email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 145 August Oxford’s Music Magazine 2007

WITCHESWITCHES Oxford’s Spellbinding Pop Alchemists - interview inside plus Truck Flooded Out!

The Young Knives up for Mercury Prize NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255

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

TRUCK FESTIVAL was called off after the Steventon site was submerged in flood waters. As Oxfordshire suffered its heaviest rainfall in 40 years on Friday 20th July the festival site ended up under a metre of water. Organisers were forced to postpone the event after the nearby brook burst its banks. Festival founder Robin Bennett suffered a double blow after his family home in Steventon was also flooded. Robin and fellow Truck organisers moved quickly to re-arrange the festival for the weekend of 22nd / 23rd September. All tickets remain valid or refunds are available. With the whole Truck label and Truck foundation, which last year raised over £50,000 for charity, dependent on ticket money from the festival, it’s hoped people will hold on to their tickets and attend the new dates. In a heroic piece of emergency organisation, many of the festivals bands, including The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Garth and Maud Hudson, as SUPERGRASS will become the first Oxford band to headline the new Oxford well as Truck’s own Goldrush, played at Brookes University Union over two Academy when it opens in September. The band play a special one-off gig at nights in order to raise money to keep the festival going, while other acts, the Academy on Sunday 23rd September. The gig is expected to be sold out by headed by Frank Turner, performed at an all-day gig at the Port Mahon. the time Nightshift comes out. A very big Nightshift well done to everyone involved in the festival for Editors, meanwhile, became the first band to sell out a gig at the new venue. their hard work in the face of incredible adversity. Tickets for their show on Saturday 6th October sold out in less than 24 hours last month. Amongst the many gigs already booked for the Academy and its stage set up and lighting rig. From upstairs Zodiac venue in the first couple of month are: New Young Pony Club th October 15 the Turtle will host free (Thurs 20th Sept); RX Bandits (Fri 21st); Air Traffic (Mon 24th); Gallows (Tue live music six nights a week with gigs 25th); Madina Lake (Wed 26th); The Enemy (Thu 27th); This Is Menace (Mon preceding the regular club nights. 1st October); Alabama 3 (Thu 4th); Happy Mondays (Fri 5th - now sold out); Entry will be free to all gigs and open Decemberists (Sun 7th); King Creosote (Mon 8th); Jack Penate (Thu 11th); The to the general public. Promoter Cribs (Sat 13th); Foals (Mon 15th); Seth Lakeman (Tue 16th); Oceansize (Fri Gregory McCalium told Nightshift 19th); Kate Nash (Thu 25th) and Youthmovies (Sat 27th). that the gigs are almost completely Complete listings details and ticket booking are available online at booked up until December but bands www.oxford-academy.co.uk. HMV in Cornmarket Street are also selling wanting to play should contact him Academy tickets until the new box office is opened. on 07867 668 755 or check out www.myspace.com/3spiritmusic.

