[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 243 October Oxford’s Music Magazine 2015 A Silent Film “Never underestimate the power of the British accent; it's catnip to Americans.” Stateside glory and pub love with Oxford’s stadium-pop heroes

Also inside this issue:

Introducing KONE BLACK CANDY’s reunion reviewed plus All your Oxford music news, reviews and previews, and six pages of local gigs.

NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk

family activities while proceeds from food, t-shirts and merchandise will go to Donnington Youth Group.

BALLOON ASCENT launch their OXJAM is back this month with the Oxford leg of the national music new single `Don’t Look Down’ with festival returning to its east Oxford roots on Saturday 17th October. a headline gig at the O2 Academy The annual event, which raises money for Oxfam’s anti-poverty this month. The rising local indie/ campaigns, takes place at seven venues on or near Cowley Road, and dub/folk/electro-pop band play their features 40 acts across the day, starting at 3pm at Joe Perks on St. ARTHUR TURNER’S biggest headline show to date on Clement’s and finishing with an aftershow party at Big Society in the early LOVECHILD? Reunite for their rd Friday 23 October, where they’ll hours of Sunday. first public gig in 16 years next be joined by Little Brother Eli and Among the acts confirmed are Family Machine (pictured), Balloon month as part of this year’s Oxford Esther Joy Lane. Tickets are £6 in Ascents, Tiger Mendoza, Death of Hi-Fi, The Aureate Act, Rainbow City Festival. The original line- advance from Tigmus.com. Reservoir, Esther Joy Lane, Kancho!, Orange Vision, Kid Kin, Little up of the band, fronted by former Brother Eli and Salvation Bill. Jericho Tavern and Point promoter AUDIOSCOPE host their annual Early bird tickets are on sale now, priced £5, from Wegottickets.com, and Mac, reunited for a private party in pop quiz at the Star on Rectory thereafter for £8 from WGT and Truck Store. More news and updates at August, their first performance since nd Road on Thursday 22 October. OxfordOxjam Takover on Facebook and OxfordOxjam on Twitter. 1999, and a gig which, typically, BBC Introducing, Truck Store, Daisy Rodgers Music will host an Oxjam warm-up show in Worcester saw the police arrive to try and Pindrop, One Note Forever and College Chapel on Thursday 1st October, with Balloon Ascents, Sam halt proceedings. The former local Irregular Folk are among the local Duckworth, Laura Moody and Count Drachma all playing acoustic sets in heroes – named by Radiohead as luminaries who have set rounds the round. More info and ticket details at www.daisyrodgers.com their favourite Oxford band back for this year’s event, which raises Meanwhile Witney hosts its own leg of Oxjam on Ocober 17th, with over in the 1990s – will play at The money for homeless charity Shelter. 13 hours of live music and DJs from midday at Rapture, The Blue Board Wheatsheaf as part of the city-wide The main Audioscope festival takes and Fat Lil’s. music festival which takes place place on Saturday 21st November rd th Full listings in this month’s gig guide. from the 23 -28 November across at The Bullingdon, with acts to be a number of venues, including the announced early in October. Visit Epstein, Tamara and the Martyrs regular local gig listing update on O2 Academy, The Bullingdon, www.audioscope.co.uk for news. The Cellar, The Wheatsheaf, The and Great Western Tears – were Twitter (@oxgigbot), bringing you delayed when the band were new gigs as soon as they go live. Library and The Jericho Tavern. ONE WING LEFT release their forced to take a year’s hiatus They also provide a free weekly Punk veterans Peter & the Test Tube debut album next month. The when drummer Joel Bassuk was listings email. Follow them. Babies are among the other acts local rockers release the as-yet denied re-entry to the UK due to already announced. Visit the festival eponymous album on the 21st a bureaucratic error. Speaking to page on Facebook for more news. November on Secret Wife Records. Nightshift singer and guitarist Matt Check out their Facebook page for said, “that was a tough time for all DONNINGTON COMMUNTIY news of a launch gig. MUSIC FESTIVAL returns for its of us; you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. But as a result fourth year, providing eight hours ART THEEFE are looking of being forced to give up on this of free unplugged live music at to finance the release of their band, and then being given a second Donnington Community Centre on debut album late this year with a th chance when Joel was allowed Saturday 10 October. The event Kickstarter campaign. The band, back in, has made us so much more runs from 2pm through til 10pm fronted by Catweazle Club host STORNOWAY play a brace of committed than before, and I feel with sets from The Ska Meisters, Matt Sage, and featuring Little unplugged hometown shows next that the music really reflects that.” Superloose, The String Project, Beard Brother Eli’s Joshua Rigal, are month. The local folk-rock heroes To contribute to the campaign, the of Destiny, Moon Leopard, STEM, looking to raise £5,000 for the play two nights at St John the rewards for which include a gig Des Barkus, Mark Atherton & recording and release of the album. Evangelist church on Iffley Road by the band at your house, or an th Friends, Oxford Ukuleles, Riverside The recording sessions – with on Wednesday 25 and Thursday executive producer credit, go to th Voices, Phil Freizinger & Sue Smith, producer Richard Neuberg, who 26 November as part of their bit.do/art-theefe Richard Brotherton and Daisy. has previously worked with The Unplucked your to promote a new As well as the music there’ll be acoustic EP `Bonxie Unplucked’, AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into which features new versions of CHAD VALLEY plays his first BBC Oxford Introducing every songs from their third album, hometown gig for a year next month. Saturday night between 8-9pm on released earlier this year. The electro-pop guise of Jonquil 95.2fm. The dedicated local music The shows are hosted by Empty frontman Hugo Manuel plays at show plays the best Oxford releases Room Promotions and Tigmus and The Bullingdon on Saturday 12th and demos as well as featuring come off the back of the band’s December as the last date of his interviews and sessions with local Shags & Ducks & Rock’n’roll UK tour. A stellar gig cast also acts. The show is available to tour of the RSPB’s nature reserves sees Maiians, Esther Joy Lane and stream or download as a podcast at around the UK. Brighton’s Oslo Park on the bill. bbc.co.uk/oxford. Tickets, priced £20 in advance, Tickets, priced £8, are on sale from are on sale now at tigmus.com www.gigantic.com or Wegottickets. OXFORD GIGBOT provides a and Wegottickets.com. A Quiet Word With `New Year’ EP earlier this year, but before that the the question there; I all went a bit Fellowship of the Silent Film seem to be doing it right so far. Is there last record came out in 2012 so it is great to be back Ring.” a secret to that kind of success? with new music for people. You did manage to play your first Oxford gig for a Robert: “Definitely. Never underestimate the What was the writing process like compared to the long while back in July; how did it feel to be back, power of the British accent. We learned early on to last two albums? and how much do you still feel like part of the local speak before we play our first song; it’s catnip to Robert: “Far easier for this album; songs came scene? Americans.” quickly and without a struggle, which is not often Spencer: “It felt amazing to be playing in our home Spencer: “We both grew up listening to a lot of the case. We have also become more and more town and it was great to see so many friends and American music as well as music from home, and I A Silent Film adept in the studio ourselves, which has made family there. And some new people! Even though think perhaps that transatlantic influence has always with the band’s live line-up augmented by fellow the process of carving out an idea so much more we have been away a long time, our formative been in our songs. I suspect that has helped us over Oxfordian Jake Roos and Texan guitarist Matt enjoyable. musical years were spent playing lots and lots of there. Having said that, yes they do appreciate the Kid, as well as Matthew Wilcox, who produced A You recorded it with Matthew Wilcox; what’s he shows here. The Zodiac; Your Song; The Punt of big statement, and yes that is certainly something Silent Film’s new album,having previously worked been like to work with and what do you feel he course; Truck Festival; dropping off demo cassettes that we do.” with Foster The People. The album was recorded brought to the album? and praying that Mac and Joel would put you on Robert: “I listened to a lot of Springsteen. I also in Oxford after recording its predecessor, `Sand & Spencer: “We met Matt a couple of years ago in at the Point or the Wheatsheaf: these things don’t have fond memories listening to a cassette of the Snow’, in Texas and Arizona. Colorado and spent a week working together in a leave you!” Beach Boys endlessly on car trips with my parents. “The main impact of having Matthew Wilcox log cabin in the mountains above South Park - the Despite spending more and more of their time Spencer and I have a weird mutual obsession with playing live with us is that I finally have someone place the show is based on! We got on really well away from Oxford, Spencer and Robert can 70s Americana, principally The Band and Little to chat to at the back of the stage while Robert and so decided to co-produce the album; he is an still be seen out and about at local gigs (in pubs, Feat. Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, Neil Young… is dancing out front. It gets lonely back there on incredibly intuitive musician and a snappy dresser unsurprisingly) when they are in town. Having basically everyone who played at The Last Waltz!” the kit sometimes,” says Spencer, along with Rob to boot; it was a no-brainer for us. Matt brings what spent so much time away from Oxford, does the gig talking to Nightshift before they fly back out to the we can only describe as a sparkle to everything he scene feel different to when they were starting out? The musical big statement is States once again. works on, and it really shows on this album. Robert: “It has definitely changed, but by no means something a Silent Film do particularly well; there’s for the worse. We’re excited to see promoters a real feeling of opulence about the new album; is Perhaps the most remarkable As mentioned, as well as producing like Smash Disco having a lot of success putting that something they deliberately steer towards? thing about a Silent Film’s success in the States is the album, Matthew now makes up part of a Robert: “Musical opulence must be in our veins! that they’ve achieved it without the backing of a Silent Film’s live band following the departure of “ We make music we care about and beyond that we record label, self-releasing the new album as well founder members Lewis and Ali. After playing and There was a memorable night really aren’t steering it anywhere consciously.” as 2012’s `Sand & Snow’, following on from debut recording as a quartet of friends for the initial part in Montana, where five people From your experience what are the main album, `The City That Sleeps’, which was released of their band life, it must have been a blow to see differences between the UK and US when you’re in on indie label Xtra Mile – home also to Frank the pair leave? turned up to see us. Two of a band? Is there less cynicism about the American Turner. Spencer: “Lewis left before our first trip to the them were homeless and just media for example? They seem to appreciate hard “That deal came to a natural end,” explains Robert, States, and Ali last Christmas. That one was tough work and endurance more than the British press for “they gave us our first big break that launched so actually, as he gave me his heart, but then the very sheltering from the rain.” starters. much of what we now take for granted.” next day he took it away. I think people change: Spencer: “I think that when you are the `alien’ Self-releasing an album in a place as huge and touring and being away from home that long is not on cool, interesting shows at the Library. The – as we are over there – you get treated a little disparate as the States must be a daunting task, for everyone. We still brunch together, so no drama refurbished Bullingdon is a great venue, although differently to homegrown bands because you are though. Far harder than doing the same in the UK there.” we miss the Zodiac, where Spencer and I saw our inherently exotic, so it’s not necessarily a fair where word of mouth and a more centred media Did their departure change the band? first ever club show – Dustball.” comparison. Having said that, yes there seems to make it easier to get your name known. Spencer: “Robert and I have been playing together be a place for hard-working touring bands and Spencer: “It really is open season now in the music since we were 14 years old, but this is the first Despite their roots and ongoing an enthusiasm for bands to succeed over there, industry with regards to how you can or should time that we have had full creative control over the love for Oxford, America is very much the priority maybe more so than over here. Perhaps the biggest release music, and we have always been inclined to music… well, over everything really! So in that for A Silent Film now. Early on in their career over difference for us is that there are so many cities be DIY and independent in everything we have ever sense this album represents where the two of us are the Atlantic they supported million-sellers One to play and there are so many different alternative done, so releasing through our own label is ideal for musically right now.” Republic on tour and have supported Smashing radio stations; it makes it more possible to be a us. We have had the chance to build up a great team Robert: “It’s difficult to put a finger on our Pumpkins, Biffy Clyro and Temper Trap amongst working, successful `mid-level’ band. It is less `all of people around us who we have chosen rather influences; we certainly can’t point to one or others, plus a host of big names at various festivals. or nothing’ than the UK music scene sometimes than who are forced on us by circumstance, and we two specific bands we have set out to sound Robert: “We played with The Pixies earlier this feels. have complete creative control over our music. It’s like. In March we did an acoustic tour where we year, which was great. I’m sorry to say we didn’t If you couldn’t bring yourselves to leave the UK a lot of work, but this is what we do so it doesn’t played and filmed intimate shows in the round at go bang on Mr Black’s dressing room door but I for good, what in particular do you love about the really feel like ‘hard’ work. At the end of the day secret locations across the States. It was a great know that Spencer had a pretty wild night with Jay- States? we’ve never been on a major label so we can only opportunity to play covers of bands that have Z’s tour manager in Delaware, so look out for that Robert: “Being able to turn right on a red light is make comparisons from what we have seen from inspired us, like Sufjan Stevens, The Cure, Bjork featured performance coming soon. really useful.” lots of our friends on majors. I think we do okay.” and Beach House. I’m pretty sure those are some of You’ve played over 200 shows across the States the artists who have influenced this album. Keeping now; what are audiences in different states like and And so Nightshift leaves the pair “I’d miss pubs too much. That sounds is dwarfed by the sort of crowds they’re used to Creative control is something no an open mind to where inspiration can come from is where are the band most – and least – popular over to prepare for another Stateside tour. Last time out ridiculous I know, but I really, really like pubs.” playing each time they tour across The States, band should ever take for granted, particularly in key to making an interesting record.” there? Has anywhere particularly surprised you? they undertook a twelve-date jaunt there involving where they can headline 1000-capacity venues. a climate where ever more desperate record labels Spencer: “We knew when we made the decision to shows in