email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 188 March Oxford’s Music Magazine 2011

FIXERSFIXERS A Poptabulous Pyschedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind interview inside...

plus Radiohead, Trophy Wife, Blessing Force, Young Knives, The Rock Of Travolta and much more

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

NEWNEWSS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net

unlikely to go ahead as normal due to roadworks on Iffley Road.

OXFORD CONTEMPORARY MUSIC’S SPRING SEASON celebrates the music and artwork of self-releasing and self-publishing musicians from this month. Editions Of You, which runs at the O3 Gallery STATUS QUO, THE FACES and JAMES BLUNT are the headliners for and Oxford Castle from Saturday this year’s Cornbury Festival. 26th March through to Sunday 24th Featuring original members Ronnie Wood, Kenney Jones and Ian YOUNG KNIVES return next April, will feature an exhibition of McLagan, Cornbury will be the recently-reformed Faces’ only UK festival month with their fourth album, exclusive artwork, as well as live appearance of the summer. The band are now fronted by former-Simply entitled ‘Ornaments From The music events every Thursday from Red singer Mick Hucknall. st rd Silver Arcade’. The follow-up to 6-8pm and a zine and artwork fair For the first time Cornbury will run over three days – the 1 -3 July – as 2008’s ‘Superabundance’, recorded in on the 9th April. Full details of well as moving to a new home at The Great Tew Estate, near Charlbury. LA with legendary producer Nick events are online at Other acts announced include Kinks legend Ray Davies, 80s hitmaker Launay, is released on 4th April. www.ocmevents.org. Cyndi Lauper (pictured), folk-rockers The Saw Doctors, rockabilly starlet Tracklisting for ‘Ornaments…’ is Other highlights of the spring Imelda May and possibly the best live band on the planet at the moment, ‘Love My Name’, ‘Woman’, season include improv jazz duo Bellowhead. A supporting cast includes Buffy St. Marie, Eliza Doolittle, ‘Everything Falls Into Place’, Ralph Towner and Paolo Fresu at the The Like, Ollie Murs, Sophie Ellis-Bexter and Jon Allen. A special secret ‘Human Again’, ‘Running From A North Wall on Sunday 6th March; guest is planned for the Sunday. Standing Start’, ‘Sister Frideswide’, world-renowned pianist and Having teamed up with 3A Entertainment, Cornbury’s line-up boasts more ‘Vision In Rags’, ‘Go To Ground’, composer Joana MacGregor at the big-name acts than previous years, which will hopefully help the event sell ‘Silver Tongue’, ‘Storm Clouds’ and Jacqueline du Pre Building on Friday out. Tickets are on sale now, priced £160 for an adult weekend pass with ‘Glasshouse’. 11th and local folk harp and fiddle camping. Concessionary prices are available for under-16s with under-12s duo Steph West and Giles Lewin at and over-70s free. Visit www.cornburyfestival.com for more details. THIS YEAR’S OXFORD FOLK Warneford Chapel on Tuesday 22nd. FESTIVAL HAS BEEN CANCELLED. A statement on the OUT TO GRAZE FESTIVAL Club, Midnight Boatman, D Gwalia, THE SKITTLE ALLEY celebrates ten festival website explained, “Despite returns for its fourth year from Helen Pearson and Trev Williams. years of putting on gigs in Abingdon having booked a great roster of Friday 10th-Monday 13th June at the Visit www.gappytooth.com for more this year and the collective are artists for this year a number of Fir Tree Country Park, in details. putting on a free three-day festival factors are making it impossible for Warmington, near Banbury. The over the weekend of August 27th-29th us to hold the festival in 2011. In festival, co-run by local clubs THE O2 ACADEMY launches a new at the Railway Inn in Culham. the current economic climate people Bassmentality, Simple and Slide, local bands showcase night in May They’re looking for any acts who are, understandably, more reluctant features a wide selection of dance and is looking for local acts to play. have played their nights at various to commit their hard-earned cash to music, from reggae and rocksteady Called Upstairs, the monthly night venues around Abingdon over the past buy tickets in advance, whilst also to funk, hip hop and dubstep, and will feature four or five local bands in decade who are interested in playing costs have increased, with the VAT has doubled its capacity to almost the Academy’s upstairs venue. The the festival. Contact them via rise contributing amongst other 2,500 this year after 2010’s sold- launch night is on Saturday 21st May. www.theskittlealley.co.uk . factors. out event. Early-bird tickets are on Acts can email Vicky at “We have made as many economies sale now, priced £50 from [email protected]. A HAWK & A HACKSAW headline as we can but with the increasing www.outtograze.com. a special Pindrop Performance show costs of venue and equipment hire, A launch event for the festival HUCK & THE HANDSOME FEE at the Bullingdon on Friday 22nd insurance and so on it is simply not takes place at the Cellar on have split up. The lachrymose local April. Pindrop have been attracting financially feasible to continue the Saturday 12th March, featuring gothic folk outfit announced their some of the best leftfield acts from festival this year. London’s The Drop and Cornwall’s split on the Nightshift online forum around the world to Oxford in recent “We really hope to be back in the Backbeat Soundsystem. Tickets are last month, stating, “Due to a years, including A Silver Mt. Zion, future and, in the meantime, we wish available, priced £5, from the combination of logistical Acid Mothers Temple and Cocorosie. to express our sincere thanks for website. impracticalities and precocious Joining A Hawk & A Hackaw will be your support during the eight years personalities, Huck and the We Aeronauts, Brickwork Lizards, since we started.” AFTER THE WINTER WARMER Handsome Fee have disbanded. We Moyle, Cat Matador, Message To This year’s Folk Festival was due to was abandoned due to heavy snow in had a great year in Oxford and a Beras and The Braindead Collective. have featured Spiers and Boden, Ade December, organisers Gappy Tooth mind-blowing few weeks in the States The gig runs from 4.30pm; tickets, Edmundson & the Bad Shepherds and Industries have moved to re-book and will always remember those times priced £12 in advance, are on sale Dervish amongst a host of acts from many of the planned acts for a one- with fondness and gratitude. now from wegottickets.com. around the UK and Europe over the day free mini festival at Café Tarifa “Matt, Tommy and I will be weekend of 15th-17th April. Ticket on Cowley Road on Saturday 12th continuing as a (currently nameless) AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into refunds are available from point of March. The day of acoustic live three-piece, while Tamara will be BBC Oxford Introducing every purchase. music, entitled Reheated, runs from fronting her new band Mara with Saturday evening from 6-7pm on News of the Folk Festival’s 1pm through til 11pm and features Tommy and me backing her. Fee 95.2fm. The dedicated local music cancellation follows confirmation sets from Samuel Zasada, material will be divided up and show plays the best Oxford releases as that this year’s Oxford Punt will Huffenpuff, Anton Barbeau, Ally reworked as and when we feel it’s well as featuring interviews and not be happening, due to a lack of Craig, George Chopping, King of right. Thanks to Nightshift and the sessions with local bands. The show is suitable venues in the city centre, Cats, Jess Hall, Matt Winkworth, Oxon scene for almost unanimous available as a podcast or to stream while Cowley Road Carnival is Ross Bennett, Prohibition Smokers support.” online at bbc.co.uk/oxford. a quiet word with FixersFixersFixers “YOU ALWAYS STRIVE TO struggling to promote them. It felt produce the best sound possible, great to be able to play with some conjuring up the best musicianship of our favourite bands, like Kisses, possible. Best Coast and Islet. We did one I think our epiphany was that it’s really enjoyable show near London not the be all and end all of a band’s Bridge, beneath the underground, in fundamentals. It’s detrimental to a disused part of the subway. the etiquette of a band if you have Every twenty minutes a train the best drummer in the world but would go over and drown out all they can barely bring it upon the sound; the current from the themselves to wake up in the lines was causing a persistent hum morning for you.” and buzz from every electrical device plugged in… including all of FIXERS FRONTMAN JACK our amplifiers.” Goldstein is contemplating NME have been particularly Nightshift’s question as to the enthused about the band and possible musical epiphany that led you’ve recorded for Radio 1’s Live to the formation of the band, Lounge; is there a feeling of being purveyors of psychedelic pop par on a bit of a rollercoaster ride at the excellence and currently one of the moment? hottest new pop properties JACK: “It’s amazing having around, having recently signed to national music magazines the legendary Vertigo label and been championing our work as well as championed by everyone from the enthusiasm and support shown NME and The Guardian to Radio by the BBC towards us over the 1’s Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe. past year – it creates a yo-yo effect We ask the question because where ultimately it all ends up in Fixers’ past lies in the unexpected us being given the opportunity to world of extreme metal and work harder on bigger and better hardcore grunge. Jack and Fixers things. We all had high hopes but drummer Michael Thompson we didn’t expect this kind of thing previously played together in to happen, not so soon anyway.” Gunnbunny, kicking out a superbly ROO: “Getting to go to Maida raw bluesy grunge that gave Tad Vale Studios was a real highlight: and Mudhoney a run for their walking down the long, dark money, while guitarist Roo Bhasin corridors lined with photos of all was part of monstrous metal titans the amazing people that have ever Sextodecimo, heralded as Oxford’s recorded there is a real eye opener. greatest ever metal band by It’s such a legendary studio and Nightshift last year and once like an eager puppy to grab a piece lifetimes. And just to compound steeped in so much musical history described as what the radioactive of the action. their band’s off-kilter credentials, it you do feel a little overwhelmed by fallout from Chernobyl would After an appearance at last year’s comes backed with an oddball slice it all. It’s also quite an eerie place sound like if it formed a band. Oxford Punt exposed them to a of Detroit-style techno called to be; there’s never anybody there Fixers are reticent to talk about wider local audience, Fixers leapt to ‘Egyptian Aberration’. apart from a couple of security their past, seeing the band as a national prominence on the back of guards.” completely separate entity to their perfectly-formed online demos of NIGHTSHIFT MET UP WITH past lives, perhaps for obvious songs like ‘Iron Deer Dream’ and Jack and Roo ahead of the launch YOU’VE SIGNED WITH reasons. Fixers do sound like music debut single ‘Amsterdam’ and given gig for ‘Iron Deer Dream’. How, we Vertigo; how did that come about? from another world at times. an added boost by their association wonder, have they coped with the With bands like Kraftwerk and with the Blessing Force collective. speed at which things have taken Black Sabbath, the label has quite a FORMED BARELY OVER A Reviews and blogs spoke excitedly off for Fixers in recent months? legacy; does that add to the year ago when they were asked to of Fixers’ exuberant, electro-tinged JACK: “2010 had been pretty excitement of signing and does it play a Christmas party at the re-imagining of Brian Wilson’s hectic. That said, it wasn’t like we add any pressure to what’s Cellar, the quintet (Jack, Roo and psychedelic dream and a pop- played hundreds of shows; we expected of you? Michael are joined by guitarist friendly take on Animal purposely selected a few, trying to JACK: “It was very exciting! Being Christopher Dawson and bassist Collective’s experimental genius. make them as interesting and such a young band, it was the Jason Warmer) took shape around a This month Fixers release ‘Iron special as we could. Being a new pinnacle of what we had achieved bunch of Jack’s early bedroom Deer Dream’ on London-based band, no-one knew who we were musically. Realistically though, it’s demos, where he was trying to indie label Young & Lost Club. It so we embraced the idea of playing only the first hurdle. You realise that create music with the scope and already feels like a contender for fewer shows, really nurturing them once everything is finalised, ambition of The Beach Boys’ single of the year, packing in more and pulling as many people as we everyone involved breathes a sigh of seminal ‘Smile’ album. Amazingly, imagination into its euphoric, could to them. It’s a much more relief and the amazing reality kicks Fixers appear to have succeeded multi-part harmonies, sleigh bells enjoyable and personable agenda in – the work hasn’t yet begun, it’s and the world is not just sitting up and glorious summer surf-pop than than attempting to do two shows a just the beginning. Being signed to and taking notice but leaping up many bands will muster in several week and finding yourself any label shouldn’t apply unnecessary pressure or tension best way for someone to fully learn fundamental stepping stone for a Fixers song? upon what your doing; musically, or understand their religion is in a Oxford music.” ROO: “I think that sort of thing is you should aim to do whatever you individualised manner; it is implied Having been in different bands gonna happen naturally when you want, regardless. The purpose of that the best way to do this is by locally over the years; how do you have five people with very varied the label is to give you the resources visiting a church for themselves. It view the Oxford scene? How has it musical tastes and that’s something you require to help fulfil this. We has only become encompassed in changed in your opinion? we’ve embraced rather than just wanted to be with people we our current mindset in relation to JACK: “Any kind of creative shunned. got on with and felt we could work our fleeting space fascination.” endeavour, music included, is a “We haven’t set out to make music well with. That’s happened.” You’ve also mentioned you’d like beautiful thing and Oxford seems to that can be defined by any What plans have the label got for to record in space. Is this a serious be a place that nurtures the process particular genre; although we’re you in the near future? scientific musical ambition or are for a lot of people. Scenes and very influenced by psychedelic JACK: “We’re talking to you all ripped to the tits on serious styles alter but the fundamentals music, it’s not the only thing we producers at the moment; at the drugs? Any chance of a Sun Ra remain the same – lots of bands listen to. `Psychedelic’ and end of our February tour we are cover at the next gig? playing lots of shows in a few `experimental’ are frequently going to go to RAK studios to JACK: “NME put us on the spot venues across the town with the misconstrued words, but they’re record an EP, then we would and asked us where we would support of people who write about also very personal words: what’s ideally love to record an album over ideally love to record. Zappa and those bands and those shows, as psychedelic to one person might the summer.” Pet Moon had already been there always has been.” appear as meaningless pop to You’ve released ‘Iron Deer Dream’ underwater; MIA had been on top someone else.” on Young & Lost; how did you get of a pyramid and X-Raided, PREVIOUS ALLIANCES ASIDE, Having come so far so quickly, to work with them and what do Charles Manson and Varg Vikernes with their new record deal and an what does the rest of 2011 hold in you think of the single? had all been in prison. Space was ever-increasing media profile, store for Fixers? Jack’s answer is JACK: “I love the aesthetic of a all that was left, I guess. It’s Fixers are now in a position to take suitably psychedelic. seven inch single. Sara and Nadia at obviously a virtual vacuum though, their music to a higher level and “Numerous dreams about the label have both been very which would mean we would be with the very obvious talents to conversations with Chloe Sevigny; nurturing to us as a band, they have relying solely upon electronic make it happen. swimming with Arthur Russell and provided us with an amazing vibrations. Knowing Jack and Roo’s musical finger painting with James Franco. platform. It felt natural to put `Iron “Having had more time to consider history, it feels all the more It’s fundamental you remember the Deer Dream’ out as the first single, the opportunity, within the belly remarkable that Fixers have honed importance of dreams: never allow it felt like a significant mainstay to of a blue whale may have been a their own particular version of them to become obsolete.” our set-list throughout last year, more salubrious answer. psychedelic pop to such with its arrangement and “We would love to do a Sun Ra perfection, incorporating, as it instrumentation evolving over time. cover, though. Who knows, does, everything from surf to ‘Iron Deer Dream’ is out now on It’s strange, presently it feels like a perhaps something from `Night Of techno, African and Asian music to Young & Lost Club’. Visit fundamental track but I’d like to The Purple Moon’: I can’t help but full-on rock; how do they draw www.myspace.com/fixerstheband think of us hypothetically a year feel that it would be an such disparate strands together for for dates and tracks down the line, having substituted it embarrassingly futile attempt.” for something stronger in our live show. I really like the b-side, it’s UNTIL VERY RECENTLY the product of listening to nothing Fixers were quite prominently but Drexciya for six weeks in a featured among the Blessing Force row.” Collective-associated acts but announced last month that they’d SPEAKING AFTER FIXERS left on friendly terms. What first signed to Vertigo, Jack claimed the attracted them to Blessing Force, next EP would be themed on UFO how much help do they feel its religious cults; he has also associations helped Fixers and why expressed a fascination for the decision to move away? Scientology and Dianetics. ROO: “We had already been JACK: “I felt an EP was a very documented as being part of The impersonal recorded entity: more Blessing Force before we were even often than not they are construed aware of their existence. They told as little more than a marketing us they’d like us to be part of it scheme for weaker tracks. This and we were really psyched, having mindset initially deterred us from already been fans of Pet Moon, the idea but when we decided it Wap Wap Wow [now Rhosyn] and might be a great way to explore and Chad Valley for some time. To be channel our interest in UFO part of `something’ was exciting at religions and space cults. We set the time, however, as The Blessing about writing a bunch of new songs Force progressed, we realised that, especially for an EP, making it a although there’s a lot of mutual brief concept. It’s the final respect and admiration between us realisation of what will, no doubt, all, we are very different people transpire to have been a rather with different ideals and mindsets. embarrassing and weird obsession. For that reason we didn’t want to “I want the songs to reflect every carry on being part of something aspect of membership, from the we weren’t really comfortable euphoric realisation of a fresh belief being involved with. It would be system to the uncharted waters of selfish and unfair of us to reap an unprecedented witchdance. We benefits under a moniker we shall see…. couldn’t profess to fully “Controversy doesn’t interest me understanding. However, I think as in the slightest; I’m fascinated by a promotional resource, the the unknown. It seems Blessing Force is in a position Scientologists are insistent that the where it could become a RELEASED Sponsored by ‘The King Of Limbs’ really comes into its own in RADIOHEAD its second half, though. ‘Lotus Flower’ is a ‘The King Of Limbs’ reminder that Radiohead do still, despite the common parody of them as tune-free musical (Own label download) misanthropes, write some stunning tunes, ones As with ‘In Rainbows’, the manner of ‘The King that creep up on you rather than hammer on the Of Limbs”s release threatens to overshadow radio playlist-makers’ office doors. ‘Codex’ is Radiohead’s music. In movieland if a film is more stunning still, desolate and organic released into cinemas without a press preview compared to the earlier electronic-based tracks, showing it tends to suggest it’s a stinker and its little more than Thom’s voice, piano and sparse producers want to rake a few bucks in before but resonant horns; it’s reminiscent of the band’s anyone cottons on. Such cynicism could never be peerless ‘Pyramid Song’ and more fully exposes levelled at Radiohead, surely? A band whose world the human heart that beats within the band. The outlook can often be, well, cynical. spectral, somnambulating ‘Give Up The Ghost’ is No, of course, it’s simply Radiohead playing the bleaker still, a haunted twin to For Stars’ music industry for a fool once again, albeit with a ‘Spectators’, although it feels like it shuffles of its safer hand than last time – no chance of getting mortal coil too readily when you expect ‘The King Of Limbs’ for free, with a set download electronic rhythms, guitars notable by the something more. Album closer ‘Separator’ price. As with their marketing tricks, Radiohead’s absence, Thom’s voice stuck in that barely- confirms ‘The King Of Limbs” strong melodic music has regularly been aped but never emulated, decipherable falsetto mumble. By the time you credentials, although there’s a strong resemblance even the most accomplished copyists still seem reach fourth track ‘Feral’, with its scattershot to Sinead O’Connor’s ‘I Am Stretched On Your stuck somewhere around ‘OK Computer’, an beats and determinedly obtuse wiggle, you’re Grave’, not least in the dubby beats that underpin album Radiohead have sometimes seemed almost wondering if this is merely Radiohead by numbers. it all. fanatically determined to leave behind in favour First listens are deceptive, though. ‘Bloom’ Ultimately Radiohead remain kings of a domain of yet more esoteric treasures reveals itself more fully the more you listen, that no other dare enter for fear they’d be found So what’s it like, this new opus? For starters it’s a Thom actually delivering one of his strongest wanting. No review, positive or negative, is going pretty compact affair, eight songs in under 40 vocal performances for years, sounding oddly to deter the converted nor convert the minutes, neatly avoiding the desire or compulsion euphoric as the track comes across as something unbelievers. ‘The King Of Limbs’ won’t go down to over-indulge. On first listen it sounds too much from the second half of Bowie’s seminal ‘Low’ as a classic Radiohead album, neither will it be like a companion piece to ‘In Rainbows’ and album if he’d been informed of dubstep back in looked back on as the point where they lost their Thom Yorke’s solo outing, ‘The Eraser’. Opener 1977. ‘Morning Mr Magpie’, meanwhile is way. No alarms and no surprises, then. But no ‘Bloom’, along with ‘Morning Mr Magpie’ and clinical in its fidgety delivery but wonderfully dark disappointments either. ‘Little By Little’ scurry along on restless, glitchy in its understated spitefulness. Dale Kattack

