Andy Robbins

[email protected] nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 213 April Oxford’s Music Magazine 2013

PET MOON PET MOON PET

Andrew Mears talks art, Blessing Force and life after Youthmovies. plus Introducing BEAR TRAP. OXFORD PUNT line-up announced. Festival news - Truck, Cornbury, Wilderness, Riverside and more, and six pages of local gigs. 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: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net

The August List; The Graceful Slicks. The White Rabbit: Limbo Kids; Poledo; Ags Connolly; After The Thought. The Punt kicks off at 7pm at the Purple Turtle with Phil McMinn VAN MORRISON AND SQUEEZE have been confirmed as headline and finishes at the White Rabbit at acts for this summer’s Cornbury Festival alongside Keane, who were midnight with After The Thought. revealed in last month’s Nightshift along with Echo & The Bunnymen, The bill takes in an eclectic range Imelda May and Seth Lakeman. of sounds, from indie, metal, folk, Squeeze will top the first night of the festival and are joined on the alt.country and electronica, to afro- Friday by Imelda May, Beverly Knight, The Overtones, King Charles, pop, rock, hip hop, post-rock and Matthew Lee and Nell Bryden. The Goggenheim, who don’t fit Keane are Saturday night’s headliners, heading a bill that also features into any pigeonhole, however hard the Bunnymen, The Proclaimers, Lawson, James Arthur, Osibisa, Jack you try to squeeze them. Savoretti, JJ Grey, Emilia Mitiku and Velvet Stream. Previous Punts have provided Sunday sees Van Morrison rounding off the weekend’s musical fun, early exposure for future Oxford and he’s joined by Amy MacDonald, Bellowhead, Seth Lakeman, Tift stars such as Stornoway, Young Merritt, Staxs, Lucy Spraggan, Riptide Movement and Sadie & The THE LINE-UP FOR THIS Hotheads. YEAR’S OXFORD PUNT has Knives, Spring Offensive and Gunning For Tamar, as well as As well as the two main music stages, there will, as ever, be the been announced. The annual Charlbury Riverside Festival stage. Acts confirmed so far include The showcase of up and coming local Yannis and Jack from Foals in their first band Elizabeth, and Hugo Inflatables, The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, Lloyd Grossman’s bands takes place on Wednesday New Forbidden, Black Hats, Brickwork Lizards, Blair Dunlop, th Manuel of Chad Valley and Jonquil 8 May and features 20 acts across Swindlestock and Kris Dollimore. five venues in Oxford city centre. in his early outfit, The Modern. th th A limited number (100) all-venue Cornbury Festival runs over the weekend of the 5 -7 July in The full Punt line-up is: the picturesque Great Tew Estate in north Oxfordshire. Tickets The Purple Turtle: Phil McMinn; Punt passes are on sale now, priced £3, online at oxfordmusic. for the festival are now on sale from the festival website (www. Candy Says; Mother Corona; cornburyfestival.com) as well as the ticket line on 0844 338 0000. Nairobi. net, or from the Truck Store on Cowley Road. Entry to individual Adult weekend camping tickets are £190, with discounts for under-16s The Cellar: Listing Ships; and over-70s. Day tickets are also available. Duchess; Agness Pike; Death Of gigs is a bargain £5, although The Hi-Fi. Duke’s Cut and The White Rabbit The Wheatsheaf: Yellow Fever; are both free. here: www.riversidefestival. Pirates, Mary Bendy Toy, The Bear Trap; Empire Divided; The Check out the Oxford Punt 2013 charlbury.com Goggenheim, Von Braun, Space Goggenheim (pictured). page on Facebook for updated Heroes of the People, Junkie The Duke’s Cut: Ragdoll; Traps; news on the event. WITTSTOCK returns over Brush, The Mighty Redox, The the weekend of the 3rd-5th May. Shapes, Empty Vessels, Duchess, The free festival takes place at Knights of Mentis, STEM, THE FIRST ACTS FOR Band, Mick Quinn’s DB Band, the Railway Inn Culham, near Matt Winkworth, Laima Bite, RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL have Death of Hi-Fi, Swindlestock, Abingdon with donations and Headington Hillbillies, 14Ten, been announced. The annual free Brickwork Lizards and Bryonics raffles set to raise money for Man Made Fire, Barry & The festival in Charlbury comes of age are all set to play on the main local charities Headway and My Beachcombers, Superloose and this and celebrates its 18th year over stage. The second stage is being Life My Choice. Among a host Monkfish. the weekend of the 27th-28th July. curated by Truck Store and rapture of acts already confirmed are See what else they’ve got at The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm this year. More news as it happens Undersmile, Agness Pike, Peerless www.wittstock.co.uk.

SPIRITUALIZED have been confirmed as joint headliners of this year’s Truck Festival. They join The Horrors, announced last month, atop the bill. Other new acts on the Truck bill include The Joy Formidable, We Are The Ocean, Frankie & The Heartstrings and the magnificentBo Ningen. This year’s Truck Festival runs over the weekend of the 19th-20th July at Hill Farm in Steventon. Other acts already announced include Toy, Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Gaz Coombes, Dry The River, Rolo Tomassi, Lewis Watson, Max Raptor, Brother & Bones, Fight Like Apes and Computers, while local label Alcopop! will again host a takeover of the barn stage, featuring Tall Ships, Gunning For Tamar, Crash of Rhinos, Salvation Bill and more. Tickets for Truck are on sale now, priced £74 for adult camping tickets, from truckfestival.com, or from Truck Store on Cowley Road NEWS SECRET RIVALS release their Company, Mad Staring Eyes, and new album, `Just Fall’, on the The Arlenes, all of whom will 29th April on Standard Tandoori also be playing sets of their own Records. The album, which was material over the weekend of the funded by fans through Pledge. 17th-19th May at Braziers Park. com, will be available as a They join the likes of Mary download as well as a limited run Epworth, Washington Irving, of 250 hard copies. Review in next Syd Arthur, Nick Cope, Jali Fily month’s issue. Get all your Secret Cissokho and Trevor Moss & Rivals news and gossip at www. Hannah Lou. More line-up news facebook.com/secretrivalsband. and ticket details at TRUCK STORE AND RAPTURE in Witney celebrate the sixth Other local releases due next www.woodfestival.com. national Record Store Day on Saturday 20th April. month include stuff from Grey Both stores will feature live music throughout the day as well as a Children, Huck & The Xander LISTING SHIPS release an wide range of special limited edition releases and one-day special Band, Sanguine Hum, Kill Murray album of remixes from their recent offers. and Half Decent. ‘Hayling Island Sessions’ this Truck, on Cowley Road, have a very special acoustic set from The month. ‘Ship of Theseus’ will be Wedding Present, as well as a sets from The Ralfe Band, Empty SUPERNORMAL FESTIVAL available as a free download from White Circles and Brickwork Lizards, while Rapture, in the returns this summer with another the 8th April from listingships. Woolgate Centre in Witney, play host to Brickwork Lizards, The weekend of weird and wonderful bandcamp.com, and features August List, Traps, Jordan O’Shea, Runaway and Signal My leftfield and experimental music, remixes from the likes of Tiger Escape. art, workshops and cinema. This Mendoza, After The Thought, As well as the Record Store Day fun, Truck Store have instore shows year’s event takes place over the Space Heroes of the People and throughout April from Nikki Loy (Mon 1st); Eilen Jewell (Thur 4th), weekend of the 9th-11th August at Manacles of Acid. and The Staves (Fri 19th). Check details and set times at its usual venue at Braziers Park, www.truckmusicstore.co.uk. near Wallingford. The line-up is OXFORD JAZZ FESTIVAL, due to be announced early in April. set to take place across the city News and ticket info is online at throughout April, has been do OxJazz halfway – every year we AS EVER, don’t forget to tune www.supernormalfestival.co.uk. cancelled. A statement from the grew bigger and more varied – and into BBC Oxford Introducing Last year’s festival featured sets festival directors said, “After much we’re not about to step backwards every Saturday evening between from Seefeel, Ramesses, Hey! consideration and discussion, now, when we have such great 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated Colossus, Bilge Pump and Mary Oxford Jazz Festival directors Max support, and so many exciting local music show plays the best Hampton. Mason and Alissa J. Robinson, ideas. Mark your calendars for Oxford releases and demos as well along with programmer Tim 14th-19th April 2014.” as featuring interviews, studio THE NEBRASKA SESSIONS Hand, have decided to postpone sessions, gig reviews and local is the latest addition to this year’s this year’s festival. We met with OXFORD RECORD AND music news. The show is available Wood Festival. The tribute to several unforeseeable obstructions CD FAIR has moved from its to stream or download as a podcast Bruce Springsteen’s classic 1982 while deep into planning a festival traditional Town Hall setting across at bbc.co.uk/oxford. album features contributions which was to be bigger and more the road to the St Aldates Parish Regularly updated local music from the likes of Danny & exciting than in previous years. Centre on Pembroke Street, off St news is available online at The Champions of the World, The decision was made to hold off Aldates. The next fair takes place www.musicinoxford.co.uk. Dreaming Spires, The Cedars, Case until 2014, when the Festival can on Saturday 18th May, from 10am- The site also features interactive Hardin, The Redlands Palomino be done right. We never wanted to 3.30pm. reviews, a gig guide, photo gallery and more. MARTHA WAINWRIGHT, Sam The latest issue of Oxfordshire Lee, and The Bees are among the Music Scene Magazine is out latest names to be added to this now. The quarterly local music year’s Wilderness Festival line-up. mag features interviews with They join the likes of Noah & The Epstein and BBC Oxford The Whale, Empire of the Sun, Introducing’s Dave Gilyeat and Liz Rodrigues, Michael Kiwanuka and Green as well as local gig reviews Tribes on the bill for Wilderness, and releases. The mag is free from which runs over the weekend of the local venues and music shops. 9th-11th August at Cornbury Park. The London Folk Guild once A BIT OF ADVANCE NOTICE again host a folk and roots stage. for those of you with gig listings Other festival attractions include and stuff in mind – the deadline banquets with top chefs, including for the June issue of Nightshift has Yotam Ottolenghi and Russell been moved forward to the 15th of Norman; theatre, debates and talks, May to fit in with print deadlines. late-night parties and outdoor This is a one-off change. Normal activities. copy deadline is the 20th of each Tickets for Wilderness are on sale month. Why we’re even bothering from the festival website at to tell you this far in advance we www.wildernessfestival.com, with don’t know. You’ve forgotten adult tickets priced at £139. already, haven’t you? a quiet word with Pet Moon than Youthmovies, which to fans in general that it was an roof, meaning that the cost of getting “Ovada have a great new warehouse in a perverse kind of way I’m happy exclusive party? this stuff done is next to nothing: space over in Botley. It’s a shame about; anxiety is a big part of who “Really surprised. The attention it’s all just investments of time that the Regal is underused; it’s I am.” was so premature, and that’s why and individual resources: Valeska just not got the muscle of the O2 Songs like `Hold The Divide’ and those writing about it were forced will screen print the artwork; Choc with booking agents, who, it’s my `Ganger’ remind Nightshift of the into hyperbole; it was ‘mysterious’ and Katie make the video; Dom, understanding, are a bit afraid of PET MOON sort of atmosphere that bands like because we weren’t able to tell them Al and I will do the business stuff putting their bands anywhere other Talk Talk and Japan were trying all that much! The cult thing was a etc. It means we can do more than than in the music cartels. Oxford of Youthmovies’ split, including a to capture in the early-1980s, but bummer, we were hiding from the our pockets would let us if we could really do with an independent promising if slightly nervy debut filtered through a modern r’n’b vibe; word `collective’, so that’s what got outsourced. We can put major time venue who can compete. Reeks of show at the Bullingdon. Things have is that anything like close to the pinned on us instead. People took into a low level release.” Effort, headed up by Max from King moved on considerably since then intention? it way too seriously. Even the name, Do you think communities like of Cats, put on an excellent-looking in every department. The current “To my shame, I’ve not heard it never occurred to any of us that Blessing Force can fill a gap left by show at the abandoned swimming line-up features Andrew on vocals; much Talk Talk, but I’ve had the people would think `Blessing Force’ the ruins of the music industry for pool that we later saw in the Foals Esme Lucas on synth; Jamie Ward comparison before. I love Japan, was anything other than a pretty bands? `Inhaler’ video. That scene – Beta on guitar and vocals; Karina Scuteri ruthless pop music. ‘Ghosts’ is funny thing to call something. I read “It’s not right for everyone; it’s a lot Body And The Body Clock, King on vocals, and Dom Hand on drums. one of my all time favourite songs. a comment at the time of the NME of work, and you have to believe in Of Cats, Poledo, Kill Murray etc, The show at the Cellar this month When people ask what Pet Moon article, that I liked: `Blessing Force the other artists you’re working with seem to be doing some stuff that’s will be their first outing as a five- sounds like I usually joke that it’s sounds like something a Power as if it’s your own work. I think in really keeping the spirit in Oxford, piece. D’Angelo meets Pink Floyd.” Ranger would shout just before they the present there’s no one right way while the guys over at BG Records “I never wanted it to be solo in turn into a lion’; I think they got the to fill those gaps; as long as people are doing shows using places like the a live setting; I can’t get juiced Back in the days of tone pretty well. It’s actually just the are on their toes, it’ll move forward. Ashmolean; it’s great to see people by solo laptop stuff, I want more Youthmovies, there was always a name of a song we like. using venues that are unique to life. I always knew I didn’t want a strong bond between them, Foals “Anyway, I’m surprised it’s still The most public face of Oxford; which are of this place. computer on stage; I’ve no problem and Jonquil, and a mantra of mutual getting talked about. In the time Blessing Force over the past couple with it in principle, it’s 2013, but help, which eventually coalesced we’ve been running we’ve been of years have been shows and As well as his music, I’ve seen them screw people over with Blessing Force. Was there a Andrew is a writer and an artist; in in a live setting too many times. conscious effort to bring all those particular with his screen printing Then Jamie came along. I’m a people who had been friends and “I’ve let my anxieties feed much more into business, which is fully incorporated chronic procrastinator, I’ll happily helped each other together under an into Blessing Force. Given his rework a tune for a year, sometimes almost official umbrella? Pet Moon than Youthmovies, which in a interest in different disciplines, how destroying it. It’s good to have “Our first tour was with (pre-Foals perverse kind of way I’m happy about; much does he want to try and break someone say ‘we’re done’.” band) The Edmund Fitzgerald, and down perceived barriers between The band has been together in Al (English, from Youthmovies) anxiety is a big part of who I am.” music, art, literature, poetry etc? various line-ups for a couple of years released Jonquil’s first two records “It’s just about a question of now; is this the settled line-up and on his Try Harder imprint, so we all perceived worth. Music’s seen ANDREW MEARS isn’t one at the Cellar, to launch a second and the hazy sense of purpose that sound? came up together, learning the same promoting bands from all walks of take-overs of myriad venues such largely as just entertainment, and art to blow his own trumpet, so it’s BF mixtape, `Stutters#2’, a free drinking too hard before you play “I think we knew what we were things, making the same mistakes. life, from all