unusual, intimate venues, utilising Spencer Walker really likes pubs. They’ll be back over there again at the end chase a profit with all the decorum (and success) Amid all the excitement of their build our audience over there through some pretty production equipment fashioned by themselves and Really, really likes them. Pubs are the reason of October for a 27-date tour to promote their of kittens chasing shadows. `A Silent Film’ finds ongoing Stateside success, it’s easy to forget that hard touring that some shows would be…well… taking in a historic recording studio, an abandoned why A Silent Film’s drummer could never move eponymous third album, starting in San Diego the band expanding their opulent, stadium-sized A Silent Film’s first taste of serious success came hard. There was a memorable night in Missoula, warehouse and an old silent movie production permanently to the United States. This, despite his and finishing in Phoenix, Arizona, stopping off in pop even further, bolstering alternately epic and from a more unexpected source – a number 1 in the Montana, where five people turned up to see us, studio, with only 50 guests each night. This time band’s ongoing success in the States, where A Silent Denver, Washington DC, Atlanta, Tampa, Dallas intimate piano and keyboard-based melodies with Portuguese download charts for `You Will Leave and actually we think two of them were homeless round the venues will be more traditional and far Film have played over 200 shows over the past few and many more in between. a big rock production that’s seen them compared to A Mark’. Sadly time in the States has limited their and just sheltering from the rain. Things are a little bigger. years, plus dozens of festivals and where they’ve It’s an astonishing achievement for an Oxford band Coldplay and Snow Patrol as well as 80s synth-rock opportunities to build on their popularity in Europe. better now. We were in Charlotte, NC, towards the Robert: “It’s 27 dates round the whole of the US sold over 40,000 albums and 200,000 downloads who are barely known in the UK outside of their hitmakers Ultravox in the past, but now mixes all Spencer: “We had amazing support in Portugal, end of touring `Sand & Snow’ and had over 1,000 and hits some of our favourite venues: the Bowery to date, as well as enjoying over 15,000 radio spins home city, and the culmination of eight years of manner of big influences into the palette, from Peter but we haven’t been able to get back there for the people turn up to a headline show for the first time. Ballroom in New York; the Troubadour in LA; for singles like `You Will Leave A Mark’, `Danny hard work that produced three albums, including Gabriel and Phil Collins to Springsteen and even same reasons we haven’t been able to come back That was a good day! Union Transfer in Philly – all around the 500-plus Dakota & the Wishing Well’, and `Harbour Lights’. this month’s eponymous new release. Godley & Creme. How do Robert and Spencer feel to Oxford, and to the rest of Europe, as much as “We took the band American Authors out in 2013 mark, which is a nice size for a rowdy crowd: it’s America, it seems, likes A Silent Film as much as about the new album? we would have liked. We are an independent band, as our support band, and they’ve gone on to sell going to be brilliant.” Spencer likes pubs. It’s not been without its trials and Robert: “We’re exceptionally pleased. We work and we only have the resources we have. We were about a million records since then. I’d like to think But obviously before they go, they’re going to fit in tribulations of course. The toll of so much time for so long on our albums that sometimes it’s hard fortunate enough to get a foot in the door on US we had some part to play in that… although it may one more trip to the pub. Here’s to their continued When A Silent Film played a rare away from home has meant the band now count two to know when you’re finished. This time we were radio, and we made the decision to stay out there have had more to do with their infectiously catchy success – cheers! hometown show at The Bullingdon at the end of full-time members – drummer Spencer along with cautious not to rush ourselves and it was very clear and capitalise on that; we knew that would mean singles.” July it was unsurprisingly packed. Despite their singer and pianist Robert Stevenson. Formed in to both of us when we had the right collection of we get to play here less, but sometimes the path less `A Silent Film’ is released on the 16th October on lack of local action in recent times, they retain a 2007 and originally a quartet, guitarist Lewis Jones songs.” travelled is the one you end up taking. And getting While the desire for British acts Silent Songs. strong local following. But even here their audience and bass player Ali Hussain have now departed, Spencer: “We feel good about it! We put out our lost on. Frequently. I’m not sure I really answered to break America is a music industry cliché, A Follow the band at www.facebook.com/asilentfilm. Sponsored by

facebook.com/o2academyoxford twitter.com/o2academyoxford instagram.com/o2academyoxford RELEASED youtube.com/o2academytv A SILENT FILM KONE `A Silent Film’ `No Colour World’ / (Silent Songs) Fri 2nd Oct • £20 adv Sat 17th Oct • SOLD OUT • 6.30pm Fri 6th Nov • £20 adv • 6pm Fri 27th Nov • £8 adv • 10pm Radiohead’s global success was built on America `Bauhaus Table’ Hawkwind Circa Waves Bars and Melody Garage Nation (Self released) falling in love with `Creep’, but even that was a Fri 2nd Oct• £18 adv • 6.30pm Sat 17th Oct • £10 adv • 11pm Fri 6th Nov • £11 adv • 6pm Fri 27th Nov • £8 adv • 6pm happy accident – a vicious grunge stab designed So-called art rock is perhaps one of the The English Beat KLASS VYBZ Ft. Prides Oxford City Festival: to derail the song turning it into an anthem for a most nonsensical genres in musical history, starring Dave Wakeling White Magic Sound Storyteller + The Mighty Redox generation. right up there with Romo, Nintendocore + The Standard + Chris Goldfi nger Sat 7th Nov • £11 adv • 6.30pm + Des Barkus & Country For In stark contrast A Silent Film sound like a band and chillwave. The band to which it was + Stained Glass Alice & The Full Asher Crew Defi nitely Mightbe Old Men + The Relationships + tailor-made for Stateside success – unabashedly most regularly attributed in recent times, (Oasis Tribute) Osprey Franz Ferdinand, seemed to attract the label Fri 2nd Oct • £4.50 adv • 11pm Mon 19th Oct • £16.50 adv opulent and with anthemic songs designed for Sat 7th Nov • SOLD OUT • 6pm Sat 28th Nov • £11 adv • 6pm because one of its members had once sat on the Blue Rinse Protoje & The giant arenas that come without the sort of weirdo Indiggnation Twenty One Pilots Antartic Monkeys mischief and obstinacy that Radiohead have steps of his local art school rather than for any + Youth Club For Rich Kids Sat 3rd Oct • £22.50 adv made their trademark. meaningful reason. So, it is with some scepticism Wed 21st Oct • £16.50 adv Sat 7th Nov • £12 adv • 11pm + Haze that I approach Kone’s debut release, the trio From The Jam Switch Presents: There’s a risk, as A Silent Film reach their third 35th Anniversary Tour Jack Savoretti – and most luxuriantly produced – album, that having described their offering as “art music + Max Jury Blonde: Live Sun 29th Nov • £13.50 adv for guitars”. After all, isn’t it for us critics and Sat 3rd Oct • £12 adv • 11pm Zebrahead an absence of anything too quirky or oblique, sweep of `Chinese Lanterns’ with its harps and Sun 8th Nov • £15 adv fidgety or noticeably academic might condemn oriental motif, to the punchy electronic rock writers to decide what is artistic and what isn’t? Switch Presents: Fri 23rd Oct • £8 adv • 6pm + Patent Pending Balloon Ascents Lucy Rose them to a middle of the road mire that Coldplay of `Paralyse’ and the full-on heroic `Strong Enough tall poppy syndrome, for Kone are a UKF Ft. Sub Focus Flyte + C Duncan very welcome addition to the Oxford music Sun 29th Nov • £14 adv merrily set up camp in and which eventually Enough’, which you could imagine being written Fri 23rd Oct • SOLD OUT • 6.30pm Modestep claimed Snow Patrol, but while there are hints for One Direction but here sounds closer to landscape. The lyrics to portentous opener Sun 4th Oct • £24 adv Mon 9th Nov • £20 adv Johnny Marr Stormzy Jay Electronica of that here – the over-earnest piano ballad that Killers’ cinematic stadium pop. `No Colour World’ are delivered with gusto Wed 2nd Dec • £12 adv by vocalist Jonny Mundey, equalling the kind Fri 23rd Oct • £10 adv • 11pm is `Evergreen’, which aims for sombre and hits There are moments of genuine emotion here Fri 9th Oct • £10 adv • 11pm Tues 10th Nov • £14 adv vangoffey sterility dead centre by way of lyrical cliché and too that make you think of Bruce Springsteen of deep voiced commitment displayed by The Switch Presents: Switch Patrick Watson Ft. Shadow Child Fri 4th Dec • £20 adv • 6.30pm an over-egged cello; or the similarly po-faced – an influence readily recognised by the band – Chameleons’ Mark Burgess, Richard Butler of Circles Ft. Preditah + Thus Owls and soft-centred `Lavender Fields’ – there’s adding enough of an edge of intimacy to songs The Psychedelic Furs and Jim Irvin of Furniture Secret Affair Sat 24th Oct • £11 adv • 6pm Thurs 12th Nov • £17.50 adv enough light and magic to win the day. Album like `Lightning Strike’ and the tender `Where in the mid-1980s - a melodic baritone that we too Fri 9th Oct • £8 adv • 6pm Guns 2 Roses seldom see in this day and age of squeaky voiced The Fratellis Sat 5th Dec • £12 adv • 6pm opener `Something To Believe In’ condenses Snowbirds Have Flown’ to make A Silent Film It’s All About The The Doors Alive everything the band are about – a big, open and appealing human as well as grandiose and chancers and wannabe Kentuckians. Music: Sat 24th Oct • SOLD OUT • 7pm Fri 13th Nov • £16.50 adv • 6.30pm + Spank The Monkey clear sound, all gated drums, handclaps and sky- ambitious. If there were any doubt that this group’s The Aureate Act + White Beam Switch Presents: Y & T searching guitars that points as much towards antecedents lie in that oft-maligned decade, they + Lucy Leave + 31 Hours + Lewis Skepta Back when they first started out, playing at The Scott + The Haze Sun 6th Dec • £28.50 adv Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel’s 1980s output Wheatsheaf back in 2007, A Silent Film always are abolished by the title of Track 2, ‘Bauhaus Fri 13th Nov • £12.50 adv • 6.30pm Happy Mondays Table’. Alice Ream’s backing vocals are now Mon 26th Oct • £12.50 adv Striking Matches as any of the bands they’re more commonly looked and sounded like they were destined to Sat 10th Oct • £22.50 adv 25th Anniversary Tour more up front, via some duetting and a soaring Darwin Deez compared to, while Robert Stevenson’s voice perform in bigger, grander settings and so it’s Big Country - + Peluché Sat 14th Nov • £8.50 adv • 6pm continues to hit that sweet spot between come to pass. This isn’t music to break down chorus while a change of pace mid tune is Best Of Tour Saedly Dorus and the Mon 7th Dec • £15 adv Ultravox’s Midge Ure and rock’n’roll crooner musical barriers or start riots, but it is music to representative of an invention that is ever present Wed 28th Oct • £12.50 adv Hoolie Band Orange Goblin par excellence Roy Orbison. These really are sell by the tanker load and fully deserves to. throughout the record. Produced by Henry Sat 10th Oct • £10 adv • 6pm Spector songs for the big stage – from the lighters-aloft Dale Kattack Dartnall of the Young Knives, the whole thing Knotslip Mon 16th Nov • £12.50 adv • Sat 12th Dec • £12.50 adv • is expertly put together and Graeme Murray Thurs 29th Oct • £18 adv Albert Hammond, Jr. 6.30pm displays unsurprising creativity via the drum kit; Mon 12th Oct • £15.50 adv The Cribs UK Foo Fighters simultaneously diverse and coherent as well as his involvement with drumming collective ODC Metric Fri 20th Nov • £10 adv • 11pm Fri 30th Oct • £12 adv • 11pm Switch Presents: Sat 19th Dec • £25 adv • 6.30pm solidly inventive. Drumline making him ideal for the task in hand. Tues 13th Oct • £15 adv Switch Ft. DJ EZ Wilkinson The Darkness More recently the band’s live shows have seen From the dark mood of the music, one Kwabs & Bugzy Malone + These Raven Skies Andy Hill and Dan Clear recruit singer Lucy imagines Kone sporting Andrew Eldritch Fri 20th Nov • £22.50 adv • 6.30pm Cropper as full-time singer, shifting their sound Fri 30th Oct • £22.50 adv • 6pm or Wayne Hussey style barnets - but this is 2015 Wed 14th Oct • £17.00 adv Scouting For Girls Sat 9th Jan • £13 adv • 8pm towards a more soulful and trippy form of hip after all, so they probably look like nothing of R5 Killing Joke Quadrophenia Night hop as evidenced on this new single, a luxurious the kind. We’ll all find out at the Bullingdon on Sat 21st Nov • £22.50 adv • 6.30pm Sun 1st Nov • £17.50 adv and languorous wash of ambient electronics and nd Heaven 17 October 2 and you should certainly make it Thurs 15th Oct • £19.50 adv Dappy Sun 31st Jan • £18.50 adv spaced-out guitars over which Lucy dreamily Starsailor - your business to be there. Sat 21st Nov • £7 adv • 6pm FM imagines drowning and being weightless. Robert Langham Greatest Hits Tues 3rd Nov • £17.50 adv Skeletor Ft. Severance It’s a serene trip, closer to the breezier end of Blackalicious 13 Burning + Contek + Glass Thurs 11th Feb • £23.50 adv Fri 16th Oct • £12 adv • 6.30pm dream-pop and shoegaze than the steely, almost Cannon Fun Lovin’ Criminals industrial electronics of that debut album and The Smyths Tues 3rd Nov • £13.50 adv Celebrating 30 years reflects what Hill describes as “a much more Sigma Tues 24th Nov • £12.50 adv Mon 15th Feb • £12.50 adv personal journey through the eyes of one of the Saint Raymond Ezra Furman Fri 16th Oct • £10 adv •11pm Wed 4th Nov • £23.50 adv inhabitants of the earth we explored in the first Switch Presents: Paul Heaton & Jacqui Thurs 26th Nov • £19.50 adv Thurs 25th Feb • £18.50 adv album,” and which suits them well. SubSoul Ft. Chris Abbott The Wailers Stiff Little Fingers Flipside `Lazarus’, meanwhile, skitters along Lorenzo DEATH OF HI-FI on early-90s deep house beats, a far more mainstream club-friendly pop piece that lacks `Swim Away’ `Swim Away’’s dreamlike quality, and while o2academyoxford.co.uk (ShakaBuku) Cropper is a strong presence, both on record 190 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1UE • Doors 7pm unless stated At the end of 2012 Witney duo Death Of Hi- and onstage, we hope the new album retains Venue box offi ce opening hours: Mon-Sat 12pm-4pm Fi released `Anthropocene’, which Nightshift the willingness to explore new styles and fit ticketweb.co.uk • wegottickets.com • seetickets.com • gigantic.com declared as the best hip hop album to come the right singer to the right song that made out of Oxfordshire; its sci-fi linked tracks `Anthropocene’ such a winner. and impressive cast of guest MCs made it Dale Kattack Sponsored by RELEASED Adam Barnes OLD GHOSTS ‘One Day We’ll Be Fine’ `Trapped In A Memory’ (Wild Native Records) (Blindsight) As Father John Misty has already so eloquently A frequent demo of the month candidate over and sincerely proven this year, there continues the years, erstwhile Xmas Lights synth wizard, to exist a sizeable audience for artists who revel producer, and for all we know, astronaut, Umair in overblown sentimentality. Melancholy is Chaudhry has been slowly but very surely far from a dirty word, and maintains its pride carving out a body of work over the last few of place in the arsenal of most serious singer- years under assorted guises that would make songwriters. Such an aesthetic however often most bands weep (in the best way possible). either relies on a notion of wit, as exhibited Chaudhry’s output has rarely been anything other by the aforementioned FJM on his excellent than staggering, whether he’s shuddering the second album, or the sort of emotional barrage earth with electro-tinted metal, or dabbling with that the likes of Damien Rice have built dub. To say that the majority of his projects are a careers on. Adam Barnes’ new EP ‘One Day little bleak is an understatement, but never let it We’ll Be Fine’, the follow up to last year’s be said the he’s not open to experimentation. excellent debut album `The Land, The Sea ALPHABET The name Old Ghosts suggests there’s more and Everything Lost Beneath’, sadly excels of the