[email protected] @NightshiftMag NightshiftMag nightshiftmag.co.uk Free every month NIGHTSHIFT Issue 250 May Oxford’s Music Magazine 2016

20 acts - five venues - one night

PUNT 2016th The best new music in Oxford - May 11 Four-page Punt pullout preview inside also in this issue: COMMON PEOPLE previewed Introducing LEADER plus All your local music news, reviews and previews WIN CORNBURY FESTIVAL TICKETS!

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

LITTLE BROTHER ELI launch their debut album with a show in June. The band, who play at Common People Festival this month, will release `Cold Tales’ on Friday 24th June before playing a JURASSIC 5, KODALINE AND MYSTERY JETS are among 50 headline show at The Bullingdon new acts to be added to the line-up for this summer’s Truck Festival. on Saturday 25th. They will be The list of new acts, announced at the end of March, also includes supported by Neverlnd. Tickets, SOAK, Blossoms, Swim Deep, Neck Deep, Coasts, Norman Jay, priced £8, are on sale now at Clean Cut Kid, Spring King, Eliza and the Bear, Black Honey, SUPERNORMAL FESTIVAL wegottickets.com. Public Access TV and Nightshift faves Pumarosa. has announced the first batch of They, and many others besides, including local acts Cassels and The names of acts playing this year’s PEERLESS PIRATES launch Dreaming Spires, join already announced headliners Manic Street event. An extensive A-Z of acts their debut album with their Preachers, Catfish & the Bottlemen and Everything Everything, confirmed includes Apostille; biggest hometown show to date plus Circa Waves, Jack Savoretti, Young Fathers, Rat Boy and We Asig Nargik; Bas Jan; Big Joanie next month. The pirate pop outfit Are the Ocean over the weekend of the 15th-17th July at Hill Farm in (pictured); Bridget Hayden & play the O2 Academy on Saturday Steventon. Having expanded the festival to three days for the first time Claire Potter; Casual Sect; Cavalier 4th June. Support comes from since 2011, and with an increased capacity of almost 10,000, this year’s Song; Charles Hayward; Cup; Dead Pheasants, The Standard and Truck is set to the biggest in its 18 year history. Giant Swan; Heather Leigh; Herb Acoustic Journey. Tickets, priced Tickets, priced £86.50, are on sale at truckfestival.com as well as Diamate; Housewives; Maria £9 (plus bf) are on sale now from outlets around the county. Chavez; Melting Hand; Mums; the Academy box office and See Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs; Tickets. The Ex; The Rebel; Tomaga; UK and about twelve men will end someone, call 0800 585 858 free. Tut Vu Vu; Vanishing Twin; DUOTONE AND JESS HALL their life by suicide today. Yet, as Vibracathedral Orchestra, and Yama play a `Save The Male’ show in aid a society, we just don’t talk about THE LONG INSIDERS, Warashi. Supernormal runs over the of the charity CALM this month. this shocking statistic. CALM seeks PEERLESS PIRATES AND THE weekend of the 5th-7th August at The pair will be joined by Richard to engage with all men, particularly GREAT WESTERN TEARS are Braziers Park, near Wallingford. Neuberg and Matt Chanarin at through music, sport, comedy and among the acts announced for The The artist-curated music and art The North Wall in Summertown art, to promote the message that Kids Are Alright 4. The annual festival is renowned for its mix of on Saturday 14th May. CALM it’s okay to talk about feelings and charity concert takes place at the experimental and leftfield music – the Campaign Against Living `difficult stuff’. Because being Said Business School’s rooftop and installations and with increased Miserably – aims to tackle the rise silent isn’t being strong.” amphitheatre on Saturday 2nd July. Arts Council funding, is promising in male suicides in the UK. Former Tickets for the show are on sale Other acts confirmed are The an expanded programme for 2016. Samurai Seven and Dirty Royals now, priced £14 (£10 concessions), Shapes, Cooper Black, La Phooka Weekend tickets, priced £85, are guitarist Matt Williams, who works from the venue – www. and Les Clochards. Ticket details on sale now, along with loads more for CALM said, “Sadly, suicide is thenorthwall.com / 01865 319450. are yet to be announced, but all info at www.supernormalfestival. the biggest single cause of death To find out more about CALM, proceeds will go to local children’s co.uk. of men under the age of 45 in the visit thecalmzone.net, or to talk to charities.

CORNBURY FESTIVAL has announced the line-up for the RIVERSIDE STAGE at this year’s event. Peerless Pirates; Saedly Dorus & the Hoolie Band; The Inflatables; Mayhem; Zurich; Alphabet Backwards and Great Western Tears are amongst a host of local bands set to perform on Cornbury’s third stage over the weekend of the 8th-10th July at Great Tew Park. Other acts playing on the stage – run as ever by the good folks behind Charlbury’s annual Riverside Festival – include Loud Mountains; The Bleedin’ Noses; The Balkan Wanderers; The Mighty Redox; Hattie Briggs; Captain Redeye & The Hoods; Kris Dollimore; The Two- Tone All-Skas; The Tropics, and I Said Yes. They join the two main stage line-ups topped by Jamie Cullum, Bryan Ferry and Seal. In addition to the Riverside Stage, six local acts will get the chance to perform at the festival’s late-night campfire session on Thursday th7 July. 106JackFM and Jack2 are running a competition to find half a dozen acts to play the camsite stage. Visit www.jackfm.co.uk, or www.jack2.com to find out how to enter. For full line-up and ticket details, visit www.cornburyfestival.com. NEWS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected] Online: nightshiftmag.co.uk

after the organisers were faced with a huge increase in health and safety costs. The eco-friendly world music event, which has run at Hill End Outdoor Education Centre, near Farmoor, for the last two years, mixed live music with SPEEDBUGGY USA AND environmental activities and talks HANNAH JOHNSON & THE and encouraged festival goers BROKEN HEARTS are the star to cycle to the festival site. Last guests at this year’s Halfway To year’s event attracted 500 people 75 Festival. California-based with closer to 1,000 expected to country-rockers Speedbuggy USA this year’s event. Co-organiser and former-Toy Hearts country and Nicholas O’Brien said, “There were honky tonk singer Johnson head issues with regards to safeguarding the annual one-day celebration of becoming more complicated as the BELLOWHEAD play their final ever gig this month. The folk big band, Americana and roots music at the festival was growing so we decided formed by Oxfordshire musicians John Spiers and Jon Boden, played their Isis Farmhouse, near Iffley Lock, on maybe it would be best, budget- debut show in Oxford in 2004 as part of the Oxford Folk Festival and will Saturday 30th July. A strong local wise, if we focused on making bow out with an already sold-out gig at Oxford Town Hall on Sunday 1st contingent includes The Epstein, next year’s festival.” A new site May. Loud Mountains, Francis Pugh & for Tandem in 2017 has apparently The band announced their split last year after Boden decided he would be the Whisky Singers, The August already been identified, again within leaving after the current tour. In their 12 year lifetime the eleven-piece band List, The Shapes, Jonny Payne & easy cycling distance of Oxford. released five albums and won innumerable folk awards, notably five times The Thunder, and Nick Cope. The for best live act at the BBC Folk Awards; their third album, `Hedonism’, festival runs from 1pm through to OXFORD CONTEMPORARY remains the biggest-selling independently released folk album. Their set at 11pm, with more names to be added. MUSIC and Oxford Playhouse co- Truck Festival in 2010 was included in Nightshift’s 200th issue list of the best Visit halfwayto75.com for more host Mark Anderson’s Furious 20 gigs of the magazine’s time. They also featured on the cover of Nightshift news and ticket details. Folly next month. The free multi- in 2011 with Spiers and Boden recalling their roots in the Oxford folk scene. media concerts take place on the Having been there from the very start and reviewed that debut gig as well as THIS YEAR’S TANDEM 17th and 18th June on Magdalen many more since, Nightshift will be there for the last show, a chance to enjoy FESTIVAL has been cancelled Continued over... one of the greatest live bands of recent years one more time.

CHAD VALLEY were robbed of all their I wouldn’t swap my life on the road for staying equipment, clothes and passports when their fan in the same place for my whole life. Hometown was broken into during their tour of the US in shows are always a great chance to show my April. The band, centred around local singer and friends what I’m up to and see lots of familiar musician Hugo Manuel, were due to play a show faces, which I love. The crowds in Oxford are in San Antonio when the van was burgled. A fan- definitely something else for someone who grew run appeal on the Gofundme.com website raised up in the city; you don’t get that kind of love over $5,000 in just over 24 hours, with the aim of from anywhere else. raising $10,000 to cover the cost of the musical “It’s going to be a really new experience to equipment taken. play somewhere like St Barnabas, and as such, Only two days before the theft Hugo had been we’re going to make it a unique show. We’ll be talking to Nightshift from The States about the doing a set of quieter songs, more adept to the tour, his most recent album, `Entirely New Blue’, environment, with some new material also. I’m and about his planned homecoming show at St excited for the challenge, and it will great to be Barnabas Church on Thursday 5th of May – his able to change things up and present Chad Valley biggest hometown headline show to date. in a different light. Chad Valley has spent much of the last two years with every tour I do out here, so it’s great to see a “I think of touring as the day job, and writing touring across Europe and America; `Entirely pay-off to all the touring. music back home and my leisure-time. I don’t New Blue’, Hugo’s second full album in his Chad “I have very changeable tastes in music. I’m want to write music to make money; if I start Valley guise was released late last year, the album a fickle music listener, and so the music that I thinking like that – and I have done in the past mixing his tropical electro-pop with a more r’n’b- write reflects what I’m listening to at a certain – then the music I write is invariably dogshit. If flavoured sound. time. However there are always elements that tie I have the leisure to write the music that I want Talking to Nightshift from Texas before the the Chad Valley project together: a love of long and then go on the road for six months of the year robbery, Hugo said, “Since I started Chad Valley, forgotten synths and drum machines and late-80s every year then I am very happy.” | | things have moved quicker than they ever did pop. Chad Valley plays St Barnabas on Thursday 5th Berk’s Nest Comedy stage the other stage riverside stage Complete ChildreN’s ZoNe | exteNsive fairgrouNd | gourmet Caterers with Jonquil and I’ve had better success over here “The Chad Valley show last year at the Bully May with Salvation Bill and After the Thought. & village tea teNt | Beautiful CampiNg | gorgeous glampiNg in the USA. It’s a big country, so it takes a lot of last year was really special because it was the Tickets are on sale, priced £8adv, from Tigmus. cornburymusicfestival.com commitment to tour here properly, but it’s totally very last show of an epic three-month tour of com. To contribute to the equipment fundraiser, worth it. The crowds are getting bigger and bigger the US and Europe. I miss being home a lot, but go to www.gofundme.com/8gzrw8v5. WIN CORNBURY FESTIVAL TICKETS! If God didn’t intend us to drink large quantities Then of course there’s THE DISCO SHED, of beer while listing to music, he wouldn’t have which is where Nightshift invariably end each invented fields, or summer. And he’d absolutely evening, dancing like a crazy thing. We’ll deny it never have allowed Great Tew Park to be created. in the morning of course, insisting we spent the Because here’s where you’ll find CORNBURY latter part of the night sat sedately and sensibly FESTIVAL, back in the Shire for its 13th annual around the campsite bonfire. Or in it. outing. Lucky for some – not least anyone who enjoys watching big name acts, cult heroes and Tickets for Cornbury Festival are on sale pop hopefuls in picturesque surroundings and with now from the festival website: www. an air of English village fete civility about it. cornburyfestival.com – with VIP options, concessions and day tickets all available. Heck, Cornbury might grab headlines in lesser you can even purchase posh toilet tickets to publications for its regular clientele of prime go with your glamping if slumming it with the ministers, Hollywood actors and TV presenters, peasants doesn’t grab you (and us peasants do SUMMER SESSION but here at Nightshift we know it’s all about the have a habit of grabbing people, usually in the music. And the comedy. And the bar. CORINNE BAILEY RAE; BOOKER T; hope they’ll buy us beer). GABRIELLE APLIN; NEWTON FAULKNER; July 2nd 2016 This year’s Cornbury Festival takes place over THE ZOMBIES; TURIN BRAKES; LEMAR; And thanks to our very good friends at Cornbury the weekend of the 8th-10th July at Great Tew, THE BEAT; BJORN AGAIN and someone we’ve got a pair of adult weekend camping which is undeniably one of the prettiest parts of out of The Lighthouse Family. Ooh, rewind a tickets to give away. For free. Still feeling lucky our beloved county. moment… Bjorn Again! That means ABBA! And about the number 13? Hogacre Eco Park ABBA means the absolute best pop music on the Headlining this year’s event are JAMIE planet ever. Don’t argue, we know we’re right. To win, just tell us which one of these acts (nr Hinksey) CULLUM, BRYAN FERRY and SEAL. Seal’s played a headline at last year’s Cornbury guest turn with The Trevor Horn band was the Plenty more besides as ever, including THE Festival: A) TOM JONES; B) ELVIS absolute highlight of last year’s Cornbury, and RIVERSIDE STAGE, which features its usual COSTELLO; c) BABYMETAL. Bryan Ferry is an indisputable legend, both mix of local acts and rising starlets, including Email answers, clearly marked Cornbury musically and sartorially. We’re sure someone PEERLESS PIRATES; THE INFLATABLES; Competition, to [email protected], will be along very soon to say something nice SAEDLY DORUS & THE HOOLIE BAND; or on a postcard to Cornbury Competition, about Jamie Cullum. ALPHABET BACKWARDS and THE Nightshift Magazine, PO Box 312, Kidlington, BALKAN WANDERERS; there’s also CAFÉ OX5 1ZU. Please include full name, email These table toppers will be joined over the three NERO’s acoustic stage, and THE COMEDY address and a daytime phone number. Deadline www.irregularfolk.co.uk th days by the likes of SOUL II SOUL; ALL STAGE, which this year features star turns from for entries is the 25 May. The editor’s decision photo: IWPhotographic.com SAINTS; JAMES MORRISON; WILKO DANE BAPTISTE, CARL DONNELLY, ED is to sing ABBA songs very loudly and out of JOHNSON; LUCINDA WILLIAMS; GAMBLE and NISH KUMAR. tune all the way through Jamie Cullum’s set.

