email: [email protected] website: nightshift.oxfordmusic.net Free every month. NIGHTSHIFT Issue 125 December Oxford’s Music Magazine 2005

Let’sLet’s hearhear itit forfor tthehe Girl!Girl! Fell City Girl talk about their incredible year Phil McMinn photo by Isla Miskelly

Also inside... The Best Oxford Songs of the Year plus News, reviews and four pages of Oxford gigs

NIGHTSHIFT: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU. Phone: 01865 372255 NEWNEWSS Nightshift: PO Box 312, Kidlington, OX5 1ZU Phone: 01865 372255 email: [email protected]

Hello everyone, Welcome to another issue of Nightshift – the last one of 2005. It’s been a good year for local music, all things considered. Oxford bands have been making their presence felt well beyond the city walls with The Young Knives leading the way. The critical acclaim being afforded Henry, House and Ollie has been phenomenal, while the opportunity to work with producer Andy Gill has enabled ELTON JOHN is scheduled to play at them to realise their incredible potential. 2006 looks like being a very exciting time for the band, Oxford Utd’s Kassam Stadium next year. The with their second album due in early summer. Similar fortunes look set to await Fell City Girl, who pop legend will play to 20,000 fans at the started 2005 as the Nightshift’s local band most likely to, and they haven’t disappointed us, Kassam on Saturday June 24th. Tickets for releasing what must be one of the most assured debut singles ever to come out of Oxford, earning the gig are on sale already, with prices themselves a place on the bill at Reading and Leeds Festivals and ending the year sharing a stage ranging from £35 up to £75, plus booking with Tony Christie and Girls Aloud at the Children In Need concert at Brize Norton. fee. Buy online from www.seetickets.com or Other local bands making a name for themselves outside of Oxford have been Dive Dive, whose by phone on 0870 161 21323 or 0871 230 debut album followed on from a couple of chart-bothering singles, Suitable Case For Treatment 260. who must surely now be one of the most terrifying live bands on the planet, plus long-time Meanwhile, other gigs booked for next year favourites Winnebago Deal, who spent most of the last year on tour with Nick Oliveri’s Mondo include the return of The Go! Team at Generator, and Goldrush who, although quiet on the Oxford front, have been making further Brookes University on Sunday 5th March inroads into the States. (tickets, priced £12.50, available from the Following hot on the heels of all these bands come a host of new Oxford talents, including the Brookes box office on 01865 484750), likes of Harry Angel, The Evenings and Deguello. Oxford remains an incredible breeding ground for Julian Cope at the Zodiac on Tuesday 14th fresh musical talent of all persuasions and much of the credit for that must go to all the promoters February (tickets, priced £16, available from in the city who continue to provide so many great venues for those acts to develop. the Zodiac box office on 01865 420042) and Here’s to even more of the same in 2006. Happy Christmas and thanks for continuing to support 70s pop legends The Osmonds at the New local music. Theatre on Tuesday 28th February. Tickets, Ronan Munro (Editor) priced £29.50, are available from the credit card booking line, on 0870 606 3500.

SEXY BREAKFAST play a farewell gig at the has been arranged. Say your goodbyes and the end of December. `Tales From The White Zodiac on Friday 9th December. The local prepare to be rocked spaceward. Tickets are on Line’ is released in the UK on December 21st. It favourites announced their split last month and sale now from wegottickets.com, priced £5. has already entered the College Radio charts in had planned to bow out after their gig Support comes from Big Speakers. the US where the band have been touring supporting The Paddingtons at the Zodiac, but extensively all year. such is their popularity one last headline show THE THIEVES release their new album at Also out in December is `Circlesend’, the

say but judging by the feedback and the CDs we sold, we went down really well each night. THE GIRL DONE GOOD “ Reading and Leeds was fairly immense, but this tour was really one big test to see if we were Fell City Girl’s frontman, Phil McMinn, has up to the challenge of being a ‘proper’ band and I been speaking to Nightshift about the band’s think we rose to the challenge. The show we incredible year. played at The Zodiac with them was pretty Fell City Girl began 2005 as Nightshift cover much the high point of my life. And last night I stars as we tipped them to be the Oxford band to was staring out at 900 people in Manchester; watch this year. They end the year back on the that was pretty cool! cover following twelve months that has seen Despite all the excitement and positive them become the hottest young band in town, experiences, Phil says the year hasn’t been all having been chased by a host of record plain sailing, however. companies, been the star turn at both the Punt “There are a lot of people who are very and Truck Festival, played at both the Reading distrustful of us for whatever