dark side in store, but `Trapped In at neither, a combination of damp lyrics and BACKWARDS Memory’ is in fact perhaps the most delicate overtly tender vocal performances, resulting in `A Book About Foxes’ and charming music that Chaudhry has released a bitterly frustrating aftertaste. to date. Built from tracks of looped guitar these That’s not to try and call out Barnes on all (Self released) twelve songs are all about nuance and repetition. Alphabet Backwards have never seemed the fronts. The guy has an ear for a melody, and Opening track `Double Blind’ is perhaps the most desperately hard-working band; `A Book boasts the sort of vocals which were made most unsettling track here as its central motif About Foxes’ might be their second EP release for a John Lewis Christmas ad. The issue lies sounds as if it’s been plucked from an early of 2015 but you have to go back to 2012 for in just how clumsy ‘One Day We’ll Be Fine’ John Carpenter movie, while the atmospherics their last outing before that, suggesting they’re is handled; from the painful, introspective layered on top merely ratchet up the tension and comfortable with taking time out from the posturing of opener ‘Darling’ (“‘Cause I’m suspense. pursuit of pop glory. The blurb for this three- just waiting patiently, darling/And I’m just So far so bleak then, but most of the album tracker suggests that they’re upping their game, singing at the trees, and the starlings”) to the draws away from creepy exposition and settles with an aim to release three EPs within this aimlessness of closer ‘Tennyson’, Barnes seems into a more chilled-out and relaxed groove. year, so it looks like they’re more or less on intent on, rather than making any real attempt `Hoping Against All Hope’ is beautifully delicate track. at touching your heart, ramming his message and hazy, icy delayed guitar tendrils sitting on Despite their time away, a surprising musical down the back of your throat. ‘I Can’t Love You top of swells that provide an emotional aching redirection this EP is not; Alphabet Backwards Anymore’ makes the most decisive attempt at throb. were, are, and may always be comfortably including direction, a true emotional exorcism There’s a shoegaze element to proceedings due bracketed as ‘classic indie-pop’. ‘Trips’, and singing the same sort of tune as his to the lashings of delay and reverb on show, but ‘Second Hand Smoke’ and ‘Chris de Burgh’ northern peer, John Joseph Brill. The latter half as the album progresses, standing up to inspect (the latter featuring the EP’s titular ‘book about of ‘My First Car’ similarly threatens something your own laces seems like too much of chore. foxes’) are a somewhat cute, definitely heartfelt, more, though these are moments to treasure. Rather than drawing inspiration from the likes slyly cheeky set of tunes, based around happy- For something which is meant to be joyous and of My Bloody Valentine, Old Ghosts is more in skippy melodies and intertwining male/female insightful, ‘One Day We’ll Be Fine’ makes for keeping with the likes of William Basinski or vocals. ‘Trips’ gets its rhythmic groove on; a disappointing, and at times uncomfortable, The Haxan Cloak (although there are times when ‘Second Hand Smoke’ is straightforward and experience. the washes of early Flying Saucer Attack are cleanly defined; ‘Chris de Burgh’ is the sad Ben Lynch evoked). These are songs for quiet contemplation one, with sparse piano and heavy emotion. and introspective adventure and thankfully the Lyrically, the songs deal with different aspects shimmering guitars on the likes of `Quicksand’ of relationships: either they’re going well, or don’t make for a terrifying soundtrack this time. they’re not, or they’re being remembered, or Sam Shepherd wished for. Musically, they form a neat trio of loveliness; certainly not a sonic challenge or a deep musical exploration, but I’d be very surprised if that’s what Alphabet Backwards were after, and why should they be when they’re so good at their brand of simple, straightforward song. Two more months, then, to drop a third EP into the world and, hopefully, signify the start of a more regular couple of years’ worth of releases for a band that are pleasantly and singularly getting on with their thing, and one who know surely that while their particular brand of pop doesn’t change too much, it’s timeless enough not to have to. Simon Minter signature firmly on everything he touches without blood. Support comes from fellow Australian Tara ever over-indulging his bountiful talent. Nothing Pattenden in her Phantom Chips guise, with her Marr does will ever eclipse what he achieved analogue electronic noise performance. “Tara has with The Smiths but pretty much everything he’s been making noise and mess for over 15 years,” it involved with is worth hearing, always expressing says here. Go, girl. the inexpressible through his guitar playing. PERSPEX FLESH + GIRL POWER + CPR: RAGLANS: O2 Academy – Laddish, anthemic The Library – Free Smash Disco gig with hard- GIG GUIDE rocking from the Dublin rockers, touring their as-fuck hardcore crew Perspex Flesh out of Leeds, eponymous debut album following tour supports to with support from local hardcore behemoths Girl The Strypes, The Libertines and HAIM. Power and classic street punkers CPR. st tonight’s gig brings back three KK regulars – ska, th THURSDAY 1 THE JAPANESE HOUSE: The Bullingdon – ASTEROX + PAUL ANDREWS & ADY + Sunday 11 reggae, garage and punk crew Fuzzy Logic Baby; BALLOON ASCENTS + SAM DUCKWORTH Ambient electro and heavily-treated vocals from FIREGAZERS + THE JESTERS + PUPPET psychedelic electro-rockers Flights of Helios + LAURA MOODY + COUNT DRACHMA: OCTOBER Amber Bain’s The Japanese House, whose `Pools MECHANIC: The Wheatsheaf (2.30pm) – THE BOHICAS: and uptight post-hardcore people These Are Our Worcester College Chapel – Daisy Rodgers To Bathe In’ single earlier in the year was released Free afternoon of unplugged music from Klub Demands. Happy birthday Klub Kakofanney. Music host their annual Oxjam in-the-round show, experimental cellist Laura Moody and Zulu folk on diverse indie label Dirty Hit, and produced by Kakofanney. The Bullingdon CONCEPT: The Cellar – Drum&bass club night A bit like cheap red wine, Essex quartet tonight in the spectacular environs of Worcester ensemble Count Drachma. labelmates 1975. THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf – DISCO MUTANTES: The Library – Disco, funk, The Bohicas aren’t really about depth and College Chapel, with all of the acts performing JUSTICE YELDHAM + PHANTOM CHIPS: th acid house and afrobeat club night. MONDAY 5 sophistication, more about the thrill of that acoustic in the centre of the audience. Rising indie Free unplugged gig in the Sheaf’s downstairs bar The Jericho Tavern – Rather more conservative KATIE BRADLEY & BLACK MARKET III: initial boozy buzz, their big, broad brushstroke starlets Balloon Ascent are joined by Get Cape, from the local swamp-blues, ska and psych/funk parents might try and steer their offspring away Wear Cape, Fly’s Sam Duckworth, inventive, stalwarts. SATURDAY 3rd The Bullingdon – The Haven Club hosts one of songs short, sharp swigs direct from the bottle. from joining a rock and roll band, but no parent the young rising stars of the UK blues scene in DECOVO + BLOOD RED STARS + THE THE PRETTY THINGS: The Bullingdon – 60s They’re no strangers to Oxford audiences, worth their salt would encourage their kids to get Katie Bradley and her band. The singer has recently rd ILLUMINATI: The Jericho Tavern – It’s All cult r’n’b pioneers come to claim their overdue having supported Drenge at the O2 last year Saturday 3 up onstage and do what Sydney’s Justice Yeldman been nominated for a brace of awards at the UK About the Music local bands showcase. glory – see main preview and played a heroic set at this summer’s Truck does – playing a shard of broken glass with his face. Blues Awards for singer and songwriter, while CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community FROM THE JAM: O2 Academy – Bruce Foxton in the face of PA failure. Leather clad and THE PRETTY That’s right, he plays a shard of broken glass. With Dudley Ross from her band is up for best guitarist. Centre – Oxford’s oldest and best open club, heroically keeps the old hits going, alongside singer unashamed to rock, they’re all bluesy garage his face. And several effects pedals. And it sounds Additionally she’s been picked as one of four acts showcasing local singers, musicians, poets, Russell Hastings. riffs, snarly, loquacious lyrics and classic 60s THINGS: rather splendidly like hell on earth. Don’t try this for this year’s UK Blues Challenge. All this on the storytellers, performance artists and more every PRIMITAI + FURY + K-LACURA: The Cellar – pop harmonies, which add up to an instant at home, and don’t try to sing along. There will be back of the acclaim afforded her debut album `She’s The Bullingdon week. Classic NWOBHM and 80s thrash from Berkshire’s hit somewhere between The Strokes, The Ready’, revealing a smoky, soulful blues voice as There are many contenders of course, not least OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Primitai at tonight’s OxRox show, the band out on Libertines, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and well as an ability to rock out at times. The Dandy Warhols. In `Where You At’ and Oxford’s very own Candyskins, but The Pretty ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure tour to promote their third album, having previously Friday 9th Things are up there as one of British rock supported Saxon, Grand Magus and more. Support `XXX’ they’ve got radio-friendly hits, though music’s great hard luck stories. In a parallel nd from Worcester’s thrash and speed metallers Fury TUESDAY 6th it’s really live where they work best – the FRIDAY 2 SAUNA YOUTH / darker, hotter and more intimate the venue universe they are as big as The Rolling Stones LIU BEI + KONE: The Bullingdon – Fragile, and local thrashcore behemoths K-Lacura. BLAKES 7: The Bullingdon – Funky jazz from the better. In the words of singer Dominic and The Who, instead of a cult concern whose broken-hearted dream-pop from Richard Walters’ SWITCH with UKF featuring SUB FOCUS: O2 the intergalactic freedom fighters at the Bully’s MUTES / POLEDO McGuinness, “You’ve heard it all before but legacy is still hugely under-appreciated. For Liu Bei band, tonight launching their new single, Academy – EDM giants UKF present London’s weekly jazz club. baby we’re just to die for,” which kind of sums starters founding guitarist Dick Taylor was the `Mind Over Matter’, on Famous Friends – the label Sub Focus at tonight’s Switch club, London’s Nick / TELEGRAPHER: OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street Tavern them up to a tee. So drink fast, dance hard and Stones’ original bass player, having formed set up by Spring Offensive – with musical nods to Douwma having made his name as a jungle and SARAH HUGHES – COLLAPSED POINTS we’ll worry if it all means anything tomorrow. Little Boy Blue with Jagger and Richards in Slowdive, Cocteau Twins and Eliot Smith. Also drum&bass producer on RAM Records, remixing Modern Art Oxford FOR LIVING IN: Old Fire Station – The sonic the early 60s, but he quit to go to art school, launching their new single are Kone, dark-hearted The Prodigy and touring with Pendulum before Very short, very sharp and very much to the artist talks about visual arts, music, writing and replaced by Billy Wyman. He formed The art-rockers, reigniting the classic post-punk sounds heading into a more eclectic terrain, mixing house point tends to be the rule of thumb for your politics. Pretty Things with singer Phil May in 1963 and of The Chameleons and Psychedelic Furs. and dubstep into his D&B records and live sets. average Sauna Youth song, although there’s SUPERMARKET: The Cellar – Weekly student CULTURE CLASH: The Cellar – Club night originally they enjoyed some decent success HAWKWIND: O2 Academy – Dave Brock brings THE JOHN OTWAY BIG BAND + BEARD OF nothing average about the London quartet club night playing pop, disco, garage and 90s house. hosted by uni paper Isis. – a Top 10 hit with single `Don’t Bring Me his enduring (and highly influential) space rock DESTINY: The Wheatsheaf – The clown prince whose knowing moniker detracts from LEPER KING + SILO 18 + BEAVER Down’ and their debut album – but even while warriors back to town for the first time since 2010. of pop returns to town with his maniacal stage show influences that range from Wire through DC th FUEL: The Bell, Bicester – Stoner-blues and they played r’n’b harder and dirtier than The hardcore to Blur, often within the realms of a WEDNESDAY 7 heavy rocking from Leper King at tonight’s While Hawkwind have survived forty five years and cult favourites like `Really Free’, `Beware of BY THE RIVERS: The Bullingdon – Pop- Stones, wore their hair longer and drank more, ninety-second burst of sonic thrills. They’re Strummerroom show, plus indie noise and punk and over fifty members, Brock remains at the heart the Flowers’ and `Bunsen Burner’. friendly reggae, dub and ska from Leicester’s rising they couldn’t keep up and enjoyed diminishing simple but arty, fierce but fiercely intelligent mischief from Beaver Fuel. of the band as they continue to explore the outer CND CONCERT FOR PEACE: Friends roots stars, touring their eponymous debut album returns with each release, eventually being and for all that they’re almost The Adverts’ CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community reaches of psychedelia with regular new albums. Meeting House, St Giles – CND benefit with having supported The Specials on tour, their soulful dropped by their label. A move into acid rock One Chord Wonders incarnate at times, they Centre In his journey he’s joined by long-term drummer legendary folk singer Peggy Seeger joined by Robb take on reggae as close to 90s chart stars Chaka and psychedelia matched early Pink Floyd document modern London living and the OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Richard Chadwick and on-off keyboard player Johnson and Nick Gill. Demus and Pliers as it is to Brit reggae legends like but was overlooked, while their rock opera overbearing mundanity of life with the skill ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure Tim Blake, who’s also served time in fellow space JIM MORAY + SAID THE MAIDEN: Tiddy Steel Pulse. `SF Sorrow’ was a direct influence on Pete of sonic surgeons. Despite existing in several travellers Gong. The elaborate stage show is still Hall, Ascott-under-Wychwood – Classic English BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: The Cellar – Townsend for `Tommy’ but no-one noticed. Led different bands simultaneously – including their th there too – lights, projections, dancers and circus folk music from Bristolian singer Jim Moray 80s alternative faves, new wave, disco, synth-pop FRIDAY 9 Zep cited them as a major influence and Bowie obstinately dirgy Monotony incarnation and the acts and all. Hopefully plenty of classic ‘Wind at tonight’s Wychwood Folk Club, Moray now and glam club night. TREETOP FLYERS: The Bullingdon covered them twice on his `Pin Ups’ album but excellent Cold Pumas – they’re pretty prolific, songs to distort the sense too. considered a prime mover in the current wave of COSMOSIS + PIPA MORAN: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Alternately emotive acoustic folk and all- they fell apart, various members going on to their recent second album, `Distractions’ THE ENGLISH BEAT feat DAVE WAKELING: homegrown folk revivalists on the back of three – Heavyweight bluesy rocking from Cosmosis at out country rocking from London’s delicate succumb to illness or overdose. May and Taylor following on from myriad singles and side O2 Academy – Dave Wakeling brings his acclaimed trad albums, including BBC Folk Awards tonight’s Strummer Room show. 60s-flavoured indie folk and Americana crew, back have sporadically reformed over the years and incarnation of the Birmingham hitmakers back Album of the Year winner `Sweet England’. project releases and shows, and tonight they in town after headlining this year’s WOOD Festival. overdue legacy awards have followed, while NAMELESS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Classic rock head up One Note Forever’s third leg of their town following on from Rankin’ Roger’s version th SAUNA YOUTH + POLEDO + MUTES + they continue to record new