that it’s now bearing fruit. If this proves successful we hope to do jam in the autumn. Marmalade has been somewhat NEWS under-represented in the music industry. College School’s sports field. According The rather shit Scottish band Marmalade to Anderson the immersive show aims and Labelle’s hit ‘Lady Marmalade’, being to “rail against the futility of the Great the main flag wavers. We hope to change War and challenges the inhumanity and that.” Alongside the promised jam range senselessness of conflicts past and present. Chasing Daylight will be releasing their It takes inspiration from the Dadaist artists debut single, `Ouch’, later this year; the of the time and draws on the themes of band play at the O2 Academy on Saturday desertion, of shell shock and of opposition 25th June, so you can get your marmalade to the war. The event takes place as night fix there. Give them a visit atwww. falls, in a no-man’s land on the battle front chasingdaylight.co.uk, and do feel free to between the two lines. Disorientated, the send Nightshift any fun stuff you’ve made. audience find themselves immersed within Cake, kittens and wine are our favourite an open-air collage of sound, music, light, three things. pyrotechnics and performance.” While the event is free, anyone wanting to go along AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into BBC must obtain a ticket in advance. Visit Oxford Introducing every Saturday www.oxfordplayhouse.com to get yours. night between 8-9pm on 95.2fm. The dedicated local music show plays the CHASING DAYLIGHT have launched best Oxford releases and demos as well their own range of marmalade. The as featuring interviews and sessions with east Oxford band’s homemade orange local acts. The show is available to stream breakfast relish will be sold in single, or download as a podcast at bbc.co.uk/ Plus Support Band - DECOVO EP and double concept album-sized jars, oxford. with all profits going to local counselling service The Listening Centre. Julian OXFORD GIGBOT provides a regular The Cellar Frewin Court Oxford OX1 Sharples from Chasing Daylight told local gig listing update on Twitter (@ Nightshift, “We wanted to do something oxgigbot), bringing you new gigs as quirky, tasty and peculiarly English, like soon as they go live. They also provide Sat 25 June Tickets £6 in advance : wegottickets.com - £8 on the Door our music. I had the idea when I heard a free weekly listings email. Just contact 8.30pm Decovo - 9.30pm Maia Pulp on John Peel and I’m so happy [email protected] to join. Sponsored by But surprises are still in store, one being some THE EPSTEIN recurring electric guitar, low in the mix, that sounds for all the world like it’s teleported in `Burn The Branches’ from an 80s Fall album. Olly Willis’ plaintive (Zawinual) vocal style won’t be to everyone’s taste, nor will The Epstein may have had a difficult few months the liberal use of harmonies, the album sounding RELEASED (see last month’s Nightshift) but this album survives much better through speakers than the enforced VARIOUS ARTISTS BEWARE THIS BOY as a record of the latest incarnation of a band with intimacy of headphones. roots going back to 2006. Like previous offerings Learning that he spent time living in Wyoming `We Do Not Have A ‘Life’ it’s a collection heartfelt, thoughtfully crafted songs, helps explain the expansiveness of the whole often shot through with tales of longing and loss. affair, though Americana would be too lazy a term (Self released) ‘That Voice’ opens with a simple acoustic guitar to apply here. In fact it sounds very much like a Dinosaur Vol.2’ It might shock you, after reading not only the title riff joined by the vocal and some low, barely-there product of Oxford, if only in the way bands from (Self released) but also casting your eyes over a handful of the keyboards, building up to a full rock experience our city often return to themes of wild, rugged Twenty years on from scene-defining album tracks on offer (`Hail The Day’; `Gathering’) that with an almost heavy metal guitar solo. ‘It Will nature and open skies. Closing track ‘Funeral’ `OXCD’ the availability of so much free music Beware This Boy’s album `Life’ is in fact not a Pass’ continues the portentous theme, a recurring opens with a slow, tattoo-like drumbeat and a story online has made such local compilations all but collection of faith songs. It is, rather, an expressive feeling that something surprising is about to of “the coldest day of my life”. redundant. The only way they can work is to tap and rather hoarse series of folk tracks, based around happen. It makes for a consistent experience, Hardly an upbeat ending but there’s nothing into a particular niche, and use the project to raise the songwriting of Simon Meakin and composed by taking the listener on a definite journey, and for maximum effect, entirely successfully. ‘Lay depressing in the LP either, more a glimpse into some cash for a good cause along the way. the band as a whole. Full of the vague observations it’s not hard to appreciate the months of work Me Down’ is the most extrovert number, with a someone’s inner life, with all its conflicting Which is what `We Do Not Have a Dinosaur Vol. only a folk artist could get away with (“I’ll build put in. The production is pretty much flawless, bouncy stadium feel that sits in welcome contrast emotions. It’s a journey well worth making. 2’ here does. Compiled by Tiger Mendoza’s Ian a warm fire / And we’ll make some moments to often mixing instruments down rather than up with the more delicate, folky pieces. Art Lagun De Quadros, like 2011’s Volume 1, put together have and to hold, my dear,” from `To Have And by The Psychotechnic League and The Modernist To Hold’), it is nonetheless a touching and clearly Disco, the album brings together the various shades loved collection, sentiments which can often, Laura Marling in their ranks). and shapes of electronic music being made around elegant synths, machine beats and marching to a degree, warm the hearts of even the most Growing up is inevitable but Alphabet Backwards PADDOX Oxfordshire right now, with profits going to Helen ambivalent of observers. jackboots on the V For Vendetta-referencing `Roses prove it needn’t go hand in hand with cynicism; & Douglas House and The Oxford Food Bank. & Guns’; After The Thought’s considered, gently- Warmed, however, doesn’t necessary lead to an Optimistic Visions of their world might well now feature mortgages and If there never seems to be an electronic music textured slow-build `Whole Again’, that rises like a audience being convinced. It isn’t hard to find the more sensible clothing, but hopefully they’ll never scene in Oxford it’s maybe because many of the tide of distortion to a plateau of enveloping noise, charm within the fabric of `Life’, with `Ghost’ in the Future EP producers work in isolation, only occasionally not too far removed from Mogwai’s recent `Atomic’ particular a sweet and notably articulate portrayal let go of that childlike naivety. (One Note Forever) venturing into the live arena, and because such a project; Coloureds’ epic drum&bass synthscaping, of loss, both in Meakin’s lyrics and the band’s Sue Foreman As strategic decisions in music go, Paddox’s broad genre features disparate styles. As such, and The Young Women’s Music Project’s ghostly, instrumentation. Meakin is liable, however, to lean decision to release their debut effort `WDNHADV.2’ ranges from spectral instrumental clamouring, trip hop. a little too close to a croak then a croon, an aesthetic ‘Aphrodisiaque’ cast in concrete might ambience, to full-on drum&bass and rap, with There’s barely a misstep to be heard, though: Dave which, rather than compliment the consistently be up there with Jason Everman choosing myriad style in between. Griffith makes two appearances; his solo piece, `A tender and meticulous instrumentation, often THE BIG SUN Soundgarden over Nirvana, Morrissey cavorting In the former camp are Gold Falls’ Steve Reich- Dog Loose in the Woods’ one hysterical crescendo drowns it out in a messy warble, `Leave Alone’ on stage draped in a union flag and Balloon styled rhythmic minimalism, Kid Kin’s industrial that could be a piano falling down a flight of stairs in particular, and it proves a shame throughout as `Red Box Line’ Ascents changing their name to the Google- ambience, with its purposeful layering and dense while the garage band next door collapse through it is something which, for many, will likely prove (Balloon Twister) friendly Neverlnd. textures, and dronemeister Lee Riley’s microtonal the wall, while his team-up with Space Heroes of decisive. An oversight without doubt, as there is “This might be too pop for your fine tome,” For proof, you can see a copy (perhaps the only sleep dirge. In the latter come Half Decent’s the People is a wonderfully retro-futurist journey certainly plenty here worth delving into. It just takes says the nice chap from The Big Sun, perhaps one?) of said artefact in the wondrous Bear and scattershot drum&bass and militant rhyming, which into synth-pop that leans in on vintage Human a degree of patience and persistence that may prove forgetting the unequivocal praise heaped on his the Bean coffee shop on Cowley Road, sitting come as a (not unwelcome) slap in the face after League and OMD’s most recent releases. Add in too much. band’s previous offerings, not least their single there forlornly and gradually coming down in the preceding subtlety, and Meef Chaloin’s playful, sterling offerings from Esther Joy Lane, Asher Dust, Ben Lynch ALPHABET `Bruiser’, which crept into Nightshift’s end of year price. Wait a year and it could be yours for 20 restless and spacious but sharp-edged electro. Maiians and Tiger Mendoza themselves and you Top 25 last time round. quid. The album’s strength is its variety as much as its get a great wide-angle snapshot of a local sub-scene BACKWARDS Truth is, you can’t be too pop, especially when With such hardened casing, getting to know undeniable quality. Chief highlights are Death of in rude, inventive health. Maybe just not always in KANADIA `The Things We Did To the result is as simple, sweet and splendid as this. Paddox’s music would always seem daunting Hi-Fi’s swoonsome, soulful trip-hop which pitches plain view. `Red Box Line’ is like a bloody great smacker and while this second release is packaged more Lucy Cropper’s sleepy-eyed vocals against Dale Kattack `EP’ Pass The Time’ of a kiss, right on the lips. In the middle of a conventionally, its four tunes evoke a lost era – (Self released) flower meadow, at the height of summer. Amid one of standing with a bottle of Holsten Pils in (Self released) the housey bleeps, giddy synth whooshes and east London bars, or sitting in the chill out room In our minds Alphabet Backwards will always be This new collection is as eclectic as `Circle’ Hailing from Abingdon, it’s perhaps natural that synthetic brass parps Berry Brown’s voice is a of a 1990s megaclub and reading notices for VIENNA DITTO the wide-eyed teenage lovers chucking ice cubes was a neat, coherent summing up of the voodoo Kanadia should look to Radiohead for inspiration sleepy-eyed joy, a giddy, gleeful, just woke up upcoming nights with previously unheard of DJs into the ocean in an attempt to save polar bears sci-fi blues they peddle. The EP’s title track but to their great credit while they’ve taken `Pablo clarion call that couldn’t sound more seductive if (L’il Puffa McSporran and Deejay Sanchez) on `Ticks EP’ from global warming, or dashing down to Primark is a menacing rockabilly tale of identity theft; Honey’ as their starting point they’ve stood their it were the Cadbury’s Caramel Rabbit. She only the decks, treating you to an entire 15 hours of (Ubiquity Project Recordings) to buy cheap fashion. But those songs were seven `Tiny Tambourines’ wouldn’t sound out of place ground rather than attempt to ape Thom and co.’s wants to hold hands though. And dance. And feed Vienna Ditto, the best Tarantino-esque band to ambient techno. amongst Depeche Mode’s early 2000s glitchy increasingly esoteric experiments. years ago: surely we should be onto paeans to you marshmallows made of sunshine and smiles. have never soundtracked a Tarantino film, have However, it’s good that someone in Oxford is blues electronica, and `Frank Account’ is a slinky This is stadium pop with a hint of prog in its bitter divorce and mortgage repayments by now? So what are you gonna do? Sit inside and listen to followed up their 2015 album `Circle’ with new trying this given the plethora of straightforward dollop of sinister Andrews Sisters-style harmonies. backpack and not an ounce of shame. And why Not a bit of it. That giddy pop rush remains at the The 1975? EP `Ticks’, with whose generous seven-track indie and folk acts that pepper the scene and The duo also cover two Negro spirituals: should Kanadia hang their heads when they have heart of everything they do, although quite how Dale Kattack length they really are spoiling us. Paddox deliver a pretty convincing quartet of `Motherless Child’ and `Go Down Moses’; a track like `Into The Flames’ to their name: a they keep up both energy levels and the pop hit tracks – insistent, repetitive beats recalling the while their rendering of the former is beautifully gorgeously understated silver thread of a song count is maybe a little less effortless. kind of night that Berlin nightclub Tresor would restrained, its melancholic marriage of voice that takes Jeff Buckley’s airy sense of longing and `Escape Artist’, from this the band’s third EP put on in the heyday of house, breathy vocals and twangy guitar more reflecting the isolating heartache and sets it loose in a musical landscape release in 12 months, finds them tipping over layered over and lending a chart friendly feel misery whence this song came than the comforting as wide as U2 ever dreamt of. Throughout its into the trebly, lightweight funk-pop of too but never losing the spirit of experimentation. togetherness its performance was intended to softly tumbling, chiming duration it threatens to many post-Foals bands, and while it’s splashing For sure, as a listener, you’ll have to be inclined achieve, the latter becomes a `Chelsea Dagger’- break free and soar skywards, but never really enthusiastically in the sea and imploring you to this kind of music already but if you have style romp, yet they make both sound as if they’re does; the denied gratification makes it ten times to come and play it lacks substance and fails to time for classic-era Carl Cox or even the more original compositions. the song it might be in less skilled hands. recent Factory Floor, there will be something for The gems here are the gloriously unsettling: `My Elsewhere the influence of Thom Yorke’s mirror- engage. Far better is `Television’, which bubbles up into you here. Way Of Missing You’, a Sergio Leone-homaging to-the-soul romance is undeniable, particularly on Rob Langham and apparently Adam Curtis-inspired triphoppy `State of Mind’, which unlike `Into The Flames’, something more appealing and altogether sweeter, triumph, and `Come Back’, a frenetic rock’n’roll wastes little time sending those big stadium- Steph Ward’s sunshine voice allowed more drum machine anti-love song, whose cosmic sized guitars into the stratosphere. It’s precise but prominence to play off James Hitchman’s lead, the synth wig-out outtro signs off this genre-melding ambitious in scale in the way Muse can be, and synth bloops and hums out of clubland and into audio embodiment of unease and impudence suggests they’re destined for stages and venues far the land of pop, the band skipping from Pet Shop perfectly. larger than they’re currently playing. Boys to Hi-5 via Noah & the Whale (when Noah Kirsten Etheridge Dale Kattack and the Whale were giddy youngsters and counted Festival preview