electronica and more traditional, guitar-based collaboration with Adam Gnade a couple of years TIGER MENDOZA songwriting. Lee Christian’s vocals on ‘Don’t Hate back was a successful experiment, while ‘Aim For The Head’ Me’ are so distinctive that they make the track Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia’s ‘songs’ sound very much like a Smilex remix, but it’s still a were generally more poems and monologues with (Own label) brilliantly taut and aggressive slice of music, with musical back-up. In a live context Tiger Mendoza have had a some superb plunging sub-bass in its latter half. On the face of it this pair are an oddly-matched somewhat changeable line-up, but the music is all ‘My House’, ‘D Song’ and ‘Kalimba’ combine to team, coming from very different musical based around the core songwriting and composition produce a light and forward-looking close to the backgrounds as well as generations, but while they of Ian De Quadros. ‘Aim For The Head’, the first album (at least in its context of grimy, moody don’t always gel, sometimes it’s the friction full-length release from the outfit, sees De Quadros darkness). There are delicate, skittering rhythms, a between the two halves that creates something pull in guest vocals from Smilex’s Lee Christian wise reining in of the previous density of sound, interesting. Richard’s voice is at once inviting and and an Australian fellow named Will Scarlett, to and some great blues guitar lines. warm, yet slightly sinister: his monologues are augment the core vocals of Helena Markou. ‘ Aim For The Head’ is very much one man’s not quite stories, not quite stream-of- Overall, the sound is very much informed by the vision, and perhaps one that reveals its influences consciousness poetry, but apparently innocuous moody trip-hop of Portishead’s debut, but it seeps slightly too often, but nonetheless it’s an details add an edge to what might otherwise be into some harder-edged Nine Inch Nails-lite places impressively consistent and rich-sounding set of sixth-form creative writing exercises. For his with gruff, fuzzed-up guitar and hectic tempos and tracks that set out a solid base of skills and ideas. part, Lee’s undulating, chattering backdrops take timings. Such a combination of influences, whilst Simon Minter in everything from trains and waves to glitchy not pointing to a desperately inventive march into electronic beats and shortwave static. ‘Dreams Of bold new territories, results in a rich, deep sound, Privaledge’ (sic) has the disembodied sense of with impressively detailed rhythms spidering their foreboding of Ultravox’s ‘Mr X’, while way across a set of strong, slick tunes. Opening REFUGE FOR ‘Closedown Approaches’ sometimes feels like an tracks ‘Mellotron’ and ‘Dark Maybe Darker’ set experimental out-take from ‘In Rainbows’. the maudlin tone with slowish, loping beats HOMELESS PROSE ‘Desire Caught By The Sun’ wanders too underneath distant, echoed vocals from Markou, ‘Volume 1’ aimlessly to engage and you wonder if the novelty and the vaguest notes of light in some sparse synth has worn off, but the pair’s final cut, ‘Circle lines. ‘Last Train To Chiba’ ups the pace a little, (Download only) Breaker’, is their strongest, the dissonant guitar and introduces some neat production tricks, before A collaboration between Richard Ramage from The wandering over retro-futurist machine beats and ‘2 Rings’ shakes things up with Scarlett’s vocals Relationships and Lee Christian from Smilex, Richard’s deadpan narrative mark it out as finding their way through a fuzzy maze of Refuge For Homeless Prose features the former Throbbing Gristle reimagined by Alan Bennett and increasingly hectic hip-hop beats. ‘The Circus’ sees reading short stories he penned back in the 1970s executed by Ryuichi Sakamoto; the sort of thing De Quadros himself on vocal duty, and it’s a great over the latter’s soundscapes, all in aid of local that makes you want, if you have a home to call and positive mid-point for the album, confirming homeless charity, Oxhop. Such a format isn’t a your own, to lock the doors and bolt the windows. Tiger Mendoza’s neat balancing act between new thing, even in Oxford circles – Youthmovies’ Ian Chesterton THE ROCK OF CAT MATADOR TRAVOLTA ‘The Address EP’ ‘Fine Lines’ (Beard Museum) It’d be unfair to claim that, like a one-man (Big Red Sky) football team, Cat Matador owe their appeal The Rock Of Travolta’s arrival back in 2000 solely to violinist and backing singer Sian turned the local scene on its head. The expansive Williams, but this new EP does come to life collective’s exquisite, dramatic fusion of when she comes to the fore. electronica, classical music and post-rock went Often hidden in the middle distance, Sian’s beyond the shock of the new as they blew assorted gently droning violin always adds an air of big name bands off-stage. Various line-up upheavals tension to Cat Matador’s slender, regretful and an extended hiatus inevitably put the breaks on songs, while frontman Liam Martin’s voice their progress but they never went away and this benefits enormously from her almost ghostly third album is as assured and possibly more harmonies. When she’s not there, you feel cohesive than their previous outings. there’s something vital missing from the The problem for The Rock, though, is that ten steams in on a nasty, meaty synth drone before the tapestry. Perhaps that’s because Cat Matador years after they announced their arrival, their serrated guitar attack and robotic chants take over tend towards mood pieces and building musical sound lacks the novelty it once did – a host of and lead everything off course with wild abandon. atmospheres rather than strong melodies – and leftfield agitators have fused those disparate Similarly ‘The Goddamn Remote’ is a thunderous nothing wrong with that, as the fragile, spectral musical threads into new sounds. And there are victory for power over intricacy, monstrous synth ‘When Did You Go Blind?’ ably demonstrates – moments here where you wonder if The Rock are squelches meshing with swooping strings as it rides but such a delicate touch still needs something simply treading water – the dispassionately into battle side by side with Add N To (X). The solid to hang itself on, else songs simply slip contemplative ‘No Pressure’, where Jenny Bates’ track features Emily Gray, former vocalist with through your consciousness like sand through cello lead meanders across the carefully-textured Rock contemporaries Meanwhile, Back In fingers. backdrop of guitars and electronics before it all Communist Russia, here recruited for two narrative There’s rich texture to be found on ‘The follows the band’s characteristic pattern of building pieces that add an extra dimension to the sound. Address’, with its shoegazing guitar and urgently tension before releasing it in a cavalcade of noise. The Rock Of Travolta have never tried to do chattering snare-rim rhythm, but as soon as But then there’s plenty more that sounds as vital anything so crass as write a soundtrack to a film Sian’s voice starts to overlap Liam’s soft croon, and fun as ever - ‘Last March Of The Acolytes’ that only exists in their imagination, but ‘Fine the song feels ten times larger and more follows a similar path, a sedate cello reverie and Lines’ frequently feels like it needs some suitably splendid. The band dip yet deeper into that cool, pretty guitar picking building to a dramatic finale, futuristic and violent visuals to make it whole. calm pool of contemplation on EP closer ‘We but here it rides stridently on galloping bass, a With Ridley Scott apparently close to finalising his Can Change’, but ironically it’s Sian’s ghostly soundtrack to some imagined sci-fi battle scene. take on Joe Haldeman’s classic ‘The Forever War’ coo that stops them from drowning before they Better still is album opener ‘Rock By Numbers’ novel, maybe here’s the perfect band to bring it to rouse themselves for something approaching a (which possibly sticks a giant two fingered salute to life. heroic finale. the criticism we’ve just levelled at them) which Dale Kattack Dale Kattack gig guide