records. But if of the band here last year, revisiting classic hits like covers. Modern Art Oxford residency. They’re cleverer THURSDAY 8 TELEGRAPHER: Modern Art Oxford – Garage BOY JUMPS SHIP: The Bullingdon – Post- major league success has strenuously avoided Smokey Robinson’s `Tears Of A Clown’, `Hands HAWAIIAN TEA DANCE: St Giles Church Hall than they appear on first listen, but still great rocking riffs and art-punk cool from London’s hardcore/emo rocking from the Newcastle outfit. them, it means you get to see the band in their Off… She’s Mine’, `Mirror In The Bathroom’ and (6pm) – Live music from Honolulu Cowboys at the dumbass fun. The crazy punk fun is aided and Sauna Youth at tonight’s One Note Forever show – CRYSTALLITE + FLEKSI + AMORAL natural environment – a dark pub backroom. `Too Nice To Talk To’. traditional Hawaiian dance. abetted by a great supporting cast that includes see main preview COMPASS + KHAMSINA: The Jericho Tavern Perfect then to enjoy a band who deserved so BLAKE REMIXED: The North Wall, THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Swan, Wantage Birmingham’s atmospheric lo-fi crew Mutes, THE AUREATE ACT + WHITE BEAM + – It’s All About the Music local bands showcase. much more. Summertown – Ambitious hip hop show with EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar – Garage grungy/slacker/post-hardcore tigers Poledo and LUCY LEAVE + 31HOURS + LEWIS SCOTT THE DREAMING SPIRES + GREAT world record holding beatboxer and rapper club night in conjunction with What You Call It, local abstract noise duo Telegrapher. + THE HAZE: O2 Academy – It’s All About WESTERN TEARS: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Double Testament teaming up with Scratch DJ world Garage? the Music local bands showcase at the O2 tonight bill of Oxford alt.country with local Americana champion DJ Woody to mix hip hop with the poetry with progsters on the rise The Aureate Act taking godfathers The Dreaming Spires mixing rootsy of William Blake, incorporating live DJ-ing and th an idiosyncratic and sometime convoluted journey SUNDAY 4 Laurel Canyon folk with classic 60s pop and interactive video. through the worlds of Radiohead, Genesis and Van JOHNNY MARR: O2 Academy – The Smiths the odd rocking nod to The Who. Support from KLUB KAKOFANNEY with FUZZY LOGIC der Graaf Generator, marking them out as ones legend (and yes, legend is the right word in Mr Swindlestock side project Great Western Tears BABY + FLIGHTS OF HELIOS + THESE to watch on the local scene. They’re joined by Marr’s case), returns to Oxford, fronting his own with their lonesome, folksy take on classic acoustic ARE OUR DEMANDS: The Wheatsheaf – Klub band after so many years playing the part of the anthemic, dark-edged indie rockers White Beam, th Americana. Kak reach their 24 birthday, continuing to fly the alternately hypnotic and shambolic psych-rockers vital creative cog in so many bands – from The THE PETE FRYER BAND: The Wheatsheaf – flag for truly independent gig promoting with the Lucy Leave, indie rockers 31Hours and bluesy pop Smiths, through The The and Electronic, to Modest Free gig in the downstairs bar from the local blues- fickle tides of fashion failing to make a dent in their crew The Haze. Mouse and The Cribs, the most un-rock god- rock veteran. world. Kicking off two weekends of celebration like rock god probably of all time, stamping his BOSSAPHONIK: The Cellar – The monthly jazz collaborate with Bat For Lashes, Philip Selway and Joy and Bookhouse. RAINBOW RESERVOIR + THE BECKONING dance-pop outfit Balkan Wanderers and more. Penguin Café Orchestra along the way. OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street Tavern FAIR ONES + THE HAZE + LUCY LEAVES + BALLOON ASCENTS + KANCHO + BREEZE FRET! + WORKING MAN NOISE UNIT WHO’S ALICE?: Fusion Arts – Oxjam gig with + MASIRO + BRIGHT WORKS + ORANGE + MOUNTAIN OF FIRE & MIRACLES + WEDNESDAY 14th rising local progsters The Aureate Act alongside VISION: The Library – Oxjam show with electro- folk-pop crew Water Pageant, ebullient pop-punkers TELEGRAPHER: The Wheatsheaf – Burn the R5: O2 Academy – You know the final scene in folk-indie-dub starlets Balloon Ascent, spindly Rainbow Reservoir, indie rockers The Haze and Jukebox bring another top-drawer evening of lo-fi The Wicker Man when the residents of Summerisle hardcore tigers Kancho, math-core monsters psych-rock types Lucy Leave. thrills, from Newcastle’s dark, post-punk, post- lead Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie up to Masiro, afro-pop chaps Bright Works and melodic TIGER MENDOZA + DEATH OF HI-FI + KID rock and rockabilly noisemakers Fret!, through the eponymous place of his soon-to-be extremely post-punk fellas Orange Vision. KIN + AFTER THE THOUGHT + SCARLET Reading’s spiky old-school hardcore crew Working painful-death? And he’s struggling and screaming OXJAM AFTER PARTY: Big Society – Oxjam’s BAXTER + NADINE CARINA + ESTHER JOY Man Noise Unit, to local abstract instrument “Oh God, no! Oh God, think what you’re doing!” late, late show with local DJs into the wee small LANE: Cape of Good Hope – Oxjam with an manglers Telepgrapher. Yeah, well that’s exactly what Nightshift felt like hours. electronic edge at The Cape, with industrial hip hop th Tuesday 13th GENGAHR: The Bullingdon – Gently frazzled when we saw the video for R5’s `All Night’. We GENTLEMAN’S DUB CLUB: The Bullingdon Wednesday 28 and synth soundtrack noise from Tiger Mendoza, pastoral psych-pop – with the emphasis on the tried to run, but vast invisible satanic hands forced – Leeds’ livewire nine-strong roots, ska and dub trippy, soulful hip hop from Death of Hi-Fi, post- KWABS: O2 Academy pop – from London’s Gengahr, out on tour to us to watch. To listen. To endure the pain and soul- reggae collective bring the party back to the O2 for SPECTOR: rock soundscaping from Kid Kin, electro r’n’b from Possessed of a powerful, booming baritone promote debut album `A Dream Outside’, drawing scraping horror of it. And now we wake in the night their first local show since 2011, the band having Esther Joy Lane and synthy sounds and shapes from and regularly compared to Seal, south London comparisons to MGMT, Unknown Mortal Orchestra with the tune going round and round in our head, spent the summer playing at just about every O2 Academy techno experimenter After the Thought. There’s a song on Spector’s new album – the singer Kwabena Sarkodee Adjepong has, and Tame Impala. along with the toothy, wholesome Mickey Mouse European festival going, and having previously FAMILY MACHINE + SALVATION somewhat overdue `Moth Boys’ – called alongside the likes of Jacob Banks and Azekel, SCUBA: The Bullingdon – Club night set from Club faces of Ross and Riker and Rocky and Rydel played alongside Madness, Roots Manuva, The BILL + LITTLE BROTHER ELI + LOUD `All The Sad Young Men’. Of course there helped spearhead a small but significant wave the renowned electronic music contrarian whose grinning and gurning at us like demonic imps from Streets and The Wailers. MOUNTAINS + DUOTONE + JESS HALL + is; its title echoes Joy Division’s “Here are of synth’n’b, if you can even start to forgive long career has seen him move through garage the netherworld. We cannot unsee or unhear these CHRIS GOLDFINGER & THE FULL ASHER THE BALKAN WANDERERS + FREADA + the young men” lyric, and the weight of that clumsy term. Having become lead singer and dubstep, into bass-heavy techno and abstract things, dear reader. We can only warn you. Do not WORLD CREW: O2 Academy – And after a EBSMAKESMUSIC + ROBERTO Y JUAN: that band’s influence is very much on their with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra aged electronica as well as deep house. look. Do not listen. Do not… oh what’s the point, night skanking to GDC, what better way to spend James St Tavern – Oxjam show with recent shoulders with their chrome-plated 80s-styled just 14, Kwabs was mentored by Goldie as BIG COUNTRY + PEERLESS PIRATES: you’re already looking them up on Youtube aren’t the rest of the night that doing the same to former- Nightshift covers stars Family Machine, plus darkly electro-indie. Emerging back in 2012 they’re a part of his BBC By Royal Appointment series O2 Academy – The Scottish rockers return to you? Well don’t come crying to us when your brain Radio 1 and 1Xtra DJ Chris Goldfinger with his humorous songsmith Salvation Bill, earthy blues- band who suffered from the hype surrounding before landing himself a record deal. Since town, guitarist Bruce Watson and drummer Mark turns to soup and drips down your throat into your roots and dancehall soundsystem. rockers Little Brother Eli, alt.country types Loud them, which was only partially of their own then the likes of Laura Mvula, Joss Stone and Brzezicki keeping the old hits alive long after the lungs. The zombie apocalypse is here and it’s not CIRCA WAVES: O2 Academy – Liverpool’s Mountains, cello’n’loops maestro Duotone, soulful making – singer Fred McPherson proclaiming Emilie Sande have sung his praises, while tragic death of singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson what The Walking Dead lead us to expect. lightweight guitar pop newcomers head off on seashore songstress Jess Hall, eastern European their grand ambitions, while making arch, plenty of producers have lined up to work with in 2001, The Alarm’s Mike Peter’s now replaced by FRIGG: The Cornerstone, Didcot – Celtic and a headline tour to promote debut album `Young self-mocking statements along the way. A him. Chief of these is fellow Londoner – by Simon Hough on vocals. Nordic folk and bluegrass from Finnish fiddle septet Chasers’ after previously supporting The Libertines th major label deal after making it into the Sound way of Vienna – Sohn, whose sterile electronic KNOTSLIP: O2 Academy – Slipknot tribute. Frigg. Question is, will they play `Frigging in the Saturday 17 and 1975 on tour. of 2012 list failed to earn them any hits, production, inspired by The Human League as Might even be the real thing – who can tell under Rigging’ by The Sex Pistols? DESERT STORM + SILK ROAD + DEAD A while a swift backlash saw them mocked as much as anyone, stands at sometimes striking those masks? RAVENS + THE SHADES: Fat Lil’s, Witney – TRIAXIS / THE KING THOUSAND TIMES + IGNITE THE SKY + The New Menswear. All a bit unfair really odds with Kwabs’ brand of rootsy confessional KNIGHTS OF MENTIS + SIMON STANLEY Strummer Room show. RAISED BY HYPOCRITES: O2 Academy – for a band who often sound like they should blues with their heavy influence of gospel and WARD: The Cellar – Bluegrass and Americana SUPERMARKET: The Cellar LOT / TOADSTOOL Skeletor gig night with Oxford’s favourite metal be filling stadiums in the same way kindred Negro spirituals. He enjoyed an international from the local ensemble. Support from country sons Desert Storm continuing their rise to total spirits Killers did, and who can deliver sharp, hit with `Walk’ and a sold-out headline show singer Simon Stanley Ward. / MAN MAKE FIRE: world domination by riffage, mixing serious th witty lyrics in wonderfully solemn tones. The at Somerset House in the summer as well an EXTRACURRICULAR: The Cellar – House, THURSDAY 15 stoner grooves with a raw blues-rock edge. A local PALACE: The Bullingdon – Grandiose and The Cellar new album will doubtless prove the making appearance with Disclosure at Radio 1’s 20 bass and techno club night with Turf. supporting cast includes new young heavy rockers melancholic alt.pop with a soulful edge in the vein While the focus on new sounds in metal seems or breaking of them, but many far inferior Years in Ibiza celebrations. Now he’s out on THE STANDARD: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Party rock Silk Road, death/grind nasties Ignite the Sky and of My Morning Jacket from north London’s Palace, to lean towards metalcore, doom and tech, bands have achieved much greater commercial a short six-date UK tour to go alongside the and pop covers. Witney metallers Raised By Hypocrites. touring their new `Chase the Light’ EP. there are still a few old-school bands keeping success, so we’ll hope for the best for a band release of his debut album `Love & War’ with PETE FRYER BAND: New Club, Wheatley TRIAXIS + THE KING LOT + TOADSTOOL WILL & THE PEOPLE: The Cellar – London’s things fresh as well as heavy. South Wales’ who easily deserve a second chance. big time success fully in his sights. DRIVIN’ SIDEWAYS: The Red Lion, Eynsham + MAN MAKE FIRE: The Cellar – Imperious reggae, ska and soul-infused rockers. Triaxis for instance, a band who’ve spent the power-thrash from South Wales’ metallers on the STARSAILOR: O2 Academy – S’funny innit, you last nine years touring whichever small town dance club night celebrates its eleventh birthday th rise – see main preview SUNDAY 11 wait a whole decade for a Starsailor gig in Oxford venue will have them, earning themselves rock, blues and prog in the vein of Wishbone Ash, with its trademark mix of dancefloor Latin, CRUSHED BEAKS: The Jericho Tavern – THE BOHICAS: The Bullingdon – New garage then two come along in the space of a year. Only slots at Hammerfest and Bloodstock in the Gary Moore and Genesis from The Mentulls at afrobeat, Balkan beats, world grooves and nu-jazz, Joyously exuberant indie of the old school from rocking pups on the block take the blues off on a kidding, we haven’t been waiting at all. process. They are what is sadly still a rare thing tonight’s Haven Club, the band having played with live sets from Congo Dia Ntotila, playing London’s really rather magnificent Crushed Beaks, pop trip – see main preview MAD LARRY + ADY DAVEY & SHAKIN’ in metal circles – a mixed gender act, but in alongside Focus, Walter Trout and Bad Company Congolese rumba, Cameroonian makosa, zouk finally starting to get some serious attention off LIPS + PURPLE MAY: The Wheatsheaf – Free singer Krissie (no surnames here) they have amongst others. and sakade, plus brass and drums quintet Dakhla, the back of tumbling, carefree noise-pop single MONDAY 12th gig in the downstairs bar, with classic r’n’b from one of the most powerful voices on the metal PROTOJE & THE INDIGGNATION: O2 mixing up influences from Afro-jazz, Balkan brass `Feelers’, off their debut album, `Scatter’, mixing ERJA LYYTINEN: The Bullingdon – Return to Mad Larry. underground, an imperious presence who’s Academy – Conscious reggae and dancehall from and New Orleans jazz. the melodic jangle of bands like House of Love the Bully for Finnish guitarist Erja who has earned CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community Centre found herself compared to Ronnie James Dio reggae revival star Protoje, already a major star in STORYTELLER + MOGMATIC + PAPA NUI: with Sonic Youth’s giddy noise rush. herself an enviable reputation as a rising blues star OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon more than any female antecedent. Musically his native Jamaica, the son of singer Lorna Bennet The Wheatsheaf – Funky rock and reggae from EXTRA CURRICULAR: The Cellar – With Ill in her native country as well as working with British ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure the band’s epic, bordering on symphonic blend and Calypso king Lord Have Mercy, the young Storyteller, plus bluesy rocking from Mogmatic. Phill, Merman and Mosteph. blues stars like Ian Parker and Aynsley Lister. of NWOBHM and 80s thrash comes with natty dread out on tour to promote third album WHOLE LOTTA DC: Fat Lil’s, Witney – AC/ OXJAM WITNEY: Rapture / The Blue Boar METRIC: O2 Academy – Toronto’s shiny happy th hooks as big as heaven and towering choruses, / Fat Lil’s, Witney (midday-1am) – The Witney `Ancient Future’, which features a collaboration DC tribute. FRIDAY 16 reminiscent of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest with fellow revival star Chronixx. pop people return to town to promote new album THE OXFORD BEATLES: The Cellar – Balkan leg of Oxjam brings 13 hours of live music and THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Black Swan and Megadeth, and as they reach their third WHISKEYDICK: The Library – Return to `Pagans In Vegas’ – their sixth – still a band best folk Beatles tribute. DJs to the town, starting off at Rapture with album, `Zero Hours’, funded by a Pledgemusic town for heavily bearded Texan country/metal enjoyed live for their mix of wholesome cheerleader THE SMYTHS: O2 Academy – The Smiths James Morgan, Muddy Johnson, Shuk and Alex th campaign that reached its target in just