THE YOUNG KNIVES have been THE OXFORD URBAN ARTZ shortlisted for this year’s Mercury FESTIVAL is a regular multi-arts thethe portport mmahonahon Prize. The local trio’s second album, thethe portport mmahonahon project which aims to feature the best ‘Voices Of Animals & Men’, is local urban music, dance and visual amongst twelve albums up for the arts with a series of Saturday Live Music in August prestigious award, alongside big name afternoon events kicking off on 8th st th acts such as Arctic Monkeys, Amy September at the Bayards School in 1 The Dresdens + Sicarios 16 Ezekiel + Butler Winehouse and Dizzee Rascal as well Barton. The events are organised by 2nd Dr S 17th PTM as other new talents like Bat For local musician Rob Jolliffe who works 3rd Permanent Vacation 18th Swiss Concrete presents Lashes and New Young Pony Club. for the Community Bizness project in presents On Fire + Scene Space Heroes of the People The winner will be announced on Screamers + Compute + Liechtenstein + th Barton and Wood Farm. Acts Tuesday 4 September. Good luck to confirmed so far include Nightshift 4th Quickfix Presents Alice the Knives from everyone in Oxford. favourites Zuby, Asher Dust and Mr 5th Medea + Not My Day + 19th Tiny Cities Shaodow, along with Djinn, Don JoJo, Device + more 20th The Attika Estate + The FOPP has gone into liquidation. The Inspekt A Rhyme and DeeVyne. th music retail chain, who opened a new 7 Vacuous Pop presents Don Ramos + Hello Summer + There will also be an acoustic stage th store in Oxford’s Gloucester Green 8 Oxford Improvisers Theo featuring local bands and solo artists. th st only a year ago, called in the 9 Deadbeat Cavalier + 21 Poor Girl Noise Go to www.UrbanArtz.com for more Coprolite + more 22nd Permanent Vacation receivers in early July, which resulted information and artist demos. in the closure of all of its stores 11th Dirty Boys All-dayer with presents Agripon + more Meet Me In St Louis + Look 23rd The Jones Radio around the UK. POOR GIRL NOISE release a See Proof + Envy & Other Sins 24th My Own Conspiracy Also gone this month is the Delicious compilation album of local and not so th Music store in St Aldates, which local bands that have played at their + Stornoway + 303 Did This To 26 Pindrop Performance specialised in sheet music and musical regular club nights. ‘Now We’re Out Me + Mewgatz + The Young with For Barry Ray + Traw & instruments as well as local bands’ Of The Cup, We Can Concentrate On Plan + The Blitz Cartel Dominic Lash + Divine Coils + CDs. Rising rent costs are blamed for The League’ features eleven tracks 12th Twat Daddies Beautiful Screaming Lady the closure. The closure of these two from the likes of Jonquil and Zelega 13th Gunnbunny + Superneck 27th Lee Davies + Chris stores, along with the demise of Vinyl as well as Chops, The Pluto, Riotmen 14th Swiss Concrete presents Thompson Frontier on Cowley Road, means that and Guns Or Knives. There will be Rose Melberg + Gregory 28th Twin System only HMV, Virgin and Borders remain 140 hand-made CDs, each one Webster + Robin Allender + 29th Peacemakers as outlets for CDs in Oxford. representing a particular FA Cup Final Anton Barbeau 30th Dubwiser (including replays) with CDs wrapped THE PURPLE TURTLE is set to in the winners’ ribbons. If you’re expand its live music programme in after a particular cup final, get in Book your band into play at Oxford’s best small music venue! October when the venue undergoes a touch via www.myspace.com/ refurbishment that will include a full pgnbevvies. 82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067 AWITCHES Quiet Word With “MY LYRICS ARE GENERALLY a month when I wasn’t in a band, a kind of warped reflection of and apparently I was unbearable, so people, places and situations I’ve was no doubt encouraged to get a encountered and are very much move on with getting the new band routed in reality. However, I do tend off the ground. I met all the Witches towards representing these things in through friends of friends – at the a manner which is often considered time I simply wanted a four piece ambiguous and sinister. I have a very rock band, but this expanded to the dark imagination; I have hypnagogic current six-piece line-up about six hallucinations (night visions) and months later. To begin with it was recurring nightmares, combined with very strange, getting to know new a love of horror films like Ringu, people, trying to maintain The Shining, The Changeling and confidence in myself, wondering how The Omen. As a result, films like the band was going to be received. Ringu, arguably influenced by Then we had a wonderful few Japanese witch folk tales, and books months jamming at the Coldroom like Dreams In The Witch House by out in Cumnor, and during this time HP Lovecraft were influencing we wrote the `Chaos of A Friday factors behind songs like `Sleep Like Night’ EP. This cemented my belief The Witch That You Are’ and in the band, and made me feel like `Glowing Sky’.” I’d finally left eeebleee behind and could confidently move forward. SORCERESSES, THE DEVIL’S Eeebleee was much more of an child, ghosts of murdered children, electronics-based band, while ancient curses. The stuff of horror Witches use a much wider array of films and the stuff of Dave Griffiths’ instruments. Have your musical recurring nightmares. He should have tastes changed in that time or is formed a death metal band. Instead more a case of working with he formed bucolic pop troupe different people? Witches and thus set about “When I started eeebleee I was very exorcising his night visions in a keen on music by bands like Fridge, more sweetly-natured manner. Lamb and DJ Shadow and I’d Dave is explaining to Nightshift the recently purchased a phrase sampler darkness at the heart of Witches’ that brought with it a wide range of debut album, ‘Heart Of Stone’, which harmonies before being submersed in who split up just as the time seemed possibilities that differed from the is released in September. One of the a fuzz of guitar noise held on the to be ripe for bigger, better things. acoustic songwriting I’d done prior most musically accomplished and tightest leash. As Dave points out, there was no to then. It was fun for a couple of texturally complex albums from an Witches are a hard band to pin great story behind the split, no years, but after a while I started to Oxford band in some time, it belies down, although listen through to monstrous clash of egos. Not even a realise the live limitations of having the band’s relatively short time ‘Heart Of Stone’ and you can catch vicious knife fight at the end of a everything centred on an electronic together – a mere two years – and glimpses of Sparklehorse, The Velvet tense final rehearsal session. device. The later eeebleee stuff fully exhibits the disparate Underground, Love, Arcade Fire and Shame… shelved the sampler for the most contributions of all six band even Scott Walker. Seductively Dave: “I think anyone who’s been part, replacing the sampled drums members. intimate and yet luxuriantly through an amicable band break-up with real drums, courtesy of Mark From Stax brass, through sweeping orchestral, they’re simply an knows that there’s a time when you Wilden from The Evenings, and strings, thunderous guitar noise, absolutely fantastic pop group. all just sort of know that it has to Witches has continued this move. I gentle pop waltzes and Mariachi come to an end. Nothing very used to sample trumpets, pianos and trumpets to 80s synth-pop, Witches WITCHES ARE: DAVE GRIFFITHS significant happens, and maybe guitars and now people play these cast their gaze in every direction (vocals / guitar); Dan Burt (guitars / that’s the problem – you feel like instruments for real, which I think without ever losing their core bass); Tim Roberts (guitars); you’ve lost direction and you’re just makes a big difference to the live cohesion. And at that core are a Richard Thomas (keyboards / bass); treading water. Excitement comes sound.” dozen sublimely understated pop Dave Balch (drums) and Benek from thinking about new things you lullabies coasting on Dave’s plaintive Chylinski (trumpet / glockenspiel). could try out and new directions you WITCHES’ ALBUM SOUNDS choirboy vocals. Songs like ‘Dead As Tim has previously played in could take. Everyone was very remarkably assured for a debut. It A Ghost’ move skilfully and Richard Walters’ band, while Benek relieved when it ended, and there sounds like the work of a band who seductively from pastoral daydream served in the Polish navy and is were no bad feelings. I occasionally have been together far longer and to punch-up at a Mexican wedding, trained to fire a Kalashnikov. wonder about things I could do if I given access to far grander studio while the likes of ‘Taking Myself Additionally the band are sometimes wasn’t devoting so much time to facilities. Home Again’ shimmer like musical supplemented by Jonquil’s Ben Witches, and I have a lot of other “Writing the album was really sunshine. ‘Joseph’s Lament’ finds Rimmer on violin and Space Heroes interests, but music has always been exciting. It was the first time I’ve guitars and harpsichord tumbling Of The People’s Jo Edge on double my main drive and I find it hard to really co-written anything, replacing over a strident trumpet lead while bass. imagine that ever changing. sitting down with an acoustic guitar ‘Putting You Back In The Ground’ Jo, of course, was previously a “Witches started almost with improvising lyrics over a full dinks along on an almost Toytown bandmate of Dave Griffiths in late, immediately after eeebleee came to band jamming on a musical idea. keyboard plink and devotional vocal lamented local favourites Eeebleee, an end. There was a period of about Improvisation has allowed me to let go of all the restraints I put on means of releasing pent-up energy, myself when song writing, allowing and I think sometimes this chaotic me to come up with fresher, more undertone finds its way through the interesting lyrics and melodies. I cracks, occasionally airing itself in think it’s been equally satisfying for tracks like `Dead As A Ghost’ and everyone else; everyone contributed `Multiple Personality Detective’. I lots of ideas, and it was a real team consider our sound to be the musical effort. In terms of getting out there, equivalent of someone on the edge I think it’s fair to say that we ideally of a nervous breakdown. Or maybe want to follow in the footsteps of someone recovering from a nervous some of our favourite bands: breakdown.” Radiohead, Sparklehorse, The Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel DAVE IS ORIGINALLY FROM etc. by getting as many people as Wales but has spent a good few years possible to hear the album and to in the Oxford music scene since August come and see us live. We’re aware we coming here to study at the have a lot of work still to do, but University. How does he view the hope that the album gives a good local scene? Every Monday first impression.” “I spent the worst years of my life The album features quite an array of in deepest, darkest Wales, four miles THE FAMOUS MONDAY other local artists, Jo and Ben from anybody for about eight years. NIGHT BLUES obviously, but also Suitable Case For Coming to Oxford was a wonderful Treatment’s Jimmy Evil, while Ape experience. When my University The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. £6 Has Killed Ape! frontwoman Emily course finished I stayed in Oxford 6th LITTLE JENNY & THE BLUE BEANS Gray created the album’s sleeve. because of the strength of the local (Sweden) Who would be your ideal music scene. It remains second to th collaborators and producer? none, and far better than London or 13 FUNKY DORY (UK) If I could have anyone produce the Brighton. Yes, it can be very critical 20th LIGHTNING WILLIE & THE POORBOYS next Witches album it would be and people can be very spoilt for (US) Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse. choice, creating a fair amount of 27th CLOSED His production work on the Daniel apathy, but these negative aspects Johnston album ‘Fear Yourself’ are greatly outweighed by the quality pretty much inspired everything I of bands, venues, promoters and contributed to the Witches album. I journalists supporting and enriching Every Tuesday don’t really have an ideal the Oxford music scene. Current collaborator in mind; I like working favourite Witches bands include THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB with with the people in Witches above Jonquil, Stornoway, The Workhouse anyone else, but sometimes it’s good and Xmas Lights. All four bands THE HOWARD PEACOCK QUINTET to include instruments that no-one deserve far wider recognition, and in (* except 21st – ALVIN ROY & REEDS UNLIMITED) in the band can play: in our case a supportive environment like Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until violins, flutes, double bass, female Oxford I believe that at least some 2am vocals etc – Dan kicked me hard in of them will find it.” the nuts, but I just couldn’t do it. The two other original members of Maybe a big brass section led by eeebleee, Jo, plus electronics man Benek for the next Witches album, Tim Day, are now the core of Space Alternate Thursdays to help us further exploit our Sigur Heroes Of The People. What does Ros influences. Dave think of their new band? SMASH DISCO “We’ve had a few little bits of “I think they’re very brave, going Post-punk, indie, electro. 10-2am. £3 / £4 record company interest, but it’s up into space, being heroic, GET FUNKED only really now that we have exploring new planets etc. It must be anything substantial recorded and hard being a Space Hero Of The Electro, house, hip hop, grimey beats. 9.30-2am. £3 / £4 we’re only just starting to make a People: all the fame and name for ourselves on the live responsibility, not to mention the circuit. We’ve made a lot of new risk of your space suit developing a Every Friday friends and contacts since the days leak and you dying and floating for of eeebleee – top of the list would eternity across the far reaches of BACKROOM BOOGIE have to be Martin Newton, the main space. It’s probably much safer Funk, soul and R&B 10.30-2.30am. £4 man behind the Witches album, who playing in a band in Oxford, provided us with lots of quality particularly one with lots of studio time for very little money. He interesting instruments and sounds. goes to the top of the Christmas It’s good to see Tim making the kind Saturdays card list. He’s also been using his of music he always wanted to make, 4th SIMPLE Funky House. 9.30pm-4am prior experience as a band manager and combined with the excellent th to help us get the record out there.” musicianship provided by Jo and Liz 11 TRASHY – Trashy pop, new indie and dirty Witches’ sound is very well he’s definitely onto a winner.” rock and roll. 9-3am. £5 orchestrated, very precise, but Come on then, Benek can fire a 18th Private Party there’s an underlying feeling of the Kalashnikov. Who would you most 25th THE X COMES TO THE BULLY - PRS sound trying to escape much of the like him to shoot? time “He’s saving his last bullet for me. fundraiser for The X with THE SWAMIS, KANED CITIZEN “We’re a six-piece band, and For when the time comes.” + JEREMY HUGHES + AL DE BOSS + ADDISABABA DJs everyone contributes a lot of ideas, leading to the intricate sound that ‘Heart Of Stone’ is available from th many people comment on. There Saturday 15 September. Witches Sunday 5th are a lot of perfectionists in the play at the Jericho Tavern on band, myself included, and this adds Saturday 11th August with The Half LIVE STAND-UP COMEDY 8-11pm £6/7 to the precise nature of the sound. Rabbits. Check out Personally, however, I see music as a www.witchesband.com for more info. Sponsored RELEASED by roving around the wilds of Oxfordshire at odd hours writing an album of traditional songs A SILENT FILM about the changing seasons. And so ‘Right ‘The Projectionist EP’ Wantonly…’ finds Sharron wrapped up warm in the middle of winter, making holly wreaths (Xtra Mile) and penning ‘Wake Up Sleepers’, or As elegant a collection of songs as you could alternatively sitting atop a hill at dawn on hope for, A Silent Film’s debut EP exudes an Midsummer’s day, imagining a battle between ambition and maturity that you don’t have to summer and winter. imagine too hard to hear emanating from the ‘Right Wantonly…’ might have taken a year to grandest musical stage. And that’s maturity in write, but that year could as easily have been the sense of they know what they want and 1606 as 2006, so steeped in olde worlde English they know how to get it, rather than the folk is it. Sharron has roped in fellow local folk widdly jazz wank of a Sting album type luminaries Jon Boden and John Spiers as well as maturity in case you thought for one second Ian Giles, Fay Hield and Claire Lloyd, all of we’d forgotten our punk rock credentials. whom contribute vocals as well as fiddle, Really, this is epic, soaring stuff, with a whistle, melodeon and even crumhorn and the delicate attention to detail that allows them SHARRON KRAUS result sounds like a particularly accomplished to cram in more ideas in a few minutes than open session round a roaring log fire at a many bands manage in a lifetime without ‘Right Wantonly A- Cherwell alehouse. Sharron herself is possessed cluttering everything up. The EP’s lead Mumming’ of a voice remarkably like Maddy Prior, which track, `The Lamplight’, is a little like what obviously helps the cause. Personally, I’d be Queen might have sounded like if they’d (Bo’Weavil) happier listening to one of Sharron’s more emerged in the wake of ‘OK Computer’, She gets about a bit does Sharron Kraus. If she’s gothic-hewn recordings: tales of corpses hanging while ‘Six Feet Of Rope & Revenge’ is not travelling around the darkest reaches of from gibbets are more my bag than celebrations ‘Pyramid Song’ kidnapped by Ultravox Canada or the States, discovering and of holly and ivy but if you’re always a little circa-‘Vienna’. Saying all that, while it’s full collaborating with the best underground folk concerned that a gang of marauding Morris of stadium rock weight, it never gets musicians (her last album featured Espers’ Meg dancers is about to leap out at you from this overwhelming or histrionic, even the guitar Baird and Helena Espvall, while earlier this year CD, there’s something in its unabashed old- solos looking inwards rather than to the she performed with United Bible Studies and fashioned nature that warms you to it. skies. The EP’s highlight, of course, though Jane O’Neil at the Terrascope Tea Party) she’s Ian Chesterton is ‘Chromatic Eyes’, a strong contender for Nightshift’s favourite song of the year, a weirdly psychedelic tattoo of clicks, claps and slaps that could be The Bad Seeds THE SHAKER HEIGHTS having a laugh at a pub open mic session or ‘Magna Doors’ Martians forming a band after accidentally discovering an old Queen CD floating in (Matchbox) space. Of course it should never be tucked Something of an honorary Oxfordshire band, The he carries the best songs well, particularly away at the back end of an EP, but as Shaker Heights are closer to Aylesbury but never ‘Pigment In The Rally’, which could be called frontman Robert Stephenson rightly pointed play there, preferring to make their name on the majestic if it wasn’t so understated. out in last month’s Nightshift interview, how more fertile – and competitive – Oxford scene, There are disappointments. Opening track ‘All do you follow that? and their quality has helped that gamble pay off. About White Out’ never rises to its initial Dale Kattack This debut album is steeped in simple, rootsy promise to kick out the jams, dinking about in rock ideals, typified by the plaintive Americana the shadows and outstaying its welcome at five of ‘Write To Me Buccheimer’, with its echoes and half minutes, while with the title track they of The Band and singer Vincent Coole’s resort to piano ballad cliché that overcooks the freewheeling harmonica playing. The Shaker emotion before widdling pointlessly down an Heights aren’t, though, some kind of retro- empty corridor. thinking folk or country revivalists. There are What The Shaker Heights do have is a neat elements of both throughout their songs, but, as way with a simple tune, whether it’s with the simple, rousing 60s-styled pop of ‘Pigment…’ or ‘Intimidation’, and that’s half ‘Guillotine’, they manage to twist it slightly the battle. You feel, though, that what will and inject something a bit unusual into really win them the war is leaving the middle proceedings. Follow the album through its 45 ground behind and being willing and able to take minutes and you’ll hear Orange Juice’s jangle those songs to the edge, to make them really pop, Travelling Wilburys’ roving rock, the something special. There are odd occasions rough-hewn new wave of Psychedelic Furs and where they show glimpses of doing exactly Shack’s lysergic folk-pop. Coole’s smoothed- that. For now though, a promising start. down smokers rasp can be a powerful tool and Dale Kattack

