[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 245 December Oxford’s Music Magazine 2015

Oxford’s road warriors keep it proper heavy. Also in this issue Introducing WATER PAGEANT Oxford’s songs of the year plus COMMON PEOPLE comes to Oxford! NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 COWLEY ROAD CARNIVAL BAD COVER VERSION host is back again next year on Sunday their latest charity music quiz at 10th July. The annual celebration The Big Society on Cowley Road NEWSof east Oxford life, music, food, on Tuesday 15th December. The dance and more, attracted 45,000 multi-media quiz will raise money people to Cowley Road this year. for Oxford Homeless Pathways and Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU To get involved, volunteer or Aspire. It starts at 7.30pm. Phone: 01865 372255 just find out more, go towww. cowleyroadcarnival.co.uk. AS EVER, don’t forget to tune email: [email protected] into BBC Oxford Introducing Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk EARLYBIRD TICKETS FOR every Saturday night between CORNBURY FESTIVAL 2016 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated are on sale for a limited time now. local music show plays the best Next year’s event takes place Oxford releases and demos as over the weekend of the 8th-10th well as featuring interviews and July at Great Tew Estate. Adult sessions with local acts. The show camping tickets are £165, with is available to stream or download discounts for under-16s and over- as a podcast at bbc.co.uk/oxford. 70s. You can also now become a Cornbury Friend, with an annual OXFORD GIGBOT provides a £100 standing order giving you a regular local gig listing update on 30% discount on up to eight adult Twitter (@oxgigbot), bringing festival tickets, offering a potential you new gigs as soon as they go saving of £480. To find out more live. They also provide a free and book your tickets, visit weekly listings email. Just contact www.cornburyfestival.com. [email protected] to join.

RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL will Much as your bank / privatised take place over the weekend of the utility company / phone provider 23rd-24th July 2016. Oxfordshire’s are “experiencing a high volume of largest free music festival takes calls right now,” here at Nightshift OXFORD IS SET TO HOST COMMON PEOPLE NEXT YEAR. The place on Mill Field in Charlbury, we’re experiencing a high number two-day music festival will take place in South Park over the weekend of with two days of local bands across of releases and demos by local the 28th – 29th May. three stages. Stick it in your diary. acts. Which is great – don’t get us Common People is organised by the same team that runs Bestival on the wrong, this makes us very happy Isle of Wight, and Camp Bestival in Dorset every year, consistently hailed SUPERNORMAL is back again that you’re busy making music. as two of the best festivals in the UK. in 2016. The music and art festival But it does mean we don’t always The first Common People event took place in Southampton this year and returns to Braziers Park, near have room to review everything will be twinned with the Oxford event in 2016, both events taking place Wallingford, over the weekend as quickly as we’d like. If you are simultaneously with the main stage line-ups, curated by DJ Rob da Bank, of the 5th-7th August. The artist- planning on releasing something likely to be swapped between the cities. This year’s event featured sets curated, not-for-profit event is please let us have it in plenty of from Fat Boy Slim, Clean Bandit, Band of Skulls, De la Soul and Jaguar renowned for its leftfield line-up, time. If we get a release on deadline Skills, amongst others. with this year’s sold-out event day with a note saying “this came The South Park event, run in conjunction with Oxford City Council, will featuring sets from Trembling out yesterday,” you’re pretty much have a capacity of 30,000 and feature three stages, including a local bands Bells, AR Kane, Charles Hayward buggered. Also, we reserve the stage, curated by Nightshift, and a DJ stage. It will be the largest music and Necro Deathmort. Find out right to decide if something is a event to take place in South Park since Radiohead’s homecoming show in more at release or a demo. A couple of 2001. www.supernormalfestival.co.uk. tracks stuck up on Soundcloud is One of Bestival’s directors involved in the organisation of Common a demo, whether you think so or People is Ben Turner, who grew up in Oxford, is familiar with the local MARTIN CARTHY will headline not. Oh, and the usual stuff – make music scene and is keen to make local acts an integral part of the event. the Oxford Folk Weekend in sure you include a contact number Talking to Nightshift about the announcement of the festival he said, “With 2016. The annual festival returns with releases and demos, and make Common People, we’re trying to support the smaller cities in the UK who over the 15th-17th April, at venues sure you stick enough stamps on contribute a huge amount to the music landscape but often get little back. in the city centre. Earlybird tickets the envelope if it’s a CD. This will Oxford has an incredible history with music on many levels and I’ve been are already on sale at put us in a good mood before we lucky enough to have grown up in one of its most exciting eras –when www.folkweekendoxford.co.uk start reviewing. And that’s what you hanging out at the Manic Hedgehog record store, going to the Co-Op want, right? Hall or Oxford Poly for gigs was as valuable as listening to John Peel or UPRISING returns reading the Melody Maker, where I then went on to work and start my for a second outing this career in the music industry. I’ve been travelling and spreading my vision month. The unsigned of music around the world for 20 plus years through various mediums, but bands showcase, run our team’s collective success and contribution with Bestival has been a jointly between the O2 high-point. We decided to do a metropolitan festival in Southampton with Academy and BBC Oxford Common People and we all found the experience inspiring and rewarding, Introducing, takes place on and when thinking of a second city, there was honestly only one option Friday 11th December at the we considered: Oxford. A lot of this was subconsciously because of South O2 with sets from My Grey Park, which I’ve been saying for many years is one of the best festival Horse, Tremorheart and The sites in the world. We all believe it is, and we hope to bring Oxfordshire Fixation, with more acts to together for our unique combination of fun and creativity.” be added. Acts wanting to Common People will be a non-camping event with tickets on sale for play future Uprising nights each day. Prices are set to be a bargain £27.50 per day, while everyone should upload their songs who signs up for the festival’s mailing list will be put in a draw to get their to the BBC Uploader at ticket for just £10. www.bbc.co.uk/music/ The first set of acts due to play will be announced in early December. To introducing/uploader. sign up to the mailing list and find outmore, visit commonpeople.net.

A Quiet Word With go back. It was great to visit Poland; Poznan is a we probably did longer tours around the release rock and metal bands to Oxford. Given their beautiful city and incredibly cheap. Hard to pick a of `Horizontal Life’ though, and shifted a lot of increasing success, do they ever feel like local scene favourite. I guess out of all of the places we got to copies. `Omniscient’ was a bit slow at first; the tours leaders? see more of Poznan and Oss, which was cool, but weren’t in place really, but things are going better RYAN: “No, not at all; we do our thing and maybe the best shows were Berlin, Oss and Antwerp.” now we’ve been playing more shows again, and the venture out of town more than some local bands, MATT: “Every night was a success, and the UK leg vinyl really seems to sell well in Europe.” but there are a lot of good bands here, it’s just a was just as fun. It was our first venture into Poland Desert Storm never sit still for long, though. question of how hard they push themselves. We just and it’s always exciting to play new cities. That Despite so much time out on tour, they’re already have a lot of drive, passion and commitment and said, returning to venues we’ve performed at before thinking ahead to album number four, writing and a lot of the opportunities Desert Storm have had featured them. “Last year we did an eighteen-date and seeing familiar faces after hours on the road playing new songs on recent dates. have been because we’ve made them happen by UK and Ireland tour with Karma To Burn, and a is always a pleasure. It’s tough to pick a favourite ELLIOT: “We have plans to go back into the studio organising tours etc.” five-date UK tour with Nashville Pussy; this year when there are so many aspects to consider – with Jamie Dodd in January. We have pretty much MATT: “Shows in Oxford are when we are in our we went out for a week in the UK with Hang The turnout and crowd response; the venue itself; written most of the next album now, so it should all element; it’s the familiarity of it all, it’s home. I Bastard, and then a two-week headline tour where how we do on merch; how accommodating the be ready to record come the New Year.” wouldn’t say that we’re leaders as such, but young we played Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany promoters are; how much rock and roll is involved. MATT: “We’ve got new material which is lined fans approaching the merch stand and telling you and Poland. I think the highlights were the shows in Certain nights we can party and some we have to up and is steadily being introduced into our sets, their favourite song or how long they’ve been Berlin and Oss; both were really well attended and rest up for the long drives ahead. What I really liked but we are jamming out tunes from `Omniscient’ listening to you is really rewarding. It gives us great we partied hard. The lowlight was when we missed was the variety of venues we are able to play: bars, as they are real crowd pleasers. It’ll be a while yet pleasure to hear that we’ve been inspirations to the Nottingham show on the Nashville Pussy tour; cafes, halls, squats. Every night is a new adventure before we turn a new album out.” people as we ourselves are influenced and inspired we ran out of annual leave so were touring and and a new experience as the bus pulls up outside an How do you feel that might turn out? by artists out there.” working every day, which was brutal. We hit bad unfamiliar location.” ELLIOT: “We’re feeling confident with how While metal and heavy rock has always been very traffic and missed the show.” it’s sounding. It’s definitely got a lot heavier and popular in Oxfordshire, we don’t have a local band “It’s becoming difficult to discern between all the HAVING EARNED SO MUCH OF THEIR slightly more progressive. It still has that Desert from the scene that can seriously pack out venues tours, it all kind of rolls into one big party,” adds reputation supporting bigger names, we wonder if it Storm sound though, and carries on from where like the local indie scene does. Matt Ryan, the lava’n’bourbon-voiced singer whose felt daunting to go out – so far from home CHRIS W: “I don’t know, it is strange. malevolent growl and startling lyrical imagery – as a headline act. It baffles me how a cool band like helps propel Desert Storm’s eclectic, heavyweight RYAN: “It was a bit daunting, but I think “Any night where we’ve had to sleep on Undersmile can get loads of hype blend of stoner rock, old school metal, sludge, this last tour showed that we are building a steering wheel or underneath a kitchen worldwide and play to big crowds at psychedelia and blues. “The magic of the Dover to a profile and are able to headline shows Roadburn festival, yet struggle in Oxford. Calais ferry has waned a little, and the crap ferry now. It’s always great doing big supports table after days on the road is a lowlight. We generally do pretty well in Oxford, food has become something of a ritual. I think any as it usually means bigger venues and like last time we headlined the O2 it was night where we’ve had to sleep on a steering wheel more people, and we love that, but we Stand still traffic, stairs in venues and packed. But I think it helps when you play or underneath a kitchen table after days on the road don’t want to be seen as a support band getting grilled by police is down there too.” only a couple of times a year in this city. is a lowlight. Stand still traffic, stairs in venues and all the time.” Indie is definitely more popular here. As getting grilled by police is down there too. Also, MATT: “It’s important to go it alone. for who might change things in Oxford, every member of the band became ill at some point. You can find yourself in a `forever the bridesmaid, `Omniscient’ left off. We’ve been dropping a few of I’m not sure; there are plenty of cool bands but I’m But taking to the stage is