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[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 241 August Oxford’s Music Magazine 2015 “We’re not perfectionists or slackers, we just got a bit side-tracked by life.” Oxford’s melancholic pop veterans on what they’ve been doing for the last eight years. Family Machine AlsoAlso inin thisthis issue:issue: TRUCKTRUCK andand CORNBURYCORNBURY reviewedreviewed IntroducingIntroducing ZAIAZAIA plusplus AllAll youryour OxfordshireOxfordshire musicmusic news,news, reviews,reviews, previewspreviews andand gigsgigs NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 and The Beatnik Albion Bookstore in Jericho, priced £22.95. AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into BBC Oxford NEWS Introducing every Saturday night between 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated local music show plays the best Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Oxford releases and demos as well as featuring interviews Phone: 01865 372255 and sessions with local acts. The show is available to stream or download as a podcast at bbc.co.uk/oxford. email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk OXFORD GIGBOT provides a regular local gig listing update on Twitter (@oxgigbot), bringing you new gigs as soon as they go live. They also provide a free weekly BLACK CANDY’S reunion show at listings email. Follow them. the Wheatsheaf takes place on Saturday 5th September, not July as stated in last month’s Nightshift. Sorry, we blame all the drugs we’ve been taking at festivals this summer. HELL’S GAZELLES won a slot at this year’s Bloodstock Festival after winning the Oxfordshire Metal To The Masses band competition final last month. The Three state of the art rehearsal rooms. local melodic metallers beat off For bookings. competition from Evavoid, The Reaper and K-Lacura in the final at the O2 Academy Call Jamie on 07917685935 and will play on the New Blood stage on Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford Sunday 9th August. Headline acts at the glasshousestudios.org festival, which takes place at Catton Park in Derbyshire over the weekend of the 7th-9th August are Trivium, Rob Zombie and Opeth. Local death/thrash crew Mutagenocide also play on the New Blood SEXY BREAKFAST will reform for Stage on the Friday. Visit a one-off show at The Wheatsheaf on www.hellsgazelles.com for more news. Friday 18th September. The band were huge local favourites on the local scene OXFORD CITY FESTIVAL returns for in the early noughties before splitting its third annual outing in November. The in 2005, gracing the cover of Nightshift city-wide music festival takes place over and playing at Truck Festival as well the week of the 23rd-28th November at the as The Punt twice. In the wake of their O2 Academy, The Cellar, The Bullingdon, split the core of the band went on to form The Wheatsheaf and more. Acts confirmed Borderville. so far for this year’s event include cult punk Talking to Nightshift about the reunion heroes Pete & The Test Tube Babies as well show, singer Joe Swarbrick said, “It’s as local acts Balloon Ascents, The Aureate been almost exactly a decade since we Act, The Mighty Redox and Storyteller. played our last ever gig, and while we Last year’s festival featured over 170 acts. THE OXFORD RECORD all went on to other projects nothing has Bands and solo artists wanting to play DVD & CD FAIR ever quite matched, for me at least, the should contact Mark `Osprey’ O’Brien via response we got from playing in such a the Oxford City Festival page on Facebook. St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE terribly named band. It was like being in 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP Take That, only on a very local scale. It AIRSTAR release their debut album st probably ruined us in a way: the crowds this month through Bandcamp. The indie Saturday 1 August were pretty crazy back then and we’d love rockers’ aptly-titled `Retrospective’ is 10am-4pm to see as many faces from that time back available at airstar.bandcamp.com, having Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres in the crowd at the Wheatsheaf. So mainly taken a mere decade to be finished. Accessories/memoriabillia/books. we’re doing it for the same reason as we Meanwhile, SHAKER HEIGHTS release Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl always used to: we’re shameless attention a new single, `Body’, on Soundcloud this www.usrfairs.co.uk seekers. We also reformed for [bassist] month, with a video, directed by local