Selected Oxford releases are now available on the ground floor HMV Oxford supports local music Open Sundays 11-5pm & late Thursdays till 7pm. 10% student discount every day THE ANY DAYS

CD single `MONDAY MORNING’ at Polar Bear Records, Cowley Road photos: Miles Walkden LIVE Echo & The Bunnymen

Postman Pat

stuff when you’ve written songs as great as CORNBURY FESTIVAL ‘Whole Of The Moon’. The Waterboys were due to play last year’s Cornbury but ended up stranded Saturday HOTHOUSE FLOWERS appear to be little at Lisbon airport. This year they’ve chartered In distant corner of the main arena there is a more than The Waterboys with all the tunes their own jet to make sure they get here from pristine Audi-sponsored marquee where pretty taken out and it’s up to THE PROCLAIMERS to Scandinavia in time. The irony that this same day young things dressed all in black hand out free really shake the festival awake. People who only sees pop stars across the world playing Live Earth drinks and mountains of free chocolate brownies know their brace of big hits might be surprised by concerts to highlight global warming can’t have adorn each table. In the next tent local mums sell some of what they hear today, closer to Status passed them by. tea in proper china mugs and there are about 20 Quo and Chas’n’Dave than you might imagine, different types of home-baked cake on offer. We but ‘Let’s Get Married’, with Craig and Charlie Band of the weekend, with only the merest are not tripping and neither have we died and Reid’s fantastically broad accents making sure shadow of a doubt (Blondie are their only real gone to heaven; this is how it is at Cornbury, a ever r is rolled to perfection, is a forgotten gem, contender) are ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, festival dubbed Poshstock in one preview. It isn’t while their take on Wreckless Eric’s ‘Whole Wide whose set begins with the sublime ‘Rescue’ and really that posh; it’s more that everyone is very World’ does the old classic all due justice. Of just gets better and better, a stunning greatest hits polite. People form queues for no apparent course, it’s the closing ‘I’m Gonna Be’ that rouses show for the committed and casual fans. From reason and other people join them before everybody – and we mean everybody – into sing- ‘Villiers Terrace’, through ‘Seven Seas’ and realising there’s nothing to queue for and merrily along mode, providing the first great festival ‘Killing Moon’, up to recent, no less bountiful, go on their way, discussing trees and deer and the moment of the weekend. songs like ‘Stormy Weather’ from last year’s merits of Suzanne Vega’s last album; well-spoken Over in the Word Tent, THE BROKEN FAMILY ‘Siberia’ return to form, they never sound like stewards smile benignly at everyone and there’s BAND are making a joyously rootsy racket that’s they’ve aged or dated. Ian McCulloch sparks up a not a heavyweight security guard in site. Really, the best complete set so far today. Within the cigarette for ‘The Cutter’, defying every new law Cornbury, makes Cropredy Festival look a hellish space of two songs we go from country rock to but no-one seems to care, not even David pit of debauchery. And it’s great. narcotic fuzzstorm via The Rubettes, before a Cameron who is dancing (politely, of course) at patch of melancholy finds them jangling closer to the back of the packed tent. After all today’s For the first time in a month the sun is shining The Manic Street Preachers, and while all that sunshine, the Bunnymen bring a little bit of and rain is a fading memory. And lest we forget, might make them sound, on paper at least, a right glorious winter cool to Cornbury. there’s some music happening. A lot of the music old mess, they’re really quite lovely And how to follow that? Well, not with DAVID this weekend is as polite and pastoral as the THE WATERBOYS are, of course, far more GRAY, it has to be said. In fact if you followed up atmosphere and the country park surroundings, than just Hothouse Flowers with proper tunes, and a demonstration of cement drying with David and given that it’s actually quite windy, much of it they are well suited to the great outdoors. And Gray it would feel like a let-down, especially since simply gets blown away (probably landing in the how could they not be when they’re singing about he dispenses with ‘Babylon’ – the only song tea and cake stall). IMELDA MAY, fares pretty the moon and fishermen. Mike Scott always anyone seems to know or care about – three well however, her strident, bluesy voice not seems to be a cross between a rampant songs in, and spends the rest of his interminable prepared to get blown off course by anything and perfectionist and a slightly deranged busker, acoustic set boring everyone into an early grave sounding a bit like Janis Joplin given a jazz especially when he starts pontificating about, with his maudlin, moribund toss. The campsite makeover. y’know, issues, but you’re allowed to that sort of beckons and we politely say our good nights. And photos: Miles Walkden Midlake Indigo Moss