always the highlight of never the bride’ type situation if you don’t brave it the new tracks into our live sets since the summer not sure that will change any time soon.” any night, and you find that getting up there and and take the plunge on headline shows and tours. and they seem to be going down really well, which How differently do you feel Desert Storm are blasting through a set is not only therapeutic but It’s important to get a balance really; festivals are is a good sign.” viewed outside of Oxford compared to in? also helps to sweat out any cold you might have.” important too. We’re just as capable of delivering MATT: “We’re still slightly undecided on what CHRIS W: “We have a lot of incredible fans from the finale performance of an evening as the opening format the next album will take, whether we should all over the UK, overseas too. I feel that our Oxford WHILE LIFE ON THE ROAD, WITH THE performance and we absolutely decimate the venue keep the same varied style with the genres all fans feel that we are representing them and the freedom and potential for adventure, is the very wherever we are on the bill.” mixed, or separate our sounds on different releases, heritage of the Oxford scene whenever we play, essence of the rock and roll dream, it is rarely Did you find you’d won new fans from those or multiple disks. We don’t want to pigeonhole which we are very proud to be able to do. People glamorous, particularly if you’ve got a day job to previous tours? ourselves because we love playing bluesy stuff, outside of Oxford maybe don’t have that same factor in – something that has prevented Desert ELLIOT: “Definitely; when we played in Antwerp heavy stuff and riffy stuff, but it’s a question of how sense of ownership over the band. Until we play Storm spending even more time out on tour over the and Oss we had a lot of people coming out to see best to put it all out there.” abroad of course, when we represent the UK!” last few years. The band (alongside Ryan and Matt us that had seen us on previous visits. In the UK I One of the absolute highlights of `Omniscient’ are guitarist Chris White, bassist Chris Benoist and think we had built up quite a solid fan base from is the song `Home’, which, as with `Gaia’ on the OXFORD SHOULD BE VERY, VERY PROUD drummer – and Ryan’s twin brother – Elliot Cole) previous tours and high profile support slots.” previous album, shows a very different side to to have Desert Storm representing us. And as the are no strangers to hard graft, ready and willing to MATT: “That’s the purpose of going out on support the band’s heavier, more stoner sound. It’s slow, band climb closer and closer to that rock summit, put in the hours, and miles, that have, step by step, tours: you’re out there in the hope that there may be acoustic, almost tender, closer to Leonard Cohen or the UK scene will equally learn to be proud of earned Desert Storm a reputation that extends far a few fans of the headline band that dig what you’re Mark Lanegan in its dark, gravelly introspection. them. But for now we have to let the boys go – beyond their native Oxford. doing. It’s like the difference between performing in Could Desert Storm foresee maybe doing a full EP they’re off to another round of gigs, unsurprisingly. ELLIOT: “None of us get enough holiday to be familiar and unfamiliar territories. You play a new or mini album of songs in a similar style? Dates with Mondo Generator and Atomic Bitchwax able to tour as much as we’d like. We still have to town and it’s a proving ground where maybe only ELLIOT: “We do always like to drop at least one for starters, then a brace of shows with Orange do some tours whilst working. In that case, we try a handful of people have listened to you online, acoustic track onto our records, just to give the Goblin, including that O2 show. And then it’s to make sure all the dates are relatively close to and it’s an opportunity to make new fans out of listener’s ears a rest from the brutality.” back over to Germany and The Netherlands before “I THINK WE’VE IMPROVED ON HYGIENE ALMOST TWO YEARS ON DESERT STORM Oxford so we don’t end up getting back at 4 or 5 in everyone in the venue. Returning to play the same MATT: “Never say never. I think this sort of harks Christmas. Hey, hey, rock and roll will never die. since the last tour. I don’t remember anybody are still on the road. But now things have moved the morning before starting work.” venues or towns is an opportunity to re-affirm your back to the previous point about how best to release It’s not getting much by way of sleep neither. urinating into a bottle whilst driving this time, up a few levels, and not just in the hygiene stakes. MATT: “It can be tough; we all have commitments ability to deliver on stage, with at least one or two our mix of styles; if we start to dissect and pull But lastly, if their poor, long-suffering tour van or taking a slash out of the van whilst on the While they’ve gone out as tour support to Nashville in Oxford so inevitably have to return from people to win over who have never heard you.” apart all of our sounds we could end up with five were to break down in an actual desert, which motorway. We stopped on hard shoulders and Pussy and long-term touring partners Karma To whatever corner of the world we find ourselves in. or six albums. There’s a danger of stifling what we member of the band would survive the longest? service stations this time.” Burn, they’re also revisiting many of their previous Returning to work after late nights and exhaustion, OF COURSE THE BIG STEP UP FOR DESERT do, because we can’t have metal creeping in on CHRIS W: “I don’t know who would survive, but stop-offs as headliners, with a Terrorizer-sponsored as the post-tour blues begin to set in can be a bit Storm came with the release of `Omniscient’ in the blues album, or stoner in on the folk. Look at a Benoist would be the first to go; he would commit DESERT STORM’S ALL-CONqUERING European tour their most recent expedition. depressing. All our annual leave goes on tours January – the band’s most fully released album yet, track like ‘The Void’ or ‘Sway of the Tides’, which suicide due to not being able to take a shower.” road trip continues, taking the gospel of Oxford This on the back of the across-the-board acclaim or recording, so it’s been a while since we got a staying true to their beastly stoner-rock sound while both have softly sung and clean sections amongst MATT: “If our bus broke down we could just rock music to the world. But thankfully our very accorded their third album, `Omniscient’, released holiday. This industry is notoriously difficult to get strengthening their melodic edge and burrowing the heavy. We’ve done a few acoustic shows in the siphon off the remaining petrol into a generator own noisy-bastard barbarians are honing their on- at the start of 2015 and recently released on vinyl. right, but hey, it’s a long way to the top if you want deeper into the blues and psychedelic elements of past which have been interesting; it’s not quite as and set up on the sand and blow chunks out of the tour behaviour as well as their music. In the last couple of months they have headlined to rock and roll.” their music. energetic or frantic but it’s more intimate and raw.” landscape with some crushing jams. We’d play until Last time we interviewed the band for the front the O2 Academy and played with Hang the Bastard It earned them a KKKK review in Kerrang! as well we were all dead but that sustain would last forever. cover, following the release of their second studio at The Wheatsheaf, and this month they will open MAYBE NOT AT THE SUMMIT YET, as excellent reviews in Metal Hammer, Terrorizer WHILE DESERT STORM’S STAR I guess the sustain lasts the longest in that scenario.” album, `Horizontal Life’, the quintet were enjoying for stoner veterans Orange Goblin at the O2 – a Desert Storm’s graft is paying dividends. In and Zero Tolerance. continues to rise across the UK and Europe, their some of the squalor and debauchery that life on band they’ve played with in the past. particular, their extensive European jaunt has won RYAN: “It’s been great; the press has been good, roots remain firmly in Oxford, both with their `Omniscient’ is out now on Secret Law/Plastic the road brings, including the spectacle of their “We’ve been touring a lot in the UK and Europe,” them a whole new army of fans. lots of positive reviews and some radio play and a regular hometown shows, and with Ryan and head. Desert Storm support Orange Goblin at manager pissing out of the door of a moving van on says guitarist Ryan Cole, bringing Nightshift up RYAN: “Europe was a lot of fun. We’ve been to few features. `Horizontal Life’ was well received Elliot’s fantastic Buried In Smoke Promotions the O2 Academy on Monday 7th December. Visit the motorway. to date on Desert Storm’s activities since we last Antwerp, Oss and Berlin before and it was cool to too but probably didn’t get quite as many reviews; shows, which bring some of the best underground www.desertstormband.com for more dates. Sponsored by

facebook.com/o2academyoxford twitter.com/o2academyoxford RELEASED instagram.com/o2academyoxford youtube.com/o2academytv WATER PAGEANT HEADINGTON `Outlines’ HILLBILLIES (Glide) Sat 28th Nov • £11 adv • 6pm Fri 18th Dec • £8 adv • 8pm Thurs 11th Feb • £23.50 adv Fri 29th April • £12.50 adv While there is a danger that this brand of `The Promised Land’ Antarctic Monkeys Rabbit Foot Spasm An Evening With The Hip Hop plaintive, sensitive record can appear reedy (Self released) + Youth Club for Rich Kids Band Knees Up 2015 Fun Lovin’ Criminals Shakespeare and inconsequential, Water Pageant’s debut It’s almost beyond cliché nowadays for many + Haze + The Balkan Wanderers Company Presents + The Knights Of Mentis is a very fine album indeed. In common with folk, roots, jazz or even classical acts to claim Sun 14th Feb • £13 adv • 7.30pm Richard II they’re playing classic sounds with punk rock Sat 28th Nov • £5 adv • 11pm + Bang Tail Feathers Nathaniel Rateliff the best of the genre – Sufjan Stevens, Bon Fairytale of spirit. It’s as if they don’t have the courage of & The Night Sweats Sun 1st May • £16.50 adv Iver and Oxford’s own Liu Bei – there is a Cowley Road // Fri 18th Dec • £16 adv • 9pm Lethal Bizzle richness to the band’s sound, embellished by their convictions that traditional music can’t The Ox Events Craig Charles stand the test of time, or bring itself up to date Sun 14th Feb • £14 adv lush keyboards, elegant brass and ornate guitar Christmas Party Funk & Soul Club Wed 4th May • £21 adv patterns which, while far from rococo, lend real in more inventive ways, particularly when + Temple Funk Collective The Ghost Inside The Bluetones lushness, depth and body to the music. almost invariably the result is as punk rock as a Sun 29th Nov • £13.50 adv + DJ Tony Nanton Every track repays attention. ‘Patterns’ recalls pair of crushed velvet flares. Zebrahead + Count Skylarkin’ Mon 15th Feb • £12.50 adv Wed 11th May • £18 adv • 6.30pm the unfairly underrated oeuvre of mid-noughties We get it again with Headington Hillbillies, + Patent Pending Ezra Furman Rend Collective an eight-piece ensemble who’ve been bringing Sat 19th Dec • £16 adv • 11pm + Urban Rescue band Joy Zipper; ‘Creatures of Your Thoughts’ throughout and Lizzy McBain’s similar Sun 29th Nov • £14 adv is partly sung in French and, given its contribution to ‘Cavalry’ is up there with the their own little piece of the bluegrass states to Klass Vybz Pre Xmas Sat 20th Feb • £12 adv • 6pm Modestep & New Year Party Sat 16th July • £10 adv • 6.30pm enveloping trumpet refrain, would have slotted best of them. Oxford’s taverns for almost a decade now. Any Little Comets + Culprate + Hippo Campus The Southmartins in nicely into the most recent Beirut album, Lyrically, there is also much to enjoy and link to punk is misleading, since these nine songs Sat 19th Dec • £25 adv • 6.30pm (Tribute To The while ‘Wave is Due’ inevitably recalls Warpaint’s ‘Furniture in the Road’ in particular resonates are as steeped in century-old tradition as it’s Fri 4th Dec • £12 adv • 11pm possible to get. Instead, they simply bring some Switch Presents: The Darkness: Thurs 25th Feb • £18.50 adv Beautiful South & ‘Undertow’ before launching into a luscious with me as a resident of Oxford’s East Blast of Our Kind Stiff Little Fingers The Housemartins) sequence of baroque instrumentation that would Oxford referencing lyrics to their down-home Champagne Steam Avenue. Appearances at the recent Oxjam Rooms Ft. Kurupt FM 2015 not have disgraced Felt in their prime. event as well as the most recent edition of the folk in a similar way to The Original Rabbit Foot + These Raven Skies & Barely Legal Fri 26th Feb • £11 adv • 6pm Sat 8th Oct • £22.50 adv • 6.30pm With ‘Layers’, Water Pageant vocalist Nick Punt have really served to bolster the band’s Spasm Band’s Shire r’n’b (incidentally, one of + The River 68’s From The Jam the few acts who really do bring some punk spirit CASH Tingay sings of forming layers to protect reputation. This outstanding album is a further Sat 5th Dec • £12 adv • 6pm (Payin’ Respect to oneself and his voice, in a deeply affecting breakthrough. On their website, they describe to play), as well a hefty dose of Home Counties The Doors Alive Sat 31th Dec • £13 adv • 12am the Man In Black) Sat 17th Dec • £12 adv folk whimsy. In the former camp is `Cheat The Switch but never whining way, reaches that breaking their predicament as “fragile”. It’s up to us to + Spank The Monkey With Full Live Band Leatherat Christmas point that stays just short of becoming over ensure that doesn’t remain the case. Reaper of Jericho’, while in the latter is the twee NYE 2015/16 Party `How Green Are You?’