which MTR 90 2” 24 Track Tape Machine. Vintage EMT Plate Reverb and Big Flame, who weren’t exactly what Loads of Brilliant Outboard Gear you’d call jangly). Anyway, C86 here has GARIENT might be a post-modern statement but equally Loads of Great Mics, Vintage and Modern called his track `The Dark Ages’, just in case Oh, hi Garient, back again are you? could be a wisely taken decision to keep their Old School Akai/Roland Synth Modules we were in any doubt that it’s, y’know, dark. Despite what we said last time. And the existence secret from parents who might Upright Piano, Fender Rhodes, Amps and great vibes. Residential recording studio in Sutton Courtenay. AUCTIONEERS And it’s rather good – harsh, piercing synths time before that. What are you, some kind otherwise be tempted to force them to go Auctioneers are a local duo made up of www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk and glowering, semi-rapped, semi-spoken of recidivist idiot or something? Yes, yes, and work in a bank or something sensible. Rob Stringer and Tom Ashton, tending In-house producer: Ian Davenport www.ian-davenport.co.uk vocals all wrapped up in a shroud of late- we know there was that one time we gave Or maybe they don’t really exist and we’re toward the folkier end of things, but while Email: [email protected] night urban gloom, like if Ghostpoet started you a great review and even compared being taken for suckers. Surely no-one is we’ve previously spent reviews of their Phone: Kate on 01235 845800 hanging out with a couple of bedroom you to John Lydon and Alien Sex Fiend really this bad, not three demos in a row. offerings suggesting a dance around the drill producers. Still, it’s not exactly The but given the relentless series of appalling What does it sound like? A lo-fi dirge of Maypole after a few flagons of foaming Bodines is it. And Youtube algorithms being soft rock ballads you’ve subjected us to churned-up middle distance guitars, plodding nutbrown ale, this new set of songs is what they are, it’s immediately followed before and since, we’re starting to think beats, plinky-plonk keyboards and tuneless, a set of airy, mostly acoustic piano and by `Velocity Girl’ by Primal Scream. Got a maybe that one was a mistake, a link to the monotone, dying heifer vocals. And if that guitar pop that owes more to Belle & feeling that sort of thing is going to haunt wrong artist perhaps. Or maybe you just in any way, shape or form makes you think Sebastian than Fairport Convention. Their you, old son. took some decent drugs that day. But hey, it might be alright actually, give yourself vocal harmonies are the heart of songs you’re back again and what have you got a slap. It sounds like a fetid dung heap of like the lively `Coming Undone’, with its Rehearsal and Recording studios for us this time? Oh, how lovely… a soft incompetence and inconsequentiality. Only exuberantly dynamic sense of carefree JAMES McKEAN & rock ballad. Aren’t we the lucky ones. It’s know that we listened to Kamikazi27 so that Four state of the art rehearsal rooms rusticness. That airiness is confirmed by the called `The Girl With the Tears In Her Eyes’ you don’t have to. We will never do it again. and a professional recording studio. title and nature of `The Lepidopterist’ which THE BLUEBERRY sees the pair doing a very decent Simon Send tracks for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links to edi- For bookings call Jamie on 07917685935 & Garfunkel impersonation. `Orchard’ is MOON [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford • glasshousestudios.org more contemplative, all fireplaces and lazy As Auctioneers prove further up the page phone number. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. Same goes for Sundays. Very occasionally they can feel there’s plenty of life left in the nominally your stupid, over-sensitive mates. facebook.com/o2academyoxford twitter.com/o2academyoxford instagram.com/o2academyoxford youtube.com/o2academytv