th th CHAS & DAVE; local electro-pop and r’n’b krautrock-inspired motoring and onward into LADY LESHURR, best known for her `Queen’s Primal Scream Saturday 28 / Sunday 29 songstress ESTHER JOY LANE (playing one heavy-duty funk-welded rock. Thirty years and Speech’ series of freestyles. of two sets today); New Orleans-style brass eleven albums mark them out as rock survivors, Completing Sunday’s main stage line-up South Park band TEMPLE FUNK COLLECTIVE, and, but at their best - `Screamadelica’, `XTMNTR’, are contrasting local acts: expansive Cuban- Duran Duran hey, why not, lycra-clad keep-fit nutter MR `Vanishing Point’ – they’ve been serious pioneers, styled collective RAN KAN KAN, playing MOTIVATOR, who we’re hoping won’t have a band whose next move will never be easy to Son Montuno and mambo classics, and GAZ reduced the crowd to an exhausted, sweaty heap second guess, and this year’s `Chaosmosis’ was a COOMBES, now an elder statesman of Oxford before things really get going. mixed bag of styles that showed Gillespie & co. music and, with recent second solo album only go their own way. `Matador’, making the best music of his career Beyond the main stage since Supergrass’s first flourish of giddy pop- Saturday’s dance big top line-up is led by If Primal Scream are Sunday’s punk. Oxford old boy DAVID RODIGAN who, headliners, and CRAIG DAVID’s new TS5 as well as being one of the world’s greatest band are second down the bill, it’s PUBLIC While today’s dance big top authorities on reggae music, is one of only ENEMY that not just Nightshift will be feature’s a takeover by HOSPITALITY, two Oxford music stars to be included in the cramming down the front to witness. Legends with sets from CAMO & KROOKED; Queen’s honours list – the other being Amelia is an overused word these days but it’s entirely LONDON ELEKTRICITY; FRED V & Fletcher, although she got hers for services to appropriate when it comes to hip hop’s GRAPHIX; DYNAMITE MC & WREC Competition and Consumer Economics. godfathers of Afrocentric militant rap. `It Takes and more, The Uncommon Stage is again a Rodigan will be presenting Ram Jam with A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ and focus of the best Oxford talent, with the bill sets from MY NU LENG & DREAD MC; `Fear Of A Black Planet’ remain the twin peaks topped by ska-flavoured eastern European folk- DJ ZING; PRINCE FATTY and VENUM by which so much rap music must be judged, pop band THE BALKAN WANDERERS; SOUND, while there’ll also be tunes from 99 and if some of the message is uncomfortable – motorik electro instrumentalists MAIIANS; from possibly the best party band in town, THE SOULS and HOUSEWURK. particularly for liberal white audiences – Chuck synthy voodoo-blues duo VIENNA DITTO; ORIGINAL RABBIT FOOT SPASM BAND; Dance fun of myriad hues too from THE D and crew’s “CNN for black people” remains funky bluesmen LITTLE BROTHER ELI; soulful reggae and dub from ZAIA; eclectic DISCO SHED, with local hero COUNT highly potent, even with the departure of conscious hip hop collective INNER PEACE indie starlets NEVERLND; a second dose of SKYLARKIN, who over the weekend is joined Terminator X at the end of the 90s. Quite simply RECORDS; splenetic melodic punk brothers Esther Joy Lane (because, frankly, you can by KERRY&CASIO; DJ FU; PEEPSHOW the greatest rap act of all time. CASSELS; gothic backwoods porch duo THE never have too much of her gorgeously soulful PADDY; DEL GAZEEBO; EM WILLIAMS; AUGUST LIST; mixed hip hop, electro and synth-pop); a potentially trauma-inducing DAPPER DAN; HARVEY K-TEL; JASON Before Public Enemy et al. rock from THE YOUNG WOMEN’S MUSIC A decade and a half on from `Plane Earth’ and `Girls on Film’, and they just set of crushing doom from UNDERSMILE; KING and a host of other DJs from Oxford and took hip hop to a new global audience THE PROJECT, and melancholic Swedish singer- Radiohead’s triumphant homecoming show got bigger and bigger from there: `Rio’ and sweetly sublime hurt-pop from CAMERON beyond. SUGARHILL GANG were amongst those songwriter, now resident in town, JULIA here, South Park finally gets the festival `Seven and the Ragged Tiger’ cemented them as A.G.; swashbuckling indie, rockabilly, Tex-Mex defining its sound from the beginning. Best MEIJER. it deserves. 2014’s badly thought-out the biggest pop act on the planet, leading to that and spaghetti western fun from PEERLESS One of the most encouraging known for enduring hit `Rapper’s Delight’, their Oxfordoxford debacle was a demonstration ultimate stamp of megastar status: a Bond theme PIRATES; baroque pop from Tamara Parsons- elements of Common People is the willingness early fusion of rap with soul and funk samples So there you have it. Oxford’s of how not to organise a major music event, in the shape of `View To A Kill’. Baker and Hannah Bruce’s new band DEATH to include a strong Oxford contingent, and as laid a major template, and if they’re better known newest summer festival, and the first to take which made the news that Common People was If their star faded slightly as the 80s came to OF THE MAIDEN, and kicking it all off in real well as the local acts and DJs spread across the to people now for their version of `Apache’ being place actually in the city. The message from coming to town all the ore welcome. a close, they surprised everyone in 1993 with style, cello’n’loops maestro DUOTONE. Because if anyone knows how to organise a `Ordinary World’ – their biggest hit in years and main bill, the Uncommon Stage is dedicated used on the Confused.com ads, the music they the organisers is this will just the first of what’s entirely to acts from the Shire. And it’s all been were making over 40 years ago is still influencing hoped will be an annual event, so here’s to good festival it’s the people behind Bestival and easily one of their best, and the band have never Of course, this being a Bestival lovingly handpicked by Nightshift, since who hip hop. a great inaugural festival, and many more to Camp Bestival. really stopped releasing albums, last year’s run festival Common People will feature knows what’s best in the county than us? So on Two of the modern era’s stars join these titans come. The public face of Bestival of course is DJ well-received `Paper Gods’ putting them back myriad other stuff going on on other stages Saturday you’ll get hot jazz and vintage r’n’b today – poetic rhyme man GHOSTPOET, who’s Rob da Bank, who has a good track record on where they always belonged – back in the Top and in between. There’ll be a wall of death twice now been nominated for the Mercury For full line-up and ticket details visit championing new music; that his partner, Ben 5. Members have taken time out along the way display for starters, though if that all sounds a Prize, and Birmingham’s rising grime star Turner, grew up in Oxford, immersed in the but the classic line-up on the band, minus Andy Katy B bit scary, there’s also a knitting tent, hosted by oxford.commonpeople.net local music scene, was an added bonus. Taylor, remain, and if it’s big hits you want, The Drunken Knitwits. Don’t tell us they ain’t Duran Duran have way more than most. catering to all tastes. Public Enemy Having added the inaugural Common People to their festival empire in The boys are joined on the main Moving on to Sunday and the Southampton last year, they decided to twin it stage on Saturday by Peckham songstress main stage line-up switches from family- with one in Oxford; hence the main stage and KATY B, the voice of a thousand dubstep, friendly pop-orientated fun to more serious dance tent line-ups will be swapped between funky and r’n’b hits, working with Magnetic business, and a couple of bona fide legends sites over the bank holiday weekend, with a Man, Wiley, Jessie Ware and Diplo, before going making their Oxford debuts. hefty dose of local acts added to the bill. on to achieve Top 5 success with her debut album, `On A Mission’, and the single `Lights PRIMAL SCREAM are no strangers Saturday’s headliners are, of Out’ with Ms Dynamite as well as follow-up to town of course – Nightshift first witnessed course, DURAN DURAN. From 1980 onwards `Little Red’ and this year’s `Honey’. Also them back in 1986 playing at what is now Freud’s the band bestrode the world like a pop colossus Jazzy B’s 80s soul hitmakers SOUL II SOUL; on Walton Street. They’ve undergone a fair few (often as not on a luxury yacht, surrounded by acoustic singer-songwriter JAMIE LAWSON, line-up and stylistic changes since then of course, a glamorous entourage of models), racking up whose overnight success – culminating in a deal although Bobby Gillespie remains at the helm, hit upon hit and generally hogging the Best with Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man label and a singularly spiky presence who’s steered his Looking Male categories of every end of year a number 1 album – has only been ten years band from swoonsome 60s-styled jangle pop, pop poll going. Their eponymous debut was in coming; tropical-flavoured party funksters through leather-clad classic rock’n’roll, up, up a new romantic classic, spawning hit singles THE CUBAN BROTHERS; rockney veterans and away into psychedelic grooving, into steely the London Underground and has played with the 80s-inspired electro-pop in a new light as he plays likes of Eric Clapton and Dave Gilmour as well as songs from recent album `Entirely New Blue’. He’s touring alongside The Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor. joined tonight by quirky dark-blues singer Salvation LESS THAN JAKE + TRASH BOAT + Bill and heavily-textured electronica and post-rock KENNETHS: O2 Academy – Florida’s ska- and soundscapist After The Thought. pop-punk heroes return to town. DIPPER MALKIN: Warneford Chapel – Folk TWO WAYS HOME + GYPSY FINGERS + music and dance from acoustic guitar and viola duo GIG GUIDE HARPERS FERRY + LYA STEWART: The Dipper Malkin as part of OCM’s spring season, the Cellar – The Free Reign package tour comes to pair currently enjoying a creative artists’ residency town with a mixed bill of rootsy acts. London’s at Cecil Sharp House for the English Folk Dance & st toured with Alice Cooper, Kiss, Motley Crue and SUNDAY 1 Slash. Classic heavy rock riffage with a punk spirit alt.country duo Two Ways Home headline, Song Society. th JOHN OTWAY & HIS LITTLE BIG BAND: Monday 16 from Scotland’s Amorettes, sounding like Joan Jett plus romantic folk-pop people Gypsy Fingers, CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community The Bear (6am) – The Clown Prince of Pop plays fronting Airbourne at times. Gloucester’s bluesy Americana outfit Harpers Ferry, Centre – Oxford’s longest-running and best open his now traditional May Morning show at The Bear, and melodic soft rocker Lya Stewart. club night continues to showcase an eclectic mix NIGHT BEATS: this time round launching a Kickstarter campaign to rd DANCING SHOES: The Cellar – Indie rock and of singers, musicians, poets, storytellers and more fund a new album – his first in a decade, although TUESDAY 3 Britpop club night. every week, now well into its third decade. The Bullingdon There is a particular strain of psychedelia that with characteristic humour, he puts the lack of JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS + ROZI CHAD VALLEY + SALVATION BILL + SPARKY’S FLYING CIRCUS: The Half Moon BELLOWHEAD:MAY Oxford Town Hall – So, comes out of America that will always sound new material in recent years down to “a lack of PLAIN: The Wheatsheaf – A rare beacon of wit AFTER THE THOUGHT: St. Barnabas Church – Weekly open mic session. farewell to Britain’s finest folk big band, calling it a like the perpetrators are on an everlasting trip demand.” Anyway, who wants new songs at this and humour in music, New York’s Jeffrey Lewis – Following on from a three-month tour of the ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure – day twelve years after they made their debut at the in the desert where it has always been 1969 hour when you can have `Really Free’ and `Beware returns to town with his new band, his sleight of States, during which he had all is equipment stolen Weekly acoustic open mic session. Oxford Folk Festival. Spiers and Boden’s expansive and the hippy dream is crumbling amid a of the Flowers Cause I’m Sure They’re Going to hand as a lyricist matched by his talent as an artist, from his van, Hugo Manuel returns to Oxford for BLUES JAM: Catherine Wheel, Sandford – ensemble took several centuries of the world’s great backdrop of violence, Vietnam and bad acid. Get You Yeah’. One of a kind. and his way with a story that marks him out as his biggest hometown headline show so far, tonight Open blues jam. folk tunes, mixed them all up and made them into So it is with Night Beats, a band who hail from THE MIGHTY REDOX: The Wheatsheaf (6am) a genuinely funny entertainer; his songs tread a aiming to show his eclectic tropical pop, r’n’b and a party, along the way becoming one of the finest Seattle despite growing up in Texas and who – Oxford’s own May Morning party hosts kick fine line between melancholic introspection and th things off proper early, welcoming in the summer live bands on the planet. The awards they won are jaunty whimsy, like a young Paul Simon. Live he FRIDAY 6 named themselves after an old Sam Cooke song th ASHER DUST + KID KIN: Truck Store (6pm) with their feelgood mix of funk, blues, ska, folk and innumerable, and their set at Truck Festival in 2010 uses his artistic talents to provide strange cartoon Wednesday 11 despite leaning rather more heavily towards the – Album launch instore for the new `We Do Not th more. was included in Nightshift’s greatest shows of our stories to accompany idiosyncratic songs like the dark, droning garage rock of prime 13 Floor lifetime. With the assorted individuals all busy condensed history of Chinese communism, while GHOSTFACE Have a Dinosaur Volume 2’ compilation, with Elevators, Black Angels and even Butthole enough with their other projects their talents won’t stylistically he can flit from grunge to skiffle with maverick local hip hop, dub and electronica MC/ Surfers. Frontman Danny Lee Blackwell always Wednesday 11th be wasted, but all the same it’ll be sad to see them ease, unconstrained by style or the anti-folk tag that KILLAH: producer Asher Dust, and electro-heavy post-rock wanted to form a classic r’n’b band though, and go. One last madcap dance then, and off into the forever dogs him. He’s out on tour to promote last man Kid Kin. loved Funkadelic as much as he did Spacemen sunset. It’s been a pleasure, boys and girls. year’s `Manhattan’ – something like his 20th studio The Bullingdon THE CALE TYSON BAND + LOUD 3, which lends Night Beats their soulful edge LAURA CANTRELL: It’s nice to think that slowly but surely we’re LETHAL BIZZLE: O2 Academy – Return to album. Great support from Bristol/London singer- MOUNTAINS: The Bullingdon – Country even while they’re drenching everything they ticking off each member of Wu Tang Clan St. John the Evangelist town for the veteran MC, something of an elder songwriter and sometime This Is The Kit member music of the old school tonight from Empty Room do in reverb. Having relocated to Seattle with here in Oxford, although previously planned Oddly for such a traditional country singer, statesman of grime, although over his extensive Rozi Plain at tonight’s Divine Schism show. Promotions, Nashville’s heart-on-sleeve balladeer long-time friend James Traeger, he’s since shows by GZA and RZA were both cancelled, Laura Cantrell left her native Nashville for and varied career he’s veered off into pop-friendly THE STUART HENDERSON QUARTET: The Cale Tyson singing songs of romantic woe and toured with heroes like Roky Erikson, The so Method Man is, so far, the only one who’s New York in her late-teens to study law and rap, funky house, electro and more. His early Bullingdon – Free live jazz from trumpeter Stuart heartache in the tradition of Hank Williams Sr and Jesus and Mary Chain and The Zombies and the made it to town. Better luck hopefully with accountancy, and it’s where she’s remained willingness to collaborate with acts like Gallows Henderson and band. Gram Parsons, with support from locally-based band recorded their third album, `Who Sold My tonight’s Dub Politics special, which welcomes since. Early in her musical career she played made him the rock scene’s favourite rapper and he SPARK’S SIDE OF THE MOON: James Street American folk-roots crew Loud Mountains. Generation’, with Black Rebel Motorcycle’s rapper Ghostface Killah, whose musical career in a band with future Superchunk chap Mac appeared at Reading and Leeds Festivals as well Tavern – The genial Sparky hosts his weekly open THE SPITFIRES + NICK CORBIN + Robert Levon Been on bass. And now they’ve beyond The Wu has been more consistent McCaughan and later future They Might Be as an ill-fated foray into Download. Latterly he’s mic session. ZURICH: O2 Academy – Mod rocking from over in the UK for a rare tour, tonight’s how Giants man John Flansburgh. She’s had the worked with Wiley, Tempa T and Stormzy, keeping than most of his compadres. In fact now is as Watford’s Spitfires, inspired by The Jam, The Clash being the opening night. So enjoy this trip. And good a time as any to see a man who is bona pleasure of Calexico playing as her backing up the hit rate, notably on last year’s Top 20 single th and Arctic Monkeys and out on a headline tour it is a trip. band (on a tribute album to 50s country pioneer `Fester Skank’, his goofy rhymes and eclectic style WEDNESDAY 4 fide rap royalty, as he enjoys a creative purple to promote debut album, `Response’, after tour Kitty Wells), and her debut album, `Not The taking him from the UK hip hop underground THE BLUETONES: O2 Academy – For there is patch in the wake of Wu Tang’s regrouping. supports to The Specials and Paul Weller. melancholic folk maverick comes to Witney’s farm Tremblin’ Kind’ was declared “my favourite to household name, where he’s still comfortably nothing certain in life except death and taxes and His last three albums have all been quality: KLUB KAKOFANNEY with STORYTELLER museum with his highly personal tales of love and album of all time” by none other than John positioned. another Bluetones tour. his solo 2014 odyssey `36 Seasons’, and last + BEAVER FUEL + DIE IN VAIN + ROSE political unrest, his consistently eclectic take on Peel, for whom she recorded five sessions in CHAMELEONS VOX + BAWS INC: O2 TRY THE PIE + TWO WHITE CRANES year’s double dose of collaborative hip hop – SEGAL: The Wheatsheaf – Funk, soul, rock traditional English folk music having seen him the early-noughties and to whose memory Academy – Billed as a farewell tour, the + LUCY LEAVE: The Library – Gorgeously the elegant, soulful `Sour Soul’ with jazz trio and jazz from local troupe Storyteller at tonight’s collaborate with the likes of Billy Bragg, Karine she dedicated her 2005 album `Humming Manchester post-punk cult heroes – fronted by sole spaced-out indie-folk in the vein of Mazzy Star, BadBadNotGood and `Twelve Reasons To monthly Klub Kakofanney gathering, the headliners Polwart and Martin Carthy as well as a rapper By The Flowered Vine’, so Cantrell’s indie remaining original member Mark Burgess – return Waxahatchee and Cowboy Junkies from Californian Die II’ with producer Adrian Younge – are as joined by cynically humorous indie rockers Beaver Dizraeli, and on his own material, using Hammond, credentials are faultless. For all that she is to Oxford after last year’s superb show at the singer and musician Bean Topou in her Try The good as anything to come from mainstream hip Fuel, reformed 80s Abingdon punk crew Die In flugelhorn and electric guitar to take the music a country singer and songwriter of the most Bully, holding a reasonable claim to be the most Pie guise at tonight’s Divine Schism show. She’s hop in recent times. Always one of rap’s great Vain and singer Rose Segal. beyond folk’s traditional confines. simple, unpretentious and traditional variety, underrated band of their era, their early-80s gothic joined by the equally excellent Two White Cranes – storytellers, Ghostface is lyrical and versatile as DIE NO MORE + REMNANT + SECOND DRIVIN’ SIDEWAYS: Kidlington FC – Blues channelling the likes of Wells’ singalong pop, with a psychedelic swirl and stadium-sized Roxy from Joanna Gruesome – with her sparse and you’d expect from a man who made his trade RATE ANGELS + TOLEDO STEEL: The and rock at tonight’s Live & Kicking show. weepies into her own acoustic laments. Her potential, making them contemporaries of Echo & wonky folk-pop project Two White Cranes. Rather alongside GZA, RZA and Method Man, and Cellar – OxRox host Cumbria’s thrash-inspired country music career has always run parallel to the Bunnymen and Gang of Four, and later a major more heavy-duty noise-pop fun to open the show while he’s often brutal, he’s always clever. His metallers Die No More, out on tour to promote th her career on Wall Street, as well as hosting influence on The Edge and Noel Gallagher as well from local trio Lucy Leave. recent beef with Action Bronson (who probably new album `Elected Evil’. Support comes from SATURDAY 7 a country music radio show and writing for as The Horrors and pretty much every dark-minded K-LACURA + FAULTLINE + VIOLENT owes his entire career to GK) showed he’s not Wycombe metallers Remnant and London’s metal LEADER + A WAY WITH WORDS + DANCE assorted broadsheets, but in injecting an indie indie band of the past 30 years. If this really is CHIMES: The Wheatsheaf – Hardcore thrash gone soft with age and success, but if the threats and rock and roll crew Second Rate Angels. A LA PLAGE + STICK FIGURES: O2 spirit into country she was years ahead of the the end, make sure you see them. Their legacy is from K-Lacura, plus Bicester rockers Faultline and he dished out felt chillingly real, he’s a man DAISY RODGERS MUSIC with ALPHABET Academy – Witney’s stadium-sized rockers launch game and this visit to the UK coincides with growing stronger with every passing year. post-hardcore in the vein of Fugazi, and Jimmy whose generally preferred words over actual BACKWARDS + LEWIS & LEIGH + their new EP with their biggest Oxford headline the release of those Peel recordings and more THE QUENTINS + 31 HOURS + PIPELINE: Eatworld from Violent Chimes. violence. So roll out the red carpet for a real COSMOSIS: The Jericho Tavern – Sprightly show to date, with a local supporting cast – see as the `Laura Cantrell: The BBC Sessions’. The Jericho Tavern – Fidgety guitar pop and indie BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: The Cellar – prince of wordplay. electro-pop from local faves Alphabet Backwards, Introducing feature funk from The Quentins at tonight’s It’s All About 80s alternative hits, new wave, disco and synth-pop. launching their new `The Things We Do To Pass DESERT STORM + SONS OF THUNDER + the Music show, plus atmospheric electro-indie pop The Time’ EP at Daisy Rodgers Music’s gig night. WELCOME BACK DELTA: The Bullingdon from 31Hours and Madchester and Britpop vibes THURSDAY 5th Support from Lewis & Leigh, recent nominees at – Hometown headline show from Oxford’s from Pipeline. STEPHEN DALE PETIT + DULL KNIFE: The the UK Americana Awards, plus bluesy rocking prime exponents of stoner riffage, the band WATERFAHL: George & Dragon, Upton – Bullingdon – Return to town for the Californian in the vein of Counting Crows and Hudson Taylor having spent much of the last two years touring Acoustic blues and pop from the local duo. blues guitarist who has made it his mission to take from Cosmosis. Europe in support of albums `Horizontal Life’ blues to a younger audience – notably his 2007 SPARKY’S SPONTANEOUS SHOWCASE and `Omniscient’, their molten brew of Sabbath, nd lecture and gig tour of UK universities – and an & SPOTLIGHT JAM: James Street Tavern Clutch and Led Zep with folk, southern blues and MONDAY 2 – Sparky’s monthly bands, open mic and jam psychedelia making them titans of the UK’s rock THE TREATMENT + THE AMORETTES: oddity in that he’s an American bluesman inspired session, with guest slots from Mark Atherton & underground. O2 Academy – Old-school hard rocking from as much by the British blues explosion of the 60s Friends, Charms Against the Evil Eye and The Talc SHITWIFE + JOHN + NO DICE GRANDMA: Cambridge’s The Treatment, out on tour to promote and 70s as he is by traditional American blues Daemons. The Wheatsheaf – Superbly nasty noise courtesy new album `Generation Me’, their first with new greats like Albert King. Having moved over here in CHRIS WOOD: Cogges Farm, Witney – Kent’s of Idiot King tonight with breakcore/gabba/ vocalist Mitchel Emms, the band having previously the 80s he made his cult reputation by busking in electronica duo Shitwife setting out to make music SUNDAY 8th THURSDAY 12th RAINBOW RESERVOIR + DASKINSEY4 + WHEATUS: O2 Academy – Brendan B Brown’s THE WIMMIN’S INSTITUTE: The Library quirky New York alt.rockers return to the Shire, NIGHTSHIFT presents – Sunshiny pop-punk and cynical post-riot grrl following a tour support to Busted with a headline pop from Rainbow Reservoir at tonight’s free tour to promote their sixth studio album, due out Smash Disco show. Militant queercore support this summer, with monster hit `Teenage Dirtbag’ from Brighton’s Daskinseye 4 and twee indie from still an anthem for disaffected teenage rock kids. London’s Wimmin’s Institute. GRANT SHARKEY + VIENNA DITTO + THE TOM IVEY BAND + ROCHEII + LEE BEARD OF DESTINY: The Bullingdon – VALENTINE VALY + FREDDY LE CRAGG Acoustic blues, soul and protest pop from the + PURPLE MAY: The Wheatsheaf (3.30pm) – idiosyncratic singer and double bassist at tonight’s Wednesday 18th Free afternoon of unplugged music in the Sheaf’s Haven Club show. Support comes from ace local THE OXFORD downstairs bar, hosted by Giddyup Music. sci-fi synthabilly blues duo Vienna Ditto, launching SEPTEMBER GIRLS: their new `Ticks’ EP and continuing to lay their MONDAY 9th claim to being the best live band in town. O2 Academy YES: The New Theatre – Best known for their THE BLACK DELTA MOVEMENT + THE Great pop music is often best heard through NEON VIOLETS + GRUB: The Jericho Tavern a fog of feedback and fuzz. Dublin’s epic, symphonic prog-rock opuses of the 70s, Yes continue to tour, original members coming and – Heavy-duty psychedelic garage rocking from September Girls – named after the Big Star Hull’s Black Delta Movement, out on a headline song `September Gurls’ – follow in the great going, seemingly at will, veterans Steve Howe, Alan White and Geoff Downes carrying on in the tour after supports to The Jesus & Mary Chain, lineage of bands like The Shop Assistants and Temples and Drenge, the band’s bluesy rocking PUNT 2016 wake of founding member Chris Squire’s death last Slumber Party, through The Vivian Girls and inspired by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Dum Dum Girls, to current soulmates Pins year, joined by current singer Jon Davison, who at least shares a first name with the band’s definitive Brian Jonestown Massacre, Humble Pie and (on whose Haus of Pins label they released Spacemen 3. Great local psych-groove rocking th an early EP) in taking the honey-dripping vocalist. Tonight they’ll be playing material from recent album `Heaven & Earth’ alongside pieces from The Neon Violets and grungy psych noise melodies and harmonies of classic Spector- from Grub. Wednesday 11 May from across their extensive career. produced girl bands, injecting them with DIALOG: The Cellar – House, techno and disco some of The Ramones’ single-minded vim club night. and vigour and running everything through TUESDAY 10th 20 acts; five venues; one night The Jesus & Mary Chain’s noise blender. Add INTRUSION: The Cellar – Goth, industrial and th a bit of psychedelic organ swirl, some raw ebm club night, with Doktor Joy and Bookhouse. FRIDAY 13 garage pop riffage and stand back to admire SPARK’S SIDE OF THE MOON: James Street CHURCH OF THE HEAVY with VIOLENCE The year’s best showcase of THE CELLAR the resultant pop firework display. Works Tavern IS GOLDEN + MAN MAKE FIRE + WAYS every time. Because it’s great. After a handful ACROSS + NOT TOO SHABBY + SOCIAL new Oxford music 7.30 GREAT WESTERN TEARS DISCHARGE + HOPE BURDEN: O2 Academy of singles and EPs on small indie labels th WEDNESDAY 11 th 8.15 SLATE HEARTS September Girls signed to Fortuna Pop and – Church of the Heavy celebrate Friday the 13 in THE OXFORD PUNT: Various venues – released their debut album `Cursing the Sea’ in suitably beastly style, metal and southern rockers Nightshift’s annual showcase of new Oxford music, 9.15 KANADIA 2014. Its follow-up, `Age of Indignation’, out Violence is Golden topping a bill that also features THE PURPLE TURTLE with 20 acts across five venues in one night – see in April, has sharpened the band’s songwriting Chipping Norton’s Led Zep-inspired rockers Man 10.15 STEM main pull-out preview The Tony Jezzard Stage focus but retained the naïve fuzzy charm of Make Fire; Paramore-styled alt.rockers Ways DRORE + BEING EUGENE + THE AUREATE their first recordings. Live, though, they’re Across; old school metal and hard rock crew Not 7pm MOOGIEMAN & THE ACT + MOOGIEMAN & THE MASOCHISTS: less sweet, more ferocious, and that’s where Too Shabby, and punk/grunge newcomers Social The Purple Turtle MASHOCHISTS songs of this calibre really come to life. So Discharge. TURL STREET KITCHEN STEM + KANADIA + SLATE HEARTS + turn on the smoke machine, turn up the reverb TREETOP FLYERS + THE SHAPES + LES GREAT WESTERN TEARS: The Cellar 8pm THE AUREATE ACT 8pm CHARLIE LEAVY and hey ho, let’s go. CLOCHARDS: The Bullingdon – Alternately TOO MANY POETS + CRYSTALLITE + emotive acoustic folk and all-out country rocking 9pm BEING EUGENE 9pm COLDREDLIGHT CHEROKEE + THE BECKONING FAIR from London’s delicate 60s-flavoured indie folk that “makes you feel like you’ve been hit by a ONES: The Wheatsheaf and Americana crew, back in town after headlining 10pm DRORE 10pm LITTLE RED bus.” Made up of gabba artist Ladyscrape, and CRANDLE + LITTLE RED + here in October and last year’s WOOD Festival. Shield Your Eyes’ former drummer their brutal 11pm CRANDLE COLDREDLIGHT + CHARLIE LEAVY: Turl Local support from 60s-styled r’n’b and new drums’n’electronics assault recalls plenty of the best Street Kitchen wave rockers The Shapes, and folksy Francophile bits of Lightning Bolt, Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares BROWN GLOVE + THESE ARE OUR rock’n’rollers Les Clochards. THE WHEATSHEAF and Slayer. Ferocious, disorientating punk noise DEMANDS + LUCY LEAVE + KANCHO!: The BOSSAPHONIK with JENOVA from JOHN, and intense post-hardcore inspired by 8pm THE BECKONING THE WHITE RABBIT White Rabbit COLLECTIVE: The Cellar – Exotic live electro- Shellac and At the Drive-In from Witney’s No Dice LAURA CANTRELL: St. John the Evangelist swing, drum&bass, breaks, house and funk from FAIR ONES 8.30 KANCHO! Grandma in support. – The queen of indie-friendly country makes a rare Leeds’ inventive Jenova Collective, the two-man DJ HUNDERGROUND + BIKINI + AKOS + 9pm CHEROKEE 9.30 THESE ARE OUR DEMANDS visit to town – see main preview and producer team augmented live by a live electro BEATRICE + EDDA + HOOLIGANS: The GHOSTFACE KILLAH: The Bullingdon – The swing band and fronted by singer Lilly Moharrer Cellar – Hungarian rock night. 9.45 CRYSTALLITE 10.30 LUCY LEAVE lyrical master on a roll and in town for the first time at tonight’s Bossaphonik, plus a guest turn on the FREERANGE presents WHAT YOU CALL IT, – see main preview decks from DJ Chalky and world jazz dance from 10.30 TOO MANY POETS 11.30 BROWN GLOVE GARAGE?: The Cellar – New and underground REND COLLECTIVE: O2 Academy – Bangor’s host Dan Ofer. UK garage, grime and bassline club night. folk collective sing songs about Jesus. ONE STATE DRIVE + THE KAYOS + SWEET ROBOT SWANS + DITTE ELLY: Modern Art BRING BACK THE NOUGHTIES: The Cellar PINK: The Wheatsheaf – Pop-punk in the vein Oxford – Album launch gig for the local indie – Noughties-era electro and r’n’b club night with of Blink 182 and Sum41 from One State Drive at Entry to individual venues is a fiver or free. electro-pop crew. DJ Nimbus 2000. tonight’s It’s All About the Music show. THE MIGHTY REDOX + DES BARKUS: The ARVE HENRIKSEN: Holywell Music Room ELIZA & MARTIN CARTHY: The 100 all-venue Punt passes are on sale from Wegottickets.com, Whitehouse – Lively funk, blues, ska, pop, folk – Haunting, atmospheric soundtrack music from Cornerstone, Didcot – Dad and daughter from and psychedelia from The Mighty Redox, playing Truck Store on Cowley Road, and Blackwell’s Music on Broad Street. Just £8 experimental trumpeter Arve Henriksen and long- English folk music’s royal family team up again songs from their new album `Blue Skies Sunshine’. time collaborators Eivinal Aarset (guitar) and Jan for tonight’s show, the pair promoting their new THE STANDARD: Fat Lil’s, Witney Bang (electronics), drawing on their Norwegian album `Elephant’, singer, storyteller and guitarist MUDSLIDE MORRIS & THE REVELATORS: All profits from the Punt will be donated to Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital and heritage to accompany Anastasia Isachsen’s videos Martin and singer and fiddle virtuoso Eliza together The Rock of Gibraltar, Enslow – Slide and harp- as part of OCM’s Norwegian season of music. and on their own having led the way for native folk led blues and boogie inspired by Seasick Steve and The Oxfordshire Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre. CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Community musicians and singers for decades, winning pretty White Stripes. Centre much every award going along the way. JOHNNY’S SEXUAL KITCHEN: The Brewery SPARKY’S FLYING CIRCUS: The Half Moon WHOLE LOTTA DC: Fat Lil’s, Witney Tap, Abingdon – Classic blues, rock, country and ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure THE MIGHTY REDOX + PUPPET punk covers. Oxford Punt 2016 BLUES JAM: Catherine Wheel, Sandford MECHANIC: The Mad Hatter, Iffley Road The Oxford Punt 2016 - who, what and where THE PURPLE TURTLE THE CELLAR TURL STREET KITCHEN (The Tony Jezzard Stage) Oxford’s longest-serving live music venue – still owned and run by the Intimacy is the order of the day at The Punt’s (nominally) quieter venue. Here The Purple Turtle is where we traditionally start the Punt each year, legendary Hopkins family – is actually built (underground, obviously) from you’ll find the supremely soulfulCharlie Leavy – the best thing to come and where equally traditionally, something goes wrong or breaks. Ever granite and the distilled spirit of rock and roll. The venue’s long-established out of Hook Norton since cask ale. If Charlie was an ale, she’d be simple, seen a sound engineer fly? Apparently they do if enough electricity open-door policy to all music means we kick off here with The Great pure and naïve, but with strong hints of soul, jazz and even funk, her voice goes through their body. The Turtle is also traditionally where we Western Tears, whose roadhouse country-blues songs are made from the drawing comparisons with Alecia Keys. The multi-talented Charlie started pay tribute to our late friend Tony Jezzard who made things work and distilled spirit of heartache and longing. Classic Stateside influences aplenty teaching herself Korean in the summer of 2014 and now writes and performs made them work very loudly at The Punt for more years than we care too from noisy young newcomers Slate Hearts whose sludgy, amphetamine songs in Korean, as well as Japanese and Spanish. She’s also studying to remember. Opening this year’s Punt will be the unique talents that grunge riffage takes `In Utero’ as a starting point and takes it for a ride Mandarin at university, and hopes to be able to do the same in Chinese soon. are Moogieman & the Mashochists, who are cleverer than you or through Fugazi and Soundgarden. One of the band, who wishes to remain Another young woman whose music has threatened to steal our hearts lately us and have songs about the murder of Rosa Luxembourg, astronauts anonymous, once left his Y-fronts on for the duration of Truck Festival, is Coldredlight – aka Gaby-Elise Monaghan – currently studying classics at leaving their phones on the moon, and Wolf-Rayet stars. Bassist and the resultant chaffing-related infection requiring a course of antibiotics. So Oxford University while making frankly astonishing emo-blues that actually drummer Vincent has a doctorate in Chaos Theory. The Aureate plenty of reasons to stand well back. Another band who might appreciate made us go “Bloody hell!” when we first listened to her Punt demo.We Act are brainy too – smart enough to realise there’s nothing wrong underwear rationing are Abingdon’s Kanadia, who met each other on a six- guarantee you will too. And if her music isn’t impressive enough, Gaby can with teenage musicians declaring a love for Genesis, Pink Floyd and month London to Sydney Overland tour and as they didn’t have instruments recite the Night’s Watch oath from Game of Thrones by heart. Further into the King Crimson, whose proggy journeys they take for strange woozy with them wrote their first songs on a synth app on a mobile phone.They’ve deep, dark woods with long-term Nightshift faves Little Red, whose recent journeys into electronica and Talk Talk’s pioneering post-rock.Aged come on a fair bit since then, their prog-tinged alt.rock sounding like it was twin EP release showed they can twist folk music into sublime new shapes, or 14 the band had to abandon their first album as it was two-hours made to fill stadiums. Rather more ambient and claustrophobic are boy-girl let their electronic chums do it for them. Imagine Nick Cave leading First Aid long and while they had written all the narrative, they hadn’t written electro duo STEM, whose trippy synthscapes exist, wraithlike, in Portishead Kit into the forest to have tea with the Big Bad Wolf. That’s them. Ian from enough music. Flip this rock coin and you’ll get some serious noise in and Sneaker Pimps’ twilit hinterland.They’re brutal too, though. Bar staff the band also set up the excellent All Will Be Well Records. Ever wondered the form of Being Eugene – purveyors of metalcore of a particularly and punters are regularly seen holding onto anything breakable to prevent the what Paul Simon’s `Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover’, or Leonard Cohen’s virulent strain. They do, however, enjoy all-night drunken Scrabble bass vibrating them off walls and tables. `I’m Your Man’ might sound like played by a lo-fi cabaret duo armed only sessions. Upping the noise ante yet further are Drore – a malevolent, 7.30 – Great Western Tears; 8.15 – Slate Hearts; 9.15 - Kanadia; with the cheapest Casio keyboard in the shop? Well here are Crandle to doomy crustcore supergroup made up of body parts from Undersmile, 10.15 – STEM. answer your prayers. The duo – Mat and Sarah – claim the secret to their Mutagenocide and Girl Power. A four-headed hydra from Hell. “fresh sound and furrowed brows” is that they both only learned to play their Drummer Steve once got farted on by Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke. instruments at the start of this year so they could play The Punt. Looks like He survived. That’s how hard they are. we answered their prayers. 7pm – Moogieman & the Masochists; 8pm – The Aureate Act; 8pm – Charlie Leavy; 9pm – Coldredlight; 10pm – Little Red; 9pm – Being Eugene; 10pm – Drore. 11pm – Crandle.