. ft. Shy FX emotional. It’s a remarkable vocal performance Rob Langham Sun 6th Dec • £28.50 adv Sat 5th March • £17.50 adv • 6pm Where Headington Hillbillies could really do Happy Mondays Reef with a bit of punk rock energy is in the stilted 25th Anniversary Tour Sat 9th Jan • £13 adv • 8pm +Alias Kid Quadrophenia Night `Rollin Down the Road’, which feels like a Sun 13th Mar • £17 adv sounding like soundtrack pieces to past science + The Atlantics hoedown on slow down, with perhaps the least + DJ Drew Stanstall Wolf Alice fiction films, though ‘Latitudes’ throws some Mon 7th Dec • £15 adv convincing “I say Whoa! I Say yeah” call and Orange Goblin - 20th (The Specials) lightweight drum&bass into the mix. Things response we’ve heard. Thing is, while musically Mon 14th Mar • £22 adv then get glitchy and discordant and the album Anniversary Tour the band feel rootsy and vaguely authentic, + Gentlemans Pistols Sat 16th Jan • £16.50 adv • 6.30pm Scott Bradlee’s risks losing its way, ‘Upside Down Sea’ a lead singer Howard Taylor lacks the gritty + Desert Storm Daughter Postmodern series of sweeping chords that end up nowhere authority to make this kind of tribute to the old Jukebox in particular. ‘Jack-O’-Lantern’ is little more ways work, and he’s often shown up by his Fri 11th Dec • £7 adv Sun 31st Jan • £18.50 adv than filler, another soundtrack to something backing vocalists, notably on album opener and Uprising - BBC FM Tue 15th Mar • £17.50 adv you didn’t want to watch in the first place, but highlight `The Promised Land’, with its distinct Introducing The Coral ‘Chameleon’ brings back the d&b, this time echoes of Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss, as My Grey Horse + Tremorheart Fri 5th Feb • £12 adv • 10:30pm + The Fixation + More TBC Fluid with a harder edge and some darting sub-bass well as the real star of the album, fiddler and Sat 9th April • £23.50 adv • 6:30pm that recalls the wonderful Omni Trio. + Royal T. Ben Haenow banjo player Alan Fowler. Sat 12th Dec • £12.50 adv • 6.30pm + TQD ‘Haunted Canyon’ has a Celtic feel that brings Overall, `The Promised Land’ is passable but UK Foo Fighters + DJ Q to mind some of Van Morrison’s more esoteric far too polite; not sure polite was ever part of + Elijah + Skilliam Wed 13th April • £21.50 adv excursions, but by now the album seems punk’s spirit. Tues 15th Dec • £10 adv • 7pm Newton Faulkner to have found some cohesion and purpose; Dale Kattack Jaws Mon 8th Feb • £15 adv ‘Jaime’ is the focal point, a fifteen-minute + Homeplanetearth Villagers Fri 22nd April • £16 adv • 6:00pm ESCHATON AND excursion immediately conjuring up a journey, The Icicle Works with alluring rhythmic and percussive patterns Thurs 17th Dec • £8 adv • 6pm Tue 9th Feb • £16.50 adv FOCI’S LEFT mixed in and out and a sample reversing It’s All About The Gabrielle Aplin Fri 22nd April • £25 adv • 6:30pm halfway through. With more sophisticated Music Billy Ocean - + The Quentins `Ultraviolet’ programming the whole piece could have come Wed 10th Feb • £13 adv “When The Going + The Russian Cowboys TesseracT Gets Tough” 30th (Omni Music) from the mind of Underground Resistance’s + Esther Joy Lane + The Contortionist Anniversary Tour A visit to Omni Music’s website is a trip back Robert Hood, though the lightness of the beats + Strike One to an era in the 90s of ambient electronics and displays an almost pastoral side that stops short drum&bass, with artist names like Cycom and of actual techno. Cavernous Space. The artwork is all gaudy new That the album holds the attention for a full o2academyoxford.co.uk age and sci-fi imagery, with dozens of releases 67 minutes is the easiest but greatest plaudit 190 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE • Doors 7pm unless stated from seventy bands or individuals, all now so to bestow. In an age where electronic music is Venue box offi ce opening hours: Mon-Sat 12pm-4pm easy with internet distribution. created and shared in countless bedrooms every ticketweb.co.uk • wegottickets.com • seetickets.com • gigantic.com This album, a collaboration between the label’s hour of every day it’s not difficult to spot genuine boss Eschaton and local musician Foci’s Left, talent, and there’s more than enough here. begins a little uncertainly, with a few tracks Art Lagun Sponsored by AFTER THE THOUGHT JULIA MEIJER `Dregs’ `Ocean’ / `England’ RELEASED (Self released) (Self released) I sometimes feel that I’d like post-rock- Hailing from Sweden, Julia Meijer moved to instrumental-indie-ambient types to either cheer Oxford a few years ago and has carved out an up, lighten up or both. That’s not to suggest that enviable reputation for herself, from playing LITTLE RED THE BALKAN Matt Chapman-Jones – aka After The Thought the Punt to performing at the launch of the `The Huntsman’ / `Teeth WANDERERS – is either down in the dumps or takes himself Andy Warhol and William Morris exhibition a too seriously, but… an album called `Dregs’ Modern Art, as well as to a packed folk barn at We Have’ ‘So It Goes’ wrapped in monochrome artwork, showing Wilderness Festival. (All Will Be Well) (Tigmus) moodily burning embers just doesn’t scream Her debut single finds her casting a wistful “Hey! Colourful fun party time over here!” eye over her homeland and her new home, Like fairytales, good music is best when a As pointed out previously in Nightshift, it’s a Should it? Not really. There’s nothing wrong `Ocean’, about Sweden, suitably elegant, little darkness creeps into the story – Brothers mistake to pigeonhole this Balkan influenced/ with a bit of sullen navel-gazing. It’s not as Julia’s voice equally airy and pensive, with a Grimm rather than Walt Disney every time. gypsy/klezmer and ska/punk group as merely if the eleven pieces that make up `Dregs’ are simple, irresistible purity about it, managing Local folk trio Little Red don’t go the full a high energy Balkan mash-up band. Balkan a downward spiral into darkness and despair. ‘river’ are a delicious (off-)centrepiece to the to be simultaneously breathless, questing and gothic murder ballad hog, but there are shadows Wanderers’ instinct for an appealing tune, the Indeed, while the album meanders along at a album: perhaps its highlight in their purity and something approaching playful – a difficult aplenty across these twin EPs. wonderfully warm and sinuous clarinet of Clare mellow pace, and although it features little in the clarity with a small number of carefully-chosen trick to pull off on a song that seems to question `The Huntsman’ is the band’s straight-ahead Heaviside, and the nuanced voice of Antica way of boom-bap melodic shock and surprise, sounds. ‘samplistic’ picks up the pace and the the singer’s very identity. But it’s `England’ EP, four songs of black dogs, unfaithful boys, Culina, whether singing Croatian or English, it’s a calming and engaging piece of work. mood as the most upbeat track on the album, that shows her at her best, her voice spreading have all been cited as lifting the band out of the unseen dread and even a big bad wolf. The first Opener ‘cr 2.0’ sets the scene: repeated waves before ‘the road goes over on’ seems designed to its wings tentatively at first but with increasing of these is an obvious metaphor for depression ordinary. of electronic sound given life and structure by remind us that darkness and cold are endlessly confidence over a sparse, tidy bed of synth and its ceaseless pursuit of the writer (“This All these attractive elements and more are mixes of Little Red’s songs, the best of which simple drumbeats and subtle harmonic layers. around the corner. hums and slowly tumbling drums – unobtrusive black dog follows me home / This black dog is st present along with some pulsating Balkan bring them blinking into the 21 Century but It’s like minimal, relaxing IDM – music to In all, this is a nice-sounding album, albeit one quality from a band that features Guillemots’ everywhere I go”), while the wolf equally sticks keep the darkness about them. Best of these are rhythm on this new five-song EP, `So It Goes’ wash over you rather than demand attention at that feels slightly unsure of its motives; does Greig Stewart and Flights of Helios and Epstein around to add a hint of menace to proceedings Tiger Mendoza’s two mixes, Ian de Quatros’ (the title being perhaps a nod towards Kurt every twist and turn. ‘hollow stars’ introduces it want to be relaxing? Or tense? Or tuneful? synthmeister Seb Reynolds. across two songs. The wonderful beauty-and- Vonnegut, or maybe The Verve, or Nick Lowe). ear for a scene-setting soundtrack helping guitar arpeggios to the mix; ‘tealeaves’ reduces Perhaps this lack of clarity is always going to Perhaps unusually, a song about England the-beast contrast between the female and bring a nervy, cyborg edge to `The Huntsman’, Across the whole EP there’s pleasing variety things to more minimal washes of sound, while be at the core of music that has no vocals or feels darker than one about Scandinavia, but male vocals (Hayley Bell and Ben Gosling while `Petals’ is a woozy Lemon Jelly-like and not a weak track. ‘I Fell For You’ has the ‘fearless (the bells 2.0)’ is maybe the album’s strongly traditional song structures, and that feels it’s a gentle, reflective darkness rather than plus guest Jack Cade for `Mr Wolf’) brings to trip, the song filtered through a lysergic haze. band exploring unusual territory for them as its most song-like piece, due to some contextually more often than not like blurred half-memories. ruminative. Like `Oceans’ it sounds like Julia mind both Tindersticks and Isobel Campbell’s Foci’s Left’s take on `OTDG’ is heavy and sparse, measured, almost minimalist setting is a strident chord and structure progressions. Focussing on the less defined pieces, dropping is uncertain of her place in the world, but on albums with Mark Lanegan, and for all the disorientating but leaves too little of the original break with the Balkan influence. Add Antica’s The 76-second ‘string’ is another shifting tonal some of the beats and melodies and moving into the strength of this debut, we’ll happily claim songs’ sweet, limpid nature there are no sun- song in the mix. appealing, heavily-accented English vocal, piece, leading into ‘looking down’, which an even more pure, simplistic and meditative her for Oxford. If she feels lost, that’s our kissed meadows here, only dark, foreboding When Little Red released their debut album clever lyrics and an earworm of a tune and reintroduces guitar and in doing so reminds me space could see After The Thought really shine. gain. woods. The breathless `Chapters’ sings softly of last year we wondered if they were quite strong you have a track which reels you in. Almost a little of The Workhouse. ‘antilles’, ‘#7’ and Simon Minter Dale Kattack something wicked this way coming, urging us enough for a full album. These collections as engaging is the lovely, lilting ‘Jovano to hide the children away, while the EP’s title of songs prove just how far they’ve come on Jovanke’, a traditional folk song, on which track, nominally the lightest song here, quickly since then; their own material finds a neat Antica’s Croatian vocal and Clare’s clarinet finds its opening couplet, “I once knew a boy balance between simple, traditional songwriting duet beautifully. with eyes of the sea / He loved me and gave and darkness, while working with inventive Flair with lyrics is a feature of most tracks. me such jewels,” descending into a cursed life producers like Tiger Mendoza shines a fresh ‘Land’ is a powerful and timely song opposing of sadness and drink as the boy is off in “other light on their music. Or more appropriately, prejudice against migrants. Its seriousness girls’ chambers.” casts a starker shadow across them. A band well contrasts with the droll, catchy, ska-influenced If `The Huntsman’ is folk-pop of an old world worth following. Just not into the woods. ‘Lost at Sea’, which proposes a Reggie Perrin- bent, `Teeth We Have’ is a set of electronic Dale Kattack type solution to personal financial crisis. On both tracks Stu Wigby takes the lead vocal, providing a further twist to the band’s sound. DUBWISER Spider on vocals – is old-skool drum&bass; This new release is a step up from the band’s any similarity with the beat of early jungle no. debut EP. It’s