over the country; I’d as Modern Art and the Old Boot as just expression; when really they down to the likes of Nightshift to download that features 19 tracks gives you; we weren’t taking care aiming for pretty early on. The When Yannis, Jack and I started like to think that I’ve got a pretty Factory, as well as a memorable both occupy the same place for me. do it for him. Almost the archetypal from Pet Moon, Solid Gold Dragons, of our personal lives at all, so when challenge has been working out how Foals, I was originally just stepping good rapport with the people on the curating of a stage at Truck Festival I’m more interested in trying to give reluctant musical hero, he is a leader Limbo Kids, Jonquil, Trophy Wife, the band reached critical mass and to do it live. It’s a tough balance to in to help after Lina left; we were Oxford music scene, who I’ve met. in 2011. Each gig features musical them the same platform; for art to be and innovator, a man who makes Rhosyn, Motherhood, Chad Valley, we were forced to slow down and be true to the programmed sounds going to go on with The Ed Fitz. There are loads of bands in Oxford acts from Oxford and around the UK seen as accessible and every-man, things happen and inspires others Adam Gnade, Sisterland, Hugo regroup we just found that each of us without copping out on the live As it turned out they wanted to be and wider who have nothing to do as well as art installations, which all and for music to be seen as worthy, to excel and succeed. But at every Manuel and more. The gig is the first had landed in different a place. performance. I’d like to think that free of the past, so we formed the with us who we support. We’re add up to creating unique, instantly more than a commodity.” turn, he is inclined to be one part of a new bi-monthly Blessing Force “Looking at it now I can see the this, the fifth line up in two years, is earlier, poorly thought out, version actually just about to launch a part recognisable events. Every show is You do screen printing for bands’ of a greater whole rather than push club night going under the name Zen way that we lived as a band was the final one.” of those charthrobs you see today. of our website completely dedicated packed, usually sold out beforehand, t-shirts, album sleeves etc. Does himself to the front, whether it was Shit. always going to burn itself out, The arrival of Karina on joint vocals For as long as I can remember we to supporting non-BF stuff. People evidence that BF is more than mere this tie in with presenting music as eschewing the traditional frontman Time to catch up with Andrew again but at the time we had a do-or-die in particular was a marked change all just stepped in and out when we just want you to be everything all at hype, and with the advent of the Zen a whole package, visually as well as role as the singer with the hugely for his first full Nightshift interview attitude that made the band what it in direction as she took on some of were needed to help push the other once, but shit takes time.” Shit club nights, something that’s aurally? influential Youthmovies, or seeing since Youthmovies graced the cover was. In the period before the last the vocal duties; what in particular ones’ vision along. Eventually we Is there ever a case of people asking set to become a more regular fixture “It’s great to see a band’s identity himself as one artist among many back in 2007. tour, I began to write some songs do you think she has brought to figured we could do each other some if they can be part of Blessing Force; on the local gig calendar. Which has develop and sometimes feel as in Blessing Force, despite being the that realistically weren’t very the band and do you feel it takes real good, and if we made it official, do you invite people you admire been Andrew’s particular favourite though you were a part of that. pivotal figure in what has emerged Youthmovies remain one Youthmovies; I guess deep down pressure off you to be a traditional we had to make double the effort for to become involved, or is it simply show so far, and what sort of Music combined with screen as the most exciting music and arts of the most inspirational bands to I was on my next move, but I ever frontman – something you tended to each other.” an organic coming and going of planning goes into each event? printing makes me feel more linked movement to emerge in recent years. emerge from Oxford’s music scene, acknowledged it. We always did avoid in Youthmovies. Even within Oxford’s compact likeminded souls? “BF4 at Modern Art Oxford was to the bands from the past that have Most recently he has expanded his influencing others both with their whatever we wanted in Youthmovies “We were looking for a female music scene, the first many people “Yeah, we get emails pretty best for me; we were blown away fed into my version of culture. I band, Pet Moon, around him, again hybrid of post-rock textures and so I wouldn’t have thought about the singer from the start; we wanted it to heard of Blessing Force was in an regularly to that effect, or just people that they gave up the whole building, remember seeing rock and punk deflecting some of the attention on high-wired melody, and with their new direction being unsuitable. I was be fragile but not at the expense of excitable feature in NME, who came saying they’re doing a similar thing the support we got from the gallery screen prints, and responding raw him as a frontman. hard-working DIY ethic. While keen to make some music that came texture or soulfulness. I didn’t want down to some of their regular house in their town. It’s nice, unexpected. was amazing. Credit to the late and human they are. It’s the medium If it’s not a deliberate ploy, it Foals (the original incarnation of solely from me, though; I wanted to it to be a boys club. parties where the likes of Fixers, It seems that for each person that the Michael Stanley; he was a great that says ‘working band’. certainly suggests someone intent which Andrew was a member) are see if I could do it. “I enjoy being out front, but Chad Valley and Solid Gold Dragons veneer of Blessing Force pissed off, supporter of local arts and proved “We’ve printed with T.E.E.D, more on the creative process than the most obvious example of a band Was there any sense of trepidation Youthmovies was less of a frontman would be playing. Blessing Force there’s two who can see its heart. himself to be a really relevant Little Fish, Gunning For Tamar, becoming a star. The problem is, inspired by Youthmovies, the likes moving on to a whole new project, kind of thing; we never saw was described as “a mysterious cult Really, any involvement has to just Director, I think of the continuing Foals, Spring Offensive, Alcopop when you’re talented and influential, of Gunning For Tamar and Spring particularly given how highly ourselves as a band that needed a that was taking over the Oxford happen organically, because it’s such gigs in the basement as his legacy Records, Minor Coles and most of attention will always come calling, Offensive still carry hefty traces of regarded Youthmovies were, not just one.” scene,” which provoked no little ire a co-dependent relationship. as far as Oxford music goes. It felt the Blessing Force lot on posters, and as Blessing Force continues the band’s DNA in their sound. locally but around the UK? How much have your personal among locals unaware of the various “Bit by bit it’s a more formal punk because we had to scrape record sleeves, art, and tees. It’s been to thrive, and as Pet Moon gear up Youthmovies officially split in 2010, “I never really thought about how influences and tastes changed from members’ long-standing involvement setup. If anyone that has been a together the best way of doing it a rewarding experience meeting for their biggest release to date, the but they’d been on something of a Youthmovies fans would take it; the time of Youthmovies to what in the scene and their ethos of part of Blessing Force wants a as the Truck stage we curated the people from parts of the Oxford spotlight will continue to shine on hiatus for a while before that. How I definitely had no intention of drives what you do in Pet Moon; mutual help. record releasing we’ll do it, but we year of the big asset shuffle nearly scene that you may not otherwise Andrew. far ahead did Andrew see the end restating things from Youthmovies musically there seems to be little Looking back, Andrew seems a little approach people in the same way a bankrupted us before we started, but cross paths with.” of the band. Had he been thinking to hold on to them. That said, a take continuation. embarrassed by that description, normal label would to ask them if the silver lining was that we learned The build-up to the about what came next? or leave attitude is probably what the “They’re more or less the same. My but was he surprised by the way they want to work on a release or a lot more about what was possible if Pet Moon play the Zen Shit club release of Pet Moon’s six-song “Life just got in the way. We hardly two bands have most in common.” taste has always been pretty broad, I Blessing Force was picked up on, play shows. The defining difference you put in energy rather than funds.” night at the Cellar on Thursday 25th `Trashnicolour’ EP begins at the end ever stopped or took stock, threw think. The main difference is the way and was there a worry that the way is our in-house network, with the Any particular artist you’d like to April. Visit Pet Moon on Facebook of this month when the band play good money after bad, subsisted Pet Moon began as a solo that the influences coalesce. I’ve let Blessing Force was portrayed might art, videos, manufacture, promotion get involved or a venue you would for news and tunes, or visit www. at the latest Blessing Force show, on the generosity of our friends project in the immediate aftermath my anxieties feed much more into work against them, make it seem and PR all happening under one really like to use? blessingforce.com for BF news. Sponsored by GUNNING FOR DESERT STORM TAMAR `Horizontal Life’ `Camera Lucida’ (Blindsight) Three albums in – if you include 2008’s self-titled RELEASED (Alcopop!) album-length debut CD – and with a tour support ASHER DUST Named after a critical text of the same title by to Karma To Burn under their belts, as well as Coma Wall / everyone’s favourite poststructuralist literary playing alongside Orange Goblin, Weedeater and `Master Of None’ theorist, Roland Barthes (come on, you didn’t Turbowolf, Desert Storm are indisputably Premier Undersmile think I was going to say Derrida did you? You League title contenders as far as the local metal (Own label) plebs!) `Camera Lucida’ is Gunning for Tamar’s `Wood & Wire’ scene goes. Their chief weapon remains the ability Asher Dust has been a thorn in the side of high- third EP, released – rather reservedly this time to take riffs, grooves and a sense of broiling rage (Shaman Recordings) end production values and general style-over- considering their last EP was in the form of a that’s as old as time itself and make them sound ‘Wood & Wire’ is a slightly oblique reference substance mediocrity for longer than we can download code on the back of a wristwatch – on fresh and exciting again, grind their edges til to the instrumentation herein; the acoustic basis remember, both in his own right, under myriad CD. they’re sharp and incisive once more. of Coma Wall up against the electric backdrop pseudonyms or alongside other local electronic First track ‘Yogging’ (and yes, I do believe Four of the songs on `Horizontal Life’ featured on brought by Undersmile. The two acts are in or hip hop acts. Keeping up with his regular that’s an Anchorman reference – French literary that debut CD, but since Desert Storm are plainly fact mirror images of one another: they share musical output is akin to herding kittens at times criticism and Will Ferrell in the same EP? Well ‘Another Season’ shrewdly addresses that in no mood to change their winning formula, we members, and both have a musical outlook rooted but now he’s collating much of his work on a played, guys!) has one of those extended intros feeling - common to anyone post-18 - of going guess such things don’t matter too much in the in the slow, hazy, druggy landscapes of Om, Sunn series of compilation albums ahead of the release you can imagine sounding great as a set opener home to the town you grew up in, and grand scheme of things. The grand scheme of thing o))), Earth, Sleep, Boris and so on. of his full debut album later this year. over a deluge of smoke and lights, all eerie piano everything being rather shittier than you here mainly being a spring tide of riffs that were Coma Wall, who contribute the first three pieces This fifteen-track compendium may be drawn and reverb-laden guitar, that breaks into a chewy remembered it. doubtless forged in some demonic pleasure palace to this 42 minutes and 43 seconds six-tracker from different recording sessions but actually guitar riff and dejected vocal line, “What a waste The tempo picks up slightly in fourth track and crash relentlessly over every song til all you (available as a glorious transparent purple vinyl in mood. Live, Undersmile can be a fantastic works well as a cohesive, if maybe slightly of energy, what’s the point, you don’t have to ‘Swallowers’, where static, echoey guitars can do is succumb. Here be Sabbath, Hendrix and 12”), introduce a sense of creeping dread, albeit test of endurance, blending volume, slow pace overlong, album, the songs held together by a fill every little silence with noise”. Well quite and spiralling vocals build to an elevated Led Zeppelin in excelsis, exhumed, scuzzed up and one tempered by the almost mellow sounds and spooked-out vocal wails to create sheets of shared sense of urgency, which seems to be an – and though filling every second with a wall finish, before EP closer ‘How To Set Fire To sent over the top into battle. created by a combination of acoustic guitars, doom-laden theatrical atmosphere. Here, recorded Asher Dust trope, as well as his soulfully rough- of noise is a trap many young bands fall into, Your Hands’ culminates proceedings in GFT’s `Horizontal Life’ hits you hard from the off, `Word percussion and banjo. The band have supported by Justin Greaves, who has worked with Electric hewn voice that allows him to switch from ragga it’s one GFT manage to effectively bypass – as distinctive earnestly sombre tone. There are To The Wiseman’ a towering beast that’s full pelt Earth’s Dylan Carson before, and indeed the Wizard and Crippled Black Phoenix, they dispel to rap to r’n’b at will without ever sounding evidenced on next track ‘Lights, Daggers and points on this last track where the guitar feels out of the blocks, Matt Ryan sounding like he’s influence of Earth (particularly their most recent any illusion of one-dimensionality. As a noisy anything less than a natural. Faces’, a multifaceted, clockwork tight, giant reigned in – as though they’ve actively tried to singing while chewing on a T-Rex steak marinated work) is apparent here. Close-harmonised vocals counterpart to Coma Wall, they come from the Asher is both rhythmically and vocally of a song, resonant guitars and robust drums tone it down – which is a shame, as a touch more in molten lava. Seriously there’s a couple of times remind you of Slowdive or even Ride at times, same place: intensely focussed examinations of inventive, `Coty Lee’ being a perfect example as reinforcing the heavy sentiment of the lyrics, “It reckless abandon musically, and they’d go some in the album you can hear the phlegm rattling in his and as a whole this is what modern shoegaze melodies, rhythms and feelings, played out at a he mixes imaginative use of both into an oddball wears me, it wears me down”. Certainly, there’s way towards recreating the raw fierceness they throat as he growls his lines, full of menace, like a music should really sound like: deep, inward- grinding tempo, but never missing the value of whole, while `Shall I Name Names’ is more nothing light and carefree about the lyrical always manage to conjure up onstage. backwoods hick with a rusty meathook in his back looking, restrained and tense. None of the songs songwriting texture or construction. scattergun, spraying beats into every corner of content of `Camera Lucida’. Later, third track Caroline Corke pocket that’s got your name on it. He’s at his best dip below six minutes, and they’re the better for Over six tracks, ‘Wood & Wire’ fulfils its remit the room as his voice is shrouded in low-level on titanic blues numbers like `Astral Planes’, where it, each wending