reason and in and Leeds Festivals, headed off on a sell-out some people’s heads we’re already written off national tour with Long-view and been but that’s all part of this. A particular lowlight handpicked to play alongside Status Quo and would be playing a freshers’ gig at Cambridge Girls Aloud at last month’s Children In Need University. Halfway through the first song we concert at RAF Brize Norton. All this and had some guy come right to the front of the topping Nightshift’s end of year Top 20 with stage and shout `fuck off you emo c**ts, who their superb debut single, ‘Weaker Light’. invited you?’ for the whole set. All I could think So, what has this year been like for the band? about was me busting my best Funeral For A Has the way things have turned out taken them Friend moves. Emo, us?” by surprise? One of the strangest experiences of the year for Phil: “We’ve just come back from our tour with Fell City Girl was being invited to appear at the Long-view and to be honest, we’re so Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals overwhelmed by the last six days – we played to on a bill headlined by The Pixies, and then being sold out crowds across the country and we’re asked to share a stage with Girls Aloud in aid of doing what we set out to do. It’s hard for us to the BBC’s Children In Need night. debut album from local ambient rockers Wednesday night. Tickets are available in Under The Igloo, on Freedom Road advance from the Bully, priced £4 or £5 on DR SHOTOVER: Records, plus a new EP from Oxford punk the door. act Junkie Brush, entitled `Hearts and BLIZZARD OF BOOZE Mines’. All these releases will be reviewed TURAN AUDIO’s reputation continues to Festive snarls. Haven’t in the January issue of Nightshift. grow. The local mastering service has just heard from me for a couple of months, have started work remastering a host of classic you? I popped in to see th THE 30 YOUR SONG party takes Status Quo albums, including, ‘Piledriver’, the doc back in place at the Zodiac on Friday 16th ‘On The Level’ and ‘Blue For You’. This September... wanted some December. Tickets are on sale now from follows recent work mastering for Marc of those pills, you know wegottickets.com, priced £5. Bands Almond, Echo and the Bunnymen, Killing the ones - mix ‘em with already booked to play the legendary Joke and Showaddywaddy. Tim Turan’s a bottle of barley wine covers night include A Silent Film, Suitable next big name job is Slade’s back catalogue. and you feel no pain for Case For Treatment, The Green, The Despite all that, he’s still keen to master the next few hours... Anyway, picture my Dr Shotover’s liver: Dazed Family Machine, Bombshoe and Harry local artists. Give him a call on 01865 surprise when I heard the and Confused Angel. 716466. words “NO ALCOHOL FOR THREE MONTHS” JIM REID’s highly-anticipated gig at the AS EVER, don’t forget to tune into The issue from his drool-flecked lips! After I had finished Cellar last month was postponed at the Download every Saturday evening at 6pm horse-whipping the blighter, I discovered that my liver is last minute after the former-Jesus and on BBC Radio Oxford 95.2fm. The local the size of a small Zeppelin, and not a Led one either... Mary Chain singer’s father died. Jim is music show, presented by Tim Bearder can you imagine this happening to John Bonham? (Ah, hoping to return to Oxford in the next and David Gillyeat, has enjoyed an yes, good point...). Anyway, it seems that one more tiny snifter could have caused it to explode like the R-101... so couple of months. Meanwhile the Mad extremely successful year, providing my “festive season” is going to be DRY! (An adjective I Professor and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry gig, regular prime-time airplay for Oxford had previously only applied to white wine, gin and scheduled for December 6th has been bands and artists as well as reporting on a martini... actually the three of them in the same chipped cancelled and will not be arranged. A falling wide range of aspects of the local music china mug can make a very refreshing pick-me-up... but I out between the two dub legends is cited scene. Every week the Download team digress). Happy Bloody Christmas! Mine’s a brandy butter. as the reason for the cancellation. play a selection of new Oxford releases, Without the brandy. interview local and touring acts as well as Next month: More tea, Vicar? BIG SPEAKERS launch their own running a local demo vote. You can listen monthly live music club night on to the show online all week to at Thursday 29th December at the bbc.co.uk/oxford. Bullingdon. The Big Speakeasy aims to showcase some of the best hip hop and THE JANUARY issue of Nightshift will dance acts on the gigging scene. The be out a little later than normal due to opening night features London junglists printers’ Christmas holidays. The new Subterfuge, Bristol’s electro duo Paua as issue should be out in the shops by the well as Big Speakers themselves and an 30th of December. Deadline for all listings, MC open mic session. The Big Speakeasy releases and news items is the 20th of will then run every month, usually on a December.