a pity though that we need to `Dubwiser Dancehall EP 1 ‘Original Nuttah’ by Apache Indian is maybe strain to make out some of the vocal on opener not entirely coincidental, as Spider J co-wrote ‘Clouds’, but if you require any reminder that II’ that bad boy. ’It’s On’ sees Spider J joined by we’re lucky that Balkan Wanderers found their main man Jonas Torrance and his inimitable way into the Oxford scene, just put on this (Self released) classy EP. `Dubwiser Dancehall EP II’ is the second in home counties patois, ARA and Jhordan Colin May the stalwart Oxford reggae(ish) band’s DD Romaine; it’s a frenetic mash up, with scattery releases. A self-release, this sonic initiative synth, strangely reminiscent of Eddy Grant’s is notable both for providing a platform for ‘Electric Avenue’. Out of the whole EP, it’s the young guest artists, and denoting a certain most obviously dancehall in style. branching out from their traditional sound. This is very much a release of two halves, The two are, of course, related. Depending blending traditional and contemporary urban on one’s perspective, this move is either to roots, and things slow down a bit for the be expected by those acquainted with the second half of the EP. Being a confirmed dub band’s similarly experimental first EP, and addict, my personal favourite track, ‘Reggae previously rhythm driven – but not necessarily Dubman’, finds Dubwiser back on more reggae based – excursions, or challenging and familiar ground with fat bass line, rootsy unexpected. In any case opener ‘Ready Steady drums, snippets of delayed horns and heavy Go, Yeah’, is a dubstep-esque, UK hip-hop/ skanking guitar. ‘Slowly Dub’ is a remix of grime style crossover offering; it has a moody, `A Crack in Paradise’ album track ‘Slowly’, warmly threatening feel, and features funky a sunny, rolling lovers rock gem with sultry newcomers Captn K and ARA. ‘Boom a Rang’, vocals by Natalie Maddix. with veteran Killa Kela and Dubwiser drummer Leo Bowder into a stripped-down, pissed-off, two-man double- Space Heroes added that vital human element to breaking the furniture along to this splenetic wee barrelled bile attack that sounded like Drenge, their silicon pop dream, paying due homage to belter of a tune. TRACKS OF OUR YEAR Iceage and Slaves scrapping over who’s going to electro godfather Giorgio Moroder on this high chuck the first petrol bomb and who necked the last point of their debut album, Tim Day’s cracked, 21. DEATH OF H-FI can of Scrumpy Jack. They’ve lit the touchpaper, almost plaintive voice a neat counterpoint to the So we come to the end of yet another year in Oxford music, and while we’ve a tendency 5. STORNOWAY `The let’s hope 2016 sees them explode. song’s impassive incessant synth and bass pulse. `Swim Away’ to say this every time, it has been a pretty fantastic year. On the one hand we’ve seen The great man would doubtless approve. As singer Lucy Cropper has taken a more some of our favourite local bands of yore reform, not least Ride, the band who first put Road You Didn’t Take’ 10. CAMERON A.G. prominent role in the band, Death Of Hi-Fi have Oxford on the world’s musical map. On the other, there continues to be a groundswell of Stornoway too found themselves looking back on 16. VIENNA DITTO delved deeper into their trip-hop side, as this excellent new acts around who promise to keep local pride running high. And of course this single from their third album, `Bonxie’. Again `Lost Direction’ swoonsome single displayed, Lucy’s appropriately taking the natural world as a metaphor for life, we have more than our fair share of genuine big name stars, taking Oxford music to With a quavering, almost keening, voice, `Hammer & A Nail’ breathless voice dreamily conjures images of Brian Briggs stands atop a mountain and looks Cameron Grote sounds suitably lost at sea on this Vienna Ditto have a rare talent for chaotic finesse. drowning and being weightless amid a luxurious the masses. Not least Foals, who recently won Best Act In The World at the Q Awards. down on the different paths he could have taken recent single, so simple and yet so strong you They also have better songs than you and a singer, and languorous wash of ambient electronics and If you’ve ever seen them live, you’ll know just why they deserve such an accolade. to the summit. As with much of `Bonxie’ the song wonder if it wasn’t spun from spiders’ silk. Its Hattie Taylor, who could be Oxford’s answer to spaced-out guitars. Perfect chill-out music, just Their fourth album, `What Went Down’ , saw them getting bigger and bolder and it’s no paints humans and their concerns as something sense of hopelessness – all plangent strings and Nina Simone. This slice of retro-futuristic sci-fi not while you’re having a bath – we’ll not be surprise that the title track from that album sits proudly atop this year’s Nightshift end of tiny amid the enormity of nature, but the sense of piano – is offset by a melody as pretty and fragile soul sounds like a torch song from a Mars colony responsible for the consequences. year Top 25. As is traditional we’ve compiled our favourite songs from local acts from longing spreads as far and wide as the horizon. as morning dew. jazz bar, sounding wonderfully like ‘House Of The th 2015, to give you a snapshot of what’s been great and good over the past 12 months. Rising Sun’ through the dual lens of 19 Century 22. LITTLE BROTHER bawdy French sing-songs and 21st Century post- Head over to the Nightshift Facebook page to offer your own suggestions. And maybe 6. UNDERSMILE ` 11. BALLOON everything muso culture. ELI `Who Do You’ make it your mission to go out and discover some of these acts for yourself. Emmenagogue’ ASCENTS `Someone’ From getting Demo Dumped for sounding like If the universe moves slowly, Undersmile have Leading the charge of Oxford’s young generation, 17. MERMAID NOISES “Jamiroquai playing nursery rhymes” to topping always kept pace, as powerful and insistent as a Balloon Ascents continue to mix and match styles the demo pile, being picked for the Punt and being lava flow. Second album `Anhedonia’ kept the and influences into an eclectic and intelligent `Stay Young Long’ declared one of the most fun live bands in town, stately pace, the haunted dolls house sense of form of not quite proggy electro-folk-pop, here, A Numan-sampling sunshiny synth-pop song about Little Brother Eli certainly turned themselves round menace and the outbreaks of sheer brutality, but on the b-side of new single `Don’t Look Down’, wasps? There is nothing here not to love, and this year, casting a sartorially dapper figure across also introduced a greater degree of nuance, subtlety sounding close to zonked on ketamine as Thomas with the combined classy talents of Karen Cleave the city’s stages as they brought The Blues with and – whisper it (in a ghostly fashion) – tenderness, Roberts’ dreamily questing voice floats amid sweet from Les Clochards, and ATL?/Hot Hooves living an authenticity and freshness, not to mention some which made those moments of musical violence all harmonies and electronic wows. Well sweet. legend Mac running the show, Mermaid Noises smart moves from singer Alex Grew. Here’s where the more terrifying. It’s an album that needs to be was always going to be a joy. `Mermaid Noise’ Led Zep get jiggy with Red Hot Chili Peppers. Feel listened to in its entirety to fully absorb its power, 12. KONE was one of Oxford’s most unassumingly great pop free to drink to excess and dance all night. but this particular highlight condenses everything releases this year, packed with mischief, sweetness that is glorious about Oxfordshire’s most `No Colour World’ and just a little bit of bile. Discover them; love them. 23. THE BIG SUN uncompromising band into a (relatively) compact Sparse, downbeat, monochrome post-punk pop twelve minutes. Spellbinding. from Kone, who, with this debut single, sounded 18. ASHER DUST `Bruiser’ like they’d stumbled through a fog of cigarette One of the many great things about the internet 7. MAIIANS `Sionara’ smoke from a studio where they’d just recorded `This Life’ age is being able to discover stuff like this How do you follow a debut single as good as a Peel session sometime around 1980, all set to Oxford’s most consistently reliable musical that’d you’d never find treading one of Oxford’s `Lemon’ – last year’s end of year runner-up? You head off on tour with The Passions or Young maverick, Asher Dust’s restless imagination sticky pub stages, mainly because most of the keep on driving along that same highway is how. Marble Giants, heroically oblivious to the last three continues to give us genre-blending rough band have never actually met each other. Out of On `Sionara’ Maiians worked the classic layer- decades. Perfect shadowy music for dark autumnal diamonds, his most recent album, `Righteous Eynsham came young singer Berry Brown, her added-upon-layer-upon-delicate-layer dynamic, evenings under an uncaring Tory government. Boombox’, revealing his mercurial talent at its blossom and candyfloss voice melting into Dave 1. FOALS `What Went Down’ synth hums, guitar loops and disembodied vocal best, with this squelching, militantly ska-flavoured Pemberton’s summery house production to make What a beast of a band Foals have become. The taut, muscular figure of Yannis Phillipakis in the snatches repeated in almost idly rhythmic fashion, 13. WATER PAGEANT electronica bounce a particular favourite as we for a bittersweet slice of synth-pop that could be video for `What Went Down’ perfectly reflected the song, with its breathlessly tense build-up and everything gradually morphing, becoming compiled this list. Ask us tomorrow and we’ll pick St Etienne dancing their sorrows away. sublimely violent explosion at the point the dam could no longer hold the building pressure. What distorted, coruscating synths weaving around `Cavalry’ a different track. We’re just trying to keep up with `Inhaler’ and `Providence’ had started, `What Went Down’ piled in to finish, with interest. There’s no overdriven guitars, the intensity ratcheted up in Recognising the power of quietness and stillness the man himself, okay. 24. THE BALKAN holding Foals back, and no standing in their way – you’ll only get hurt. And so, after a hat-trick of increments until you’re hooked. It’s musical heroin, in music, electronic folk-pop duo Water Pageant’s second places since `Hummer’ topped this list at the end of 2007, Foals find themselves back on top lulling you into a becalmed, idyllic stupor from debut album `Outlines’ was perfectly timed for 19. BUG PRENTICE WANDERERS `Pride’ of the pile. It’s exactly where Oxford’s most consistently exciting band deserve to be. where you can only hope there’s more to come. the onset of autumn, its melancholic reflection and Bringing a ray of eastern European folk-dance insularity coming in amber and red shades like `Nebraska Admiral’ light to the local scene, Balkan Wanderers spread 8. DESERT STORM fallen leaves, Nick Tingay and Lizzie McBain’s With a gorgeous, dry, delicate voice, like the their cultural smorgasbord of sounds to take in 2. DUOTONE EP. Putting a lie to any ideas that purely electronic delicate voices slowly and softy swirling around smoked-out ghost of Jeff Buckley, Ally Craig influences from Russia and Turkey as much as the music can’t fully convey emotion, she mixes the `queen Reefer’ each other on this stark centrepiece. It’s simply can make the most lopsided of songs feel like Balkans, and while they’re simply immense fun `Little White Caravan’ DIY invention of Grimes with Sade’s soft-as-silk And just in case you were worried this Top 25 gorgeous. Like a hug on a cold winter’s night. heartache’s sharpest arrow. On this particular live, this highlight of their EP of the same name Like the proverbial swan gliding on a lake, soul and London Grammar’s misty atmospherics was getting a bit maudlin or touchy-feely, here’s highpoint of Bug Prentice’s album `The Way is a melancholic and righteous nod to Ukrainian Duotone’s music is all elegance and serenity on and conjures a gloriously sad-eyed anthem for a band who’re only likely to touch you with a 14. A SILENT FILM It Crumbles’, he conjures a beautiful, brooding tunesmithery and particularly poignant given the surface, but furiously busy paddling beneath. late-night reflection and at least three bottles of claw hammer, doubtless at full force on the back lament that teeters on the edge of atonality and current geopolitics. Fact: it is impossible to see Barney Morse-Brown constructs his songs by wine. of your skull. With their third album `Omniscient’ `Paralyse’ features unselfconsciously cornball rhyming The Balkan Wanderers live and not leave with a himself from loops and live playing, but his helping them break through to major national press Built for stadiums, it’s no surprise that A Silent couplets that could be a ghostly Kristin Hersh song huge grin on your face. virtuosity still plays second bow to the gorgeous, 4. GAZ COOMBES `The acclaim and a European headline tour (sponsored