together a series of delicately- perfectly. It introduces two sides to a musical distortion for an almost industrial feel. you can almost feel the warm, stale whisky fumes and Sevenchurch he’s always been adept at composed melodies, each becoming a small epic, collective that may well wear its influences on its There’s something almost cartoonish about the on your face, or `Enslaved In The Icy Tundra’, a subverting the music he finds himself surrounded suggesting a desert stillness and thousand-yard tattered, blood-drenched sleeve, but it can stand jazzy, rapid-fire mania of `Tender Pieces’, like a song that feels heavy enough to develop its own by. Stripped of his visual impact, it’d be fair stare bleariness. eye-to-eye with any other players in this field. speeded-up animation of a comical disaster in a gravitational field. to suggest that with Agness Pike he’s found The opening of ‘Soil’, the first of Undersmile’s Proving absolutely confident in songs, sound and factory, but it’s testament to the man’s versatility Not that it’s all rampaging orc-core. The eleven- a perfect match and works with the band as a three tracks here, is an echo of Coma Wall’s slow- focus, this is one of the most powerful records to that it’s immediately followed by the more minute `Titan’ starts off like a chug-a-boogie whole. motion progression, before it plunges into a deep, have come out of Oxford for some time. languorous piano-led electro-thump of `Trying juggernaut but slips down into an elongated His mad monk vocals fit the rampant hardcore intense riff that can’t help but signify a change Simon Minter To Find My Way Home’. pastoral passage, closer to Pink Floyd’s spacier supplied by the band wonderfully, while the While Asher is perfectly capable of a more psychedelia, providing respite from the preceding unrelentingly heavy crunch of Chris Brown’s mainstream r’n’b sound, as shown on `Voices’, storm. However, when they attempt to repeat the guitar and Pete Marler’s bass plumb the depths least one local outfit are already claiming to be the highlights here come when he hits the other trick on the ponderous `Gaia’, it feels like the purveyors of “electronic blues”. extreme, the monstrous synth squelch of `Mud ably and, when necessary, switch between album’s running out of steam. Certainly it could do The title track of Vienna Ditto’s new EP is a gem, Blud’ and in particular the fidgety, dissonant introspective sections and all out thunder. to lose a good ten minutes of its hour-plus running seamlessly sewing breathy vocals reminiscent of industrial bleep of `Tried To Make You Love This is particularly noticeable on `Wonderful’, time, but come `Hofmann’, and the monstrous Howling Bells’ Juanita Stein and synths made to Me’. which is the closest the band get to sounding `Scorpion’, Desert Storm are back at their beastly sound like a horn section (or is that a horn section Despite its length, `Master Of None’ never truly accessible. best, rolling stoner riffs the chariot in which Ryan’s made to sound like synths?) to deft rockabilly feels like it’s carrying any filler. There is fun, Spear himself imposes himself on the song like crazed southern Baptist preacher rides once again shimmy‘n’shake of the sort that would readily mischief and invention at every turn, a genuinely some kind of spectral Jello Biafra. `Anyone Out into battle. meet with the approval of fellow locals The Long individual musician at play, under no pressure AGNESS PIKE There?’ plays a similar trick. Initially keeping Like the mountains, Desert Storm are vast Insiders. Less successful is ‘The Undefeated’, to please anyone but himself. Don’t let the self- throttle open, before settling into a lurching and unyielding, and you, wretch, are puny and which attempts to repeat the trick of last year’s effacing title fool you; in his own musical niche, `Anticipation’ grind, it eventually plays out into a peculiar insignificant in their shadow. So bow down before staggering gospel-industrial synthesis ‘I Know Asher Dust is nothing less than a master. (Own label) séance-cum-self-help session. At face value their awesomeness. His Blood Will Make Me Whole’. The latter grew Dale Kattack It’d be nice to think that the hyphenated title that it would be easy to take far too seriously, yet Dale Kattack organically from flesh to cyborg, and this too starts graces the cover of Agness Pike’s latest EP is a Spear’s delivery gives it a phenomenally witty out with all the signifiers of dusty blues – slide knowing nod to a particular line in The Rocky edge as he channels (appropriately) any guitar, stomping percussion – but is blighted Horror Picture show. number of black and white b-movies and Dr by electronics, which in this instance feel like There’s a theatrical nuance to Agness Pike that Phil. an awkward and anachronistic intrusion, filthy lends itself to such a comparison and although `Nine Cloud’, meanwhile, flits between the VIENNA DITTO footprints on the song’s clean carpet. You wish Rocky Horror’s subversive nature has been colossal riffing of Tad and winds up with the they’d unplug and just play it straight – and then, rather dampened over the years by familiarity off-kilter playful tunefulness of Shudder To ‘Liar Liar’ thankfully, they do, ‘Whatever Comes My Way’ and the time (not to mention the ubiquitous Think, which is high praise indeed. Lead track (Ubiquity Project) a slight and simple but nevertheless effective fucking `Time Warp’) there’s no denying that it `Anticipation’ finds Spear looming large like At Nightshift’s 2012 Christmas meal, which took mediation on the vagaries of love. possesses a quirky, knowing edge. This slightly a horny omnipotent stalker. With his frequent place in March (fashionably late, dahlings), our Brought to a conclusion by ‘Little Fingers’, a off-centre take on established musical forms can mentions of sexual tension, the claims of being esteemed editor raised the delicious prospect of stylish slice of sultry pop haunted by lyrics about also be said for Agness Pike, as anybody that’s “your saviour” and a willingness to take you to a completely electronic band storming Oxford’s insomnia and unsettling nocturnal visions, the ‘Liar caught them live can attest to. This is primarily the other side, there’s a definite dark edge here blues nights. Cue a cacophony of scribes scrabbling Liar’ EP marks Vienna Ditto out as a duo with a down to the presence of vocalist Martin Spear, that is undoubtedly unsettling. around for suitable names for said band. There few strings to their bow – and one who more often who always makes an effort when providing a You may even find yourself shiver in Antici- were at least two corkers (Robot Johnson, anyone?) than not hit the target. focal point and whose vocals are nothing if not pation. but in the excitement we overlooked the fact that at Ben Woolhead idiosyncratic. Since his days in Madamadam Sam Shepherd On the other hand, ‘Venus Flytrap’ is pure, out my hand for others / But no-one would reach unadulterated `Nuggets: Original Artyfacts’ out for mine,” which pretty much sets out the material – if you listen close enough you mood for what’s to come. There is defiance, but can probably hear an electric jug solo buried it’s rare: `The History of Sadness & Love’, with somewhere in the mix. But it’s opener ‘Lucky its almost flamenco feel is the closest we get to Pierre’, with its hazy lead guitar, busy egg-shaker any kind of jollity. Elsewhere lush horns break up rhythm and slacker-anthem chorus that is the true `Liars & Lyrebirds’ with a sweet flourish. star here, bringing to mind The Beta Band. The album loses focus towards the end: `The You’ve got to admire the Graceful Slicks’ Whistle, The Watch’ and `Sailor, Come Save Me’ dedication to the 60s aesthetic, never allowing merely drifting in a sea of disenchantment, but he themselves to plough into dad-rock territory but rescues it at the death with the warmly oceanic instead remaining inspired by the more obscure, `Forty Four Sunsets’, more fulsome electronics fringe artists who continue to be a positive invading the sparse arrangements. influence on indie music today. For the most part, `Desperation, My Dear’, is Tom McKibbin promising stuff, and vocally in particular, Jordan is a talent to keep an eye and ear out for. The promise of a brighter future isn’t something his JORDAN O’SHEA songs go big on, but maybe, just maybe, there’s THE GRACEFUL a silver lining to those clouds that currently cast SLICKS `Desperation, My Dear’ him so thoroughly into shadow. (Own label) Ian Chesterton Demo 5 “A man tries to lose everything he has, to try and (Own label) find everything he wants. A story of love, loss, Though they began life as a ramshackle bunch, and escape,” runs the tagline to Jordan O’Shea’s knocking out Buffalo Springfield knockoffs, The debut album `Desperation, My Dear’. We slip the Graceful Slicks have grown with every successive party poppers back in the drawer. release into real musical auteurs, honing the Searching for light, or even redemption, in cooler-than-cool essence of 1960s counter-culture Jordan’s debut album is apparently futile. Futility and taking the energy of garage rock and ethereal being something the singer seems to almost relish space jams to create some of the most enjoyable as he explores his emotional depths and outposts music currently coming out of Oxford. Although across ten songs whose mood rarely rises above not always the most original of songwriters (they disconsolate. are, after all, shamelessly retrospective), there is Not that it’s trial by misery by any stretch. Jordan considerable skill in making each new release feel has a heroically plaintive voice, at its best almost like a lost relic from a time long gone, and this sepulchral, tending towards wistful keening when lends the band a real sense of authenticity. he lets himself slip. Musically it’s mostly him On ‘Aztec Bird Song’ the band manage to make a and a piano, sombre laments like opener `The 1960s space jam sound amazingly contemporary Hopeless Saint Jude’ offering lines like “I reached Vadim’s Soundcatcher Soundsystem. On her own Rock covers. she takes a sultry, soulful, jazz-inflected approach THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The to hip hop, her laidback style not unlike a female Wheatsheaf, Didcot Rakim at its best. A great supporting cast includes Witney’s electro-industrial hip hop crew Death th Of Hi-Fi; Banbury’s rising teenage rapper Jack SUNDAY 7 Bushrod and Bristol’s acoustic songstress Rosie BEARD OF DESTINY + STEM + THE GIG GUIDE Rowland, as well as BG Records DJs. FIREGAZERS + DES & JEREMY + DAISY: THE DIAMOND FAMILY ARCHIVE + Donnington Community Centre (6pm) – Free MONDAY 1st running, and best, open mic club continues to TOLIESEL + JORDAN O’SHEA: The Port acoustic live music session. DESECRATION + BASEMENT TORTURE showcase singers, musicians, poets, storytellers, Mahon – Intense, spectral psych-folk from the th th KILLINGS + ZOMBIEFIED + FOETAL performance artists and more every Thursday. prolific Laurence Collyer under his Diamond MONDAY 8 Thursday 18 JUICE: The Wheatsheaf – Slave To The Grind APRIL OSPREY & FRIENDS: The Wheatsheaf – Family Archive guise. Support comes from local FIONA BOYES TRIO: The Jericho Tavern KING CREOSOTE: present another night of musical ultraviolence, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his first). A Unplugged show in the downstairs bar from country and Americana-tinged popstrels ToLiesel – The veteran Aussie blues guitarist comes to tonight featuring Newport’s Desecration, a band genuine cult star, a nutter and a consummate veteran local songsmith Osprey. and melancholic songsmith Jordan O’Shea. the Famous Monday Blues, having made her OPEN MIC CLUB: The Half Moon LARKIN POE: The Cornerstone Arts Centre, The Jericho Tavern with two decades’ worth of death-metal scandal- entertainer. Trippy synthabilly pop from the very reputation with extensive tours around the States Forty albums in a fifteen-year career is going BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston Didcot – Pretty, harmony-heavy bluegrass and making under their belts. Back in 1993 their wonderful Vienna Ditto in support. and Europe as well as her native Australia, some by anyone’s standards (take note, Kevin country in the vein of Dixie Chicks from sisters debut album, `Gore & Perversion’, was seized THE WILL WILDE BAND: The Jericho mixing Delta, Chicago, New Orleans and Texan Shields), but like similarly self-contained th Rebecca and Megan Lovell. by police and singer Ollie Jones arrested under Tavern – Soulful blues and funk from British styles on acoustic and electric guitar, drawing artists like Robert Pollard and Wild Billy FRIDAY 5 HODGE PODGE: The Bullingdon – Funk, obscenity laws. Since then they’ve been upsetting blues singer and harmonica player Wilde, SKYLARKIN SOUNDSYSTEM: The praise from blues legend Pinetop Perkins, Childish, King Creosote’s catalogue requires jungle, techno, electro-swing and hip hop club civilised sensibilities with death-metal ditties nominated three times for Best harmonica Cellar – Party-hearty mix of reggae, dancehall who likened her to Memphis Minnie, as well a bit of wading through to get to the best night. like `Raping The Corpse’ and generally avoiding Player at the British Blues Awards, and tonight and ska, with a live set from rising UK reggae as touring with Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert bits. But it’s worth it when you get there. NIKKI LOY: The Angel, Witney being picked as the nation’s favourite cheeky pop performing at the weekly Famous Monday Blues. crew Sidewalk Doctors, with their old-time Sumlin and Muddy Waters’ sideman Bob Fife’s rustic, romantic, beardy bard Kenny RECKLESS SLEEPERS + RORY EVANS + scamps. Gore-obsessed serial-killer-worshipping NIKKI LOY: Truck Store (4pm) – Acoustic rocksteady and ska that nods to the greats of Margolin. Anderson is a songwriter who seems to get THE RIGHT HOOKS: The Old Bookbinders, grindcore crew Basement Torture Killings soul and jazz songstress Nikki launches her new Treasure Isle and Studio One. Bristol’s legendary KING B + THE SHAPES: The Bullingdon better with age. His collaboration with multi- Jericho support, alongside Bury’s bodily-fluid-infatuated `Live In London’ EP instore, kicking off a month- septuagenarian DJ Derek spins classic reggae, – Blues-rock, boogie and dance tunes from the instrumentalist and producer Jon Hopkins, PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + JACK FM DJs: death metallers Foetal Juice and Belfast’s long mini-tour of Oxfordshire venues ahead of a dancehall and ska, alongside Count Skylarkin. longstanding King B. `Diamond Mine’, found him shortlisted for th O2 Academy – Weekly three-clubs-in-one club Zombiefied, who have previously supported full band show at the North Wall on the 27 . KLUB KAKOFANNEY with VIENNA DITTO MILOKRAJ feat. MARTA TOPFEROVA the Mercury Price in 2011, while the likes of night with indie at Propaganda; kitsch pop, 80s Napalm Death and Decapitated. + DAMN VANDALS + SUPERLOOSE + & TOMAS LISKA + MAGAM: The Cellar 2007’s `Bombshell’ and 2009’s `Flick The and glam at Trashy and dancefloor faves with JOHN OTWAY + VIENNA DITTO: The nd OXFORD UKULELES: The Wheatsheaf – – Czech, Slavic and Moravian folk music from V’s’ were easily among his best work. While TUESDAY 2 Jack FM DJs. Bullingdon – The Clown Prince of Pop returns Klub Kak’s usual monthly mixed bag of musical singer Topferova and bass player Liska, who he frequently wanders into wonky electro- JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Free live jazz EXTRA-CURRICULAR: The Cellar – Techno, to town, still mad, still celebrating his archetypal treats, with trippy electro-blues duo Vienna Ditto, are joined by local eastern European folksters tinged pop and all manner of whimsy, he’s every Tuesday, tonight featuring club regulars bass and house every Saturday. one-hit-wonder status (something he went and dark-minded rockers Damn Vandals, alt.country Magam, featuring members of Brickwork at his absolute best when he retreats back The New Jazz Collective. DIRTY EARTH BAND: Fat Lil’s, Witney – ruined by having another hit a few years ago Lizards. into acoustic Scottish folk, downbeat and BLUEBIRD CLUB: The Oxford Blue – types Superloose and local uke mini-orchestra CARAVAN: St John the Evangelist, Iffley atmospheric, lyrically deft and capturing the Catweazle’s sister open mic club, showcasing Oxford Ukuleles. HOT HOOVES + MARK COPE + th Road – The Canterbury scene rockers celebrate isolation of the wilderness on his doorstep. th local singers, musicians, poets and more every Thursday 18 th Saturday 13 the 40 