5 4 12 3

THE WHITE RABBIT The White Rabbit has been the closing venue for The Punt for three years now and we actually can’t imagine it not being such a vital part of the night 1 - The Purple Turtle 4 - Turl Street Kitchen now, the welcoming confines of this family-owned pub perfect for cramming 2 - The Cellar 5 - The White Rabbit bands and fans together in a way that music was always meant to be played in. Where better for a band as riotously rock and roll as Kancho! The 3 - The Wheatsheaf exclamation mark is important as you’ll realise when you hear their lo-fi, high-octane two-man hardcore assault that takes inspiration from Scratch THE WHEATSHEAF Acid, Shellac and At The Drive-In and shouts its malicious intent at you A home from home for many a Nightshift scribe – to the extent there’s a particularly soft patch with much vigour. Singer Michael’s uncle played drums on the Eastenders of carpet in the corner for when we can’t quite make it to the exit at the end of a gig – The theme tune, while drummer Chris’s uncle was a commander in the original Wheatsheaf is, alongside The Cellar, one of the twin pillars that hold the Oxford music scene Star Wars movie. Top showbiz pedigree, boys. Showbiz connections ahoy aloft in the city centre. When we die we shall return to haunt the place. Appropriate then that too from These Are Our Demands, whose drummer Andy is a relative of proceedings here begin with The Beckoning Fair Ones whose tightly reined-in rage hides off- Chas from Chas & Dave. He’s never, to his knowledge, been daaaarn to kilter songs about meeting obscure Scottish footballers on trains. They also have a saxophone- Margate, sadly, though the band have been down to the crossroads to trade playing drummer. Bassist Lindsey once made a bass amp belonging to legendary Man United their souls for some serious Devil juice which they use to fuel their taught, goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel explode. Explosive is a word you could comfortably use to describe Sonic Youth-flavoured rockabilly ruckus that slams you fully in the midriff Cherokee. You could also use brutal, primal, loud and fast. But amid the riffage and thundering time after time. Lucy Leave pull no punches neither, with a similarly energetic beats you’ll also find some mighty heavy rock songs, some of which are quite nasty. Crystallite and lo-fi noise approach, underpinning tigerish Pixies pop with bulldozing are too busy smiling, having fun and making sure you’re all smiling and having fun to be nasty. Hawkwind basslines and rolling down on the audience like a mighty wave. Some law of physics says we shouldn’t enjoy this band half as much as we do – big ol’ 80s Continuing the brainy local bands theme Jenny from Lucy Leave has written stadium rock and blues given a goodtime grunge kick up the backside – but we defy anyone to a thesis on Shipwrecks in the French Renaissance which quotes Paul Simon. watch Crystallite without a grin stretching from ear to ear. Agnes and Craig from the band can And closing the show in what is certain to be memorable style will be Brown speak a combination of six different languages: English, Spanish, German, HTML, CSS and Glove, the new duo fronted by Gemma Moss, whose music-cum-performance Hungarian. Matt, Si and Danny are making excellent progress on their English, kind of. Too art has turned heads in town for a couple of years now. But her songs – full of Many Poets are, apparently, making reasonable progress in not killing each other or members Victorian gothic and dark sexual themes – don’t need exhibitionism to shine of the audience as their in-your face gothic rock tumbles from the stage in more ways than one, and Gemma is both a unique singer and a singularly maverick songwriting grabbing you by the throat and taking you on a dark journey into the land of Bauhaus and The talent who’ll send you out in to the night to dream dark, dangerous dreams. Bunnymen. Guitarist Mike once punched singer Pog in the face on stage after the notoriously “One of us will give you Al Fish, the other will give you John Candy, but we’re confrontational frontman prodded him one time too many. “He was given plenty of warning,” not telling which....” she says of Brown Glove. Make of that what you will. apparently. 8.30 – Kancho!; 9.30 – These Are Our Demands; 10.30 – Lucy Leave; 8pm – The Beckoning Fair Ones; 9pm – Cherokee; 9.45 – Crystallite; 10.30 –Too Many Poets. 11.30 – Brown Glove. Hello and welcome to this year’s Oxford Punt. will be split equally between Tiggywinkles wildlife hospital in Haddenham, and This is the bit where we try to explain what it’s all about to those of you what haven’t the Oxfordshire Sexual Abuse & Rape Crisis Centre, and we hope you will been to a Punt before. If you have, and we know some of you have been coming endeavour to learn a bit more about the fantastic work both institutions carry out. back for years and even look forward to it, then please skip this bit: you’ll only start We are also able to remember a very good friend of The Punt, and Oxford music getting a sense of déjà vu, when what you should be getting is a nice, cold pint of in general. The Purple Turtle is, once again, The Tony Jezzard Stage. Tony did something dangerous from the bar before you poddle off round town having the time the sound for us at the Punt pretty much every year from the start and provided of your life. We’ll have two large gins and two pints of cider, ice in the cider, since us with so many great memories as he went about doing the business with his you’re asking. characteristically dry humour. Nightshift’s first pint of Punt night is always raised to For those of you less familiar with the concept, the Oxford Punt started off in 1997 Tony’s memory, and we hope he can hear the music up there. as a way of showcasing the best up and coming unsigned acts in Oxfordshire in one The best way to get the most out of the Punt is to get yourself an all-venue Punt night. Because we know it’s hard sometimes to keep up with everything. Just looking Pass. There are only 100 of these available and they’re a mere £8 (plus a quid or so at the gig guide every month can make you feel dizzy – so much to see, so little time. booking fee), which is a bargain when you consider just how many acts you could So we have the Punt, so you don’t have to turn up at half seven every time you go potentially see. You can get one from Truck Store on Cowley Road, or Blackwell’s to a gig in the hope of catching the next big thing in town, unless your name is Leon Music on Broad Street, as well as online at Wegottickets.com. Support local Stiles, in which case that’s exactly the kind of thing you enjoy doing. If you see a independent businesses while you’re about it. young chap frugging enthusiastically down the front to some act or other tonight, If you don’t get a pass, don’t worry, you can pay on the door at any of the venues. that’s probably Leon. Buy him a pint. His kinetic energy powers the entire scene. It’s only a fiver each, while Turl Street Kitchen and The White Rabbit are free. This We won’t go over the list of great Oxford bands who have cut their teeth at the Punt here handy pullout guide can be your friend for the evening, guiding you through the over the past 19 years again; suffice to say it’s where reputations can be made, and myriad musical styles on offer. Please don’t buy your Punt guide a pint though – we there have been some spectacular shows from those nascent stars as well as some know from experience it can’t take its drink. truly memorable sets from acts who maybe didn’t go on to world-conquering glory Think that’s all. Let’s be off shall we – lots of music to hear, stuff to discover and but will always hold a place in our hearts. new favourite bands to love. Plus there’s already a queue for the bar and all this This year’s Punt will not only showcase what’s fun and brilliant about new Oxford enthusing is making us thirsty. Have a fantastic Punt, may all your musical dreams music, it will also once again benefit a couple of excellent local causes: all profits come true.