“It’s Amazing, we got to hang out with where I’ve felt a total connection to them. Girls Aloud! How often does that happen?! We left the stage feeling very, very No doubt there will be some detractors but humbled. The rest of the country is our parents were absolutely beside different in many ways, but in Glasgow themselves because they saw Status Quo we could have played the songs backwards the first time round and now their little and they still would have cheered; they boys are on the same bill as them!” were mental. Either way, we still have a lot And to top it all of, ‘Weaker Light’ has of work to do to prove ourselves.” been voted Nightshift’s Number 1 song of What’s the plan for next year? Any news the year. on record deals or new releases? “I’m stunned. I’ve spent the last six “We’re in the process of finalising a deal months saying to the other bands mates, at the moment. It’s with an independent. `how did we ever get here?’ – and I still It’s with people we know well. It’s think that song is an okay song, despite terribly frightening. But I hope it will lead playing it a million times. Maybe more us on to the next step. There are a lot of worryingly is some girl just emailed us scare stories in the industry about how asking for the words and it took me half an screwed over bands get, so this is pretty hour to remember what they were!” much us getting screwed over as little as How does it feel to be bona fide local possible. We’ll be releasing something in heroes and how different is it playing to February I think - that’s if I come out from new crowds around the country? under the covers and actually write some “The show we did with Long-view in songs!” Oxford was maybe the first time I’d ever Something tells us 2006 is going to be no really taken stock of what has happened less hectic for Fell City Girl. In the over the last couple of years. I felt a total meantime help them celebrate an sense of pride playing to that crowd – any extraordinary year on Saturday 17th when band in the world will tell you that the they headline the Zodiac. Support comes best gigs in the world are the ones where from Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element. the audience are equally important as the Tickets are on sale now, priced £5, from band, and that show was one of the few the Zodiac box office on 01865 420042. Sponsored BEST by OF THE YEAR 2005 was, by any standards, a great year for Oxford music. A shame it had to end to be honest, 4. THE RELATIONSHIPS: but at least it gives us a chance to look back on the year and, as is traditional, pick our favourite songs by local acts. Last year The Young Knives topped our Top 20; this year it’s the turn of ‘English Blues’ epic pop upstarts Fell City Girl. But everywhere you looked, there were great things happening, That most quintessentially English of pop and some fantastic songs being written and played at extreme volume for all the world to sit up bands The Relationships’ gorgeous second and take notice. Hey, why not compile your own Top 20. Ours will still be better. Here it is..... album, ‘Scene’, was so perfectly mannered it could get a job as one of the butlers Richard Ramage sings about on this centrepiece track. This is a picture of unseen suburbia, hiding behind net curtains, trying to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of endless sadness and disappointment and then pouring another large brandy to dull the pain. A thousand miles away from the self-pity and angst of most rock music, it tugs far harder at the heartstrings, replete with all the romance of rainswept cul- de-sacs and restless souls. 5. THE FACTORY: ‘Servant’s Hand’ Ah… what could have been. For a few brief weeks and a handful of awe-inspiring gigs, The Factory promised to be the greatest new band Oxford had produced in recent years. But then, like their main inspiration, The Velvet Underground, they fell out with each other and promptly split. So all we have now are vivid 1. FELL CITY GIRL: ‘Weaker Light’ memories of billowing smoke, vast monoliths of What a year for the former Brookes University band. As well as regularly selling out local venues, churning, heavily-flanged guitars and Laima including a crazy, packed gig at the City Tavern as part of this year’s Oxford Punt, Fell City Girl Bite’s haunted vocals, like Grace Slick fronting a also found themselves on stage at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August and more recently tumultuous hybrid of The Stooges and playing the BBC’s Children In Need Concert at RAF Brize Norton alongside Girls Aloud and Spacemen 3. A sad loss. Status Quo. And how did they get to this stage? By writing incandescent stadium pop anthems 6. SUPERGRASS: like this, their debut single for London-based indie label Nomadic. Possessed of both Muse’ soaring grandeur and Radiohead’s bitter, emotive bite, ‘Weaker Light’ was, above everything else, a bona ‘St Petersburg’ fide anthem for a new generation of pop kids. In years to come, this song will be seen