anniversary of their album `For Girls Arcane language and imagery accentuates the Tuesday. CRACKERDUMMY + DIRT ROYAL: The Who Get Plump In The Night’, still led by lost nature of his music, although between OPEN MIC CLUB: James Street Tavern Bullingdon – Scuzzed-up power-pop in the vein EFTERKLANG: BETH ORTON: of Husker Du, Guided By Voices and Teenage founder and frontman Pye Hastings, as well as songs on stage he’s as warm, witty and Fanclub from the mighty Hot Hooves at tonight’s O2 Academy longstanding member Geoffrey Richardson. personable as you’d hope from a singer with so O2 Academy rd It’s All About The Music show, alongside former- A welcome return to Oxford for Copenhagen’s THE NICKI GILLIS BAND: The Railway many years experience under his belt. Winner of a BRIT Award for Best Female WEDNESDAY 3 EVERCLEAR: O2 Academy – Art Alexakis’ Candyskins chap Mark Cope. experimental indie-electro-classical ensemble, Inn, Culham – Country, rock and soul covers Performer and twice nominated for the enduring Oregon post-grunge rockers return with THE AUGUST LIST + GAVROCHE + KATE even if that over-extended term only gives and originals from the Australian singer- Mercury Prize, Beth Orton made her name gig with Newport’s bug-eyed breakneck hardcore a new album, `Invisible Stars’, the singer leading FULLER: The Port Mahon – Sweet’n’fiery you a partial glimpse of their expansive and songwriter. singing with William Orbit and The Chemical warriors Blowgoat keeping it hard and fast in a revolving cast of bandmates through over two bluegrass, alt.country and rockabilly in the vein ambitious musical vision. Like Sigur Ros, Brothers and has gone on to collaborate with the style of The Bronx, while Southampton’s decades of down-home noisy rocking that has of The Handsome Family and Carter-Cash from Mùm and fellow Danes Mew, Efterklang’s th everyone from Red Snapper and Four-Tet TUESDAY 9 FMNON add some tonsil-shredding punk both soundtracked and sometimes stood at odds recent Nightshift Demo of the Month winners music seems intended to capture the majestic to Bert Jansch and Emmylou Harris, but all JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With The New inspired by The Blackout. Bridgend’s Blue Collar with his often turbulent personal life. The August List. Playfully wayward piano-led landscapes of Scandinavia’s bleaker outposts, her critical acclaim and commercial success Jazz Collective. Decade rock out on a more metalcore tip, while FREERANGE: The Cellar – Dubstep, jazz from Gavroche and jazz-folk from Australian full of glacial ambience and hushed, choral didn’t stop her putting an extended hold on INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, cyber, recent Nightshift Demo of the Monthers Bear drum&bass and hip hop from the resident DJs. singer Kate Fuller. vocal arrangements that lend a ghostly her career when motherhood came calling. industrial, darkwave and ebm club night. Trap keep it gruff, growly and menacing in the RELAUNCH PARTY: The Bullingdon – Live EDGE: The Old Fire Station – An evening atmosphere to tense, dramatic and highly But now Beth is back, with her first album in BLUEBIRD CLUB: The Oxford Blue vein of Tad, The Descendants and Husker Du. bands, DJs and more to celebrate the Bully’s of free improv with Pakistani veteran Shahzad emotive pieces of music. On CD they can be seven years, `Sugaring Season’, continuing OPEN MIC CLUB: James Street Tavern recent revamp. Ismaily, who has played with John Zorn, Lou a fragile experience, but live Efterklang are a her move away from her earlier folktronica th ACOUSTIC LOUNGE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Reed, Tom Waits and Laurie Anderson, tonight more robust proposition, all marching snares, THURSDAY 11 and the title of Comedown Queen, to a more th Open mic session. performing with Oxford-based Butoh dancer emotion-stirring brass and dramatic strings TRIBES: O2 Academy – Ziggy Stardust-era organic, reflective form of traditional folk WEDNESDAY 10 Macareno Ortuza. They’re joined by local improv that embellish the evocative electronics. Even KING KRULE + FILTHY BOY: The Jericho glam meets Pixies’ proto-grunge in Tribes’ music that finds her closer to Sandy Denny and experimental music legends Jon Seagroatt the band’s name sounds like an exotically Tavern – Looking set for bigger things after anthemic garage rock universe, instantly and Nick Drake. Gentle melancholia is very th THURSDAY 4 and Ian Staples of Red Square. arcane instrument designed entirely to reflect being nominated for the BBC Sound of 2013, gratifying would-be hits like `We Were Children’ much the name of her name with an onstage EILEN JEWELL: Truck Store (4.15pm) – MENTALLICA + GUNS V ROSES: Fat Lil’s, the sound of glaciers and tundra. After the London BRIT School graduate Archy Marshall, coated in the band’s native Camden grime, and a persona that’s more nervy teenager than the Instore show ahead of her Bullingdon gig from Witney – Tribute night. graceful poppiness of 2010’s `Magic Chairs’, who previously went out under the name Zoo new album, `Wish To Scream’, due out soon. accomplished 40-something woman she is, the Idaho songstress. FUNK IT: The Bullingdon – Jack FM DJ Rich which pitched them closer to Talk Talk and Kid, heads off on tour for his new `Six Feet SECRET RIVALS + BETA BLOCKER & but that’s all part of the appeal, as if Beth THE EILEN JEWELL BAND: The Smith spins club classics, pop and r’n’b. even Elbow at times, new album `Piramida’, Beneath The Moon’ release, his soulful slow-burn THE BODY CLOCK + KING OF CATS: The doesn’t quite appreciate her own talents. Bullingdon – Heady, often atmospheric blend DISCO MUTANTE: The Library – Cosmic recorded in an abandoned Russian settlement, mix of indie mumble and chattering drum&bass, Cellar – Indie scrappers Secret Rivals launch Luckily, plenty of people out there do. of Americana, country, folk, blues, gospel and funk, disco, boogie and acid house club night. suitably arrives in waves of introspective seeing him compared to Edwyn Collins and Jack their new crowd-funded album, mixing feisty rockabilly from Idaho songstress Jewell at mechanised melancholia, but live they remain Penaté at various points. fight-pop with cutesy jangle and fuzz, somewhere tonight’s Empty Room Promotions show, the th a grandly-proportioned ensemble. JERO FÉREC FLAMENCO COMPANY feat. between Johnny Foreigner, The Cure and Bis. singer having been regularly compared to Loretta SATURDAY 6 TRIANA CORTÉS: The Cellar – A night of They’re joined by lo-fi noisemakers Beta Blocker Lynn, who she has extensively covered and YARAH BRAVO + DEATH OF HI-FI + JACK traditional Spanish flamenco with young guitarist and Dylan-on-acid song-mangler King of Cats. performed with, as well as Fred Eaglesmith and BUSHROD + ROSIE ROWLAND + BODY Férec and renowned dancer Cortés teaming up BLACKTHORN + ELI STONE + Chuck Prophet. POLITIC + BG RECORDS DJs: O2 Academy with singer Carolina Garrido from Cordoba, and HURRICANE BOBCATS + CHARLIE CHILDREN OF THE SUN + MODECAI + – The Oxford Young Women’s Music Project and Seville guitarist Anoush Saadat. Followed by SWING + GAG REFLEX: The Bullingdon LOWERING THE TONE: The Cellar – EP BG Records host an impressive showcase gig, drum&bass and garage club night Calligraphy. – It’s All About The Music gig night with launch gig for the local rockers. featuring globetrotting Latin American/Swedish BLOWGOAT + FIVE MILES NORTH OF Cheltenham’s militant punk rockers Gag Reflex. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford rapper and singer Yarah Bravo, formerly of Ninja NOWHERE + BLUE COLLAR DECADE + CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community Centre – Oxford’s longest- Tune signings One Self and frontwoman for DJ BEAR TRAP: The Wheatsheaf – 100% Mosh Community Centre shapes in support. to Oxfordshire after supporting Yashin up in rocking somewhere between The Jam and The Band, kicking it out raw and unrepentant like it’s BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Dancefloor Bicester last month, the band touring their debut Streets. still Prohibition-era New Orleans. Ska Cubano Latin, afrobeat, Balkan beat, global grooves album, `Militia of the Lost’. Local teenage metal JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – With The New leader Natty Bo mans the decks alongside the and nu-jazz at the monthly Bossaphonik night, starlets The Reaper open. Jazz Collective. Count, spinning swing, ska, be-bop, boogie- tonight with live guests Horndog Brass Band THE HOLLIES: The New Theatre –The 60s BLUEBIRD CLUB: The Oxford Blue woogie and more. from Edinburgh, the eight-strong collective and 70s hitmakers keep on keeping on, running OPEN MIC CLUB: James Street Tavern GREAT BIG BARGAIN + THE BEUTONS playing sousaphone-fuelled street funk classics through classic hits like `He Ain’t Heavy, He’s + BARMY ARMY + FLIGHTS OF HELIOS: and originals. My Brother’, `The Air That I Breathe’ and `I th The Bullingdon – Banbury’s ska-punks head BREEZE: The Duke’s Cut – Lively covers Can’t Let Go’. WEDNESDAY 17 tonight’s It’s All About The Music show, plus from the Duke’s Cut regulars. LES CLOCHARDS + WYTHAM DON BROCO: O2 Academy – Something atmospheric psychedelia drifters Flights of SECRET POLICE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Police WOOD + SIOBHAN McCLUSKY + THE something anthemic rock music something Helios. Friday 19th tribute band. FIREGAZERS + THE RIGHT HOOKS + something; can we go home now? RIOTHOUSE + EYES OF EVE: The Tuesday 23rd FUNK IT: The Bullingdon MEGAN JOSEPHY: The Wheatsheaf (2.30pm) FREERANGE: The Cellar Wheatsheaf – Local metal night with – Free unplugged afternoon session courtesy of SPARKY’S SPOTLIGHT: James Street NWOBHM types Riothouse alongside thrash THE STAVES: Tavern DAUGHTER: th the Klub Kakofanney crew and chums, including crew Eyes of Eve. O2 Academy SATURDAY 13 Francophile rock’n’rollers Les Clochards. STEAMROLLER: Red Hot Blues Club, Oxford Town Hall Three sisters called Emily, Camilla and Jessica BETH ORTON: O2 Academy – Sweet’n’sad th Didcot – heavyweight rocking blues inspired by That Daughter are playing the Town Hall folksy reflection from the BRIT-winning THURSDAY 18 singing winsome, pristine close-harmony th Hendrix and Cream from the local uber-veterans. is testament to just how fast things have songstress – see main preview MONDAY 15 EFTERKLANG + ANNA VON folk songs that occasionally tread close to HAUSSWOLFF: O2 Academy – Expansive FUNK IT: The Bullingdon moved for them since they introduced Laura Marling might sound like something THE KOOKS: O2 Academy – An intimate THE RON SAYER BAND + THE HYPERMUSED: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Tribute themselves with their `Wild Youth’ EP on warm-up show for their forthcoming mega tour LAURENCE JONES BAND: The Jericho electro-classical soundscaping from concocted in a major label marketing Copenhagen’s finest – see main preview to Muse. Mumford & Sons’ Communion label. Still, department in these post-Mumford days, but or something according to what we were told. So Tavern – Blues-rock with elements of funk, soul such a rapid ascent is a neat counter to the no blagging guestlists or anything, apparently. and jazz from sometime Oli Brown bassist Ron KING CREOSOTE: The Jericho Tavern – The the fact is, the Staveley-Taylor siblings, all wilderness as music from the downbeat Fife poet th dreamy, wandering dymanics of their music, in their twenties, have been singing together Thank Christ for that. Safe for now. Sayer at the Famous Monday Blues, alongside SATURDAY 20 a fragile, brooding form of understated pop DESERT STORM + DEATH OF ORION Stratford’s teenage guitarist Laurence Jones and – see main preview RECORD STORE DAY with THE WEDDING since their teens, making their name in HIDDEN ORCHESTRA + THE PHAT that swims in the warm, dense textures of their native Watford by playing open-mic + MUTAGENOCIDE: The Wheatsheaf – band, likened to Peter Green and Joe Bonamassa. PRESENT + THE RALFE BAND + EMPTY Explosions In The Sky or even Sigur Ros at Album launch show for local stoner-rock titans BROTHERS GROOVE: The Bullingdon – SESSIONS COLLECTIVE: The Cellar – WHITE CIRCLES + BRICKWORK nights. The fact they look and sound like an Drum&bass and dubby cinematic jazz from times. The venue’s grand architecture will A&R scout’s perfect daydream is by the by. Desert Storm, rampaging through desert scuzz Funk outta Birmingham. LIZARDS: Truck Store (1pm) – Truck Store complement singer Elena Tonra’s dramatic with southern Baptist zeal. Support comes Edinburgh’s Hidden Orchestra, plus funk, jazz celebrates Record Store day in fine style with Occasionally polite their music may be, but and hip hop from The Phat Sessions Collective. vocal performance though, as she lyrically at their best they’re mesmerising, crystalline, from Bristol’s experimental stoner-rockers th a special unplugged set from David Gedge and unearths all manner of bitterness and disgust, Death Of Orion, coming in on the Isis and Tool TUESDAY 16 Followed by tropical carnival party sounds at Pon chums. They’re joined by local alt.folksters graceful and often hypnotic, drawing a line MISSING ANDY: O2 Academy – AKA Danny de Floor, with Sensible Dancehall DJs. mostly about love gone horribly wrong. Given between the English folk songs of Sandy side of things, and local thrashcore monsters Empty White Circles, launching their debut EP. she’s going out with guitarist Igor Haefeli, he Mutagenocide, back in action after a lengthy Dyer: The Musical. Bolshy cockney mod/punk OSPREY & FRIENDS: The Wheatsheaf – OXFORD FOLK WEEKEND: Various venues Denny and its American Laurel Canyon Unplugged show in the downstairs bar from must love hearing her intone lines like “I want lay-off. st – First full day and evening of the weekender, cousin, while live the sisters are more playful Sunday 21 veteran local songsmith Osprey. you so much but I hate your guts” every night. and potty-mouthed than their double-barrelled THOMAS TRUAX + RATATOSK: Modern with James Bell, Jackie Oates, Ian Giles & Dave Having signed to the mighty 4AD, with whose Art Oxford – After his sold-out show at this THESEDAYS: The Bullingdon – House club Townsend and Police Dog Hogan among the acts surname might suggest. They’ve already I AM KLOOT: night. enviable alumni they share many atmospheric toured the States three times, as well as same venue back in 2011, Thomas Truax is playing. traits, Daughter have already appeared on the once again the guest of Pindrop Performances, CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford MILKY WIMPSHAKE + LES CLOCHARDS supporting Bon Iver in the UK and Canada, O2 Academy Community Centre David Letterman show in the States, as well the eccentric singer and musician well known “Songs about drinking and disaster,” is how + THE WOULD-BE-GOODS: The Port and sang backing vocals for Fionn Regan, OPEN MIC CLUB: The Half Moon as being heavily championed by Radio 1’s round these parts for his array of bizarre, self- John Bramwell describes his band’s music, Mahon – Making a virtue of noisy, slightly and the trio’s debut album, `Dead & Born & BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston Huw Stephens, and now release their debut Gone’, was helmed by legendary producers created instruments like the hornicator, and richly and he’s not wrong. But listen to I Am Kloot ramshackle musical underachievement since the album, `If You Leave’, the title of which offers Glyn and Ethan Johns, two blokes who know a poetic roots-pop. He’s joined by Cardiff’s multi- and you’ll also find morality, humanity, early-90s, Newcastle’s Milky Wimpshake have little hope of light or redemption in Tonra’s th thing or two about genuine talent. instrumental miserablist and minimalist Ratatosk, drama and empathy, all delivered with an FRIDAY 19 achieved semi-legendary status in the twee-pop gorgeously spectral world. who’s played with Gorky’s and Brave Captain in understated wit from a man who seems not OXFORD FOLK WEEKEND: Various venues underground, all set to release their fifth album, OPEN MIC CLUB: The Half Moon the past. just content but actively happy to wallow in – Opening evening of the second annual folk `Heart & Soul of the Milky Way’, on Fortuna Pop synth-pop classics. BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston BRICKWORK LIZARDS + THE life’s disappointments. I Am Kloot’s modest weekend, featuring concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, and keeping the kitchen sink pop-punk spirit of HAWKHURST + THE MECHANISMS: The commercial success over the past decade dances, kids activities, open mic, Morris dancing bands like The Pastels and Razorcuts alive