nine duo Whiskeydick, mixing outlaw country and SATURDAY 10 pep and zeal, with rough edges inspired by Sonic tribute band return to town, celebrating the thirtieth Castle, before moving over to the Blue Boar in the DONNINGTON COMMUNITY FESTIVAL: hours, they’re a band who just keep getting serious rock riffage into an unusual whole that’s Youth and riot grrl and shinier Goldfrapp-style anniversary of `Meat Is Murder’, which makes afternoon with sets from Death of Hi-Fi, Family Donnington Community Centre (2-10pm) – The better as well as heavier. Support for tonight’s like a cross between Pantera and David Allan Coe. electro parts, singer Emily Haines, a beautiful, Nightshift feel decidedly old. Machine and Wednesday’s Wolves, and then onto Donnington music session’s third annual all-day OxRox show comes from Scottish rockers Acoustic they may be but they’ve supported Honky, intense and charismatic fizzing dynamo of BEL ESPRIT + DANCE A LA PLAGE: The Fat Lil’s in the evening with Little Brother Eli, festival brings eight hours of free live music, from The King Lot, coming in somewhere between Weedeater and Nashville Pussy on tour. As they say enthusiasm, very much star of the show, one who Jericho Tavern – Indie rock from Bel Esprit, plus Balloon Ascents, Better Than Never and DJs Adrian blues, ska and folk to rock’n’roll, electronica and Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Guns’n’Roses, themselves, “we’re just a train-robbin’, gun-totin’, can make even the most strident political clarion lightweight guitar pop and boy band balladry from Randall and Cratedigga. harmony singing, with sets from The Ska Meisters, Gloucester’s classic hard rock trio Toadstool dope-smokin’, guitar-pickin’, muthafuckin’ good call sound seductive and a woman seemingly born Banbury’s Dance a la Plage. Superloose, The String Project, Beard Of Destiny, and Chipping Norton’s bluesy heavyweights time band, taking hillbilly music and spreading it to perform stadium-sized shows. WHITESNAKE UK: Fat Lil’s, Witney th Moon Leopard, STEM, Des Barkus, Mark Atherton Man Make Fire. Get yer riff on. SUNDAY 18 across the land” Yes they are. MIELZKY + TWARDY GRUNT: The And Friends, Oxford Ukuleles, The Riverside th ITCHY FEET: The Cellar – Rock’n’roll, ska, TUESDAY 13 th Voices, Phil And Sue, Richard Brotherton and Daisy SATURDAY 17 Bullingdon – Following on from Wlodi’s gig at r’n’b, swing, funk and soul club night. KWABS: O2 Academy – Rich, rootsy confessional Arthur. Plus kids activities and food. ROSIE CALDECOTT + IMMY: Joe Perks, St. the Bully last month, here’s another dose of Polish blues from the rising star of the British blues and COLLECTRESS: Quaker Meeting House, Clement’s – Acoustic music as part of this year’s rap for you, Starogard’s Mielzky, formerly part of th soul scene – see main preview TUESDAY 20 St. Giles – Oxford Contemporary Music host the Oxjam all-dayer. Ortega Cartel, now going out solo to promote his THE HUGH TURNER BAND: The Bullingdon SQUEEZE: The New Theatre – South London’s eclectic, experimental quartet, whose free-ranging, CHRIS RYDER: The Cowley Retreat – Delicate debut album. – Funky jazz from Turner and chums at the Bully’s savvy new wave hitmakers head out on tour genre-defying chamber music takes inspiration acoustic pop in the vein of Bob Dylan and Jeff free weekly jazz club. to promote new album `Cradle to the Grave’. from Philip Glass, Bach and John Adams as well Buckley from Chris Ryder as part of Oxjam. th INTRUSION: The Cellar – Monthly goth, MONDAY 19 Their fourteenth album it’s the first set of new as improvisers like The Necks, and has seen them THE AUREATE ACT + WATER PAGEANT + industrial and ebm club night, with residents Doktor THE MENTULLS: The Bullingdon – Classic songs written and recorded by Chris Difford and and Ben Harper. SATURDAY 24th Glaswegian folk, jazz and psychedelic-pop pioneer to promote their new eponymous album having th GEORGE TAYLOR: The Bullingdon CO-PILGRIM + THE SHAPES + PAUL celebrates his 50 anniversary making music with reformed in 2013 after splitting in 2008. Back ONE WING LEFT + AYANNA + MELODU McLURE: The Bullingdon – Alt.country and a retrospective compilation album, featuring classic in the mid-noughties they enjoyed three Top 20 HADEBE + LUCY MAIR: The Wheatsheaf – 60s-style West Coast folk-pop from Co-Pilgrim, hits `Mellow Yellow’ and `Sunshine Superman’ . albums and a Top 5 hit with `Boys Will Be Boys’, Bluesy rocking from One Wing Left at tonight’s It’s alongside new wave pop, country rock and r’n’b GENERATIONS: The Cellar –80s and 90s house, mixing Two Tone influences into their Jam and All About the Music showcase. from The Shapes. drum&bass, garage and dubstep club night. Clash-inspired mod-punk sound. If singer Preston’s JEREMY PINNELL + MAX FENDER +AGS I.C.O.N. + ONE MACHINE + LYCHEGATE: OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street Tavern Celebrity Big Brother romance and storming off CONNOLLY: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Classic roots The Cellar – Classic heavy rock and metal from Never Mind the Buzzcocks made the band a bit of country from Kentucky singer/songwriter Pinnell, I.C.O.N. at tonight’s OxRox show, the band having WEDNESDAY 28th a joke towards the end, their famously fanatical over in the UK to promote his `OH/KY’ album. previously played alongside Diamond Head, Blaze COLTSBLOOD + FROM THE BOGS Ordinary Army following should ensure a warm He’ll be sharing a flight over with Ohio’s Max Bayley and Warrior Sound. Support from One OF AUGHISKA + FUNERAL PACT: The and very boozy welcome. Fender, taking a solo excursion from his Alone Machine, the work of guitarist Steve Smyth from Wheatsheaf – Bleakness. Bleakness upon THE CRIBS: O2 Academy – Wakefield’s brothers band. Opening tonight’s show is organiser and local Nevermore, Forbidden, Dragonlord and more. in musical arms return to the Shire after their th bleakness upon bleakness – see main preview th Wednesday 28 Ameripolitan hero Ags Connolly, taking country PEERLESS PIRATES + THE CALLOW CATTLE & CANE: The Bullingdon – Sombre, headline set at Truck 2014, the trio managing to Friday 30 back to its earthy origins. SAINTS + THE MIGHTY REDOX + VIENNA sensitive and soulful acoustic folk-pop from the keep up their cult standing over the years against COLTSBLOOD / BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: The Cellar DITTO + CHEROKEE: The Wheatsheaf Teesside outfit. media indifference (though their popularity and KILLING JOKE: SPARKY’S JAM NIGHT: James Street Tavern – Klub Kakofanney host a second weekend of SPECTOR: O2 Academy – Chrome-plated critical acclaim was bolstered by the addition FROM THE BOGS – Open mic and jam night. music to celebrate their 24th birthday, tonight of Johnny Marr on guitar for a while). Raucous O2 Academy electro-indie from the arch hitmakers in waiting – Much like ancient civilisations regarded with regular guests Peerless Pirates, still one of indie rock with the usual laddish aggression and see main preview comets as harbingers of doom, the return OF AUGHISKA / nd the most entertaining bands in Oxford with their faux hooligan personas adding up to lager-sodden THURSDAY 22 PAUL POTTS: The New Theatre – The Britain’s to town of Killing Joke forever promises swashbuckling mix of indie rock, rockabilly and celebrations in the live arena. FUNERAL PACT: ECHOIC: The Bullingdon – Reading’s anthemic Got Talent winner continues to bring populist apocalyptic scenes. It’s 30 years since their Tex-Mex party sounds. They’re joined by Aylesbury BIG BLUES NIGHT OUT: The Cellar rockers return to town. operatic arias to the unwashed masses, with support show up at the old Polytechnic provoked rockers Callow Saints, Klub Kak’s very own THE AMERICANA SESSIONS: The The Wheatsheaf SINFICTION + SWEET PINK + FIXATION + from German diva Adele Fitler. a riot, and a sizeable proportion of their Mighty Redox and voodoo sci-fi blues duo Vienna Cornerstone, Didcot – Freewheeling barroom Nights are drawing in, it’s darker and colder MOMENTO: The Jericho Tavern – It’s All About SUPERMARKET: The Cellar famously fanatical fanbase has grown up Ditto. bluegrass and American roots. and three nights after tonight’s gig it’ll be the Music local bands showcase. and mellowed, but the band’s music is as GUNS 2 ROSES + ULTIMATE BON JOVI + CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community Centre Halloween, so let’s raise a tankard of Olde Orc MEET & JAM NIGHT: The Cellar – Open mic th ferocious as it ever was, with singer Jaz SURREAL PANTHER: O2 Academy – Triple bill THURSDAY 29 OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Blood to what might well be the bleakest gig and jam session. Coleman still playing the part of a fire and of rock tribute bands. THE ORDINARY BOYS: The Bullingdon ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure of the year in Oxford. Liverpool’s Coltsblood HELL’S GAZELLES + K-LACURA + brimstone vagrant preacher with heroic gusto. BEDROCK: The Bullingdon – Skeletor’s monthly – Sussex’s post-Britpop gang head out on tour feature former members of Conan and Black SECOND RATE ANGELS + 1000 CHAINS: Seriously, here’s a band you wouldn’t want to rock and metal night. th Magician and are as slow as their name The Bell, Bicester – OxRox gig night with classic th FRIDAY 30 get on the wrong side of. Formed in 1978 by THE MATT EDWARDS BAND + BEARD OF Friday 30 suggests they’re fast. The band’s debut album, heavy rock and metal crew Hell’s Gazelle’s kicking HOLLIS BROWN + BRUCE SUDANO: The Coleman, along with Paul Ferguson, Kevin DESTINY + DAVID TUDOR: St Leonard’s `Into The Unfathomable Abyss’, pitches in it out in an AC/DC style, plus longstanding local Bullingdon – Great double bill of Americana and `Geordie’ Walker and Martin `Youth’ Glover, Church, Banbury – Blues-rock from local guitarist HOLLIS BROWN / somewhere between Sunn0))), Neurosis and thrash faves K-Lacura, London’s Second Rate classic rock and roll courtesy of Empty Room ostensibly to create music for the end of days, and bandleader Matt Edwards at tonight’s Strummer Grief: heavy, ominous and evil. You want Angels and melodic metallers 1000 Chains. Promotions – see main preview they’ve pretty well succeeded on that count, Room show. BRUCE SUDANO: loud and slow? You got loud and slow. Back CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community KILLING JOKE: O2 Academy – Apocalyptic their eponymous debut album redefining punk THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The Catherine in town after their astonishing show here last Centre industrial punk sturm und drang from Jaz and co. – and inspiring a legion of bands, from Nirvana, Wheel, Sandford The Bullingdon year, Bogs of Aughiska’s eerie, atmospheric OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon Great double bill of Americana courtesy of see main preview Big Black and Nine Inch Nails to Rammstein, death-drone perfectly reflects the landscape ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure Empty Room Promotions tonight with New THE BLACK BULLETS + HELL’S Lamb of God and Ministry. Over almost four th of their west coast of Ireland home, lysergic SUNDAY 25 York’s Hollis Brown making their first visit to GAZELLES + CHERRY SCREAM + TRAUMA decades and sixteen albums Killing Joke have black and white footage of which (cliffs, FRIDAY 23rd RUTS DC: The Bullingdon – David Ruffy and Oxford, out on tour to promote fourth album UK: The Wheatsheaf – Heads-down, no-nonsense undergone myriad line-up changes, but with derelict churches, doomed wildlife) plays out THE CORN POTATO STRING BAND: The John Jennings keep Southall’s reggaefied punk `3 Slots’, their first to be officially released night of rocking from OxRox with Hampshire’s the sad death of bassist Paul Raven the original behind their claustrophobic music. The duo’s Bullingdon – Old time American folk balladry, rockers alive following on from the sad death of in Europe. Steeped in classic 60s and 70s ballsy sleaze rockers The Black Bullets going the line-up reconvened and have stayed together, latest album, `Roots of This Earth Within My hoedowns, country rags and southern gospel from original guitarist Paul Fox from lung cancer in rock and roll, blues, and traditional American full leather, studs and JD hog with their bluesy becoming if anything heavier and sounding Blood’ has seen them compared to Lustmord the American banjo and fiddle roots revivalists. 2007; expect classic 70s punk anthems `In A Rut’ country rock, songwriting partners Mike punk metal as they head out on tour to promote as potent as ever. If commercial success was and Darkthrone, but really, they’re out in a BALLOON ASCENTS + LITTLE BROTHER and `Babylon’s Burning’ along the way. Montali and Jon Bonilla named themselves their new `Bulletproof’ EP. Support from local old- modest and critical acclaim limited back place all of their own. Mainly because every ELI + ESTHER JOY LANE: O2 Academy – The LES CLOCHARDS + BEARD OF DESTINY after Bob Dylan’s classic `The Ballad of Hollis school rockers Hell’s Gazelles, fresh from playing in the day, their influence has grown to the other bugger is too scared to go there. Opening local rising stars launch their new single, `Don’t + MATT SEWELL & JULES + MARK Brown’ and his influence is apparent in their Bloodstock in the summer and giving it some welly point they’ve received a slew of Lifetime and tonight’s show are two-piece doom outfit Look Down’, fusing dub, electronica, folk and ATHERTON + ILLUMINATI: The Wheatsheaf music, though Neil Young, Tom Petty, The in the style of Aerosmith, AC/DC and Judas Priest. Innovation Awards and when they hit the stage Funeral pact, a new side project of Hang the blues onto their intricate alt.pop and looking likely (2.30pm) – Klub Kakofanney continue their Band and Credence Clearwater Revival all Aylesbury rockers Cherry Scream and Ramones- tonight, by God, you’ll know you’ve been hit. Bastard’s Tom Hubbard. Winter is upon us, to be Oxford’s next break-out act. They’re joined 24th birthday celebrations with a second Sunday play an equally important part, while they inspired fuzz-rockers Trauma UK complete the bill. friends, and it will last a thousand years. by excellent blues/funk rockers Little Brother Eli, afternoon of unplugged music with a host of their knock out a respectable version of The Velvet SKYLARKIN SOUNDSYSTEM: The Cellar brining the Bayou-style party in the vein of White Sunday Session regulars. Underground’s `Sweet Jane’. Joining them – Count Skylarkin hosts his monthly ska, reggae, – Another goodly mixed bag at the monthly Glen Tilbrook since 1998 and was written as the Denim, White Stripes and Red Hot Chili Peppers. MEGAN HENWOOD + ROBERTO Y JUAN: on tour is veteran songwriter Bruce Sudano, dub and soul party night, tonight joined by Dub live music club night, tonight with punk-tinged soundtrack to the televised serialisation of Danny Soulful electro-pop and r’n’b from Esther Joy Lane. Florence Park Community Centre (2-5pm) – who enjoyed hits back in the 1970s with Smugglers, best known for their Antwerp House folk-rockers Bewarethisboy, described as a cross Baker’s autobiography of the same name. Difford STORMZY: O2 Academy – Already sold out Family music session with local folk singer Megan Alive N Kicking and Brooklyn Dreams before shows as well as myriad European festival between Lindisfarne and The Clash, plus pop and Tilbrook remain one of pop great songwriting show from the MOBO-winning, Kanye-backing Henwood and Latin-flavoured acoustic pop duo concentrating his energies writing songs for appearances, tonight making their Oxford debut, experimentalist David Goo’s 150 Friends project, double acts, mixing laddish wit with kitchen sink grime MC who became the first unsigned rapper to Roberto y Juan. Dolly Parton, Jermaine and Michael Jackson kicking out a serious mix of dancehall, dub and playing an acoustic set and aiming to break romance and regret on classic hits like `Cool For appear on Later… . Inspired by Wiley and Skepta, BLUES JAM: Fat Lil’s, Witney (3pm) and his late wife Donna Summer. Late in life roots. down barriers between band and audience, and Cats’, `Pulling Mussels From the Shell’, `Take he’s lately started taking grime into more eclectic th he’s been tempted back to live performance PEERLESS PIRATES + A RELUCTANT 60s-inspired singer-songwriter Luke Keegan, Me I’m Yours’ and `Up the Junction’, heirs to The MONDAY 26 territory – soul, gospel and r’n’b – that brings him while releasing a slew