Phil’s wedding two years ago and it was a singer and film-maker Laima Bite, up on lot of fun and it’s something we’ve talked Youtube now. about on and off for a little while now. It’s great to be playing for Joal; he did the LOCAL WRITERS RAY AND sound for our first ever proper gig, a Klub CAROLINE FOULK release Stealing Kakofanney night at the Elm Tree, so it Dylan From Woodstock this month. The feels right that we’re doing it like this. Jericho-based couple’s book tells the story “It should be a lot of fun; we’ve been of the first Isle of Wight Festival in 1968, going through our recordings and trying which Ray promoted with his brother to remember the stuff we didn’t record. Ronnie, and famously featured the first We were just pre-digital in a way, so pre-publicised gig by Bob Dylan for seven there’s no record of any of our stuff that years – the brothers stealing the legendary we didn’t release, but I guess if you can singer from under the noses of Woodstock’s remember 2003 then you weren’t really organisers. The book is published by there, man.” Medina and is available from Blackwell’s A Quiet Word With something. with us.” about until it feels right. are sporadic? “My son Harrison and I worked “Once I’ve got a recording with NEIL: “We’ve had very few together on a few songs on this album. THIS INCLUSIVE attitude some ideas of parts I give it to the periods of doing nothing musical We practically wrote the whole of to guest musicians and producers band to play properly. They then together, but even then we’d still ‘Friends With The Wolves’ together harks back to the title of the write and play the parts better and hang out socially. I think you’ve got on his toy piano, even though a lot of band’s debut album, `You Are together we push the arrangements to be good friends to share what is Family Machine his work was quite out there – all jazz The Family Machine’, and again around in rehearsals until its right essentially a hobby for that long. chords and that.” the trio have recruited a cast of and we are ready to record. It means Mostly though, even if we’ve not NEIL: “I definitely hear the influence fellow local travellers to contribute that we all write together really, gigged or recorded for a while, we’ll of Jamie’s family-man status in the to `Houses…’, from singer and because everyone has input from the still have rehearsed. The line-up new songs. An unintentional – I drummer Cameron AG, renowned rehearsal stage.” changes meant extra rehearsals, but think – theme of the album is home: cellist Barney Morse-Brown, NEIL: “Yeah, we turn Jamie’s it also led to us learning to play a lot comfort, familiarity, security, like a keyboard virtuoso Seb Reynolds sketchy Stylophone demos into of songs in a load of different ways, well worn suit or a nice cuppa tea. (playing saxophone) and even songs! Actually a lot of the time from completely acoustic three- Plus he’s knackered most of the time, vintage acid house aficionado Tim they’re such good recordings bits piece versions up to full band with so a lot of the songs are quite slow.” Midlen from Manacles of Acid. It of them end up on the Machine for samplers and backing tracks. That’s all adds up to an album that sounds live shows. Oops, was I supposed to a really good way to develop new Parenthood invariably much more than a self-produced mention that? `The Less You Know’ parts and work out how the recorded changes a person’s outlook on life; local release. has about six melodies running version should sound. But it does it’s the most significant sign that There’s also some great whistling on through it and they were all on the take time!” you’re now An Adult with all that recent single `The Less You Know’; original demo.” DARREN: “Since Jamie, Jay and brings. The album’s title implies an is it a dying art? DARREN: “`Houses…’ doesn’t try I formed the band way back when, increased sense of mortality. it’s always seemed to be a friendship JAMIE: “It’s definitely about first, just hanging out playing music mortality. But it’s about living as “Jamie’s knackered most of the time and eating macaroons. Soon Neil well, and the simple small stories came along, firstly as a friend then that I’ve gathered along the way. The from being a dad, so a lot of the songs as a band member and then put the track ‘Houses That You Lived In’ first album together. It’s been easy to is about inanimate objects missing are quite slow.” stay together because of this bond. In people. Like a house missing the between then and now we’ve always lives that used to buzz inside it.