David Gray

then we discover someone’s put a pub in the Violent Femmes, which is always something to be two numbers – a full-band version of ‘Tom’s middle of the campsite. Can life get any better? encouraged. Diner’ and ‘Gypsy’ that steal the show. If Saturday found us seeking home comforts in Apparently Vega “lost it a bit” for a while a few Sunday the form of tea and cake, today we find it in the years ago, but whatever it was she lost, she seems Another beautiful day. Even the clouds are those shape of THE FAMILY MACHINE up on the to have got it back with interest. nice big fluffy ones like children draw. There a lot small Charlbury Riverside stage. As comfortable as Oh shit, THE FEELING are coming on. Quick, of children around. Perhaps they smelled the a pair of old sandals, their wry, hangdog songs everyone hide. Perhaps they’ll go away. They cakes. Or maybe it’s because they know that tread a fine path between genuine pathos and don’t, so we do. All the way back to the free Postman Pat is going to be on stage later. Have plain daftness, especially ‘Lethal Drug Cocktail’ whisky tent. C’mon – which would you choose? you ever seen a toddlers’ moshpit? It’s scary. Ten and the brilliant ‘Flowers By The Roadside’. years from now they’ll be slamming each other Inspired by the reception afforded Postman Pat SETH LAKEMAN seems to be making it his around to the latest emo noise (yes, bad news frontman Jamie Hyatt produces three finger mission to play every festival in Oxfordshire this music lovers, God’s decided to punish us for puppets to help him sing. A dog, a tiger and “a year, but you could watch him over and over messing up the climate by making us listen to grey thing”. Whatever it is, it’s more fun to again and still be in thrall to his haunting, timeless lukewarm college rock for all eternity) but for watch than last night’s Gray thing. paeans to Dartmoor ghosts and the English civil now, this is what genuine pop star hero worship war. He’s a great singer and an even better looks like. Sock it to ‘em, Pat! Those who know what’s good for them are songwriter, but it’s when Lakemen lets rip with forsaking the queues for food and the tent where his fiddle that he really shines. His rise to folk- Anyway, since it’s almost tropical here compared an eager-to-please young man is trying to give pop crossover stardom is surely as inevitable as it to what’s passed for summer so far, what we could away free shots of Bushmills whisky to catch is deserved. do with is OSIBISA, who must be at least a MIDLAKE, whose under-hyped ‘Trials Of Van And then it’s time for BLONDIE to close the hundred years old by now but still know how to Occupanther’ album is slowly, discreetly, moving show. As a pop band they are peerless and get a party started, and it’s not long into their set them from cult concern to potential billion- tonight’s hit-strewn set shows that real class before everyone is – voluntarily or not – bobbing selling rock superstar status. Their intimate cannot be manufactured in a TV studio or about and clapping along. Really, it’s not our style psychedelia might perhaps benefit from a more moulded in stage school. Count the classics: ‘Call to enjoy such feelgood music but when the whole cosy arena, but equally, their easy, slightly trippy Me’, ‘Union City Blue’, ‘Atomic’, ‘Rapture’, of the previous month has felt like standing under mix up of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and even more recent chart-topper ‘Maria’ mocks a cold shower, Osibisa can actually make you feel America makes them a perfect summer festival pretenders to Blondie’s pop throne. And Debbie like you’ve moved to the other side of the world. band. Harry – the voice of a backstreet angel, the looks Initially more demure, INDIGO MOSS, SUZANNE VEGA, meanwhile, really should be and style of Monroe. And she’s how old? 62! playing in the Oxford Folk Festival Tent, are lost on a big outdoor stage, but as she opens her Okay she dances like a giddy aunt at a wedding similarly irresistible. A three-boy, two-girl band set with the original a cappella version of ‘Tom’s reception, but her voice is incredible. And as hit from London who are helping shake up the Diner’ she proves she has the voice to cut follows hit follows hit and Cornbury rises to toast English folk circuit. Steeped in the past they through any setting. It’s such a stark introduction the greatest pop band ever under a clear, starry might be, hooked on skiffle, rockabilly and she’s got everyone’s undivided attention from the sky, you know that you wouldn’t swap this hour country music, they’ve got a vibrant punk twist off and she’s not letting go. Although the sad, for all the free chocolate brownies on the planet. about them that gets us to thinking about The beautiful ‘Luka’ remains a classic, it’s her closing Dale Kattack FUCK BUTTONS / THE KEYBOARD OMD CHOIR / CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES The New Theatre “Mr Humphreys, are you free?” With that neat little fanfare, OMD frontman / EDUARD SOUNDINGBLOCK Andy McClusky beckons Paul Humphreys centre stage to sing the band’s biggest hit, `Souvenir’, and puts to bed any lingering animosity caused by their The Cellar original split in 1988. Eduard Soundingblock is the new band from half of the much-missed Suitable Case In the early-80s Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark were an unstoppable For Treatment. What might be surprising is that Eduard also features members synth-pop colossus, banging out hit after hit even as much of their music from such disparate acts as Phyal and The Drugsquad. At first glance the expected veered into the stranger corners of electronic experimentation. 1981’s metal tropes and spacerock swirls are all present, but the entire effect is ‘Architecture & Morality’ saw the band at their commercial peak and this surprisingly rootsy. The clipped, grainy vocals put us in mind of Jon Spencer. current greatest hits tour follows on from a series of dates reliving that album Admittedly, that’s Jon Spencer stretched on a rack in The Melvins’ dungeon while in its entirety. The first half hour of tonight’s set is similarly dedicated to the The Cardiacs look on approvingly, but hey. It’s early days yet, but Eduard look as album, from the opening ‘Sealand’, a perfect industrial hymn, McClusky’s though they shall retain the Beefheart cheekiness of SC4T whilst edging into the sonorous voice backed by the hiss and clang of pistons, mechanical and scabjazz extremism of Nought. Warning: it’s going to be good. imposing, through the searing, brittle ‘New Stone Age’ to the stunning grace Good is not a word that Cutting Pink With Knives inspire to – apart from “Good of ‘Maid Of Orleans’. At each turn OMD’s pop prowess is humbling, the band God, are they still playing?” A camp American and a cheap synth originally quite obviously enjoying themselves as much as they ever have, McClusky promises something like Hammer Vs The Snake, but ultimately they just crank looking barely a day older than he did 20 years ago and still dancing like a out bargain basement hardcore laced with lame jokes. It’s a little like pre-Def Jam squirrel that’s just been hit by a truck. Beastie Boys, except that it’s unspeakably, unmitigatedly awful. Behind the band run huge images of warships and missiles, the band’s political Watching The Keyboard Choir is something like auditing some bloated Civil edge seemingly as relevant today as when they were headlining CND rallies in Service Administration. Whilst there’s probably at least two members and four the 80s. ‘Enola Gay’, the greatest, most danceable song about nuclear machines more than is strictly necessary, the Choir are a great live experience, annihilation ever, is still a joy. ‘Architecture & Morality’ was a perfect pop especially the flailing mixer-conductor. A lag in the middle notwithstanding, this is album, packed with some of the greatest hits ever to grace the charts, but it an enjoyable set, though oddly for such an unwieldy band the best moments are was still only OMD’s third best outing, and those singles aired tonight from their eponymous debut and the peerless ‘Organisation’ still sound imperiously the simplest: the euphoric techno of the closing minutes, or the Tangerine Dream futuristic. Even later tracks, like the cheesy, brassy ‘Forever Live & Die’ and pomp of the opener. ‘Locomotion’ show the magic was there until the very end. Only a couple of Some acts tickle the intellect and some go straight for the groin, but there is songs, from the later days of McClusky’s solo project, fail to pass the test of music that punches directly to the gut. The implausibly named Fuck Buttons are a time or taste. fantastic example of the latter, glorious to experience but hard to put across in ‘Messages’ shimmers like the pop equivalent of a 40-storey mirror glass words. They play keyboard drones stupidly loud, embellished with occasional skyscraper reflecting the setting sun, but it’s set closer ‘Electricity’, the band’s loops and heavily-treated vocals. It’s a tiny bit like a 90s Front 242 album with a first ever single, that steals the show, synths buzzing like the death of alien chimp at the mixing desk, but mostly it’s just simple, thrilling noise. We think it’s civilisations as Andy McClusky reflects on mankind’s enslavement to power majestic, but if you don’t like the sound of it you won’t like the…sound of it. It stations and possible salvation in the form of alternative energy. Written 28 being nothing but engulfing, delicious, visceral sound. Got that? Right, we’re off years ago, it shows how far ahead of the game OMD always were on so many to dance about architecture. levels. Quite simply, superb. David Murphy Dale Kattack