TUESDAY 1 st with Prince Buster amongst others. SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf – With GLAMOUR OF THE KILL + SHADOWS Israeli-born drummer and composer Asaf Sirkis’ CHASING GHOSTS: O2 Academy – York’s MARCH Quartet. melodic post-hardcore and metalcore warriors RED KYTE + EVA ROSE + KYOTO DRIVE return to town after their show here exactly a acclaimed mini-album ‘Through The Darkness + STATIC ACTION: Fat Lil’s, Witney – year ago, releasing ‘The Summoning’, their They March’ and supports to Avenged Indie power-pop from Red Kyte at tonight’s debut album proper following on from Sevenfold and Bullet For My Valentine. local bands showcase. TROPHY WIFE + PET MOON: The Cellar CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Friday 4th – Sweetly feather-light math-pop from former- Community Centre – Singers, musicians, Jonquil trio Trophy Wife, plus serene electro- poets, storytellers and performance artists at EXAMPLE / pop and r’n’b from Andrew Mears’ post- the long-running open-mic club every Thursday. Youthmovies project, Pet Moon – see Trophy RELOAD THE RADIO + HIGH JINKS + STARSMITH / NEON Wife Introducing piece WE’RE NOT MEXICANS: The Hobgoblin, JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon Bicester – Jambox rock and punk night. HITCH: O2 Academy SEMI-ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Café Tarifa OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon A night for pure chart pop indulgence OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston tonight as rapper Example –aka Elliot OPEN MIC SESSION: The Port Mahon Gleave – brings his occasionally cheesy, FRIDAY 4th sometimes harder-edged electro-pop, hip nd WEDNESDAY 2 PROHIBITION SMOKERS CLUB + HOT hop and urban pop to town on the back of FICTION + BEATY HEART + GUNNING HOOVES + PLAYER2: The Bullingdon – recent album ‘I Won’t Go Quietly’. At his FOR TAMAR: The Jericho Tavern – Yoof! Debut gig from the new band Hot Hooves, most commercial he can come over as a cross takes an excursion to the Tavern for a show formed by legendary Jericho Tavern and Point between Mike Skinner (whose Beats label he with London’s sprightly, tropical-flavoured new promoter and Arthur Turner’s Lovechild was briefly signed to) and Calvin Harris wave outfit Fiction, adding bits of airy, early- frontman Mac and one-time Talulah Gosh and (who has produced him), and his choice of 80s art-pop into their moody, rhythmic party Heavenly guitarist Pete Momtchiloff. Lee Brian Rawliss as producer has brought a music, recalling the likes of The Cure, The Smilex’s expansive and eclectic electro-acoustic little of the Kylie and Britney magic with it; Passions and The Associates. Fellow Londoners outfit Prohibition Smokers Club headline. on the other end of the scale Chase & Status Beaty Heart bring a darker, more off-kilter THE SMYTHS: O2 Academy – Tribute to sometimes lend him a grimier edge, and post-punk style of electronica along in support, The Smiths. Gleave, who has also made documentaries while rising local post-rockers Gunning For EXAMPLE + STARSMITH + NEON and done stand-up comedy, for all his slight Tamar open the show. HITCH: O2 Academy – Cheesetastic night of cheesiness, is a talented pop maker. ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – electro, pop and hip hop – see main preview Starsmith – aka Fin Dow-Smith – is little Weekly open mic session. KLUB KAKOFANNEY with BARRY & THE known for his own work but has produced PHAT SESSIONS: The Cellar – Fortnightly BEACHCOMBERS + SMALL MACHINE + Ellie Goulding, Kylie and Diana Vickers, as open jam with house band the Phat Sessions STEM: The Wheatsheaf – Another mixed bag well as remixing Lady Gaga, Little Boots and Collective playing anything from hip-hop, Latin of goodies at Klub Kak, including eccentric Katy Perry, so knows more than a little and ska to drum&bass, reggae and funk. Plus punk types Barry & Co, plus grungy rockers about what makes a pop song tick. Potential resident DJ Fu. Small Machine. highlight of the night, though, is Neon Hitch TONY BATEY & FRIENDS: The Cricketers DEER CHICAGO + WHITE NOISE (her real name – her parents were travelling Arms – Weekly blues jam. SOUND + GRACEFUL SLICKS: The hippies, she was raised on a bus and worked Jericho Tavern – Back & To The Left present as a trapeze artist in her youth), who started rd promising new epic pop types Deer Chicago, off doing session work for the likes of THURSDAY 3 with excellent support from psych-drone Imogen Heap, Ke$ha and Bruno Mars REEL BIG FISH + THE SKINTS: O2 rockers WNS, recalling Spacemen 3, Loop and before her vocal talents were recognised in Academy – Stomping ska-punk from Silver Apples. 60s-styled psych-pop outfit their own right. Her fluffy, lightweight California’s ever-touring party rockers Reel Big Graceful Slicks open. electro-pop is sweet enough but her Fish, with support from London’s punk-reggae SKYLARKIN: The Cellar – A night of reggae, alternatively cutesy and shrill vocal style outfit The Skints. dancehall, rocksteady and more with DJs might yet see her classed as a latter-day DAISY E & THE UNSTEADIES + HALF Wrongtom, Count Skylarkin, Aim and Shaun Cyndi Lauper. DECENT + PEPPERMINT VANDALS: The Bullingdon – Zombie ska-punk from Daisy E, Ryder collaborator Kwasi. with lo-fi skunk-ska from Peppermint Vandals. OZZIE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Tribute to Ozzy MIDNIGHT RAMBLER + ELLIOT Osbourne and Black Sabbath. VANDERHYDE: The Port Mahon – Soulful FUNKY FRIDAY: The Bullingdon – Classic electronica in the vein of DJ Shadow from funk, soul and r’n’b every week. Reading’s Midnight Rambler, with support th from maudlin local acoustic singer-songwriter SATURDAY 5 Elliot Vanderhyde. OBIAT + DESERT STORM + KOMRAD + SKYLARKIN with DAWN PENN: The ALUNAH: The Wheatsheaf – Reading-based Cellar – Jamaican reggae and rocksteady singer multinational metallers Obiat headline tonight’s Dawn Penn plays the first of a two-night stint Buried In Smoke show, their epic blend of at the Cellar courtesy of Skylarkin, best known doom, psychedelia, prog and thrash having for her much-sampled 90s hit ‘You Don’t Love earned them supports to Pelican, Orange Goblin Me (No No No)’, but with a sporadic musical and Testament among others. Their third album, career going back to the 60s when she worked ‘Eye Tree Pi’, is just released. Support comes from local masters of psychedelic sludge and BEARDYMAN: O2 Academy – Inventive bluesy hardcore, Desert Storm, plus tech-core human beatboxing from the undisputed UK beasts Komrad. champ, using vocal loops to augment his YOOF! with EXLOVERS + PUSHING virtuoso beatmaking skills. HANDS + GLASS ANIMALS: The Cellar – Second Yoof! gig of the month, tonight featuring TUESDAY 8 th London’s shoegaze/dreampop outfit Exlovers CAITLIN ROSE + TREETOP FLYERS + alongside local atmospheric electro band Glass MONUMENT VALLEY: The Jericho Tavern Animals. Followed by DJ sets from Radio – Honky-tonk country, yee-hah hoe-down and Clubfoot’s Will Gilgrass and pedal steel-led balladry from the Nashville Rockfeedback.com’s Mike Harounoff. songstress, drawing comparisons to Patsy W.A.M: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Ska-punk party Cline, Loretta Lynn and Emmylou Harris. tunes. JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon th THE REAL THING: The Regal – The 70s and SEMI-ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Café Tarifa Monday 7 80s soul and disco hitmakers return, taking a OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern trip back in time to hits like ‘You To Me Are INTRUSION: The Cellar – Monthly goth, FLATS / PHANTOM Everything’, ‘Can’t Get By Without You’ and industrial, darkwave and EBM club night. THEORY / DEAD ‘Can You Feel The Force’. THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Prince Of BRICKWORK LIZARDS + HUFF’N’PUFF + Wales, Iffley JERICHOS: The BEN MELLOR: East Oxford Community OPEN MIC SESSION: The Port Mahon Centre – Arabic-flavoured jazz and hip hop Jericho Tavern from local stalwarts Brickwork Lizards, plus th live music and poetry in support. WEDNESDAY 9 Any band that quotes Crass, Discharge, THE CAPER + DYING BREED + SIXTY BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH: The Chron Gen and Rudimentary Peni as FORTY + CAMPBELL JUSTIN QUINN: Jericho Tavern – Wistful, melancholic acoustic primary influences, hate mods and have a The Wheatsheaf, Banbury – Jambox rock pop from the York singer-songwriter, in the song whose chorus is merely “Paul Weller is night. vein of Eliot Smith and Jose Gonzales. a cunt” repeated over and over again have PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + ROOM 101: KING OF CATS + VIXENS + VERY NICE got to be worth watching. The London O2 Academy – Three clubs in one every HARRY: The Wheatsheaf – Moshka club quartet sound like the last 25 years of punk Saturday at the O2, with indie and electro at night with wordy acoustic popster King Of evolution never happened, but given that Propaganda, kitsch pop, glam and 80s at Cats, gothic post-punk types Vixens and bluesy evolution led to most so-called punk bands Trashy and metal and alt.rock at Room 101. rockers VNH. these days being little more than walking HONEYTHIEF: Baby Simple – Indie, pop ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney advertising hoardings for sportswear and electro in aid of Amnesty International. TONY BATEY & FRIENDS: The Cricketers companies, that’s a good thing. In fact they Arms sound like they could have been dragged off SUNDAY 6th one of those old Bullshit Detector th compilations that showcased up and coming PAOLO FRESU & RALPH TOWNER: The THURSDAY 10 KING CHARLES: The Jericho Tavern – anarcho-punk bands back in the early-80s. Northwall, Summertown – Oxford Songs clock in around the minute and a half Contemporary Music presents Italian Wry, rootsy acoustic psychedelia and electro- pop from the west London dandy, inspired by mark and come full of shouting and things trumpeter and flugelhorn player Fresu and being hit very hard. Flats tend to make American classical and jazz guitarist Towner Donovan, Syd Barrett and Marc Bolan and fresh from a tour support to Mumford & Sons. Gallows sound like My Chemical Romance together, the pair having released a collaborative in the slick production stakes. And since the album, ‘Chiaroscuro’, last year, Towner best SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf – With tenor saxophonist Frank Sebastian. country now has an old Etonian Tory PM, known for his work with Oregon as well as a it’s obviously time for old-fashioned punk stint with Weather Report. THE TIME OF OUR LIVES with SMILEX: Pegasus Theatre – Local rock faves Smilex rock to rear it gnarly old head again. Great THE LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY: The New local support from uptight post-punk Theatre – Smooth soul-pop from the play their last shows of the year, with bassist Jen and guitarist Tom relocating to the States starlets Dead Jerichos and rifftastic hardcore resurrected 90s duo, best known for their hits, duo Phantom Theory. ‘Ocean Drive’, ‘High’ and ‘I’m A Rock’n’Roll for a year, playing a two-night stint with Gypsy Muthafucker’. specially choreographed contemporary dance RIVERSIDE VOICES + MOON LEOPARD and visual art shows. NIGEL BROWN & THE ULTRAMARINES + + BEARD OF DESTINY + PENNY & PHIL: CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford A PINT AND HALF OF BLUES + LAIMA Donnington Community Centre – Free Community Centre BITE + MARK ATHERTON: The acoustic music evening. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Hollybush, Osney – Free fundraiser for this STEVE COOPER + AURORA YOUNG + BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston summer’s Wittstock festival – donations CHARLIE GANNON & ZENA + PHIL & HURT SEASON + FALL AGAINST FATE: welcome on the door. AMANDA: The Hobgoblin, Bicester – The Hobgoblin, Bicester – Jambox rock night. DESMOND CHANCER & THE LONG Acoustic and open mic night. MEMORIES + BREATHING LIGHT: The FRIDAY 11th Port Mahon – Gutter jazz in a Tom Waits vein MONDAY 7th JOANNA MacGREGOR: The Jacqueline du from Mr Chancer and chums. Pre Building – OCM presents internationally- FLATS + PHANTOM THEORY + DEAD th JERICHOS: The Jericho Tavern – Like punk renowned jazz and classical pianist MacGregor, SATURDAY 12 never happened? Flats prove it’s still alive and best known for her interpretations of Debussy, REHEATED: Café Tarifa (1pm) – Gappy never even grew up – see main preview Satie, Ravel and more, having played with the Tooth Industry promotions re-light their Winter BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB: O2 Academy – New York Philharmonic and London Warmer, which was snowed off last December. The north London indie rockers play their first Symphony orchestras. A full day and evening of free acoustic music gig of the year before setting to work on their TRADEMARK: O2 Academy – Launch night includes live sets from Samuel Zasada, third album. for a new grime club, with sets tonight from Huffenpuff, Anton Barbeau, Ally Craig, George THE ERJA LYYTINEN BAND: The Iogen Sama, Rude Kid, Blacks, Kozzie, Vectra Chopping, King of Cats, Jess Hall, Matt Bullingdon – A swift return to the Famous and Ctrl. Alt. Crash. Winkworth, Ross Bennett, Prohibition Smokers Monday Blues for young Finnish guitarist Erja, TOO REX: Fat Lil’s, Witney – T-Rex tribute. Club, Midnight Boatman, D Gwalia, Helen who has earned an enviable reputation as a THE TIME OF OUR LIVES with SMILEX: Pearson and Trev Williams. rising blues star in her homeland and has Pegasus Theatre – Second night of dance, art MONA: O2 Academy – Megastardom-bound previously worked with UK blues faves Ian and live music. Nashville rockers unleash their inner U2, with Parker and Aynsley Lister. FUNKY FRIDAY: The Bullingdon brass knobs on – see main preview SUNDAY 13th Americana from Shaker Heights. THE BOOTLEG BEATLES: The New THE ANYDAYS + DEER CHICAGO + EVO Theatre – Beatles tribute spectacular. SYLVIAN: The Chester Arms – 60s-style garage-pop in the vein of the Kinks, Sonics and th Beatles from The Anydays, with support from MONDAY 14 epic indie rockers Deer Chicago and a debut gig ROADHOUSE: The Bullingdon – Rocking from Evo Sylvian, the solo project from Dead blues at the Famous Monday Blues. Jerichos’ Craig Evans. FRED HOT CHILI PEPPERS + RAGE TUESDAY 15th AGAINST THE MACHINE TRIBUTE: Fat Saturday 12th THE STRANGLERS: O2 Academy – The Lil’s, Witney – Double dose of heavy rock Men In Black continue to get a grip on tribute acts. MONA: O2 Academy themselves – see main preview MANACLES OF ACID + SUBMENTAL + Nothing at all wrong with aiming big, but JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon LEGOWEAPONRY: The Port Mahon – there’s a suspicion that Nashville’s Mona SEMI-ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Café Tarifa Heavy duty live techno and acid, with free glo- sticks on entry. have been almost laboratory created to fill OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern stadiums and airwaves. With their chiming OPEN MIC SESSION: The Port Mahon FUNKY FRIDAY: The Bullingdon guitars, epic pop anthems and a singer with MOTHER CORONA + THIRD COMPANY th + CABARET RAT + PAUL TAYLOR: The a messiah complex, the likelihood is Mona WEDNESDAY 16 Wheatsheaf Banbury – Jambox rock night want to be U2. And they do sound a fair bit PHAT SESSIONS: The Cellar with super-heavyweight metal from Mother like arguably the biggest band in the world – LAST CHANCE + AGE OF MISRULE: The Corona and lo-fi one-man punk noise from recent single ‘Listen To Your Love’ sounded Chapel, Banbury Cabaret Rat. like ‘I Will Follow’ slightly rejigged by way TONY BATEY & FRIENDS: The Cricketers of Rocket From The Crypt. There’s also a Arms th slightly grizzled, rootsy underside to Mona SATURDAY 19 that gets you to thinking of Kings Of Leon THURSDAY 17th THE HALF RABBITS: The Jericho Tavern at times, with singer Nick Brown’s gutsy – CD launch gig for the local gothic new JAGUAR SKILLS: O2 Academy – The ninja- delivery carrying all before it as the band wavers. obsessed hip hop DJ brings his eclectic mixing tick every marketing box going, right down INTERNATIONAL JETSETTERS + skills to town; altogether now: “HoooOOO!”. to looking a bit like a street gang from the THE RELATIONSHIPS + LES THE SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf – 1950s. That Mona are currently managed CLOCHARDS: The Port Mahon – With saxophonist, bandleader and composer by Saul Galpin, who oversaw Suede’s Swoonsome local shoegazers International Adam Waldmann, who has worked with Clark success in the 90s, suggests that global Jetsetters return to live action, sometime Tracey, Steve Davis and Polar Bear, amongst success isn’t such a wild pipe dream. Bands Jesus & Mary Chain bandmates Mark Crozer others. rarely fail when they provide big, and Loz Colbert and crew kicking it out at the ANNERO + MARY BENDY TOY + uncomplicated singalong pop anthems to convergence of Ride, Magoo and The Stones. UNDERSMILE + TRIDEM + NOT TOO the masses, and if Brown seems set to be Stately, literate psychedelic pop from The SHABBY: The Bullingdon – Heavyweight this year’s most irritating rock rent-a-quote, Relationships in support, plus noise from hardcore metallers Annero and Mona’s music will likely eclipse anything francophile rock’n’roll croonage from Les Tridem tonight, alongside uber-sludge monsters he has to say. Clochards. Undersmile and industrial gothic rockers Mary ONE LOVE FESTIVAL REUNION: The Bendy Toy. Regal – Ahead of this summer’s main event, NEON VIOLETS + LISTING SHIPS: The and as a reminder of last year’s festival, One EMPTY VESSELS + MINOR COLES + Cellar – Psychedelic blues-rock from Neon THE INSULT: The Wheatsheaf – Psychedelic Love hosts a reunion party, bringing together a Violets, the new two-piece band formed by blues-rock in the vein of Blue Cheer and Led selection of reggae and dub soundsystems. Spiral 25 bassist Joe Chapman. Instrumental Pick of the night is obviously dub legend Mad Zep from Empty Vessels, with support from electro and post-rock from Listing Ships in skittish, mathsy indie rockers Minor Coles. Professor, and he’s joined by Saxon Sound support. CHARLY COOMBES & THE NEW BREED System, Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Aba Shanti, Channel VERSES + ADELAIDE + THE FICTION + One Sound System, Bush Chemist & King + BLACK HATS + SPRING OFFENSIVE: ELYSIUM WAITS: Fat Lil’s, Witney The Jericho Tavern – Raw, soulful 70s-style General, Unity Hi-Hi and Oxford’s own Dope CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford rocking from singer and pianist Charly and his Ammo. Community Centre BOOT-LED ZEPPELIN: O2 Academy – Led band, with support from moddish power-pop OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon trio Black Hats and esoteric math-popsters BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston Zep tribute. Spring Offensive. FRESH OUT THE BOX: The Cellar LANDSCAPE: The Bullingdon – New nu- th PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + ROOM 101: skool dance club night with DJ Kieran, DJ FRIDAY 18 O2 Academy Supermarket and Left Outer Join. JESSIE GRACE + ADAM BARNES + THE THE PETE FRYER BAND: Prince Of BREEZE + STEAMROLLER + FOUR MORE YARNS: The Jericho Tavern – Daisy Wales, Horspath FACES: The Regal – Local bands night at the Rodgers Music night, featuring local singer- Regal with rejuvenated 70s blues-rock songwriters Jessie Grace and Adam Barnes as SUNDAY 20th heavyweights Steamroller leaning towards the well as Bristol’s 80s-style jangle-pop outfit The BEETROOT JAM & BANDS SESSION: Cream and Hendrix side of things, plus moddish Yarns. Anyone buying an advance ticket for the The Port Mahon – Live bands followed by rocking from Four More Faces. show gets to vote one of the acts playing an open jam session. THE HAMSTERS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – unusual cover version. THE BIG 10 INCH: The Cellar – Count Classic electric blues-rocking and Hendrix and st ZZ Top tributes from the enduring UK blues Skylarkin’s bi-monthly celebration of jump MONDAY 21 favourites. blues, rockabilly and swing tonight hosts PETE BOSS & THE BLUEHEARTS: The MUNDANE SANDS: The Chequers, London’s six-piece skiffle outfit Severed Limb, Bullingdon - Clapton-inspired electric blues Headington Quarry – Folk rock in the vein of launching their debut EP, ‘Woo Eee Ha Ha!’. from the local guitar stalwart. Dire Straits and Oyster Band. Support from Oxford’s own rockabilly, garage EMMA’S IMAGINATION: O2 Academy – PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + ROOM 101: and surf heroes The Long Insiders, plus Count Throat-slashingly vapid acoustic pop mimsy O2 Academy Skylarkin and Count Sizzle spinning classic from the Sky TV Must Be The Music winner, COLD STONE + MANTA + REFUGEES OF vinyl and shellac. now signed to Gary Barlow’s Excruciating CULTURE: The Centurion, Bicester – SHAKER HEIGHTS + GERT LASSITUDE: Music label and all set to make you pray for all- Jambox rock night. The Wheatsheaf – Rootsy indie rocking and out nuclear war in the next six months. TUESDAY 22nd OPEN MIC SESSION: The Port Mahon STEPH WEST & GILES LEWIN: Warneford rd Chapel – Singer and harpist West and fiddle WEDNESDAY 23 player Lewin (a founding member of STIFF LITTLE FINGERS + SPEAR OF Bellowhead) collaborate on a night of traditional DESTINY: O2 Academy – Jake Burns and co. folk-inspired music as part of Oxford run through ‘Suspect Device’, ‘Alternative Contemporary Music’s spring season. Ulster’ and more once again, while Kirk THE HEARTBREAKS: The Jericho Tavern Brandon’s post-punk gothabilly outfit S.O.D – Indie of the old school from Morecambe’s support. Heartbreaks, steeped in 80s jangle-pop SHATTERED DREAMS + ROB McLEAN: nostalgia, 60s girl group euphoria, the derelict The Wheatsheaf – Moshka club night with romance of abandoned seaside towns and a old-school punk types Shattered Dreams and hefty smattering of surf-pop and rock’n’roll. 25 electro boffin Rob McLean. Thursday 24th years ago they’d have been supporting The ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney Smiths on tour; if he gets wind of them, they’ll TONY BATEY & FRIENDS: The Cricketers THE UNTHANKS: probably be Morrissey’s favourite new band. Arms Heroic stuff. The Regal 10CC: The New Theatre – Graham THURSDAY 24th Just as their popularity has grown and grown in recent years, so The Unthanks’ Gouldman brings the current version of the 70s THE UNTHANKS: The Regal – Ghostly trad sound has swelled to fill the bigger venues soft-rock hitmakers back to town for a run- folk from the Northumbrian sisters – see main they now fill to capacity. Initially known as through the old favourites and songs from his preview Rachel Unthank & The Winterset and raised own solo career ZODIAC MINDWARP + DESERT STORM on their native Northumbrian folk circuit, JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon + KOMRAD: O2 Academy – Return of the where dad George was well known as part of SEMI-ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Café Tarifa self-proclaimed High Priest Of Love, aka shanty singers The Keelers, The Unthanks OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street Tavern graphic artist Mark Manning who, in the mid- signals the increased input of sister Becky, 80s decided to live the life of a debauched rock now an equal vocal partner to Rachel; the th star and created the cartoonish persona of Thursday 15 one raw and taut, the other ghostly and Zodiac Mindwarp, kicking out a deliberately ethereal, together their close vocal THE STRANGLERS: outlandish form of sleazy biker rock that won harmonies, strongly accented, an him a chart hit with ‘Prime Mover’ before it all, astonishingly delicate and emotional O2 Academy inevitably, fell apart. He and the band, with combination. Rachel’s partner, and band Now entering their sixth decade together and myriad line-up changes, have continued to gig pianist, Adrian McNulty too has played an with drummer Jet Black approaching his and release albums, including their most recent, important role in brining The Unthanks to 72nd birthday, The Stranglers are showing no ‘We Are Volsung’, and if Manning’s clever, greater prominence with his bold sign of giving up any time soon. They’ve satirical humour bypassed too many people and arrangements of both traditional sea songs, never done what’s been expected of them saw him declaimed as a misogynist dolt, he murder ballads and love stories, as well as anyway. Back in the mid-70s their remains an astute author, particularly his original compositions. In fact The Unthanks aggressive form of pub rock saw them collaboration with Bill Drummond, ‘Bad now number some ten musicians, mostly simultaneously adopted by the burgeoning Wisdom. Top drawer local support from female, combining traditional acoustic with punk movement and shunned by its prime psychedelic stoner-metallers Desert Storm and more modern instrumentation to create a movers, either for being too old or having a prog-core outfit Komrad. sound that owes as much at times to Steve keyboard player or just being a bit too ERLAND & THE CARNIVAL: The Jericho Reich or Penguin Café Orchestra as it does yobbish for the art set. Over the course of Tavern – Return to town for the band formed to the generations of singers who kept these 20 or so Top 40 singles and 17 Top 40 by Verve guitarist Simon Tong and Orcadian songs alive over the centuries. The band’s albums, they’ve moved far and wide from singer Erland Cooper, mixing old traditional ‘Bairns’ album was pipped to the Mercury those punk beginnings. While ‘Get A Grip’ songs and ballads with psychedelia and Prize a couple of years back by Elbow’s and ‘Peaches’ confirmed their image as analogue electro-pop to seductive effect, coming ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ and never felt like a token violent misanthropes, ‘Golden Brown’, in somewhere between The Wicker Man folk inclusion in the list and with recent ‘Skin Deep’ and ‘Always The Sun’ are soundtrack, Last Shadow Puppets and Crosby, concerts seeing the band extensively paying among the most beautiful pop songs to Stills & Nash. tribute to Robert Wyatt and Anthony grace the charts. Of course the current THE CELLAR FAMILY + ASHBIES + HALF Hegarty, they’re a folk band that’s breaking Stranglers line-up is hardly the classic NAKED + STEM: The Bullingdon – Great down new barriers while staying close to incarnation, singer Hugh Cornwell having bolshy post-punk noise partway between their roots. departed, amid scenes of characteristic Young Knives and Future Of The Left from violence, as far back as 1990 and things have local newcomers Cellar Family. never been quite the same, but with JJ EVERYONE NEEDS A NEMESIS + SMALL punk and hardcore in the vein of McLusky and Burnell, Jet Black and Dave Greenfield MACHINE: The Port Mahon – Brooding Blood Brothers from Cardiff’s Strange News. soldiering on with current frontman Baz power-pop from Everyone Needs A Nemesis, WE AERONAUTS + CAT MATADOR + THE Warne, plenty of old classics will get an presumably named after the Fighting With Wire GULLIVERS: The Cellar – Excellent trio of airing and we’ll not say anything song, plus grungy rock from Small Machine. local talents with expansive alt.folkies We disparaging about the band – journalists CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Aeronauts, ambient indie types Cat Matador have found themselves tied to trees and Community Centre and shimmering ethereal popsters The abandoned in forests for less in the past. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Gullivers. BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston GUNS 2 ROSES + FNM: Fat Lil’s, Witney – PROGRAM INITIATIVE + A NINJA SLOB Tributes to Guns’n’Roses and Faith No More. DREW ME: The Hobgoblin, Bicester THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Chester Arms FUNKY FRIDAY: The Bullingdon FRIDAY 25th THE INSULT: The Port Mahon PHANTOM THEORY + STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR + DESERT SATURDAY 26th STORM: The Bullingdon – EP launch gig for RUMER: The New Theatre – The sweet- Phantom Theory, marrying classic rock riffage voiced songstress they’re calling The New with a hardcore ferocity, plus psychedelic Karen Carpenter prepares for Duffy-style stoner-metal from Desert Storm and virulent stardom – see main preview Haunted electronic pop and atmospheric Academy – Yappy pop-punk from Detroit’s acoustic balladry from Reading’s Amy’s Fireworks, plus melodic punk in the vein of Ghost, with hints of Kate Bush and Portishead Jimmy Eatworld from Make Do & Mend in in the mix at tonight’s GTI. Support from support. promising local post-punk noisenicks The SPIN JAZZ CLUB: The Wheatsheaf – With Cellar Family and 60s-styled psychedelic Dylan Howe’s Stravinsky Project. rockers The Graceful Slicks. MARA + JUJU FISH + SAMUEL ZASADA + THE ROCK OF TRAVOLTA + BETHANY WEIMERS: The Cellar – CARETAKER + KOMRAD: The Cellar – Local songstress Tamara Parsons-Baker Album launch gig for local electro-symphony launches her new band Mara, with support collective The Rock Of Travolta, with support from Little Fish’s JuJu, playing solo and from arch noiseniks Caretaker and technical acoustic, atmospheric alt.folkies Samuel hardcore outfit Komrad. Zasada and gothic acoustic popsters Bethany WELCOME TO PEEPWORLD + STEM + Weimers. SHIFTY CHICKEN SHED: The Stocks, PROHIBITION SMOKERS CLUB JAM: Crown & Thistle, Abingdon – Skittle Alley Fat Lil’s, Witney – Open mic, jam session and bands night with sweet-natured acoustic outfit full band show from the nebulous local Welcome To Peepworld, plus steel guitar supergroup. player Shifty Chicken Shed. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + ROOM 101: Community Centre th O2 Academy OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Saturday 26 SELECTA: The Regal – Drum&bass club BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston RUMER: night with DJ Hype, Twisted Individual, WE ARE REVIVAL + CRYSIS + DEAD LAY Jayden, Total Science, DJ Lee and Sinista. WAITING: The Hobgoblin, Bicester – The New Theatre THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Dolphin, Jambox metal night. Big name fans don’t always translate into Wallingford THE LONGEST DAY: The Port Mahon mega-selling pop careers, but in Rumer’s th case it’s already happened. The Anglo- Saturday 26 th Pakistani girl born Sarah Joyce has already SUNDAY 27 CONGO NATTY aka been personally invited by Elton John to BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) – Free join him at the Electric Proms, toured with open jam session. REBEL MC: Jools Holland and appeared on his Later… show; Roger Daltrey is an avowed fan and MONDAY 28th The Bullingdon she supported Jamie Cullum and Joshua KING B: The Bullingdon – Rocking blues As part of the build-up to this summer’s Radin, but perhaps the biggest boost to her from the UK circuit faves at the Famous Out To Graze festival, Bassmentality and fledgling career was being invited to Monday Blues. Dub Politics team up tonight to present a California by Burt Bacharach, who genuine legend of UK hip hop, Congo Natty, promptly wrote an EP’s worth of songs for th aka Rebel MC. The north London rapper, her, released last Christmas. Meanwhile TUESDAY 29 THE BLACKOUT + THE SWELLERS + born Michael West, emerged in the late-80s Rumer’s self-penned debut album, ‘Seasons alongside fellow British rappers Blade and Of My Soul’ is already a critics’ favourite, HYRO THE HERO: O2 Academy – Merthyr Tydfil’s post-hardcore rockers The Blackout Credit To The Nation and hit the charts with drawing admiring comparisons to Dionne the pop-friendly ‘Street Tuff’, Warwick, Laura Nyro and particularly to hit the road in support of new album, ‘Hope’, following tour supports to Lostprophets, Kids simultaneously exposing homegrown hip Karen Carpenter and went platinum within hop to a wider audience while alienating two months of release. Raised on a steady In Glass Houses and more. JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon himself from the underground rap scene. His diet of classic Hollywood films and debut album, ‘Rebel Music’ confirmed his musicals, Rumer’s songs, gently meandering SEMI-ACOUSTIC NIGHT: Café Tarifa OPEN MIC SESSION: James Street pop credentials but he quickly started ballads or more lustrous jazz-style pieces, drawing on reggae, jungle, house, techno, are characteristically timeless, appealing Tavern OPEN MIC SESSION: The Port Mahon ragga and electronica, collaborating with the across the board from the Radio 2 massive likes of Barrington Levy and Dennis Brown to confirmed musos, but come packed with th along the way and releasing singles under the enough personal sorrow to make them WEDNESDAY 30 name Conquering Lion Tribes, among a host entirely her own and chances are she’ll PHANTOM THEORY + SECRET RIVALS of other aliases. His career now extends spend 2011 eclipsing her already + TROPHY CABINET: The Wheatsheaf – beyond 20 years, in which time he’s never astonishingly rapid ascent to the top of the EP launch gig for local rifftastic duo Phantom stopped releasing music and is now credited pop tree. Theory, mixing classic 70s rock with 80s-style as an influence by Dizzee Rascal and hardcore and a lean post-punk edge. recognised as a precursor to grime. Tonight’s HOLY GRAIL + REVOKER: O2 Academy – ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney gig sees him joined by Tenor Fly and Congo Pasadena’s old-school metallers come to the PHAT SESSIONS: The Cellar Dubz, mixing up reggae, dancehall, old- UK to promote new album, ‘Crisis In Utopia’, TONY BATEY & FRIENDS: The school jungle and drum&bass, with Dub harking back to the classic NWOBHM sound Cricketers Arms Politics residents Physical, Shaggy Roots of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Saxon. and Sam X on the decks. st CONGO NATTY aka REBEL MC: The THURSDAY 31 Bullingdon – The seminal UK rapper-turned PROSPEKT + SLEEPWALKERS + junglist and dancehall fave comes to town – see UNKNOWN FLOW + IN DECADENCE: main preview The Bullingdon – EP launch gig from local GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRY with AMY’S technical metallers Prospekt at tonight’s GHOST + THE CELLAR FAMILY + THE Skeletor show. GRACEFUL SLICKS: The Wheatsheaf – FIREWORKS + MAKE DO & MEND: O2