Film are proper huge in the States, playing far rewritten by Ian Dury. raw emotion of his songs, as this simply breath- by Terrorizer) Desert Storm’s Cro-Magnon stoner- bigger venues there than they ever can back 25. VERA GRACE taking ode to love, loss and hope demonstrates. Girl Who Fell To Earth’ blues upped its ante a couple of notches with this in Blighty. Each and every song on their third, 20. BEING EUGENE As a tune `Little White Caravan’ is almost lullaby Freed from the increasingly constrained rumble of rock thunder galloping over the horizon eponymous, album was an anthem, even the quiet `Exposition’ simple but within its multi-layered duvet of words expectations of Supergrass, Gaz’s second solo to carry you off on some wild, whisky-soaked ones, and not least this punchy electro rock slab of `The Desolation of a Place And what better way to close this list than with and music is a song of stunning beauty. album `Matador’ found him free to explore adventure. Possibly involving Vikings. polished pop granite. It’s epic. Everything about some decidedly unfestive bile and fury, the like of middle-aged reflection, dadhood and more, which A Silent Film is epic. Hands in the air, everyone. We Call Home’ which we’ve been rather blessed in Oxford this 3. ESTHER JOY LANE mightn’t sound like a barrel of pop fun, but 9. CASSELS Lighters aloft. This one is going stratospheric. Fucking great pummelling, nagging, stomping year. Witney’s Vera Grace have been kicking about actually made for his best music in a decade, the groove-core beastliness from Abingdon metalcore for a while now but with new EP `Novella’ went `You Know’ album emerging from a haze of cigarette smoke `Hating Is Easy’ 15. SPACE HEROES newcomers Being Eugene on their Demo of the national, displaying their versatility as they veered More beautiful sorrow, here from the brightest and Oxford drizzle to lay the man’s soul bare. Easy to hate the world and its wife when you’re Month-winning debut, the band packing some into industrial/gothic moodiness but never far from new star to shine in the local pop firmament in This ode to his daughter is a gently frazzled mix a teenager living in Chipping Norton, a town OF THE PEOPLE serious fury, which they tempered just right with a some seriously opulent metalcore mayhem as on 2015. Esther takes a whole raft of conflicting of electronic wow and flutter, woozy psychedelia that’s nowhere near as posh as Cameron, Brookes, subtle, supple tech-metal edge. Not that there was this EP opener, reminding us rather splendidly of emotions and makes the sound as pure as cut and simple, soulful acoustic balladry and possibly Moss and co. might have you imagine. And so, `Moroderhead’ much time to stand admire their skills, since you Fucked Up. Anything that reminds us of Fucked diamond on this highlight from her superb debut Gaz’s finest vocal performance to date. brothers Jim and Loz Beck loaded all that bile Quality synth-pop in a world of insipid pretenders, were too busy dodging each killer blow and merrily Up being A Very Good Thing Indeed. Surrey, bespectacled, besuited and elegantly EVIL EYE + ALAN JAGGS + SWEET PINK moustachioed chap-rapper Mr B gives hip hop + FLEXI: The Wheatsheaf – It’s All About a run through with the Queen’s English, coming the Music show with indie rockers 31Hours, in at that point where De la Soul meets Noel psychedelic indie pop from Charms Against the Coward and Flanders & Swann. Or maybe NWA Evil Eye, funky rock from Sweet Pink and more. if they’d grown up in Hove and been more SHEPHERD’S PIE: Fat Lil’s, Witney – GIG GUIDE interested in cricket and fine tea. Hard rock and metal covers, from Maiden and SIMPLE with BODDIKA: The Bullingdon – Metallica to Thin Lizzy and Black Sabbath. House and techno club night with Boddika, the PAUL McLURE + COLIN MacNEE: The TUESDAY 1st FRIDAY 4th solo guise of Al Bleek, one half of drum&bass Swan, Ascott-under-Wychwood – The faves Instra:mental and head honcho of Nonplus Wychwood Folk club hosts Rutland troubadour DOT’S FUNKY ODYSSEY: The Cellar – IRREGULAR FOLK WINTER SPECIAL: St DECEMBER Records. Paul McClure, touring his new `Smiling From the Soulful tunes, Latin vibes and funky grooves Barnabas Church – You Are Wolf heads up this DOORS ALIVE: O2 Academy – Tribute band. Floor Up’ album. from the local funk and soul band, playing Aretha KARIMA FRANCIS + CHARLIE HOLE + year’s celebration of experimental folk and more th DEF CON ONE + CRASHGATE + HIDDEN: THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The Three Monday 7 Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson ROBERTO Y JUAN: The Library – Tigmus – see main preview The Cellar – OxRox host Newcastle’s metal Horseshoes, Long Hanborough – Blues and among other classics and originals. host Blackpool singer Karima Francis’ first KLUB KAKOFANNEY with UK:ID + behemoths Def Con One, taking elements of classic rock’n’roll. ORANGE GOBLIN / ALVIN ROY & REEDS UNLIMITED: The Oxford show since her 2012 performance at PHYAL + SILK ROAD: The Wheatsheaf – thrash, metalcore and punk and sounding like a Bullingdon – Trad jazz, swing and bop from Gathering Festival, out on tour to promote her Excellent rap-rave-electro-punk craziness from DESERT STORM: mash-up of Slayer, Pantera and Machine Head. th veteran clarinettist Alvin Roy and his Reeds. third album, the follow-up to `The Remedy’, Glastonbury’s UK:ID, back at tonight’s Klub SUNDAY 6 Support from Kent’s melodic hard rockers her striking voice having seen her compared to Kak after a storming set here in September, the HAPPY MONDAYS: O2 Academy – The O2 Academy Damien Rice and Jeff Buckley as well as Tracy festival regulars reminiscent of early-90s rave Crashgate, drawing on influences like Black Madchester reunion caravan continues to roll It’s five years since Orange Goblin last came th Stone Cherry and Guns’n’Roses Friday 4 Chapman and Joni Mitchell. Support comes from crossover acts like Senser and The Shaman. on, the original, and definitive, line-up of to Oxford, and it’s been a quieter place for EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar – Techno Charlie Hole, which isn’t a euphemism for a coke The local supporting cast includes longstanding Manchester’s baddest gang back round again to their absence, so it’s good to have them back. club night with OBJEKT, Batu and Katiusha. IRREGULAR addict’s nostril, but a heartfelt piano balladeer grungers Phyal and new young heavy rockers celebrate the 25th anniversary of `Thrills’n’Pills Nightshift’s ribcage needs a good shake-up. 31HOURS + CHARMS AGAINST THE FOLK CHRISTMAS from Bournemouth, and Latin-pop-flavoured Silk Road and Bellyaches. Orange Goblin have been cult heroes on the Balloon Ascents offshoot Roberto y Juan. THE MAGIC GANG: The Bullingdon – ROBERT FORSTER: Friends Meeting House, UK metal scene for 20 years now, continually ploughing a very singular path around the SPECIAL: OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street Psyche-tinged grunge-pop from Brighton’s new Sunday 6th St Giles – The former Go-Betweens songmeister Tavern indie hopefuls, coming in somewhere between makes an intimate return to town – see main globe in that time while every couple of St Barnabas Church Weezer, Peace and recent tourmates Wolf Alice. ROBERT FORSTER: preview years finding time to unleash a new album Such a shame Irregular Folk is no longer a WEDNESDAY 2nd THE RE-UP: The Cellar – Bass, grime and hip STEAMROLLER: The Bullingdon – Heavy- of characteristically thunderous doom-laden hop club night with DJs James Waddell, from duty blues-rock in the vein of Cream and Hendrix metal. Inspired by Sabbath, Led Zep, Iron regular gig club night (though how could it THE EPSTEIN + GREAT WESTERN TEARS quaker Meeting House Isis magazine, Oli C b2b MCBD, Dub Fusc and from the local survivors. Maiden and Motorhead, they’ve taken forays be regular with a name like that?), as those + ROBERT CHANEY: The Handlebar, The For indie fans of a certain vintage, The Go- Fabian Fatodu. AFTER THE THOUGHT + KID KIN + into psychedelia, punk and thrash while shows at The Cellar and beyond a couple of Bike Zone, St Michael Street – Two of Oxford’s Betweens are as important as The Smiths or TEN FÉ + SALVATION BILL + THE LEE RILEY: The Library – Great triple bill always remaining at their core a sludgy years ago really were a gateway into a very leading Americana lights launch singles from Buzzcocks, and their influence endures in AUREATE ACT: The Jericho Tavern – Tigmus of three of Oxford’s leading electronic music doom-blues act, one that fits in bullishly different world of music as well an intimate forthcoming albums at tonight’s Pindrop show. myriad literate, heart-on-sleeve guitar-wielding protagonists, with atmospheric electronica, alongside Monster Magnet, Kyuss and Clutch early introduction to future stars of folk music Alt.country rockers The Epstein prepare to follow bring London duo Ten Fe to town for the first romantics and dreamers. The band was formed time, Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan having but that has continued to spread its wings (Mercury Prize nominee C Duncan played up their excellent `Murmurations’, continuing in 1977 at the University of Queensland by shoegaze and drone from After The Thought; made their name playing a series of low-key alternately ambient and punishing electro-math- with each new album. While the band are for them not long ago). Organiser Vez Hoper their widescreen Appalachian journey, while Grant McLennan and Robert Forster and shows in unusual settings – including a former rock from Kid Kin and extreme drone-age from celebrating their twentieth anniversary this still brings the night back to life for summer Great Western Tears’ country folk is more released six albums of increasingly glorious industrial meat container – as well as relocating Lee Riley. year, they almost didn’t make it, the follow- and winter specials though and tonight’s intimate and bittersweet, a rootsy journey into pop music until they disbanded in 1989, and to Berlin for a year, that city’s elegant electronica MONKEY FISTS + GEORGIE BIRD + DES up to 2007’s critically-acclaimed `Healing pre-Christmas concert features one of our some lost prairie saloon bar. another three in the noughties after briefly scene bringing itself to bear on their epic, BARKUS & FRIENDS + SINFICTION + Through Fire’ repeatedly stalled to the point absolute favourite performers from those BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: The Cellar reforming. Sadly McLennan’s death from a early shows, You Are Wolf, a band formed orchestral pop. Following the acclaim accorded heart attack in 2006 put an end once and for COSMOSIS: The Wheatsheaf (2.30pm) – Klub the band looked like they might be finished, – 80s, new wave, disco, synth-pop and glam club but `A Eulogy For the Damned’ saw the light around the multifaceted talents of singer, to summer single `Make Me Better’, they’re set all to the band but Forster remains a potent Kakofanney host an afternoon of free live music night, playing cool stuff, from Kate Bush and The of day in 2012 and last year they released songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kerry to release their debut album, produced by Ewan songwriter, a self-assured dandy who’s both in the Sheaf’s downstairs bar. Smiths to Madonna and Talking Heads. the aptly- titled `Back From the Abyss, Andrew. Inspired by everything from Dolly Pearson, who’s worked with M83 and Jagwa Ma. knowing and arch, and warmly romantic, both ARTHUR + THE JESTERS + MOON which saw the band exploring a more soulful Parton to Catalonian poetry, her songs, mostly Support from darkly humorous blues-pop man sides of his character coming out on new solo LEOPARD + OXFORD UKULELES + rd acoustic sound. Only kidding. It rocked like about birds, often featuring birdsong, put THURSDAY 3 Salvation Bill, and inventive local electro-prog album `Songs To Play’ (sample song title: `I RIVERSIDE VOICES + TONY BATEY: A RELUCTANT ARROW + THE PINK a bloody great bastard and has riffs as big her own and sometimes ancient traditional starlets The Aureate Act. Love Myself and I Always Have’), his voice Donnington Community Centre (5-9pm) – DIAMOND REVUE + NELSON & THE compositions through the technological ROOTS RAMBLE: East Oxford – Francis still one of the most distinctive in indie. And Donnington Community Christmas party, with as giant redwoods, “the definitive Orange COLUMNS: The Bullingdon – It’s All About Goblin album,” according to frontman Ben mangler – all loops and electronic magic Pugh & the Whisky Singers host another of their while the man – who earlier this year was free live unplugged music from Donnington the Music and All Will Be Well team up to bring Ward. – to create genuinely spellbinding music. excellent travelling roots roadshows around awarded an honorary degree by his alma mater session regulars Jeremy Hughes with his Moon together dark bluesy/folk-rock crew a Reluctant In particular her voice is something special assorted hostelries in east