Corner Cowley / Marsh Road August

Every Tuesday – Shush Open Mic – Come

Wed 1st Shirley Wednesday presents Shirley / goodMOURNING / Keysman Rob 8.30pm £3 Thu 2nd Grinning Spider presents Blitz Cartel / Beaver Fuel / Nova Kicks 8.30pm £4 Fri 3rd Addis’ababa presents DJ Reggae Night - old & new reggae / calypso / soca 8.30pm £3 Sat 4th Exposure Presents. Act TBC 8.30pm £4 Sun 5th Electric Jam - Come jam with The X Men. All welcome. 8pm FREE Mon 6th NEW FOR AUGUST Quiz night every Monday including music round. £1 in 8.30pm Thu 9th Zaturgus 8.30pm £3 Fri 10th Gammy Leg presents Barnabas / Catnap / Phyal. 8.30pm £4 Sat 11th Wittstock Presents. Acts TBC Fri 17th Grinning Spider presents Beelzebozo / Eduard Soundingblock / Courtesy Kill / Ally Craig 8.30pm £4 Sat 18th The Taste / support 8.30pm £4.00 Sun 19th Electric Jam Wed 22nd Jazz At The X presents A Jazz Jam with the house band, lead by Paul Jefferies. 8.30pm FREE Fri 23rd Sam Kelly’s Blues Band. 8.30pm £5 Sat 25th The X At The Bully. PRS fundraiser at The Bully with The Swamies / Kaned Citizen / Jeremy Hughes / Al De Boss / more TBC. Plus Addis’ababa DJ Reggae Night – old and new reggae / calypso / soca. Live music starts at 9pm. Reggae Till 3am. Tickets £5 on door £4 online at www.theX.co.uk Thu 30th SelectaSound Presents. Acts TBC 8.30pm Fri 31st Glitterskin / support 8.30pm £4 gig guide

WEDNESDAY 1st kicking it out in the style of Led Zep, Stevie Ray SHIRLEY + GOOD MOURNING + KEYSMAN Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. ROB: The X, Cowley – Sunshine harmonies and AUGUST TUESDAY 7th feel-good 60s-styled pop from Shirley at their CAPE OF GOOD HOPE: The Port Mahon – monthly club night. Support comes from Bicester’s Potential for huge confusion tonight as a band Glassjaw-inspired rockers Good Mourning. Beaver Fuel and melodic indie pop types Nova with the same name as a pub just around the THE DRESDENS + SICERIOS: The Port Kicks. corner from tonight’s venue play, threatening a Mahon – Molten hardcore, grunge and metal from JONQUIL + THE GREAT ESKIMO HOAX + paradox to rival the Toclafane’s invasion of Winnebago Deal-meets-Gunnbunny supergroup MEPHISTO GRANDE: The Cellar – Top-notch Earth. Er, sorry, where were we? Oh yes, Vacuous The Dresdens. experimental pop from Jonquil, plus Birmingham Pop night with Bromsgrove’s angular, jarring SKYNY NYRDS: The Wheatsheaf – Oxford’s soundscapists TGEH and local warped blues-core post-hardcore types Cape Of Good Hope. The rift very own Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. monsters Mephisto Grande. in time and space is opening even as you read OPEN MIC SESSION: Folly Bridge Inn OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon this. rd OPEN MIC SESSION: Temple Bar FRIDAY 3 JAZZ CLUB with THE HOWARD PEACOCK THURSDAY 2nd ADDISABABA REGGAE NIGHT: The X, QUINTET: The Bullingdon BLITZ CARTEL + BEAVER FUEL + NOVA Cowley – DJs playing old and new reggae, calypso SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, KICKS: The X, Cowley – Indie punk noise from and soca. Cowley Blitz Cartel with support from fuzzy lo-fi rocker ON FIRE + SCENE SCREAMERS: The Port WEDNESDAY 8th Mahon THE PINEY GIR COUNTRY ROADSHOW: THE LONG INSIDERS + JUMP PILOTS + THE th th The Jericho Tavern – Upbeat, down-home Thursday 9 – Saturday 11 WISH: The Jericho Tavern – Shimmering, country of the old school from Truck’s favourite FAIRPORT’S atmospheric music for spy films in the style of stable hand in the vein of June Carter-Cash and John Barry, Johnny Cash and Chris Isaacs from Dolly Parton. CROPREDY The Long Insiders. OXFORD IMPROVISERS: The Port Mahon BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon – OPEN MIC SESSION: Folly Bridge Inn Weekly club night playing classic funk, soul and OPEN MIC SESSION: Temple Bar CONVENTION disco. th This year is Cropredy Festival’s 40th DUGOUT: The Cellar – Soul, rare groove and THURSDAY 9 anniversary, making it by some distance funk club night. CROPREDY FESTIVAL: Cropredy – Opening night of Fairport’s annual shindig with headliners Oxfordshire’s longest-running festival. And in UPSTREAM PROVIDERS + TOOL & THE Jools Holland and his R&B Orchestra, plus Seth many ways Fairport Convention’s annual GANG: The Wheatsheaf th Lakeman, Wishbone Ash and Kerfuffle – see gathering has stayed stuck in those late-60s SATURDAY 4 main preview halcyon days. Fairport themselves keep on A SILENT FILM + RICHARD WALTERS: ZATURGUS: The X, Cowley going and, as is traditional, will headline the Ultimate Picture Palace – Last month’s FLIES ARE SPIES FROM HELL + Saturday night with a three-hour set featuring Nightshift cover stars launch their debut EP in the TWENTYSIXFEET + PYE: The Cellar – all their greatest hits, a host of friends and unusual, but appropriately cinematic setting of the Leftfield and post-rock triple bill. guest turns and a rousing singalong of ‘Meet UPP. Now very much Oxford’s brightest unsigned DEADBEAT CAVALIER + COPROLITE: The On The Ledge’ at the end. The 1969 line-up hopes, ASF’s intricate, often epic rock is perfectly Port Mahon – Local Rancid and Alkaline Trio- (or at least the surviving members) of Fairport suited to such an environment. Sublime, intimate influenced punks. will also be performing, reprising the band’s heartbreak pop from Richard Walters in support. BEELZEBOZO + FOURTH CHAMBER + In fact, a pretty peerless local double bill. Be there. landmark ‘Liege & Leaf’ album, which is also SAVAGE HENRY: The Hobgoblin, Bicester – LIDDINGTON + ALLY CRAIG + BLACK 40 years old this summer, in full on the Friday Heavyweight noise from Beelzebozo at the Hob’s SOUL: The X, Cowley – Xposure club night with night. Of course Richard Thompson will be monthly rock night. shoegazy rockers Liddington, plus ace songsmith ROCKIT: The Wheatsheaf – New club night involved in that, and he also headlines the Ally Craig. Friday night in his own right. Elsewhere Jools with live bands and DJs. SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – Funky house club OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Holland brings his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra night. th along for Thursday night’s session, where he’ll QUICKFIX JAM SESSION: The Port Mahon FRIDAY 10 be supported by the current golden boy of MELTING POT with NINE-STONE COWBOY CROPREDY FESTIVAL: Cropredy – First full English folk, Seth Lakeman, as well as classic + ULYSSES + THE RAVINES + CABARET RAT: day of the folk festival, with The Richard rockers Wishbone Ash. Show Of Hands, Last The Jericho Tavern – Pop melodrama, odes to Thompson Band, Fairport 1969, Show of Hands Orders, Bob Fox & Billy Mitchell and The drink and life seen through a glass darkly from and more – see main preview GAMMY LEG PRODUCTIONS with PHYAL Strawbs are amongst the other big names in Mark Cope’s Nine-Stone Cowboy at tonight’s + CATNAP + BARNABAS: The X, Cowley – folk and blues filling out the traditionally- Melting Pot. Support from Bath’s 70s-styled Punk-metal noise from headliners Phyal at minded bill, but, as ever with Cropredy, it’s the power rockers Ulysses, indie rockers The Ravines and dark bedroom punk act Cabaret Rat. tonight’s GLP club, with support from Brighton’s general ambience of the event: laid-back, grinding, atonal art-rockers Catnap, in the vein of relatively clean and with a good emphasis on KATE CHADWICK + RAMI + JIM DRISCOLL & OLIVER SHAW: King’s Head & Bell, The Fall and Sonic Youth, plus looped decent food and beer, that’s as much part of Abingdon – Skittle Alley live music night with guitars’n’cello trickery from Barnabas. the experience as the music. It’s not ready for local acoustic singer-songwiter Kate Chadwick, plus DEDLOK: The Bullingdon – Full-on thrash and its dotage just yet. bluesman Rami. grinding from the local metallers. THE WOOKIES + THE WARM: Temple Bar REDOX + THE PETE FRYER BAND + FILM th NOIR: The Magdalen – Monthly residency for SUNDAY 5 the festival funk and swamp rock crazies and their ELECTRIC JAM: The X, Cowley – Open session chums. with in-house band The X Men. BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Live jazz dance. MEDEA + NOT MY DAY + DEVICE: The Port JONNY RACE + SHORTWAVE FADE + Mahon – Kent heavyweights Medea visit town on WAITING FOR SIRENS: The Jericho Tavern tour, with local indie rockers Not My Day. – Melancholic acoustic folk-pop and wistful sea th MONDAY 6 shanties from Jonny Race, plus epic indie rock LITTLE JENNY & THE BLUE BEANS: The from Shortwave Fade in support. Bullingdon – Swedish all-female blues rockers, BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon TRASHEDELICA: The Bullingdon – Trashy THE TASTE: The X, Cowley pop, new indie and rock’n’roll from the Trashy WITTSTOCK FESTIVAL: The Ferryman Inn, crew. Bablock Hythe REDOX + THE PETE FRYER BAND: The CAVE MUSIC: The Wheatsheaf Cavalier, Marston SKETCHBEAT + JO SHAW TAYLOR: The SCYTHE: The Wheatsheaf – New alternative Jericho Tavern and goth DJ night. SATURDAY SANCTUARY: Temple Bar (3- RICHARD & JAMIE: Temple Bar 11pm) – All-day live music with White Sunday, SUNDAY 12th When The Lights Go Out, Lee Davies and more. th COLLISIONS & CONSEQUENCES + SUNDAY 19 COLINS OF PARADISE + STARS: The Purple WITTSTOCK FESTIVAL: The Ferryman Inn, Turtle – Emotive indie rocking from Collisions Bablock Hythe – Final day of the charity free and Consequences with jazz, funk and pop from festival Colins Of Paradise. ELECTRIC JAM: The X, Cowley TWAT DADDIES: The Port Mahon TINY CITIES: The Port Mahon MONDAY 13th MONDAY 20th FUNKY DORY: The Bullingdon – Swift return LIGHTNING WILLIE & THE POOR BOYS: to town for rising UK blues, funk and jazz rockers The Bullingdon – Return of the Texas-born, Funky Dory Pasadena-resident electric blues-rock guitarist, a big GUNNBUNNY + SUPERNECK: The Port favourite on the UK blues circuit and a regular Mahon – Raw, ferocious grunge-core from visitor to the famous Monday Night Blues Club at Gunnbunny. the Bully. Rocking blues, swing and rock’n’roll that TUESDAY 14th mixes up Otis Rush, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eddie JAZZ CLUB with THE HOWARD PEACOCK Cochran. QUINTET: The Bullingdon ATTIKA ESTATE + THE DON RAMOS + ROSE MELBERG + ROBIN ALLENDER + HELLO SUMMER + THEO: The Port Mahon – GREGORY WEBSTER: The Port Mahon – Touring punk double bill from Attika Estate and th Saturday 18 Sweet, dreamy, childlike acoustic pop from Don Ramos, with local experimental noisemakers Vancouver’s Rose Melberg, former frontwoman of Theo opening the show. st DEAD MEADOW / Tiger Trap and The Softies, plus autumnal folk- TUESDAY 21 pop from Bristol’s Robin Allender and former- JAZZ CLUB with ALVIN ROY & REEDS YOUTHMOVIES: Razorcuts frontman Greg Webster at tonight’s UNLIMITED: The Bullingdon Swiss Concrete club. SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, Cowley The Cellar SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The X, Cowley WEDNESDAY 22nd A splendid antidote to the summer sunshine INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth and industrial JAZZ JAM: The X, Cowley – Paul Jeffries leads tonight as Vacuous Pop bring Washington club night. the in-house band. th DC’s Dead Meadow to the suitably dark WEDNESDAY 15 AGRIPON: The Port Mahon – High-velocity subterranean confines of the Cellar. Although OPEN MIC SESSION: Folly Bridge Inn hardcore and experimentalism. now relocated to Los Angeles, Dead Meadow OPEN MIC SESSION: Temple Bar OPEN MIC SESSION: Folly Bridge Inn formed and made their name in Washington, THURSDAY 16th OPEN MIC SESSION: Temple Bar rd with some early help from Fugazi, but their WINTERMUTE + SECONDSMILE + THIS THURSDAY 23 sound is a world away from the tight, angled TOWN NEEDS GUNS: The Cellar – Big Scary SAM KELLY’S BLUES BAND: The X, Cowley attack of DC hardcore. Instead they lose Monster Records night with Leeds’ rising starlets – Live blues from the award-winning drummer and themselves in a sludgy, stoner grind, travelling Wintermute taking inspiration from Smashing band. through 60s garage psychedelia, 70s hard rock Pumpkins, Placebo and Interpol, while dark- HREDA + THE TUPOLEV GHOST + LITTLE and 80s narcotic drone-rock, lyrically inspired minded goth-grungers Secondsmile provide COSMONAUT: The Cellar – Jerky post-punk by Tolkien and HP Lovecraft, they’ll support. Local BSM signings TTNG open the and math-rocking from rising local starlets Hreda probably cause a solar eclipse even in the show. at tonight’s Big Hair club night. Cambridge’s post- middle of August. Sludgy, repetitive riffs hide ROCKIT: The Wheatsheaf hardcore scrappers The Tupolev Ghost support. finely detailed subtleties and often seriously EZEKIEL + BUTLER: The Port Mahon THE JONES RADIO: The Port Mahon – Dark- sweet melodies. Still, live at least, they prefer OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon hearted indie rocking from Reading’s Jones Radio. th to lose themselves in a fog of smoke and FRIDAY 17 ROCKIT: The Wheatsheaf WITTSTOCK FESTIVAL: The Ferryman Inn, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon extended riffathons, the musical heading th simultaneously spaceward and into some dark Bablock Hythe – First day of the charity free FRIDAY 24 void. A band to lose yourself completely in. music festival – see main preview GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with SPOKANE And if all that ain’t enough, mighty, many- BEELZEBOZO + EDUARD + THE CARTER MANOEUVRE + MR angled propulsive math-rockers Youthmovies SOUNDINGBLOCK + COURTESY KILL + SHAODOW: The Wheatsheaf – Another are supporting. Double yes! ALLY CRAIG: The X, Cowley – Super- pleasingly mixed bill at tonight’s GTI with Spokane heavyweight metal from Beelzebozo, plus esoteric switching from melancholic, literate, whisky- noise from Suitable Case refugees Eduard soaked laments to sharp country rocking at that SATURDAY 11th Soundingblock. place where Johnny Cash meets Bruce Springsteen. CROPREDY FESTIVAL: Cropredy – Fairport RUBBER DUCK + THE RESPONSE Leamington’s wired post-rockers The Carter Convention and their many, many friends play COLLECTIVE + BARE KNUCKLES: The Manoeuvre support with an always unmissable their traditional closing set, with support from Jericho Tavern – Funk, reggae and rock fusion opening set from local rapper Mr Shaodow. Bob Fox and Billy Mitchell, The Strawbs and from Rubberduck. MY OWN CONSPIRACY: The Port Mahon more – see main preview BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon GARDEN PARTY + THE VELVET HEARTS + DIRTY BOYS ALLDAYER: The Port Mahon – FRESH OUT OF THE BOX: The Cellar – MOME RATHS + ROB LEVER: The Jericho Live music through the afternoon and evening House and techno club night. Tavern th with sets from Meet Me In St Louis, Look See SATURDAY 18 COLLISIONS AND CONSEQENCES: The Proof, Envy & Other Sins, Stornoway, 303 Did DEAD MEADOW + YOUTHMOVIES: The Wheatsheaf This To Me, Mewgatz, The Youngs Plan and The Cellar – Psychedelic stoner grooving from BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon th Blitz Cartel. Washington DC’s finest – see main preview SATURDAY 25 COO COO CLUB with THE HALF RABBITS SPACE HEROES OF THE PEOPLE + THE SWAMIS + KANED CITIZEN + JEREMY + WITCHES + BRICKWORK LIZARDS: The COMPUTE + LIECHTENSTEIN + ALICE: The HUGHES + AL DE BOSS + ADDISABABA Jericho Tavern – Goth-tinged noise-pop crew Port Mahon – Glitchy electro-pop and DJs: The Bullingdon – Benefit gig for the X’s Half Rabbits launch their new EP with support krautrocking grooves from SHOTP at tonight’s PRS fund, still needing to raise money to help keep from this month’s cover stars Witches (see main Swiss Concrete session. Scandinavian support from live music going. A cast of X regulars provide the interview feature) and eclectic world music Sweden’s synth-poppers Compute and twee indie live sounds while Addisababa play a selection of collective Brickwork Lizards. types Liechtenstein. reggae, calypso and soca sounds. atmospheric, experimental sounds from the Pindrop crew. Tonight’s show is in THE GOLDEN WOK conjunction with Fourier Transform Records with For Barry Ray producing touching, delicate soundsapes, along Finest Chinese Cuisine Take-Away with sound manipulators Traw, creating 170 Cowley Road real-time sampling and processing and tonight teaming up with Oxford (Opposite Tesco) Improviser Dominic Lash. Local duo Divine Coils create eerie dissonance and 01865 248158 drones while Beautiful Screaming Lady th th does little to up the hum-along tunes Home Delivery Available Friday 17 – Sunday 19 count with a set of abstract and random noise. WITTSTOCK: POWERCUT: The Jericho Tavern – Open 7 days a week Solar-powered live music at the carbon- The Ferryman Inn, neutral club. Bablock Hythe MONDAY 27th LEE DAVIES + CHRIS Another one of those great mini-festivals that THOMPSON: The Port Mahon – abound across Oxfordshire during the warmer Acoustic pop night. months. Wittstock is also free and for charity th (they’ve been running fundraisers at local TUESDAY 28 venues and punters are asked for donations) JAZZ CLUB with THE HOWARD and features a good selection of local bands PEACOCK QUINTET: The Bullingdon over three days at the Ferryman Inn in SHUSH OPEN MIC SESSION: The Bablock Hythe, near Witney, which, in its X, Cowley past, has hosted The Kinks and Robert Plant th as well as some of the early raves. Among WEDNESDAY 29 those taking to the stage across the weekend SO SO MODERN: The Cellar – are Oxfordshire’s premier proper punk rockers High-tension electro-rocking from Wellington, New Zealand’s So So Headcount (pictured), coming on like a Modern at tonight’s Vacuous Pop show, melodically metal cross between Therapy?, mixing up post-punk, synth-pop and Killing Joke and Adam & The Ants; sweetly math-rock into a dynamic riot of fun. gothic folk-pop people Godwits; doomy PEACEMAKERS: The Port Mahon metallers Beelzebozo; brothers in musical OPEN MIC SESSION: Folly Bridge mischief Twizz Twangle and Mark Bosley; Inn electro-jazz rockers Colins Of Paradise; ska- OPEN MIC SESSION: Temple Bar punk party animals The Drug Squad; 60s- THURSDAY 30th inspired rockers Black Hats; ambient electro DJ DEREK + THE FRUSTRATIONS + experimenters Sleeps In Oysters; hardcore HORIZONTAL LIFE: The Cellar – ragers Thirty Two; Arab vocal-fronted Classic ska, reggae and soul from dubsters Raggasaurus and Blues Brothers tribute Bristol’s legendary DJ Derek. band Green Onions. Plenty more besides. The SELECTASOUND PRESENTS: The riverside location is perfect for a summer X, Cowley weekend and come Sunday, even if you’ve DUBWISER: The Port Mahon – consumed your own bodyweight in ale, you Local roots reggae favourites. won’t be waist-deep in discarded food ROCKIT: The Wheatsheaf containers like at Reading. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon FRIDAY 31st ONLINEFLYERS.CO.UK BABY GRAVY + SPACE HEROES OF THE WINCHELL RIOTS + GRUDLE THE PEOPLE: The Cellar – Wobbly- BAY RIOTS: The Wheatsheaf – Return Flyers, Leaflets & Posters headed pop genius from electro-dub-punk- of Fell City Girl frontman Phil McMinn and prog-jazz-popstrels Baby Gravy, with support drummer Shrek with their glacial new band High quality litho printing from kraut-grooving electronic trio Space The Winchell Riots at tonight’s Heroes. Oxfordbands.com gig. Support comes from delivered in the mainland UK COO COO CLUB with THE MARIA fellow riot-inspired types GBR, playing Four within 4 working days. ILETT BAND + JOE ALLEN & Tet-inspired live electronica. ANGHARAD JENKINS: The Jericho GLITTERSKIN: The X, Cowley – Indie Tavern – Sweet-natured trip-pop, electro- rock. Find us at: www.onlineflyers.co.uk folk and jazz-tinged pop from local BUNKFEST: Various Venues, songstress Maria Ilett at tonight’s Coo Coo Wallingford – First day of the annual folk Or call us: 01844 218 531 Club. Jeff Buckley-inspired acoustic pop from and blues festival, taking in various venues singer/guitarist Joe Allen and violinist across the town and featuring live sets plus Angharad Jenkins. ceilidhs, music workshops and dances. BEN CLEMPSON: Temple Bar THE FRUSTRATIONS + THE th SUNDAY 26 COURTESY KILL + THE PINDROP PERFORMANCE with FOR MARMADUKES: The Jericho Tavern – BARRY RAY + TRAW & DOMINIC Local bands night. LASH + DIVINE COILS + BEAUTIFUL BACKROOM BOOGIE: The SCREAMING LADY: The Port Mahon Bullingdon (5pm) – Another early evening session of HQ: The Cellar – Drum&bass club night.

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nausea creeps up on you as the music DEMO OF ceaselessly goes about its business; perhaps he’s discovered the infamous THE MONTH brown note. Rather spendidly the second track here, ‘Thunderblast’, is even more abrasive and oppressive, if a little random, ALLY CRAIG like a slowed-down Wolf Eyes. Welcome Ally, bless him, politely hopes we like his back to Hell’s own studios David – nice demo and don’t call him “a useless fucking just didn’t suit you. arsehole”, as if that were ever a possibility. He then proceeds to open the CD with a minute-long piece of barely-coherent FLOODED rambling and strumming called `Work In Progress’, as if he’s deliberately inviting HALLWAYS critical abuse and alienating any potential Oxford-based hip hop has long since ceased fans. Luckily for him we’ve got more to be a novelty of course, and with the patience than most of the modern day likes of Zuby and Mr Shaodow around the idiocracy’s ringtone-obsessed numbskulls bench has been set pretty high for local and thus make it through to `A Train Then rappers but Flooded Hallways have some A Train Then A Train’, which showcases pedigree themselves and namechecking Ally’s idiosyncratic charms more fully, his Jericho and Gypsy Lane within the first emotionally-taut, quavering croak infusing line immediately earns them bonus points. even the most urgently haphazard of The two lead tracks here, ‘Unatuned’ and musical passages with character. It’s not ‘Shape Shift’, show off the band’s just Ally’s voice that reminds us of Robert strengths: distinctly English raps about Wyatt; his tendency towards the nights out, drinking and fat kids. You can deliberately obtuse and the feeling that he almost smell the rain-soaked pavements on neither knows nor particularly cares where the former, a nocturnal march with a trippy songs are going or at what pace, and the edge, while the latter ups their game, based feeling that the whole demo could well have around an old electric piano melody that’s been written and recorded in under half an driving us mad trying to place it (late-70s / hour, echoes Wyatt’s fan-baiting style at early-80s we’re guessing). The rapping is times. The most stark example of this is assured if lacking in variety, but with a `Angular Spirals’, wherein Ally’s voice drop in pace and tone on ‘Ode To No One’ becomes a weirdly operatic falsetto and an and ‘Therapy’ they lose their edge, uncertainly-plucked acoustic guitar steals plodding along kebab shop-lined streets in the riff from `Are Friends Electric?’ before search of mates and a pub that will actually chugging off to join T-Rex. Well, tough titty serve them with a self-defeating shrug. Ally, we’re on to your little game and it won’t work – we’re gonna damn well enjoy PETER JONES your music Earnest, occasionally overwrought acoustic folk of the old school here from Peter Jones, who sounds for much of the time ONE MAN METAL like he’d fit very neatly on the bill at Cropredy, perhaps in between Richard MACHINE Thompson and Bob Fox. Things don’t Back with a new band name and a new CD start too promisingly, with ‘The Bare after the recent panning his last album got Bones’ finding Peter emitting a pained in these very pages, David K Frampton moan in place of singing properly and seems to have got over the sickly softness falling into that old trap of strumming his he was afflicted with in the wake of having guitar harder the more anguished he a new baby and the sleepless nights are becomes, but he comes more into his own kicking in. Here are two tracks of on ‘A Day At A Time’, playing it cooler crunching, gurgling, atonal electronic noise and not letting his emotions get the better that sound like the production line at a of a standard but not unpleasant campfire sinister near-future factory, endlessly strum. He introduces some piano onto churning out their evil produce – probably ‘Open Plan’ and seems to suit the poppier Soylent Green or Cyberdyne Systems terrain, although it never strays too far attack robots. Alternatively maybe David from the middle of the road. Peter’s biggest was just so pissed off about his last review problem really, though, is a lack of brevity, he simply pushed the button marked each track clocking in over the five-minute ‘Nasty’ on his synthesizer and left it to do mark, which can become laborious at this its worst. A strangely unsettling feeling of pedestrian pace. album. And this next one, Delia, is called DUNMORE GUNS ‘CD Being Kicked Across Office Into Bin’. More rootsy acoustic stuff which belies the band’s feisty name by ticking every possible sub-Dylan wannabe box as it MOME RATHS strums lazily and mournfully along, fronted Dear God, the battle for that coveted Demo by a horribly soulless, characterless and Dumper spot really is hotting up, and here emotionless croak of a voice that at its best are Mome Raths to put up some serious sounds like the final grumblings of an resistance to all-comers. Kicking off, not expiring 60-a-day addict. Someone blows unappealingly, with the shambolic ‘Crazy tunelessly and remorselessly into a mouth Janey’, a completely flat female voice organ with all the elan of a giddy toddler attempts to dance over a jaunty, childlike and it’s almost a blessed relief from such piano melody that plinks and plonks in a unstinting tedium. ‘Circles’ is like being lo-fi nursery rhyme fashion, the whole soaked to the skin by a sudden torrential thing lurching, albeit in a good-natured, tip- downpour of unrefined drudgery, while the toeing way, all over the place, like the deluded sense of bon homie on ‘Just For’ is loony subject of the song. And it really is THE COURTYARD STUDIO seemingly the only thing stopping the all downhill from there. Incompetence gives PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/ whole sorry affair from collapsing in a way to sheer bloody-minded crapness as 24, OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE blubbering heap of pleading and self pity as rudimentary Casio noises are banged out MACHINE, 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB its long-suffering wife contemptuously and a lonesome snare drum is beaten with CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION steps over its trembling lump of a body on no sense of rhythm. Come on, this isn’t OF MICS & OUTBOARD GEAR, + MIDI her way to finding a better life. even music, it’s just silly people making FACILITIES (INC LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI stupid noises and not in some punk rock S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND ETC.) kind of art statement way either, just utter LIDDINGTON bollocks. Not quite bad enough for this Residential facilities included. Second demo in recent months from jangle/ month’s Demo Dumper then, but worthy www.courtyardrecordingstudio.com trudge-pop miseries Liddington, a band of an award for most depressingly PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS named after the view of the hillside from pointless demo of all time. ON 01235 845800 their bedroom window but who seem more reminscent of overgrown backyards populated by overflowing dustbins. THE DEMO Initially there’s some charm to their dreamy, shoegazing fuzz, somewhere DUMPER between Ride and The Wedding Present and compared to much of what purports to be music in this month’s demo pile, it’s not KHAMELEON so bad, but Liddington do suffer rather Chameleons, as we all well know, are clever from being relentlessly glum without ever little blighters, able to change colour to being romantically so. ‘Incredible’ has a blend in with their surroundings. pretty enough melody and there’s a feeling Khameleon here might just about blend in that deep down they might even have some with the fake wood panelling of whichever promise somewhere down the line, but as benighted pub they’re playing on any things get increasingly mawkish and particular night but more likely they’d be morbid, without even that spark of melodic shouting “We’re over here!” to all and sweetness to sugar the pill, you start to sundry in their special ham-fisted way. wonder about the point of life itself. This is constipated pub-bound rock that takes itself so seriously you want to spend the duration of the interminably-laboured NB demo lighting your own farts or sitting on a Not entirely sure what to make of this, a whoopee cushion just to try and restore four-track, two-minute demo from Nick B, some kind of natural balance to the world. formerly of local rocker Centre Negative If Khameleon made a video to opening and who sometimes goes under the names trudgefest `Shallow Blue’ it would of Gentleman Distortionist and Mounted doubtless be set on a windswept Insanity Cannon. This here is, apparently, mountainside and the band would sit a taster for a 100-track album of extreme a around afterwards watching the playback capella music, which involves a variety of while going, “Woo, yeah, dude!” to each vocal rhythms and noises, all executed other. For about sixteen hours. Honestly, through a collection of microphones and making your way through to the end is like effects. Which sounds ace in concept and trying to climb said windswept mountain probably sounds ace when layered over the with two broken legs while dragging a sack top of tripped-out Czech animations at 3 of dead huskies behind you. Y’know, fun! in the morning after a night injesting the Further in they try on a bit of blues, some finest local mushrooms, but standing alone funk and even a spot of Calypso, but in isolation this mix of hissing, bubbling, mostly what you remember is the scraping and screaming noises resemblances interminable shouting and the feeling that nothing so much as outakes from an old precious minutes of your life are being BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects stolen from you.

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