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion in the gig guide is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Call 01865 372255 (10am-6pm) or email listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright of Nightshift and may not be reproduced without permission March

Every Monday THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. 7th THE ERJA LYYTINEN BAND (Finland) 14th ROADHOUSE (UK) 21st PETE BOSS & THE BLUEHEARTS (UK) 28th KING B (UK)

Every Tuesday THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am 1st / 15th /29th THE HOWARD PEACOCK QUINTET 8th ALVIN ROY & REEDS UNLIMITED 22nd THE HUGH TURNER BAND

Thursdays 3rd DAISY E & THE UNSTEADIES / HALF DECENT / PEPPERMINT VANDALS 17th ANNERO / MARY BENDY TOY / UNDERSMILE / TRIDEM / NOT TOO SHABBY 24th THE CELLAR FAMILY / ASHBIES / HALF NAKED / STEM 31st SKELETOR presents PROSPEKT / SLEEPWALKERS / UNKNOWN FLOW / IN DECADENCE

Every Friday FUNKY FRIDAY Funk, soul, boogie and R&B. 10.30pm-2.30am; £2.

Early Friday shows 4th LAST CHANCE / ED LOFSTEDT / VERY NICE HARRY 25th PHANTOM THEORY / STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR / DESERT STORM Includes entry to FUNKY FRIDAY afterwards

Saturdays 5th UNHINGED with Logger, Gnetic and Hannibal Selector 12th LANDSCAPE – nu-skool with DJ Kieran / Supermarket 19th SIMPLE – house & techno. 10-4am 26th CONGO NATTY aka REBEL MC 10-3am; £10adv

April 15th Wilie Nile

Join us on Facebook: Backroom @ The Bully Jonquil photo: Stuart Fowkes LIVE

BLESSING FORCE WEEKENDER The Old Bookbinders The Blessing Force is one of those things, like Atlantis or the Freemasons, which most people have spent more time talking about than experiencing first hand, so this weekend’s show – a primer of Blessing Force and friends – offers a welcome chance to hear what all the fuss is about. Despite the décor sometimes coming off like an episode of Nathan Barley and some teething problems with the PA on Saturday, the venue is a triumph. Two stages keep the changeovers tight and the music flowing, there’s plenty to look at, and even a miniature vintage fashion fair by the door. If reports of the entire venue being floored in the summer to be replaced by flats are true, let the protests start now. And the music? A mixed bag, predictably. There are weak points, for instance Young Athletes League’s guileless aping of Alexander Tucker- style looping over agitated vocals and loose, clunky guitar lines, or Labyrinth Ear’s enervating, uninspired Dalston electro-pop. Probably best to skip over that and focus on the highlights, because there’s a huge musical palette on display, from Coloureds’ pounding four-to- the-floor beats to Rhosyn’s studied string quartet dramas. The ODC Drumline, composed of four drummers, including Youthmovies and Hreda alumni, plus a guitarist and MC, are a thrilling, apparently semi-improvised tour of groovier, melodies and bright pop songs skinning a developing towards something with exciting less confrontational Shit & Shine rhythmic deceptively-complex core to the songs. Pet potential. mantras, and a genuine spectacle whose very Moon are an interesting curio – at times, Ultimately though, this is about a weekend of presence makes this feel like a special event. they’re frustratingly gossamer, a swirl of ideas varied music, put on in an excellent venue by Thrown together in just a few weeks before the that cross in and out of each other’s paths the combined efforts of a whole bunch of event, they’re also the most enduring memory of without forming anything more solid, but when Oxford musicians, promoters and artists who the entire show. they land a groove they’re impressive, want to show off the best of what’s coming out Jonquil, as one might expect from a band of skittering vocal melodies over skeletal rhythms of OX4 right now – and that’s something for us such pedigree and longevity, are perhaps the and a miasma of synth and effected guitar. all to celebrate. strongest band on offer, all twisty, infectious Clearly still a band in development, but Stuart Fowkes

song called ‘Oh, The Humanity’, where their ILIKETRAINS / NAPOLEON III trumpet player doubled up as 8mm film projectionist and synchronised a movie of the The Jericho Tavern fiery death throes of the Hindenburg Airship Anyone can play guitar? Pppffftt, that’s so Unknown Unknown’ bringing to mind Brian onto the venue wall. Spool forward seven years, nineties. Now it’s Anyone can play laptop, as Wilson and Orbital chained to lampposts, and now, sans trumpet player and film clips, gig going is increasingly becoming like The performing outside at the height of the they’ve kept their basso profundo vocal Gadget Show. Queensland cyclone. quirkiness, but instead of the old, waltz time- Napoleon 3rd is James Mabbett. James is from At the same time in Leeds as the above LJT’s signatures, they’ve muscled up a more festival- Yorkshire, the Zak Dingle flat cap he wears demise, ILikeTrains were being born, and the friendly three guitar assault, like an out-of-body confirms it, something you only see Oop North first place they chose to take baby steps and experience under Arctic moonlight. New album or at traction engine rallies. When his first full play outside of their native city was Oxford. ‘We Saw The Deep’ (the alternative name of the band, Little Japanese Toy, ran out of batteries Singer and still main songwriter, David Martin Mesopotamian poem `Epic of Gilgamesh’) in 2004, James went DIY and decided he could muses on this tonight, how before this gig the keeps with their intense philisophical academia, get all the alt-dance vibes he wanted out of an band had revisited The Cellar and reminisced while their achingly stylish early singles `Rook Apple Mac, a vintage reel to reel and a distorted and hoped there was a blue plaque to honour House For Bobby’ (about chess master Bobby guitar. One acclaimed debut album later (‘In them on the alley wall. Fischer) and `Terra Nova’ (Captain Scott) still Debt To’) and an added human on snare drum, I remember that gig well. The painfully slow- fit in with the fresher glacial sound. and he’s ready to make my earplugs pop out build elegies to historical failures, the youthful Full grown. Full grown beards. Full grown sonics. with his cacophonous tribal loops and artful pedantic planning, right down to the British ILikeTrains should really be taught in schools. multiple layers, with typical track ‘The Rail uniforms, and being mighty impressed by a Paul Carrera THE BAYOU BROTHERS The Bullingdon We’ve seen some outstanding energy, grinning their way through two performances at The Famous Monday invigorating sets, and regularly doling out Blues over the years, along with some of spare washboards to audience members of the worst gigs ever. In the former category, varying rhythmic ability. some spotless musicians have treated the At their best the band’s evident enjoyment blues form as a lingua franca, using it to of the music is infectious, and their communicate ideas and emotions of great openness to random punters’ interventions subtlety with a deft touch and original reveals a relaxed unpretentiousness that variations; in the latter, we find hordes of makes us feel like we’re at a gig in some denim zombies ploughing through the deep south commune. On the reverse, the same clunky rhythms, the same threadbare band sadly has a taste in cheesy ersatz lyrics and the same crass wailing axe solos. gestures, from the so-called “squeezebox”, With bad blues guitarists, a few simple which is really a disguised Roland keyboard things are repeated over and over, and that needs nary a squeeze (basically the quality is judged solely on how swiftly much maligned keytar resurrected for they do so. Is this art, or a game of bloody folkies), to the percussionist in the golden Tetris? blouse who smiles manically throughout in Thankfully, tonight these po-faced a way that nobody does outside pentatonic widdlers are far away, as a Disneyland without severe medication. Her righteous zydeco party is whipped up by “name our cute ‘gator” competition just The Bayou Boys, a Louisiana Cajun band about tips us over the edge. Do they have from San Diego (which is a little like a Butlins in California? band from County Armagh called The A straight cover of Ray Charles’ ‘Hallelujah 876084 Bleedin’ Bow Bell Cockneys, but never I Love Her So’ is generic, and perhaps mind). Cajun music is a rough melange of without the zydeco sprit the band is no black blues and French song, typified by great shakes. But then again, who cares? fluent accordion passages and clattering For tonight, all too rarely at a blues gig, rhythms played on metal washboards, and we’re not here to polish the traditions or is one of those genres that always works venerate technical musos, we’re here to so long as it’s played with enough dance, drink and get lost in the clockwork conviction. And despite this being a hoedown of washboard blues...and on a Monday night with an average crowd cold Monday in the Bully, a little escapism that’s slow to thaw, the Bayou Brothers is no bad thing. certainly can’t be criticised for a lack of David Murphy