oxford. Meet at The – might easily have played a venue several Leopard, alongside Ukulele orchestra Oxford Arrow, Reading’s superb acid-surf-psych people – gorgeously pure, its various clicks, purrs, Half Moon at 8pm before heading off to hear times the size of this, he’s chosen (courtesy of Ukuleles, bluesman Tony Batey and more. club. The Pink Diamond Revue and local folksters chirrups, whistles and tuts looped to create a Americana, folk and blues sets from The Whisky rejuvenated veteran promoters Swiss Concrete) STRINGFEVER: The Cornerstone, Didcot INTRUSION: The Cellar – Monthly goth, Nelson and the Columns. murmuration of sounds for the songs to fly Singers, Great Western Tears, Swindlestock and somewhere both intimate and off the beaten – Inventive, genetically-modified string quartet, industrial and ebm club night with Doktor Joy WILLIE J HEALEY + GNARWHALS: The within. And if that weren’t enough, Kerry The Knights of Mentis. track to perform. It’s already sold out of playing classical, pop and showtunes. and Bookhouse. Cellar – Easy, loping “rock’n’stroll” from fast- is also one of our favourite football writers. FLIGHTS OF HELIOS: The Cornerstone, course, but if you’re not one of the lucky 100 OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street rising local indie balladeer Willie, playing a Joining You Are Wolf will be experimental Didcot – Spaced-out psychedelia, prog and or so who snapped up a ticket as soon as the MONDAY 7th Tavern hometown show to promote new single `Saturday vocalist Ben See and local folk/blues singer shoegaze noise from the local faves, all set to gig was announced, go and buy the new album ORANGE GOBLIN + DESERT STORM: O2 Night Feeling’, and drawing comparisons to Claire le Master, while poet and wit George release their debut album. anyway. And if you never heard The Go- Academy – Riffs. Riffs as big as mountains – see th Jonathan Richman, War on Drugs and Jeff WEDNESDAY 9 Chopping acts as compère for the evening. BON GIOVI: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Bon Jovi tribute. Betweens before, or you simply crave some main preview BAD MANNERS + MAX SPLODGE: The Healey. Lovely music in a lovely – and suitably FIREGAZER + TONY BATEY + DUNCAN joyously poetic pop, go and investigate their Cellar – Super-heavyweight ska and punk PATCHWORK: The Cellar – Disco, house and irregular – setting. Pour yourself a large HARTLEY: James Street Tavern – CD launch entire catalogue immediately. th from Buster Bloodvessel and chums – see main techno club night. TUESDAY 8 goblet of mulled wine and drink it all in. gig for local Cajun-flavoured folk act Firegazer. preview THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf JULIA MEIJER + KONE + WATER DISCO MUTANTES: The Library – Disco, WAY UP! WEDNESDAY: The Cellar – R’n’b, – Free gig in the downstairs bar from the swamp- PAGEANT + RICHARD NEUBERG: The funk, acid house and afrobeat club night. hip hop, reggae, UK garage and grime club night, blues, psych-funk and ska veterans. Jericho Tavern – Swedish ex-pat singer Julia STEAMROLLER: Kidlington FC – First of with DJ Likkle Platinum and Young Linx. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Meijer returns to live action ahead of her new half a dozen shows around the county for the THE SWEET + MUD 2 + THE RUBETTES: Community Centre – Oxford’s longest running EP, her haunting, soulful acoustic pop drawing veteran local blues rockers, keeping the spirit of The New Theatre – It’s Christmas! It’s glam and best open club night, showcasing singers, comparisons to Julia Holter and Vashti Bunyan. Hendrix and Cream alive. time! It’s a blockbuster! – see main preview musicians, poets, storytellers and performance Top-drawer local support from sparse post-punk RATTLE + WITCHING WAVES + artists every Thursday. starlets Kone and luxuriantly intimate electro- th ALNEGATOR: The Wheatsheaf – Quality OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon SATURDAY 5 folk-pop duo Water Pageant. MR B THE GENTLEMAN RHYMER + noise as ever from Burn the Jukebox, tonight ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure BULLINGDON HOT CLUB: The Bullingdon CORKY: The Bullingdon – Straight outta with Nottingham’s stripped-back experimentalists BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford – Hot jazz and swing at the Bully’s weekly jazz virtuosity to old English dance tunes, ballads, war from Stratford’s Gehtika, coming in somewhere WEDNESDAY 16th OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon poems and folk standards. between Emperor and Lamb of God in support. CRYSTALLITE + KHAMSINA + MYTHS ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure CHANNEL ONE + ROOTS GUIDANCE: + LOUISE PETIT: The Wheatsheaf – Let the BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford THURSDAY 10th The Bullingdon – Top-drawer roots reggae and Lady Sings showcase show for female-fronted THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Wheatsheaf dub with Channel One Soundsystem, run by acts, with old-school soft rockers Crystallite, FRIDAY 18th – Free gig in the downstairs bar from the veteran legendary selector Mikey Dread and MC Ras electro and piano pop from Khamsina, and more. GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with local blues-rocker. Kayleb, and tonight joined by dub professor WAY UP! WEDNESDAY: The Cellar – R’n’b, BALLOON ASCENTS + ZURICH + THE THE SHADES + TANNERS POOL Roots Guidance. hip hop, reggae and more. JON COHEN EXPERIMENTAL + AFTER + TRITONESUBS + THE MISSING UK FOO FIGHTERS: O2 Academy – Foos SPARKY’S JAM NIGHT: James Street THE THOUGHT: The Wheatsheaf – PERSIANS + ANDY ROBBINS: The Jericho tribute. Tavern – Open mic and jam night. Celebrating the end of another year of going Tavern – 60s-styled r’n’b covers and originals ALL TAMARA’S PARTIES with CAMERON where few other promoters dare to tread, GTI th from the local rockers, inspired by The Stones, A.G. + CRANDLE + TAMARA + GEORGE th collect four of their favourite acts from the last Saturday 12 CHOPPING: The Bear & The Bean, Cowley THURSDAY 17 early Beatles and Yardbirds. THE qUENTINS + RUSSIAN COWBOYS few months. Headliners Balloon Ascents should – Bleakly brilliant gothic balladeer Tamara HIP HOP CLUB NIGHT: The Cellar – Club + ESTHER JOY LANE + STRIKE ONE: need little introduction to Oxford audiences now CHAD VALLEY / Parsons-Baker rocks up at another off-the-beaten- night in aid of Syrian refugees. O2 Academy – Fidgety guitar pop and indie – just read the bloody review, okay. Great support track intimate venue, tonight with wonderfully MAIIANS / ESTHER BLAKE: The Cornerstone, Didcot – Yuletide funk from newcomers The Quentins, plus funk- from Banbury’s dark-minded indie-electro-pop lost’n’lonely songsmith Cameron AG, plus the songs from the classical male voice group and pop from Russian Cowboys and heart-melting crew Zurich, inspired by Editors, Killers and The sweetly quirky electro-acoustic Crandle, with JOY LANE / OSLO BRIT winners. electro-pop and r’n’b from Esther Joy Lane at National, plus Montreal’s one-man psychedelic master of ceremonies George Chopping. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford tonight’s It’s All About the Music showcase. pop and loop-based experimentalist Jon Cohen, RAN KAN KAN + DJ SI: Old Fire Station PARK: The Bullingdon Community Centre STORYTELLER + PAPA NUI: The Cellar and electronica soundscapist and beatmaker After As far as local electronic music goes, tonight’s – Son Montuno and mambo classics from local OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon – Funky rock and reggae from Storyteller at the Thought. gig is as unmissable as unmissable gets. Cuban big band Ran Kan Kan, plus Kwassa ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure tonight’s It’s All About the Music show. THE ORIGINAL RABBIT FOOT SPASM Wednesday 9th Kwassa’s DJ Si, playing African, Caribbean and Chiefly it’s a rare hometown show for Chad BLUES JAM: The Catherine Wheel, Sandford CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford BAND + BALKAN WANDERERS + THE Valley, aka Hugo Manuel of Jonquil in his Latin dance tunes into the night. Community Centre KNIGHTS OF MENTIS + BANG TAIL solo tropical house guise, coming to the end THE SWEET / MUD 2 / CALLOW SAINTS + CHEROKEE + th FEATHERS: O2 Academy – The Rabbits host of a major American and European tour to FRIDAY 11 BAWS + PHAT CARDINALS + PUPPET their traditional Christmas jazz riot – see main promote second album `Entirely New Blue’. THE RUBETTES: UPRISING with MY GREY HORSE + MECHANIC: The Jericho Tavern – It’s All th TREMORHEART + THE FIXATION: Wednesday 9 preview The album’s honed his blend of 80s pop, r’n’b, About the Music night with Aylesbury’s soft CRAIG CHARLES’ FUNK & SOUL CLUB: The New Theatre O2 Academy – The O2 showcase event in rockers Callow Saints, garage-rock duo Cherokee introverted house and fidgety sunshine flavours BAD MANNERS / O2 Academy – BBC Radio’s most infectiously into a more commercial sound, particularly “It’s CHRISTMAS!” bellows Noddy Holder conjunction with BBC Oxford Introducing and Baws, the new band fronted by ATL? and enthusiastic DJ brings his party-starting with its increased leaning towards autotuned by way of introduction to the festive season brings Stratford-upon-Avon’s My Grey Horse Hot Hooves man Mac. MAX SPLODGE: collection of soul, funk and rare grooves back to vocals. Like kindred Oxford spirit Totally on Slade’s enduring Yuletide supermarket back to town, the band currently recording their EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar – House town, including a live set from local funksters Enormous Extinct Dinosaur, it’s understated favourite `Merry Xmas, Everyone’, and since second album with Supergrass producer Sam and techno club night. The Cellar The Temple Funk Collective and DJ sets from club music, more suited to early-hours it really is that time of year again, let’s put Williams and mixing up lo-fi American indie with OXFORD GOSPEL CHOIR: The Seems tonight really is the night for aside any pretence of being cool and simply Americana in the style of Swell and occasionally Tony Nanton and Count Skylarkin’. comedown and emotional break-up as hitting Cornerstone, Didcot – Traditional and abandoning all vestiges of cool and getting LITTLE BROTHER ELI + FACTORY indulge our base instinct to eat, drink and be Pavement. There’s also 80s-fuelled pop in a contemporary gospel, pop and Christmas songs fully into the festive spirit. While glam the dancefloor. Like Chad Valley, Maiians’ merry. And what better company to do so in similar style to Future Islands from Tremorheart LIGHTS: The Bullingdon – Soulful blues- origins lie in Ibiza, but while the former is as from the local choir. veterans The Sweet and co. are rocking the rockers Little Brother Eli round off a successful than this trio of Slade’s contemporaries in and Oxford-London rockers The Fixation. SYNTRONIX: Fat Lil’s, Witney – 80s synth- New Theatre, down in The Cellar, there’ll reflective as sunset at a beachfront café, the year, breaking through to become one of Oxford’s latter is a hazy, motorik drive into dawn by way 1970s glam-pop, going out under the Glitz, PEERLESS PIRATES + SKA MEISTERS + pop hits, from Duran Duran and Human League be some serious moonstomping going on favourite young live bands, bringing a fresh of some sleek, linear Krautrock highway, lush, Blitz and 70s Hitz tour title. The Sweet, now THE SHAPES + CHASING DAYLIGHT: The to Depeche Mode and Gary Numan. with ska-punk heavyweights Bad Manners approach to classic blues in the vein of White hypnotic synth swells and melodies powered helmed by original guitarist Andy Scott, sold Bullingdon – It’s All About the Music present THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Dolphin, bringing skanking good cheer to town for 55million records in the 70s and enjoyed 34 Denim and White Stripes, married to a funky Red by some serious double-drummer rhythms. swashbuckling indie, rockabilly, Tex-Mex and Wallingford their first visit in some years. Led by larger number 1 singles across the world, including spaghetti western-styled pop fun from Peerless Hot Chili Peppers vibe. Surf-pop from Shapes Any worries that electronic instrumental music than life (though lately slimmed-down) singer side project Factory Lights in support. era-defining hits `Blockbuster’, `Ballroom Pirates, alongside ska crew Ska Meisters; eclectic might be a sterile live experience are blown out SUNDAY 13th Buster Bloodvessel, the band were part of the DOLLY MAVIES + MATT CARTER + SAM Blitz’ and `Fox On the Run’, so it’s no r’n’b, 80s alt.rock and new wave popsters The early-80s ska revival alongside The Specials, of the water with extreme prejudice. Sterility is surprise they’ve endured over five decades. Shapes and more. STEAMROLLER & FRIENDS: The Cellar MARTIN: The Cellar – Intimate acoustic pop something that doesn’t register on Esther Joy – Charity Christmas show from the local blues- Madness and Selecter, and very much the from local singer Dolly Mavies, launching