and st Cellar – Arabic folk, hip hop and Turkobilly kicking, albeit kicking in a sweet, polite fashion. SUNDAY 21 th and a half – culminating in 2010 album `Sky and more across the city. The weekend’s concerts OXFORD FOLK WEEKEND: Various venues FRIDAY 12 fusion from the ever-exotic Brickwork Lizards, At Night’ scraping the Top 30 and getting a centre around the Old Fire Station but there’s Support comes from Les Clochards, a band LISTING SHIPS + GREY HAIRS + – Until The Bird, Boldwood, Mark Waistell, plus rootsy folk-rock from The Hawkhurst and Mercury nomination – doubtless fuels the fires also stuff going on at the Ashmolean, Oxford featuring several of Oxford’s own indie legends, ABANDON: The Wheatsheaf – Electro- Tandara Mandara and Dugab Mehment are steam-punk pop opera from The Mechanisms. of Bramwell’s worldview, but it also gives Castle, Far From the Madding Crowd, Westgate together fusing classic 50s rock’n’roll with a little heavy instrumental post-rocking with a serious among today’s performers, alongside myriad FAUSTUS: The Cornerstone Arts Centre, his band the time and space to create music Library, Gloucester Green and more. For full Parisian café pop élan, and an acoustic set from nautical theme from Listing Ships at tonight’s other folk-related fun – see main festival website Didcot – Folk fun from the award-winning that resonates far more than most of their line-up details visit www.folk-arts-oxford.co.uk. cult indie couple The Would-be-Goods. MusicinOxford gig, alongside fiercely wonky for full line-up details. trio featuring Bellowhead’s Benji Kirkpatrick brasher Manchester neighbours. The slate-grey Tonight’s events include sets by Bill McKinnon THE HOODOO CLUB with THE KNIGHTS Pere Ubu and Mission of Burma-inspired post- I AM KLOOT: O2 Academy – A different kind and Paul Sartin, alongside Waterson-Carthy melancholia of I Am Kloot’s home town is and Magpie Lane as well as a ceilidh with The OF MENTIS: The Cellar – Americana, punkers Grey Hairs, and doomy industrial of northern soul from Manchester’s documenters collaborator Saul Rose. reflected in their music, a weary mix of blues, Ship Band. country-folk and roots night. Followed by Extra- soundscapists Abandon. of dour – see main preview SIMPLE: The Bullingdon – House and techno soul and folksy rock filtered through morning- THE STAVES: Truck Store (1.30pm) – Curricular. KING CHARLES: O2 Academy – Wry, rootsy with resident DJs. after regret and gallows philosophy (sample Watford’s singing siblings play an intimate MARY BENDYTOY + STEM + SCOTT acoustic psychedelia and electro-pop from the nd NIKKI LOY: The Honeypot lyric from new album `Let It All In’: “You instore ahead of their O2 gig tonight. GORDON BAND + JEFF WODE: The MONDAY 22 hirsute west London dandy, inspired by Donovan, PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + JACK FM DJs: think that someone may have snuck into your MICHAEL SCHENKER’S TEMPLE OF Hollybush, Osney – One More Gig Closer To TOM McRAE: O2 Academy – Chelmsford’s Syd Barrett and Marc Bolan, and back in town O2 Academy life and overnight has changed the locks”). As ROCK: O2 Academy – A quarter of a century Wittstock fundraiser for May’s free festival, with master of mirth returns to town to promote after his showing at Truck Festival last year EXTRA-CURRICULAR: The Cellar with so many of its predecessors, the new one after his commercial (and probably artistic) goth-rockers Mary Bendytoy and trip- FOSSIL COLLECTIVE: The Jericho Tavern is produced by long-time friend Guy Garvey, heyday as chief axe-wielder with Scorpions and hop outfit Stem. Jeff Wode, meanwhile, – Breezy, harmony-heavy folk-rock in the vein THE OXFORD RECORD th whose own success was a long while coming, UFO, the all-rocking, all-boozing guitar legend is going to pull your head off. Because of Crosby, Stills & Nash, Midlake or Fleet Foxes SUNDAY 14 but hopefully I Am Kloot will finally earn that is Michael Schenker continues to kick out he doesn’t like your head. from Leeds’ Fossil Collective, who played last LITTLE COMETS: O2 Academy – DVD & CD FAIR similar widespread acclaim. those jams with epic aplomb. KILL CITY SAINTS + REEDS year’s Gathering Festival, now out on tour to Newcastle’s ebullient Afro-pop-flavoured indie St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE THE STAVES + SIVU: O2 Academy – The + INZANADU + HEADSTONE promote debut album `Tell Where I Lie’. rockers return to town, playing songs from their 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP sweet sibling harmonies of Laurel Canyon. Via HORRORS + DAMIAN FRANKLIN: OOOD + HARDCORESMEN OF THE `Life Is Elsewhere’ album, having originally Watford – see main preview The Wheatsheaf – Southern-fried th TECHNOPALYPSE + AFTER THE made their name playing cheeky guerrilla gigs in Saturday 18 May THE BIG TEN INCH with THE ORIGINAL rocking from Kill City Saints, plus THOUGHT: The Bullingdon – Oxford’s university lecture halls and call centres as well as 10am-3.30pm RABBIT FOOT SPASM BAND + NATTY soulful pop from Banbury’s Inzanadu. rave revival continues apace as 90s acid house supporting the likes of Noisettes and The Twang, BO: The Cellar – Count Skylarkin’s monthly NIKKI LOY: The White Hart, and trance crew OOOD (Out Of Our Depth) and most recently Biffy Clyro. Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres celebration of jump blues, rockabilly, r’n’b and Minster Lovell reconvene alongside the recently-reformed FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS + FORT Accessories/memoriabillia/books. more, tonight with a live set from local hot-jazz PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + JACK Hardcoresmen for a night of serious techno fun. HOPE + THE REAPER: O2 Academy – Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl party starters The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm FM DJs: O2 Academy www.usrfairs.co.uk After The Thought cut some ambient electronic London’s floppy-fringed death-pop crew return SYNTRONIX: Fat Lil’s, Witney – 80s his new album, `From The Lowlands’, a HEADCOUNT + BEAVERFUEL: The post-punk power-pop from Black Hats and from local outfit The Shapes at tonight’s direct follow-up to `Alphabet Of Hurricanes’, Bullingdon – Righteous punk ire from eclectic rocking from Artclasssink. Take GTI, with hints of 70s-era Bob Dylan, continuing to plumb the depths of musical sorrow longstanding local titans Headcount, channelling them some cake; they deserve it. Cockney Rebel and Squeeze in their and melancholy in rather splendid style and with classic Killing Joke, Banshees and Adam and the LATE NIGHT ENVY + TORN LIKE poppy mix. Manchester’s solo guitarist a feather-light vocal touch that leavens his tales Ants through Therapy?’s meat grinder. Potty- COLOURS + GURP: The Wheatsheaf Greg Larkin mixes elements of flamenco, of gloom and lost love. minded punk-pop crew Beaver Fuel support. – Grungy heavyweight blues-rocking post-rock, Led Zep and John Renbourn THE WILLIE NILE BAND + MICK KEMP: from former-Shattered Dreams types Late into his complex, percussive style, while The Jericho Tavern – Willie Nile returns to the rd Night Envy, alongside trashy punk-pop local jangle-popstrels The Trophy Cabinet Famous Monday Blues after last year’s show at TUESDAY 23 noisemakers Gurp. channel classic indie influences such as The the Bully, one of the most critically-lauded cult DAUGHTER: Oxford Town Hall – Darkness MOPOMOSO + OXFORD Go-Betweens, Lloyd Cole and James. artists of the past 30 years, going back to the and heartache from 4AD’s dreamily doomy IMPROVISERS: The Newman Rooms, OSPREY & THE OX4 ALLSTARS: The late-70s when the Buffalo-born singer and multi- popstrels – see main preview St Aldates – A night of virtuoso free improv Stocks Bar, Crown & Thistle, Abingdon – instrumentalist made his name on the Greenwich RYAN KEEN + SAM BRADLEY + JOEL from veterans of the scene Mopomoso, Skittle Alley bands night, and the last gig at Village folk scene. A 1980 debut album on Arista BAKER: O2 Academy – Soft-centred, soulful guitarist John Russell and pianist and the pub before it undergoes a major refit. acoustic pop from Devonian singer-songwriter saw him compared to Bob Dylan and Buddy Friday 26th trumpeter Chris Burn celebrating over HOUSEPROUD: The Bullingdon Holly, but protracted legal problems put a stop on Keen, who has toured with Ed Sheeran as well as 20 years together with their first full UK STEAMROLLER: Millennium Hall, his career until the late-80s when he re-emerged supporting Newton Faulkner, Ben Howard and A HAWK AND A tour. They’re joined by a cast of renowned Horton-cum-Studley with an album featuring guest appearances from Lucy Rose. improvisers that includes Pat Thomas, Alex PROPAGANDA + TRASHY + JACK FM Richard Thompson, Loudon Wainwright III and JAZZ CLUB: The Bullingdon – Live jazz from HACKSAW: St Michael Ward and the Alison Blunt Trio. DJs: O2 Academy Roger McGuinn. Since then he’s performed The Hugh Turner Band. HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: James THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The Fox, regularly with Bruce Springsteen at the Boss’s BLUEBIRD CLUB: The Oxford Blue @ The Northgate Street Tavern – Country-folk, Americana Barrington biggest Stateside stadium shows, as well as OPEN MIC CLUB: James Street Tavern New Mexico’s A Hawk & A Hacksaw, who and bluegrass from the local faves. working with Ringo Starr, Tori Amos and Elvis join that elite set of bands whose names TNT: The Duke’s Cut – Covers, from The th Costello. WEDNESDAY 24th mix birds with dangerous tools (see also Beatles to Blur. SUNDAY 28 Jackdaw With Crowbar and Sparrow & The FUNK IT: The Bullingdon ENEMY REIGN + CODEX SWEET BABOO: O2 Academy – Tender, ALIMENTARIUS + EMPIRE DIVIDED: idiosyncratic electro-pop from north Wales one- Workshop), were formed by former-Neutral STEAMROLLER: The Bell, Bicester th Milk Hotel chap Jeremy Barnes and violinist The Wheatsheaf – More extreme metal Friday 26 man band, the work of Stephen Black, leaning Heather Trost with an eye and ear for eclectic jollity from the Slave To The Grind crew, towards Alt.J’s rarefied atmospherics on his th inventiveness; the duo’s journeys into sound SATURDAY 27 tonight featuring full-pelt death-metal/ CHUCK PROPHET `Let’s Go Swimming Wild’ single. have taken in everything from Jewish klezmer, SKELETOR with DIVINE CHAOS + grindcore outfit Enemy Reign, all the way SUBVERSE: The Cellar & THE MISSION through Mexican mariachi to gypsy waltzes, ZAOS + I CRIED WOLF + SALVAGE from Denver, Colorado. Exeter’s Codex onto which AH&AH project their own + BLACK SUNRISE: O2 Academy – Alimentarius and Abingdon’s Empire EXPRESS: THURSDAY 25th particular brand of bucolic Eastern European, Intense, speedfreak thrash in the vein of Divided add some serious death-metal back- PET MOON + KILL MURRAY + Balkan and Turkish folk to create something Pantera, Testament and Sepultura from up. The Bullingdon MOTHERHOOD + SALVATION BILL that’s both bleak and eerie and otherworldly Slough’s Divine Chaos at this month’s CHURCH OF THE HEAVY: The Empty Room Promotions continue to do what + JONQUIL DJs: The Cellar – Blessing escapist. Having set up their own label, LM Skeletor metalfest. The local supporting Bullingdon – The Bully’s monthly metal they have long done best – bringing the cult Force host the joint launch for Kill Murray’s Duplication, they’ve most recently recorded cast includes tech-metallers Zaos and club night with live sets from Annero, heroes of Americana to Oxford. None more new `Microscopic’ EP and the second BF free a new double album, `You Have Already stoner-metal crew Black Sunrise. Strength of the Bear, Mordecia, Tridem and so than Chuck Prophet, back in town after his mixtape. Atmospheric electro-pop and r’n’b from Gone To The Other World’, a soundtrack THE NIKKI LOY BAND: The North Last Rites. show at this same venue a year ago. Chuck this month’s Nightshift cover stars Pet Moon; to Ukrainian director Paradjanov’s surreal, Wall, Summertown – A full band show THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: Fat Lil’s, is a very much in the A-list of cult American heavy-duty pop grind from Kill Murray, pristine magical 1964 film Shadows Of Forgotten from the local singer-songwriter, launching Witney roots-rock heroes, having made his name electro-pop from Motherhood, and rarefied indie Ancestors. Originally the duo toured the her new `All I See’ EP, bringing soul and BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney in the 1980s fronting Green On Red, before from Salvation Bill playing live, alongside a DJ soundtrack with the film, but it’s developed jazz influences into her sweet acoustic pop going solo in the 90s. Since then he’s played set from the Jonquil boys – see main Pet Moon to become a set in itself, a mix of original sound. Krissy Matthews is among Nikki’s th alongside Jonathan Richman, Warren Zevon, MONDAY 29 interview feature compositions and traditional folk tunes bandmates for the night. Lucinda Williams and country singer Kelly BUDDY WHITTINGTON: The DOG IS DEAD: O2 Academy – Rescheduled from the region, produced by Deerhoof’s IRREGULAR FOLK: The Cellar – Alt. Willis, widely renowned as a master of the Bullingdon – Electric blues rocking from show for Nottingham’s flamboyantly melodic John Dieterich, who also played guitar on folk night, tonight with an “ode to the Telecaster, a versatile guitarist inspired by the Texan guitarist Whittington, previously indie hopefuls, debut album `All Our Favourite the album. Tonight’s show is hosted by the loop pedal” theme. There’s mesmeric, likes of Dick Dale, Neil Young and Clarence part of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for 15 Stories’’ big, big choruses recalling Noah & The reliably exotic Pindrop Performances and A hand-built psych-folk from Laura J White, while in his own right he’s pursued a years, before heading out as a bandleader in Whale, Vampire Weekend and previous tourmates Hawk & A Hacksaw bring their own folksy Martin, plus haunted atmospheric folk- career that’s found favour more with critics his own right. Bombay Bicycle Club. brand of psychedelia to the party. pop from London’s You Are Wolf, and than the public at large, in the main due to BABA JACK: The Jericho Tavern – OXFORD ACOUSTIC CLUB: The local melancholic singer-songwriter his unwillingness to get too comfortable or Afro-pop in there and plenty of trebly guitar Acoustic blues-roots from the British duo at Bullingdon – Unplugged sets from Stuart Noah, Phil McMinn. Followed by Be Ready’s play too fully to fans’ expectations. Notable trilling and, following supports with Tame Impala tonight’s Famous Monday Blues. Ellie Caddick, Andy Robbins, Matt Carter, Claire Dimensions Festival launch party in high points over the years have been `Age and The Vaccines under their belts, debut album LeMaster, Rhiannon Mair, Antio Lulic and Will conjunction with Extra-Curricular. Of Miracles’, where country and rock’n’roll `In Love’, out this month, should see them attain th Phelps. JAMIE N COMMONS: The Jericho mixed unexpectedly with blues and hip hop, most favoured indie band of the month status. TUESDAY 30 MY FIRST TOOTH + GAZ BROOKFIELD: Tavern – Fantastically rough-hewn fire RUDIMENTAL: O2 Academy – After the and the political `Let Freedom Ring’, which, CHUCK PROPHET: The Bullingdon – Rootsy Fat Lil’s, Witney – Sweet, intimate country-folk and brimstone blues from Bristol-born, chart-topping success of `Feel The Love’ like Springsteen, took the disenfranchised rock’n’roll from the cult guitarist – see main from My Crooked Teeth, plus Frank Turner-like Chicago-raised, now London resident singer and its subsequent BRIT nomination for blue-collar worker as a starting point for preview folk-pop from Gaz Brookfield, ahead of a tour Commons, a man of a tender 23 years but Best Single, Hackney’s drum&bass quartet a wider comment on American society. A HAWK & A HACKSAW + C JOYNES: SJE Arts, S. John the Evangelist, support to The Levellers. who sounds like a grizzled veteran of at head out on a headline tour to coincide with Comparisons to Ray Davies, Tom Petty and St. Michael @ The Northwall – Ukrainian 109A Iffley Road, OX4 1EH NIKKI LOY: The Bell, Bicester least twice as many long nights in seedy new single `Wait All Night’ and their debut Alex Chilton point to the high esteem the man and Balkan folk via New Mexico from the (opposite the University Sports Ground) CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford whisky bars. Murderous preachers, suicide album, `Home’, having supported Plan B on is held in, but over a 30 year career, he’s never experimental psych-folk duo – see main preview Community Centre and heartache are his lyrical stock in trade, his last UK tour. been anything other than his own man. MR WOODNOTE with LIL RHYS & EVA 8 April doors 7.15pm OPEN MIC CLUB: The Half Moon while his rasping voice has seen him SIMPLY MAYDAY EVE PARTY: The Caravan LAZARUS: The Cellar – Funk, jazz and hip BLUES JAM: The Jack Russell, Marston compared to Tom Waits and John Martyn. Bullingdon – All-night house party with hop from saxophonist Woodnote alongside rapper GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with Wayz, Odyssey and Bicep. 4 June The Searchers 7.30pm Lil Rhys and singer Eva Lazarus, the trio having THE SHAPES + GREG LARKIN + MAY DAY EVE PARTY: The Cellar th supported the likes of Dub FX, Foreign Beggars FRIDAY 26 TROPHY CABINET: The Wheatsheaf BLUEBIRD CLUB: The Oxford Blue 17 June Brian May and Kerry Ellis and Krafty Kuts as well as playing Glastonbury, PEACE: O2 Academy – The post-Foals – Melodic folk and country-tinged rocking OPEN MIC CLUB: James Street Tavern twinkly indie-disco craze continues apace as Shambala and the Edinburgh Fringe. 26 June Gretchen Peters 7.30 m Birmingham’s Peace arrive to stake a claim THE HALF RABBITS + BLACK HATS + Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion in the gig guide is 6pm on the 20th on that particular throne. Recent radio staple ARTCLASSSINK: The Jericho Tavern – Daisy 26 July Tom Russell 7.30pm `Wraith’ would have slotted neatly on any Foals Rodgers Music celebrate their fourth birthday of each month - no exceptions (not even for you). Call 01865 372255 (10am-6pm), or album, with a sprinkling of Wu Lyf and Theme with an evening of local bands. There’s gothic email listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright of Nightshift and 19 December Jethro Tull Park on top for a bit of variety. There’s a bit of indie rocking from The Half Rabbits, spiky may not be reproduced without permission metal and wolf howls. Getting the audience to howl along with him LIVE seems like a something of a coup; it’s been a while since a support act has been this engaging. You have to feel a little sorry