MAPS AND ATLASES / GALLOPS The Jericho Tavern Stepping up on stage before a packed wrong; their unkempt hair (both facial and house, it becomes clear very quickly that on top), their plaid shirts, and their nu- Gallops are musically proficient, confident folk toes-pointed-inwards self-deprecating and well versed in playing live. However, ways place them squarely in a pigeonhole and unfortunately, it’s almost immediately labelled indieindieindie. Not that there’s evident that here is band a little too in thrall anything necessarily wrong with that. to Battles. That’s very specific, and They begin by kicking out some relatively intentionally – they’re not “a bit like fine jams, keeping an upbeat pace Battles”, or one of many bands that have throughout and generating an air of light- taken the mathematically-precise template hearted enjoyment. The music becomes an laid down by that band. They’re either a awkward combination, though, of indie- gargantuan rip-off of, or a creepy musical pop and – surprisingly – 1970s replicant of Battles. How does this progressive rock. For some reason I hear manifest itself? Dual guitar harmonies, Steve Winwood in the odd, whiney vocals; intricate time signatures, odd keyboard and hints of Traffic and a hipsterfied melodies skipping over a not-quite- Allman Brothers in the rolling, groovy polyrhythmic core; a lot that was once rhythms that keep unfurling song after vital, exciting and new. Gallops’ reading of song. That voice, though, is a sticking music that already exists is so accurate as to point for me. It drowns out much of the VENUE PHONE NUMBERS render it frustratingly clichéd and music with its mid-toned whine, making it O2Academy: 0844 477 2000 (ticketweb) uninspiring. There are a couple of hints of a difficult to appreciate - or even hear, at different direction that could emerge – times - what else is going on, beyond some The Bullingdon: 01865 244516 some Goblin-esque synthesised lines that jaunty-sounding tunes. That renders things The Wheatsheaf: 01865 790380 lead a couple of tracks into cinematic places a little bland, a little boring, and it’s hard to The Cellar: 01865 244761 – and it would be wonderful for these to be know exactly why. The New Theatre: 0844 847 1585 extended. Otherwise, all we’re left with is Maps And Atlases might be great - but The Jericho Tavern: 01865 311775 an enviably talented group of players, but perhaps they could swap notes with Fat Lil’s: 01993 703385 not yet a whole lot more than a tribute act. Gallops to get their live show in shape, East Oxford Community Centre: Maps And Atlases are a far lighter, and really let us experience what they’re 01865 792168 poppier affair. They certainly seem like capable of. The Port Mahon 01865 790970 hip’n’happening scenesters, don’t get me Simon Minter THE PHANTOM BAND TEDDY THOMPSON / DAVID FORD The Jericho Tavern O2 Academy Tonight sees The Phantom Band’s and acoustic guitar brush. Their When the support act hurls whilst his acoustic interlude, first date on an exhaustive tour that songs are littered with electronic himself through his slot with a which includes ‘Turning The Gun encompasses a number of places interjections, pounding drums and gusto and passion that sees his On Myself’, sees the audience that apparently are off the radar of guitars so awash in effects that face turn scarlet, the headline is moved and forces them to clamour the band – bass player Gerry Hart they’re practically impressionistic. ultimately doomed. As David Ford forward, five albums in, it’s fair to can be heard enquiring about the Then there’s the simply beautiful jumps around, shouting his way say I’d expected more. Whilst his legitimacy of Clitheroe. vocal harmonies that manage to through ‘Nothing At All’ before musical craftsmanship is strong, Their singer is suffering from flu, make words such as “Everyone I loop pedalling the subsequent melodies fusing into rock beats and they’ve just made a lengthy and knew there was dead” sound like ‘Panic’ and Margaret Thatcher with memorable refrains, his lyrics uncomfortable journey down from gleeful poetry. tribute ‘She’s Not The One’, seems somewhat lacking, almost Scotland. The chances of a great gig In a live setting, these already Teddy Thompson’s fate becomes contrived. are not particularly promising – flu- stunning songs crackle with energy sealed before he’s even taken the Maybe the bigger issue is that it’s wracked Rick Anthony apologises and the band takes them in stage. All it takes is a stamp on the a Friday night and Teddy is for his condition before the band different directions morphing them, piano in ‘State Of The Union’ and singing about suicide and love that have even played a note. He needn’t extending some sections and a heartfelt rendition of ‘Song For won’t survive. Maybe it’s the have worried, The Phantom Band clipping others. The Road’ and those that made the addition of the violin, which have two quite phenomenal albums There are times tonight when it effort to come out early seem though musically vital, is also (‘Checkmate Savage’ and ‘The feels like The Phantom Band have more than satisfied with their equally guaranteed to keep things Wants’) from which to pluck suddenly become a prog-rock outfit, choice. in subdued tone. material and even if the band were such is they’re apparent willingness Teddy on the other hand seems Or maybe it’s simply that I’m 20 operating at 50% they’d still sound to play with the structures of their static in comparison, whilst his set years younger than most of the amazing. To Anthony’s credit he songs, but their music never feels is heartfelt, his patter endearing crowd and expect an artist to do doesn’t let his illness affect him too tired or bloated, just inventive. and his songs sturdy, it simply more than stand centre stage and much and he’s soon caught up in the “That was a fast song and a slow doesn’t measure with Ford. sing. Though I’m relieved as the emotional swells created by the rest song played at the same time,” says Any other night I might have end of the set packs a bigger of the band, his deep voice Anthony at one point; it’s this been giving Thompson wild punch, ‘Can’t Sing Straight’ and emanating from within the confines ability to create juxtapositions acclaim but tonight he’s been ‘Looking For A Girl’ forcing me to of his hooded top. (melancholy and joy at the same overshadowed, and for once not ponder my first reaction. Trying to describe quite what The time being another speciality) by his parents. Whilst his set is Ultimately I’m still Phantom Band do is quite a task. within their songs and the perfect meaty, ‘I Feel’ opening with an unconvinced and on a rare It’s fair to say that they’re a folk melodies that graces each and every up-tempo bang that leaves me occasion I leave raving more about band in essence but there’s so much one that make The Phantom Band begging for more of the same, only the support. more going on that it’s not possible such a thrilling proposition. ‘Delilah’ seems to grant that wish. Lisa Ward to simply tar them with the beard Sam Shepherd The rest of his set falls flat and

DOCTOR SHOTOVER: Love Generation

II hate classical music. Hate it. All those smug prune-faced people gesticulating prettily along to cello sections, twitching like pixies as they head-bang to flute solos, their little bright eyes half-closed with joy as they play “air oboe”… The sort of people who say, “Bliss! Sheer bliss!” whilst discussing Mozart, and who love being put on hold while reporting a plumbing emergency… “Ah, Handel’s Water Music, the andante movement!”… as floods swirl around their ankles from the broken U-bend in the khazi. Bah! It’s enough to make a man turn to drink… Bedingfield? I say, BEDINGFIELD! Stop dilly-dallying over those dirty glasses and get me a large one… And put a coddled egg in it, will you? Bit short of breakfast this morning. Now, where was I? Oh yes, Valentine’s Day. I hate Valentine’s Day… “VD Day”, I call it. No, not “VE Day”, Cuthbertson… though, come to think of it, I had a time and a half that day, ha ha… Rather a nice little WAAF in the NAAFI that day, what? Ever so grateful for me, ahem, doing my bit for the war effort… Flaming Nora! What? Oh yes, that really was her name, or so she maintained [a faraway look comes into Dr Shotover’s eye]. Ah well, can’t be helped now. She liked classical music, of course… I enjoyed a few nocturnes, fantasias and preludes with her, I can tell you! Ha ha hargh harrrghhh [guffaws, then falls off barstool, coughing noisily]… Bedingfield! A pick-me-up! No, really – a PICK-ME-UP… off the sodding floor, you dunderhead! Next month: Rock me, “Oh, but Dr S… I LOVE classical Amadeus. music… don’t YOU?” And the lowlight: Introducing…. “Being unable to find a service station that Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local bands bubbling under has an M&S and having to settle for either WHSmith Trophy Wife sandwiches or a Costa coffee panini.” Who are they? Their favourite Trophy Wife are Jody Prewett (guitar, vocals); Kit Monteith (drums, Oxfordshire act is: sampler) and Ben Rimmer (keyboards, sampler). The trio originally met in “Glass Animals. We the early noughties in Oxford amid the city’s burgeoning post-rock/ only discovered they mathcore scene and went on to form one half of Jonquil; Trophy Wife grew were from around here out of late-night recording sessions. Late last year they released their debut recently. Their single, ‘Microlite’, on uber-cool label Moshi Moshi and played shows with reserved electro hits Foals and Bombay Bicycle Club. More recently they’ve toured with Esben all of our buttons.” and the Witch. They’ve been played and interviewed by Zane Lowe and Rob If they could keep Da Bank, and were single of the week on Radcliffe & Maconie for one album in the forthcoming double a-side ‘The Quiet Earth’ / `White Horses’, out this world, it would be: month, again on Moshi Moshi. “Fleetwood Mac’s What do they sound like? `Tango In The Night’. Feather-light pop that sounds so fragile you worry it might turn to dust if you It’s something we so much breathe on it. They’re glitchy and spangly in a similar way to Foals’ always come back to more tender moments, but carry an airy breathlessness about them that’s more and is a childhood akin to previous tour-mates Toro Y Moi. Nightshift’s review of ‘Microlite’ – musical memory of long-distance car journeys. It has aged incredibly well one of the most startlingly accomplished debut singles we’ve heard in recent and the songs are impeccably crafted.” times – compared the band to “A baby unicorn blinking in the harsh morning When is their next gig and what can newcomers expect? sunlight, languorous in the extreme”, which might sound a bit poncy and “We next play Oxford on 1st March at the Cellar. You can expect a purple in its prose but pretty much sums up their delicate perfectionism. throbbing light show, reverb guitars and a hand-built electronic drum-kit.” What inspires them? Their favourite and least favourite thing about Oxford music are: “Polmo Polpo, The Notwist circa-’Neon Golden’, Metro Area, Factory “The sense of community is incredibly rare. Walking up Cowley Road or Records, David Byrne, Hank Marvin, Ron Fricke’s film Baraka, the staggering around Truck Festival and bumping into countless old friends. On silhouettes outside on night-time motorway drives.” the flipside, it can become very claustrophobic and self-limiting if you don’t Career highlight so far: peer over the wall to see what’s on the other side.” “Getting `Microlite’ released and holding the physical copy for the first You might love them if you love: time was something that felt really special to us. It never entered our heads Toro Y Moi, Foals, The Notwist, The xx. that we might get something out so early on.” Hear them here: www.myspace.com/atrophywife