her This will be their final tour though, as they’re BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – Dancefloor jokers in the pack with their covers of `My Lane’s horizon either, her sultry, introspective hanging up their catsuits and stack heels, Latin, Afrobeat, Balkan beats, global grooves and rock veterans, kicking out the jams in the vein debut single. synth-pop and r’n’b packing soul to spare as of Cream and Hendrix. The band are joined by Girl Lollipop’ and `The Can Can’, as well as MOVE CHRISTMAS PARTY: The Cellar – so make the most of them. They’re joined nu-jazz club night, with a live set from London’s hits like `Special Brew’ and `Lip Up Fatty’. she’s revealed herself to be one of the brightest members of former Dolly faves Sunfly and Fraud House, garage and grime club night, with garage by Mud 2, still going a decade after singer eight-piece fusion band Gypsy Butter, mixing up Although never signed to Two Tone, they young talents Oxford has produced in recent Squad, with all profits going to the Oxford Food and bass breakthrough star Royal T, plus Lazcru Les Gray’s death, old faves like `Tiger Feet’ flamenco, jazz, Latin and gypsy jazz. Plus DJ sets were very much part of that scene and have times. Completing a quality bill are Brighton’s and `Lonely This Christmas’ a reminder from Giles Strother and club host Dan Ofer. Bank. and B-Ill. bright and breezy electro-pop/alt.rock crew NO HORSES + OSPREY + ADY DAVEY similarly endured even while the hits long ago OSPREY: The Marsh Harrier – Christmas that kitsch didn’t always mean crap. And INVISIBLE VEGAS + TANNERS POOL: The dried up. There’s suitably irreverent support Oslo Park. completing this holy trinity of retro fun are Wheatsheaf – Americana, roadhouse rocking & SHAKIN’ LIPS + MEGAN JOSPEHY + songs and jollity from the veteran local singer PURPLE MAY: The Wheatsheaf (3.30-7pm) – from Max Splodge, sometime frontman of and promoter. The Rubettes, Alan Williams, alongside and blues from Invisible Vegas. OXROX CHRISTMAS PARTY / DOLLY Free afternoon of unplugged music from Giddyup punk loons Splodgenessabounds – alongside DIRTY EARTH BAND: Fat Lil’s, Witney – fellow original members John Richardson THE OXLEY-MEIER PROJECT: St John the REUNION: The Cellar – Rocking through til the Music in the downstairs bar. the likes of Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Classic and contemporary rock and pop covers. and Mick Clarke, veterans of over 30 million Evangelist – Virtuoso guitar display from Nick wee small hours with OxRox reviving The Cellar’s part of the so-called punk pathetique scene, THE MIGHTY CADILLACS + GET LOOSE: sales and timeless classic `Sugar Baby Love’. Meier, from Jeff Beck’s band, and Pete Oxley, rock legacy with live sets from Terminus, playing th providing the boozy, irreverent flipside to Red Hot Blues Club, Didcot Even Nightshift can, for one night, forget from world jazz group Curious Paradise, together MONDAY 14 classic heavy rock covers and Hard Rock Highway much of the genre’s political message. Expect STEAMROLLER: Kidlington FC extreme sludge-metal and minimal leftfield playing music inspired by Turkish and Latin THE TEDDY WHITE BAND + GWYNN cult classics like `Two Pints of Lager and to Hell band competition winners Big foot, plus DJ electro-pop and simply wallow in nostalgia, American sounds, on a variety of guitars. ASHTON + THE BLUE BISHOPS: The a Packet of Crisps’ and `Michael Booth’s John Chadwick. th mulled wine and a little bit of glam rock THE MIGHTY REDOX: Mad Hatter’s Jericho Tavern – The Famous Monday Blues Talking Bum’. SATURDAY 19 FLUID: The Cellar – Bassline, garage and grime silliness. CASH: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Johnny Cash tribute. Christmas party. THE DARKNESS: O2 Academy – If it’s nearly club night with Murlo, Masp, VLVT and Zyclon Christmas, it must be time for another Darkness Sound. Rattles, mixing vocal harmonies with inventive SATURDAY 12th TUESDAY 15th tour, the old-school rockers continuing their RED HOT CHICKEN DIPPERS: The percussion and featuring members of Fists reunion travels having kissed and made up a Wheatsheaf –Local psychedelic rockers Jabroni’s and Kogumaza. They’re joined by indie punks CHAD VALLEY + MAIIANS + ESTHER JAWS: O2 Academy – Back in the JOY LANE + OSLO PARK: The Bullingdon neighbourhood after their showing at Truck, few years back, singer Justin Hawkins having Sandwich play Chili Peppers songs under their Witching Waves and post-hardcore noisemakers undergone rehab following a bit too much on tour alter-ego. Alnegator. – Homecoming gig for the local electro-pop star Birmingham’s now slimmed-down Jaws temper – see main preview their Madchester grooves with considered fun following the mega success of debut album BEDROCK: The Bullingdon – Skeletor’s BELSHAZZA’S FEAST: Thomas Hughes `Permission To Land’ and its accompanying REIGN OF FURY + GEHTIKA + shoegaze and Foals-y fidget-pop. monthly rock and metal club night. Memorial Hall, Uffington – Best known as hit single, `I Believe In A Thing Called Love’. FUSED: Fat Lil’s, Witney – 90s and noughties fiddle and oboe player with Bellowhead, Paul RETRIBUTION: The Wheatsheaf – Classic HUGH TURNER qUARTET: The Bullingdon thrash in the vein of Nuclear Assault and – Funky jazz from Turner and chums at the Supports to Robbie Williams and more recently alt.rock covers, from Weezer and Kings of Leon to Sartin has been a staple on the English folk Lady Gaga point to their pop-friendly appeal and Killers and Chili Peppers. circuit for nigh on twenty years and together Megadeth from West Midlands’ Reign of Fury, Bully’s free weekly jazz club. back in town to promote new album, `Death Be OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street they bring a little bit of panto fun to their classic THE HUT PEOPLE + SETH BYE & with accordion player Paul Hutchison makes Led Zep, AC/DC and Queen influences. KATIE GRIFFIN: Tiddy Hall, Ascott-under- up Belshazza’s Feast, bringing humour and Thy Shepherd’. Black metal/thrash crossover Tavern Wychwood – Wychwood Folk club host world anti-Christmas party brings you more quality free Gazelle Twin photo by Sam Shepherd folk duo The Hut People, accordionist Sam noise, with theatrical thrash merchants Agness Pirt, who’s played alongside Kathryn Tickell Pike; doomy crust-punk from Undersmile/ LIVE and Sharon Shannon as well his band 422, and Mutagenocide/Girl Power offshoot Drore, and no- percussionist Gary Hammond, best known for wave/gutter electro chap Robert Shackleton. being part of The Beautiful South, as well as working with Nina Simone, together playing a MONDAY 21st lively instrumental form of folk music, informed by British, Nordic and south European traditions. TUESDAY 22nd THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The Swan, th Eynsham THE MARTIN PICKETT ORGANISATION: Thursday 24 STEAMROLLER: Shepherd’s Hat, Ewelme The Bullingdon – Free live jazz. PMT CHRISTMAS PARTY: The Library – OXFORD’S REGGAE th Live music and more, courtesy of your friendly SUNDAY 20 neighbourhood music store. CHRISTMAS: PETE LOCK & MARK BOSLEY + THE OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street ILLUMINATI + MARK ATHERTON Tavern The Bullingdon & FRIENDS + CALLOW SAINTS: The Reggae might have a reputation in the UK Wheatsheaf (2.30pm) – Klub Kakofanney host as summertime music, but really it’s here rd an afternoon of free unplugged music in the WEDNESDAY 23 to warm the cockles of your heart all year downstairs bar, with Moiety duo Pete and Mark, THE AUREATE ACT + 31HOURS + LUKE round. And one of Oxford music’s great and more. ALLMOND: The Jericho Tavern – Atmospheric longstanding traditions has been the Christmas AGNESS PIKE + DRORE + ROBERT prog-rock and electronic soundscaping from rising Eve reggae party. It ran at the Zodiac and later SHACKLETON: The Library – Smash Disco’s starlets The Aureate Act. the Academy for almost 20 years and now it’s WAY UP! WEDNESDAY: The Cellar moved just down the Cowley Road to The Bully, but the idea is the same – to welcome Friday 18th THURSDAY 24th Santa and the Yuletide spirit to town with good THE ORIGINAL OXFORD REGGAE CHRISTMAS: The vibes and some serious bass. Tonight there’s Bullingdon – Skank into Christmas morning with a live set from Bristol’s seven-strong party RABBIT FOOT SPASM Laid Blak, Count Skylarkin’ and co. – see main reggae outfit Laid Blak, who have earned preview themselves a reputation as one of, if not the, BAND / BALKAN STEAMROLLER: Three Horseshoes, Long best live reggae band in Europe. Smash hits Hanborough like `Bristol Love’ and the near-anthemic `My WANDERERS / Eyes Are Red’ have raised their profile yet th higher, while they’ve shared stages with The THE KNIGHTS OF FRIDAY 25 Wailers, Massive Attack, John Legend and Merry Christmas everyone. If you’re stuck for Julian Marley along the way. They’re joined MENTIS: O2 Academy what to get us this year, we’d quite like a cat that by some of the best DJs in the area, including The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band crack looks like a llama. Thanks. Desta*Nation, Oxford’s original rebel sound – the musical incarnation of Brighton singer and open the port, the whisky, the advocaat, the system; Count Skylarkin’ – Trojan Selector, AUDIOSCOPE musician Elizabeth Bernholz, tonight, alongside gin, the wine and anything else they can find Wailers warm-up, Disco Shed creator and her anonymous electronics operator, dressed at the back of the drinks cabinet for their curator of Skylarkin’ Soundsystem and The The Bullingdon It’s bitterly appropriate that this year’s Audioscope in a hoodie, her facial features blanked out by traditional Christmas speakeasy hoedown. Big Ten Inch, and DJ Bunjy & MC Joe Peng, to truly compelling, while in an abrupt left turn in mood for the day so far MARCONI UNION, who a skin-coloured stocking to macabre effect. Since they emerged, drunken and riotously founding members of Laid Blak. Two rooms coincides with the first arctic blast of cold of claim to have written the most relaxing piece of Stripped of identifiable human characteristics entertaining on the local scene, with a show- of serious roots, rocksteady, dancehall and winter. It’s freezing out there; who’d be homeless on a day like this? Plenty of people sadly, music ever, drift through genteel Kosmiche before and expressions, she stalks the stage like an stealing headline set at the Punt back in 2009, dub riddims and tunes for you to skank into thousands condemned to inadequate (or no) discovering a heartbeat rhythm and becoming unnaturally limbed feline, her music a queasy, with their blend of classic 1920s and 30s Christmas with. And remember – reggae isn’t housing while the property portfolio parasites get gently but irresistibly hypnotic. discordant form of mutant hip hop and synth-pop, jump blues, r’n’b and hot jazz given a bit of just for Christmas either – it’ll be here to keep richer by the day. Since its inception 14 years ago, As frontman for psych-grunge rockers Arbouretum a sort of evil-urban soundtrack that might be The punk rock vim and vigour and some delicious th you partying all through 2016 too. SATURDAY 26 Audioscope has raised in excess of £35,000 for DAVE HEUMANN has headlined Audioscope Knife’s twisted sister, or Bjӧrk ripped from her Oxfordshire flavouring, they’ve undoubtedly THE PETE FRYER BAND: Seacourt Bridge homeless charity Shelter, in the process bringing before but now cast adrift from his band, and Icelandic idyll and into a bad acid trip in some become the best party band in town, with Inn – Local blues veteran Pete plays his traditional sudden, overwhelming moments of profound some genuine musical legends to town for its joined today by members of Trembling Bells, he nightmarish high rise sprawl. Amid all this, her singer and pianist (and increasingly an Oxford Boxing Day show at his local boozer. loneliness. Don’t worry, the professionals will be annual one-day mini-festival. looks, and often sounds, like he’s dropped in from voice remains an eye of purity, even sweetness, historian of note) Stuart MacBeth the Louis back on the town again just as soon as the vomit After KONE a Grateful Dead gig somewhere around 1972, his while retaining a hint of outright evil. Did we Armstrong / Cab Calloway-like host with and silly string have been swept up. ’s sweetly lo-fi post-punk opening SUNDAY 27th set, The Oscillation’s DEMIAN CASTELLANOS West Coast country rock tinged with a touch of mention it’s probably the most astonishing forty the most. And if the band themselves aren’t SWITCH with SHY FX: O2 Academy – Into BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney brings his set of drone-based guitar instrumentals to English folk and psychedelia, nudging into blues at minutes of music we’ve witnessed all year? Best as drunk as the audience these days, it hasn’t 2016 with drum&bass and jungle maestro Shy the party, his deep, brooding textures conjured from times, and even if he tends to wander too far from to just come out and say it: Gazelle Twin is a