as a The Grass’s fifth album, ‘Road To Rouen’ was, watershed in Oxford music. Their time has come. despite its typically punning title, a comedown in mood from their previous outings and took a little while to fully appreciate, but it’s worth 2. HARRY ANGEL: 3. THE YOUNG KNIVES: the effort as this languorous, lysergic, piano-led ‘Death Valley Of The Dolls’ lope demonstrates, proving that however laid- ‘Coastguard’ back the band are, classy pop will cling to them Harry Angel were everywhere in 2005, either And what a year for The Young Knives. No like sticky buds. Fresh as spring rain and as propping up the bill at the Wheatsheaf or trying longer just Oxford’s most precious rock relaxed as a post-bong walk in the woods. to cast a gothic pall across the blistering commodity, now they’re being hailed as the sunlight at Charlbury Festival. But every time vanguard of quirky post-punk lunacy and 7. JUNKIE BRUSH: we encountered them this murderous dirge trailblazers for sports jacket kitsch. The ‘Problem-Reaction- burrowed its fangs into us deeper and deeper. recently re-released ‘The Decision’, which is “The dolls are closing in” growled eight-foot tall helping them attract so much notice, topped our Solution’ frontman Chris Beard in an impressively hit parade last year so we’ll plump for this What with punk rock being such an abused authentic American drawl as a fizzing torrent of ghoulishly funny slice of life from their ‘Junky phrase these days it was a real pleasure to goth-core guitars swamps the accursed valley at Music Makes My Heart Beat Faster’ EP, discover this bunch of spindly, spiky that point where Bauhaus meets Sonic Youth. sounding like a phased radio broadcast from a noisemakers, spitting on the still-warm corpse The boys and girls in black are back and they’re strange distant planet where the normal rules of of MTV-friendly punk in favour of the real deal in a bad mood. Hide the cutlery. pop don’t apply. – an urgent lurch into Killing Joke territory via Selected Oxford releases are now available on the ground floor HMV Oxford supports local music Open Sundays 11-5pm & late Thursdays till 7pm. 10% student discount every day Pere Ubu’s awkward punk-funk. ‘Problem – 13. HARLETTE: ‘Sometimes 16. THE WALK OFF: Reaction – Solution’ doesn’t so much kick your teeth in as nag you to the point where your She Pisses Me Off’ ‘The Taste Of Animals’ head bursts under the pressure of it all. Since the demise of Beaker, Oxford’s female The Walk Off, for all their comic stage presence 8. DIVE DIVE: bands have struggled to make an impression, and almost wilful amateurism continue to be but Abingdon teens Harlette went some way to one of the most electrifying live bands in town, ‘555 For Film Stars’ redressing the male bias on the local scene. soundtracking the rapid disintegration of Dive Dive’s debut album spawned so many Taking fashion lessons from Courtney Love and civilisation by way of digital hardcore puppy dog-keen punk-pop crackers it was hard musical inspiration from grunge, goth and punk, viciousness. This contribution to Quickfix to know where to start, but this tiny dynamite this bitter little pill of angst and bile crunched Records’ ‘Under 18s’ compilation (which also gem will do just fine, proving yet again what an up X-Ray Spex’s spunky zeal with Fuzzbox’s featured Harlette’s ‘Sometimes…’) was a absolute gem of a band Dive Dive are. As ever exuberant pop simplicity and suddenly it didn’t typically nasty, brutish and short attack on the Jamie Stuart’s delinquent choirboy yelp holds seem such a bad idea to go out for the evening senses, Ministry, Atari Teenage Riot and a the lead while the spiky melodic hardcore racket with the word SLUT scrawled large in indelible dancing bear locked in mortal combat. they produce fights to keep up, clanking out marker pen on your neck. 17. REDOX: ‘Bullaburra’ echoes of Big Black in the onward rush. 14. SEXTODECIMO: Lost somewhere between a 1970s hippy 9. DEGUELLO: ‘To The Water’ festival and an acid-fuelled barn dance, Redox ‘Yellow Underwing’ provide one of the year’s strangest but most Sextodecimo (sorry, The Mighty Sextodecimo, unabashed dance tracks. Part gabba-lite, part Possibly the Oxford band to keep an eye on in as they should henceforth be known) have hoe-down, part madcap nursery rhyme, it’s 2006 and certainly one of the finds of this year. taken their monstrous form of stoner-metal into what might have happened if Gong had jammed Deguello name themselves after a ZZ Top album such dark waters that they are barely with The Wiggles after a pot of mushroom tea, but owe more to the worlds of hardcore and New recognisable as a rock band any longer. Instead and it turns adults and children alike into Wave. They contributed no less than five tracks they sound like all-out warfare, or the gates of gurning loons. to the essential ‘4 x EPs’ compilation, alongside hell itself opening and spewing out the vilest of Sextodecimo, Gunnbunny and Holiday sonic demons. Here is music to make the very 18. ASHER DUST: Stabbings, and this was, by a small margin, the air in the room turn to cinder and make time ‘Pissed Up’ stop still. Still the Oxford band least likely to be best. Churning, grungy guitars burrow Oxford’s answer to The Streets? Could be, as appearing on CD:UK any time soon. remorselessly into your head like industrial veteran local soulman, rapper and techno-bod drilling equipment. Intergalactic warfare breaks 15. HOLIDAY AJ takes us out for the night along Cowley out and vast spaceships are consumed by fire. STABBINGS: Road and Park End Street, encountering the best Well, that’s what it sounds like to us. and worst of local clubbing life. Here he’s 10. BIG SPEAKERS: ‘Belly Ache’ bigging up Depth Charge’s drum&bass night ‘Apocalypse Rising’ Or maybe that honour should go to Holiday while dissing the Park End Club’s soulless Stabbings, whose utterly bleak, punishingly popularity. The delivery and arrangements With UK hip hop finally overtaking its extreme live sets are best exemplified by this might be reminiscent of Mike Skinner’s American cousin, now was as good a time as sprawling cacophony of terror. Tunes? Who commentaries but it’s refreshing to hear any for Big Speakers to finally realise their needs them? Not when one repeated chord, someone reflecting the Oxford experience so potential. Now an eight-piece crew, replete with several thousand effects pedals and a relentless imaginatively. five MCs and a full band, theirs is a lively, fluid galley slave beat will do just as well. Infected 19. ELIOT: ‘Shine’ trade-off of raps and full-blooded beats that by the morbid spirit of Swans and on a go-slow mixes up old skool hip hop stylings with a Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer march to eat rock and roll, Holiday Stabbings Jim Eliot’s speciality is creating sweet electro- more modern electro feel, as this dissection of are essential listening when any ageing or divisions in hip hop demonstrates. soul music for the darkest nights. To this end he sensitive relatives come round for Christmas teamed up with local singer Maria Ilett whose 11. PATSY DECLINE & dinner. softly resigned vocals add a poppy sheen and TWIZZ TWANGLE: warmth to his minimalist soundtracks. This is the high point of debut album ‘The Small ‘Cartel’ Hours’, a gently bubbling amalgam of The meeting of Twizz Twangle and Patsy Everything But The Girl, Dido and Young Decline was the catalyst for something strange Marble Giants. Time to uncork a fine bottle of and inspirational. Prolific but inconsistent in the red wine, we think. extreme, here Twizz’s mangled melodies, 20. THE EVENINGS: electronic Burundi beats and dissonant guitar play is the perfect foil for Patsy’s improvised ‘Paste’ vocal performance. It could simply have been Although they didn’t actually release any new an odd, disorientating art school experiment material in 2005, The Evenings’ recent ‘Louder were it not for the near-perfect pop song at its In The Dark’ EP did find the band finally heart and the wonderfully crystalline vocal lead. recording as a full group for the first time and Proof that great things come to those who wait. breathing fresh life into some of their older 12. NERVOUS tracks. Managing to be both sonically challenging and incredibly poppy, ‘Paste’, with TESTPILOT: ‘Spacetime’ its infectious synth lines, sums up what The Renowned for his sample-crazy mash-up live Evenings are all about – Neu!-meets-the sets that have wowed Truck Festival audiences futurists on the interstellar synth-pop super over the last couple of years, Nervous_Testpilot highway. – aka Paul Taylor – provided the soundtrack to sci-fi swordplay computer game Determinance, Compiled from the votes of Dale Kattack, Sue from where this track was taken, switching style Foreman, Paul Carrera, Stuart Fowkes, and gears to cruise through some heavy-duty Kirsten Etheridge, Sam Shepherd, Katy trance, pausing for dramatic effect before hurtling Jerome, Art Lagun, Russell Barker, Ian Photo: Miles Walkden back into the fray. Chesterton, Richard Catherall. gig guide

THURSDAY 1st SATURDAY 3rd THE FAMILY MACHINE + NICK DECEMBER OPETH: Brookes University Union – BREAKSPEAR + PETER MOORE & RACHEL Monolithic metallers from Stockholm bring the GRAY: The Port Mahon – Egregious countrified operatic noise – see main preview pop from The Family Machine, with support from former-Chamfer frontman Nick Breakspear WINTER WARMER: The Exeter Hall, Cowley and Script’s Peter Moore. (1.30pm) – First full day of the Gappy Tooth BANANARAMI: The Exeter Hall, Cowley Industries / Klub Kakofanney Winter Warmer BROKEN: The Zodiac – House and breakbeats mini-festival, featuring Tunsi, Inflatable Buddha, nd rd Friday 2 – Sunday 3 club night with Marty P and Caninesounds. Earnest Cox, Junkie Brush, Twizz Twangle, DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND Chantelle Pike, Richard Catalogue and more – see WINTER WARMER: FOLK NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd main preview – With guests Jazz Emporium playing a set of BELARUS + MUMM-RA + THE QUARTER The Exeter Hall jazz standards. FINALS: The Zodiac – Ambitious stadium-sized After last year’s excellent pre-Christmas THE SPIN JAZZ CLUB with CURIOUS pop from Belarus, the band formerly known as weekend mini-festival, Gappy Tooth PARADISE: The Wheatsheaf Spacehopper, rocking it up gently in the style of HEAVY BLINKERS + THE EPSTEIN + Industries and Klub Kakofanney once again Coldplay and Keane. Support from Bexhill’s WESTERN SUBURBS + PETE AVES: The Mumm-ra, oddball synth’n’guitar-based pop team up at the Ex for two full days of live Cellar – Melancholic West Coast-flavoured acid inspired by Pulp, Belle & Sebastian and The music. And given the eclectic outlook of both pop and country from Canada’s Heavy Blinkers, Teardrop Explodes and recently signed to Sony. clubs the line-up is suitably varied, plus Eagles-influenced country rocking from local Indie-tinged heavy rock from The Quarterfinals. concentrating on some of Oxford’s lesser boys The Epstein and former High Llamas chap SIMPLE with ANNIE MAC: The Bullingdon – celebrated stars and eccentrics. Amongst Pete Aves. Radio 1’s Annie is the superstar DJ guest at these on the Saturday are headliners Tunsi, BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney – tonight’s Simple special, playing a selection of providing north African funk’n’bass, along Weekly energy-jazz residency. funky house floor-fillers. SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks – Weekly club side oddball Gallic folk-punk collective THE SKYNNY NYRDS: The Port Mahon – night playing wide selection of ska, reggae, funk, Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute. Inflatable Buddha, sparkling indie rocking Latin and Afrobeat with host Aidan Larkin and HARRY ANGEL + DESDEMONA: The from Earnest Cox, electrifying punk noise guests. Wheatsheaf – Excellent gothic-flavoured from Junkie Brush (pictured), powerful folk- SABOTAGE: The Zodiac – Weekly metal, hardcore fizz-pop from Harry Angel, now firmly pop from Chantelle Pike and of course hardcore and indie rock club night from The Club established as one of the most promising unsigned Twizz Twangle, without whom any such That Cannot Be Named. bands in Oxford. Reading’s 80s-styled indie event would be incomplete. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Half Moon popsters Desdemona support. On the Sunday country-rockers The CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford PIPE DREAM: The Red Lion, Witney Community Centre Epstein top the bill with their Eagles- CAU CATIONAL BETREET + RIVER + BROKEN: The Zodiac – House and breakbeats SILKROOM: The City Tavern inspired party tunes. Joining them will be club night with DJ Marty P. JOHN FORSDYKE: The Magic Café, Klub Kak hosts and all-round oddball ZOONANA: Po Na Na – Electro, indie and Madalen Road (1pm) – Slide and country blues. hippy-punk barn dance trio Redox, plus mash-up with live bands and DJs. SUNDAY 4th goth-core rockers Harry Angel, expansive nd FRIDAY 2 WINTER WARMER: The Exeter Hall, Cowley funk ensemble Confidential Collective, 80s NINE-STONE COWBOY + JOFF WINKS + (3pm) – Second day of the GTI / KK weekender, indie revivalists Numbernine, Smiths- WHERE I’M CALLING FROM + THE today featuring The Epstein, Los Diablos, Harry inspired popstrels Film Noir and youthful RAWLINS: The Zodiac – Now officially Angel, Confidential Collective, Raggasaurus, Film dub troupe Raggasaurus. Plus, of course Oxford’s premier supergroup, former-Candyskins Noir and more– see main preview loads more acts on both dates. guitarist Mark Cope’s alcohol-sodden freeform GET CAPE, WEAR CAPE, FLY + SECOND For their part Gappy Tooth Industries will pop and electro-rock band also feature ex- SMILE + CHINESE FINGER TRAP + ITCH: be warming up for the weekend at the same members of Ride (Loz Colbert) and Unbelievable The Bullingdon – Laptop and guitar-based post- Truth (Jason Moulster), while Copey’s eccentric venue on the Friday night with an evening of rock action from Truck Festival favourite Get lyrical vision makes for entertaining, occasionally Cape. Local hardcore crew Chinese Finger Trap electronic music, including local Truck- oddball listening. Promising local acoustic singer- signed favourites Trademark, as well as songwriter Joff Winks supports along with mash-up trance king Nervous_testpilot and wonderfully languid country-pop newcomers London’s synth-rockers Eskimo Disco. Where I’m Calling From. As well as a great weekend of music it’s SOURCE: The Zodiac – Drum&bass club night perfect place to escape from the Christmas with Marcus Intalex, Jay and Chemical. shopping hellfest that will be engulfing the ESKIMO DISCO + NERVOUS_TESTPILOT + TRADEMARK + SCRIPT: The Exeter Hall, rest of Oxford, and at only £4 entry each Cowley – GTI warm-up to their annual Winter day, you can’t go wrong. Weekender mini-festival in conjunction with Klub Kakofanney with a night of electronic acts – see main preview US4: The Red Lion, Witney – U2 tribute. OXFORD FOLK CLUB OPEN NIGHT: The Port Mahon KLUB KAKOFANNEY with THE BIG SPEAKERS + PHYAL + THE MON£YSHOTS: The Wheatsheaf – Another outing for local hip hop crew The Big Speakers at this month’s Klub Kak. Support from punk-metallers Phyal and heavyweight pop trio The Moneyshots. ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall MESAPLEX + BLUE KITE: The Wheatsheaf – DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC JAM Ambient electronic experimentation from NIGHT: The City Tavern Mesaplex, plus exotic 60s-flavoured psychedelic WEDNESDAY 7 th folk pop from Blue Kite. CITIZEN CANED + FOXES + STEAMER: The THE OXFORD IMPROVISORS City Tavern – Local bands night. ORCHESTRA: The Port Mahon – Free jazz, SLYDE 400: The Red Lion, Witney contemporary classical and alt.rock improv from ROCK’N’ROLL X MUST EXTRAVAGANZA: the local collective. The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Festive rocking GLASSFACTORY + SNISH + FINE MIND: action with local acts Bananarami, Assassins of The Wheatsheaf – Mixed bag of local and out Silence, Yule Tide Log, Kohoutek and more. of town bands from Gigswap UK. BARAKA: The Coven – A night of psy-trance DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far with DJs Bag Man Dan, Agent24, Toad and Fungi- From The Madding Crowd rd psy’d Saturday 3 ROOTS LOUNGE: East Oxford Community MAEVE BAYTON: The Magic Café, Madalen Centre Road (1pm) – Local jazz-tinged songstress. OPETH: Brookes th THURSDAY 8 SUNDAY 11th MURRAY TORKILDSEN + HOOCHIE: The University Union BLUE KITE: The Bullingdon – Another chance Port Mahon – The former Sweeney frontman to catch the quite lovely Blue Kite before they Press hype is always to be taken with a plays an intimate gig, caustic social observation head back to recording studio exile. generous pinch of salt, but the stuff being and wit in an Essex boy style. BEARD MUSEUM with ROGER TARRY + written about Stockholm’s Opeth across the KATHERINE WILLIAMS + JOHN EGDELL: RICHARD WALTERS + CHRIS BEARD: The journalistic board is so unequivocally The Zodiac – Acclaimed English folkstress and Purple Turtle – Gentle pop goings on at Beard excitable, it’s impossible to ignore. Mercury Prize nominee shows Dido and Nora “Probably the best band in the world”, Jones how it really should be done. th frothed Metal Hammer, while Kerrang! LADY DAZE: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – A Monday 5 went further, proclaiming them “the most tribute to Ella Fitzgerald with Sophie Polhill and Antonia King. SKIN: The Zodiac unique band on the planet”. Even the more DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND considered American press proclaimed that Whatever you thought about Skunk FOLK NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd Anansie’s music, frontwoman Skin (the Opeth “continued to expand the definition – With guests folk duo The Bewley Brothers. of what metal can be”. And in a genre that THE SPIN JAZZ CLUB with THE SCOTTISH woman formerly known as Deborah Dyer) seems to throw up a new sub-genre every GUITAR QUARTET: The Wheatsheaf was one of the most striking figures in late- other week, Opeth have united critics and BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney 90s rock. And her band didn’t too badly for fans alike with their simultaneously SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks themselves neither, shifting over four million complex, melodic and downright heavy SABOTAGE: The Zodiac albums in their short lifetime. The demise of CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford blend of traditional heavy rock, death-metal, that outfit seemed to hit Skin hard, as she Community Centre returned a few years later with 2003’s solo prog and goth. The band’s most recent opus, th `Ghost Reveries’, is a typically expansive FRIDAY 9 debut, ‘Fleshwounds’, her previously trawl through the various levels of metal, by ARMOR FOR SLEEP + IDIOT PILOT: The political bite replaced with a more personal Zodiac – US emo crew return to the Zodiac, a bile and intense introspection. Paradoxically, turns gruff hardcore and almost classical or venue they sold out last time round, kicking out folky. Hell, there are flutes on it! And grand even as she has mined the depths of her soul more powerchord-heavy rock for disaffected, and exhumed all those emotional hurts, she’s pianos! And while there might be a bit of the disenfranchised kids, plugging new album, ‘Things Spinal Tap about Opeth’s grand designs, To Do When You’re Dead’, following support mellowed musically. Like a more rock and their sheer ambition, vision and range of tours with Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday. roll Annie Lennox, Skin can belt out some sound is wholly impressive, while frontman SEXY BREAKFAST + BIG SPEAKERS + BABY serious vocal noise, with a piercing soprano, Mikael Akerfeldt seems constantly driven to GRAVY: The Zodiac – And finally, it’s good night but more and more she’s moving into pure take the band ever onwards to different from them. Bid a fond