of new albums, the latest ARROW: The Wig & Pen – Halloween party keeping it sunshiny in the vein of Crosby, Stills and Kinks’ throne in so many respects as well as a band BOB MALONE: The Bullingdon – The Haven closer to Frank Ocean and Lauryn Hill. of which, `The Burbank Sessions’ captures his gig with swashbuckling indie, rockabilly and Tex- Nash, America and Paul Simon. without whom The Libertines would never have Club hosts Californian singer and keyboard player SWITCH with SHADOW CHILD: O2 Academy live sound best. Mex-flavoured pop from Peerless Pirates, plus dark STEVE’N’SEAGULLS: The Bullingdon – existed. Malone with his mix of rock’n’roll, blues and – Switch hosts a set from Simon Neale’s latest alias bluesy rock and jangly folk-pop from A Reluctant Finland’s folk and bluegrass outfit bring an earthy BIG COLOURS: The Bullingdon – Big band jazz New Orleans-style r’n’b, the man having played Shadow Child. Arrow. Fancy dress competition, sweeties and a free farmyard feel to classic tracks by AC/DC, Iron at the Bully’s weekly jazz club. alongside John Fogerty for many years as well as TAULARD + THE BECKONING FAIR ONES: spooky CD for everyone who goes along. Maiden and other rock and metal giants. OPEN MIC SESSION: The James Street Tavern with The Neville Brothers, Dr John and Al Green. The Library – Free Smash Disco show with SHANG-A-LANG: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Bay City EXTRACURRICULAR HALLOWEEN WILD & NAUGHTY: The Cellar – R’n’b, pop DARWIN DEEZ: O2 Academy – The whimsical French synth-punks Taulard, plus post-punk noise Rollers tribute. PARTY: The Cellar – Halloween-themed house, and hip hop club night. New York post-grunge popster returns to Oxford from The Beckoning Fair Ones, formed from the following his showing at Truck in July, out on tour garage, drum&bass and techno club night. ashes of Big Tropics and Dallas Don’t. SATURDAY 31st RECKLESS SLEEPERS + MICK CLACK: st to promote third album `Double Down’. WEDNESDAY 21 RENEGADE HARDWARE: The Cellar – GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with James Street Tavern – Halloween-themed gig. HAIRFORCE 5: Fat Lil’s, Witney – 80s hair JACK SAVORETTI + MAX JURY: O2 Drum&bass club night with Ink, Loxy, Manifest th BEWARETHISBOY + THE 150 FRIENDS Academy – Sultry, bluesy folk from the former and more. TUESDAY 27 CLUB + LUKE KEEGAN: The Wheatsheaf metal covers. busker who we’ll forever get mixed up with Paolo STRAIGHTEN OUT: Fat Lil’s, Witney – MIRIAM JONES + CLARENCE BUCARO: The Wheatsheaf – Album launch show from the Nutini however hard we try. Back in the Shire after Stranglers tribute. Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Email local blues singer. his showing at Cornbury and finding the middlest of KADIA: The Cornerstone, Didcot – Traditional listings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may DONOVAN: Oxford Town Hall – The middle grounds between Eric Clapton, David Gray English folk from the Dorset trio. not be reproduced without permission. incarnation of the band, Mook. PRESENTS They claim tonight’s the last we’ll THE POLYPHONIC SPREE LIVE ever hear from them but if they’re O2 Academy tempted back in another ten years, Upon commander-in-chief Tim Around’, before ‘Soldier Girl’ they’ll still sound like a beast. DeLaughter singing “Suicide is makes leaping ten foot hurdles

photo: Marc West photo: Marc Ten seconds into Black Candy’s a shame / Soon you’ll find your seem a possibility. With the whole set and singer Joe Hill is going way”, followed by The Polyphonic band in customary white robes the the full Rasputin – hands aloft, all Spree’s four-woman choir bursting stage often resembles a hospital shaggy mane and beard, he’s still into “Suuuuuun!”, accompanied by operating theatre at the moment a shamanic metal preacher, while an entourage of brass, strings and of resurrecting a flat-lined patient. around him there’s no sign of any keys etc, it becomes apparent that DeLaughter leads his disciples from rust from 14 years away. Guitarist the expansive ensemble’s debut one beauty to the next, and even Luke Rickett, standing in for album `The Beginning Stages of…’ conducts the audience to sing the absent bass player Tony Welland, – which is celebrating its fifteenth “ba dada ba da” section to ‘It’s The pumps out a clanging, iron foundry anniversary on this current tour – Sun’. And when he ventures into the rhythm that dips in and out of funk should be prescribed on the NHS middle of the crowd and crouches as Black Candy resurrect a sound as an antidepressant. `It’s The Sun’ down, prompting his followers that’s stood the test of time despite is one of many perfectly formed around him to do the same, that’s being very much of its time back compositions that have the capability when you suddenly realise you’re at the turn of the 90s/noughties. to elevate the most downtrodden soul not just a member of the audience Rage Against the Machine remain to an unexpected rebirth. but part of a congregation. the touchstone for tracks like Unpretentious yet magnificent, After a five minute break and `Downfall’, mixing up full-on effortless but accomplished, showy costume change, we’re afforded a metal riffage and rap, but they can without showing off: as a live act couple of covers and choice cuts play it heavy or, in Joe’s words, The Spree are awash with musical from their back (forward) catalogue. bouncy, at one point coming on like ear candy. So much so that they The lyric “sixteen ways will blow The Jackson Five fronting up Korn; would leave even the most short your mind,” from penultimate track at the funkiest they’re closer to sighted audience member with ‘When The Fool Becomes A King’ Prince than Soundgarden. mouth agape and mind blown. That has already been explored... we Highlights of a storming set are there is such a sparse audience for are all in scattered glorious pieces. BLACK CANDY / BEELZEBOZO early crowd favourite `Allergy’, tonight’s show is a crying shame. Hopefully such positive vibes and the moment an unsuspecting The sparsity however gives room for shine through the roof, sending an The Wheatsheaf Ben Hollyer from JOR is enticed the sort of shapes that The Spree’s endorphin blast down Cowley Road Some mornings Nightshift can still man who co-founded TCTCBN, daubed shirts are hung from their from the crowd for a riotous `Ben’s good-time orchestral pop vibes to pack out the O2 if and when The feel the bruises from times we saw and helped Black Candy’s rise, amps tonight instead of worn – Song’. He wasn’t expecting the call bring out in abundance. Spree return. Black Candy, fifteen years ago. surfing drunkenly atop the packed indicating maybe that the passage – he’d even bought a ticket for the They hit their stride on ‘Hanging Gary Davidson Back then they, alongside JOR, throng. Along with the number of of time hasn’t been kind to their gig – but even he looks and sounds were helping create the unique familiar faces in the crowd, it’s like midriffs – but their riffs remain like he’s never been away. atmosphere of The Club That a trip back in time. rock solid and uncompromising, Reunions can go any which way, Cannot Be Named at The Elm It’s a feeling accentuated by the just the right amount of humour but tonight the emphasis is on fun, AUTOBAHN / ORANGE VISION Tree and on their way to being, appearance of tonight’s support infecting a bulldozing form of for band and crowd alike, while The Bullingdon temporarily, Oxford’s favourite act – Beelzebozo, also back for one thrash that joins the dots between Black Candy prove that class is Lightning strikes, flash floods, blocks and labyrinthine underpasses band. last show to celebrate Wheatsheaf Iron Maiden and Metallica. This permanent and as much as any local hailstorms – so-called acts of God and flyovers. Like the very earliest It’s appropriate then that during promoter Joal Shearing’s fifteen sort of stuff simply never dates, and heroes from the past, their legacy is sent to wreck the best laid plans. In incarnation of Joy Division, they the penultimate song of tonight’s year anniversary running this highlight of their set is `Bulletproof worth celebrating. the world of musicians such ruinous use punk’s sense of despair to reunion show, we see Alan Day, the venue. Their trademark blood- People’, from an even earlier Dale Kattack phenomena come in the form of soundtrack foreboding cityscapes bloody great technical fuck-ups. Pity with an almost suffocating intensity. influences they incorporate is almost countless, poor Orange Vision – a band who Tonight’s opener carries a similar WHITE NOISE SOUND / FLIGHTS OF HELIOS / but what FoH are really about is drama, dynamics have gone from sub-Britpop Demo sense of hysteria to Hookworms’ MANACLES OF ACID and juxtaposition: soaring ethereal vocals, harsh Dumper fodder to one of the brighter phenomenal live presence, while synths, post-rock guitar and jumping from a young acts in town lately – barely further in, it’s no surprise that The Bullingdon capella to ear bleeding. Oh, and Steve the rhythm one song into their set tonight when Autobahn share a lot of musical stick, who is sadly absent tonight. it all goes tits up and they’re forced space with neighbours Eagulls, given Even though the core ‘acid’ sounds of Manacles manager Tim Midlen, who is MoA, is giving us Headliners White Noise Sound have something to mill aimlessly around the stage for their shared geographical origins and of Acid’s’ set were brought together 20 years ago, an ‘ambo’ set – which basically sounds like he’s strongly in common with Manacles Of Acid: not what seems an eternity until whatever the fact they’ve supported them on the organic squelches, sequenced 707 bass, and turned the intensity knob down a bit – leaving the music but the impression that they would have it was that packed up is fixed again. tour. A closer comparison, though, mesmerising arpeggios are just as compelling now the audience borne away into a pulsing 3D world fit in just as well twenty years ago, which isn’t Then they’re left with a truncated would be The Horrors’ magnificent as they would have been in the chillout rooms of of synthetic sound and visuals. meant to be disparaging. A Swansea-based sextet set that gives them no time to do second album as myriad strands of so many Madchester warehouse raves of yore. Flights Of Helios are a band who don’t know who could easily have been doing the circuit with themselves justice. What we do get to goth, punk, krautrock, shoegaze and Tonight everyone’s favourite local music shop how to sit still. Every time we seen them some, Slowdive, The Jesus and Mary Chain or Spacemen hear reveals a band blossoming like psychedelia mix and merge and spark if not all, of their repertoire has seen 3 in the 90s, they lock in to a groove and sit there a black orchid into something dark off each other as the band plummet a degree of reworking. They open for six minutes or more like so many krautrock and pretty, the singer’s breathless headlong through a too-short forty tonight’s set with a perfect example: revivalists, whilst their three guitarists create croon making its presence felt amid minute set of simply magnificent the vocal looping and effecting of waxing and waning washes of delay and fuzz. an elegant blur of shoegaze shimmer noise. Given that tonight’s gig is Chris Beard’s vocals that signals the The thing that brings this band up to date are the and almost gothic post-punk fuzz. midweek and comes a few days start of ‘Factory’ is extended and somewhat incongruous stabs of synth layered into We’ll be back for a full dose next after Reading Festival and before intensified from last time I heard it. the mix. The vocals are strong, the hooks solid time, no question. the students return to town, and This attitude gives them a constantly and the density of the noise is impeccable but Leeds’ Autobahn eschew any the fact that they’re still a barely- fresh feel, even on songs such as after their set I have a feeling I can’t quite put a preconceptions their chosen name known quantity, it’s little surprise the stalwart of their set, `Dynah and finger on; perhaps they’re just missing the spark of might suggest. Instead of the wide- venue is sparsely populated but this Donologue’. The breakdown then energy that takes a talented band to the big leagues. open, linear sterility of the German Autobhan is heading only one way, sudden explosion in the middle of Their set is enjoyable, but too close to background transport system, they offer an and that’s up. There is little light at ‘Stars’ is a single moment that comes listening at times, lacking, perhaps, the presence to often oppressive wall of noise and the end of their musical tunnel but as close to summing up the band as you leave a genuinely lasting impression. suffocating darkness that conjures their future is bright all the same. can get; the number of styles and Matthew Chapman Jones images of looming concrete tower Dale Kattack TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MYTICKET.CO.UK such unforced bonhomie even those of us who ROYAL PARDON have an anaphylactic reaction to wackiness get LOWWS / CATALANO / KID KIN The Bullingdon swept up in the japes. The lead vocalist keeps Modern Art Oxford looking shiftily from side to side, as if to check It’s refreshing to find an all-dayer with no is a band that is maturing steadily. that they’re getting away with it, but the set The basement at Modern Art Oxford looks of him actually dancing behind his trappings. The mysteriously named Royal Pardon WE HAVE A DUTCH FRIEND, by contrast, like the kind of place you might have come equipment. Presumably showcasing his proves that music doesn’t have to be serious to be (“Run that past one again, footman”) from have a long way to go. Their blueprint of sweet across Joan Baez in 1960, all low arches, low forthcoming album ‘Patience, Perseverance’, worthwhile. newcomer MD Promotions is not tied to charity, Sundays-style lilts punctuated by strident lighting and hushed conversations. Tonight keyboard lines recall progressive tracks such DUCHESS announce that this is their last gig, advertising, label promotion or the dressing up Chumabawamba folk harangues is viable enough, it’s host to the first night of a residency for as those on John Digweed’s Bedrock label, which is a pity as their playing is tighter than ever. box; it’s a just a seven-hour selection of local but the playing is messily fragmented and label/blog One Note Forever, with three while the percussion has a contrasting lo-fi It’s low-key as valedictory sets go, but not short music in a big beer-fuelled room, which is more joylessly stilted, probably because they appear local acts tempting a decent crowd out for a feel. An intriguing taster of things to come. on energy, especially a bouncy `South Parade’. As than enough justification for a day out. petrified almost to the point of collapsing; perhaps Tuesday evening. Six-piece indie band Lowws, previously well as inheriting Paul Simon’s trick of slipping Opener KID KIN’s laptop is broken, so we get that lowlands connection could suggest something One-man outfit Kid Kin uses electric guitar, The Sea The Sea, battle a muddy mix but filched global drum patterns underneath eloquent a truncated, on the hoof mini-set of his texturally to settle the nerves. live looping and electronics to move from the upbeat, decently crafted songs pull them pop (`Rhythm Of The Saints’ is in evidence as savvy library music melodies. As ever, the tenor We’re used to TIGER MENDOZA’s hip-hop gentle, minimal beginnings to almost raucous through. Aided by a singer with a strong, of his De Wolfe electro is a delight, but this swiftly airs and post-EDM power pop, but tonight perhaps much as the obvious `Gracelands’), we catch endings with nods to Mogwai and The Durutti clear voice and a rock-solid drummer, the salvaged set is perhaps indicative of a bill of often the best moments are when angle-ground guitar snatches of motif and melody that remind us of Column. The opening number impresses pacey set showcases a new EP and older great music and great ideas that don’t necessarily thrashes are laid over asbestos beats in a manner `Walk On The Wild Side’, `Down Under’ and with its use of E-bow guitar and subtle digital material. But they’re victim to that modern GUITAR / SONGWRITING TUITION always make for great sets. recalling light industrial acts like Ministry and `I Started A Joke’ – but mostly we pick up pure percussion but subsequent pieces retread