11pm 7pm 8pm 9pm 10pm Moogieman Purple Turtle & the Aureate Being Drore The Tony Jezzard Stage Masochists Act Eugene

Great Slate Cellar Western Kanadia STEM Tears Hearts The Beckoning Cherokee Crystallite Too Many Wheatsheaf Fair Ones Poets

Coldred Turl St Kitchen Charlie Little Red Crandle Leavy light

These Are Lucy Brown White Rabbit Kancho! Our Demands Leave Glove as well as tracks from their latest `Sacred Blood as welltracksfromtheirlatest`SacredBlood Of Heaven’,`Storyteller’s Night’ and`Vigilante’ heyday, playingsongsfrom Top 10albums`Wings hard rockershittheroadagain,revivingtheir80s MAGNUM: O2 Academy – The reformedBritish dub clubnight. SELECTED: The Bullingdon–Rootsreggaeand FREE RANGEROOTSwithOKARDRIDIM on tour. Vaccines etalfromManchester’s SpringKingsout garage rockingintheveinofPalma Violets, SPRING KING: The Bullingdon–Laddish with herairy, delicatesongsoftheseaandmore. virtuosity. He’s joinedbyfolk-popsingerJessHall emotion withsomeseriouscelloandlivelooping melancholic songsofloveandloss,combiningpure end ofthemonthDuotoneunfurlshisgorgeously up forhisappearanceatCommonPeoplethe campaign, aimingtotacklemalesuicide.Gearing of mentalhealthcharityCALM’s Save The Male Wall, Summertown– A specialconcert inaid NEUBERG +MATT CHANARIN: The North DUOTONE +JESSHALL +RICHARD unlearn everythingyouthoughtknew. decades inoneroomonnight.Comeand uncompromising charactersofthepastfew Frank Sidebottom. Two ofthemostenduringly much ofacultconcernonthe80scircuitas absurdist approachtocomedymadehimas Ted Chippington,amanwhosedeadpan, reunited withold Vindaloo Recordslabelmate the lastfewyears.Forthisnewtourthey’re the bestdrummerNightshifthaswitnessedin Violet Violet drummerFlissKitson–possibly astonishingly intensebandthatincludesformer- to anoftenterrifyingdegree,fronting equals, Lloyddefyingageandexperience intimidating. Live The Nightingaleshavefew presence anddeliveryasirresistibleitis stays thesame,Lloyd’s surlycerebral-caustic that changesshaperegularlybutsomehow own Beefheart.Like The Fallthey’reaband and songwriterRobertLloyd–Birmingham’s members, thesoleconstantbeingfrontman the waythey’veusedupsome26different band in thesideofcomplacentindiemusic. Along in 2004tocontinuetheirroleasperpetualthorn dissolving attheendofthatdecade,reforming Peel favouritesthroughoutthe1980sbefore under theNightingalesnameandbecomefirm with The Clash,theywentontoregroup in Birminghamas The Prefectsandtoured over 40yearsnow. Havingoriginallyformed and inventivenessofthepost-punkperiodfor Nightingales havetypifiedtheintelligence Obstinate anduncompromising, The The Cellar TED CHIPPINGTON: / THE NIGHTINGALES Friday 20 SATURDAY 14 th th BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: The Cellar rock hostedbythe universityrocksociety. NIGHT:ROCKSOC – Live TheWheatsheaf Horn, tourtheirnewsecondalbum. helmed bytwinsistersMercedesand Phoenix Arn- Bullingdon –Ontario’s polishedpop-punkers, COURAGE MY LOVE+OVER: The through afuzzcorehaze–seemainpreview SEPTEMBER GIRLS:O2 Academy – Purepop Tavern SPARK’S SIDEOF THE MOON: JamesStreet Famous + TEDDYJericho Tavern WHITETRIO: – GEORGE SHOVELING& THE RADARS psych-rock, baby–seemainpreview NIGHT BEATS: The Bullingdon–Digthatfunky Crooked Teethguise. frontman JackOlchawskiopenstheshowinhisMy close toEdieBrickellterritory. Former ToLiesel confessionals andacousticballadeeringsteerher singer/songwriter SylvaKay, whoseheart-on-sleeve myriad othercollaborativeprojects.She’s joinedby Emily Barker&theRedClayHalo,aswell after yearsplayingpiano,fluteandaccordionin show fromsingerGillSandell,goingitalonenow Modernist folkmusicattonight’s Tigmus-hosted Jericho TavernCROOKED TEETH: – GILL SANDELL +SYLVA KAY +MY Kakofanney. in theSheaf’sdownstairsbar, hostedbyKlub ( CALLOWSAINTS: TheWheatsheaf + THE BATEY &SAL +MATT SEWELL &JULES IAN NIXON&FI+MARKSOLLIS TONY Made InChelseaisback.Rejoice! ANDY JORDAN:O2 Academy –Blokefrom local singerandguitarist. fromtheveteran Old schoolbluesyrockandr’n’b MAD LARRY: The Brewery Tap, Abingdon – THE MIGHTY REDOX: The BlackSwan and breaksfromDaniel Avery and Volte Face. Dimensions FestivalinCroatia,withacid,techno Cellar – The Cellarhostsalaunchpartyforthe TURF: DIMENSIONSFESTIVAL PARTY: The support attonight’s It’s All About The Musicshow. post-rock fromGhostsIn The Photographsin Blur intheirsound.Elegantlynoisyinstrumental due homageto The Beatles, The Kinks,Oasisand new rangeofmarmalade–seriouslywhilepaying inspired localrockersChasingDaylightlaunchtheir Cellar –Classic60s-styledrockandBritpop- ERIN +SEVENO’CLOCKJUNKIES: The PHOTOGRAPHS +NEON TEEPEE +PORT CHASING DAYLIGHT +GHOSTSIN THE Bicester rockersFaultline. Mother Coronateam-up The GrandMal,and TSOM; stoner-groove noisefromDesertStorm/ crew The Crushing;teenagethrashmerchants support attonight’s Skeletorshowfromuber-metal release infiveyears. Top drawlocalheavyweight to promotenewalbum`Deranegeable’,theirfirst Graham Pinney’s otherband Aliases, outontour and polyrhythmictech-metalfromSikthguitarist FAULTLINE: O2 Academy –Heavyweightthrash STATE OF MIND+ THE GRANDMAL + ALIASES + THE CRUSHING+ TWISTED Divine Lies’ album. – Free unplugged live music session 2.30pm) –Freeunpluggedlivemusicsession Monday Bluesclubnight. WEDNESDAY 18 TUESDAY 17 MONDAY 16 SUNDAY 15 th th th th