diminished their desire or ability to get the FX, back in the shire after hosting Truck Festival’s th myriad pedals to produce something unexpectedly the melodic core of his songs on occasions, his genius. joint seriously rocking. They’re joined by MONDAY 28 dance barn in the summer. pastoral, as if John Renbourn had been born forty voice – pure and quavering – wraps everything in a So credit to headliners PLAID for following that spiky, sparky eastern European folk dance- THE MIGHTY REDOX + THE PETE FRYER years later and grown up listening to Explosions in warm blanket of wistful reverie. and coming out triumphant: two guys sat behind cum-indie crew The Balkan Wanderers, one th BAND + DES BARKUS + CHEROKEE + TUESDAY 29 the Sky. The last time they were in Oxford – back in 2006 laptops might not initially seem much to sing – of the most enjoyable new bands to emerge BILBO BAGGINS SOUND SYSTEM: The STUART HENDERSON: The Bullingdon – Drones of a far darker hue fro TAMAN SHUD, – PART CHIMP earned themselves a reputation or dance – about, but once they introduce some on the local scene in 2015, plus Americana Wheatsheaf – Local swamp blues-psych-funk Free live jazz from trumpeter Stuart Henderson a band who describe themselves as “necro-psych” as the loudest band ever to visit town, so plenty of guitar into proceedings and up the beats, they’re ensemble The Knights of Mentis and soul, veterans The Mighty Redox host their traditional and band. and don’t disappoint on that score. In fact they’re the packed crowd have come armed with earplugs. off into full-on Orbital territory by way of Autchre rock&roll, swing, blues and smooch from NYE party, with stalwart local bluesman Pete OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street astonishing: haunting incantations hovering above Not Nightshift of course – we welcome tinnitus and even a bit of Jean Michel Jarre, providing a Bicester’s Bang Tail Feathers. Fryer and more along for company. Tavern metronomic beats, scouring synths and dark wells like an old friend – and we needn’t have worried, rousing finale to the day. FREE RANGE: The Cellar – New Year’s Eve of gothic guitar noise, variously reminding us of for they remain just about within the realms of Ten hours of live music without a duff act, and WEDNESDAY 30th party club night with Charris and Dubloke, Zyklon Hawkwind, Clinic, Evil Blizzard and Hookworms, decency volume-wise, while reminding us of three that are genuine world beaters, now seems Sound & VLVT, Baughty Nath and Oli C – hosted but more than that sounding like a call to prayer what a superbly orchestrated noise machine they to be par for the course for Audioscope, which by Macular, Fio and Sandman. should surely be an essential date in every local st in a land far beyond redemption. Within minutes are – molten, supercharged riff after riff flows THURSDAY 31 HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: The White of their set ending they’ve sold out of albums and from the stage, a sense of something weird and music lover’s calendar. That it’s in aid of such an Amateur Drinkers Night returns once again for Hart, Old Headington – NYE party gig with the they’re so good we wonder if Audioscope hasn’t trippy underpinning it all, in a similar way to how essential cause makes it all the more special, and more late-night enforced jollity, self-loathing and local Americana crew. peaked too early today. We’re more than happy to Butthole Surfers toyed with Black Sabbath’s tower as we stand shivering at the bus stop we consider be proved wrong later. of sound, and having suffered a stinking cold for ourselves lucky to have a warm house to go home Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Email KOGUMAZA’s sludgy, slow-mo dronescapes most of the week, afterwards we feel scoured and to as much as we’re thankful to have music like listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may keep things dirty in a La Dusseldorf sort of way, cleansed. Really, it doesn’t get better than this. this brought to our doorstep. not be reproduced without permission. but lack the impetus to take them from engaging Except it does. In the form of GAZELLE TWIN Dale Kattack stage, particularly singer Alex Grew, possessed TWENTY ONE PILOTS of a phenomenal soul voice and a stage presence LIVE that suggests he’s no shrinking violet on the O2 Academy dancefloor at weddings. The band’s sound is Live pop music is nothing without around the stage while dressed in rooted in Led Zeppelin’s take on the blues, but screaming and explosions. Twenty full skeleton costume. The duo’s while thousands of old gits hack out BB King One Pilots have both by the balancing of boy band melody photo: Jonny Moto riffs in pub corners the world over, Little Brother bucketload at tonight’s sold-out and choreography and something Eli ooze freshness and festival-size potential. If show, from the hysterical chorus altogether harder and cooler is one Grew occasionally looks and sounds like he’d that welcomes the Ohio duo neat trick, but it’s been well earned, X-Factor, and the fit a little too comfortably on onstage, to the spectacular smoke with years of touring under their band tread dangerously (albeit rarely) close to geysers that create a momentarily belts. So `Tear In My Heart is that Jamiroquai territory, mostly they’re infectious impenetrable fog at the front of the place where One Direction meets fun, and when Grew hollers “Grab me by the stage at regular intervals. So-Cal pop-punk, while elsewhere shoulders / We can dance all night,” you’re in no This is pure pop theatre from start songs are stretched between Keane mood to refuse. to finish, one carried off with a and Skrillex, or lead into cheesy, Esther Joy Lane – alone on stage bar a bank of surfeit of class by two versatile hands-in-the-air cabaret that electronic gadgetry – might be a comedown after musicians and professional show- wouldn’t shame Elton John. Other that but she’s similarly soulful, and she manages offs currently enjoying a seemingly than an unforgivable – though to turn her performance into a breathless flurry unstoppable skyward ride to thankfully brief – cover of `Can’t of button pushing as she coaxes her songs stadium-sized glory on the back of Help Falling In Love’, the only completely live from her synths and loops. If their fourth album, `Blurryface’, moments when the set dips are Little Brother Eli are going to keep you up all a US Number 1 – even in these on those occasional full-on piano night dancing, Esther’s going to sit you down straightened times, a serious ballads or semi-acoustic songs, like and break your heart, the rust and silk sultriness achievement. `The Judge’. of her voice plucking heartstrings with dark It’s easy to see why they’re so Highlight of the set is a beefed- night of the soul intensity, and if there’s an successful and yet so critically up `Lane Boy’ from `Blurryface’, overwhelming air of sadness about set highlight acclaimed; within the first two and a spectacular finale to `Trees’ `You Know’, we’d die happy if we could write a numbers - `Dirtyheavysoul’ and that sees Tyler and drummer Josh song half as good. `Stressed Out’, we’ve gone from Dun stop atop the front few rows The O2 is packed by the time Balloon Ascents crushing bass to loping reggae hammering out a tattoo on a pair arrive on stage to headline their own party, groove by way of some almost of floor toms before an explosion launching new single `Don’t Look Down’. Numanesque electro, rapid-fire of confetti cannons. Followed, of Thomas Roberts, in a dazzling shiny shirt, rap and giddy stadium pop, course, by plenty more screaming. contorts himself around the stage in a manner singer and pianist Tyler Joseph Next stop Wembley, surely. that’d shame Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring throwing himself acrobatically Dale Kattack even as his band drift through the languid groove of early set highlight `Cutout’. He’s a great, natural frontman, equal parts Marc Bolan, Jonny Greenwood, Gary Numan and Harry Styles, BEWARETHISBOY / 150 FRIENDS and his presence turns each song into a rock CLUB / LUKE KEEGAN drama, allowing the band to get on with the task of creating deceptively catchy pop songs from The Wheatsheaf shifting patterns and textures. There are still a A subdued Gappy Tooth Industries of the Depp-like charisma that few rough edges about the band, moments when gig night, as MC Richard Luke Keegan doesn’t, as we are BALLOON ASCENTS / ESTHER JOY LANE / the set threatens to run aground, but easy to proclaims it “an anti-Halloween unfailingly amused by songs like forget the band are still so young and have been party,” and we happily leave all `Sluts R Us’ and `I Don’t Believe LITTLE BROTHER ELI / LOUD MOUNTAINS together barely two years, and with each gig they the skeletons and ghouls in tricorn in Atheists’, and his idea for a O2 Academy seem to move up a few notches. The increasing hats to un-live it up in the bar and Reverse Kickstarter is a Spinal strength of their songs is evident in the new alley below. Tap hoot, where he’d use his own Does Oxford need another Americana act? alt.country to give us a short set of good ol’ boy single, a fidgeting electro-pop clamour, and its Luke Keegan, erstwhile bassist money to create an album, then Probably not, but given that Loud Mountains country rock that’s pitched partway between The more airy b-side, `Someone’. Already they’re for Robot Swans, is making his people can donate a set amount of are actually American (brothers Sean and Kevin Eagles and Bob Dylan. moving above and beyond the promise of those own bid for troubadour limelight, money to receive it. (“I’ll leave Duggan) we’ll let them off. They’re too likable Characteristically dapper in their waistcoats and early shows. and has the crowd warming to Neil that with you a moment”). to cast aside anyway, eschewing the alt. bit of suits, Little Brother Eli look born for the big Dale Kattack Finn chord changes and an excellent Talking of doing stuff in reverse, Paul Simon rolling pick technique Bewaretheboy seem to be pushing (think `Kathy’s Song’) during his for stardom after they’ve retired HOLLIS BROWN / BRUCE SUDANO solo acoustic set. What I’m not from work. Forming in 2014, sensing is any stardust despite an album due out in 2015 and The Bullingdon his strong voice, as he brings a UK tour and festivals booked Just a few doors up the road at the Academy tonight Killing Joke, punk full of melody, each telling a story. us songs from his debut album for 2016, they are setting their legends now in their mid-50s, are brutalising their audience’s ears and Having recently supported Counting Crows and now on the road for `Conker & The Wheel’, while the sights for the toppermost of the senses. Here at the Backroom a man a decade older, and also a legend, is over four months it’s their turn to headline. Lead singer Mike Montali woven CSN&Y vibe leads me to OAP poppermost. There’s a broad enthralling his audience in rather more gentle fashion. resembling, in looks at least, a young Elvis Costello, opens the set with want to see him set up a duo or trio. element of Billy Bragg joining Bruce Sudano, singer, songwriter, record producer, arranger and the vignettes of love lost and found, all with accompanying harmonies from We definitely need more acoustic the Dubliners in their un-Celtic spouse of Donna Summer for 32 years until her death in 2012, is on stage. the bassist Mike Wosczyk. They then ramp things up with songs from male trios in this world. Celticness, and live they do have He has co-written songs for Dolly Parton and Jermaine and Michael their new, fourth album `3 Shots’, such as album opener `Cathedral’ Someone who already has a band a twinkling roustaboutness that Jackson amongst others but tonight he sits with an acoustic guitar and and the title track, a comment on youth violence in America from the in 150 Friends Club but tonight belies their age, as Sue Mallet’s friends to sing songs of faith and personal crisis. perspective of a young teenager. Their set continues with Lou Reed is going solo is David Goo, from fine violin swoops and follows It’s just the beginning of another great night for Empty Rooms covers `Train Round The Bend’ and `Sweet Jane’, with a Neil Young Finsbury Park, who’s vaulting the melodies with uncanny grace Promotions, as Sudano is followed by New York’s Hollis Brown. The song thrown in for good measure. None of the covers feels out of place cabaret style of rock riff Spanish and emotion. On the night of the band, named after a Bob Dylan track, class themselves as an indie rock amongst their own material, and tonight’s show is as musically uplifting guitar and Jonathan Richman-style undead, zombie ceilidh could well band but are far more than that. They are a tight band who can move easily as the gig up the road is apocalyptic. Fantastic. No Joke. wryness utilises 150FC’s humorous be a new genre. between indie, pop, rock, Americana, blues and sweet acoustic, with songs Brett Silver raga-dub songs. He has much Paul Carrera