Fri 21st Sep • 7.30pm Tue 16th Oct Sat 10th Nov • 6.30pm Sun 2nd Dec Low Island Maribou State Dubioza Kolektiv Children of Zeus Sat 22nd Sep • 11pm Thur 18th Oct • SOLD OUT Sat 10th Nov • 11pm Tue 4th Dec Back To Bassics Tom Grennan It’s A Gee Thing: Still Corners Sun 23rd Sep Thur 18th Oct Macky Gee/ Jamie Duggan/ Thur 6th Dec The Daft Punk Orchestra The Daniel Wakeford Shapes/ K Motionz Von Hertzen Brothers Sun 11th Nov Tue 25th Sep Experience Fri 7th Dec • 6.30pm Gruff Rhys The Night Café Fri 19th Oct • 6.30pm Pearl Jam UK + Chappaqua Wrestling + Plaza Boyzlife Thur 15th Nov Sun 9th Dec Thur 27th Sep Salad Fri 19th Oct • 11pm Fish Airways + Brixtons + TMA Redlight’s Ice Cream Jungle Thur 15th Nov Thur 13th Dec • 6pm Fri 28th Sep Tour Courtney Barnett Fireball – Fuelling The Fire Uprising – BBC Music Sat 20th Oct • 12pm Fri 16th Nov • 6.30pm Introducing Tour Ritual Union Tide Lines + Flogging Molly + Face To Face ft. Cameron A.G, OMYO, Rosie Sun 21st Oct Fri 16th Nov • 6.30pm + Lost In Stereo + The Bronx Samaras, Waterfools, Zerowe Bugzy Malone Killing Joke Fri 14th Dec • 6.30pm Fri 28th Sep • 11pm Parka Monkeys Mon 22nd Oct Fri 16th Nov • 11pm Slade - 45 Years of Merry Indie Club Night ft. Circa Waves DJ Set Villagers Mall Grab - Looking For Christmas Everybody Trouble Tour Sat 29th Sep • 6.30pm Thur 25th Oct Sat 15th Dec • 6pm Teleman Rolling Blackouts Sat 17th Nov • 6.30pm The Inflatables - Xmas Party Definitely Mightbe ft. King Hammond, The Rude Boy Sat 29th Sep Coastal Fever Mafia, The AC30s KickThePj Fri 26th Oct • 6.30pm Sat 17th Nov • 11pm Silent Disco Sat 15th Dec • 6.30pm Sat 29th Sep • 11pm Freya Ridings Reef TQD - The Royal-T, DJ Q, Fri 26th Oct• 6.30pm Tue 20th Nov Flava D Tour Toots and the Maytals The Dead Daisies Sat 15th Dec • 11pm + Captain Accident - Welcome to Daisyland Huey Morgan’s NYC Block Tue 2nd Oct + Oliver Dawson Saxon Fri 26th Oct • 11pm + Nanton & Skylarkin TTNG + Massive Wagons Party Thur 4th Oct Applebum Wed 19th Dec - The Freshers Jump Off Wed 21st Nov • 6pm Mahalia Wayward Sons KING 810 + Puppy Sat 27th Oct • 6pm Fri 5th Oct • 6pm + Doomsday Outlaw Fri 21st Dec • 6.30pm Luisa Omielan Imperial Leisure Fri 23rd Nov • 6.30pm Dreadzone + New Town Kings Sat 27th Oct • 6.30pm The Dub Pistols Fri 21st Dec • 6pm Guns 2 Roses Fri 5th Oct • 6.30pm Fri 23rd Nov • 11pm Skindred Mon 29th Oct The Magic Gang Shy FX Sat 22nd Dec • 6.30pm IDLES Sat 6th Oct • 6.30pm Sat 24th Nov • 6.30pm Faith The Smyths + Jon Hunt Tue 30th Oct Blur2 / Pulp’d – The George Michael Legacy Superorganism Tributes to Blur & Pulp Sat 6th Oct • 11pm Sun 27th Jan Foreverland Thur 1st Nov Sat 24th Nov Clem Burke - Enchanted Forest The Feeling Bingo Lingo and Bootleg Blondie Tue 9th Oct Fri 2nd Nov Tue 27th Nov Sat 2nd Feb • 6.30pm Joanne Shaw Taylor Neil Hilborn Shame Gangstagrass Wed 10th Oct • 9pm Fri 2nd Nov • 11pm Wed 28th Nov • 6.30pm Sat 9th Feb • 6.30pm VK Electric @ Fishes Wayne Wonder Beak> Cash ft. Tom Zanetti Fri 2nd Nov • 6.30pm Thur 29th Nov Sat 16th Feb • 5.30pm Fri 12th Oct • 6.30pm Freya Ridings Cast Buckcherry | Hoobastank Hollie Cook Fri 2nd Nov • 11pm Fri 30th Nov • 6.30pm Fri 12th Oct • 6.30pm Wayne Wonder Little Brother Eli Mon 18th Feb Antarctic Monkeys Sat 3rd Nov • 6pm Fri 30th Nov • 6.30pm Ruts DC Fri 12th Oct • 9pm Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert All Saints Sat 9th Mar • 6pm Chase & Status (DJ set) + Rage Sat 3rd Nov • 11pm Fri 30th Nov • 11pm U.F.O. “Last Orders – 50th Sat 13th Oct • 6.30pm Switch x Krudd Kings Of The Rollers: Anniversary Tour” The Carpet Crawlers ft Skepsis + Bru-C + Kanine Serum x Voltage x Wed 20th Mar • 6.30pm Sat 13th Oct • 6.30pm Sun 4th Nov Bladerunner w/Inja Ady Suleiman Britpop Boys Hugh Cornwell Electric Fri 30th Nov • 11pm Thur 28th Mar Sat 13th Oct • 11pm Mon 5th Nov Camelphat Fun Lovin’ Criminals The Oxford Soul Train Natty Sat 1st Dec • 6.30pm Sat 6th Apr • 6.30pm Sat 13th Oct • 11pm Thur 8th Nov The Damned The Dualers 90s - 00s ft. N-Trance Police Dog Hogan Sat 1st Dec • 6.30pm Fri 12th Apr • 11pm Sun 14th Oct • SOLD OUT Fri 9th Nov • 6pm Better Than Never - The Party With The Greatest Dermot Kennedy Dutty Moonshine Final Show + Luke Rainsford Showman Club Tour Mon 15th Oct Fri 9th Nov • 11pm Sun 2nd Dec Sat 29th Jun Get Cape Wear Cape Fly Kurupt FM Bjorn Again The AC/DC Experience

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