SEGAL +KHAMSINA +JINJA COOZE: DEADBEAT APOSTLES +ROSEMARY pop. Expectdarkness andtopskillz. and chums,togethermakinggothic baroquefolk- favourites Tamara Parsons-Baker, HannahBruce band theresultofacollaborationbetween local the Maidenplayanintimatehometown show, the stage appearanceatCommonPeople, Deathof SPELLS: The Library– Ahead oftheirbig DEATH OF THE MAIDEN +PROTECTION BB KingandJeff Beck. having previouslyplayedalongsideEricClapton, Magazine andnowoutonaheadlinetouroftheUK having beenvotedbestnewtalentbyGuitarPlayer McGarvey attheHavenClubtonight, slide bluesandheavyrockingfromguitaristRyan RYAN McGARVEY: The Bullingdon–Delta Friday 20 get yourwingsonanddivein. been designated The Year oftheRed Kite,so corporate megafestivals,thisyear’s eventhas and worskshops. The absoluteantithesisof merge, intocampfiresingalongs,plustalks sets thatstandalongside,andsometimes besides acrossthreedaysoflaidback,intimate Awards nominations. There’s plentymore on thebackoftheirrecentUK Americana brothers Bennettthemselves,andridinghigh heroes TheDreaming Spires, featuringthe soul-electronica duo The McCarySisters;hiphop-psychedelic- who’s alsoworkedwithMassive Attack and former PhantomLimbsinger Barker andherband;countrysoulfrom intimate Americana andbluegrassfrom who explorethemusicandfolkloreofKenya; between musiciansfromLondonandNairobi, The OwinySigomaBand,acollaboration historian nominated travellingsongfinderandmusic and Crosby, Still,Nashand Young; Mercury- feelgood Americana thatrecalls The Band & theChampionsof World, withtheir come fromregularlocalfestivalfaves the musicthough,andthisyear’s starturns polystyrene tray. It’s stillverymuchabout fat, whileyourfoodwon’t comeinanasty run onsolarandcyclepowerusedchip music stages,discosandon-sitecinemaare compostable toiletsandecoworkshops.So, renewable energy sourcesandorganic foodto on environmentally-friendlyprinciples,from devastated theirfestival,withaneventbased back in2008asaresponsetothefloodsthat founding forcebehind Truck –started WOOD calendar. BrothersRobinandJoeBennett–the and anestablishedpartofthelocalmusic be apioneeringeventonthefestivalscene What beganasanoveltyhasturnedoutto Braziers Park WOOD FESTIVAL: Sam Lee;GillesPetersonfavourites THURSDAY 19 th –Sunday22 Boo Seeka,andlocal Yola Carter, nd th Danny Emily wayward children of post-punk take a musical Americana troupe. PULSE: The Bullingdon – Jungle and drum&bass Classic rock’n’roll at the Live & Kicking show. scalpel to your throat – see main preview JOAQUIM & THE SMOKE MACHINE: The club night. UPRISING with NEVERLND + RED CROW Jericho Tavern NOVANA: O2 Academy – Yesvana. SATURDAY 28th + JONNY PAYNE & THE THUNDER + MEANSTEED + HELL’S GAZELLE’S + WILD COMMON PEOPLE: South Park – The COLDREDLIGHT + ESME NEALE: O2 SUNDAY 22nd THORN + HEEL: The Wheatsheaf – Harrow inaugural Oxford city festival kicks off with a Academy – The O2’s regular team-up with BBC hard rockers Meansteed return to town after WOOD FESTIVAL: Braziers Park – Final day of headline set from Duran Duran, joined by Katy B, Introducing to showcase local stars on the rise supporting Black State Highway here in February, the environmentally-friendly music bash – see main Chas & Dave and more – see main preview features a headline set from the recently renamed out on tour to promote excellently-titled album preview THE COMPUTERS: O2 Academy – Having and relaunched Neverlnd ahead of their set at `Two Good Fists & a Deathwish, inspired by Thin THE JOY FORMIDABLE: O2 Academy – Ritzy forsaken their early Black Flag-inspired hardcore Common People. They’re joined by Banbury’s Lizzy, AC/DC and Metallica. Local heavyweight Bryan and the gang blow back into town – see main blitzkrieg for a bluesy kind of rock’n’soul, Exeter’s rootsy folk-rockers Red Crow, fronted by former- rockers Hell’s Gazelles support with their mix of preview Computers head out on tour ahead of the release of Days of Grace singer Patrick Currier; bluesy Judas Priest-style NWOBHM and Gun’n’Roses and GOD DAMN: The Cellar – Thunderous, their imminent third album, their last outing, 2013’s Americana storyteller Jonny Payne; gothic blues AC/DC-style rocking. monolithic stoner/garage rocking from `Love Triangles, Hate Squares’, having taken them duo Coldredlight and west London’s hushed STORYTELLER + THESE ARE OUR Wolverhampton duo God Damn, the pair into garage rock and rockabilly territory, leaning acoustic singer-songwriter Esme Neale. DEMANDS + DAN McKEAN + LEWIS following in the grand Black Country tradition of towards The Hives and Jerry Lee Lewis as well as THE JOHN METCALFE BAND + DUOTONE: NEWCOMBE JONES: The Jericho Tavern supercharged heavyweight rock, with Sabbath- the northern soul-styled sounds of Dexy’s at times. The Bullingdon – The maverick classical musician, – It’s All About the Music showcase with world esque rolling riffs and industrial Bonham beats C’MON PEOPLE!: The Bullingdon – The Bully composer, producer and arranger brings his own fusion sounds from Storyteller; uptight rockabilly- th brought up to date via Drenge, Dead Meadow and hosts a Common People aftershow party with a Thursday 26 th band to the Bully – see main preview tinged hardcore from These Are Our Demands Friday 20 even The Jesus Lizard at times. Having supported host of the DJs you can hear playing in the Disco SE10 with PRESIDENT T + SOPH LS: The and psychedelic campfire folk-pop from Lewis The Wytches, Slaves and Turbowolf they’re out on Shed over the weekend, including local regulars EMMA POLLOCK: Bullingdon – Garage and grime classics. Newcombe-Jones. THE JOHN a headline tour to promote debut album `Vultures’. Count Skylarkin’, Tony Nanton, Peepshow Paddy, INVISIBLE VEGAS + BEARD OF DESTINY ROKEFEST: The Home Sweet Home, Roke – THE SCOTT GORDON BAND + JESTERS Man of Science and Kerry & Casio. O2 Academy + KUIPER: The Wheatsheaf – Americana and Annual charity mini-festival in aid of the Teenage There’s stiff competition but The Delgados METCALFE BAND / + ADY DAVEY & SHAKY LIPS + MARK A TRUST UNCLEAN + EMPIRE DIVIDED roadhouse blues from Invisible Vegas, plus blues Cancer Trust. Kicking things off today are The could justifiably claim to be the most SOLLIS + PURPLE MAY: The Wheatsheaf + SEVERANCE + BLOODSHOT: The from Beard of Destiny at tonight’s It’s All About the MFU, Mad Larry and usual Suspects. underrated band of the last 20 years. Despite DUOTONE: (3.30pm) – Free afternoon of unplugged music in Wheatsheaf – Don’t fancy a bit of Duran Duran Music show. WATERFAHL: The Angel Inn, Witney critical acclaim, a devoted following and 16 the downstairs bar, hosted by Giddyup Music. or Katy B this weekend? Well, here’s a seriously Peel sessions (beaten only by The Fall and Ivor The Bullingdon THE ARILD ANDERSON TRIO: Holywell JOHNNY & THE JIVETONES: Kidlington – other-end-of-the-scale alternative in the form of a Composer, producer, arranger, multi- Music Room – OCM’s Norwegian music season Cutler on that score), the Glaswegian band rd rare hometown show from brutal death-grind crew instrumentalist and pioneering A&R man, MONDAY 23 broke up in 2005 feeling unloved and under- with the band led by upright bass master Arild nd A Trust Unclean, alongside Didcot’s monstrous John Metcalfe isn’t your typical classical BLAENAVON: The Bullingdon – Brighton’s Sunday 22 appreciated. Amid the fallout legacy though Anderson, playing jazz and Scandi-folk. death-metal beasts Empire Divided and more. Mr musician. Born in New Zealand and gifted bluesy garage rockers head out on a headline are the enduring Chemikal Underground label THE MIGHTY CADILLACS: The Woodman, Motivator? More like Mr Rotavator. on viola, he discovered Kraftwerk and Joy tour after recent tour supports to Bloc Party, The THE JOY and Emma Pollock’s increasingly confident North Leigh – Blues and rock’n’roll. SOUL SESSIONS SUMMER SERIES: The Division, prompting a move to Manchester Sherlocks and Sundara Karma. solo career. With the release of her third album, FORMIDABLE: Cellar – Disco, soul and funk with b2b residents. where he not only joined local cult legends THE MARK HARRISON BAND + KING `In Search of Harperfield’, there are hints she SATURDAY 21st CABSTARS: James Street Tavern – EP launch The Durutti Column, but, disillusioned with BISCUIT BOYS: The Jericho Tavern – Live might finally reach that wider audience, the WOOD FESTIVAL: Braziers Park – The eco O2 Academy show from the Coventry/Oxford roots reggae outfit. the staid nature of classical music, persuaded blues at the Famous Monday Blues club. album’s journey into the past, both her own and music fun continues – see main preview A new Joy Formidable album means another FUSED: Fat Lil’s, Witney – Indie, rock and Tony Wilson to launch the Factory Classical that of her parents, increasingly leaving The YAK: The Bullingdon – Raw and raucous garage Joy Formidable tour, and that, dear reader, grunge covers. offshoot label for whom he signed rising th Delgados’ spiky indie pop behind in favour of rocking from London trio Yak, out on a headline TUESDAY 24 is a cause for celebration. Over the last half ROKEFEST: The Home Sweet Home, Roke – British stars. Since then Metcalfe – who now spectral, folky songs that are closer to her work tour to promote their debut album `Alas Salvation MO MONET MO PROBLEMS: The Cellar – a decade or so the band – originally from Full day of live music in aid of the Teenage Cancer lives in Oxfordshire – has composed music with Scottish-Canadian collective The Burns – produced by Pulp’s Steve Mackey – following Hip hop, garage, grime, disco and Afrobeat club Wales, now based in London – have been Trust, with Hustle, The Bronsons, The Mighty for TV and radio as well as working with Unit, or even The Sundays at times. Harperfield on from a UK and European tour support to Last night with Tristan Upton, Serena Yagoub and more, semi-regular visitors to Oxford, including Cadillacs, Alphabet Backwards, Shakedown Morrissey, Peter Gabriel, Blur, Coldplay itself is the name of the first house her parents Shadow Puppets. as part of the Oriel Arts Festival. appearances at Truck Festival, and each visit Prophets, Rick Kozlowski, and our favourite named and Bat For Lashes, as musician, producer lived in together, and with her father ill and her BOSSAPHONIK with ORKESTRA DEL SPARK’S SIDE OF THE MOON: James Street has proved to be a cathartic celebration of band of the month, The Average Wife Family. or arranger. On top of this he records his mother having passed away earlier this year SOL + HORNS OF PLENTY: The Bullingdon Tavern a band who know how to behave exactly DRIVIN’ SIDEWAYS: The Brewery Tap, own music, drawing on everything from it’s a plaintive, poignant trip full of memories – Dancefloor Latin, Afrobeat, global grooves, like rock stars on stage, make a ferocious Abingdon – Rocking blues. contemporary classical, to ambient electronica and ghosts, graveyards, playgrounds and Balkan beats and nu-jazz club night, tonight with th racket and write more than their fair share of and dance music. Tonight’s show is part WEDNESDAY 25 rolling oceans. It’s an instantly engaging album Edinburgh’s ten-piece “honk-step” ensemble cracking pop songs. The three-piece, led by th of a tour to promote his latest album, `The WAITING FOR SMITH + VIEWPOINT: The SUNDAY 29 though, and for all the innate sadness, it ends Orkestra del Sol, creating an idiosyncratic sound Welsh childhood sweethearts Ritzy Bryan and Appearance of Colour’, and his band features Wheatsheaf COMMON PEOPLE: South Park – Primal with Emma finding peace. Having been such inspired by the brass traditions of the Balkans and Rhydian Dafydd (sadly no longer a couple – the enviable talents of Rae Morris drummer Scream headline the second day of the festival, an influential figure on the Scottish music French style theatrical street music. Great local something new album `Hitch’ deals with) tend Daisy Palmer; Red Snapper bassist Ali Friend th alongside Public Enemy and Ghostpoet – see main scene and beyond, you hope she’ll equally find support from street brass outfit Horns of Plenty, plus THURSDAY 26 to sound like a motorway pile-up involving and recent Birdy tour singer Rosie Doonan. preview commercial success at last. host Dan Ofer on the decks. EMMA POLLOCK: O2 Academy – The former Sonic Youth, Kate Bush, The Breeders and Together they mix and meld Eno-esque ONE MACHINE + REVELLER + 1000 MIKE PETERS: O2 Academy – The Alarm Delgados singer/guitarist continues the solo life – Garbage, all chiming guitars, furious distortion ambience with noir-ish soundtrack pieces, CHAINS: The Wheatsheaf – Riff-based frontman tours his old band’s `Strength’ album, see main preview and the sort of thunderous drumming that White Band, Cosmosis and more. drum&bass, sparse pianism and the sweet beastliness at tonight’s OxRox show from One which he’s re-recorded to mark its 30th anniversary. BABY STRANGE: The Bullingdon – Dirgy wouldn’t seem out of place in a death metal MIGHTY CADILLACS: Blue Boar, Witney desolation of Durutti Column bandmate Vinnie Machine – the band fronted by guitarist Steve FURY + TWISTED STATE OF MIND: The post-grunge rocking in the vein of Black Rebel band. Amid all this singer/guitarist Ritzy more THE OCILLATORS The Brewery Tap, Reilly’s guitar work. Sweet, sad, inventive Smyth, who’s previously played with Testament, Cellar – Classic metal and thrash from Worcester’s Motorcycle Club and Iggy Pop from Glasgow’s than holds her own, her voice apparently Abingdon – Rock, blues, jazz and funk trio. pop support from loops’n’cello maestro Nevermore and Dragonlord, amongst others. Out Fury at tonight’s OxRox show, with support from Baby Strange, out on a headline tour after delicate but equal to the huge, fizzing grunge- Barney Morse Brown’s Duotone ahead of his on tour to promote new album `The Final Cull’, local teen thrash and NWOBHM starlets Twisted supporting Palma Violets. goth pop noise the band create. She’s not MONDAY 30th appearance at Common People. TRAUMA UK + THE USELESS EATERS & they switch between outright thrash, groove State of Mind. averse to throwing herself into the moshpit DANIEL ROMANO + KACY CLAYTON: MOLOTOV SEXBOMB: Fat Lil’s, Witney – EP metal, classic rock and more. Local support from GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with KANADIA either, where the teaming horse of devotees The Bullingdon – Ahead of their main festival in The Jericho Tavern – Blues rockers Deadbeat launch gig for the recently reformed local punk metalcore crew Reveller, kicking it out in the vein + HORSE ROCK + AUTUMN SAINTS: The are always ready to catch her and bear her July, Halfway To 75 entice acclaimed Canadian Apostles headline tonight’s It’s All About the Music band who originally split in 1996 after supporting of Bring Me the Horizon, and melodic metallers Wheatsheaf – Characteristically mixed bag of aloft back to her natural playground, the stage. songsmith Daniel Romano to Oxford, the former showcase. the likes of UK Subs. 1000 Chains. musical wonders at GTI’s monthly show, tonight While the band’s own pre-release message punk and frontman of Attack In Black channelling CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community Centre CATWEAZLE: East Oxford Community Centre SIMPLE with DENIS SULTA: The Bullingdon – with Punt stars Kanadia taking Radiohead, Muse seemed to be that `Hitch’ would be more the emotive, timeless storytelling style of George SPARKY’S FLYING CIRCUS: The Half Moon SPARKY’S FLYING CIRCUS: The Half Moon The long-running techno and house club night host and U2 into widescreen stadium-pop places. minimal and raw than its predecessors, it’s still Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Merle ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure ACOUSTIC THURSDAY: Jude the Obscure their own Common People aftershow, with guest DJ Support from Reading bemasked surf-rock titans live where they really breathe fire. Haggard. BLUES JAM: Catherine Wheel, Sandford BLUES JAM: Catherine Wheel, Sandford Denis Sulta. Horse Rock, and local country grungers Autumn ROKEFEST: The Home Sweet Home, Roke Saints. st th – Full day of live music in aid of charity with FRIDAY 20 RY X: St. John the Evangelist – Sparse, bordering th TUESDAY 31 FRIDAY 27 Junction 6, Storyteller, Brother Eli, Oldplay, SPARK’S SIDE OF THE MOON: James Street WOOD FESTIVAL: Braziers Park – Kicking on desolate piano pop from Aussie singer and multi- SKYLARKIN SOUND SYSTEM: The Cellar Youthclub For Rich Kids, Get Loose, The Vincent Tavern off the ninth eco festival with headline sets over instrumentalist Ry Cuming, out on a European – Count Skylarkin’ hosts a Common People warm- the weekend from Danny & the Champions of the tour to promote debut album `Dawn’, his stark up night, where he’ll be manning the decks in his World, Sam Lee and The Owiny Sigma Band – see falsetto inspired by Bon Iver, Art Garfunkel and Jeff legendary Disco Shed. Tonight he’ll be spinning Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Email list- main preview Buckley. his trademark mix of reggae, dancehall and jungle ings to [email protected]. All listings are copyright Nightshift Magazine and may not be THE NIGHTINGALES + TED HEADINGTON HILLBILLIES: The Black alongside DJ Fu, Alex 19 From Wigan and guests. reproduced without permission. CHIPPINGTON: The Cellar – The enduring Swan – Bluegrass and country folk from the local KIRAN LEONARD OCTOBER DRIFT LIVE The Bullingdon The Bullingdon Innovation is a much revered with his playful attitude to style, time October Drift’s diminutive singer of strength from a band who’ve commodity in a music industry signature and tempo, the evening stands contorted centre stage, quietly (or more accurately, bloody that often seems to be looking begins to feel a little like someone looking like he’s been poured into noisily) been making a reputation backwards, sideways, any way trying to explain string theory, his tight black jeans. To one side the for themselves as a seriously photo by Guy Henstock but forwards. Eleven minutes into Being John Malkovich and Urdu band’s bassist looks like a young powerful live act for the past 18 Kiran Leonard’s opening track `Pink grammar to you simultaneously. As Kevin Shields; to the other is a months, plying a strain of classic Fruit’, his guitarist picks up a violin a result the brain, tired of grasping guitarist who could pass for a young indie noise that combines the dour and plays a haunting, gypsy-esque for something regular and coherent, Andy Bell from Ride. Together insularity of post-punk with the melody which sits above a chunky reverts to default mode and begins the spangle, fuzz and thunder they euphoric melodies of the early-80s guitar riff in a strange and foreign looping the theme music to Jurassic concoct is what The Icicle Works or Liverpool scene. There’s more than time signature, with a cow bell Park. One might go as far to say Comsat Angels might have sounded a hint of the more turbulent end of incorporated to keep the obscure that there is a certain self indulgence like had they grown up listening shoegaze about them, but they’re rhythm. Only then is it safe to say to Kiran Leonard’s work which is to Smashing Pumpkins and My too busy attacking their instruments that convention has left the building indicative of a young musician with Bloody Valentine. They’re little with canine vigour to glance down and that Kansas has gone bye-bye. a lot of ideas but no overall themes, short of a diehard indie kid’s wet at their feet, and even when they Kiran Leonard, although just twenty, as though Leonard is attempting dream. change the vibe slightly with `Lost’, already has a plethora of material to to communicate by speaking in What online presence the Somerset noise and energy levels dip only his name; he’s something of a child tongues, impossible for mere mortals quartet have gives little information fractionally. prodigy in many respects, and his to translate. away. We’ll have to make do In fact the only minor downside of latest album, `Grapefruit’, continues Kiran Leonard is undoubtedly one with calling the singer Mr Intense tonight’s debut Oxford show for the to exhibit his ADD approach to of our most pioneering, exciting new Skinny Guy, though when he band is the relatively sparse turnout. song writing with so much cross prospects and his career trajectory mounts the Bully’s bar to knock That’s easily put down to their, as pollination; it is truly the sluttiest, will be fascinating as he clearly out a particularly heroic tune, his yet, low profile. Fair to say, next most depraved of all the honey bees. exhibits the ability and imagination voice rich and sonorous, belying time round everyone here tonight Throughout Leonard’s abstract hour- to do just about anything in the his slender frame, we contemplate will be back for more, and next time long séance tonight, channelling Jeff musical sphere. Trying to create renaming him Bastard Son of they’ll bring everyone they know Buckley and Frank Zappa in tandem, music which touches multiple Ian McCulloch, at least for five with them. the technical quality of composition genres in a complex and intellectual minutes. This is a scouring show Dale Kattack and musicianship is breathtaking and way is something to be encouraged for that alone the gig is entertaining and commended but there does in a way that any spectacle where need to be a flat and sturdy one is treated to top-end musicians thoroughfare which is his, and only CLUB SODA / MOOGIEMAN & THE performing intricate and demanding his. `Grapefruit’ is an apt title for MASOCHISTS / THE LOST ART THE EPSTEIN / THE AUGUST LIST / A RELUCTANT the band emerging on the other side pieces is to be marvelled at. a collection of songs with a sharp as strong as ever. When Olly breaks The problem is, with so much and acrid flavour which is in need The Cellar ARROW the pattern of the set by performing happening in quick succession, the of a sweetener to soften the bitter Give The Lost Art a cursory listen Razor is epistemologically flawed” `Red Rocks’ alone as an acoustic solo music becomes increasingly difficult aftertaste. and you’ll have them pegged as in a song about his tastes in girls The Bullingdon it’s a particularly poignant moment, to listen to and after a short while, Richard Brabin genial buskers: technically adept, as smug, Moogieman has actually only matched after the gig by Olly, but more interested in supplying created something truly new in his A Reluctant Arrow’s gothic blues gets In another surprise, Nightshift’s us for the total wig-out of a finale the proud father, being photographed a string of non-threatening tricks laboratory beaker filled with the tonight’s gig, which doubles as an favourite gothic porch folk duo that transforms `Wooden Trunk smiling with his kids, his son proudly TREMBLING BELLS / ART THEEFE than a cohesive body of work. distillate from Devo, Kraftwerk, album launch for The Epstein and a The August List are joined tonight Blues’ from front porch alt folk into a holding up a copy of the new album. However, the more we listen to OMD and Open University fundraiser for Amnesty International, by guitarist Billy and drummer magnificent stadium rock anthem. Though some of the new songs, such the duo’s intricate compositions, broadcasts, and the band’s knack off to a high octane start with Tommy from The Epstein. The The Epstein’s main man, Olly as `Funeral’ and `Finally Forgive’, are The Cellar Situated at the heart of a Trembling Bells draw upon the the more character and variation for an intriguing arrangement is singer Claire McMaster emoting start is dominated by Kerraleigh Wills, acknowledges that following perhaps the darkest The Epstein have predominantly rural county and whole palate of folk music as it is we find, until our notebook is exemplary. Plus, cameraphile paean “I got a howl like a wolf,” while Child’s astonishing, soaring voice, The August List tonight is quite yet laid down, they never dent the no enormous metropolis in itself, broadly defined and have taken a covered in scrawled references: Ben “Diana” has the most glorious gallic demonstrating she does indeed. It’s her head raised and eyes closed as a challenge but his band are up celebratory atmosphere in the almost Oxford’s folk scene is unsurprisingly welcome turn in the direction of Folds; Loudon Wainwright; Simon movie melody – why start a rock riot still early days for the band who mix she communes, seemingly, with to it with a committed set. While full room. The encore is a great prominent and furrows of the genre psychedelia on recent releases, a & Garfunkel; John Etheridge; when you can settle down to watch thumping drums with retro guitar riffs another dimension, over what are moving closer to an out-and-out rock blockbuster of a version of `Morning are ploughed that evoke traditions strand that had always been latent in Sondheim Of A Down. The lyrics Monsieur Hulot’s Darkroom with reminiscent of the late-60s British fairly restrained Tom Petty-like riffs. style, including when playing older News’, the band’s powerful warning emanating from Dorset to Delaware; their oeuvre. 2015’s ‘The Sovereign might have come from a platter The New Scientist? blues revival; at the moment Claire’s Later, husband Martin is in similarly numbers like set opener `I Held You about surveillance culture, and a from Dublin to Drumcrieff. Of these, Self’ was typical of this mood and of self-help fortune cookies, but Abingdon’s Club Soda may not falsetto to backroom blues growl of a fine solo vocal form, and when the Once’, they retain the epic melodic highly appropriate conclusion to a gig it’s the homegrown English variety that LP’s stand out track, ‘Killing musically there’s loads to enjoy, remind us of kids’ TV, but with their voice, alongside her stage presence, couple’s voices combine, the way style which is the hallmark of the shared with Amnesty. that opening act James Bell & the Time in London Fields’ is typically especially the way counterpoint is US jock jackets and fluffy organ-led is their main asset but it’s promising their individual voices intertwine band in recent times. If we ever needed a reason why Half Moon All Stars are indebted to; abrasive here, recalling Wooden favoured over harmony, and their rock linking the sounds of Huey that just when they threaten to verge is as distinctive and compelling as After their recent trials, tonight’s we’re so glad The Epstein are still out only a troop of Morris dancers and Shjips and the 13th Floor Elevators; tendency to push to the top of their Lewis and Big Fun, they could on the monotonous, they surprise ever. Throughout the restrained rock launch for their third album, `Burn there doing it, tonight is it. a prowl around the maypole could a track that would have slotted in vocal range, giving songs a strange well feature in a brat pack-era teen with a more folksy number. motif continues but never prepares the Branches’, is also a celebration of Colin May make it more resonant of merrie perfectly to an episode of The Old monastic air. That they look like comedy. If, like us, the feeling of England. Grey Whistle Test back in the day, two chemistry teachers trying to living a Teen Wolf outtake doesn’t JACK GARRATT Yet however impressive the synthesised Art Theefe switch the action a few perhaps with a beaten up Cortina make the alkaline earth metals appeal, you can at least focus on looping and rapid breakdowns are, the set thousand miles across the Atlantic as a stage prop. The band multitask interesting just endears them to us the incredibly tight rhythm section O2 Academy highlight comes in ballad `My House Is Your to the bayous of Louisiana and the and, surrounded as I am by giants, more. and the vocalist’s natural charm Ambling on stage, Jack Garratt cuts an for a loop pedal, a bold move but one which he Home’; it’s a rare thing to have such a large tumble down shacks of Tennessee, and a prominent band member is If The Lost Art are the Key Stage with an airy tune. And that’s what unassuming figure. Heralded as the Brit Critics pulls off with gusto. Blasting through singles room completely under the spell of one person, only straitened via the prism of sporting several months’ growth of Proclaimers, Moogieman & The Club Soda are, really: the sonic Choice and BBC Sound Of winner, the O2 is like `Weathered’ and `Breath Life’, he seems but as Garratt croons over the simple gospel ‘Exile on Main Street’-era Rolling beard, it’s not always obvious who is Masochists resemble proper equivalent of a low calorie snack, packed out, but if Garratt has any nerves faced genuinely humbled, if slightly astonished, when piano chords, the entire audience falls silent. Stones. It’s a highly professional, doing the singing – but ‘My Father children’s entertainers, from that will tide you over until it’s time with such a packed throng, he never lets them he realises the crowd know all the words. In Impossibly talented and clumsily charming, competent set that contains more Was a Collapsing Star’ provides Moogieman’s stripy top and braces for something more substantial. show. between songs he appears unassuming and Garratt completely enchants the audience. With than a little sub-Hendrix noodling another high point in an inventive combo through to their micro- Plus, we’re surprised to discover Opening with ‘Coalesce (Synaesthesia Pt. II)’ he modest in an ucontrived way, engaging in his debut release, `Phase’, dividing listeners, and Dylan cheese grating. The band set. The more folky elements, ditties about physics, philosophy that something sounding like the wastes no time in showing off his multi-tasking awkward banter with the adoring crowd (“I love his live show is where he could really make or admit to not recalling why they are including a harmonica, seem and photographic technique: think baseball organist playing a `Berlin’ prowess. Zipping between the mass of electronic you!” “No you don’t… you don’t even know break it, and in tonight’s case, it is inarguably so named and they come across as intrusive but they’re very much a Rod, Jane & Freddy do a doctorate. album track is rather good fun. Hey, Whilst it would be easy to label a every day’s a school day, right? instruments that surround him on stage, for his me!”); but most of all he appears authentically made. likeable and well worth hiring for band comfortable in their own skins. man who includes the line “Occam’s David Murphy live show Garratt has substituted his live band gratified that people have come out to watch him. Hannah Mylrea Hemmings your next wedding reception. Rob Langham ROB TOGNONI / MAN MAKE FIRE LIMB / VODUN / INDICA BLUES / INTRODUCING PLAY `ENDTRODUCING’ The Bullingdon CRIMSON TUSK The Bullingdon Local rockers Man Make Fire open player’s bread and butter, retaining Playing the unplayable. DJ Shadow’s between the manic, fractured drumbeats and to an undeservedly sparse crowd. that wholesome, bluesy, strat tone The Wheatsheaf 1996 masterpiece ‘Endtroducing…..’ is 63 the keys, but don’t expect the number to be Musically, they’re an interesting you can really get your teeth into. Crimson Tusk start with the alive with energy, with vocalist Oya minutes of hip-hop, trip-hop, rock, drum shaped by the deep pulse of the exquisitely collision of genres; from the get-go, His approach is varied and textured, uncertainty of a band throwing dancing ritualistically across the stage loops, funk bass, keyboards, discordant simple bassline (completely under the there’s a feel of the Foo Fighters at times matching traditional blues themselves headlong into their as she menacingly strikes a cowbell in saxophones and sampled movie dialogue radar on record.) The saxophone, threaded in their music, though that’s and rock influences like Hendrix first gig. Rumbling along at a pace time with the music. Meanwhile, the cut up, distorted, mixed together as through `What Does Your Soul Look compounded by riffs reminiscent of and Stevie Ray Vaughan, with the characteristic for a sludge metal band, rest of the band execute fast, technical delicately as a jazz ensemble or crushed Like (Part 1)’ and `Changeling’ are more Kings of Leon, and some great one frenetic precision of guitarists from they gain confidence over the course riffs with vitality and precision, and into one deafening squeal. Constantly evocative, dustier, sounding like they’re note lines one might expect from the shreddier side of the spectrum, of their short-but-sweet set, which is at one impressive but slightly nerve- shifting, paranoid, panoramic, most of all oozing from David Lynch’s Red Room. Biffy Clyro. A running theme that such Van Valen, or even Yngwie rich with thick, sludgy power chords wracking moment even set their own supremely confident: few albums flow so Technically, the drums and keys of marks them out stylistically is their Malmsteen. and hypnotically repetitive riffing. cymbals on fire. It’s hard to imagine beautifully; almost none are so expertly `Endtroducing…..’ should be the trickiest executed. It’s also entirely comprised of element to nail, but attempting to perform use of dissonance between lead and The songs are catchy and groovy, Conversely, Indica Blues have been that anyone in this crowd has ever samples, there’s not a single original note the vast array of vocal samples could rhythm guitar, which in combination full of great hooks, and always well gigging for quite some time, and their seen a performance quite like this on it, but it speaks a language more singular turn embarrassing, yet Introducing pull with their tight, on-the-point rhythmic structured, providing the vessel wealth of experience shows clearly before, and we’re left wondering if we than any album of its era. it off; Ollie Grig’s delivery (the opening in their supremely tight, punchy, ever will again. changes, and a couple of catchy for some creative and memorable Introducing’s aim is simple, but wrought exegesis on drums; the yell “INSIGHT! powerful delivery. The band drench a Having to follow up that kind of a choruses makes for a enjoyable and improvisations. His style encompasses with complexity: to play `Endtroducing…..’ FORESIGHT! MORE SIGHT!” that starts performance for a whole tour is an individual rock act. a fantastic cacophony of techniques, rapidly-filling Wheatsheaf with spaced note for note, start to finish, live. That `Midnight In A Perfect World’; the crazy I’ve always had a theory that Aussie be it riffs composed entirely of quick, out, drone-heavy guitar and vocal unenviable position, and to Limb’s they find so much freedom and room old man in `Napalm Brain – Scatter Brain’) rock and blues acts have a ballsier, slick pull offs, Jeff Beck-style tone lines that are pure desert rock, taking credit, it’s a role they fulfil in a way for expression in something completely is pure stand-up comedy, except for the only grittier edge over their British and and volume knob control or his riffing cues from 90s stoner rock gods few other bands could. After the predetermined, and so familiar, is testament sample that is stand-up – Murray Roman’s American counterparts. You can see it tasteful use of harmonics. I never Kyuss and Monster Magnet, while genre-bending complexity of Vodun, to the depth of DJ Shadow’s achievement, parking tickets skit, a dark turning point in Rose Tattoo, Tracer, Gwyn Ashton, thought I would see a blues guitarist vocals are more reminiscent of modern there’s something quite comforting but even more to the musicians’ dexterity on the album and here. But co-vocalist Electric Mary, and of course, the great sweep picking. He doesn’t half drive British bands like Uncle Acid and the about watching a straight-up, no-frills and feel for the material. Jenny Bell steals the show, shape-shifting AC/DC. Rob Tognoni is certainly his band hard, and the capabilities of Deadbeats, or even Electric Wizard in rock and roll band do their thing, Tonight could have been dour, nostalgic; all night, from the long, sighing wails of a testament to that, with sleazy his bassist and drummer aren’t lost some of their more melodic moments. which in this case happens to be an instead, it’s a thrill to witness the intensity `Building Steam’ to the surreal, disjointed, standouts like ‘Bad Girl’, ‘Dirty on tonight’s Haven Club crowd. He’s There’s palpable excitement in a now energetic combination of classic ZZ Introducing bring to the performance. childlike exclamations of `Mutual Slump’ Occupation’ and ‘Jim Beam Blues’. one hell of a band leader, seamlessly packed-out Wheatsheaf as Vodun take Top and NOLA-era Down riffing. From the start, with the irresistible pull of (“Do you feel like Darth Vadar? I was One thing can be said about Tognoni shifting from song to song, while to the stage for one of their infamous Throw in Rob Hoey’s gravel pit of a `Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt’, scared, I have to admit, at first… Never had as a player: bloody hell does he know the band keep their finger on the “live rituals”. What follows is an voice, and an energetic performance the thrashing `The Number Song’, the a cat before”) and the manic howling of what he’s doing. His playing is fierce pulse, ready for any shift in dynamic, explosive set that sees the band’s that gets the crowd moving one immediacy is striking, with songs coming `What Does Your Soul Look Like’. No one THE OXFORD and individual, with an emphasis on adjusting accordingly with both tribal, afro-influenced psych-metal last time, and you’ve got a winning to life in new, unexpected ways. You might misses a note, but this is no perfect replica. technical wizardry that your average professionalism and flair. A welcome absolutely come into its own in a formula for an absolutely massive expect the two unraveling minutes of All night the music is alive, almost new. RECORD & CD FAIR blues fan isn’t necessarily accustomed return to Oxford for the Tasmanian live setting, complete with costume stoner rock sound, and a fitting close `Organ Donor’ to be a straight showdown James Dawson St ALDATES PARISH CENTRE to, yet he returns faithfully to those Devil. and makeup which, for once, doesn’t to a memorable night. 40 Pembroke St, St Aldates, OX1 1BP tasteful licks that make up a blues Cole Bryant come across as naff. Vodun are Tal Fineman GIRLS NAMES / TOO MANY POETS / Saturdays: 7th May / 9th July KILIMANJARO BY ARRANGEMENT WITH UNITED TALENT AGENCY PRESENTS 10am-4pm SWOONS Rock/pop/jazz/soul/reggae/indie/all other genres The Bullingdon Accessories/memoriabillia/books. Noisey, Vice’s music channel/website, itinerary (in support of latest LP `Arms Brand new and back catalogue/Rare Vinyl recently managed to get Johnny Borrell Around A Vision’) appears to have had www.usrfairs.co.uk to act as the guide for a potted history of the exact opposite effect, energising and landfill indie – a move akin to rubbing sharpening tonight’s headline set. It’s a dog’s face in its own shit. Attending a impossible not to spare a thought for poor Swoons gig would no doubt be a far more put-upon drummer Gib Cassidy, who has to pleasurable experience for the former work incredibly hard to set the pace and is Razorlight frontman, who would likely see barely allowed a break, like Joy Division’s something of himself in vocalist/guitarist Stephen Morris drumming on the roof in 24 Luke Duffett, exuding charisma and self- Hour Party People. confidence despite suffering the after-effects The Belfast quartet’s tightly coiled post- of a dodgy KFC bucket. punk, not dissimilar to Wire on record, If bands like Swoons can be found anywhere is highly recommended for anyone who the length and breadth of the country, the (like me) loves ‘The Answer’ but thinks SUNDAY 22 MAY same certainly can’t be said of Witney’s Too Savages’ `Adore Life’ becomes a little Many Poets. There’s something of the night tame thereafter. Live, though, the songs about the former Demo Of The Monthers’ are largely indistinguishable in the din, as OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2 curious, yet undeniably distinctive fusion of punishing as that SXSW schedule, with Eagulls, grungy metal and portentous goth founder member Cathal Cully barking TICKETS: MYTICKET.CO.UK / SEETICKETS.COM – unsettling for the reviewer in that it resists with exaggerated enunciation over the top, THEJOYFORMIDABLE.COM f/THEJOYFORMIDABLE T/JOYFORMIDABLE any attempt at pigeonholing, but thrilling stretching words out into weird shapes. It for the listener. ‘iMobile’, the explosive lead comes as little surprise to learn that when track from January’s debut EP `Relying On using angle grinders while working as Reflections’, channels paranoia on a David a labourer, he used to pretend he was in Icke/Daily Mail scale in its sinister assertion Einsturzende Neubauten. that “This endless information flow” is Cully and company are at their best when “slowly rotting the mind of our youth”. they forget about keeping things concise I don’t investigate the merch table, but and instead throw off the shackles and presumably they have a nice line in tinfoil get lost in the nihilistic minimalism and hats. principled repetition of their no wave You might expect that eight shows in influences – even if Cassidy won’t thank me

THE NEW ALBUM ‘HITCH’ OUT 25TH MARCH five days would reduce a band to teary for saying so. exhaustion, but Girls Names’ intense SXSW Ben Woolhead RICHMOND FONTAINE The Bullingdon Tonight Richmond Fontaine play one of the last dates of their farewell tour. Barely an hour before they take the stage news breaks that Prince has died; just the latest too-soon death of a ONLY particularly cruel year. 15/16/17 JULY 2016 • HILL FARM, OXFORDSHIRE, OX13 6AB £86.50! For over twenty years and some dozen albums Portland, Oregon’s Richmond Fontaine have documented the sadness and cruelty of a world that rarely if ever makes the headlines. It was once said that Bruce Springsteen’s characters were born to run, but Richmond Fontaine singer photo by David Humphries Willy Vlautin’s have nowhere to run to. If Richmond Fontaine’s songs are awash with the washed-up, it never infects the band’s onstage character, which remains steadfastly jovial; an early exchange between Vlautin, the audience and drummer Sean Oldham about looking better when the stage lights are dimmed, but his backside staying the same size is hilarious, and even when he introduces a song about an old friend whose drug addiction becomes increasingly apparent it’s told with dry humour. Lyrically Vlautin is a poet with few equals in rock music; in a few short minutes you meet and despair for the people who populate his songs, whether they’re paranoid meth freaks shooting at imagined monsters in their hallways, or middle aged guys realising the girls in the strip joint are too young. But equally you’re carried away by the music, which ranges from tender country twang into hazily molten post-grunge rock. Early set highlight `Hallway’ is a thunderously bleak slice of rock that Kurt Cobain would have been proud to pen, Vlautin’s cracked drawl drawing every ounce of emotional trauma from the song, while towards the end of the set `Post To Wire’ finds him singing “Everyone screws up” and “I don’t care anymore,” even as the packed crowd hang on his every word. If there are moments when the set threatens to wander too far into a comfortable Allman Brothers-style jam, there’s always a stark reminder round the corner of another life lived and lost in a place where the American Dream long ago became a nightmare, but where comedy WILKINSON DJ SET • MYSTERY JETS • SOAK • JACK SAVORETTI always walks hand in hand with tragedy. Richmond Fontaine are renowned for eschewing encores, but tonight they return to the stage twice, aware, doubtless, that these will be the last YOUNG FATHERS • BLOSSOMS • NECK DEEP • SWIM DEEP few times they can do so. Frankly they could play all night (they have enough songs) and we’d all stay to the (doubtless bitter) end. Pop stars die, bands split up, and in a million dark corners of the world people live sad COASTS • RAT BOY • BASEMENT • DMA’S and lonely lives. In the face of all this maybe the best we can hope for is to leave a lasting impression. Be assured, Richmond Fontaine will be remembered for a long, long time WE ARE THE OCEAN • LONELY THE BRAVE Dale Kattack TRUCK X SWITCH PRESENTS KRIS DREVER HOGGS BISON / TESS OF THE PREDITAH • BIG NARSTIE • FRICTION • DJ Q • DIMENSION The Old Fire Station CIRCLE / MOMENTO DJ BARELY LEGAL + SWITCH DJ’S The name Drever is unique to the of the genre, it’s little surprise that Orkney Islands according to Kris, it’s Kris Drever’s guitar playing that The Wheatsheaf before he informs us that his mother, really steals tonight’s show – armed Most Gappy Tooth Industries nights altar of the gods of rock, and they’re NORMAN JAY MBE • FRANCES • PRETTY VICIOUS • IAN • GNARWOLVES from Dundee, had the maiden name only with an acoustic and without commence with punters being invited a small step away from being AC/ Drever and is actually his distant a pedal or accessory in sight, he to delve into a pile of free CDs, DC (which is considerably closer than MOOSE BLOOD • CLEAN CUT KID • SPRING KING • FICKLE FRIENDS cousin. The tale is told with the switches effortlessly from raw, rock- where they might discover a gem or AC/DC are to being AC/DC these droll, understatement that typifies the style riffing, through florid Flamenco, possibly something truly repellent. days). Occasionally they could do ELIZA AND THE BEAR • SUNDARA KARMA • THE MAGIC GANG singer’s humour throughout tonight’s into poetic picking and a traditional There’s a literal mixed bag at the door, with being a little more overblown intimate show. folk strum. His voice remains the and over the course of the evening a and ridiculous as the clean tones don’t LAUREN AQUILINA • THE BIG MOON • FORMATION • VANT • BLACK HONEY He makes great play of his native constant throughout this, a gentle metaphorical one takes shape on stage. mix well with distorted rock bluster. remoteness, telling the rapt crowd that burr that only occasionally makes Tonight’s line-up features a range Around the mid-point of the set they THE AMAZONS • HOOTON TENNIS CLUB • BEACH BABY • ADY SULEIMAN he’s lately moved to The Shetlands bolder excursions, as on set highlight of talent and musical styles, none of slow things down a bit; it’s a risky “because the commute from Orkney `Harvest Gypsies’, his sublime cover which seem to bear any relation to strategy because the result sounds like was getting a bit too easy,” following of Boo Hewerdine’s song that, amid each other. First out are Momento, Richard Hawley having a breakdown BLACK PEAKS • PUBLIC ACCESS TV • CREEPER • JODIE ABACUS • DAGNY • PIXEL FIX this up with a tale of his manager’s news of refugees, food banks and a band who appear to have been and deciding to only cover Red Hot EMILY BARKER • DANNY AND THE CHAMPS • PUMAROSA • SAMM HENSHAW exasperation that he’d once booked zero-hours contracts, feels as relevant assembled by raffle. The coming Chili Peppers for the rest of his career. a gig in Korea straight after a show to the modern day as it does to together of harp, djembe drum, They recover quickly though, and as ESTRONS • LOUIS BERRY • JOHNNY FOREIGNER • GET INUIT • BLOODY KNEES in South America because “they’re Depression-era America. acoustic and electric guitar is not soon as they start vamping like mid- both so far away from Scotland we His range of covers tonight reflects initially a heartening prospect, and 70s AOR gods there’s no doubting YNDI HALDA • TRAAMS • TIRED LION • WILLIE J HEALEY • THE DREAMING SPIRES assumed they must be near each his eclectic approach to folk with each instrument wrestling for that they’re undeniably effective. ESTHER JOY LANE • SHAME • VIRGIN KIDS • MONARKS • YONAKA • ZUZU other.” music – a solo guitar variation on a space rather than looking for harmony, Finishing up the night are Hoggs This dryness of wit and delivery dual accordion piece; a Lau song, it quickly becomes shambolic. Bison, a band adept at emotive post- TAX THE HEAT • HUDSON SCOTT • SHARK DENTIST • CASSELS • OHBOY! • HAPPY ACCIDENTS runs throughout the gig. If Drever’s and a take on an obscure song by Worthy vocals are shouted from the rock and slightly daft word play. songs are heavily influenced by his Guadalcanal Diary frontman Murray stage, swamping the arrangements There’s a smidgen of hardcore thrown island upbringing they don’t dwell too Attaway, each infused with Drever’s and rather than establish meditative in for good measure too, so when the long or hard on desolation. Instead `I softness of touch and wistful sense of states of mind, the djembe breaks are hushed periods of exploration give Didn’t Try Hard Enough’, the opening romance. a frequent source of irritation. Yet, way to cacophonous noise, they’re all track from his new solo album `If Such romance comes out best though when the enthusiastic frontman winds the more effective and serrated. They #TRUCK2016 WWW.TRUCKFESTIVAL.COM Wishes Were Horses’ is full of sweet on the gorgeous `Green Grows the his neck in a bit, and the band get their call to mind early Mogwai and the bathos, inspired as it was by a radio Laurel’, from his debut solo album heads down, there are times where angular punch of From Monument To phone-in about people unable to get `Black Water’, a song cut from the they hit on some intriguing trance- Masses, and whilst their influences over broken relationships. very base rock of traditional Scottish inducing moments. are clear, they add just enough of a Best known as the voice of music and the perfect insight into Kicking off with `Love Is The Drug math rock twist to hold their own in progressive Scottish folk act Lau, and the heart and soul of one of the most That You Crave’, Tess Of The Circle a musical genre stuffed with identikit as a gun for hire for myriad folkies unassuming stars of the genre. are more traditional rock and roll fare. bands. prepared to explore the boundaries Dale Kattack Their entire set pays homage at the Sam Shepherd INTRODUCING.... Nightshift’s monthly guide to the best local music bubbling under Oxford’s only centrally located music shop LEADER Who are they? Leader are a five-piece pop/rock band from Witney: Ben Edginton (vocals); Rupert Wilson (guitar); Mikey Fletcher (guitar); Luke Coggins (bass), and Luke Livingstone (drums). They formed in late 2013 after originally playing under a different name. They have released 2 EPs and a single to date and will launch their third EP at The O2 Academy on Saturday 7th May. Since 2014 the band have been sponsored by Hobgoblin, enabling them to tour and play festivals extensively around the UK, sharing stages with Scouting For Girls, here though!” Turin Brakes, The Feeling and The Fratellis amongst others, and Their favourite other Oxfordshire act is: picking up airplay on BBC Introducing along the way. “Little Brother Eli. We know a couple of the guys and have seem them What do they sound like? live a few times now; they have a great sound and are obviously all Stadium-friendly, uplifiting melodic indie rock with a soulful bluesy very hard working and passionate about what they do.” Oxfords oldest music shop is the place to visit for 01865 333581 rock edge that’s built for festival singalongs. The band’s sound has its If they could only keep one album in the world, it would be: [email protected] roots in Britpop but at its lightest is closer to the guitar pop of Scouting “`The Buffalo Skinners’ by Big Country.” • Rock, Pop & Chart CDs from £5 • 3 for 2 on selected sets of guitar strings Blackwells.co.uk/oxford For Girls or The Feeling. In their own words they play “catchy vocal When is their next local gig and what can newcomers expect? • DVDs, giftware & t-shirts • Printed music and books and guitar melodies with lots of harmonies and production, and plenty “We’re headlining the O2 Academy Oxford on Saturday 7th May for the @blackwellsmusic • A selection of vinyl and record players • An ongoing programme of musical events of guitar delays, so quite atmospheric in some places.” launch of our new EP. Newcomers can expect lots of energy, singalongs fb.com/blackwellsmusic What inspires them? and of course will hear the songs from the new EP for the first time.” • A range of instruments & accessories 53 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ “Songwriting, society, and watching other bands and musicians. Their favourite and least favourite things about Oxford music are: Career highlight so far: “Favourite thing is the fact that there are a lot of really good venues “Performing at Cornbury Festival, Wychwood Festival and Blissfields and promoters in Oxford who support local artists. Least favourite Festival last year, and getting the chance to perform at the O2 at the new thing is… no, we don’t have one.” BBC Introducing night, Uprising. Also, working with Hobgoblin who Ou might love them if you love: are, and always have been, very supportive of what we do.” Kings Of Leon; Coldplay; Stereophonics; The Feeling. And the lowlight: Hear them here: “When we thought our band van was going to be no more. She’s still soundcloud.com/leaderofficial

Dr SHOTOVER: Yen For The 80s THIS MONTH IN OXFORD T H E W H E A T S H E A F Ah, there you are, Newbie-san. Welcome to humble East Indies Club bar. Sunday 1st May – MAY MORNING [Bows]… Now, pull up a mat and get us all a glass of warmed rice wine, for pity’s ALL OUR YESTERDAYS MUSIC HISTORY sake. Sake, SA-KAY, geddit? Oh suit your bloody self. Just buy the drinks. Now, THE MIGHTY REDOX 6am Egg at Oxford United Supporters Club. Oxford’s Oxford’s Download (now Introducing) released a rd where was I? Ah yes, reminiscing with Butterfield about those far-off days of 20 YEARS AGO Tuesday 3 May – DIVINE SCHISM first ever International Blues Festival took place compilation of session songs recorded for the show, the late 70s and early 80s when anything Japan-related was simply THE coolest. Even as we celebrate the arrival of Common at the end of the month, with The Fabulous with Belarus, The Epstein, Rebecca Mosley, JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS ROZI PLAIN 7:45pm Not just David Sylvian’s band of the same name… not just the Vapors’ Turning People to Oxford this month it’s worth Wednesday 4th May – OXFORD MUSIC ROOMS PRESENTS W**kanese… but all those New Wavey, New Romanticky, pseudo-electronicky remembering that festivals in the Shire haven’t Thunderbirds and Wolfman Washington among Richard Walters and KTB amongst those featured. outfits - called things like Tokyo Neon or Pachinko Boys - who played fake always been so plentiful, or so welcomed. Back acts playing at The Oxford Playhouse, The Old Meanwhile Foals’ debut under their new name, `Try K-LACURA FAULTLINE + VIOLENT CHIMES 7:45pm Fire Station and the now defunct Westgate pub. This On Your Piano’, was released on Try Harder Friday 6th May – KLUB KAKOFANNEY Oriental riffs on their Fairlight synths while wearing big t-shirts with rising suns in May 1996 Nightshift reported that Tribal and Nipponese writing on. Come to think of it, font-wise, St Kate of Bush led Gathering, due to take place at Otmoor Park this Records. “A restless trip that steers a clever but STORYTELLER DIE IN VEIN + BEAVER FUEL + LAIMA BITE 8pm the way with the Oriental graphics on her first album, didn’t she? The fact that month with Black Grape, Leftfield, Chemical fragile path between Steve Reich, Slint and Penguin Saturday 7th May – IDIOT KING 10 YEARS AGO the Japanese market had gone ballistic and there were countless be-quiffed Brothers and Goldie performing, had been By this point in time May was traditionally Punt Café Orchestra,” ran Nightshift’s suitably impressed and baseball-booted kids in Yokohama baying for Western pop might have had review. SHITWIFE JOHN + NO DICE GRANDMA 8pm cancelled after objections about traffic and noise time – and still is. Back in 2006 the likes of Ally th something to do with it. Ahem. Excuse me while I put on my professorial tweed Wednesday 11 May – OXFORD PUNT (which had led to gridlocked roads around the Craig; Dusty Sound System; Asher Dust; jacket - the one with the leather area the previous year) had caused the council’s Degüello; Xmas Lights; The Keyboard Choir; TOO MANY POETS, CRYSTALLITE, CHEROKEE patches on the elbows - and stand 5 YEARS AGO at this lectern… Now, following the licensing committee to reject its application. It Rebecca Mosley; 100 Bullets Back; Zuby; No Punt in 2011 due a lack of available venues in THE BECKONING FAIR ONES 7:45pm also came in the wake of the postponement of this Sow; Witches, and Nailbomb Cults were lined the city centre, but The Epstein graced the cover of Friday 13th May – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC same socio-economic model… [Dr S puffs on an imaginary pipe]… we can year’s Glastonbury and the government’s draconian up to play across six venues, including Borders, this month’s Nightshift, talking about recent line-up ONE STATE DRIVE THE KAYOS + SWEET PINK 8pm doubtless start at this point in the Criminal Justice Act, which aimed to crack down Jongleurs and The City Tavern, which are now, turmoil and an imminent new album. Very much th Saturday 14 May – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC second decade of the 21st century to on illegal raves. One way or another the powers respectively, Tesco, Wahoo! and Wagamama. Ain’t like last month’s Nightshift. expect a Chinese cultural resurgence that be will always try to find a way to stop people progress great? In news Graham Coxon, Phil Selway and The CALLOW SAINTS BAWS + TRAUMA UK + USELESS EATERS 7:45pm Friday 20th May in Western pop. Gang of Four, having fun. Beyond the Punt and a packed local gig calendar Go! Team were announced as headliners for Snottsworth? We should be so lucky. In considerably more positive news a local music saw Oxford shows for Morrissey and Jose this year’s Truck Festival; Roots Manuva was INVISIBLE VEGAS + BEARD OF DESTINY + MAN MAKE FIRE 8pm More likely a Wang Chung revival, show was being mooted for the new Thames Gonzalez at The New Theatre; Mystery Jets, announced as headliner for Cowley Road Carnival Saturday 21st May – GAPPY TOOTH INDUSTRIES with beaucoups de smoky 80s Valley FM station, which had replaced radio Hot Chip, Sleater Kinney and The Decemberists fundraiser Fiesta In The Park in July, and Seasick KANADIA HORSE ROCK + THE AUTUMN SAINTS 8pm saxes, sproingy fretless basses and Oxford earlier in the year; the first inklings that at The Zodiac, and enduring cult faves The Steve was set to join Fairport Convention and Wednesday 25th May – IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC girl backing singers with chopsticks Radio 1 Sound City might be heading to Oxford in Paperchase – with support from Jeniferever – at UB40 atop the bill at Cropredy Festival in August. through their heavily-hairsprayed 1997 were coming out, while up on Headington Hill The Wheatsheaf, while Mark Eitzel was at The While the NME Radar tour brought Anna Calvi WAITING FOR SMITH VIEW POINT + ROSS MCKESSOK 7:45pm barnets. Not to mention Chinese Friday 27th May - OXROX Brookes finally unveiled their new union venue, Port Mahon with support from our own Richard to The O2 Academy and Willie Mason, Eliza steel. But-ter-FIELD [warning note]… 私は中国の鉄鋼を言及していな called The Terminal. Initially the venue was only Walters. The sold-out Moz gig was notable for a Carthy and Thea Gilmore made this month’s MEANSTEED + HELL’S GAZELLS + WILD THORN + HEEL 8pm open to students and guests, with shows from Nilon pitched battle in the normally sedate venue’s foyer WOOD Festival a star-studded occasion, down Saturday 28th May – TWO FACE PROMOTIONS いと述べました！* Bombers, Perfume and Blyth Power this month. between animal rights campaigners invited to hold in the demo pages a spiky new Oxford-Reading A TRUST UNCLEAN EMPIRE DIVIDED + SEVERENCE 7:45pm *I told you not to mention Playing to the public at large in Oxford this month a stall protesting against the university’s new animal duo under the name Vienna Ditto were getting us Sunday 29th May – OXROX Chinese steel! were Coldcut, Porcupine Tree, The Longpigs, testing laboratory, and a handful of people who had all excited: “seedily exotic, tripped-out pop that Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic gone to the show seemingly oblivious to the singer’s sounds like it’s being played through late-night ONE MACHINE REVELLER + 1000 CHAINS 7:45pm Next month: Sing if you’re Kate Bush: ‘Shotover, Shotover, SHOT-OVER Mynci at The Zodiac; Telstar Ponies, Comet long-stated beliefs, or just intent on being twats. mist. Fucking great,” ran the review. A review we The Wheatsheaf 129 High Street, Oxford OX1 4DF / www.facebook.com/wheatsheaf.oxford glad to be geisha HEIGHTS… no, hang on…’ Gain and Urusei Yatsura at The Point, and The To celebrate their first full year on air BBC still stand by. knowingly turned down an opportunity for indeed. This really is rock music of the old alcoholic indulgence. Because obviously school. We’re imagining Spandex trousers, we’re hard as bleedin’ nails and we like luxuriant perms and bare, oiled chests a laugh. In particularly we like to laugh here. Gone is the Cornish idyll, we’re DEMOS at bands’ lyrics. I Said Yes must possess racing through the Hollywood Hills in an Sponsored by Demo of the Month wins a free half day a copy of The Big Book Of Rhyming For open-top sports car with Motley Crue’s at Soundworks studio in Oxford, Heroes if their song `Thinking It Down’ is Vince Neil at the wheel and Van Halen on courtesy of Umair Chaudhry. Visit anything to go by. It takes either serious the stereo. It’s so unapologetically retro it’s www.umairchaudhry.co.uk/nightshift guts or poetic pretension on a monumental almost parody, but equally it’s so blatantly scale to imagine you can get away with balls-out unreconstructed it feels like the “If Rafael Nadal diverts the K&A Canal most brilliantly honest demo we’ve heard WASTE / Floods the flats of Salisbury Plain / in an age, right down to a guitar solo that DEMO OF Particularly if this lot are the alternative. And the armada sails again,” without the belongs in a museum and the picture of 01865 240250 Waste’s video paints them as moody and listener inadvertently snorting their drink Dee Snider that keeps popping into our THE MONTH intense, and they describe themselves as back up through their nose, while “When head every few seconds. Brilliant and an electro-rock band, but their by-wrote the gutters run with butter” is surely the terrible, both at the same time. synth-tinged guitar chug shows them up as line John Lennon was searching for when JULIET & THE a band who might just about pass muster he wrote `I Am the Walrus’. They might as Johnny-come-lately Foals copyists, even get away with it if the song itself RAGING ROMEOS or a band who once briefly overheard a was a fevered slice of psychedelic whimsy THE DEMO Not, strictly speaking, an Oxfordshire Magnetic Fields album in an adjacent rather than a passable chunk of swooning band, Juliet & the Raging Romeos hail room, but are worried that if they don’t lightweight piano pop. They can comfort from just the other side of the Berkshire themselves knowing such stuff tends to DUMPER border, but we’ll take them as our own chuck a bucketload of Noel Gallagher-style agricultural stadium rock into the mixer sell by the tanker load. And even if it gladly, particularly since they’re starting doesn’t, there’s always the poetry book… PIERQUIN to make occasional inroads onto the local they won’t shift the requisite units. All of Sorry, what’s that? You’ll have to speak gig circuit. Following on from last year’s which means we spend half the duration up mate; we think we’ve gone deaf from excellent debut demo, which found us of their video wanting, and trying, to like listening to Vili & Vile too loud just now. them, and the rest of the time attempting to JENN & JAMES comparing them to M.I.A. and Penetration, If we’re picking holes in people’s lyrics Or maybe you really are just mumbling remember what the song actually sounds here’s a somewhat more straightforward (come on, everyone needs a hobby), Jenn inaudibly. Yep, that’s it, inaudible like and whether it’s worth the effort trying. punk-informed slice of rocking, a single Steeves opening line, “Running through mumbling – the very essence of rock and song demo titled `Second Chance’, which Then we decide that if this is the future of the clouds on a silver plane,” on `End of roll. Good God, this is torpid stuff. It’s like rock and roll it’s time we went and got a TURAN AUDIO.co.uk finds singer Angela Benedetti singing/ the Night’ should probably be “Flying watching an arthritic snail race waiting for Professional, independent CD mastering screaming the title line in a way that make job collecting shopping trolleys in Tesco’s through the clouds,” (it’s not pedantry, these songs to get from start to finish, or it sound like she’s asking “Please give me car park. it’s being right!), but that opening faux even into something resembling second Artists mastered in the studio last month include; a psycho chance,” which might be pretty pas is quickly forgotten as she goes on gear. No amount of what might be tabla ENGLISH DOGS, CHELSEA, JAH WOBBLE, apt, since she sounds pleasingly like a to lull us like sleepy babies with some can inject a modicum of life into these EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN, ELSTREE 1976, cross between Hazel O’Connor and Poly LE PUB wispy folk-pop that’s as fluffy and floaty songs, which slither from the speakers We imagine Witney’s Le Pub are as GBH, THE SKEPTICS, S N DUBSTATION, ABIGAIL Styrene at times. That whole spirit of as them clouds she was just running/ with an almost heroic lack of purpose, like likely to be found glowering moodily in JOFFE, TANNER’S POOL, VERA GRACE, BLUE punk and its immediate aftermath, which flying through. Her breathless coo can wheezy old men sucking desperately on artfully directed videos as Nigel Farage HAZE, RUSHIL RAJAN, MARK SPRINGER, THE as much as anything empowered female be a bit too chocolate box kitten soft- old fag butts as any remaining life-force is to join a radical pan-European lesbian BREAKS, WILLIE J HEALEY, PHIL SAATCHI, singers of a more abrasive inclination, centre at times – all wooohs and ooohs slips away from them with depressing samba collective. Which isn’t to suggest TENTH LISTEN, DAVID SMITH. flows through these two and a bit minutes, – compared to which even some piano inevitability. If it’s possible for a song to Le Pub are swivel-eyed, lizard-featured attitude and directness taking over from the clang feels over-imposing, but at her best, actually give up and die before it ends 01865 716466 [email protected] waywardness of their last offering. Go on, jingoists, but their approach to this rock as on `Closer’, backed with just a simple, then that’s what `We Fall’ does, airy-fairy give them a chance – psycho or otherwise. and roll business might justifiably be plangent, ringing melody, she sounds anonymity making way for shoulder- tagged conservative, much as their chosen like she should be sat on some desolate shrugging inconsequentiality in the same moniker would suggest. This is rock music Cornish seashore singing love songs to way that putrefaction takes over from rigor COURTYARD as pie-and-a-pint parochialism personified long-dead sailors. So lulled are we by the mortis in a corpse. The third and final (oh, DEAR HERO – all Guns’n’Roses hollerin’ and riffin’, time Jenn gets to `Submarine’ we barely hosanna!) songs is called `Dysphoria’, RECORDING STUDIO And talking of post-punk, here are Dear bit of hysterical bluesy chuggarama and 2 Tracking Rooms. Superb Control Room with: even pick up on “water is forgiving if which the dictionary defines as “a state NEVE 5106 32 Channel Console. ProTools HD3 Hero, who – and we’re just hazarding a – when they get proper dangerous – some you fall when you’re swimming.” Makes of unease or generalized dissatisfaction MTR 90 2” 24 Track Tape Machine. Vintage EMT Plate Reverb wild guess here – might own the odd Cure Foo Fighters-style stadium grunge-lite (ooh no sense but we’ll take her word for it. with life.” Basically the milder form of Loads of Brilliant Outboard Gear Loads of Great Mics, Vintage and Modern album or two in their collection, as they yeah, smell that musical peril). If second Particularly if we can listen to the cute the crushing misery we’re consumed by jangle and spangle through three minutes Old School Akai/Roland Synth Modules song here, `Fingers’, was a person it’d be echoey little giggle at the end of the song after ten minutes of this demo. It’s like Upright Piano, Fender Rhodes, Amps and great vibes. of slightly hollowed-out gothic pop that the bloke leaning on the bar who described again. Any more chocolate kittens left in the musical incarnation of entropy itself, Residential recording studio in Sutton Courtenay. nicks its guitar line wholesale from Uncle himself as no-nonsense and who “tells it the box? the universe slowly sinking into a state of www.courtyardrecordingstudio.co.uk Bob Smith’s book of spidery stuff. Vocally like it is.” Probably doesn’t agree with unlife, all energy finally drained from it like In-house producer: Ian Davenport www.ian-davenport.co.uk we’re not sure if the fella upfront isn’t women being allowed in pubs unless they the blood from a decapitated sloth. “What Email: [email protected] pushing things a little too hard at times, work behind the bar and have large breasts VILI & VILE do you feel when we fuck? / Does my sharp Phone: Kate on 01235 845800 mind, his almost imperious “this is all very and a nice smile. Its views on synthesizers FUCK! Talk about rude awakenings. wit pin and cut? / Do you fear nip and tuck? deep and important” delivery teetering and dance music are probably unprintable. There we were enjoying a nice kitten- / For you I lust, my simple cunt,” groans between bloke-from-Editors and Reeves Then again, `Tonight or Never’ has a riff related reverie on Sennen beach with just and mumbles Pierquin, like a consumptive and Mortimer’s Mulligan & O’Hare. “Paris that’d bulldoze an average sized house Jenn Steeves’ voice and the ghosts of an Lothario whose found himself wedged into is what Paris was / It was the end of days without really noticing and probably gets old pirate ship for company when some a toilet seat. At least we were able to leave / But in mysterious ways,” he intones as its round in afterwards, so we’ll hold fire fucker wallops round the face with an you with some proper poetry at the end, if delivering a biblical sermon, and we’re suggesting this pub gets a bit of Lonelady 80s hair metal guitar riff. Vili and Vile dear reader. left to ponder if it’s last year’s terrorist or Gazelle Twin on the jukebox, at least Three state of the art rehearsal rooms. atrocity he’s on about or splitting up with until we’ve polished off this pint of Rusty For bookings. his girlfriend on a supposedly romantic Badger. After that it’s gloves off. weekend away. Still, it all jingles and Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU, or email links to Call Jamie on 07917685935 jangles along with a breathless sense of [email protected], clearly marked Demos. IMPORTANT: no review without Glasshouse studios, Cumnor, Oxford urgency for the most part and now as much I SAID YES a contact address and phone number; no more than four tracks on a demo please. If you glasshousestudios.org as ever, we need a bit of pomp and silliness Appropriate that I Said Yes follow straight can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. And don’t fucking whine about your in indie music. on from Le Pub, since Nightshift has never review on Twitter either, else we’ll print a screenshot and make you look like a prize tit. A GRAND DAY OUT FROM THE BESTIVAL FAMILY Free every month May 2016 Special Common People celebration TICKETS Oxford’s Music Magazine issue FROM £ 27. 5 0 BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND

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