affliction, the 80s-style itchy, fiddly guitar 31HOURS are a band for whom stylistic cohesion Nitzer Ebb. Some of the transitions between tracks character and musical fluency. They’ll be missed. previous ground, whereas his Soundcloud sound that lurks around every song like a Most styles, acoustic and electric, and bass is probably not a major concern, though that’s are not as fluid as they might be, and sometimes The Scholars were an epic alt.stadium act who material features more sweeping, filmic cold. Bands like Josef K used this to glorious not to say their eclectic prog pop isn’t immensely different compositional elements seems to jostle may as well have been called The Copy Editors, material, still veering towards the epic. effect, but here it’s too often a jarring irritant Beginners welcome - full-time teacher pleasing. If there is a thematic anchor to their each other to get to the front of the mix, but overall and whom we didn’t care for. Strangely, ZURICH, Despite his name Catalano is actually to what seems like a decent band struggling author of How to Write Songs on Guitar music it’s that high fret-twiddling jam block- this set shows that Ian De Quadros is an inventive the trio that evolved from them are rather excellent Italian-born, and a sound engineer by to get out. ‘Captives’ is a good example, and many other guitar books thwacking Afroals sound, which is probably the and varied producer. despite ostensibly dealing in the same sound. A trade. Listening to his meaty, upfront though saved by a chorus with a catchy hook least interesting element, outweighed by freeze- A small break is presumably there to let the sound lot of the bombast and bluster has been excised, electronica you can hear his heritage coming and just the right amount of emotion. dried Glass Animals balladry and lush Pompeii-era engineer grab some dinner and go and find more leaving elemental, muscular glory pop with flight through, only reinforced by the sight Art Lagun www.rikkyrooksby.com Floyd soundscapes. Cliff Richard records to play us, but we return path vocal lines and dark disco rhythms, along PIPELINE’s funky contemporary indie is a after 40 minutes to find the atmosphere changed the lines of a Cinemascope Half Rabbits. Their [email protected] far simpler proposition, along the lines of The for the better. Not only is the room thankfully music might not be complex or mysterious, but TOWERSEY FESTIVAL Tel. 01865 765847 Wedding Present without the poetry and Senseless busier, but the later sets have a more coherent it snags the spirit and skewers the emotions, an Things without the tequila. The vocals are flavour, none more so thanCOSMOSIS whose unexpectedly direct and affecting conclusion to a Thame Agricultural Showground winningly effortless, and if the set of snappy tunes affable acoustic roots rock (think Stone Temple highly enjoyable event. It’s jaw dropping to think this is the 51st CONSERVATOIRE FOLK ENSEMBLE runs out of steam slightly before the finish line, this Pilots busking Cure songs) is presented with David Murphy THE OXFORD RECORD annual Towersey, and that families have now could be the antidote. Over 40 strong, the been coming for three generations. But it one ensemble has become something of a training DVD & CD FAIR respect it’s year one, with the site relocating ground for the young folk generation. They Singer James has the kind of babe magnet smile Tenth Listen arrive with considerably more from Towersey village to the Thame live up to the accolade of being invited to St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE PIPELINE / CRIME / to capture the heart of any bereft Directioners, and malicious intent, although their take on hardcore Showground. The move has the huge benefit close the festival on Monday, their energy, 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP the musicianship is square shouldered and solid punk is some way removed from the brutish LAYLA TUTT that the venues are close to one another, so no musicianship and brilliant arrangements th enough in songs such as `Faith’ to get the room aggression of Black Flag or the industrial Saturday 17 October more treks up and down the village road to sweeping through the main stage arena like a dancing off into the night. Did I say promising? misanthropy of Big Black. They’re both melodic The Wheatsheaf arrive breathless at a stage only to find you’ve force of nature. They’re utterly exhilarating. 10am-4pm Paul Carrera and not afraid to be funny, particularly between With a mother called Kashmir and a brother, missed half the set. It’s good too that all the Also on the main stage, on Sunday we catch songs where singer Jonny Creepo is nervy and Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres Dylan, Layla Tutt (herself named after Clapton’s main stages are undercover as the weather is JOAN ARMATRADING. Playing guitar self-deprecating. As soon as he sings, mind, he’s Accessories/memoriabillia/books. song) comes from an Anglo-Indian background lousy much the time over the weekend. and keyboards with no backing band her raw uptight and splenetic, while the band, occasionally Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl imbued with a deep love of music, and an WOAHNOWS / SHIT The change helps create a relaxed atmosphere emotion and sense of humour shines through. a little loose, keep it raw but accessible. Here’s www.usrfairs.co.uk artistic spirit powered by flower and the Woodstock which increasingly seems to include punters Her set takes off with ‘Love and Affection’, a band who’d rather you had a good time than years, which colours both her work as one third PRESENT / TENTH being open to music beyond the festival’s while she makes ‘Me, Myself and I’ into a bludgeon you with polemic or kick your teeth in. of Birmingham-based The Phlox of Pink, and traditional folk remit. Take local popstrels fiercely indomitable declaration of self-hood. Brighton’s Shit Present have a great name but are here, solo, perched cross legged on a bar stool. “I LISTEN / RAINBOW ALPHABET BACKWARDS’ experience. The big revelation, though, is her visceral having a less than great time of it tonight, taking normally stand but tonight I’m not feeling very They’re surprised, even stunned, by how well guitar playing, which verges at times on thrash an age to tune up and warm up, finally kicking into well,” is typical of her warmly goofy and intimate RESERVOIR their high-energy sunny pop goes down (“I meets free improv. Definitely not folk, but wall of post-grunge noise that could be Veruca banter between deftly woven songs that marry thought you would really hate us,” chimes definitely a legend. The Library Salt’s ramshackle kid sister but overall feels her alpine fresh, Joni Mitchell-like octaves to her singer James Hitchman). Completely different but even more emotional Rainbow Reservoir’s Angela Space could sing slightly formless. signature percussive “strum & bass” attack on her Saturday is arguably the big day with is the tribute to and celebration of the life of songs about setting your grandmother on fire Woahnows have no such issues. Constant gigging, acoustic guitar. In a word, enchanting. STORNOWAY and BELLOWHEAD, the late JASPER KING, a founder of the and stabbing kittens with a knitting needle and including Truck this summer, has made them pin- Tonight, then, is one for soldiering on, as Crime, each with a big local following, headlining Chipolatas who regularly dazzled Towersey they’d still sound cute. Her singing voice is almost sharp, their wiry post-hardcore aligning them with a three piece formed in 2005, and harking from the main stage. Indeed Brian Briggs seems a with their cocktail of circus, theatre and music. whimsy personified, the sweet, puppy-eager heart early emo bands like Get Up Kids, while abstract Oxford, Bristol and Somerset, are without their little embarrassed by the frequent shout-outs The weekend’s surprise hit is SIR WALTER and soul of her band’s sometimes ramshackle, melodies and rhythms coupled with harmonised, bass player, which perversely seems to toughen of “I love you, Brian” during an on- form set J WALLIS: think Seasick Steve meets sometimes obstinate and punchy brand of punky almost laddish chants sound more like Youthmovies’ and gnarl their set from being less Deathcab For in which old favourites `I Saw You Blink’, Captain Beefheart. He has the late night pop, with one foot in riot grrl’s energetic militancy inventive style of alt.rock. Festivals or otherwise, The Cutie to a more splenetic Screaming Trees, `Zorbing’ and ‘Fuel Up’ are highlights, though Saturday crowd around the Bar Stage and the other in New York anti-folk’s quirkiness. Library’s more-than-cosy confines are their natural with `Consonants & Vowels’ in particularl getting a ‘Love Song of the Beta Male’, which has come rocking. Other acts seen for the first time who Songs like `Gold Star Girl’ sound like a buzzsaw environment, face to face with the crowd, and while right royal rogering from singer Andrew Tofts, who on zillions since premiered by Brian playing impress include youthful folk/bluegrass band meet-up between Moldy Peaches and Le Tigre, but they deserve bigger stages, you wonder if the lack of finds his inner Temple of Dogs voice to counter solo at WOOD Festival 2014, isn’t far behind. WARDEN SQUIRES; swing-blues fusion as Angela switches between songs about ponytails intimacy that would bring might take something from any perceived lack of power. With Bellowhead breaking up next outfit ROB HERON AND THE TEAPAD and cockroaches, we’re reminded even more of this kind of defiantly grassroots performance. Gappy Tooth Industry’s enduringly eclectic spring, Towersey is their final ever festival ORCHESTRA; young and very talented The Lovely Eggs. Gold stars all round. Dale Kattack approach to putting gig bills together means they’re appearance and they mark it with a typically Scottish folk trio TALISK, and the soulful, often ripe for discovering the very newest young high-octane performance. After a period jazzy KIZZY CRAWFORD, like Lianne La bands, such as Oxford’s Pipeline. Formed online when they went too far into indulgent muso Havas, if she sang in Welsh as well as English. last year, they show all the hallmarks of tentatively virtuosity, they seem to be re-capturing the Friendly, chilled, everyone enjoying feeling their way into performing live, but as the balance between embellishment and straight- themselves and being helpful, and with Three state of the art rehearsal rooms. evening and the applause wear on you can sense ahead riffing which makes them such an plenty of top line music and other types of For bookings. that now they’re more fully shedding their skin of exciting live band. In particular with ‘Rigs of entertainment on off, it’s no wonder that cautiousness, they have some very welcome old London’ and their anthem, ‘New York Girls’, people come back year after year, generation Call Jamie on 07917685935 school Madchester vibes melded to diverse spare they’re back to their joyous best. after generation. 51 years young, Towersey parts from Dodgy and the Libertines that will Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford Should Bellowhead fans suffer withdrawal has still got it right. glasshousestudios.org eventually blossom into their own style. symptoms JOE BROUGHTON’S Colin May INTRODUCING.... Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under KONE Who are they? Kone are an Oxford-based trio formed by Alice Ream (guitar/vocals) and Jonny Mundey (bass/vocals) in 2013 to play an already booked show at the Ashmolean Museum. Drummer Graeme Murray (formerly of Youthmovies as well as part of ODC Drumline) joined soon after – “and then we got louder.” Gigs at Modern Art Oxford, as well as Power Lunches and the Old Blue Last in London followed, leading up to the release of the debut single this month. Double A-side `No Colour World’ / `Bauhaus Table’ was produced by Young Knives’ Henry Dartnall and will be officially launched with a gig at the Bullingdon on October 2nd, supporting Liu Bei. What do they sound like? And the lowlight: Steeped in the dark-edged post-punk sounds that preceded goth, Kone “Maybe, musicians being expected to work for free.” namecheck the greatest goth band of them all in their single’s title, but are Their favourite other Oxfordshire act is: closer to the likes of The Chameleons and Psychedelic Furs, particularly “Young Knives: their dedication and attitude to their work is impressive.” in Jonny’s rich, melodic baritone and Alice’s sparse, delicate backing If they could only keep one album in the world, it would be: vocals, which add just enough portent to their spooked and spangled, “Animal Collective: `Strawberry Jam’.” hollowed-out rock. They describe themselves as “art music for guitars,” When is their next local gig and what can newcomers expect? but really they are the sound of impending winter, all cold, dark evenings “The Bullingdon on October 2nd, supporting Liu Bei, alongside Grace and snowdrifts. Lightman. Can’t wait for this one.” What inspires them? Their favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: “Playing music together as a band. We get a kick out of that. If we didn’t “Favourite: there are enough Oxford promoters that are prepared to take we wouldn’t be doing it. But otherwise, everyday life; human experiences risks. Least favourite? …hmmm maybe not enough decent spaces for that demand attention; the past; communicating something to people artists to rehearse.” gathered in small dark rooms.” You might love them if you love: Career highlight so far: The Chameleons; Psychedelic Furs; Joy Division; The Horrors; Can. “So far, probably being played on BBC Radio… oh and the Modern Art Hear them here: Oxford show. That was fun.” www.interkone.com

THIS MONTH IN OXFORD T H E W H E A T S H E A F DR SHOTOVER joins Twitter ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY Friday 2nd October – KLUB KAKOFANNEY Ah, there you are. Get us a pint. Heard the one about Donald Trump and its previously refused application for a live venue Centre, where it still resides. the dyslexic Tex-Mex tax inspector? Oh bollox I’ve run out of charact 20 YEARS AGO at the rear reassessed, laying the groundwork for FUZZY LOGIC BABYTHESE ARE OUR DEMANDS 8pm/£5 HMV. Remember them? The branch in Saturday 3rd October Cornmarket only closed down a year ago but what is now one of Oxford’s major venues, and the Next month: Dr Shotover investigates the role of social media in the new bame for the Oxford Venue was announced – 5 YEARS AGO recent Labour leadership contest, and the contributions of Corbyn-sup- already it seems like a name from a bygone age. Not for the first timeLittle Fish glowered from JOHN OTWAY & THE BIG BAND 8pm/£12 Back in October 1995 though, HMV was very The Zodiac (we laughed a bit when they first told th porters Brian ‘The Brain’ Eno, Maxine ‘Bolton Wanderer’ Peake, Daniel the cover of Nightshift in October 2005, the duo Friday 9 October – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC much at the heart of the Oxford music scene, us) was all set for launch in November. ‘Harry’ Potter, and of course lovely-lovely Welsh songbird Charlotte of Julia-Sophie Heslop and Neil Greenaway, now with a dedicated local releases stand and regular 8pm/£6 Church – while trying to ignore the fact that Russell ‘Most Irritating Man augmented by Hammond player Ben Walker, set STORYTELLER MOGMATIC + PAPA UNI instore shows. This month it was the turn of Saturday 10th October – BURN THE JUKEBOX In Britain’ Brand is also a Corbynite. There will be plenty of the good Doc- 10 YEARS AGO to release their debut album, `Baffled & Beat’, The Candyskins, who kicked off an Official By October 2005 Brookes Union was a well- on Linda Perry’s Custard Records. “At the end of tor’s trademark italics and requests for strange drinks at the East Indies Candyskins Day to celebrate the release of FRET! WORKIN MAN NOISE UNIT + TELEGRAPHER Club bar. There will be name-checking of obscure prog rock bands and established live venue, this month hosting The recording the album,” recalled Juju, “Linda said to their `Mrs Hoover’ single with a show at HMV, Subways, and The Kooks on the same bill as well us she had never been so hard on any artist as she MOUNTAIN OF FIRE & MIRACLES 8pm/£5 1970s drugs, some of which may be interchangeable. There is bound to followed by an instore at Green River Records th as The Magic Numbers, while The Zodiac was had been with us.” The band had enjoyed/endured Saturday 17 October be random scuffling over Oxford Music acts from the past and present. on Cowley Road and finishing off with a sold- now among the best venues in the country. This a non-stop tour of Europe and The States in the East Indies Club bar steward Bedingfield may be called upon to adjudi- out show at The Hobgoblin on The Plain in TENTH LISTEN + DIRTY VALUABLES 8pm/£5 month alone saw Bellowhead, Queen Adreena, company of Hole, Blondie, Placebo and Them JUNKIE BRUSH cate. You know the sort of thing. Cheers! Down the hashtag! the evening. HMV. Green River Records. The Wednesday 21st October – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC Ladytron, Editors, Seth Lakeman, Laura Crooked Vultures around the recording session and Hobgoblin. The Candyskins. All gone now, but Viers, Dreadzone, Reuben, Mew, The Fall, were as yet to fully feel the force of cruel mistress back then – heady times as Oxford’s musical star O.W.L AYANNA + MELODI HADEBE + LUCY MAIR 8pm/£5 Alexisonfire, The Kills and Four Tet treading music industry’s whip hand. Saturday 24th October – KLUB KAKOFANNEY continued to rise. their boards. This month’s big gig in town was the second Thurman too were set for an HMV show, to In local music news 80s hard rock faves Charlie annual OX4 all-dayer across east Oxford, with PEERLESS PIRATES VIENNA DITTO + CHEROKEE 7:30PM / £5 launch their debut album `Lux’, the band (formed Mouse were set to reform for a one-off show at The Willy Mason and Everything Everything co- Tuesday 27th October by brothers Nick and Simon Kenny and drummer Red Lion in Witney to launch a career-spanning headlining the sold-out event, which also featured Dan Goddard, all now playing as The Long compilation album and DVD, while there were new a local premiere for the filmAnyone Can Play MIRIAM JONES 8pm/£6 ADV Insiders) riding the tide of Britpop and signed to releases for The Evenings, who graced the cover of Guitar. th Wednesday 28 October Righteous Records. this month’s Nightshift, Harry Angel, singer KTB A Silent Film re-released their debut album, `The Venue things were picking up apace too with The and Suitable Case For Treatment. Supergrass City That Sleeps’ this month to coincide with their COLTSBLOOD Hobgoblin set to close for two months to undergo released a new single from their `Road To Rouen’ Number 1 hit in Portugal with `You Will Leave A FROM THE BOGS OF AUGHISKA + FUNERAL PACT 8pm/£5 a major refurbishment and reopen as The Point album, `Low C’, though it’s not one that instantly Mark’. Five years on, they’re touring the States th Friday 30 October - OXROX at the end of the year. In its temporary absence springs to mind when you recall their pop genius. with their third album. Oxford United Social Club was to become a hub Meanwhile the much missed Exeter Hall in Also out this month were local releases for HELL’S GAZELLS + TRAUMA UK 8pm/£6 THE BLACK BULLETS for local and touring bands. Brookes University’s Cowley hosted a special John Peel Day concert to Coloureds and Fixers, while topping the demo Saturday 31st October – GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES new 1000-capacity union venue, The Terminal, commemorate the legendary broadcaster’s death pile were a scrawny bunch of ne’er-do-wells was completed and, although still without a full a year previously, while long-standing local open fuelled by disgust and stories of seriel killers, BEWARE THIS BOY THE 150 FRIENDS CLUB 8pm/£4.50 public ents licence, was all set to attract major acts club night Catweazle Club was on the move called The Cellar Family. Another great local The Wheatsheaf 129 High Street, Oxford OX1 4DF / www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford Dr S: How do you do a bloody ‘re-tweet’, anyway? to town. The Bullingdon Arms was set to have again, this time to East Oxford Community band now sadly lost to history. only half learned and by the time they hit the PIPA MORAN ground with a hefty thump, they’re back to While Go Romano are wearily lugging that conjuring ponderous pomp-rock of the type fridge freezer back down Snowden they that small Mid-West enclaves still believe might encounter Pipa Moran here sat on a are the apex of rock evolution. Ah well, DEMOS rock, weeping that she’s got blisters all over Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free half day every rule needs an exception to prove it. her feet before she’s even halfway up the at Soundworks studio in Oxford, mountain. Certainly she’s unhappy about courtesy of Umair Chaudhry. Visit something and she’s going to let us know www.umairchaudhry.co.uk/nightshift TEMPLE INVISIBLE about it with all the gusto her poor wee It’s almost an unspoken rule here at lungs can muster. Partway between intimate Nightshift that any demos accompanied by Wooster for keeping a smile on their faces confessional folk-pop and high-wired r’n’b, a video or lyric sheet must be demolished as they barrel through a set of polite, DEMO OF Pipa’s chief line of complaint should be that with bile and mockery. But Temple Invisible lightweight bluegrass and 60s pop here; 01865 240250 she has a reasonable – if sometimes shrill – here manage to lull us into such a state of Nightshift’s been in a 24/7 sulk since the voice, with a decent range (from doe-eyed soporific contentment with their artfully THE MONTH middle of August when the weather gods reflection to eardrum-bothering wail in the abstract video we can think of nothing decided to play a game of “Remember that space of a single line, reminding us a little unpleasant to say about then, preferring bit in the Old Testament about Noah and of Minnie Riperton on occasions), but not instead to loll about on the sofa like lotus MISSING TEETH stuff.” And so `Something’s Got To Give’ is You know it’s time to leave the house much by way of a decent tune as yet. That eaters, unaware of the passage of time or all barroom/bonfire jollity, an easy freight and meet other human beings when you might explain why her Youtube page is the outside world in general. And if they train rhythm and some close harmonies listen to a demo and you’re first thought filled with cover versions, from Everything did have a lyric sheet it’d only spoil the taking their rootsy music into Beatles-y pop. is, “this reminds me a bit of 80s minimal But the Girl and Elbow to David Guetta and enjoyment of the singer’s glacially ethereal `Who’s Having Who’ sounds like a question wave protagonists Oppenheimer Analysis.” Taylor Swift. Armed with just an acoustic vocals, the lyrics little more than glossolalia. usually reserved for seedy swingers parties Seriously, there are approximately a guitar and, occasionally, a drum kit, her own A warm, soothing mix of ambient but tends more towards wistful country folk dozen people on the entire planet would material deviates little from the standard drum&bass and minimalist electronic than 70s porn funk, while `Setting Sun’ aims nod knowingly at that reference and you strum’n’moan fare we get from a dozen tones over which the vocals swoon prettily, for a more Tex-Mex theme, managing a probably wouldn’t want to be stuck in a singer-songwriters every month, either on the music doesn’t really go anywhere in decent flourish but sounding far too English lift with any of them. But there you go, demos or at open mic nights. Only a rare particular other than up into the clouds, and polite and neither desolate or debauched Nightshift’s dedication to obscure synth few singer-songwriters are gifted in both where it floats idly, gazing down on strange enough. It evokes tea on the lawn of a village music knows few bounds (pauses to caress departments, and there’s no shame in using alien mountain ranges below, like a soft, fete more than a tequila and Sangria blow- a rare Japanese import copy of Berlin your own voice to sing other people’s songs fluffy coming together of Autechre and AC out, and The Epstein conjure those wide open Blondes’ `Framework’ single). So it’s with if that’s the way it has to be. And on this Marias. All a bit early 90s then, but we don’t spaces and big old skies with more elan. evidence, maybe it does. a certain inevitability Demo of the Month care. It makes us want to lie in the sun and .co.uk Still, as another now-homeless-and-destined- TURAN AUDIO goes to a (presumably) bedroom-bound smoke drugs and think about dolphins for Professional, independent CD mastering to-die-a-lonely-death wasp bashes its head electro-dabbler who just knows that the the rest of the week, so we’ll consider it a repeatedly against the Nightshift office only thing Classic Rock magazine is fit BLACK SOUL success. We were saying only a couple of issues Artists mastered in the studio last month include; for is lining cat litter trays (actually we window to mark the onset of autumn, BMW ago that all bands with Black in their name tried that and the cats were so repulsed at least manage to remind us that optimism THE RUTS, BOB DYLAN, SIA, SKY, WITCH were great, and here’s a local one to stick they took to using the neighbour’s flower once existed within these four walls. Only in the pack. And their demo CD is called bed as a lavatory, which suited us down next time bring more booze. THE DEMO SORROW, CAPTAIN KUPPA T AND THE `Hunt For The Missing Pistachio’, which to the ground, so thank you Classic Rock is just, like, whooh, crazy, and there’s a ZEPPELIN CREW, CHELSEA, WATER PAGEANT, magazine). Anyway, four tracks here drawing of the band on the cover rocking DUMPER from Missing Teeth, the work of Dominic GO ROMANO Porridge. You just can’t beat porridge for out like proper rock and roll demons and the JULIA MEIJER, ELSTREE 1976. Millard, opening with `Between/Within’, breakfast. It gives you stamina. It is The CD itself has a drawing on it of someone all glowering sequencers, opulent synth ANNA ZED Breakfast of Champions. Go Romano being punched in the face while shouting Floaty woaty dolphin-imagining ambient 01865 716466 [email protected] flourishes and sparse, sullen incantations, would do well to indulge in the occasional “ARRRGH!!”. This I gonna be fucking fluff of a different hue here, from locally- which could potentially be a lost early bowl or two of the stuff. It might help them mental! Even when the band declare “We based singer Anna Zed, who, like Temple recording of Jean Michel Jarre attempting get to the end of a song without sounding don’t take things too seriously,” in their Invisible, offers us a one-song demo, entitled to write the theme for Terminator. This, like a rickety pensioner who’s just carried letter, which is obviously shorthand for `Under the Water’. We swear there’s even COURTYARD obviously, being A Very Good Thing Indeed. a fridge freezer up Snowden only to find “we reckon we’re a right wacky bunch of something resembling whale song sneakily After an oddly incongruous acoustic mis- RECORDING STUDIO the person who’s meant to sign for it has funsters! PAAAAAARTAY!” we fail to buried amid her languorous sighs and 2 Tracking Rooms. Superb Control Room with: hit, Dominic, who really should have called bunked off early and it’s the wrong model notice the alarm bells going off. Because whispers, which seem designed to lure weary NEVE 5106 32 Channel Console. ProTools HD3 his musical project Nexus 6 or T-1000 or anyway and could you take it back, please. they’ve got the word Black in their band sailors onto jagged rocks where they’ll be MTR 90 2” 24 Track Tape Machine. Vintage EMT Plate Reverb something equally cyborg-ian, heads off Loads of Brilliant Outboard Gear You see, they start well enough – the name. Black Sabbath! Big Black! Black impaled by barely conscious lounge jazz down Kraftwerk’s sleek, silicon autobahn Loads of Great Mics, Vintage and Modern hollowed-out krautrock tumble of `Haven’t Uhuru! Black Angels! Fuck, yeah. And then and epic soft rock guitar solos until they Old School Akai/Roland Synth Modules with an airy instrumental wander, before You Heard’, and the strident guitar intro to there’s the ominous, almost hymnal opening go insane with the clichéd tedium of it all. Upright Piano, Fender Rhodes, Amps and great vibes. hitting the demo’s slightly gorgeous coda, `Say It Again’, but just as you’re thinking track, `Into The Dark’, which might feasibly Seriously, this couldn’t be any more lacking Residential recording studio in Sutton Courtenay. `Set Free’, a buzzing, blossom-light lament here’s a band with a bit of vim and fight in be Foreigner getting all deep and sombre in soul if it’d been grown in a Petri dish at www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk that could be one of Spiritualized’s more their blood, they sort of slump into standard with John Cale, which is mildly intriguing. Porton Down. Not sure which grates the In-house producer: Ian Davenport www.ian-davenport.co.uk tender devotional pieces gene-spliced with Email: [email protected] middling, nominally indie rocking, as if all Sadly it can’t last and that sheer cliff face most, Anna’s woozy, witchy wailing, which (surprise!) Kraftwerk. In the end we had to Phone: Richard or Kate on 01235 845800 that initial effort has drained their meagre drop into the middle of the road rock mire might be the final breathless exhalations of play it six times in a row to make sure we energy reserves. The singer doesn’t help, looms on the horizon. Onward the band a Victorian lady dying of consumption on a weren’t getting all gooey and excited for no at once husky but plaintive, manly yet confidently canter, oblivious to the fact chaise longue, or the endless middle-distance reason. We weren’t. sensitive and vulnerable, offering couplets everyone else has jumped off the wagon guitar noodling, which sounds like what like “Save us from our shattered dreams and is stood screaming at them to stop right we imagine whoever moves into Snowy / Lord, I don’t know what it means” with now before it all goes a bit Marillion. Too White’s house when he kicks the bucket will BOON, MEW & the come-to-bed sultriness of an aging late, and even though they realise a moment hear all night every night as the veteran fret bull mastiff. Only rarely do they sound too late that what they should be doing is botherer’s restless ghost fails to realise he WOOSTER like they’ve got the gumption to go all the kicking out a bit of metalcore noise, as they was always dead inside. `Under The Water’? Even as the evenings draw in some folks way, notably the last minute or so of `Say do on `Counter Operatives’, it’s a lesson Get in the fucking sea, more like. would have you believe it’s still summer It Again’ with its guitar buzz and Super and we should all be sat around a small Furries-style backing vocals, but too often Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links to fire singing happy songs after helping our it’s workmanlike rather than inspiring. A [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without neighbours to raise a new barn. Possibly band should never sound like they’re happy a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you in Appalachia. Credit to Boon, Mew and to finish in third place. Particularly when it’s can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t fucking whine about your only the egg and spoon race they’ve entered. review on Twitter either, else we’ll print a screenshot and make you look like a prize tit. thevenuecollective PRESENTS

WEDS 28 OCTOBER O2 ACADEMY2 OXFORD THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER •THE BULLINGDON, OXFORD TICKETWEB.CO.UK 0844 477 2000  O2ACADEMYOXFORD.CO.UK SEETICKETS.COM • WEGOTTICKETS.COM • THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK

MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER THE BULLINGDON THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER THE BULLINGDON SEETICKETS.COM WEGOTTICKETS.COM THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK SEETICKETS.COM WEGOTTICKETS.COM THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK

WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER THE BULLINGDON SEETICKETS.COM  WEGOTTICKETS.COM  THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK

FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER THE BULLINGDON SEETICKETS.COM WEGOTTICKETS.COM THEBULLINGDON.CO.UK Wednesday 21 October -performing ‘Replicas’ Thursday 22 October - performing ‘The Pleasure Principle’ Friday 23 October - performing ‘Telekon’ THE FORUM LONDON theforumlondon.com 0844 847 2405 FOR THE LATEST INFO VISIT facebook.com/thevenuecollective