photo:Sam Shepherd for Of Monsters & Men; they’ve suddenly exploded in popularity over the last few months, but they’re already being written off in some quarters as sounding like Mumford & Sons. On one hand that’s a definite boon, Mumford and Sons are nothing if not popular, but they are also hated in some quarters on a level usually reserved for Mick Hucknall. The truth is, that they have a similar set up to Mumford, but musically they’ve far more in common with early Arcade Fire. Additionally, they happen to possess a clutch of songs that border on pop brilliance. The fervour that greets `Little Talks’, for example, is entirely warranted; it’s a wonderful chunk of folk pop whichever way it’s sliced. Opener `Dirty Paws’ is a lower-key affair, but still seeks to reach a glorious epiphany. OF MONSTERS & MEN / MUGISON It’s easy to see how their songs have connected with such a wide O2 Academy audience so quickly. Yes the It’s an all Icelandic affair at the O2 guitar is enough to send all but the predominantly blues influenced, ubiquitous TV adverts have helped, tonight but support act Mugison is hardiest folk fan heading for the but with a hint of Detroit grime, but there’s a substance to these intent on reminding the audience hills quicker than you can yodel while vocally he’s part Tom songs that is uplifting and joyous. that music from the land of Sigur “hey nonny no”, but Mugison’s Waits and most impressively, part If you’re not a total snob – or even Ros is not just about drifting attack of the instrument is entirely Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse. if you are – you couldn’t really ask ambience and childlike melodies. different as he distorts it to within Essentially, it’s a blend of The Jon for more. Truck fest Ordinarily one man and an acoustic an inch of its life. His songs are Spencer Blues Explosion, death Sam Shepherd

JESSIE WARE SPACE O2 Academy O2 Academy South Londoner Jessie Ware’s notes or feeling – and as such, she Space are usually lumped in with – juxtaposing the macabre with debut album `Devotion’ was a pop far more effectively conveys lyrical other Britpop bands of the mid-to- the mundane, and making light album that popped up in many meaning than the melismatic late 90s in the national memory, but of it. The 1950s-style jangly critics’ best of 2012 lists – no foghorns the charts are stuffed with they fitted the “pop” – in the genre spookiness, organs, rockabilly and mean feat. All the while, I hadn’t these days. sense – much better than Suede or mariachi stylings are still present been able to shift the fact that she Her voice has convinced me that Oasis. The “Brit” part also deftly in the newer stuff, but it’s even reminds me of mid-80s Stock, I’ll be her `Night Light’, there characterised the Liverpudlians; lots darker, if anything: `Crying on the Aitken & Waterman-backed pop- when she goes to sleep; I don’t of the bands of the time were quite Webcam’ is just creepy; `She’s In soul chanteuse Princess. have many doubts that in her and austere, but Space gave a somewhat Love With a Boy in a Body Bag’ Great as Princess’s voice was, her baby’s `Wildest Moments’, wry side glance at life. apparently combines Sergio Leone her material didn’t exactly set the they could be the worst of all. They actually hung on until 2005, with necrophilia, and the frantic, world alight, and Jessie’s voice While Ware’s vocal performance with dwindling success, but like Madness-esque album title track, had hitherto unmoved me, too; is stronger than her recordings so many of their contemporaries, `Attack of the Mutant 50ft Kebab’, it seemed too measured, perhaps led me to believe it might be, they (Tommy Scott and Franny definitely has an air of “sod it, let’s without the depth promised. her aura – her stage presence – Griffiths from the original lineup) do what we want” about it. `Burn However, on tonight’s evidence doesn’t quite match it. It’s not the recently reformed. Understandably, Down the School’ continues the her voice seems to have matured, chat – she is as charming as Adele tonight they concentrate on their extraordinary-things-happening- and it’s stunning. Her brand between songs, dedicating songs to first two albums and the most to-everyday-people theme of their of pop/soul/R&B – to which her brother and cousin, and giving recent, as if their other two – the biggest hit `Me &You vs the World’, she graduated successfully via shouts out to her mum and aunt delayed and eventually unreleased which has a ska-punk makeover the now requisite urban/dance on the merchandise stand – or her Edwyn Collins-produced `Love You tonight. collaborations, most notably with poise; I just feel, tonight at least, More Than Football’ and the 2004 They finish with a medley of `Dark SBTRKT and Sampha – recalls that she hasn’t found the perfect relative flop that preceded their split, Clouds’ and `La Bamba’ – a natural such exemplars of the genre as balance between these and the `Suburban Rock’n’Roll’ – never segue – and stalker tale `Drop Dead’: Sade; `Sweet Talk’ is basically a elegance of her voice yet, but it’s existed. “One for the fans,” Tommy explains. faster `Your Love is King’, with quite exciting that it’ll develop as From the old stuff, for every And with that, he jumps into the fuzzy guitar instead of saxophone. her stature grows, and that there’s `Avenging Angels’ and grateful crowd, revelling in their She’s still restrained and subtle more to come. `Neighbourhood’ there is a long-standing appreciation. – there’s no superfluity of either Kirsten Etheridge `Charlie M’ and `Mister Psycho’ Kirsten Etheridge SAM LEE & FRIENDS HALESTORM / IN THIS MOMENT / Holywell Music Room SACRED MOTHER TONGUE Sam Lee & Friends are expanded seem to need the invention of by one tonight as Lee, who was a new genre to describe them, O2 Academy nominated for the Mercury Prize something like mongrel acoustic Sacred Mother Tongue are moving her vocals are drowned in reverb last year for his `Ground Of Its contemporary chamber music. up in the world. Having secured to hide their less-than-impressive Own’ album of traditional traveller There’s a violin but it never comes a main stage slot at this year’s nature, and you get the constant and gypsy songs, introduces Irish anywhere near a diddly-dee folk Download Festival, they’ve moved feeling she’s more interested in how traveller Thomas McCarthy, who fiddle riff. Nor is there any of the from their last local tour stop at she looks than how she sounds. They features throughout the show, rumbustiousness of Bellowhead. The Courtyard in Bicester to the may be theatrical performers, but singing solo and unaccompanied Instead a muted trumpet and the cavernous confines of the downstairs everything about In This Moment from his large repertoire. hang lend a cool European jazz room at the O2 Academy, and as feels fake and gimmicky tonight. McCarthy is most enjoyable vibe to ‘Over Yonder Hill’. Two it fills up, they demonstrate just Halestorm’s arrival onstage when playing what he calls “funny jews harps accompany a version why they’re earning this kind of provokes an insane reaction from the songs”. Sadly his laments, like of the infamous and libellous recognition, delivering a tight set of crowd, which frontwoman Lzzy (yes, ‘Lough Sheelin’, while admirable, 12th Century English anti-semitic energetic hard rock/metal. Technical that is how she spells it) is quick to are more difficult to engage with, ballad ‘The Jews Garden’, while problems, which make Darrin harness, as the band launches into perhaps because this singing the beautifully sung ‘Goodbye South’s vocals almost inaudible for one of their many raucous hard rock the first two songs, lead to a slight anthems. tradition is so lacking in rhythm. My Darling’ possesses an upbeat loss of momentum, which takes What follows is an hour and a half of He doesn’t help his cause by surge of strings reminiscent of that a good part of the set to recover. loud, energetic rock’n’roll, complete not making eye contact with the other mongrel outfit The Penguin Nevertheless, guitarist Andy James with singalongs, a brace of piano- audience, singing with his eyes Café Orchestra, and ‘The Ballad is perhaps the best of an impressive soaked power ballads and one of the fixed on the floor. of George Collins’ (beware jilted bunch of shredders on display only genuinely entertaining drum His constant presence on stage water-sprites) ends as an acoustic tonight, and Sacred Mother Tongue solos I have ever seen. does seem to be an endorsement trance dance number. prove tonight that they are definitely Alongside their own hits, the band of Sam Lee’s mission to seek out It’s often spellbinding, at times up to playing with the big dogs of tear through covers of Ronnie “song carriers” from Traveller and beautiful, as with the sparse setting hard rock. James Dio’s ‘Straight Through The other communities. Sam’s own for ‘Tan Yard Side’. From the very start of In This Heart’ and Judas Priest’s ‘Dissident resonant, relaxed baritone is both There’s also a fresh and mildly Moment’s set, it’s clear the focal Agressor’. As I leave the venue, easy on the ear and compelling, a experimental frisson which helps point of the band is Maria Brink, catchy hooks buzzing through my smoothed out version of the old explain Lee’s Mercury nomination. the band’s scantily-clad vocalist, to head, something strikes me about rhythm-less singing style but is But by the end of tonight’s OCM the point that the rest of the band tonight’s line-up: both Halestorm suffused with emotion and drama. promotion, the approach seems may as well be nothing more than and In This Moment definitely The remarkable result is singing a little too artful for the earthy faceless guns for hire, standing in the exploit their undeniably attractive that’s simultaneously intense and material and Lee’s vocals, though shadows and throwing intimidating frontwomen, however, the difference understated and gets the story good, are beginning to sound looking shapes. In This Moment is that while Maria Brink appears to across without dominating. rather samey. have invested a lot in visuals, with a be up on stage purely because she’s To these vocals, Lee & Friends So, not the full thumbs up, but slick light show and a raised podium an attractive frontwoman, in Lzzy add refined accompaniment, you’ve definitely got to admire for Brink to stand on, surrounded by Hale’s case looks are irrelevant; which includes using Japanese Sam Lee & Friends for what they piles of skulls and a sea of dry ice, she’s a solid rock singer and makes koto, the tabla, and Lee making have achieved so far in opening as she delivers the band’s distinctive Halestorm a force to be seriously drones on the harmonium-like an almost lost form of music to a brand of alt-metalcore in her multiple reckoned with when it comes to live Indian shruti box. Taken together wider audience. outfits. Unfortunately, she isn’t performance. the off-centre arrangements Colin May exactly deserving of all this attention; Tal Fineman

PAWS / VIRALS / IDES ‘Jellyfish’ and ‘Bloodline’ whizz by, but they also rattle through ‘Sore The Jericho Tavern Tummy’ – arguably ‘Cokefloat!’s Beware the Ides of, er, February – another place entirely – one where Fat Cat signings PAWS may be stand-out track – with such Ides being the solo side project of the Ramones and Cheap Trick rule Scottish but aren’t actually from incredible alacrity that you wonder Alanna McCardle, taking time out the roost. The incongruity of their Aberdeen – but their opening whether the last train back to from playing with the awesomely irony-free rock ‘n’ roll on the bill gambit ‘Tulip’ even borrows the Glasgow is about to leave. Perhaps named Joanna Gruesome. She is all the more startling given their double snare rap from ‘Drain You’. inevitably for a punk band, much of deals in desperation and desolation presence at the headliners’ request. Not that they haven’t got more what motivates PAWS is anger and magnified by electric guitar and Despite the perfect sound set-up, than enough to recommend them disaffection. That hasn’t stopped them echo, her vocals floating lightly to they’re not blistering. The feeling without comparisons to Kurt and from dedicating one new song to the surface. persists, though, that an appreciative co, especially as they seem to have Edinburgh buddies Meursault, The setlist is a symphony for the audience may well exist, complete adopted an admirably rigorous though, while ‘Cokefloat!’s opener emotionally bruised and beaten, with leather waistcoats and receding selection policy of all killer, no filler ‘Caroline 1956’ is a touchingly but the final song finds her picking hairlines – just not here, tonight. with respect to their occasionally clumsy tribute to Taylor’s late mother herself off the floor and fighting Stop me if you’ve heard this one lightweight debut LP ‘Cokefloat!’ which he delivers from behind a back, a rallying defiance towards before. Grungy three-piece with a so as to be able to showcase enough protective veil of hair. which you can’t help but respond fondness for tie-dye hailing from solid new material to suggest a Even for increasingly experienced positively. A reminder that Ides somewhere in the vicinity of a follow-up is imminent. arsonists like PAWS, the typical aren’t always ominous, then – and in geographical and cultural outpost Since PAWS were last in Oxford, Oxford midweek gig crowd proves to this instance the future looks bright. called Aberdeen, powered by a singer/guitarist Phillip Taylor has be soggy, sparse kindling. But by the You have been warned. frenzied superhuman drummer acquired an on-stage tuner, but this time ‘Poor Old Christopher Robin’ On this evidence Virals, the band and fronted by someone sporting a hardly results in much dead air and puts in an appearance, a flicker has spearheaded by former-Lovvers man plaid shirt and a dragged-through- down time. On the contrary, PAWS become a flame and we can step Shaun Hencher, are not so much a-hedge-backwards blonde mop. rarely pause for thought and remain out into the freezing night with our caught between a rock and a hard Okay, so I’m stretching the truth incorrigible speed freaks. Not only cockles well and truly warmed. place as between hard rock and somewhat – the trio who make up do short, punchy songs like Ben Woolhead and distorts it, as if she’s Whole’ over Christmas, a delightful channelling the ghost of Hendrix TRAPS / GRANT VIENNA DITTO / WELCOME TO cover by Hatti and Nigel on MPC through her fingers. SHARKEY / PEEPWORLD / JORDAN O’ SHEA synth box, post-dubstep drum From opener ‘Fabulous’, which machine, keyboard flair and svelt, wouldn’t be out of place on a guitar RAGDOLL The Port Mahon slippery eel female vocals, the hero game, to her cover of Familiar breath and antics brings of those cuts, `Charm Offensive’, link between familiarity and non- Jethro Tull’s ‘A New Day photo: Johnny Moto The Wheatsheaf perfume instead of stench, unless `Fool’ and `Help Me’, find Fi familiarity becomes blurred. This Yesterday’, she oozes panache. Yet Ragdoll have huge poise and even the environment has been plagued McFall and Bert Audubert having is undeniably a good thing, and despite this, between songs there’s greater potential, and all with back from whence it came. So a heart-to-heart with the audience while the film reel plays at the back something almost naive about her hyphenated names to spare. A we’re in good spirits for Jordan O’ in the sweetest of ways, the pieces of the Port Mahon, they greet us presence. Though she commands brilliant five-piece based round Shea’s opening slot. He plays a new conjoining the best parts familiarity with a wah-wah synth splaying her guitar within the songs, the guitar and vocals of Lewis edgy piece tonight called `Spite Me’ holds: humanity, harmony and the like Radioactive Man’s `Fed-Ex To when it comes to technical know- Newcombe-Jones and singer Rachel on banjo, and we find he stretches ability to ham it up musically or Munchen’ techno, then fly through how McGregor falls to calling for Ruscombe-King, they sing of bucolic his vocal tones like the ocean waves poetically, with side swoops of electronica like a kite on a blustery her dad when she struggles to turn niceties such as snowflakes and to match the progressions he plays. alien lands, such as worry over summer’s day, calling to minds her guitar on at the start of the dandelions, in a Strawbs-meets- It’s a great interval for the what comes next, the anxiety bands as disparate as Little Dragon, night. Maddy Prior Hibernian folkiness. But familiarity being breached by connected as such, and the reaching Portishead and even Girls Aloud – It’s this combination of proficiency it’s the undeniable quality on display Welcome To Peepworld, as we of “Another day I don’t know what the `Sound Of The Underground’ and candour which makes Chantel here that blackjacks you, mainly have loved Barney Morse-Brown’s I’m doing”. drum&bass stint is most cheekily shine on stage and though her when they cover the Christy Moore Duotone music for many years, By this fusion-ed point of the night welcome – but they pull all this off influences are rooted in the likes classic ‘Ride On’, and you find it him contributing cello parts to the I’m seriously pleased, and with the with enough skill and expertise that of Free and Led Zeppelin, she’s blends seamlessly with everything band’s recent eponymous 5-track memory of hearing Vienna Ditto’s `I you can’t help but be entranced. equally not afraid to give a new spin else they do. Quietly Stunning. EP on Big Red Sky Records. Three Know His Blood Will Make Me Mick Buckingham to modern pop tracks. Her version “Too many protest singers, not of Lady Gaga’s ‘Edge of Glory’ enough protest songs,” went the transforms it from club-pop, to Edwin Collins lyrics. Not in Grant pop-ballad, filling it with emotion Sharkey’s world though, and he’s and though she loses the back of the come armed to the gills with hilarious room at this point, there are counter-culture barbs against those many more who are drawn in by her who sleep while their beds are dexterity. burning. Normally a singer and For me it’s ‘Daydream’ which bassist in the band Toupe, he’s out really highlights what Chantel is as a duo tonight, all avuncular pork about and in its 10-plus minute pie hat and skinny stand-up bass, duration she allows the music with a fold-away drummer, working to speak in a way that many the crowd like he’s busking indoors, modern singers ignore. It becomes hooking us with ‘Your Mama” and impossible not to be drawn in by steal-worthy lines like “She has a the rise and fall of the rhythm and flesh-eating disease and the doctor emphasises the subtle power of her gave her 37 years to live,” and “Her band. blood group is meat and gravy” Though historically the blues before filleting the English Defence greats have almost all been of a League with ‘Sorry To Hear You’re a certain gender, tonight confirms Racist’. With new album ‘Seriously’ that Chantel’s name is a worthy now out, this is surgical quality satire. addition to the list, and subtly sticks Traps. I’m too well known for my two fingers up the A&R rep who generosity of spirit, the side of me suggested changing style because willing to see positive things in the boys would be intimidated. everything, but as well-meaning, Intimidated they should be, but talented and downright earnest as CHANTEL McGREGOR only because Chantel is able to Traps are, two songs in, that part highlight the absurdity of the divide of me had fled down the venue The Bullingdon between the sexes, simply by stairs and was throwing his coins There are times when an artist’s from which they’re bound to fall. messiah of blues-rock and given her embracing her passions and in the night-bus pay tray, leaving influences and accolades precede Chantel McGregor, on the other own mountain. She doesn’t strum or talents. the sour-faced rest of me behind to them, placing them on a pedestal hand, deserves to be held up as a pick her guitar but almost bends Lisa Ward scribble these paragraphs. This is not like Skunk Anansie or even Placebo, as some online scratchings SEAMING TO / KIRA KIRA would have you think. This is a sanitised, Hi-NRG, Four Star Mary The North Wall chorus blow-out as dreamed up by There’s a lot to like about Kira Kira’s tribute to Sigridur Nielsdottir, dubbed of a Chinese family: “I only look the part in photographs / This hand ad execs and raved about by cred- Grandma Lo-fi, who made 59 albums in her Icelandic living room in her me down that doesn’t fit,” probably isn’t a line St Winifred’s School seeking politicians. Singer Lex is way 70s. Unfortunately, they all happen on the top of each other, and last about Choir ever sung. To’s vocals are superb, edging from a steely operatic too good to be shredding her vocal 30 seconds each. Over the sort of library glitchtronica typical of her label imperative to a bittersweet jazzy intimacy; `Through’ sounds like `Je Ne chords over a guitarist who wrestles Morr, Kira Kira throws abstractedly dramatic whispers and indulges in Regrette Rien’ rewritten by Erik Satie – but it’s Wu’s piano playing that’s his instrument like Tarzan does a close-miked abuse of a music box whilst tweaking hisses and hums from the real revelation. Every keystroke has its own distinct character, whether crocodile, and a drummer who is eviscerated circuitry. Somewhere in the flurry of electric crackles, breathy she’s whipping up a blizzard of icy high notes, laying down some stately out-competing Animal, as she hollers vocals and fragmented beats is some fantastic music, but it feels as though chords or expertly mimicking the rhythms of speech like a classically like someone yelling James Joyce’s we’re thumbing through the tesserae, rather than admiring the mosaic. controlled Cecil Taylor. The downside of this varied programme is that incoherent novel Ulysses into a wind Seaming To and her mother, concert pianist Enloc Wu, perform a song whenever Wu’s not playing it feels like a wasted opportunity, although tunnel. Six songs in, and there’s cycle dedicated to their (grand)mother. Any fears that this will be a sections like the excellent Caretaker haze of a Guangdong folk tune lost nothing tangible to grab hold of in sincere but sugary affair, like a Race For Life blog set to synth pop in electronic mist and e-bowed zither can hold their own. Good to find the relentlessness of it all; nothing to backing, are smashed as the eerie opening vocal collage that leads into that artists can approach the theme of grandparenthood at a level higher hum, sing or take home with me, as I mysterious Debussy piano. Judy Kendall’s subtly allusive lyrics dodge the than Clive Dunn and Peter Kaye. too finally disappear into the night. saccharine too, perhaps addressing cultural changes in three generations David Murphy Paul Carrera INTRODUCING.... Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under BEAR TRAP

Who are they? Local grunge/punk outfit Bear Trap are Craig Doran: vocals, guitar; Harry Lawlor: vocals, guitar; Chris Fox: bass, vocals, and Tom Tritton: drums, vocals. Craig and Harry had the idea of starting a band in October 2011. Harry then disappeared. Craig then got hold of Tom (of Black Powder and Tenth Listen), and Chris asked if he could play bass. Craig, Chris and APRIL Tom got together and started, playing and writing some songs (“Two to be Every Monday precise”). Harry then reappeared in August 2012 and rejoined the band. The quartet have been gigging locally since then, supporting the likes of THE HAVEN CLUB Gnarwolves and War Wolf. In March they were Demo of the Month in And the lowlight: st 1 JOHN OTWAY / VIENNA DITTO Nightshift and were picked to play the Oxford Punt in May. “We don’t have any at the moment, except getting our gear home.” 8th KING B / THE SHAPES What do they sound like? Their favourite other Oxfordshire act is: 15th BROTHERS GROOVE Punk. And grunge. And rock and fuckin’ roll. With bells on and a beer in “Desert Storm: good lads who have sorted us out with a few shows now.” 22nd HEADCOUNT (album launch) / BEAVER FUEL its hand. Rugged and up for a serious scrap, Bear Trap hark back to what If they could only keep one album in the world, it would be: 29th BUDDY WHITTINGTON now seems like a golden age of American alt.rock, to bands like TAD, The “`Nevermind’, by Nirvana. It’s one of those albums that is just as relevant Descendents and Green River, whose melodic, grunged-up hardcore paved to our writing now as it was when we first heard it.” the way for a gazillion far inferior copyists for generations to come. Songs When is their next gig and what can newcomers expect? Every Tuesday like `Grownig Pains’ and `Wasting Away’ are timeless rough-hewn grunge “April 10th at the Wheatsheaf and on 15th June we’re back there again with THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB diamonds armed with a sense of menace and a disregard for niceties or Trigger Effect. Expect good times, beards and stage diving.” nuance. Great music for drinking and fighting. In their nown words: “Sad Their favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am and lonely grunge influenced punk rock.” “Least favourite: everything is the same, none of the bands seem to try 2nd / 9th / 16th NEW JAZZ COLLECTIVE What inspires them? anything different. They all try to play indie music or similar boring rock/ 23rd THE HUGH TURNER BAND “Grunge; sad stuff; punk rock; skateboarding; having fun, and drinking pop-influenced shit. Favourite: the promoters pushing the local metal and (* - except 30th – SIMPLY MAYDAY EVE PARTY – Wayze, beer. Except Harry.” punk scene; without guys like 100% Mosh and Buried In Smoke we’d all Odyssey & Bicep. House party all night. £10/£12) Their career highlight so far is: be listening to happy music; ain’t nobody got time fo’ that.” “Playing a show with War Wolf, Desert Storm and Blasted. Although we You might love them if you love: have played a couple of other shows, one of which was with up and coming TAD; Nirvana; The Descendents; Gypsy; Title Fight; Daylight; Ivy League. Wednesdays band Gnarwolves who we like a lot, the show with War Wolf was a lot of Hear them here: 3rd BULLY RELAUNCH NIGHT fun and we played to a good crowd, alongside playing with our friends. beartrapuk.bandcamp.com

Thursdays THIS MONTH IN OXFORD 4th Empty Room Promotions presents EILEN JEWELL T H E W H E A T S H E A F ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY 11th BLACKTHORN / ELI STONE / HURRICANE BOBCATS / MON 1ST SLAVE TO THE GRIND... 20 YEARS AGO championed the fledgling On A Friday for some FIVE YEARS AGO CHARLIE SWING / GAG REFLEX time. “We’ve just got over therapy for that,” joked 18th THESEDAYS - Deep house & disco. 10-3am DESECRATION BASEMENT TORTURE KILLINGS “Perhaps the most overdue front cover in Curfew’s Did we mention a young Hugo Manuel just now? two-year history,” began the interview feature with Nick. “They’re the best new band in ages. They Well here he was again, a few years older and now th ZOMBIEFIELD + FOETAL JUICE 8pm/£5 write brilliant songs. Annoyingly good songs.” 25 OXFORD ACOUSTIC CLUB with STUART NOAH / FRI 5TH KLUB KAKOFANNEY... local cult heroes The Candyskins in April 1993’s helming Jonquil, who grinning effusively from the ELLIE CADDICK / ANDY ROBBINS / MATT CARTER / CLAIRE issue, although followed by the acceptance that this front cover of April 2008’s Nightshift. The then six- LeMASTER / RHIANNON MAIR / WILL PHIPPS was mostly due to the band always being away in strong outfit had just released their second album, VIENNA DITTO DAMN VANDALS + SUPERLOOSE + 8pm/£5 10 YEARS AGO WED 10TH America and this in the days before stuff like email Gunning For Glory ran the front page headline of `Lions’, the first as a full band, which we declared Every Friday or Skype were even thunk about. Anyway, for now April 2003’s Nightshift over a story announcing to be a “minor masterpiece of modern ambient the band were back in the UK and not particularly music with its mixture of bucolic tranquillity and FUNK IT - Jack FM’s DJ Rich Smith plays classics, BLOWGOAT 5MNON + BLUE COLLAR DECADE + BEAR TRAP 8pm/£3 the line-up for that year’s Oxford Punt. It was to TH thrilled by that fact, bemoaning their label MCA’s uneasy menace,” while they were starting to pick dance, pop and r’n’b. Free entry 11pm-2.30am FRI 12 MUSIC IN OXFORD... be a vintage year for the annual showcase event, perceived lack of effort on their part and general with teenage grungers Gunnbunny featuring up equally enthusiastic plaudits in the national press and radio ambivalence. Get them on to the press too. “`Lions’ is us trying to be a pop band, GREY HAIRS + MASIRO + ABANDON 8pm/£5 future Fixers frontman Jack Goldstein, while LISTING SHIPS subject of America though, and The Candyskins but not quite committing fully and coming out Early Friday shows SAT 13TH BURIED IN SMOKE... 16-year-old noisemakers Yannis Philippakis and visibly perked up. slightly askew,” said Hugo. He also talked about 5th HOT HOOVES / MARK COPE / CRACKERDUMMY / DIRT ROYAL Jack Bevan were also on the bill with their first “People in America aren’t as obsessed with scenes the supportive network of friends’ bands, like Foals th band, Elizabeth. A young Richard Walters 12 OOOD / HARDCORESMEN OF THE TECHNOPALYPSE DESERT STORM DEATH OF ORION + MUTAGENOCIDE 8pm/£5 as Britain,” said singer Nick Cope, “they take you and Youthmovies, that had helped the band become FRI 19TH was set to open the Punt at its then traditional / AFTER THE THOUGHT more on your own merits. You also get more time to start-off point in Borders. These young talents established, a community that would blossom into th 19 GREAT BIG BARGAIN / THE BEAUTONS / BARMY ARMY develop over there. Geffen are right behind us. The were joined by the likes of The Modern the Blessing Force collective in years to come. EYES OF EVE 8pm/£5 26th Empty Room Promotions presents CHUCK PROPHET RIOT HOUSE album has sold more than the first one and better (featuring Hugo Manuel, later of Jonquil and Local music news this month was dominated by SAT 20TH IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC... than they hoped for. We’re made to feel important Chad Valley); Suitable Case For Treatment; festival line-ups. Crowded House were confirmed when we’re in America.” as Cornbury headliners on a bill that also featured Saturdays The Relationships; Sexy Breakfast and The KILL CITY SAINTS REEDS + IN ZANADU The band revealed that over the other side of the Evenings, making it without doubt the strongest The Bangles, Beverly Knight, KT Tunstall and th 6 HODGE PODGE – Funk, jungle, techno, electro swing & hip HEADSTONE HORRORS + DAMIAN FRANKLIN 8pm/£5 Atlantic their shows were outselling Sonic Youth 10cc; Wakestock’s one-off stop-off in Oxfordshire TH Punt line-up ever. hop. 9-3am; £5 FRI 26 and Dinosaur Jr’s, while the country’s open radio Former-Ride frontman Mark Gardener played revealed Groove Armada, The Streets, Supergrass, 13th SIMPLE & SONIC - House & techno. 10-3am culture was earning them an enviable amount of his first live show in over two years at the Cellar Funeral For A Friend, Pendulum and Audiobullys, 20th THE WIGOUT with HIPBONE SLIM & THE LATE NIGHT ENVY GURP + TORN LIKE COLOURS 8pm/£5 airplay. It wasn’t all plain-sailing, mind. “We had and was joined by former bandmates Andy Bell while Truck boasted Ian McLagan, Noah & The SAT 27TH GAPPY TOOTH... three months solid gigging in America and then it Whale and Camera Obscura. There was also news KNEETREMBLERS / THE AROUSERS / COUNT SKYLARKIN and Loz Colbert for a short set of Ride songs at was down to writing songs for the new album. We one point. Andy, only in town by accident after a of Cropredy (with Supergrass and The Levellers 27th HOUSEPROUD TROPHY CABINET GREG LARKIN + THE SHAPES 8pm/£5 were going to record it in Los Angeles but the date mix-up in his Oasis touring schedule, hopped on joining hosts Fairport Convention), and the fifth SUN 28TH SLAVE TO THE GRIND... we were due to start, the riots broke out and we got stage to sing `Vapour Trail’ with Mark and Loz, Oxford Folk Festival, which had Kathryn Tickell, Sundays a call from the producer saying it probably wasn’t a before Mark took over vocal duties on `Dreams Brass Monkeys, Bellowhead and Martin Simpson th good idea.” Burn Down’ and `In A Different Place’. Mark also & Danny Thompson on the bill. 28 CHURCH OF THE HEAVY with ANNERO / STRENGTH ENEMY REIGN The Skins also chatted about their fiends Young Knives released `Superabundance’, while OF A BEAR / MORDECIA / TRIDEM / LAST RITES CODEX ALIMENTARIUS + EMPIRE DIVIDED 8pm/£5 performed his solo debut, `Magdalen Sky’ with The Wheatsheaf 129 High Street, Oxford OX1 4DF / www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford Radiohead’s phenomenal success, having Robin Bennett from Goldrush. Supergrass’s `Diamond Hoo Ha’ was also out. down-home strum that only at the death Rock and fucking roll, people! Whoop! raises itself from a somnambulant state for Thing with rock and roll though, is that for a bit of empty bombast. Sorry, are we being every riotous rebel on the road to ruin, there’s unreasonable to demand some semblance of another band following in their footsteps, DEMOS character in the music we listen to? looking to see if they dropped their wallet on Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free half day at the way. The Kaos, proficient, professional, Silver Street Studios in Reading, courtesy almost sensible in their noisy sort of way, of Trojan Horse Recordings. Visit www. REUBEN’S ROCKET sound like so many bands who came in trojanhorserecordings.co.uk Reuben’s Rocket is the work of Ollie Base, the wake of Nirvana: grungy in an oddly which would be a great name for a hardcore upbeat fashion; distorted, but not so much techno DJ. Ollie is 16 but sounds at least they wouldn’t get turned down for a jeans raging, rasping onward stomp, the singer three times that age with his vaguely soulful, commercial; dealing with booze and fags DEMO OF chewing the scenery before the song mostly acoustic pop that seems to come from and shagging your best mate’s mum, but in a 01865 240250 heads over the nearest hill by way of an roughly the same point on the horizon as Ed way that frat boys or fans of 70s sitcoms can unselfconsciously epic guitar solo. A live Sheeran and Newton Faulkner and sounds relate to. `When I Was 17’ is a Springsteen THE MONTH recording of `Fine Is Blind’ is so chaotic like it’d go down well mid-afternoon at anthem by way of Nickleback, with choice and dissonant it sounds more like a field Cornbury Festival, which you can take as a lyrics like “Your eyes were blue / Well look at RAGDOLL recording from a secret torture dungeon compliment or insult as you see fit. It’s well you,” that almost make you want to pat them It’s spring! Sort of! Well, it isn’t actually filled with malfunctioning industrial arranged and well produced, particularly patronisingly on their ickle wickle heads and pissing it down, snowing or blowing a biblical machinery than a rock band, but that still the almost choral vocal parts of `Benny’ present them with a book of naughty nursery gale today* and there’s two rather pathetic- makes it about fifty trillion times better than and `Lightheart’, which ooze positivity and rhymes. `Dirty Love’, meanwhile, features looking crocuses peeking out of what passes most of the guff we have to wade through would probably find a home soundtracking that filthy lust for best mate’s mum and sounds for nature from the Nightshift office window, in this month’s pile. Minamata disease was Halifax’s next advert for business loans or like something – okay, everything – released so we’ll consider it official. And the cats have sometimes referred to dancing cat disease in first-time mortgages. Ollie even manages a on Victory Records in the last 10 years, while managed to catch five frogs in the last 24 Japan. We can’t really see any cats dancing neat bit of whistling on `Balloons’, which the constant reference to “That slutty dress,” hours**, which means nature is on the move to this rampant noise, though it might make a reminds us of Noah & The Whale, or even suggests a slightly less than healthy attitude to again. We’re feeling uncharacteristically decent soundtrack to a cat butchering a frog. later period Snow Patrol, without ever the ladies. Hey, did you know there’s a death- enthusiastic about life. What could possibly Possibly with a samurai sword. And a tank. achieving full lift-off, while `In A Way’ metal band called Hatebeak who have a parrot spoil everything? Oh yeah, here come this sinks into stereotypical over-egged soft- for a singer? Reckon The Kaos should get month’s demos. rock. As with the previous demo there’s Polly in to write their lyrics in future. It is, we must confess, a far from vintage SUBBY J nothing intrinsically unpleasant about month demo-wise, but Ragdoll are more than “I’m glad to see there is still someone Reuben’s Rocket other than its inability or worthy of their top billing. The five-piece interested in new music!” exclaim Subby unwillingness to exert any semblance of .co.uk folk band boast one former Demo of the J in their introductory email, obviously THE DEMO TURAN AUDIO character as it strives to offend absolutely Professional, independent CD mastering Month winner in Lewis Newcombe-Jones, unaware we stopped being even vaguely no-one, which in itself feels slightly and a very recent Demo Dumper chap in interested in new music the moment we offensive. For the work of a 16-year-old Artists mastered in the studio last month include; heard Jamiroquai’s first album and retreated DUMPER violinist Martin Ash, as well as an erstwhile it’s extremely mature, though we’re not NU SOUL REBELS, SANGUINE HUM, DEAD AT ELEVEN, into the snug safety of our early-80s synth- member of Inflatable Buddha in James entirely convinced maturity is always a CACHORRO GRANDE, ENSLAVED, STRYPER, CRASHDIET, pop collection. Still, we’re all for a bit of Schumann and a bassist, Ken Turner, whose virtue in music. Genetic science maybe, but ANDY ROBBINS SNAKECHARMER, JORN, THE LUKA STATE, JUMPSTART enthusiasm, even if it comes in the form of “I would describe my music as soulful and day job is apparently “making monsters,” when it comes to making music, a degree THE JUNGLE, GLASS CAVES, THE JAR FAMILY, GUNNING which means he’s Oxford’s answer to Ray overused exclamation marks. Even the demo deep,” announces Andy Robbins, before of irresponsibility or reckless adventure is FOR TAMAR, PETER MOORE, KVELERTAK, TAIL FEATHER, Harryhausen and therefore the coolest person title, `Oops… We’re Late!’, comes with an confessing he learned to play the guitar by always more welcome than playing it safe. DEER CHICAGO, RUSSELL SWALLOW, MARK SPRINGER, in town, no contest. Sorry, where were we? unnecessary dembanger. Musically Subby J performing `Wonderwall’ over and over Folk music? Ah yes, very much so. Of the fizz and froth in a similar pop-punk universe again. How we would describe his music THE DOOLEYS. smooth, sweet-natured variety. Ragdoll don’t as bands like Good Charlotte or Blink 182, CLARE LeMASTER probably doesn’t bear thinking about in all go out seeking wild adventure or bathing too or even, as on `Mr Anderson, OK Go, the And here we go again, music seemingly this polite company and has been edited out 01865 716466 [email protected] deeply in sorrow, preferring home comforts tune itself sounding like a slightly ham-fisted laboratory-designed to not offend even by the Nightshift legal department anyway. and possibly something warm and settling attempt at Guided By Voices’ `Teenage FBI’. a maiden aunt’s eczema-suffering pet It’s standard sub-Dylan strum’n’moan of in a mug as they repose on their porch of an Right up to the point they drop down a gear pug. Clare is an Anglo-American singer- the variety that infests pretty much every THE COURTYARD STUDIO evening, but at their best, as on `Snowflake’, and into a terrible rap interlude. People who songwriter who was brought up in Nepal, but open mic session you have ever imagined with Lewis duetting with main vocalist can’t sing trying to sing is one thing – quite sadly there’s little that’s exotic or obscure in your darkest nightmares, although even PROTOOLS HD2, MTA 980 CONSOLE 32/24/24, funny at times – but people who can’t rap Rachel Ruscombe-King, they evoke moonlit here, just more winsome transatlantic by using the word variety we convey upon OTARI MTR90 MK2 24 TRACK TAPE MACHINE, trying to rap should be a capital offence. the music qualities it frankly never comes woodlands and a certain rustic romance, acoustic balladry that’s seeped down from 2 TRACKING ROOMS, SUPERB CONTROL ROOM their fulsome but uncluttered take on bucolic That aside, and the generally cheesy nature Joni Mitchell’s musical tributary, wistful close to possessing. `Want You Back’ creeps drifting coming with a woozy edge that of the whole exercise, Subby J do at least piano-led pieces like `Intimate Moments innocuously to an unremarkable death, WITH GOOD SELECTION OF MICS & OUTBOARD recalls Cowboy Junkies. Once in a while, as sound like they have a pulse, so we’ll spare With Strangers’ sounding like they should while `Lights Went Out’ sounds like a 1960s GEAR + MIDI FACILITIES (Inc LOGIC AUDIO, AKAI on `Rushing Around’, it’s all a bit wallpaper, them the lash for now. be padding out adverts for bio yoghurts or blues-rock thumper castrated and left on the S1000, OLD SKOOL ROLAND etc.) but they’ve a clutch of often lovely songs and low-fat bedtime drinks. It’s all very nice, pavement as a neutered acoustic ballad. Thing a sweet-natured charm about them that no as it tip-toes sweetly and discreetly through is, Andy does have a decent voice if you give Residential facilities included. amount of cynicism can dissipate. REICHENBACH a meadow of buttercups and Clare has a him half a chance (and we do strive, dear www.courtyardrecordings.com * - two days later it bloody was again. pleasantly limpid voice which, to her great reader, to give almost everyone half a chance), PHONE PIPPA FOR DETAILS on 01235 845800 ** - don’t worry, they were all rescued safe FALLS credit, she never forces into unseemly somewhere between Chris Rea and Robbie Reichenbach Falls? Falls? Falls asleep on the and sound and put back in a nearby pond acrobatics, but, oh y’know… nice. Nice. Robertson’s understated gruffness, and we can job? We worry we might just do that a few NICE. Bloody effing shitting NICE? We’re picture him fronting an old blues band where minutes into this demo, whose first track, starting to think maybe GG Allin actually his talent might be better made use of. For `The Best I Could’, is maudlin, almost frail had a point. now though, this is insipid torture. Dull. Dull country-folk that could be the soundtrack to to a degree that a slowly warping plank of MINAMATA a 90-year-old man walking to the shops to wood would choose to go for a cup of herbal buy milk and cat food, possibly in Oklahoma CONVULSION tea with some drying paint rather than endure or somewhere, wandering along with little THE KAOS Minamata disease is caused by mercury Well hey, hey, hey, with a name like that, this another minute of it and…. Oh God, we think haste or discernible purpose, looking like he poisoning, and since mercury is a heavy has got to be better, right? Kaos! Mayhem! our PC just died of boredom. metal, we’re hoping west Oxfordshire’s might fall over at any moment, and by the Minamata Convulsion might be of the time he’s got halfway there he’s forgotten nasty, brutish metal persuasion. And why he set off in the first place. Like a fair few demos in this month’s pile, Reichenbach Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links whaddyaknow, so they be. `Dead Motion’ to [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without is almost imperious death-core pomp that Falls aren’t really objectionable in any way a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you recalls Mayhem and even Kvelertak in its but are just too bland to leave any lasting impression, genially unremarkable, a gruff, can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. EVERY SATURDAY Fri 19th Apr Fri 10th May • £12 adv Fri 5th July • £14 adv 7pm - 10pm Boot Led Zeppelin Rescheduled show • original tickets valid NIGHT The Staves Funeral for a Friend £5 adv / NUS / members, £4 NHS + SIVU + Stem 10.30pm - 3am • over 18s only Weds 15th May • £7 adv + Marmozets Sun 21st Apr • £17.50 adv Dick Valentine + Will Healey Sat 13th July • £6 adv I Am Kloot + Alex Lanyon 7pm - 11.30pm

Mon 22nd Apr • £16.50 adv Upstairs Thurs 16th May • £12 adv ft. Adian Coker Tom McRae (solo) Lucy Rose in association with BBC Introducing + ShaoDow & Zuby Tues 23rd Apr • £7.50 adv Thurs 16th May • £12 adv + Death of Hi Fi Ryan Keen Klaxons + Yungstar + BG Record DJ Set Room of Light Tour + Sam Bradley Sat 14th Sept • £8.50 adv Sat 18th May • £6 adv 7pm - 10pm + Joel Baker 7pm - 11.30pm Rescheduled show • original tickets valid Weds 3rd Apr • £16.50 adv Upstairs Weds 24th Apr • £6 adv Janet Devlin Everclear 7pm - 11.30pm ft. Catfish and Upstairs the Bottlemen Weds 25th Sept • £15 adv Sun 7th Apr • £6 adv in association with BBC Introducing Madina Lake 7pm - 10pm ft. Sweet Baboo in association with BBC Introducing + Kill Murray Farewell Tour Yarah Bravo + Toliesel + Nairobi + The Scholars + Death of Hi Fi + Jordan O’shea + Yellow Fever + Poledo Fri 27th Sept • £8 adv + Jack Bushrod + Katie and Jess Mike Dignam + BG Records Showcase Mon 20th May • £10 adv + Rosie Rowland + Body Politic Thurs 25th Apr • £10 adv The Summer Set Fri 18th Oct • £10 adv Rescheduled show • original tickets valid + Action Item 6.30pm Thurs 11th Apr • £12.50 adv Dog Is Dead Guns2Roses & Tribes Thurs 23rd May • £16 adv Metallica Reloaded Fri 26th Apr • £8 adv Fri 12th Apr • £10 adv 6.30pm The Twang & Cast 7pm - 10pm Fri 8th Nov • £11 adv Peace 7pm - 10pm King Charles Thurs 23rd May • £10 adv The Doors Alive + Story Books Sat 27th Apr • £7 adv Watsky + Giovanna Skeletor Thurs 12th Dec • £18.50 adv ft. Divine Chaos Fri 24th May • £15 adv Sat 13th Apr • £20 adv 7pm - 10pm • unreserved seating Adrian Edmondson + Zaos Beth Orton + I Cried Wolf Scott Ian of Anthrax & The Bad Shepherds Spoken Word Tour + Dan Michaelson + Salvage + Black Sunrise Fri 13th Dec • £12 adv Sat 13th Apr Sun 26th May • £15 adv Electric Six The Kooks Tues 30th Apr Brian McFadden Rudimental Sun 14th Apr • £11 adv Thurs 30th May • £17.50 adv Little Comets Tues 30th Apr • £7 adv District 3 10pm - 5am • over 18s only Live 3EEK-OUT Sun 14th Apr • £7 adv Itchy Feet Fearless Vampire Killers Mayday Party Sat 1st June • £10 adv + Fort Hope 7pm - 10pm + The Reaper + What Now Thurs 2nd May • £16 adv Senses Fail Major Lazer + Marmozets Tues 16th Apr • £7 adv Free Sensible Dancehall + Handguns Missing Andy after party + Go On Do It Jump Mon 3rd June • £12 adv Sun 5th May • £18.50 adv Ghostpoet Weds 17th Apr Saxon Don Broco + The Quireboys Sat 9th June • £26.50 adv + Pure Love + Decade Public Image Ltd Tues 7th May • £8 adv (PiL) Thurs 18th Apr • £12.50 adv Lucy Spraggan Efterklang Sat 22nd June • £6 adv + Anna von Hausswolff Weds 8th May • £16.50 adv 7pm - 11.30pm John Grant Upstairs ft. Ahab Fri 19th Apr • £22.50 adv in association with BBC Introducing 7pm - 10pm Thurs 9th May • £20 adv + Empty White Circles Michael Schenker’s Seated show • unreserved seating + Co-Pilgrim Temple Of Rock Colin Hay + The August List + FuryUK + Chris Trapper + Joshua Gilbert

Tickets for Saturday night shows INCLUDE FREE ENTRY to Propaganda / Trashy (or £6, £5 NUS / members, £4 NHS on the door)

facebook.com/o2academyoxford 190 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE • Doors 7pm unless stated twitter.com/o2academyoxford Venue box office opening hours: Mon-Sat 12pm-5.30pm youtube.com/o2academytv ticketweb.co.uk • wegottickets.com • seetickets.com • gigantic.com