Whatever happened to… those heroes WHEN? Throughout their lifetime Narco went through myriad line-up changes, releasing four singles and EPs, including the critically-acclaimed ‘Hanging From A High Point’, and one album, ‘Control Of The Stereo’. Although Narco relatively successful in sales and publishing terms, the collapse of the record industry scuppered further advancement and although they never officially WHO? split, the band has been dormant for many years. Formed in a bhangra nightclub in Nottingham by singer Cave and bassist WHY? Rich Aitken, Narco briefly became, in the late-90s and early-00s, Oxford’s While Narco’s local profile was never huge, they were big news out of town band most likely to. The pair relocated to Oxford and recruited keyboard for a while, the record label bidding war being part of a wider recognition of player Dan Cummings and drummer Jason Wolsey. Playing at Radio 1 Sound their talent. In Oxford itself they were amongst the vanguard of acts fusing City in 1997 and included on a CD of local acts to watch out for, they electronics to rock music, alongside The Rock Of Travolta et al. as well as quickly became the subject of a furious record label bidding war. One gig at helping pioneer the music social network movement. ‘Teen Suicide the Cellar that year had representatives from every major label in the Explosion’, which topped Nightshift’s end of year Top 20 in 2000, remains country present. Eventually the band signed a deal with EMI, losing Jason a singular high point in local music in the late-90s/early-noughties. and Danny along the way. Rich’s brother Jonny then joined before going off WHERE? to join Spiritualized. A new line-up featuring drummer Jamie Dawson and Cave lives in Winchester and works in media; James GS lives in London and James Gellately-Smith toured extensively, helped pioneer music social produced a number of dance singles in his own right as well as working in IT; network movement Peoplesound.com years before Myspace etc. and played Jamie Dawson joined Thieves and toured the States and is now a drum tutor; V Festival along the way. Later recruits were Ed McClements on drums and after Spiritualized Jonny was in psych-rockers Manatee and now lives in guitarist Marc Canham. Brighton, while Rich, Marc and Ed still work together, operating a successful WHAT? music production company based near Initially a drum&bass outfit with prog- Oxford. They mainly focus on film and rock overtones, Narco morphed first video game soundtracks – including the into a more focussed full-on band, less Driver and Singstar series and the reliant on loops, and then into their award-winning Killzone2, as well as The final and most successful incarnation, Disappearance of Alice Creed. Their electro-infused garage rock, at their work is everywhere and they’ve best, as on ‘Teen Suicide Explosion’, regularly been nominated for major fusing Suicide’s seedy electro rockabilly awards, including the BAFTAs. Rich with juggernaught rock somewhere also plays guitar in local stoner-rock between The Clash, early-period outfit Domes of Silence. Ultravox and Six By Seven, Happy HOW? Monday’s bummed-out dance-rock Album ‘Control Of The Stereo’ is still collision giving them a groove-based available, although the 7” of ‘Evil edge and always sounding thrillingly Brother’ is now a cult collectors’ trashed and in need of the next fix. item. DEMOSDEMOS

much the same thing but at least we get our DEMO OF monthly dose of smashing our fist repeatedly into the nearest wall and THE MONTH chucking bits of furniture through the window TREVOR WILLIAMS JAMES KUHT It’s been quite a while since Trev last James here has been to military school, graced the demo pages. Back then he was which initially makes us worry that he mixing his avian metaphors to a worrying could be another James Blunt, but also that degree while strumming mournfully and he’s some kind of rage-filled assassin who emoting even more mournfully. We think could slit our throats with the lid off a he might have – accidentally or otherwise – Marmite jar and not give it a second ingested some drugs in the meantime, on thought. That he informs us he wrote these the strength of this one-song demo. The four songs while sat in his bedroom for title, ‘You Cut, We Bleed’, conjures up eight hours solid only furthers our fears visions of terrible emo-ish self-pity but as that he’s a brooding human time bomb. Trev hammers his piano keys with what Turns out that initial worry about being might well be his knuckles, until they James Blunt is probably closer to the mark. bleed, and half screams, half growls his He’s jaunty rather than sulky (could be a pain to the world, it appears he’s morphed double bluff – beware the smiling assassin), into some prog-folk overlord with chronic although on ‘Convinced’ he has an annoying speed-induced tension issues. Onward it habit of elongated the last syllable of each swirls and staggers, reminding us a little of line, so “That was the best moment of my neo-progsters Pure Reason Revolution at life” becomes, “That was the best moment times, its ungainly progress and hazy of my liiiiiiiiEEEEEEEF!”. Mind you, the swing accentuating its intensity and tune in question reminds us a bit of lysergic credentials. Truth be told, in most Suzanne Vega’s ‘Marlene On The Wall’, so other months this wouldn’t be on top of it’s not all bad. It’s not unpleasant stuff, the pile, but it is, without a shadow of a alternately fulsome and winsome, avoiding doubt, one of the worst months for demos the main pitfalls of self-pity and strumming we’ve ever endured and Trev’s ability to too hard to express intense emotions, but pen an actual song and sing vaguely in tune we feel after all this time we’re sort of lifts him above the mire, and by thunder, if numbed by so much acoustic balladry that he can continue along this route instead of we cant even think of anything rude to say retreating back into common or garden about it. Hopefully we won’t feel anything acoustic strumming and moaning, then when James creeps into our room tonight to we’re behind him all the way. Hell, he’ll be butcher us while we sleep. wearing a silver cape by the end of the year. Records, CDs and MIND THE WHITE DVD Fair MISCONDUCTORS LINES In a month where virtually every demo A consistent theme of all the rest of this th suggests it’s National Tuneless Racket month’s demos is vocalists who sound SATURDAY 5 March Month, at least Misconductors sound like bored beyond the point of human 10.30am-3.30pm you’d want them on your side when the endurance, or are simply incapable of barricades go up. This sounds like it was holding anything resembling a tune. Here ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- written and recorded on the spot while the the singer sounds like he’s either standing SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- band watched live footage of the riots in about a mile closer to the microphone than DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- Cairo. Essentially it’s standard punk the rest of his band, or is simply indulging 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 thrash with a meaty metal edge and little in some bedroom-based punk karaoke. ‘One by way of any tunage on show, lumbering Of Those Days’ sounds like a less camp thuggishly, all sinew and gristle, Pete Shelley trying to summon the powerchords and shouting, every track an enthusiasm to say anything interesting over out-take from some long-lost politico- some rudimentary punk thrash, although R A D I A T E punk compilation, but unlike just about when he does finally rouse himself for the A NEW MONTHLY BAND NIGHT everything else here, it’s got some vim and song’s climax he sounds like he’s just vigour about it, the rabble-rousing, experienced an embarrassing premature THE JERICHO TAVERN, OXFORD sloganeering vocals holding a bit of ejaculation. ‘Sweet Insomnia’ is ironically conviction, the riotous mess of guitars and titled since everyone concerned sounds like band submissions : drums held together with spit and glue and they’re half asleep, the band seemingly a determination not to let the evil forces of incapable of rousing itself into second gear, [email protected] the military-industrial complex win the but with ‘Jack’s Broadcast’ Mind The day. That they’ve got a song called ‘Sick White Lines perhaps chance upon a more No covers bands, please Of Hearing Shit’ also sums up our feelings suitable style, a denser, slower, almost www.radiatepromotions.com about most of the demo pile. Not sure if psychedelic drone rock that’s still awkward we really need fourteen tracks of pretty but carries a bit of conviction and ends up sounding like one of those self-consciously before. We guess it’s progress of sorts. dour post-punk bands who would rail Who knows, by Christmas they might even against the monotony of industrial society have grown opposable thumbs. in ironically detached fashion. Everyone should be in a band like this at some point in their life but hopefully grow out of it KAKUZI before they’re 15. We’re not sure, however, Another one-song demo, and this time it’s if MTWL have missed that particular got a video to go with it. Which is almost deadline already. as exciting for us as getting a lyric sheet to point at and laugh about. It’s very tastefully done, all soft focus shots of the THE 13D band playing in a rehearsal room. The 13D’s Myspace features an existential, music’s tasteful and soft-focus too in a stream-of-consciousness narrative about mid-80s kind of way, like a more blokey what he does with his days that reads like a Bronski Beat crossed with a half-cocked failed first draft of the opening moments of Tears For Fears. The singer even looks like Withnail & I, but what we suspect he really Curt Smith after a three-month cake and THE COURTYARD STUDIO does with his time is sit down and listen to croissant diet. He keeps doing sideways Bob Dylan and The Fall at the same time glances to camera, his facial expressions PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/ and then try and emulate what he’s just running the entire gamut of emotional 24, OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE heard. Thus, ‘Filibustering’ is drama, from constipated to angst-ridden, MACHINE, 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ scrambled before he is filmed artfully picking up a CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION through ‘Kicker Conspiracy’, although not tambourine, in soft focus, obviously. OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR, + MIDI really anything like as good as that makes it Clocking in well over the five-minute mark, FACILITIES (INC LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI sound. More like half a song falling down a the song seems unable to commit fully to S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND ETC.) flight of stairs while trying not to spill a jangly acoustic pop or shimmering synth- Residential facilities included. cup of tea. It’s engaging enough, though, pop, settling instead for a vague middle and more original than ‘On The Boulevard’, ground where it muddles through in, oh www.courtyardrecordingstudio.com which follows, sounding remarkably similar yes, tasteful soft focus until your eyes and PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS to Mind The White Lines. It’s more ears start bleeding from all the squinting ON 01235 845800 cohesive than the first song but less fun they’re being made to do. and as far as punk rock goes it sounds like it’d struggle to arm-wrestle Alkaline Trio, never mind go fifteen rounds with Wattie THE DEMO from The Exploited. Thereon in, there seems to be an attempt to bring as many DUMPER disparate influences to play as possible, DUMPER while retaining that basic lo-fi punk feel. ‘Listen Up’ is part sea shanty, part hip REVOL hop monologue but still sounds like an old Cor, this lot sound like they could crush a Anti-Pasti b-side and ends up a bit of a grape, they’re so up-for-it mad rock’n’roll bolshy mess, while ‘The Bear Went Over crazy. Just when you think the depths of The Mountain’ is a honky tonk musical tune-free rudimentary thrash with hall piece. ‘Machine Gun Dance’ brings an monotone vocals cannot be plumped any accordion into the action for some gypsy deeper. Dear God, how can something as punk fun but it’s hardly Gogol Bordello, simple and fun and fast as rock and roll while ‘13 O’Clock Rock’ could be Electro sound so completely bloody effing boring? Hippies’ kid brother after too much fizzy By all the laws of nature it should be pop. impossible to get something so easy so badly wrong. Rock music should be able to summon the downtrodden masses to rise PAPER SUNS up and crush the powers that be. How More bored vocals; more randomly different the world would be if Winston tunelesss guitar chugging. Is this all part of Churchill, JF Kennedy and Martin Luther some sinister experiment to confirm that old King had opined with such a lack of adage about giving a million typewriters to a emotional conviction. We can at least million chimps to see if they’ll accidentally comfort ourselves in knowing that Revol’s recreate the works of Shakespeare, only press blurb is even less exciting than their with guitars and a misplaced sense of music: “Revol are a brand new Rock band unfairness about the world? A sudden, with catchy melodies, solid bass lines, lead disjointed funk interlude is the only notable licks, and a ginger afro banging drums! feature of ‘Generation E’, while ‘On The Revol bring to the stage a set of songs filled Dole’ is painfully earnest and overwrought. with emotion, energy and spirit and aim to Yeah! on the dole! Revolution! Daytime create exciting live performances for a wide telly! Utter fucking blinding tedium! ‘Fall’, audience.” It’s thrill-a-minute stuff. Love finds Paper Suns getting, like, a bit soppy the bit about the ginger afro banging drums. and emotional, just to show that they’re They’re proper fucking mental, this lot. not all about macho shouting and mindless They’ve got a track called `There’s No chugging. Which basically equates to them Time’ here. There’s no fucking tunes, shouting and chugging a bit slower than neither.

Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1ZU. Or email MySpace link to [email protected], clearly marked Demo for review. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact address and phone number. No more than four tracks on a demo. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo.