[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 291 October ’s Music Magazine 2019 “The idea that however much society progresses, we haven’t really become morally better people was a fun thing to use for ideas. We tried not to make it a good or bad thing; music that has a moral standpoint is rarely effective”

YOUNGYOUNG KNIVESKNIVES Oxford’s musical strange ones bring the barbarity to Ritual Union Also in this issue: SUPERGRASS reform! CATWEAZLE hits 25 Introducing MAX BLANSJAAR IF NOT NOW, WHEN? reviewed plus All your Oxford music news, previews and reviews, plus seven pages of local gigs for October. NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk

to Buckinghamshire from 2020 due to uncertainty over the future of its current home at Thame Showground. The festival, best SUPERGRASS HAVE REFORMED. th known as a folk event but which The local legends announced their reunion on the 6 September when has regularly expanded its remit they played at Glastonbury’s annual Pilton Party. Rumours of a reunion to include blues, rock and had been circulating since the start of this year as the band worked acts – including The Selecter, one to prepare a career-spanning box set, ‘Strange Ones 1994-2008’, due th of this year’s headline acts – will for release on the 24 January next year, but official confirmation move to the Claydon Estate, near came when Gaz Coombes tweeted: “Hi everyone, as you may have Buckingham, with next year’s line- heard I’m taking a break between to join my @SupergrassHQ up already announced, including brothers on stage again for the first time in 10 years! It’s going to be a Kate Rusby, Show of Hands and pretty special feeling playing all those songs again after so long. See AGS CONNOLLY releases his you all out there! X” The hashtag Supergrass 2020 hinted at further third studio next month. The Steeleye Span, playing over the weekend of the 28th-31st August. activity to come and a sold-out show at Oslo in Hackney on September West Oxfordshire-based country th Explaining the move Towersey’s 9 duly followed, while a string of dates for February next year was roots singer releases ‘Wrong soon announced, starting in Paris on the 4th. Another set of UK shows st director Joe Heap said: “the Again’ on the 1 November, the was then added as the first dates quickly sold out. follow-up to 2017’s ‘Nothin’ instability of the current site has always been a problem. The long- No Oxford show has yet been announced, prompting speculation the Unexpected’. band might play a secret hometown warm-up gig ahead of February’s Ags launches the new record with term future of Thame Showground is uncertain but one day there tour, or possibly return to the county wth a headline set at next year’s a headline show at Fat Lil’s in Truck Festival. st will no doubt be houses here and Witney on Thursday 31 October, Talking to NME about the reunion, Gaz said: “We’ve been talking we need both a great site and with support from Roisin McNeill. about it for a while. I remember talking to Danny about on the phone longevity. We have been searching Talking about the new record Ags maybe a year ago. We knew that 2020 was coming up and that would for somewhere amazing since told Nightshift: “The album was make it 25 years since the beginning and 10 years since the split. we left Towersey itself, a place written entirely after ‘Nothin’ Everything aligned in a way to make it possible. The idea of getting that would capture our hearts and Unexpected’ was released and in a room and having a play together again was something we all make a stunning location for your focuses pretty much solely on instinctively agreed would be a cool thing to do. Just to play those festival.” incidents in my life at that time, as songs again and get in a room. That was it, really – it was no more than Heap added: “We’ve realised how my albums tend to. After making that. We didn’t want to look far into the distance. We just wanted to important our community feel and the previous two in Scotland play and see what happens. It felt great.” friendly atmosphere is and that with a producer, I took the reins Reflecting on the “musical differences” that led to the band’s split in making things effortless for festival myself this time and recorded at 2010, Gaz continued: “We’re all close. It wasn’t an issue of anyone goers is the beauty of Towersey, Woodworm Studios near Bloxham. hating the sight of anyone else or full-on crazy arguments. The studio so we will be reducing numbers The musicians involved were session broke down for a lot of different reasons. Yeah, a lot of them slightly in order to maintain that. mostly -based but I was were arguments, but nothing that meant if we met up in a pub that We learned a lot when we had to also able to use – for the second we wouldn’t be able to talk about other stuff. We were working so leave the village of Towersey album in a row – Michael Guerra intensely together at the end that it just wasn’t really firing in the right And we don’t plan to reinvent the (The Mavericks) and Eamon way. In the following years we were still cool. It’s all good.” wheel with the new site. Here’s to McLoughlin (Emmylou Harris), Gaz also talked about the forthcoming box set, which is set to include who recorded their parts remotely. the next chapter.” previously unreleased material alongside their studio albums: “It’s I definitely felt the need to get Joe Heap took over running pretty definitive, man. We’ve worked on it a lot. It’s a really band- this one right: the last album had Towersey from his father Steve, driven piece as opposed to a retrospective record company release a universally positive reaction who retired this year, and his without the band’s knowledge. All of the rarities and uncovered and continued to gain traction for contribution to the festival was stuff has been found by us rooting through cardboard boxes in our some time after its release. My celebrated with a special at basements and finding mini discs and cassettes. It’s been cool to have hope is that this new effort will this year’s event. Also celebrated a few months to just explore all of that stuff. God knows how we got reach people that my music hasn’t this year was the life and music anything done because there’s insane amounts of nonsense on all of previously. I think it’s the most of Roy Bailey, a patron of the these tapes of us just making weird little songs and jokey things. The complete album I’ve made.” festival and who played some 40 box set is going to be pretty comprehensive, man – it’s got everything. Tickets for the launch show are of Towersey’s 54 years and who I’ve just seen it all laid out and it looks brilliant.” on sale now, priced £10, from passed away in 2018. wegottickets.com. KLUB KAKOFANNEY from Smiley & the Underclass, of free music in the Wheatsheaf’s TOWERSEY FESTIVAL is set celebrates its 28th anniversary Pandapopalypse and Screamin’ downstairs bar, featuring sets from to leave Oxfordshire after over 50 this month with a full weekend Irene. Saturday’s gig features Monkeyfists, Mark Atherton & years. of live music. The long-running The Deadbeat Apostles, The Friends, Tony Batey & Sal Moore The annual event, currently monthly music night takes over Mighty Redox, Knobblehead and Edwin & The Keepers. Happy Oxfordshire’s longest-running The Wheatsheaf from the 4th-6th and Enjoyable Listens, while birthday Sue, Phil, Ainan and crew, live music festival, is moving October. Friday night features sets Sunday’s session is an afternoon from everyone at Nightshift. OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL We are keeping tickets at our 2009 DEEP COVER release a new returns next month. The festival prices and advance ticketholders single this month. The local bass NEWS runs from the 15th November will get a chance to vote for a label and events collective release across various venues across the cover song to be played by one of ‘5 Scotch Bonnets’ by Cardiff- city. Local acts wanting to play the bands on the night.” Advance based rapper MC Magugu and should contact organiser Mark tickets for all Daisy Rodgers produced by Oxford’s ROMO, O’Brien via the Oxford City Music shows are available from featuring a Come Dine With Me- Festival Facebook page. wegottickets.com. inspired video, shot in Oxford.

DAISY RODGERS MUSIC MUZOAKADEMY host a AS EVER, don’t forget to tune celebrates ten years of the club series of events in October and into BBC Oxford Introducing with a series of gigs over the next November. The all-ages, all- every Saturday night between three months. The indie gig night abilities music project, based in 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated hosts shows at The Jericho Tavern, Witney, hosts an open day on local music show plays the best The Wheatsheaf and Port Mahon, Saturday 12th October, with visitors Oxford releases and demos as BEANIE TAPES launch three beginning with Ideal Marriage, 31 able to find out about the services well as featuring interviews and new releases for Cassette Store Hours and Juniper Nights at the and tuition they offer. The free sessions with local acts. The show day on Saturday 12th October. Jericho on Friday 25th October. event runs from 9.45am. is available to stream or download The local tape-only label, run by Acts set to play the other shows The academy then hosts five-day as a podcast at bbc.co.uk/oxford. Candy Says, releases ‘Continuous include The Black Hats, The August learning courses over October Play’, an album-length compilation List, Alphabet Backwards, Easter half-term holiday, running from OXFORD GIGBOT provides a of Oxford acts, as well as Max Island Statues, Pandapopalypse Monday 28th October-Friday 1st regular local gig listing update on Blansjaar’s second EP, ‘Fantasy and Arthur Sawbridge. DRM host November, allowing people to learn Twitter (@oxgigbot), bringing Living’, and ‘Rodeo Queen’ by Kevin told Nightshift: “2019 is our to play pretty much any instrument. you new gigs as soon as they go Oxford-California hip hop-pop 10th anniversary, so we are planning Courses cost £100 in advance. live. They also provide a free producer and singer EB. Both Max three gigs at three of our favourite Finally MusoAkademy hosts weekly listings email. Just contact (pictured) and EB will be playing venues across the city, bringing a daytime, all-ages Halloween- [email protected] to join. live at Truck Store for Cassette together some of the favourite bands themed gig at Fat Lil’s on Saturday Day, alongside other acts on have played for us over the last 2nd November, from 11am-4pm. Please email all news (and listings) compilation cassette. More info at ten years. It’ll be a real celebration For more details on all events, visit to [email protected] by beanietapes.club. of the Oxford new music scene. facebook.com/muzoakademy the 20th of each month.

Catweazle celebrates its 25th a while – so it was exciting that they’d gotten anniversary this month and the club’s founder together to make a band. On their first gig, I and host Matt Sage has been talking to remember Oli had a problem with his bass and Nightshift ahead of their big celebration event at asked if anyone in the audience happened to The Isis Farmhouse on the 12th October. have a power drill. Someone did. We all thought Matt began the club back in 1994, initially as it was part of the act which, I guess, it was.” an impromptu get-together in a pub backroom. Matt won’t be drawn on his personal A quarter of a century later it is a staple of the highlights of the last 25 years (“There are Oxford music scene, a starting point for myriad way too many. Pretty much every week”), local stars, and credited by The Times as one of preferring to look forward to the anniversary Oxford’s must-visit events. event which, in typical Catweazle fashion, will “I wasn’t even sure we’d be back the following be a whatever-comes-along affair, open to all- week,” says Matt, answering Nightshift’s comers. question as to whether he imagined the club still survived and thrive for so long when others have “We’ve got nothing planned; I never know who going 25 years after its first night. “We started come and gone? is going to turn up to perform on any particular out in what was then the snug at the Victoria “I think it meets a fundamental need in those week; it’s also a part of what keeps it interesting Arms in Jericho. Around 30 people showed up, who come for an intimate, safe gathering where for me. And this will be no different. I’ve long from word of mouth and a couple of posters we can marvel at one another’s creative ingenuity, encouraged people to leave their expectations I’d put up in and around the boater community inspire and be inspired, to listen, to share and to at the door – they generally only lead to where I then lived. We all had a wonderful, life- connect with our fellow humans. It’s a soft space disappointments – and allow themselves instead affirming night of songs and stories and poems, in an often very hard world. For performers, it to be amazed. At our 25th, I’m just looking and all agreed to come back and do it all again presents a rare opportunity to really be heard. We forward to meeting some friends, both old and next week. And that rolling agreement has been purposely don’t use a PA, just a hundred pairs new, and to see who’s got what on the night.” in effect ever since, although we have moved of eyes and ears, and that can actually be pretty And, having seen thousands of hopefuls come venue several times along the way.” intense if you’re on stage! Oh, we also have no and go over the years, what advice would As you might expect, Catweazle has endured stage. But this atmosphere – focus, intention, Matt have for anyone thinking of making their its fair share of challenges over the years, not open-hearted listening – really lends it itself to performing debut, and why would Catweazle be least with keeping a stable home. some frequent tingling of the vertebrae, and is the best place to make that debut? “The biggest challenges are always behind the also, no doubt, a strong part of its appeal.” “Talent is mostly just the sheer, bloody-minded scenes – with venues, mostly, and those charged Among the artists who have cut their teeth at will to wanna put the hours in. Nothing else can with running them not really understanding Catweazle early on, two of the best known are make you good at your craft. And to my mind, the ethos – or, to my mind, the culturally vital Foals’ Yannis Phillipakis, and Stornoway. The Catweazle Club is the most welcoming, importance of what we are trying to do. In all “I vividly remember both of those first sets, inclusive, supportive, intimate environment these years – that’s hundred of sessions, and and a great many others. Yannis was 15 and, pretty much anywhere, and you are pretty thousands of performers, I’ve only ever had to inexplicably, still in his school uniform. He read much guaranteed to have a positive, if not life- drag people off the stage twice. We are open to some of his poems and had such a powerful changing, experience.” pretty much anything and everything, I’d say, intensity about both himself and his work. He as long as it’s not overtly abusive. Expression came pretty regularly for about a year or so. As I Catweazle’s 25th anniversary event takes place comes in many forms: the more the merrier.” recall, of Stornoway were already at The Isis Farmhouse near Iffley Lock on So why has an open night – not even an very much part of the scene before they formed Saturday 12th October, and every Thursday at open mic night as the club doesn’t have one – the band – they’d been coming individually for East Oxford Community Centre A Quiet Word With think about new ideas, that can be really unhelpful. we liked. It’s nice to be at that stage now.” would have to be liked by no-one. There aren’t Some performers feed off having the same people many examples of that I wouldn’t have thought: a show up to their shows, and there are a few people The core concept of the new couple of our b-sides maybe.” we definitely know that come to lots of shows, but album is inspired by the philosopher John Gray’s ‘Society For Cutting up Men’ features the chorus on the whole I think we are always trying to push book Straw Dogs and the idea of human barbarism. line, “The scum of the earth will rise to the top”. ourselves and therefore it can divide fans and gives What started Henry down that path? Is that the perfect lyric for our current political us a bit of fan turnover. We quite like that because “I didn’t read it when it came out because it’s situation? Young Knives it feels like we are doing something right; I don’t a bit of a student staple; I didn’t like the hype. “Oh yeah. The song was written before Trump ahead of the interview bear this out: the spindly, like it when things seem to stand still: we’d rather It’s a great piece of writing and I have always got into power so it wasn’t a reaction to that disconcerting ‘Red Cherries’, which mixes , challenge and alienate than have a lovely time been interested in philosophy; I did it at college as such. It isn’t my opinion either, its Valerie and , and the dark, showing off to the same group of people, although and it’s always been there. The book makes the Solanas’. Still it works on that level if you want mantric ‘Society For Cutting Up Men’, as well as it also seems that a lot of our fans like us for point that however much our society progresses it to. I like it better interpreted as we want the a short video clip of the track ‘Sheep Tick’, whose that very reason so they do keep coming back. It technologically and scientifically and however SCUM, the filthy, angry, sexy, passionate, unsafe grotesque, disturbing visuals match the challenging doesn’t mean we go out of our way to piss people much our standard of living increases, we haven’t revolutionaries, to take over, not the bell-ends. music. ‘Metal Box’-era PiL, Throbbing Gristle, off, I just think people don’t need to support us like really become morally better people. I thought But it’s good to have more than one meaning.” Suicide and Devo are just some of the touchstones a football team, which is great because I dislike that was just kind of a fun thing to use for ideas. you might detect, while the sound remains that kind of culture very much. I’d rather people We tried not to make it a good or bad thing; music For anyone who hadn’t seen indisputably Young Knives. say ‘I like that one song/album/video, but the rest that has a moral standpoint is rarely effective, Young Knives for a while, or bumped into Henry is terrible’. It’s good for us to put aside concerns and I don’t really know what my opinion of it is at a local gig, his appearance at The Wheatsheaf “‘Sick Octave’ kept us busy for a about validation and popularity because on the anyway. The clash of the ideas is what makes the might have come as a bit of a shock; sporting while and we did an EP in 2015, but since then we whole it’s out of our control.” thing interesting. If we can’t stop humans trying to a voluminous beard and bandana as well as a have taken a purposeful step back,” explains Henry If The Wheatsheaf was for the hardcore fans, destroy each other, how do we come to terms with sequinned smock, such electro-weirdo biker chic of Young Knives’ absence; “we needed a break Young Knives’ set at Ritual Union will see them that? But the songs are about more specific things was a world away from the popular image of the from the routine. We have still just been making exposed to a far bigger and wider audience for the that are like little set pieces, or images.” band as tweedy, geeky indie oddballs. sounds together, but making sure we don’t force the first time in years; how does “Biker-chic? Great, is that the results, letting ideas lose their identity and just sort Henry feel about that? new look? Yes I guess it is, of living in the noise we make. It’s been a useful “Shows are great fun and I “I don’t think art is ever nihilistic because it is creating I can’t really see it from the few years where we’ve just let new ideas happen really like being part of a big outside and I don’t remember with no rush. Beyond music is what it’s been about event like that; it’s great to something, something with value and meaning.” much of it but on the whole really, letting other stuff take over, being normal have a big show without all the it’s been a pretty fun time. It for a bit.” pressure of carrying the whole thing. Our focus is Young Knives started exploring doesn’t feel like a journey though, I can’t really feel One very noticeable change in the Young Knives always on making sure we turn it up and mix up those ideas for the new record with their ‘Barbaric much of a difference from when I did it in the past, we saw at The Wheatsheaf show was the lack of what we do, whatever size the show. We are very Experiments’ installation at Modern Art in 2017, it feels the same to me, just a bit less worrying.” drummer Oli Askew, with Henry and Oliver using aware that punters want value for money and it’s which aimed to allow the band to push sonic and With a musical journey spanning almost 20 years electronic percussion for the most part. Despite not our duty to make shows above average every time, visual boundaries in an interactive “art installation” and involving huge critical acclaim, a Mercury featuring on the new album or live shows, Henry even if you hate the music it should be engaged and environment; did that pan out as they hoped or Prize nomination and chart success but also the sort stresses Oli hasn’t left the band as such. done with every ounce of focus and energy. expected? Did audience reaction or direct input of tribulations that would be familiar to “He isn’t able to leave. I’ve certainly never liked “What Ritual Union has done for Oxford music have an impact on what they created after? so many bands, Young Knives are a now at a place the word or the concept of a band. It’s not real, it’s is undeniable. There are so many good promoters “Yes it’s still on the list of things to do. We want where creatively they couldn’t be happier; they difficult to ‘leave’ something that doesn’t exist; in Oxford at the moment. You’ve got to think to tour with that set up, but we need to get a are making the music they want at a pace they find he’s first and foremost our friend and he can’t leave creatively to keep scenes alive, and Ritual Union is record out before we can do that in earnest. It’s comfortable – no outside pressure or expectation. that. He is not hanging out with us at the moment a great example of a positive approach to a difficult just a lot of work and we want to make sure it We wonder then, if Henry could go back in time, because he doesn’t live in Oxford anymore and time for music and venues.” enhances a gig rather than obscures it, which was what piece of advice he would give to the younger it’s hard to get together. Tom and I always liked why we were trying it out at Modern Art. I think Young Knives at any point in their career. the idea of a really compact set up, something While Ritual Union will allow people got what we were trying to do but we try “I wouldn’t interfere, I don’t think. Everything you can sling in a bag and do a gig, so we used it fans to reconnect with Young Knives soon not to let what people think change what we do that happened was a thing that happened so it isn’t as an opportunity to work out what that would be enough, they will have to wait a little while longer because it just gets too confusing.” worth dwelling on. Maybe I would suggest we and try it out. There’s a freedom in not having a for the new album but those early snapshots Are the ideas of cruelty, violence, and humanity’s quit drinking but I doubt it would have gone down wall of amps and a . We have played with suggest it will be a natural heir to the superb ‘Sick basest instincts good source material for writing very well. Perhaps my advice would be: don’t ever drummers and percussionists and we will again; Octave’, which saw Young Knives casting off any music? think of it as a career because that’s what kills it. “I am a firm believer that Over a decade and a half later, Young Knives it’s just we wanted to try a modular approach to loose shackles of commercial expectation, while “I think it veered us towards quite messy, Other people can see it as a career; you should just mediocrity is the mother of invention and the continue to be one of those groups by which all performing, doing different types of gigs. Whatever still managing to create gorgeous, warped pop grotesque sounds, sort of a primordial soup feel. look at the thing you care about right in front of breeding ground for creativity,” says Young Knives’ others should be measured. Their last album, makes exciting shows and breaks repetition helps gems like ‘Maureen’, which ended up topping The record kind of makes me think of those you now: the gig, the song. Just do that bit the best Henry Dartnall, responding to Nightshift’s query 2013’s ‘Sick Octave’, was their best yet, a musical keep things new and interesting for us.” Nightshift’s end of year Top 25 back in 2013. moments when you suddenly realise what a and ignore the rest. But then there’s being told that as to whether he would rather be an ugly genius statement of intent by a band that, having gone As mentioned, the first time we ever saw the band strange and wild trip our reality is.” and there’s actually knowing that, and I think the or beautiful and stupid. “Extremes are horribly through the music industry wringer, came out New and interesting are key play, still called Ponyclub back then, down at The Which musicians or writers do you feel have best knowing comes from having made all the mistakes. limiting; even if you were a beautiful genius, what the other side and found themselves completely words for Young Knives who promoted the Cellar, they dropped into a segment of ‘Subhuman’ got to the heart of the human condition? “The idea of success has to be defined. My idea of a curse.” creatively free. Wheatsheaf show as “unhinged and experimental.” by Throbbing Gristle in the middle of ‘Easy Peasy, “I don’t think that people who try and find the success is genuinely how good I think our output The show predictably sold out well in advance; did one of our favourite gig-going moments ever. The one essence of humanity get that far. I’m not very is. I truly believe that. If we were worried about So says one half of a band to Six years on, Henry, along with they learn any lessons from how the set and the Wheatsheaf show and tracks like ‘Red Cherries’ well versed in any of those areas; I’m aware of the being popular we would have quit when Warner whom the word mediocrity could never, ever be brother Thomas, have a new album recorded new arrangements came out? suggest that influence is very much back to the upsurgence of modern thinkers on Youtube and Bros dropped us. That just galvanised us, because applied. Young Knives’ story has been one of and ready for release in 2020, and, after dipping “It was supposed to be a safe space to try things fore; does Henry feel they have the freedom to podcasts like Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson and I was surprised by how little I gave a shit: my life musical highs, sideways steps, adventures and their toes back into the waters of gigging with an out with half formed new material and ideas, pursue that kind of musical path now? it interests me but I do think that having such lofty wasn’t over, I could still play and perform and in wayward wilfulness, none of which have even experimental set at The Wheatsheaf back in May, although inevitable it was seen as a comeback. It “Yes, definitely. We have made sure that we concerns is not essential for a full life.” a way we were kicked off the treadmill that makes skirted the middling ground. are set to play their biggest show in some years was definitely research and development for us and work in a way that ignores other people’s opinion Any artists you think have got close to pure music so boring, although it did take us another From the first time we saw them, down at The when they play the as part of Ritual kind of proved to us that the concept of what we and external pressures. There are things we like nihilism in their music? album to work it out. I would really struggle to be Cellar in 2002, we knew we’d encountered Union this month. are trying to do live works and highlighted the bits and inspire us and they tend to be – although not “Is that a thing artists can do? GG Allin? DNA? part of that again; it was stressful and made me something very special: a band unconfined by For so long one of the leading lights not just of that didn’t.” exclusively – on the outside of good taste and Throbbing Gristle? Even then it’s all just enjoyable anxious, plus it made us worse at what we did, or musical or sartorial barriers. A band dressed in, at Oxford music but the wider indie world, Young It must have been good to see the show sell out so beyond what the majority would think of as good noise. I’m not really into nihilism and I don’t at least it made me worse at it when I compared the time, horrendously uncool tweed, who would Knives’ rather more elusive existence since ‘Sick far in advance. When a band ‘disappears’ for a long music. We have gone further than full circle I think art or whatever is ever nihilistic because it my output and performance against my opinion of pause a song to drop into a chanted segment Octave’ makes their return all the more exciting. while they can be quickly forgotten. Do you feel think; through the indie pop machine and then is creating something, something with value and what is good. I do hope that what we do inspires from an old Throbbing Gristle number before The show at The Wheatsheaf was both a reminder you have a particularly loyal or intense fanbase? beyond what we started out doing, which was meaning. Sure, the value and meaning maybe people to push their taste and acceptance of being recommencing the task in hand. A band who could of what a unique act they are, but also how far, “I don’t know really; I am reasonably unaware of covers of interesting things, to actually trying to subjectively perceived by an individual or a group force fed easy music.” pen some of the catchiest choruses in Christendom compared to most bands, they are prepared to push what kind of fanbase we have. I think that’s good do that ourselves. I mean ‘gone further’ in that we rather than universally valued but that’s the most th while simultaneously making you wonder “what things to create the music they want to hear. The for us to distance ourselves from it, otherwise we feel much freer: I think when we started we didn’t important kind of value, that’s the kind of value Young Knives play Ritual Union on Saturday 19 the hell is that?” new tracks that Henry sends over to Nightshift might concern ourselves with what the fans might somehow think we were allowed to do whatever that supports a society. So to be truly nihilistic it October. Sponsored by bombastic excursions or even Primus at their GRUDGEWOOD most level-headed. ‘Blacksnake Root’ is similarly robust but comes ‘Grudgewood EP’ with an almost funky edge, courtesy of bassist (Self released) Snuffy Walden, and if there’s a hint of Tool about RELEASED While instrumental bands are hardly novel in it, they never really go too far down the prog CASSELS Oxford, they tend to come from the left-field – route with its inherent self-conscious cleverness – FOALS post-rock and electronic music, rather than the although the semi-folky interlude towards the end ‘Everything Not Saved ‘The Perfect Ending’ middle lane of the Rock Highway. To redress wouldn’t go amiss on a Jethro Tull record. The this imbalance are Grudgewood, a band formed EP does seem intended more for fellow musicians (Big Scary Monsters) by former members of Marconi’s Voodoo, SOW to admire than laymen to get lost in at times: Will Be Lost Part 2’ “I’m very much a pessimist anyway so a part and Junkie Brush, and a group who you imagine technique is very much to the fore, but you feel of me does like to wallow in feeling that we’re (Warner Music) look in the mirror every morning and bellow “For the tracks would benefit from some kind of visual Foals’ triumphant headline set at Truck Festival in all fucked.” So said Cassels guitarist/vocalist those about to rock... we salute you!” accompaniment to provide a more solid focal July proved beyond any doubt that the slimmed- Jim Beck in an interview back in 2016. Three Not that his debut EP is simple, by-numbers old point; ‘Heavy Water Sabotage’ is the heaviest down four-piece are now a band for the big stage, years on, and that sentiment is borne out by his school riffage. ‘Full Moon Hangover’ kicks in and most visceral piece here and in a live setting and ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 2’ band’s second full-length LP, a pull-no-punches with AC/DC gusto and gallops freely along for you could headbang yourself daft to it, but even sounds like a statement of intent on that front. indictment of humanity as an “upright fleshy the first half of its duration, but then dips down cranked up on a decent CD player it feels like it’s Yannis Phillipakis promised it would be heavier parasite” trashing the planet but too preoccupied KRIS T REEDER into something more intricate, if not exactly a part of a bigger piece, part of a longer musical than ‘Part 1’ and he wasn’t wrong. This is an with upgrading their iPhones to care about the sedate, before firing the cylinders back up for a journey rather than the central plot line. album where the is king. Lead tracks like prospect of imminent extinction. ‘Time To Fly Part 2’ rousing finale, with echoes of Muse’s more Ian Chesterton ‘The Runner’ and ‘Black Bull’ are the conclusion Drummer Loz’s percussion at the start of ‘All The (ELR XL) of what tracks like ‘Inhaler’ and ‘Providence’ first St John’s Wort In The World’ even sounds like a Improvising trombonist Kris T Reeder has, we’re suggested, with riffs dominating hammer blow ticking timebomb, and the album as a whole is informed online, been “tokenised on the Ethereum while the cloudbusting chorus to ‘The Runner’ is rhythms, an air of muscle-tensed hysteria suitably explosive, paying customarily little lip blockchain”. It takes us five minutes of searching BLACK HATS THE DEADBEAT purpose-built to lift stadium and festival crowds to ready to burst fully to the surface at any moment. service to convention and veering wildly from to work out that this is not satire, just something new heights of delirium. ‘Bad News Telephone’ APOSTLES Foals’ road to rock machine status has been spoken word to skull-cracking assault. The gnarly we have no hope of comprehending. Still, if it What’s has arguably been lost a little along the gradual, the very definition of evolution, so now riffage of ‘Melting Butter’ is Royal Blood after a had been a wheeze it would have summed up this (Self released) way is some of the band’s subtleties – those neat, ‘Bring Out Your Deadbeats’ they’re at this stage it doesn’t feel like a forced crash course on Shellac, while the savage, violent album, which embodies Vicky ‘People Like Us’ Black Hats’ first release since 2013 finds the intricate polyrhythms (although the fleet-footed (Self released) move; this is the level they’ve reached – a point conclusions to songs like ‘The Queue At The Bennett’s concept of irritainment: art which is trio looking further into pop’s past than they scurry that is ‘Wash Off’ retains a little of that old Regularly described in these pages as “where The where no band with any sense would want, or be Chemist’s’ prophesy the environmental apocalypse defined by its very ornery awkwardness. did in their last flurry of activity, particularly Afro-funk feel about it) – and the build-then-blast Grand Ole Oprey meets The Harlem Apollo,” The able, to follow them onstage. looming ever larger on the horizon. Take opener ‘78 Free’, built on a chunky 4/4 bass the 1980s and its mix and muddle of fusion dynamics of the likes of ‘Inhaler’: ‘Black Bull’ Deadbeat Apostles have a keen balance of country ‘Part 2’ isn’t precisely the yin to ‘Part 1’’s yang Jim’s verbose sing-speak isn’t for everyone, but it kick which is a sloppily chopped loop, regularly sounds. is straight in with the haybaling punches when and soul. If last single, ‘Bigger Man’, showcased – the likes of ‘Exits’ and ‘White Onions’ would takes considerable courage to put your neck on the dropping a fraction of a beat, summing up the No more so than ‘Sleep Patterns’, which the band’s more country side; with this new EP, have fitted securely enough amid this company, before they might have taken their time to land the line with your lyrics in the way he does, refusing intriguing tension at the heart of the album, a clash gathers up brassy electro-pop, uptight funk that soul side comes far more to the fore. And what while conversely ‘Dreaming Of’ and the romantic, killer blow. That said, the ten-minute ‘Neptune’ to hide behind distortion or effects. What’s between the jazzy expressiveness of free improv and late-period and layers it all a rich and fulsome soul it is. With Fender Rhodes shimmering ‘Into the Surf’, with its echoes of that closes the album, perfectly marries all those changed since their last outing, 2017’s Epithet, is trombone, and cheap clunky . ‘Go On together over a loping groove. That taking the lead over the steel guitar, Mike Ginger Ryuichi Sakamoto, could have made the opposite deft dynamics with the sheer power Foals now that he no longer seems so abrasively convinced Then’ pits rusty ‘bone tension cues against wildly groove is given a bit more welly on ‘Just In journey, but you can see why Foals split the album command – a beast of a song, but a beast with of the righteousness of his own opinions, as oscillating synth in a style that might be called Time’, but here mixed up with what might be a gives his inner Percy Sledge a good outing, best on into two parts. The former was a stretching of a soft pelt and purr as well as teeth and claws. though recently awakened to the truth of Bertrand Noirstep, but might also be mistaken for someone mid-80s mod revival vibe, or that place where ‘Paint a Picture’, smooth yet gravelly, a deliciously limbs, a warming up of ideas and a new sense of ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 2’ sounds Russell’s famous comment: “the problem with the testing the parameters of a Korg in a shop with The Jam began to become The Style rich and earthy voice that benefits from Michelle direction in the wake of Walter Gervers’ departure; like Foals’ “Top of the world” moment; it’s one world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of an improv masterclass in the corner, and ‘Pain Council. Mayes’ decorative backing vocals. this album has shaken the icicles off the branches they more than deserve and frankly, you can’t see themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” Threshold’ subsumes some relaxed hippo-parping A diversion of sorts, but sticking with that Maybe less rambunctious than they’re often and stomped into full bloom. ‘10,000 Feet’ for anyone removing them from their plinth. Opening track ‘A Snowflake In Winter’ sets the notes in a storm of electronic chirrups and buzzes. 80s feel, comes with ‘All We Ever Wanted’, capable of, much of the EP tends towards the example is Foals finding their inner Led Zeppelin, Dale Kattack tone, Jim’s critical focus trained on himself: “I There are points where the album feels more where The Cure’s airy gothic pop meets tender, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett the like to think I’m a deep thinker / And I’m pretty sonically balanced, the interplay between Blancmange’s bubbling synth-pop, while The driving forces, some sweet sax lending an almost sure I’m a person with conviction / But in reality Autechral beats and fluent trombone runs in ‘For EP’s title track, and highlight, revisits the funk- lounge vibe to the songs, although ‘Wolf Street’ particular strain of musical waywardness. I know I’m a snowflake in winter / Blown along Deep Experience’ working well, and the title tinged new wave of XTC and, in particular, Big gets some dirt under its fingernails, with the guitar Like Johnston, Blansjaar creates a sweet, simple on the wind of the latest liberal opinion.” The track’s SNES reproduction of a New Orleans Audio Dynamite. given more rocking rein, the song a punchier r’n’b melody, one that’s hard to let go off once you’ve alt-right media might deliberately manipulate second line groove possessing an ineluctable Somehow all this manages to come together piece. got it in your head, and then skews it, twists people through fake news and economy with the swagger but generally this record is as frustrating enough to make for a likeable, lively set of The highlight here is EP closer ‘Muddy Creek’, it, lets it wander off to play with the cat and truth, but, he acknowledges, living in a left-wing as it is enjoyable. So much free improv has songs that sound like they wandered into a a powerful gospel-blues anthem that finds both finally reins it back in time for tea. There’s also online echo chamber also results in a distorted become a closed stylistic paddock decades after previous decade and simply tried on a few Ginger and Mayes pushing their voices to greater that same childlike nature in songs like ‘Going perspective. its inception, this deliberate oddness is actually a styles without thinking too hard if they went heights and it’s the pair’s interaction that is what Backwards’ and in particular ‘Parallel Lines’ If we are collectively rushing headlong to hell in a good thing, and we encourage all readers with a together, and for most of the time they make it brings The Deadbeat Apostles so fully to life. Few (opening lines: “I have plants but I let them die handcart – personally, politically, environmentally taste for the leftfield to seek Reeder out. And if you work, but as an EP it maybe lacks Black Hats’ bands have one vocalist with such strength and / Hated every minute they were in my window / –then let’s at least be thankful for the fact that it work out what to do with a tokenised blockchain taut live energy, which takes those style steals versatility; that The Deadbeats have two seems a Maybe it’s why I can’t seem to sleep at night”). inspired the brothers grim to make this record. whilst you’re there, be sure to let us know. and really makes them work out. little unfair on everyone else. There’s something of Jeffrey Lewis’ whimsy Ben Woolhead David Murphy Dale Kattack Dale Kattack about ‘Always a Second’, but viewed through the prism of Robyn Hitchcock’s very English take on psychedelia. Best of the lot on this five-song MISERY GUTS However, the exquisitely-messy production sees EP, set for release on Cassette Store Day, though, these tracks swirling in grimy fuzz and distortion, is ‘The Shame I Wear’, skittering Casiotone ‘Oxford Ardkore’ with Evie’s vocals delivering short, not- particularly-sweet blasts of hissing anger. That machine pop that sounds like Eels fronting a (Richter Scale) MAX BLANSJAAR Toytown Suicide, but as ever, with a pretty pop edge of chaotic, noisy delivery and strong, direct ‘Oxford Ardkore’ is brilliant: five raucous tracks, lyrics would have seen Misery Guts slotting in melody at its heart ready for coating in whatever four of which clock in at around 90 seconds. I’ve ‘Fantasy Living’ nicely to a Digital Hardcore compilation of the garagey gloop Max fancies pulling out of the not got much to go on with Misery Guts: the tape mid-1990s. (Beanie Tapes) cupboard. inlay reveals they’re a four-piece, including Evie The lyrics are focussed enough for even a Such is the attention-deficit mix’n’match nature Daniel Johnston might have gone to a happier (“Screams and Confrontation”) and Joe T (“Big simpleton like me to get the point. For example, of Max Blansjaar’s home-baked electro/garage place (we hope) but his legacy remains, not Smasher Martian Prince Energy”, whatever that on ‘Feral Socialist’: “Misogynist / Apologist / pop it’s easy to see him as an heir to Beck’s in sales figures and gold discs but instead might mean). Transphobe / Snitch / Not My Comrade”. Strong wide-ranging, pigeonhole-defying adventures in artists like Max Blansjaar, making unpolished, As you might expect from the EP’s title, this Audioland, but in the week we lost the strange, uncommercial pop that come with a natural is with the spirit of 1980s US messages, delivered well; fierce music, with a gentle maverick talents of Daniel Johnston, childlike charm that you just can’t force. hardcore running through it: Minor Threat, positive edge. A refreshing assault to the ears. Max feels more like the baton-holder for that Dale Kattack Negative Approach, Black Flag, and so on. Simon Minter SKYLARKIN’ SOUND SYSTEM feat. LISTENS: The Wheatsheaf – Second night MUNGO’S HI-FI: The Bullingdon – After their of Klub Kakofanney’s 28th birthday weekender, sold out show here in January Count Skylarkin’ tonight with country-soul stars The Deadbeat once again hosts Glasgow’s global reggae and Apostles, alongside KK hosts The Mighty Redox, dancehall stars Mungo’s Hi-Fi, the forward- psychedelic travellers Knobblehead and 80s-style thinking collective, inspired by King Tubby poster Enjoyable Listens. and Prince Jammy producing a slew of original PSYCHEDELIC CARNIVAL: O2 Academy GIG GUIDE albums over the last decade, including 2015’s – House, garage and drum&bass at tonight’s ‘Serious Time’, as well as collaborating with the Foreverland-hosted club party. TUESDAY 1st open night continues to showcase local singers, likes of Sugar Minott, Ranking Joe and Major DAN RAWLE: Harcourt Arms – Acoustic folk HUNKPAPA: The Bullingdon – Anthemic folk- musicians, poets, storytellers and performance Lazer. and pop from the Abingdon singer-songwriter. rock and indie from the Northern Irish band back OCTOBER artists every Thursday. GRACE PETRIE: St. John the Evangelist – PORT ERIN + THE CALLIERS: The Port Wednesday 9th at the Bully after their show here in February. THE CHURCHFITTERS: The Unicorn, Witty, protest folk from singer, comedian and Mahon – Eclectic, atmospheric cinematic sounds NERVUS + NERVOUS REX + SPANK HAIR HARP OPEN NIGHT: The Port Mahon Abingdon – Energetic folk fusion from the activist Petrie, who released her acclaimed ‘Queer from West Country trio Port Erin, marrying JOHN: + DREAM PHONE: The Wheatsheaf – Freak Anglo-Irish-French band, mixing up original as Folk’ album last year – MOJO’s Folk Album Krautrock, prog, jazz and punk with Bowie and Scene and Snuggle Dice team up to bring WEDNESDAY 2nd songs with updated takes on traditional British of the Year – and has toured with Billy Bragg, Eno-inspired soundscaping, and out on tour to The Wheatsheaf folk tunes. Frank Turner and Emmy the Great as well as Josie promote fourth album ‘Ocean Grey’ at tonight’s In the modern age giving yourself a virtually Watford/Brighton’s rising emo/indie-punk stars to PLASTIC MERMAIDS: The Bullingdon – Long and Robin Ince; she’s back in town after It’s All About the Music show. unsearchable online name is either the height town, the band touring new album ‘Tough Crowd’ Soft-focus psychedelia from the Isle of Wight’s th headlining at WOOD Festival back in 2018. THE ROVING CROWS + BILL BATES: of foolishness or a fuck-you statement of on Big Scary Monsters, the follow-up to last Plastic Mermaids, out on tour to promote their FRIDAY 4 KLUB KAKOFANNEY with THE Tiddy Hall, Ascott-under-Wychwood – Lively intent. Having witnessed John playing at last year’s acclaimed ‘Everything Dies’. debut album, ‘Suddenly Everyone Explodes’, ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE + FLIGHTS DEADBEAT APOSTLES + THE MIGHTY -led Celtic folk dance and political songs year’s Ritual Union we’ll go for the latter their delicate, tremulous, gently euphoric OF HELIOS + THE ELEPHANT TRIP: The REDOX + KNOBBLEHEAD + ENJOYABLE from the well-travelled Roving Crows at tonight’s option as the south London duo’s suffocating th dreampop joining the dots between Flaming Lips, Jericho Tavern – Sonic astronauts, prepare for Friday 4 Wychwood Folk Club show. post-hardcore reflected the cramped Mercury Rev, Spiritualized and Sigur Ros. space flight – see main preview conditions down at The Library. However ALAN WEST + STEVE BLACK & ADAM KLUB KAKOFANNEY with SMILEY & THE Sunday 6th ACID MOTHERS th hard they try and make it for people to find SWEET + AGS CONNOLLY: Fat Lil’s, UNDERCLASS + PANDAPOPALYPSE + SUNDAY 6 them, theirs is a noise you should neither Witney – Rootsy Americana and country rock SCREAMIN’ IRENE: The Wheatsheaf – Klub RICHARD HAWLEY: O2 Academy – The Bard TEMPLE / FLIGHTS RICHARD HAWLEY: want nor try to avoid, and if they’re best from veteran Devon singer Alan West, plus long- Kakofanney kick off a weekend of live music of Sheffield brings the poetry of the streets back to th encountered up close and personal in venues term musical partner Steve Black, alongside local to celebrate the club’s 28 anniversary, tonight O2 Academy town – see main preview OF HELIOS / THE this size, they deserve the biggest stages Ameripolitan songsmith Ags Connolly, set to featuring a rootsy hip hop, reggae, rock and punk Richard Hawley might not have reached RED RUM CLUB: O2 Academy – Anthemic available to humanity. They’ve had a taste of ELEPHANT TRIP: release his third album at the end of the month. mash-up from London’s Smiley & the Underclass National Treasure status yet but he can’t be far indie rock from the Liverpool sextet, touring bigger things already as they’ve supported HORNSEY ROAD: The Cornerstone, Didcot – alongside big beat electro-pop and indie dance off; even those for whom he isn’t a household debut album ‘Matador’ after playing at the likes of Idles, USA Nails and Pulled Apart The Jericho Tavern A tribute to The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ album on from Pandapopalypse and Aylesbury’s name probably know his music better than Glastonbury, Isle of Weight and truck this By Horses, kindred spirits all, and like fellow The question of who or what Acid Mothers its 50th anniversary. rockers Screamin’ Irene. they know his identity, such is the ease with summer. Temple is or are would probably need a COCO & THE BUTTERFIELDS: O2 which he Bard of Sheffield straddles the MISS JUNE + LAZYBONES + GRUB + noisemakers Squid they’re helping make male punk and hardcore sound vital again after dissertation to answer fully, but in short rd Academy – Canterbury’s folk-pop-hip hop crew worlds of Radio 2-friendly balladry, 6Music GRAND PALACE SCAM: The Port Mahon – they are a Japanese collective/commune/ THURSDAY 3 return to town, the band lead by singers Dulcima cool and the soundtrack all manner of cobbled Surly, grunged-down garage/glam rocking from too long in the doldrums. Tracks like recent CASSELS + SAINT PIERRE SNAKE band formed by and centred around guitarist Showa and Toma Twyman, who met on their streets and industrial skyline romances. Auckland’s Miss June out on a European tour single ‘High Digger’ are tightly-wound, high- INVASION: The Bullingdon – Last month’s Kawabata Makoto back in the mid-90s. local busking circuit, the pair’s duets lending a With a crooner’s voice, a poet’s way with to promote their debut album having supported intensity noise rock that’s all sinew, no fat or Nightshift cover stars launch new album, ‘The Since then they have gone out under myriad sense of drama to beatbox-driven Celtic folk and words and a heart full of love and darkness, Foo Fighters, Shellac and Idles back home while filler, shirt off, getting the job done hard and Perfect Ending’, the duo taking a cynical view of names, formed countless coalitions (including, bluegrass-flavoured pop. Hawley has spent 40 years becoming an drawing comparisons to Sonic and Le Tigre fast and doubtless leaving a few bloodstains climate change through the prism of taut, angular unsurprisingly, Gong) and involved a fluid GROOVE feat. HARRISON BDP: O2 unlikely star, from his early days in Treebound along the way. Heavy-duty fuzz-rock in the vein in its wake. So, given how great they are, post-hardcore and math-rock noise. They’re and expansive line-up that can number up Academy – House, minimal electro, disco, techno Story, through his years with Pulp and The of Royal Blood and Queens of the Stone Age why have they lumbered themselves with a joined at their biggest hometown headline show to 30 (including, according to their website, and garage from Cardiff’s master of lo-fi beats at Longpigs, not to mention stints with Gwen from Brighton’s Lazybones in support, plus local bandname it’s so bloody hard to find online? so far by Bristol’s garage rock/punk tourmates musicians, artists, dancers and farmers). They tonight’s Groove night. Stefani and All Saints, to a solo performer molten gooey garage rock and grunge crew Grub, Because they’re both called John, that’s why. The Saint Pierre Snake Invasion. are also incredibly prolific and the style of DRUM’N’BASS: The Bullingdon – Club night. respected across the spectrum, beloved of plus dark-edged alt.rockers Grand Palace Scam. Sometimes things are that straightforward and THE PIERCE BROTHERS + MILLINGTON: music you get can vary wildly depending MAKE THIS OUR HOME: The Port Mahon – Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and REM. Able KLUB KAKOFANNEY with MONKEYFISTS to the point. Like their music. And if you can’t O2 Academy – Melbourne’s relentlessly on which exact incarnation of the band you The Epstein host their monthly residency, joined by to match the timeless voices of Roy Orbison, + MARK ATHERTON & FRIENDS + TONY find them, maybe they’ll come and find you. touring twin brothers head back over to Europe, chance upon. Somewhere in the centre of assorted chums from the folk and Americana scene. Matt Monroe and Bobby Darrin, but willing BATEY & SAL MOORE + EDWIN & THE And then you’re in trouble. having risen from busking on the streets of their all this, though is a stated desire to create CATFISH: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Rising stars of to delve into full-on rock’n’roll, psychedelia KEEPERS: The Wheatsheaf (3.30pm) – Klub hometown to becoming figureheads of Australia’s “the ultimate trip music”, and AMT’s gigs the British blues scene. Having hit number 1 in and gothic rock (notably on recent album Kak round off their birthday weekender with blues, folk and roots scene. preview veer towards the psychedelic side of things, the IBBA Blues chart with their debut album ‘So ‘Further’, with its strong echoes of Mark an afternoon of free live music in the Sheaf’s HOLLIS BROWN: The Jericho Tavern – A VICE CITY: The Bullingdon – Fleetwood Mac taking in elements of drone-rock, space-rock, Many Roads’, the Sussex-based quartet repeated Lanegan), Hawley always feels like he and his downstairs bar. Welcome return to town for the New York band, special club night. freeform jazz, world rhythms, krautrock and the feat with their tribute to BB King, ‘When BB music stands outside of time or fashion, his OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Harcourt Arms – steeped in classic 60s and 70s , avant-garde classical music; gigs freerange Sings the Blues’, and a slew of nominations at the trademark quiff and spectacles only adding to Weekly open mic session. blues, and traditional American country rock, th from doomy choral chants to atonal freakouts, British Blues Awards. the impression of someone not part of rock’s THURSDAY 10 always with a hefty elements of deranged songwriting partners Mike Montali and Jon hurly burly. ‘Further’, his eighth solo album, th DAVID FORD + ABE PARTRIDGE: The Bonilla naming themselves after Bob Dylan’s MONDAY 7 what-the-hell attitude. From Faust to Sun Ra, th found him ruminating on aging and death, but OPEN MIC: The Castle – Weekly open night. Bullingdon – Perma-behatted Eastbourne via Stockhausen and back again, but this time classic ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’, his SATURDAY 5 also psychedelic drug taking and Emmeline songsmith and former Easyworld singer David ALL TAMARA’S PARTIES: The Jericho LEVERET: Nettlebed Folk Club – A return via Hawkwind and a whole lotta heavy metal. influence is apparent in their music, alongside Pankhurt – typically eclectic and individual. Ford returns to action, touring last year’s ‘Animal Tavern (1-11pm) – All Tamara’s Parties host to Nettlebed for the collaboration between Tonight is the band’s first trip to Oxford in Neil Young, Tom Petty, The Band and Creedence It’s his midnight-tinged romanticism that Spirits’ album, his mix of intimate, soulful pop an all-day feast of live music with an emphasis Bellowhead’s Sam Sweeney, BBC Folk Award almost a decade, though Makoto did turn up Clearwater Revival, while they also knock out a always shones through, as on classic hits like and caustic folk-punk having seen him compared on female artists, with sets from Death of the winner Andy Cutting, and The Full English’s Rob at Supernormal a couple of years ago with respectable version of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Tonight, The Streets Are Ours’ and ‘For Your to Bob Dylan and Mike Scott as well as go out on Maiden, whose gorgeous, emotionally racked Harbon. another collaborative project, and a trip it will ‘Sweet Jane’. Lover, Give Some Time’. Mark our words: tour with Elvis Costello, KT Tunstall and Gomez debut, ‘The Girl With the Secret Fire’, is destined be. Suitably psychedelic support from Flights URBAN FOLK QUARTET: The North Wall – he’ll have his face on a postage stamp or over the years. one of Nightshift’s albums of the year; raucous th of Helios and The Elephant Trip. Lively folk and roots from the acclaimed quartet, banknote one day and it’ll be well deserved. TUESDAY 8 VANISHING TWIN + DESPICABLE ZEE: out on another mammoth UK tour, fusing global pop-punkers Self Help, joining the dots between EASY LIFE: O2 Academy – Jazzy hip hop, Oxford Deaf & Hard of Hearing Centre – sounds, from traditional English and Celtic, to Slaves and Supergrass; exuberant and cynical slacker rock and laidback bluesy funk-pop from Exotic space-age electro wobblers head out on a Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Afrobeat, sunshine popsters Rainbow Reservoir; Bristol’s the Leicester crew signed to and spooky trip – see main preview Indian, Cuban, bluegrass and funk into their jigs, folk-punk protest trio Drunken Butterfly; soulful back in Oxford after their show at The Jericho BYRON WALLER: The Wheatsheaf – Spin reels and songs. acoustic singer Jen Bercova; grungy garage Tavern last year, touring their ‘Spaceships’ jazz club with the renowned trumpet player. NIGEL PRICE: The Wheatsheaf – Breezy rockers Wolfs; eclectic and ethereal electro/ mixtape and recent Annie Mac Hottest Record in DELAIRE THE LIAR + WORRY + GHOSTS swing and blues-tinged jazz from the hard- jazz-pop kittens Catgod; cinematic instrumental the World, ‘Houseplants’. IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS: The Library – working guitarist at tonight’s Spin. post-rockers Ghosts in the Photographs; acoustic Tightly-wound, emotionally fraught emo from CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford jazz-pop singer/songwriter Joely and more. Buy WEDNESDAY 9th Delaire the Liar at tonight’s Shred or Die show, th a ticket in advance and get a free ATP festival Community Centre – Celebrating their 25 JOHN: The Wheatsheaf – Hard-to-Google the London duo touring their new ‘Our House is a . anniversary this month, Oxford’s longest-running noisemakers are coming to get you! – see main Church’ album. Support from local hardcore crew show for a decade and a half last year, London’s band formed by ex-Family Machine man Jamie WEDNESDAY 16th THURSDAY 17th ska-punk-dub-metal warriors return to town, Hyatt. THYLA + OCEAN RUINS + APHRA NINJA SEX PARTY: O2 Academy – Already bringing a militant but witty Anglo-Asian voice SCOTT GORDON: Harcourt Arms – Blues- TAYLOR: The Jericho Tavern – Epic, sold-out comedy rock and electro-pop from LA to punk, much as they did alongside Asian Dub infused Americana from the local band. grunged-tinged shoegaze and dreampop from duo Dan Avidan and Brian Vecht. Foundation back in the 90s. Livewire singer NADINE ANDRE + PAUL CAVACIUTI: St. Brighton’s Thyla, drawing comparisons to ROBYN HITCHCOCK + EMMA TRICCA: Al Rumjen spits out anthems like ‘Racist Giles Church – Ragtime and jazz standards Wolf Alice, Cocteau Twins, The Cure and The The Jericho Tavern – A welcome return to town th th Copper’ and ‘Not Your Punk’ as the band find an from the 20s and 30s, and classics of 19 and 20 Sundays, and out on tour to promote new EP for the English psychedelic troubadour’s English incendiary meeting point between Black Flag, The Century repertoire from husband and wife ‘What’s On Your Mind’ following supports psychedelic troubadour and one of the nation’s Specials, Steel Pulse and System of a Down. Still team Andre and Cavaciuti. to Sunflower Bean, Dream Wife and Rolling most oddball national treasures. From his days in angry, still relevant. INDIE DISCO: Tap Social, Botley – 80s and Blackouts Coastal Fever. Newbury’s epic, The Soft Boys, through the creative highs fronting LONDON AFRICAN GOSPEL CHOIR: 90s vinyl classics, free entry, with DJ Dom Utton. atmospheric indie rockers Ocean Ruins and The Egyptians, to his extensive run of solo O2 Academy – The gospel choir reprise DAMN GOOD REASON: Fat Lil’s, Witney – ethereal, emotive acoustic singer-songwriter recordings, he’s never lost his tight but genial grip their inventive take on Paul Simon’s classic Heavy rock covers. Aphra Taylor support. on a very peculiar sense of whimsy and humour, ‘Gracelands’ album, moving the songs more fully THE RONNIE SCOTT STORY: The PRESS TO MECO + CHAPTER & VERSE: in the lineage of Syd Barrett and subsequently th into South African traditional , last seen Cornerstone, Didcot – Live jazz from the Ronnie O2 Academy – Harmony-heavy rock from an influence on generations of psych-minded Monday 14 th in Oxford at last year’s Common People. Scott Allstars, plus vintage video footage from the Crawley’s Press To Meco, touring their second songwriters. Thursday 10 th DAY OF THE DEADBEATS 10: Tap Social, legendary club as it celebrates its 60 anniversary. album ‘Here’s To The Fatique’ alongside London BEN CLATWORTHY & JOHN KATE TEMPEST: VANISHING TWIN / Botley – The Deadbeat Apostles host the tenth GAVIN LEONARD: Woodstock Social Club – post-hardcore crew Chapter & Verse. DONALDSON: The Wheatsheaf – Spin jazz instalment of their free night of fun, the band Country’n’western singer. AIDAN O’ROURKE & KIT DOWNES: club host British born LA based saxophonist O2 Academy Kate Tempest’s gig at this venue back in DESPICABLE ZEE: launching their new ‘Bring Out Your Deadbeats’ Wesley Memorial Church – Multi-award- Clatwothy, over in the UK and collaborating with 2014 was one of those nights where you EP, mixing up rich 60s soul and r’n’b with rootsy th winning fiddle player Aidan O’Rourke (whose piano maestro Donaldson. SUNDAY 13 felt genuinely humbled in the face of the Oxford Deaf & Hard of country rocking. They’re joined by rockabilly credits include Lau, Kan and Blazin ) CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford PIP BLOM: The Bullingdon – Rambunctious talent on stage. Back then she was touring stars The Long Insiders, inspired by Dick Dale, and Mercury-nominated harmonium and piano Community Centre and ramshackle indie of the old school from her break-out album ‘Everybody Down’, Hearing Centre Jerry Lee Lewis, The Stray Cats and early Elvis, player Kit Downes team up for an evening of THE SLOCAN RAMBLERS: St Nicholas London is officially the world’s most Amsterdam’s Pip and people – see main preview a pin-sharp song cycle that picked up the plus voodoo jazz-blues crew Ragged Charms. contemporary folk tunes. Church, Baulking – Toronto’s Juno-nominated cosmopolitan city so it’s no surprise that THE TWANG: O2 Academy – Birmingham’s characters from housing estate stories and IBIZA 90s PARTY: The Bullingdon – Retro bluegrass quartet bring their lively, down-home Vanishing Twin formed there, the quintet all baggy indie rock survivors celebrate their fifteenth brought them brilliantly to life. Back then club night. anniversary with new album, ‘If Confronted, Just roots ramble to the Shire. hailing from different countries around the MASTER OF NONE + ALI HORN + Sunday 13th Tempest felt like the world’s least likely rap globe. Singer and keyboard player Cathy Go Mad’, Phil Etheridge bringing a romantic edge star, a blur of ginger curls and a puppyish STARBELLY + EMMA HUNTER: The Port to the band’s laddish pop. th Lucas, the band’s founder, hails from Belgium Mahon – Dark-hearted electro-rock in the vein PIP BLOM: FRIDAY 18 grin, but a star she was, forged in the fires of and is joined by Japanese bassist Sususumu OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Harcourt Arms AMBER RUN + STEREO HONEY: O2 south London open rap sessions and armed of Mark Lanegan, Suicide and Nick Cave from THE A WATTS: Eynsham Sports & Social Mukai; Italian drummer Valentina Magaletti Master of None, with support from elegant, The Bullingdon Academy – Having resigned from the cabinet, with a ferocity and seamless flow that was (who has also worked with Bat For Lashes and Club – Poppy appeal benefit gig from the veteran Everyone prefers a scruffy, playful mongrel Amber Run heads off on tour to... oh, have matched by her seriously heavy, seriously atmospheric soft-rocker Ali Horn, heavyweight local 50s and 60s rock’n’roll crew. Neon Neon); French percussionist and flautist goth-glam crew Starbelly and drama-laden pup to a well-groomed, meticulously poised we done this joke before? Have you any idea funky band. Subsequent albums – 2016’s ‘Let Elliot Arntd and token Brit Phil M.F.U., who baroque/surf pop singer Emma Hunter. show dog, right? In an age of perfect pop how tedious it can be compiling the gig guide Them Eat Chaos’ and this year’s ‘The Book th previously played with Broadcast. Broadcast THE MOTIVE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Indie- MONDAY 14 production and presentation, bands like sometimes. We need our bit of fun, though of Traps and Lessons’ – have cast her lyrical being a touchstone of Vanishing Twin’s sound, grunge from the local outfit. KATE TEMPEST: O2 Academy – Politics Pip Blom will always get our love. The admittedly it isn’t as funny as that time we said vision wider, to the violence and hypocrisy of which seems determined to bring toether every LADY B: Woodstock Social Club – An evening and people from the premier league poet and Amsterdam quartet – named after and helmed Nathaniel Rateliffe was a boy wizard. Sorry, yes, modern politics and the breakdown of society, strand of psychedelia from around the world, with the local singer, DJ and drag queen. performer – see main preview by singer/guitarist Pip Blom – have released Amber Run: jolly good stuff. Rock and roll, yes. while still picking out the human stories amid from kosmische to tropicalia, vie electro-pop, OXFORD CLASSIC JAZZ: Harcourt a string of great singles over the past year or FEROCIOUS DOG: O2 Academy – the wreckage; the lines “The drones turned Nottingham’s folk-punk road warriors hit town jazz, funk and krautrock. On new album ‘The th Arms – Classic jazz and ragtime from the local so, each an ebullient cake slice of perky indie- her beautiful boy into a pile of bones / No Age of Immunology’, released earlier this SATURDAY 12 ensemble, playing Jellyroll Morton, Louis punk spit and spirit, careworn post-grunge again after selling out this venue last year and body to bury, nobody is home,” from ‘Tunnel year, sleek synth-pop glides into extended CASSETTE STORE DAY: Truck Store – Armstrong, Fats Domino and more. slacker vibes and fuzz-pop euphoria, and all following a tour support to The Levellers. Having Vision’ remain some of the most haunting of flute solos and spaced-out jams, while Lucas’ Alongside a host of new cassette-only releases, WILL YOUNG: The New Theatre – Still sounding a bit like they might fall aprt at the become the first unsigned band to sell out their recent times, and yet Kate manages to find serene, slightly otherworldly vocals provide local tape label Beanie Tapes bring instore sets going, apparently. That’s a long old 15 minutes, seams or slide into fluffy chaos at any moment. hometown’s 2,000-capacity Rock City venue, love, warmth and truth in simple humanity. the calm centre of the band’s gently celestial from Max Blansjaar and EB to Oxford’s leading innit. A bit like Courtney Barnett’s perky kid sister they played on the Leftfield stage at Glastonbury From her early days performing her poetry to sound blizzard. Unsurprisingly the quintet were indie . OPEN MIC: The Castle with a copy of seminal indie compilation ‘C86’ and are earning a reputation as one of the most handfuls of people in pub backrooms, to being CATWEAZLE CLUB: Isis Farmhouse, Iffley under one arm and a kitten under the other. hard working and entertaining live bands in the hailed by Chuck D, Billy Bragg and many picked to support Stereolab at their comeback th OPEN MIC: Rose Hill Community Centre – show in June, Lucas’ resemblance to Laeticia Lock – A very special 25 anniversary party monthly open session. Championed early on by 6Music tastemaker country, drawing on the punk spirit of The Clash more and compared to Virginia Woolf and Sadier having been regularly noted, while for Oxford’s legendary open night, founder and FRENCH FOLK SESSION: The Port Mahon Marc Riley, Pip Blom found themselves and Celtic folk traditions, they’re in the traditions Wu Tang at the same time, Kate Tempest has the band’s quietly wayward nature and use host Matt Sage compeering an array of singers, CHRIS WHILE & JULIE MATTHEWS: playing Glastonbury, Y Not and Truck over of bands like The Men They Couldn’t Hang, become a poet for the age, but more: she’s a of minimal electronics recalls both Pram and musicians, poets, storytellers and performance Nettlebed Folk Club – Powerful harmony the summer, following a lengthy string of UK Tansads and Flogging Molly: angry and uplifting live performer with few equals. Delia Derbyshire. Beautiful, hypnotic stuff. artists – see interview feature singing from the Albion Band and St Agnes and European dates, and now they’re back on in equal measures. THE DIVINE COMEDY: O2 Academy – Neil Great local support at tonight’s Divine Schism Fountain duo and leading ladies of English folk, the road, touring their debut album ‘Boat’. No THE ABBA PARTY: O2 Academy – Club night is Coming, Young Knives and Ibibio Sound show from Zahra Tehrani’s Despicable Zee Hannon’s wry, literate chamber pop ensemble out on tour together again, playing songs from amount of time spent touring will polish them celebration of the Swedish pop legends. bring his new album, ‘Office Politics’ to town, the Machine head up a full day of musical fun along project, her mix of beats, loops, samples and their extensive solo and collaborative catalogues, too much though, and nor would we ever want THE WURZELS: The Bullingdon – Yokelcore the Cowley Road – see main preview eternal champion of the underdog still a potent fun with the veteran Zumerzet scrumpy’n’western austere electronics bringing a Middle Eastern including 2016’s ’Shoulder To Shoulder’. it to. Lo-fi and rough’n’tumble is where it’s RITUAL UNION AFTER-PARTY: The vibe to her M.I.A.-meets-Cosey Fanni Tutti pop force two decades after his commercial peak at, and where indie music best thrives. They gang, reprising ‘The Combine Harvester’, ‘I Am a with hits like ‘National Express’, ‘The Frog Bullingdon – Ten hours of top-class live music experimentation. th might never win at the MTV Awards or Crufts, Cider Drinker’ and more. Princess’ and ‘Something For the Weekend’. TUESDAY 15 not enough for you? Keep the party going with but they’re odds on for waggiest tail. SIMPLE feat. MIDLAND: The Bullingdon – live sets from The Murder Capital and Scalping, ANTARCTIC MONKEYS: O2 Academy – DUMB + SELF HELP + DREAM PHONE: The long running house and techno club night Worry and cinematic instrumental post-rockers Quirky, uptight post-punk plus Low Island DJs into the wee small hours. Tribute to The Arctic Monkeys, and yet also their The Wheatsheaf – welcomes Harry Agius, aka Midland, to town. Ghosts in the Photographs. funk from Vancouver’s Dumb, mixing up the DONNINGTON MUSIC FESTIVAL: polar opposite. CURSE OF LONO: The Jericho Tavern – MARK MORRISS: Truck Store – The influence of classic punk-era bands like Devo and Donnington Community Centre (2-10pm) – SWITCH feat. SASASAS: O2 Academy – The London’s award-winning dark-Americana crew Bluetones singer plays a solo set, featuring songs The Mekons with Parquet Courts and Pavement. Free community music festival with sets from long-running club night welcomes the drum&bass head out on tour – see main preview from his new album ‘Look Up’ and Bluetones Punk-pop where Supergrass meets Slaves from Franklin’s Tower; The Mark Bosley Band; stars back to town. LATIN FOLK SESSION: The Port Mahon oldies, as well as a holding a Q&A for fans. Self Help in support. Delnavaz; The Jesters; The Scott Gordon Band; MUSICAL MEDICINE feat. CC DISCO: The HOPE & SOCIAL: Fat Lil’s, Witney – CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Firegazer; Tony Batey; Matt Sewell, and Uke-In Bullingdon – The funk, disco and disco-house LEIF ERIKSON: The Jericho Tavern – Uplifting blues, country and soul-rock from Community Centre Emotive and introspective yet airy soul-rock Be Anything Ya Wanna, plus kids activities. club night brings Melbourne’s renowned DJ CC Yorkshire’s blue-suited sextet and previous REVEREND BLACK’S ACOUSTIC from London quintet Leif Erikson, out on tour to THE MIGHTY REDOX: Harcourt Arms to town, a mainstay of her home city’s Boiler Bunkfest headliners, who’ve been described as CABARET: The Half Moon – Acoustic blues, promote their new ’21 Grams of Soul’ EP. – Fresh from hosting Klub Kakofanney’s 28th Room club as well the Aussie festival circuit. The Yorkshire E Street Band, with influences of country, folk and classic rock night with sets from Oxford’s long-running birthday weekender, the veteran local blues, funk, LEWSBERG + GIFT HORSE + BED: Fusion INTRUSION: Cirkus – Dexy’s and The Faces in their old school sound. Factory Lights, Waterfahl and Richard Brotherton. Arts – Divine Schism welcomes Rotterdam’s goth, industrial, ebm and darkwave club night rock, ska, folk and psych band bring good vibes, finds a new lease of life at Cirkus after the closure grooves and a little bit of silliness to the Harcourt. poetic, Velvet Underground-inspired rockers th FRIDAY 11th Lewsberg to town for the first time, as well as an of The Cellar, keeping it dark on the decks with SATURDAY 19 HIPSHAKIN’ with BIG BOSS MAN: The RITUAL UNION: Various venues (midday) Jericho Tavern – funk, boogaloo, bongo breaks, KING PRAWN + POPES OF CHILLITOWN: Oxford debut for Glasgow’s French/Scottish duo residents Doktor Joy and Bookhouse. – Teleman, She Drew the Gun, The Comet soul & Hammond groove. O2 Academy – After playing their first Oxford Gift Horse, and a first live outing for Bed, the new PIZZA MIC: The Library – Open mic session. and Fishbone. Visceral math-core from local crew up to his acclaimed ‘Drillers x Trappers’ with RV, : The Bullingdon – Dreadzone Masiro in support. and his Top 10 hit ’18 Hunna’ with Dave. return to town with their peculiarly British form Saturday 19th SUPER LEMON DAYS + ARXX + THE THE DELLA GRANTS: The Bullingdon – of reggae, fusing roots sounds and dub with a OTHER DRAMAS + JEFF: The Library Blues, rock and Americana from the Leicester folky feel, trance and breakbeats. 26 years old RITUAL UNION: – Fuzzed-out grunge pop from Birmingham’s outfit. this year, veterans of ten albums (plus a Best of), slacker indie crew Super Lemon days at tonight’s BASSFACE: The Bullingdon – UK bass club six Peel sessions and countless tours and festival Various venues Freak Scene show, the band joined by Brighton’s night. appearances, their enduring appeal rests in their Last year’s Ritual Union was pretty much raucous garage punk duo Arxx, sunshine garage PETE GOW & THE SIREN STRINGS + ability to transform any room, or field, into a Nightshift’s favourite day out last year. From rockers The Other Dramas and grungy rockers HANNAH SCOTT: St. Barnabas Church – reggae party. The trippy, spacious, almost rustic the stunning early sets from Madonnatron Jeff. Case Hardin frontman Pete Gow brings his new feel of their sound might feel almost archaic and Warmduscher to imperious headline OPEN MIC: The Castle solo album, ‘Here There’s No Sirens’ to town, compared to what’s come since but it’s following showings from Jane Weaver and Nadine Shah Friday 18th SCANDINAVIAN FOLK SESSION: The Port backed by a band that features local musical their own path that’s ultimately kept them on top and an after-party set from Fontaines DC, it Mahon maestro Joe Bennett, the singer regarded as one of their game for so long. was one of those celebratory occasions where THE PITMEN POETS: Nettlebed Folk Club of the best songwriters in UK Americana circles, STRAIGHT OUTTA COWLEY: The the whole Oxford gig scene seemed to come CURSE OF LONO / together for a big party along Cowley Road, – And evening of traditional and contemporary drawing comparisons to Dylan, Springsteen and Bullingdon – Hip hop classics, from Jay-Z to JOHN MURRY: folk songs and stories from the North East, with Richmond Fontaine for his raw, rootsy style. Jurassic 5 and Biggie to Buster Rhymes. taking in both rooms of the O2 Academy as well as The Bullingdon, Truck Store and The stalwarts of the scene Billy Mitchell, Bob Fox, Support comes from Suffolk singer guitarist and IDEAL MARRIAGE + JUNIPER NIGHTS Library. while Perth’s PSYCHEDELIC PORN The Jericho Tavern Benny Graham and Jez Lowe keyboard player Hannah Scott, whose emotive + 31HOURS: The Jericho Tavern – Daisy This year’s festival, organised by Crosstown CRUMPETS’ riff-heavy, hirsute Led Zep- Darkness on the edge of town is the order of acoustic pop has seen her compared to Stealing Rodgers Music kicks off a three-gig stint , looks like it might well equal that meets-Tame Impala psychedelia, which the day tonight as Empty Room Promotions nd Sheep, Amy McDonald and Laura Marling as well celebrating its tenth anniversary featuring some bring London’s rising Americana stars to TUESDAY 22 special day, with a line-up that’s already got us has seen them tour with King Gizzard & STRIKING MATCHES + TENILLE as opening for and Seth Lakeman. of its favourite acts from the past decade, tonight town alongside troubled songsmith John drooling slightly in anticipation (sorry, we get the Lizard Wizard, Royal Blood and Black TOWNES: O2 Academy – Traditional country, FLIRTING + STRAIGHT GIRL + KID KIN: with this month’s Nightshift Top Track winners Murry. Curse of Lono – named after an excited sometimes). Mountain, provides a holy trinity of tripped- rock and blues in the spirit of Loretta Lynn, Dolly The Library – London’s Flirting return to Oxford Ideal Marriage, with an airy, almost operatic obscure Hunter S Thompson book – mix up out heaviosity. Parton and Carter-Cash from Nashville duo Sarah after their impressive showing at BSM’s Summer indie journey, alongside dark-hearted alt.rockers rich, harmony-heavy American roots with Among the big names playing are shiny Zimmermann and Justin Davis, back over in the in the City festival back in June, mixing anxious Juniper Nights and fidgety and atmospheric gothic rock, a driving, cinematic sound that’s silicon synth-pop hitmakers TELEMAN, Rather sunnier are SHE DREW THE GUN, UK to promote debut album ‘Nothing But the emo (in its original incarnation) with exuberant electro-pop crew 31Hours. seen them heading out on tour with Chuck back after their sold-out show here last year, recent stars of Truck Fest, whose bubblegum- Silence’. jangle-pop, drawing together elements of Slint, TOOLOGY: The Wheatsheaf – Tribute to Tool. Prophet, Steve Earle and Southside Johnny their propulsive electronic robo-pop drawing fun grunge-tinged surf pop provides a joyful BARNS COURTNEY: O2 Academy – The Sundays and Explosions in the Sky. They’re GRAND PALACE SCAM + THE JERICHOS: & the Asbury Jukes among others since they inspiration from The Human League and backdrop to singer Louisa Roach’s acerbic Swaggering soulful blues in the vein of Cage the joined by Leeds’ atmospheric electro artist The Port Mahon – It’s All About the Music formed back in 2015. Two albums, including Kraftwerk. political poems, lyrics and between-song Elephant and Rag’n’Bone Man from the Suffolk Straight Girl and local expansive, experimental showcase night. last year’s ‘As I Fell’, recorded in Joshua They’re joined by the brightest lights of the chat. Slow Club’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s solo singer-songwriter whose song ‘Fire’ threw him electronic and post-rock soundscapist Kid Kin. ZAPPATIKA: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Zappatastic Tree, have cemented their reputation as one current Brit-jazz revolution THE COMET project SELF ESTEEM similarly allows some into the spotlight when it was featured in the TOM GREEN: The Wheatsheaf – Trombonist night with former Frank team-mates Ike Willis, of the best British Americana bands and in IS COMING (below), a hypnotic mix of free sunlight on proceedings with her infectious but film Burnt and was subsequently used in myriad and composer Green returns to the Spin. Jeff Hollie and Craig Steward reliving the January this year they won the coveted Bob jazz, cacophonous percussion, even dubstep, experimental electro-pop. games, TV shows and adverts, while he’s gone CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford maverick musician’s music. Harris Emerging Artist Award at the UK centred around sax maestro King Shabaka from sleeping in his girlfriend’s car and sofa Community Centre Americana Awards. They have as much in (who also plays with The Sun Ra Arkestra, Amid a slew of great local acts spread across surfing to supporting The Who, , REVEREND BLACK’S ACOUSTIC th common with The Doors as they do the likes Melt Yourself Down, Polar Bear and more), the day, YOUNG KNIVES’ set should be Ed Sheeran and in recent times. He’s CABARET: The Half Moon – Acoustic blues, SATURDAY 26 of Wilco and after a successful stint at SXSW GUNS2ROSES + MOTLEY CRUED: O2 and one of the great live bands around at the a high point, the band back in action and out on tour to promote second album ‘404’. country, folk and classic rock night with sets from they’re a band whose darkness is going to be Matt Sewell, Jim Driscoll and Richard Brotherton. Academy – Double dose of hairy rock tributes. moment. set to release their first new material in six seeing a lot more light in years to come. Dark SWITCH feat. DIMENSION: O2 Academy They’ll be matched for boundary and border- years, adventuring ever further into the rd is a word you could equally apply to John WEDNESDAY 23 th – London-based electronic and drum&bass busting fun by IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE strange worlds of PiL, Throbbing Gristle Murry, as he sings about the grief, despair THE FALLEN STATE + THE CRUEL FRIDAY 25 producer Robert Etheridge, aka Dimension, is the (above), led by the phenomenal Eno Williams and Devo while retaining that characteristic SQUEEZE + HEAVEN 17: The New Theatre and loss – more often than not self-inflicted KNIVES: O2 Academy – Classic heavy rock guest at tonight’s Switch club night. whose powerful and versatile voice veers from grasp on pure pop melodies. They’re joined – South London’s savvy new wave hitmakers – he’s encountered in life, addiction costing in the vein of Stone Sour, Black Stone Cherry VOLUME #17 feat. BCEE: The Bullingdon – gospel and r’n’b into punk, while the band by atmospheric electro-pop trio CANDY head out on tour to promote most recent album him his marriage and job along the way. and Alter Bridge from Devon’s The Fallen State, Drum&bass club night. fuse afro-funk, jazz, psychedelic grooves, SAYS, expansive psychedelic collective ‘The Knowledge’. Their fifteenth album, it’s the Redemption has been found through work out on a headline tour to promote new album ‘A GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian folk and electro- KNOBBLEHEAD; spacy groove rockers follow-up to 2015’s ‘From Cradle to the Grave’, with Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins and Deadset Endeavour’ following a European tour PANDAPOPALYPSE + CIVIL VILLAINS punk into a huge party beast. PREMIUM LEISURE; poetic goth- the first set of new songs written and recorded exile in Ireland, but his music remains stark with Pop Evil. + EDWARD FOX: The Wheatsheaf – Top pop crew THE COOLING PEARLS; by Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook since and black-hued, somewhere between Nick THE HARD WAY – THE STORY OF quality mixed bag as is traditional with GTI, On any other day they’d be a shoe-in for star dronemeister LEE RILEY; fuzztastic garage- 1998, written as the soundtrack to the televised Cave and Sparklehorse. HANNAH MITCHELL: Bonavero Institute tonight featuring a headline set from ebullient turn of the day, but then you’ve got PIGS pop wunderkind MAX BLANSJAAR and serialisation of Danny Baker’s autobiography of Human Rights – Singer and composer Louise electro-dance-pop trio Pandapopalypse, the band PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS, that heart-on-sleeve gothic blues starlets PET of the same name. Difford and Tilbrook remain Jordan follows up her acclaimed No Petticoats formed by folk singer Rachel Ruscombe-Jones towering mountain of molten metal riffage, SEMATARY. THE INFLATABLES: Fat Lil’s, Witney one of pop great songwriting double acts, Here show with the story of Hannah Mitchell and Balkan Wanderers people Claire Heaviside psychedelic grooving and blackened rock – Oxford’s veteran ska tribute band keep on mixing laddish wit with kitchen sink romance through song, the working class girl from and Stuart Wigby, together mixing up big beat, sludge that sounds like a hoedown in Hell All this just scratches the surface of a day skanking. and regret on classic hits like ‘Cool For Cats’, Derbyshire who rose from campaigner, writer and cheerleader pop, a bit of punk spirit and a swag hosted by Motorhead, Hawkwind and The that promises a new treat at each turn, and THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC: The ‘Pulling Mussels Fro the Shell’, ‘Take Me I’m suffragette to become a councillor and magistrate bag of pop hooks you’ll be trying to shift from Stooges, and who wouldn’t want to be first to stars of tomorrow like Irish post-punks THE Cornerstone, Didcot – Abba tribute. Yours’ and ‘Up the Junction’, heirs to The Kinks’ in the early 20th Century. Tonight’s show is free your internal jukebox for months to come. the bar at that shindig? MURDER CAPITAL, who play at the Ritual MID-LIFE CRISIS: Woodstock Social Club throne in so many ways. A double dose of 80s but with a collection for the EdUKaid’s Heshima Support from London/Brighton outfit Civil Back after their awesome/terrifying showing Union after-party at The Bullingdon, alongside project. hitmaking tonight as they’re joined by Heaven at 2017’s inaugural Ritual Union, BO Scalping and Low Island DJs, th Villains, fusing art-pop, math-rock and desert- SUNDAY 20 GALICIAN FOLK SESSION: The Port 17, Glenn Gregory and Martin Ware’s synth-soul NINGEN will similarly bring the shock and sunkissed posters THE SOFT CAVALRY, survivors, reliving hits like ‘Come Live With rock riffage, plus Edward Fox, a new band formed HANG MASSIVE: O2 Academy – Rhythmic Mahon by gothic songsmith D Gwalia and some of awe with their hysterical goblin-core attack, fronted by Slowdive singer Rachel Goswell, ambient world sounds from the hang-playing duo. PUZZLE CREATURE: The Cornerstone, Me’, ‘Temptation’ and, hopefully, the classic ‘(We and off-the-wall indie actPORRIDGE Don’t Need) This Fascist Groove Thang’. Undersmile. Gonna be dark, gonna be brilliant in OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Harcourt Arms Didcot – Dance/music fusion event from all likelihood. RADIO will be among the bands you’ll be THE UNTHANKS: The North Wall – Rachel THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Tree, Iffley composer Seb Reynolds alongside dance troupe THE PEOPLE VERSUS: Harcourt Arms – glad you saw before the rest of the world woke (4-6.30pm) – Rock and blues classics with the and Becky Unthank perform a song cycle of Neon Dance, inspired by artist/architect duo Atmospheric folk and chamber pop from the local up to them, while FLAMINGODS are the veteran local singer and guitarist and his band. Emily Bronte’s poems turned into songs by kind of band who perfectly capture the spirit Arakawa and Madeline Gins. th act, set to release their debut EP soon. PETE OXLEY, FRANK HARRISON & Adrian McNally to celebrate Bronte’s 200 DAGGA DOMES + CITIES & MEMORIES of an event like Ritual Union with their mix MARK HODGSON: The Abingdon Arms, birthday, the duo’s haunting, atmospheric th + FLAG FEN + AFTER THE THOUGHT: of Middle and Far Eastern traditions, North Beckley – Free live jazz from the guitar, keys and THURSDAY 24 harmony singing perfect to bring her words to African rhythms, Western pop and all manner DAVID ELLIS: Truck Store – The former The Port Mahon – a night of experimental bass trio. life; sadly it’s long since sold out. of folk, jazz, dance and psychedelic sources, Razorlight guitarist plays songs from his new solo electronic music with Dagga Domes, the band JAKE CLEMONS + BEN McKELVEY + their extended songs a mix of mosaics, drones, album ‘Misty Heights’, taking a different musical formed by former-Jonquil and Trophy Wife man st DANNY MELLIN: O2 Academy – E Street samples, melody and atonality. MONDAY 21 path into 60s-styled hippy folk-pop in the vein of Band saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist and Kit Monteith alongside Jeremy Moors, mixing THE DISPLAY TEAM + MASIRO: The early T-Rex and Devendra Banhart. up analogue electronic pulses with anthemic bandleader Jake Clemons – nephew of the The best day out of 2018? Yep. The best day Port Mahon – Frantic, eclectic math-rock/ska HEADIE ONE: O2 Academy – Tottenham’s drill pop choruses. The pair have most recently late, great Clarence – leads his own band on a out of 2019? Don’t bet against it. See you fusion from London’s Display Team, finding a star Irving Adjei makes his Oxford debut as he been remixing Foals. Stuart Fowkes’ Cities & European tour to promote his solo album ‘Fear & here, there and everywhere. deliciously strange meeting point of The tours his new ‘Music x Road’ mixtape, the follow- Love’. Memories project brings a world of sounds to the SUNDAY 27th ARCHIVE: The Library – The Gappy Tooth MELT BANANA + SCRAP BRAIN + UNMAN: Industries offshoot night makes a return after The Wheatsheaf – Tokyo’s terrorcore twosome several years off to recuperate, tonight featuring make their long-awaited Oxford debut – shield the appropriately eclectic and off-the-wall talents your sense folks, it’s gonna be severe – see main of Moogieman, mixing up synth-pop, krautrock, preview indie whimsy and the odd spot of jazz into his VAN MORRISON: The New Theatre – Lock strange tales of obscure historical characters. Acid up your little rays of sunshine, old grumpy guts is jazz-inflected synth-folk from local faves Limpet back in town. Space Race in support alongside lysergic techno ADAM & ELVIS + SCREAMIN’ IRENE + explorations from Oxford Sound Archive. EMMA HUNTER + THE JESTERS: The SKEPSIS: O2 Academy – South London bass th Sunday 27 Wheatsheaf (3.30pm) – Klub Kakofanney host man Scott Jenkins returns to town a free afternoon of live music in the Sheaf’s CAMERON AG: Oxford Deaf & Hard of MELT BANANA downstairs bar. Hearing Centre – Cameron launches his new WESLEY STACE: The Jericho Tavern – The album, ‘One By One’. / SCRAP BRAIN / artist previously known as John Wesley Harding NICK MEIER’S WORLD JAZZ: The reverts to his birth name and tours his extensive Wheatsheaf – The virtuoso guitarist brings his UNMAN: career, including his most recent studio album, globe-spanning jazz to The Spin. ‘Self Titled’. GRAVING TRIPPY: The Bullingdon – Techno The Wheatsheaf and tribal house Halloween club night. If you already know Melt Banana, you OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Harcourt Arms CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford already love Melt-Banana and have your BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) – Monthly Community Centre ticket for tonight’s show clutched tightly in open blues jam. your sweaty fist, the excitement of knowing you’re going to see them in such a perfectly th MONDAY 28 st intimate venue only slightly tempered by the INGLORIOUS: O2 Academy – Classic heavy Thursday 31 knowledge that you possibly won’t be able rock in the vein of Led Zep, Deep Purple, to hear anything for at least the next month, Whitesnake and Guns’n’Roses from Inglorious, JESCA HOOP: your neck might never recover and your jaw touring new album ‘Ride to Nowhere’. will be locked in a rictus grin for some time PIANO JAZZ: Harcourt Arms The Bullingdon Two things always tend to get brought up to come. We’ve been promised a visit from OPEN MIC: The Castle in any article about Jesca Hoop before her Tokyo’s finest noisemakers a number of times FAUSTUS: Nettlebed Folk Club – Folk fun from music is even mentioned: she’s a former over the years but now it’s actually happening. the award-winning trio featuring Bellowhead’s Mormon, and she was previously nanny to And it’s going to be FANTASTIC. For those Benji Kirkpatrick and Paul Sartin, alongside Tom Waits’ kids. So, there. Got that out the who aren’t familiar, Melt-Banana are musical Waterson-Carthy collaborator Saul Rose. way now. Both have a bearing on her music mayhem personified, a blitzkrieg storm of though: lyrically she can be scouring about grindcore, no-wave, hardcore and punk that th religion, including her former faith (notably teeters precariously and thrillingly between TUESDAY 29 SIXTIES GOLD: The New Theatre – 60s regular set highlight ‘The Coming’: “And all-out ferocity and velocity and wild-eyed nostalgia night with surviving body parts of the coming never came”), and Waits was an invention as Ichirou Agata flails his guitar to Herman’s Hermits, The Merseybeats, Wayne important mentor to Hoop early in her career, the point of no return while Yasuko Onuki Fontana & the Mindbombs, Marmalade, Love describing her music as “like swimming in a yelps, yaps, raps and screams like the vocal Affair and Skinny Puppy reliving their hits. lake at midnight”. Hoop’s picked up a fair few demon she surely is. Beloved of some of the influential friends along the course of her six- world’s greatest extreme musicians, the duo th album career: Elbow’s Guy Garvey persuaded have found themselves sharing stages with WEDNESDAY 30 her to move from her native California, where the likes of Napalm Death, The Locust, Mr ROBERT VINCENT: The Bullingdon – The she’d been working as a wilderness guide, Bungle and The Melvins, who each share a former Bob Harris Emerging Talent Award winner and the pair have collaborated regularly, love of taking things to the limit but really, at the UK Americana Awards, Liverpudlian singer/ while in 2016 she recorded an album of duets Melt-Banana are unique. And brilliant. Few songwriter heads out on a headline tour following with Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. Her new are capable of supporting such a firestorm but a support to Beth Nielsen Chapman, playing songs album ‘Stonechild’ is the follow-up to 2017’s nihilistic noisecore crew Scrap Brain and local from his forthcoming album recorded with Ethan acclaimed `Memories Are Now’, released wayward sound crazies Unman are more than Johns. on Subpop, reflecting her folk roots as well up to the job. Excited? You bet we are. ROBERT VINCENT: Truck Store – Intimate instore set from the singer ahead of his as her restless spirit: songs can be sparse, Bullingdon show. simple and acoustic, or percussion and loop Port’s compact confines, remixing and melding MOLLY TUTTLE: St. Barnabas Church – A heavy, densely orchestrated and full of ideas. field recording from across the globe. There’s also rare visit to Oxford for California’s leading lady She can be self-consciously kooky at times, atmospheric electro-soundscaping from former Big of bluegrass, Molly Tuttle, the first woman to win musically and lyrically, but more often she Joan people Fleg Fen, and luscious ambient noise the International Bluegrass Music Association’s can be genuinely otherworldly and strange. from After the Thought. Guitar Player of the Year award, an award she’s Everything she does is understated and ABBA MANIA: The New Theatre – Big stage won two years running now, the singer, guitarist precise even while she’s singing about Greek tribute to the pop legends. and player renowned for her flatpicking, mythology, the Bible, internet age anxiety and RAN KAN KAN: The Old Fire Station – clawhammer and cross picking style. She’s over love in all its bitter forms. Oxford’s leading Cuban ensemble team up with in the UK to promote her new solo album ‘When dance teacher Ariel Rios, for a night of live music You’re Ready’. from the golden years of Cuban big bands. AGS CONNOLLY + ROISIN McNEILL: Fat CHARLIE WOOD: St. Giles Church – Tribute Lil’s, Witney – West Oxfordshire’s Ameripolitan to Mose Allison as part of the Jazz at St. Giles star Ags Connolly launches his new album. season. OSPREY & FRIENDS: The Half Moon st LUCILLE & THE LIGHTNING SOUL TRAIN: THURSDAY 31 Fat Lil’s, Witney – Classic soul, funk and disco. GAMMY LEG PRODUCTIONS with FBI: Woodstock Social Club MOOGIEMAN & THE MASOCHISTS + A-WATTS: The George, Littlemore LIMPET SPACE RACE + OXFORD SOUND

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month, no exceptions. Listings are copyright of Nightshift and may not be used without permission. so far. In KATIE MALCO it seems THE LEISURE SOCIETY LIVE we’ve finally found the perfect mix The Bullingdon of loud versus quiet and assertive Floppy fringed and slightly built like a marginally less weary Richard versus diffident. From Fife, via Nick Hemming barely looks old Hawley. Soon enough though, the London, what she produces with enough to be allowed in a pub, band are off on a country-rock lope just voice and acoustic guitar is never mind fronting a band with before sweeping skywards in a simply awe-inspiring, and it’s two Ivor Novello nominations under style reminiscent of The Waterboys’ regrettable that she seems to be their belt and who are celebrating Big Music. Everything is tightly the only act to pay tribute to the the tenth anniversary of their debut textured but light to the touch, Martha by Helen Messenger genius of the just-departed Daniel album. an easy journey that occasionally Johnston. Her cover of ‘True Love Like Nick himself, The Leisure becomes becalmed in pop’s middle Will Find You In The End’ seals her Society are a hard band to pin lane before finding itself again on place as the finest performance of a down. The couple sporting a gorgeous, melancholy track like very fine day. matching patterned knitwear ‘Tall Black Cabins’, a rumination Local singer and amazing keyboard leaning against the crush barrier on the death of the fishing industry. player THEO brings a welcome give you some idea of the civilised Then you’ll get a noodly, indulgent breath of soul to proceedings. A nature of their music but the jazz interlude that makes way for powerful and confident songwriter devotion of the fans – and this is something almost rockabilly, or with echoes of Randy Crawford, one of the most respectful crowds even delicately plucked classical she seems destined for much greater we’ve been in lately – is no less guitar, maybe a dip into Buddy things, as her upcoming support slot fervent than for any act. There are Holly’s pristine rock’n’roll, or for Shalamar clearly shows. times tonight where you wonder perhaps a little Latin flourish. It’s all RATTLE are the second if you’ve landed in the middle of in there but everything slides easily Nottingham band of the day and some 1980s Christian rock festival, into the rest, so nothing jars. possibly the most unusual. Two but others where the sense of The more reflective the band get, incredibly tight drummers face romantic longing in the songs is the better they sound; ‘Forever each other, producing complex almost tangible. The music can be Shall We Wait’ a particular high rhythms and vocal interjections that insular and sensitive but the humour point, but the warm, expansive almost recall The Slits’ ‘Earthbeat’, between songs, particularly from Americana of ‘Another Sunday but more minimal, unsettling and keyboard player Christian Hardy is Psalm’ is equally inviting, and if hypnotic. Their releases on the sharp and infectious. they’re a band who don’t really fit excellent Upset The Rhythm label Opening number ‘You’ve Got the into any particular scene or genre, IF NOT NOW, WHEN? are essential listening. Universe’ finds Hemming unfurling The Leisure Society are perhaps East Oxford Community Centre / Fusion Arts JACK GOLDSTEIN uses just his his rich tenor over surging keys and an example of how, sometimes, it’s voice and a backing track to create swooning violin and suddenly he simply just the songs that matter. Divine Schism and Idiot King once drums duo with echoes of Robert sitting. A bit like doughnuts. huge washes of sound that conjure seems decades older than he looks, Dale Kattack again join forces to bring us another Wyatt’s unconventional song All of which should play into up images of a Roman emperor amazing day of diverse musical structures. They also display a GEORGE CROWLEY’s hands. entering an arena. Everything treats in perfect weather. Twenty- healthy sense of fun, even goading His mix of mainly ambient is super-sized and shamelessly six bands across three stages; the audience into a little singalong. electronics and treated sax starts emotional, from the major chords to cheap drinks; a vegan burger bar A short walk to Fusion Arts finds well as a counterpoint to the the theatrical voice and touches of and plenty of space to chill out in the bulk of sold-out crowd checking musical feast elsewhere but then . the late summer sunshine; there is out multinational London band somehow loses its way. The sax And so to worthy headliners literally nothing not to like here. GHUM. Unashamedly post-punk, is full-bodied and at times rather MARTHA: speedy power pop Early on BLESSED TWINS they could almost be Joy Division beautiful but the basic, rather drab with catchy hooks and infectious have a brooding, angular reincarnated as an all-female beats fail to combine well enough to melodies, and the faithful dancing air with rumbling bass and stadium band, heavy on emotive create a satisfying experience. at the front seem to know every complex drumming. The tension lyrics but still very much finding SCHANDE are probably the most word. Durham is a city better regularly explodes into a wall their feet. chart-friendly band of the day so known for no-nonsense earthiness of confrontational noise but JUNK WHALE make a big, raw far. The breakneck powerchords than ethereal navel-gazing and th everything is tightly controlled and sound but still feel like a work in and catchy melodies hark back in that respect they are worthy 5 The Calliers / Port Erin /Great Ape / Danel Ma’ani impressively measured. progress at times. Ultimately there’s to bands like L7 and Mudhoney, ambassadors. They bring a great @ The Port Mahon LIMPET SPACE RACE are only so many rough, angsty indie which makes for an unexpected and day to a suitably joyous conclusion. 11th Master Of None / Ali Horn / Starbelly/ Emma Art Lagun an absorbing keyboard and bands you can consume in one not unwelcome change to the menu Hunter/ @ The Port Mahon 13th The Sunday Social... various artists the ensemble works to enhance the impact of Gaby-Elise Monaghan’s CULTDREAMS / PET SEMETARY / piercing-yet beautiful howling laments. The result is like a journey into @ The Half Moon 3.30pm start th JUNK WHALE the dark cave of the soul: echoey and distorted but filled with catharsis. 18 Subject To Change / support @ The Wheatsheaf The bitter groove of ‘Tall Boys’, drenched in noise, and set closer ‘Dogs’ 18th The Wurzels @ The Bullingdon The Library are particular highlights, the latter feeling like an organic release of anger, 20th The Sunday Social ... various artists Is the feedback intentional? Who cares? Junk Whale blast out of the gate energy and tension: a perfect climax to the set. with reflective and emotive riff evoking the earnestness of Jetplane Landing Tonight’s headliners Cultdreams hail from Brighton, via Antwerp. The @ The Wheatsheaf 3.30pm start and Hundred Reasons. As their set moves on they pick up the pace with two-piece explore expansive noise-punk sounds akin to Fucked Up and 25th Toology / support @ The Wheatsheaf catchy power-chord hooks like classic Fall Out Boy. The bass is unrelenting ; how they build such an intense and rounded sound between 25th Grand Palace Scam / The Jerichos and the guitar-vocal interplay is impactful but still sweet and heart-felt. Junk just the two of them we don’t know, but it’s incredible. Their aesthetic is Whale come off as discontented with the world and pushing through the only melancholy passed through a mass of punk energy. It’s not just the volume @ The Port Mahon way they know how with absolutely fantastic ; not that we can that makes you not miss a bassist but the careful choices in structure and 26th Osprey & co @ The Half Moon think of any reasons the youth of today could be disillusioned or frustrated... the sheer brutal force of drummer Conor Dawson that makes for more than Anyway, with a brilliant new album just released on several tape formats we enough noise. Lead and rhythm, quiet and distorted motifs weave and flow st can only hope for more and more form them. as if they were a three guitarist and, enhanced by Lucinda Livingstone’s 1 Nov Anton Barbies Thrust / Charms Against The Last time we saw Pet Semetrary it was a solo show of haunting reverb- dual mode vocals of screaming and She Drew The Gun-esque semi- Evil Eye / Laima Bite @ Cirkus drenched open wound emotion. That was great but in no way prepare us spoken poetry. for all Cirkus & other events please visit our Facebook page for the distorted dream-pop assault of this full band show. Every part of Matt Chapman Jones PRESENTS

LIVE Mclusky by Helen Messenger

provokes a frantic moshpit in the MCLUSKY* / WORRY packed crowd. All this is punctuated The Bullingdon by the dark, barbed humour that It takes all of 30 seconds into not so sweet set spares no room for moments of contemplation like Falkous brings to bear within and Worry’s set for singer Nathan Ball, nuance, who needs a scalpel when uncontrolled temper tantrums between the songs, joking about sporting an appropriate Gouge you have a sledgehammer. and violent sonic seizures. After Eric Clapton, and his own father’s Away shirt, to turn a worrying shade Mclusky* have the surgeon’s knife opening with the relatively sedate death with an almost unnerving bon of puce and look like he might and a power drill at their disposal. ‘Fuck This Band’, the trio hurtle viveur. actually explode. Instead he has a Partially reformed (here’s Andy through a set of sheet-metal ‘Gareth Brown Says’ brings one of safety valve that involves screaming Falkous and Jack Eggletone but not hardcore and propulsive industrial the greatest opening lines in rock and bellowing raging invective Jonathan Chapple, whose place on sturm und drang, all grinding Big history (“All your friends are cunts / and his deepest, darkest existential bass is now taken by The St Pierre Black basslines and feral Birthday And your mother is a ballpoint pen thoughts to the world as behind him Snake Invasion’s Damien Sayell) Party hysteria, Falkous making his thief”) but it’s the closing brace of his band thunder like a flail tank after a decade-long hiatus, they’ve guitar sound like it’s been built from ‘Whoyouknow’ and ‘To Hell With riding over a packed minefield. mellowed not one jot since the days distilled anxiety. Most songs clock Good Intentions’ that provide the There’s no room for niceties in they were the most incendiary band in under the two minute mark but final, delicious, fatal cuts, leaving Worry’s sound; it’s all bish, bash, on the gig circuit, one possessed of get the job done on time: ‘Without a room of old fans and newcomers bosh. Mostly bosh, actually. both needle-sharp caustic wit and MSG I Am Nothing’; ‘The World alike grinning like loons. A Bosch even, since it can feel like spineshaking musical ferocity. Loves Us And Is Our Bitch’, and musical masterclass in growing old a washing machine just landed on That ferocity comes in short, of course a mayhemic ‘Lightsabre disgracefully. your head at times. If their short and succinct blasts, punctuating those Cocksucking Blues’, which Dale Kattack

Angelic Upstarts. It’s yobbish street punk with no concession to the THE XTRAVERTS / ORDER#227 passing of the decades, finishing with ‘Blank Generation’ (no, not that The Wheatsheaf one); on the one hand a bit of a shambles, on the other probably an The debate as to what constitutes punk will never be resolved. In one authentic recreation of prime provincial punk with all its frayed edges. corner those who insist anything after about 1979 doesn’t count and in Considerably younger, Order#227 have similarly authentic credentials the other those who imagine anything faster and noisier than the most and execute their set with considerably more proficiency, their simpering of emo constitutes the real deal. touchstones the same, touching on Oi! at times. ‘Collateral Damage’ is What is indisputable is that both bands here tonight very definitely without the reggae, while ‘Depression’ might be an up-for-a- are punk. The Xtraverts tick all boxes since they were there back in scrap cousin of Rocket From the Crypt’s ‘On a Rope’. If ‘The Internet is 1977, leading lights of High Wycombe’s lively punk scene, the band’s a Paedophile Playground’ treads an uncomfortable line between righteous reputation only reinforced by singer Nigel Martin’s imprisonment after right-on fury and a Daily Mail opinion column, set closer ‘Nobody Gives a fight at the legendary Aylesbury Friars. Martin, now a rather more a Fuck About Nothing No More’ is full-pelt anarcho-punk with a petrol avuncular presence, still leads the band, and tonight’s short and messy can in one hand and a four pack of super-strength cider in the other. In but suitably aggressive set suggests they’ve no desire to move on from spirit as well as sound, Order#227 can most definitely wear the badge of that 70s heyday, the clarion-call lyrics putting The Xtraverts very much authentic with pride. in the “if the kids were united” bracket alongside Sham 69 and The Dale Kattack

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MYTICKET.CO.UK ‘Gloaming’ and the prog influenced ‘Fitzimmons Fight’. But it’s his MEANS OF PRODUCTION / THE PINK LIVE explosive fiddle solo that lifts the DIAMOND REVUE / MOJAVE set to another level. Over in the much calmer concert The Port Mahon stage another of the West Country’s A late finish in the football and the Dick Dale taking Leftfield surfing against finest, Show of Hands’STEVE vagaries of Oxford’s bus service mean a backdrop of vintage cinema reel, or KNIGHTLEY, plays a solo set that we arrive just in time to miss openers possibly Public Service Broadcasting’s is a sort of musical autobiography, Octavia Freud, but given he closes with a evil tattooed rockabilly twin brother: Seth Lakeman by Dave Freak ending with his two magnificent radical reworking of Spacemen 3’s classic they’re an absolutely mesmerising trip. songs about the West Country ‘Revolution’, we make a mental note If Means of Production are a trip it’s a diaspora: ‘Cousin Jack’ and never to miss him again. downwards one, into the depths of some ‘Country Life’, which deserve to be @mephistofilms @Mephisto TV And so it’s another one-man electronic vast industrial concrete sarcophagus better known beyond the folk world. @mephistofilms @mephistofilms act, Mojave, who we catch first, busily lined with flickering sodium lights. Such is Knightley’s personality flitting among his mess of gadgetry The duo, studiously motionless, as if and musicality we stay longer than as tripped-out visuals play out behind guiding a derelict spacecraft through the intended so only catch the end of him, his pleasingly somnambulating void, hammer out a hypnotic electro- THE SELECTER on the main instrumentals a soothing mix of primitivism, harsh-hearted and almost stage. With the super stylish Pauline Kraftwerk, Banco de Gaia and the desolate at times in its steely android Black and ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson fronting them, the band are tight and sweeter side of Aphex Twin, dirty bass relentlessness, Tim Day’s minimal have the arena jumping as they belt and clickety clack beats underpinning vocal intonations only serving to make out 2 Tone classics ‘On My Radio ‘ gilded synth lines that at their best come everything even less human. From the ‘Too Much Pressure’ and ‘Message together to create the impression of a austere ebm of ‘The Depths’ to the To You Rudi’ in quick succession. train trundling across icebound tundra at motorik relentlessness of ‘Siri Take Me Then it’s back to the concert midnight. Home’, they’re the musical incarnation of tent for something that really is By contrast The Pink Diamond Revue brutalist architecture, all straight lines and different: musical parodies (Abba’s are a relentless dreadnought ploughing beauty in ugliness, 1970s synth music’s TOWERSEY FESTIVAL ‘Fernando’ becoming a bad meal at through lysergic waves on Kraken Mare Ballardian nightmare reincarnated in a Nando’s) and clever stagecraft from in search of the Plains of Golgotha. cyborg factory at the end of the Thame Showground the self styled “greatest band in Reading’s slow-mo acid rock duo are no universe. In short stunning, and quite It’s sunny and hot for our day After ice cream and being down a treat in the afternoon heat. tank tops”, THE BAR-STEWARD strangers to Oxford and while musically possibly the most underrated band in HARCOURT ARMS trip to Oxfordshire’s longest entertained, bemused and baffled They are followed by the polished SONS OF VAL DOONICAN. they’ve never changed course, it’s always Oxford right now. running festival, which has made by JARDU’S MAGIC OF LES POULES À COLIN who We’ve seen them before and expect fun, metronomic beats backing Tim Lane’s Sue Foreman October news by announcing next year INDIA, it’s off to the always tell us their Quebecois- French to laugh less second time round. reverbed-to-buggery guitar, sounding like it is moving out of the county to buzzing dance tent to catch a little songs are dripping with blood and We’re wrong. The last band are 5th Dan Rawle Buckinghamshire and are greeted of THE MELROSE QUARTET gore. Their dramatic vocals and Elephant Sessions. Their by Towersey favourites the CEILIDH BAND. They use vocals Rolls Royce harmonies are highly pounding bass and drums and strobe GHOSTS IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS 12th Scott Gordon FRUMPTARN GUGGENBAND, as well as instruments for the polished and they surprise us by lighting is folk beats rather than back for a third successive year. dances and as the award winning pinning back our ears with an all , and creates a dynamic / DEATH OF THE MAIDEN / IDEAL 14th Oxford Classic With their punchy brass and Nancy Kerr is in their line-up some out rock finale. dance club atmosphere with fiddle MARRIAGE percussion repertoire of pop classics of the vocals are very good indeed. Irish rock and soul band player Euan Smille almost matching Jazz played carnival style and in their Towersey caters for fans of rock HOTHOUSE FLOWERS’s Seth Lakeman when it comes to The Wheatsheaf Day Of The Dead costumes, they’re as well as folk and what’s in- charismatic singer Liam Ó Maonlaí shredding it. 19th Mighty Redox a delightfully weird start to the day. between, and today that’s so even looks every inch a rock & roll Being in the middle of the Formed by former members of Lowws, The band are more propulsive now than Then it’s to the concert stage where in the dance tent where RUSTY survivor. Driven on by the rest of famously friendly but boisterous Ideal Marriage share a similar affinity they were on recent album ‘The Girl With 26th The People WARD & PARKER’s folk pop SHACKLE, who are very much the band, and with his voice still main stage crowd as they go for it for fidgety groove-pop that carries them the Secret Fire’, Hannah indulging her axe is pleasant but memorable only at the rock end of the folk rock sounding fabulous, he’s totally in one last time seems a perfect way close to Wild Beasts territory but Christian hero desires, but also capable of carving for John Parker’s virtuoso double spectrum, score a surprising but the moment. It’s mesmeric and to end another great day and night Johnstone’s almost operatic vocals are out almost Ry Cooder-like spaces when Versus bass playing and beat boxing. deserved success. possibly the performance of the day. at Towersey. It’s time to say thanks what keeps tonight’s set on its toes, the the songs demand it and ‘Trouble’, with Later Parker again impresses Oxford’s LOUD MOUNTAINS Not many could follow that but and wave goodbye as the festival singer channelling Thom Yorke at times its hint of early Aldous Harding, is a dark 28th Piano Jazz alongside talented guitarist Ben are first on the main stage. Their the equally charismatic Seth heads off to Buckinghamshire, but elsewhere exorcising more venomous high point of the set. Walker backing Americana new line up makes them the rockiest Lakeman does. His new band and to make a note to find out in demons or going the full Gilbert and After two such outstanding vocal Open Mi c Every singer songwriter EMILY MAE and loudest we’ve heard them, gives more of a full time for next year exactly where is Sullivan; if he doesn’t always dovetail performances it’s perhaps for the best WINTERS, though unfortunately helping their songs about staying up to older numbers like ‘1643’, Claydon House. with the music he’s never less than that Ghosts in the Photographs are an Sunday we just can’t take her singing style. too late and drinking too much go as well as to the newer, ethereal Colin May engaging and brings a sense of drama to instrumental act. Tonight launching their live music at the heart of jericho the band’s languid, spacious sound. epically-proportioned new single ‘Taylor Cranham Terrace Jericho Oxford ox2 6dg Death of the Maiden’s songs generally Mountain Memorial’, they balance the source. As on tonight’s set opener ‘Humpty Dumpty’, which has an 01865 556669 come packed with enough drama, grief delicacy and power astutely, slow-burn FRANK WILLIAMS AFRICAN instantly appealing riff , goes on an excursion or three before heading and tragedy to fill an entire box set of crescendos building to wig-out climaxes back to base and ending with the unmistakable sound of the unfortunate JAZZ QUARTET Eastenders Christmas Specials, or in the that owe plenty to Mogwai but also Humpty falling of the wall and cracking. Frank is on impressive form case of tonight’s set opener ‘Tess’, several Ride’s earliest noise explosions with their throughout; his languid approach and latent energy is perfect for this St Aldates Tavern volumes of tragic Victorian literature. blizzards of glissando. Their set plays Sax player Frank Williams can be heard regularly in Oxford playing a music. If Frank is laidback, Curtis Ruiz on bass guitar is horizontal, The imperious venom in Tamara Parsons- out to a backdrop of icebound mountain jazz standard as sweetly as anybody could want but tonight he’s playing yet lays down some wicked lines, especially in the second half. With Baker’s voice and lyrics brings the most railways which reflects the often glacial South African township jazz, perhaps the music closest to his heart given Frank’s long time collaborator Kofi Adu also making an impact with out of the tale of death, redemption and nature of their music, but tension, velocity his origins. deftly understated percussion, Frank’s colleagues have a groove which revenge, while Hannah Bruce’s epic and heaviness pile up as they bulldoze to Frank left South Africa in 1978 and played with fellow South African complements and stimulates his stellar musicality and sax playing. stadium rock solo lifts the finale to new an excoriating dirge at the death and we jazz exiles in London, and brings the spirit of Hugh Masakela, Miriam It’s good to see that the band are having so much fun, and several of the heights. Such intensity carries on through come into land at some station in the sky Makaba and particularly Dudu Pukwana to St Aldates. crowd find they can’t resist dancing. That tonight’s show is in aid of a the obsessive ‘This House’ and even that’s definitely not Didcot. We’re not sure It’s restless but joyous music, bursting with catchy melodies. Frank and small South African charity simply adds further to the feelgood factor. the band often take these tunes for a walk far from where they started No doubt the legends of South African jazz would have joined with the an initially incongruous diversion into if it’s the altitude or the music, but we feel adding various influences along the way, particularly when guitarist well deserved ovation at the end. something approaching funk rock allows a little lightheaded. Dan Waldman is soloing, but they always find they their way back to Colin May Tamara to unleash her inner Patti Smith. Dale Kattack TIM TURAN’S SESSION NOTES Part Nine Data compression is INTRODUCING.... totally different to audio Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under Streaming Audio (part 1: crap sound rules ok) compression. Audio compression reduces the Hi everyone, this month I want to look at Streaming audio and in particular the dynamic range of music. MAX BLANSJAAR formats and technical requirements of some of the more popular streaming sites. Data compression reduces Who is he? Streaming is a means of delivering data in a constant stream to the consumer as the number of bits in a file Singer and multi-instrumentalist Max Blansjaar is originally from opposed to downloading. With streaming you can access the data immediately size. Data compression Amsterdam but moved to Oxford back in 2006. Composing his songs at whereas with downloads you have to wait for the download to complete. All will affect the quality of home on piano he learned guitar from elder sister Silke – drummer in Self streaming services “data compress” the material with varying degrees of quality. your sound, sometimes Help and Candy Says – and released his debut cassette on Beanie Tapes significantly. With an MP3 in 2017. Silke also plays in Max’s live band along with Tom Hitch (Easter The largest problem encountered by people using streaming sites is the loudness the data reduction can be as Island Statues / Mother); gigs include this summer’s Truck Festival as well as difference between tracks. Listening to whole albums seems to be a thing of the much as 90%. A 3 minute Oxjam last year. He releases his new EP , ‘Fantasy Living’, for Beanie Tapes past with the emphasis now on single tracks, usually in a user’s playlist. The song at 16bit/44.1Khz (CD this month and plays at Ritual Union on Saturday 19th October. trouble is that all of these tracks have an inherently different loudness. This means quality) will be around 30 What does he sound like? you have to constantly fiddle with your volume control. Nearly all streaming sites Mb in size. The equivalent Lo-fi bedroom fuzz-pop with a sense of childlike glee and simplicity, or, as can prepare you for an audience of young children. Yet he pulls it right out now employ a “normalisation” algorithm to compensate for this. Unfortunately MP3 will be around 3Mb. 90% of the data will vanish. This can sound pretty we said of Max’s debut EP: “Ramshackle bedroom vibes, all fuzz and flurry the bag, every single time. Unbelievable.” CDs mastered to extremely loud (and un-dynamic) levels are pushed down whilst dreadful at the best of times. With streaming, the data rate can be as low as and lopsided tunes held together with gaffer tape and hope, lo-fi indie punk If he could only keep one album in the world, it would be: quieter (more dynamic) tracks are raised up slightly. 96Kbps (kilobytes per second) and as high as 320Kbps. CD on the other hand has squeezed tight into pocket money-friendly pop tunes with Toytown synth-pop “Probably ‘Odelay!’ by Beck: such a glorious mish-mash of styles. It’s one What are they “normalised” to? Let’s look at Spotify. Launched in 2008 it is the a data rate of 1.4Mbps. bloops for company.” Fun pop music with sweet and noisy bits, then. of those albums that you can’t really over-play; which is always good if it’s world’s most popular streaming site, commanding 36% of all streamed audio What inspires him? the only one you’re allowed to keep. Plus the keyboard riff in ‘Where It’s At’ content. Figures published in July 2019 state 232 million users. Along with MP3 there are many digital audio file formats used in the industry for “The Paddington movies, for sure. First of all the sequel is on par, quality- is immortal and puts all other keyboard riffs to shame.” All Spotify audio is normalised to -14LUFS. LUFS stands for Loudness Units streaming and distribution. With the exception of FLAC and WAV they are all wise, with the first film, which all musicians can learn a thing or two from. When is his next local gig and what can newcomers expect? (referenced to) Full Scale. The full spec of LUFS is referenced in the EBU R128 “Lossy”. Lossy means that data will be lost in favour of smaller file size. MP3s And it just has so many quotable lines (“if we’re calm and polite, the world At Ritual Union on Saturday 19th October. Expect me trying to flog my new recommendation for broadcast and streamed audio. Loudness is about perception. have bit rates from 96Kbps up to 320Kbps. There are two kinds of bit rates, will be right”; “everyone’s different, which means anyone can fit in”). EP to them. Sorry in advance, but also not, because a boy’s gotta pay rent. Loudness normalisation on streaming platforms evens out these perceived Constant Bit Rate (CBR) which is self explanatory and Variable Bit Rate (VBR). His career highlight so far is: The show should be fun, too.” differences. Variable bit rate works thus: very sparse instrumentation can be encoded at a “Playing Truck this year. I’ve been going for five years at least, so to play His favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: Audio engineers are now required to submit material that adheres to this lower bit rate and when the track becomes more instrumentally dense it will be there now felt a bit funny. And people actually turned up to watch us, which “Favourite thing is everybody letting me play with them, even though I’m specification. Submitting highly maximised audio will result in distortion once encoded with a higher bit rate. The unwanted artifacts from this data compression was a bonus and a highlight.” so little. Least favourite is not being allowed into a whole load of venues the site encodes the music for streaming. So you will need to invest in a LUFS are grim at best but then if you insist on listening on a portable telephone … And the lowlight: because I’m too little. Although it does give me something to be indignant meter for your audio systems. Incidentally a LUFS is equivalent to 1dB. Quieter who gives a fuck. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format was developed by “There was one pretty bad gig supporting this Devo tribute band. I’d never about, which is nice for small talk and interviews and stuff.” audio will sound significantly better than over-loud audio once the streaming a few companies, among them Bell Labs, AT&T and Nokia. It too is lossy and heard of Devo and I admitted this on stage. Everyone was very cross with me.” You might love him if you love: platform has normalised the tracks. The idea is that you can set your preferred is regarded as slightly better than MP3. In fact nearly all the lossy formats are His favourite other Oxfordshire act is: Darwin Deez; Graham Coxon; Tune-Yards; Jack Goldstein; Courtney listening volume on your device and leave it there. slightly better than MP3. How popular is streaming? Well last year 431 billion “Nick Cope. I saw him play at Truck. The way he captures the audience: I Barnett; Beck. streams were logged in the USA alone! don’t know how he does it. Also, his actual songs are wildly underrated and Hear him here: With the exception of TIDAL, streaming sites will data compress your audio. Next Month we will meet Ogg Vorbis … beware. kind of linger in your head for days. And how does the guy rehearse? Nothing maxblansjaar.bandcamp.com

T H E W H E A T S H E A F Dr SHOTOVER: Street Fighter 2 THIS MONTH IN OXFORD st Tuesday 1 October – 7:45pm Ah, there you are, Sedley. Welcome to the East Indies Club bar. Pull up ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY a pew and dispense some largesse. Or LAGER-esse if you prefer. Yes, I know – I usually require what you whippersnappers call Old Man’s Beer… 20 YEARS AGO 10 YEARS AGO 5 YEARS AGO but I’m stretching a point (or PINT) as it is hot in here. So, due to massive Can it really be 20 years since Supergrass released By now firmly established as local heroes, Back in October 2014 Oxford bid a very sad rd Thursday 3 October – 8pm popular interest, we are relaunching the feature on ‘Roads of Rock’ in our their third album? Seems so as a look back at Stornoway announced plans to become the first farewell to one of its great characters and fayre city. Without further ado, I give you COWLEY MINOGUE, RICK ASTON October 1999’s Nightshift reveals a review of the non-orchestral band to perform at the historic pioneering spirits with the death, aged just 40, of

th and BARNS-ANARAMA. Ok, it’s all gone rather STOCKMORE, AITKEN & eponymous “difficult third,” which found the band Sheldonian Theatre this month back in 2009 Dave Norland. A renowned musician (playing Friday 4 October – 7:45pm WATERPERRY, hasn’t it? Not to mention, a bit East-Oxford-Centric. But “all grown up but still eager little boys in love with an occasion, one that remains one of the greatest bass in reggae band Mackating) sound engineer fear not, we have some treats from the streets of North Oxford too… the rock and roll and now armed with a greater range of gigs by a local band we can remember. For many (at The Zodiac and Academy) and producer (at likes of PLANTATION DUB FOUNDATION, WARNBOROUGH & PEOPLES, THE styles and emotions than ever before.” What odds gig goers it was their first foray ever into the Soundworks) he also helped found community th the reformed crew headlining next year’s Truck Christopher Wren-designed building and true to radio station Destiny 105. But he’ll be best known Saturday 5 October – 7:45pm KINGSTON ROSES, FAITH NORTHMOOR (think about it, Sedley, think about it…). There is also a special tribute to Oxford’s own Radiohead, in the form Festival, we wonder? form the band delivered in style, peaking with one as the man who released the first twoSupergrass of KIDLINGTON A and OAKTHORPE COMPUTER. What’s that, Newbie? Do I Back in olden times Nightshift had a regular feature of the first ever performances of their classic ‘The singles and The Mystics’ debut on his own fancy a spin round the (GOLDEN-EAR) RING ROAD? I don’t think so, Newbie. called Best of Times, Worst of Times, where we Coldharbour Road’. Backbeat Records label. “He knew how to make th Wednesday 9 October – 7:45pm But, tell you what [kindly tone, twinkle in eye]… you may take out your Mr asked a local pop person to pick their best and worst Stornoway also released a new single, things happen,” said Hugo Makepeace of his Men wallet and dispense some ‘Radar Love’ by buying the next round. Yes, memories, and in October 1999 it was Radiohead’s `Unfaithful’, this month, a re-recorded version of friend, “he’d do stuff and then ask permission.”

th Ed O’Brien who chose Arthur Turner’s the lead track from their ‘Good Fish Guide’ EP. Legendary local promoter Mac simply said: “he Thursday 10 October – 8pm an honour indeed. [THAT drumbeat and bassline come in… all start

swaying and singing ‘I’ve been driving all night, hands wet on the wheel’… Lovechild’s show at The Jericho Tavern as his “A band who seem to conjure epic, timeless pop was a top man – the only person ever to drink me inspiring moment (“simply awesome”) and On A songs from the earth with enviable ease,” ran our under the table.” th Dr S puts on Tuesday 15 October – 7:45pm Dutch clogs Friday’s gig at The Hollybush in Osney as a night typically enthusiastic review. In rather happier news, this month marked The and starts to forget (“there were five people there and the Enthusiasm was high too for the return to town August List’s first ever appearance on the cover th Thursday 24 October – 8pm knocking sound engineer didn’t know there was an off switch of Bat For Lashes at the O2 Academy, as well as of Nightshift, though Kerraleigh and Martin Child back for the smoke machine”). So, you see, aspiring rock the likes of Idlewild, The Big Pink (as part of the looked far from cheery as they stood knee-deep th stars, everyone starts off at the bottom with all its inaugural event, a precursor to Gathering) in a river. Talking about their new release, ‘O Friday 25 October – 7:45pm pints of OX4 Grolsch]… inherent pitfalls. Never give up. and Noah & the Whale at the same venue, while Hinterland’, they recalled getting hitched in North th In local music news this month Catweazle Club over in the demo pages, a bunch of newcomers Carolina (“We saw Raymond Fairchild play banjo 8pm Cheers! Saturday 26 October – Down the were celebrating their fifth birthday. Even back then called Spring Offensive were narrowly beaten while a 90-year-old man, who the day before we the club, run by Matt Sage, was hailed as Oxford’s to Demo of the Month by Banbury’s Scholars. saw sleeping on a bench, did some Appalachian th hatch, Sunday 27 October – 7:45pm yesh? longest-running open night. Fast forward to the “In ‘Between One and One-Nine-Four’, they clog dancing in front of him, we saw some of that present day and it’s a quarter century celebration have an indie disco classic in waiting, old weird America. We saw elk and bears and Next this month. Hats off. twitching and twinkling beneath a vocal that spits nature on a grand scale that’s both beautiful and

st month: Coming to town this month were: My Life Story, out its opening line and carries a sneer with it dangerous and we find those things infecting our Thursday 31 October – 8pm Pass the The All Seeing I and Bert Jansch (The Zodiac); throughout… who knows how far they might go,” songs and we just run with it.”) but also how they Dutchie on Baby: ‘Oh God. My parents have put me down Billy Mahonie, Brassy and Murry the Hump ran the review. Stornoway and Spring Offensive weren’t keen on certain “country couple” acts Oxford Imps - Every Monday during term - www.oxfordimps.com / The Spin Jazz - Every Thursday - spinjazz.net to be the bass-player in Golden Earring…’ www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford the Left (The Point): Feeder, Gomez and Travis (Brookes – hands up who’d pay a small fortune to see those (“Nothing makes our hearts sink more than a soppy The Wheatsheaf, 129 High Street, Oxford, OX1 4DF Hand Side Child: ‘You should worry. I’m the manager’. Union), and Miss Mend (The Jericho Tavern). two reform and back playing in Oxford? boy/girl acoustic duo”). electro extremism while another realises his novelty hit ‘Break My Stride’, replete true musical love is big band jazz. Which with obligatory guitar solo and a chorus so would be bloody great if they did and could overegged it makes Bonnie Tyler sound like still manage to be in the same band as each Yo la Tengo. Music for people who think TRACks other. As it is, this isn’t actually that heavy, Europe’s ‘Final Countdown’ was a bit too Sponsored by Track of the Month wins a free remix though the Nirvana influence is probably edgy and lo-fi. Or maybe just music for from Soundworks studio in Oxford, the more obvious of any mentioned, a fucking idiots. Go on, stick that accolade in courtesy of Umair Chaudhry. Visit slightly grunge take on downbeat pop-punk your gallery of awards, mate. www.umairchaudhry.co.uk/nightshift that sounds more cultured than its slightly awkward construction might suggest. It’s neatly understated, recognising maybe TOILET FLAT LAGER that if they fly off on one everything might TOP In something of a contrast to Rebel Station fall apart. “Hope you like them. If not we who have a singer with the simple moniker TRACKS look forward to our funeral,” adds Hayden. Monkey, Flat Lager’s frontman is called TRACKS Funeral? No great risk of that on this early Owen Passingham-Hughes, but the two evidence from the band, and anyway, don’t bands’ general musical approach isn’t so STORY73LLER fret too much; they can do all sorts of stuff “I have some demos here from the IDEAL MARRIAGE different, preferring route-one rolling chords appallingly named Story73ller – brainchild “‘Errors’ deals with anxiety around new with cryogenics these days. There might yet and gruff, chest-thumping vocals, Sunday of Lee Valentine, who writes all the technology’s impact on us, the rise of AI and be a future for you. league tactics (hit it to the big lad upfront) tunes. Don’t hold back!” So says Sam Tusk, living forever in a digital world,” explain and Saturday night rowdiness (eight pints the band’s trombone player and keyboardist, Ideal Marriage by way of introduction to of Export and the odd broken bar stool). who seems already resigned to the critical this new track, and while that description Unlike the band’s previous demo offering CHAYNES While hip hop is both the most popular and kicking they’re about to get and wants had us hoping it’d be some hellish electro- there’s little by way of funk here, everything universal on the planet, and to disassociate himself from it all before industrial musical nightmare with a Dalek tumbles and careers down a steep musical small provincial towns harbour as much it begins. And who are we to disappoint on lead vocals and the Terminator on bass, slope, so it gets to the end of the song with propensity for the nasty stuff in life as the people. The opening lines to ‘Bumpin’ and we still don’t end up disappointed that it’s admirable/worrying haste, like a parched big city, it still feels a little incongruous a Grindin’ set the sorry scene: “Where do instead a rather sweet and uplifting indie alcoholic necking a cold pint of, well, lager. hearing a young lad from Wantage rhyming you think you’re going dressed like that / pop nugget. Featuring members of former The name conjures images of sticky floors, about gangsters and beef, but Chaynes With your skirt so short and your top so low Nightshift faves Lowws, Ideal Marriage damp ceilings and speed drinking. The music here fair spits “Must be serious / I’m not / I can’t believe my eyes / With your bumps benefit enormously from having a singer does the same. In these complex and fraught bothered by the fucking shit, period” on shaking out all over the place / Your breasts with an airy, wide-ranging voice who sounds times, such simplicity is something to be ‘Cosa Nostra’, which comes with a sampled so pert / I must confess, you are blessed.” If a bit like we imagine Thom Yorke might admired, right? intro of an ex mobsters talking about ‘the this was some long lost 80s dancehall track if he saw the best in people and went on TURAN AUDIO.co.uk days’. Chaynes has a few other grudges it might be almost forgivable, or at least country walks to talk to lambs and bunnies Professional, independent to unload across these six tracks, mostly understandable, but even if it’s intended audio mastering while wearing a daisy chain crown instead of SI-RO delivered in an unwavering hazy flow that’s as a parody it’s so spectacularly wide of dwelling on mass extinction and existential “Last March you reviewed a demo of Rakim by way of The Streets, and washes whatever mark it thought it was aiming at pain. Musically the band sound like a slightly mine and though quite complimentary you Mastered in the studio last month; Apple approved of warm keys and piano underpinned by it’s like shooting for the moon and stabbing spaced-out stadium pop outfit, one who expressed a wish for my music to sound mastering sullen trap beats. But he’s at his best when yourself in the buttock with a potato peeler. STONE BROKEN, KNOBBLEHEAD, thought bombast was a bit and wouldn’t darker. I’ve since released an album called he leaves the beef behind and becomes more Later there’s talk of “me and the boys playing APIDAE, ASTEROX, CHRIS LACY, LEAD SHOT it be nice if we all went for a hot air balloon ‘Chrome Skyline’ which I think will be more contemplative, talking about the doubters dominoes and drinking Red Stripe” while HAZARD, SUPERGRASS, YOUNG KNIVES, ride together, or maybe modern day festival- to your taste,” says Simon Rowe of this new rather than the haters, examining his own self ogling the passing ladies who, obviously, he SAM HARDY, DIMORPHODONS, LIAM & SIÔN friendly Foals at their most languid. As the extended demo offering. And initially at least doubts. When he mentions bars we assume wants to bump and grind with. Bet they’re RICKARD, DZIEWCZETA, ASTEROX, BLACK dregs of summer slip silently and morosely he seems to be living up to his promise with he’s rapping about music rather than xanax, absolutely gagging for it when faced with WATER ROSE, SINFUL MAGGIE. into the past, it’s a reminder that there is some some dark synth pulses that wouldn’t sound though it’s not always easy to be sure. Ideally such romantic poetry. From here things get hope left in the world, whatever technology out of place on the soundtrack to Escape he’d vary the pace a bit: he’s got an easy far, far worse very quickly. At least that track 01865 716466 [email protected] has planned for us all. From New York. Too soon, though, he’s flow but across the full EP it can feel a little has a semblance of swagger about it. ‘Hip gone from John Carpenter to Jan Hammer: somnambulating, particularly with the music’s To The Swing’, a vaguely funky melange slightly brassy, shiny electro soundscapes hypnogogic vibe, though final track ‘Pain’ of lightweight reggaefied pop, soulful rock, more suited to Miami Vice or some other does up the overall aggression. Promising weak tea and gap year anecdotes, is so COURTYARD REBEL STATION glossy mid-80s TV show. He does rediscover stuff from a rapper who perhaps just needs to plodding even the can’t rescue In these virulently polarised times when the dark periodically, like on ‘The Skull RECORDING STUDIO ditch a few of the genre clichés and bring his it and it ends up sounding like a jam session 2 Tracking Rooms. Superb Control Room with: it feels increasingly like we’re reliving of Tower Hill’, which might be a raved-up own voice and experiences more to the fore. in Hades involving Sting, Level 42 and Men NEVE 5106 32 Channel Console. ProTools HD3 the 1980s all over again (far right Tory soundtrack to a lost CBBC sci-fi series, at Work. By ‘Magic City’, they’ve sunk to MTR 90 2” 24 Track Tape Machine. Vintage EMT Plate Reverb government trampling over society’s most but even here he can’t avoid sinking back Loads of Brilliant Outboard Gear worst-busker-in-town level. Even worse vulnerable; intellectually challenged loon in into MOR noodling. For every moment of Loads of Great Mics, Vintage and Modern than the one who sits on Cornmarket Street the White House; polarised bigotry on every promise – the steely android techno squiggle PAUL LE ROCQ Old School Akai/Roland Synth Modules Talking of genre clichés, there is a strain every night singing ‘Stand By Me’ on repeat, Upright Piano, Fender Rhodes, Amps and great vibes. side of the political spectrum; increasingly of ‘Equinox Ritual’ for example – there’s of musician for whom stultifying soft rock because at least he isn’t under the illusion Residential recording studio in Sutton Courtenay. bouffant hair-dos) some old-school protest some inconsequential flutter like ‘Redwood of the kind that should have been dosed he’s got the funk. Not only is it torturously www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk punk seems entirely in order, and here are Canopy’: too bright, too shiny, too clean. with Quietus sometime in the 1970s, is still overwrought blues-soul fusion bollocks, In-house producer: Ian Davenport www.ian-davenport.co.uk Rebel Station to provide it in simple, shouty At best it’s decent stuff but we’re not sure somehow relevant and something to aspire it has a slap bass solo in the middle. By Email: [email protected] fashion. In their world there is no room for Simon really knows what proper darkness is. to, something that people like us will be now Nightshift is digging its nails into the Phone: Kate on 01235 845800 half measures, subtlety or jazzy interludes. Look here (Nightshift holds up a photo of its interested in, even excited by. Paul le Rocq desk and weeping. Weeping and pleading Instead it’s wall-to-wall two-chords-and- soul): this is darkness. None more black. attempts to pique our interest by attaching for it all to end. Not just this music but the the-truth, songs like ‘Remedy’, ‘Cold War a selection of pictures that suggest he’s entire universe. We’d rather listen to Jacob Bombs’ and ‘Junkie’ recalling New Model won a variety of awards for best new rock Rees Mogg explain his plans for the NHS Army at their rugged 80 prime, particularly MALORIE act from radio stations we’ve never heard after Brexit for six solid hours without a in singer Monkey’s gruff delivery and the “We have a diverse range of influences,” of. If Radical FM really exists, we wonder vodka break than endure this again. In fact band’s chant-along choruses. There’s a proclaims Malorie’s Hayden Ramm; “our if they might want to change their name if we’re inclined to hunt down the person who hint of Dead Kennedys about them too – drummer is a serious metalhead while me they think this cheesy mid-80s Euro-rock is inflicted it on us and put him in need of some aforementioned Monkey has something of and my co-singer are big fans of alt-rock, Rehearsal and Recording studios vital and new, instead of sounding like Bon NHS care but, as we already mentioned, he Jello Biafra’s caustic quaver in his voice especially Nirvana and the Chili Peppers.” Jovi attempting to beef up Matthew Wilder’s ran away as soon as he’d dumped it on us. Four state of the art rehearsal rooms at times – and a general barroom brawl Right, so that’s heavy rock or... well, heavy and a professional recording studio. approach to the intricacies of world politics rock. On the musical differences front it’s and social issues. They want to change the hardly Lou Reed vs John Cale or Bryan Send tracks for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links to For bookings call Jamie on 07917685935 world, but not one committee meeting at Ferry vs Brian Eno. But hey, Malorie are all [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without a Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford • glasshousestudios.org a time. Pints and petrol bombs it is, then. still in their mid-teens, so there’s plenty of contact phone number. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. Same goes Coming to a GLC-funded free festival soon. time for one of them to discover Japanese for your stupid, over-sensitive mates. facebook.com/o2academyoxford twitter.com/o2academyoxford instagram.com/o2academyoxford youtube.com/o2academytv

Fri 20th Sep • 6.30pm Fri 11th Oct • 6.30pm Thur 31th Oct • 10pm Sun 17th Nov Boyzlife King Prawn Halloween Special ft Black Water County + Popes of Chillitown + The Lagan Fri 20th Sep • 6.30pm Skepsis Foreign Beggars Fri 11th Oct • 11pm Sat 2nd Nov • 6.30pm Mon 18th Nov #6MILLI FRESHERS Sat 21st Sep• 11pm The Dualers Scouting for Girls BLACKOUT + Kioko + Count Skylarkin Freshers Rave Tue 19th Nov Sat 12th Oct • 6.30pm + Tony Nanton Tue 24th Sep Primal Scream Antarctic Monkeys Sun 3rd Nov New Hope Club Thur 21st Nov Sat 12th Oct • 11pm Bear’s Den A Thur 26th Sep Switch presents: Submotion Orchestra Sun 3rd Nov + ‘68 + False Heads SASASAS Everyone You Know + So So Sun + Tilly Valentine Fri 22nd Nov • 6.30pm Sat 12th Oct • 6.30pm Fri 27th Sep • 6.30pm Mon 4th Nov Half Man Half Biscuit The Divine Comedy Feeder Bingo Lingo Fri 22nd Nov • 11pm Freshers Special Sun 13th Oct Tue 5th Nov The Craig Charles The Twang Fri 27th Sep • 11pm Reel Big Fish Funk & Soul Club + RATS NOCHE DE TRAVESURAS + [spunge] + Lightyear + Brasc0 + Tony Nanton ft DJ CHRIS DUKES, DJ AMNESIA, Mon 14th Oct Tue 5th Nov + Count Skylarkin TUROK DJ Kate Tempest Hang Massive Sat 23rd Nov • 6.30pm Fri 27th Sep • 11pm Wed 16th Oct • 6.30pm Thur 7th Nov Biffy McClyro (Tribute) Silent Disco Oxford PRESS TO MECO Deaf Havana Tue 26th Nov • SOLD OUT + Chapter and Verse Sat 28th Sep • 6.30pm Thur 7th Nov Fontaines D.C. Thur 17th Oct • SOLD OUT Evil Scarecrow Little Comets Wed 27th Nov • 6.30pm + The Grand Mal + Damaged Reich Ninja Sex Party Fri 8th Nov • 9pm Electric Six + Imminent Annihilation Fri 18th Oct • 6.30pm The Roaring 2.0s Thur 28th Nov Sat 28th Sep Amber Run + The Electro Swing Circus Happy Mondays An Orchestral Rendition + Stereo Honey Sat 9th Nov • 6.30pm • SOLD OUT - Greatest Hits Tour of Snoop Dogg vs Dr Dre Fri 18th Oct • 11pm Snarky Puppy + Jon Dasilva Sat 28th Sep • 11pm The Abba Party | Live Thur 28th Nov Tribute Sat 9th Nov • 6.30pm Shortman’s Birthday Bash Dr Syntax & Pete Cannon Rhys Lewis Fri 18th Oct • 6.30pm Sat 28th Sep • 11pm Fri 29th Nov • 6.30pm Ferocious Dog Sat 9th Nov • 11pm Switch presents: Switch presents: Sammy Mad Dog Mcrea Wilkinson (DJ Set) Sat 19th Oct • 12pm Virji - Like A Virjin Tour Sat 30th Nov • 6.30pm Thur 3rd Oct Ritual Union Mon 11th Nov Definitely Mightbe Pierce Brothers Tue 22nd Oct Elder Island (Oasis tribute) + Millington Barns Courtney Sat 30th Nov • 6.30pm Tue 12th Nov Fri 4th Oct • 6.30pm Tue 22nd Oct Yonaka Airbourne CoCo and the Striking Matches + Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown Wed 13th Nov • 6.30pm Butterfields + Tenille Townes Satu 30th Nov • 11pm + Harry Pane Mystery Skulls Wed 23rd Oct • 6.30pm Switch presents Fri 4th Oct • 11pm The Fallen State Thur 14th Nov Kanine / Darkzy / Window The Oxford Soul Train + The Cruel Knives + Broken Empire The Smyths... Kid / Indika / Lazcru + New Depth A celebration of the debut L.P Fri 4th Oct • 11pm Sun 1st Dec Harrison BDP Thur 24th Oct Fri 15th Nov • 6.30pm The Chats ft. Bevis, Ess Gee, Mac White b2b Only Headie One The Treatment Child + Airrace + Lake Acacia Thur 5th Dec Fri 25th Oct • 6.30pm Carols at Sat 5th Oct • 10pm Fri 15th Nov • 11pm Jake Clemons O2 Academy Oxford Psychedelic Carnival + Ben McKelvey Black Parade Thur 5th Dec Sun 6th Oct – 00’s Emo Anthems Sat 26th Oct • 4pm The High Contrast Band Red Rum Club Oxtoberfest Sat 16th Nov • 6.30pm Fri 6th Dec • 6.30pm Sun 6th Oct Sat 26th Oct • 6.30pm Dub Pistols + ZAIA + Zen Lewis Pearl Jam UK Richard Hawley Guns 2 Roses Sat 16th Nov • 6.30pm Fri 6th Dec • 6.30pm Tue 8th Oct + MOTLEY CRUED Professor Green Gentleman’s Dub Club Easy Life Sat 26th Oct • 11pm + JGrrey Switch presents: Sat 16th Nov • 11pm Sat 7th Dec • 6.30pm Fri 11th Oct 6.30pm Dimension King Shine Vs Empire Absolute Bowie The London African Mon 28th Oct Sat 16th Nov • 11pm - Legacy Tour Gospel Choir performs Inglorious Switch presents Wed 11th Dec • 6.30pm Paul Simon’s Graceland + Mercutio Hybrid Minds The Quireboys

o2academyoxford.co.uk 190 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE · Doors are 7pm, unless stated. Venue box office opening hours: Mon - Sat 12pm - 5.30pm ticketmaster.co.uk ticketmaster.co.uk • wegottickets.com • seetickets.com • gigantic.com