farewell to one of Oxford’s soul territory, as new download single, most ambitious bands, Sexy Breakfast, as they bow ‘Alone In My Room’, demonstrates. musical plains. A band that boasts Morbid out in heroically space-rock style. Angel, King Crimson and Leonard Cohen, as Tonight’s gig is the final date of a comeback SLIDE: The Zodiac – House club night. UK tour of smaller venues ahead of the well as Nick Drake, Led Zep and Pink DOUG HODGE BAND + DREW ATKINS: The Floyd as major influences could be mess of Exeter Hall, Cowley – Local songwriters night. release of forthcoming album ‘Fake Chemical vanity, but Opeth’s towering, epic rock SMILEX + ALL YOU MISS + ROBOCHRIST State’ (featuring co-writing credits for stands up to any scrutiny. + 20/20 VISION: The Wheatsheaf – Glam- Mansun’s Paul Draper amongst others), and rocking madballs Smilex kick up the dirt once recent live outings suggest there’ll be a fair are among the supporting cast. again, promoting their new remix album with few old Skunk Anansie favourites amongst DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: support from grunge-pop lasses AYM, cyberpunk the new songs. The Old School House performance artist Robochrist and heavy rockers SUEDE ALIENS: The Black Horse, Kidlington 20/20 Vision. th OXFORD FOLK CLUB with JESSICA & AL MONDAY 5 MARSHALL: The Port Mahon SKIN: The Zodiac – Former-Skunk Anansie big EVOLUTION: The Red Lion, Witney mouth strikes again– see main preview ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho PAUL BYRD: The Bullingdon – Texas-based BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon blues singer and guitarist playing gritty, authentic th southern blues in the style of Albert and BB King SATURDAY 10 as well as covers of Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker and SOUKOUS KOUMBELE: The Zodiac (upstairs) others. – Congolese drummer, now resident in Bristol, JEREMY WARMSLEY + A SILENT FILM + showing off his skills on congas and djembe. ROBOT FRIEND + KITTYHAWKDIVE + ZU NO COMPLY + FAILSAFE + EXP: The Zodiac ZWEIT: The Zodiac – End of term indie rock (downstairs) – Devon’s relentlessly-touring party with five-band bill. metallic punk rockers No Comply crank up the OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Port Mahon noise once again at the end of successful year KAREN TWEED & ROGER WILSON: that’s seen them play at the Reading Festival Nettlebed Folk Club Lock Up stage along the way. th THE ZIMMERMEN: The Bullingdon – Tribute TUESDAY 6 to Bob Dylan from the local favourites. JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: HOT SILK POCKETS + BETTY & THE The Bullingdon – Popular weekly residency at WEREWOLVES: The Port Mahon – Local the free jazz club night, also featuring DJs til late. bands night. Will Oldham, Smog and The Handsome Family. SATURDAY 17th Iceland’s Stafraenn Hakon – aka Olafur ROADRUNNER with NEVILLE STAPLES + Josephsson – adds to the moody atmosphere with NINE TON PEANUT SMUGGLERS: The his loops and drones soundscaping in the vein of Bullingdon – Former-Specials frontman Staples LaBradford and Aerial M. headlines tonight’s Roadrunner club night– see ST. AGNES FOUNTAIN: Nettlebed Folk Club main preview th TUESDAY 13 FELL CITY GIRL + SUNNYVALE NOISE JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: SUB-ELEMENT + RICHARD WALTERS: The The Bullingdon Zodiac – Rounding off a pretty special year with DREW ATKINS: The Port Mahon – Local 60s- this headline show, Fell City Girl prepare to influenced acoustic singer-songwriter. outgrow every venue in Oxford. Support from ace JUNKIE BRUSH + REELY FOOL + post-rock sound manipulators Sunnyvale, plus Jeff SUBMERSE: The Wheatsheaf – Local new Buckley-inspired singer Rich Walters. th Monday 12 wave and punk hopefuls headline tonight’s OSPREY & FRIENDS: The Port Mahon – SKINDRED / DEVIL Gigswap UK showcase. Acoustic pop and folk from the local songwriter. OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, SHAKER HEIGHTS + AXE VALLEY + SKULL SOLD HIS SOUL: Cowley THRASH + DREW ATKINS: The City Tavern DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC JAM – Tom Petty and Lou Reed-influenced melodic The Zodiac NIGHT: The City Tavern indie rock from Shaker Heights, headlining WEDNESDAY 14th tonight’s local bands showcase. Skindred might still be a cult act in their KING ADA: The Exeter Hall, Cowley native UK, but over in the States they’re on DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far FUSED: The Red Lion, Witney From The Madding Crowd the cusp of huge success. Most recent ALL YOU MISS + PHYAL + HARLETTE: The ALL YOU MISS + NAGATHA KRUSTI + LAST Mill, Banbury – Grunge and punk with a triple album, ‘Babylon’, has already topped the PROPOSAL + IVY + DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: US reggae charts and sold in excess of bill of local noisemakers. The Vibe, Didcot – Under-18s gig. Local grunge- ELISE: The Magic Café, Madalen Road (1pm) 300,000 copies, while they’ve been out on popsters AYM headline. th tour with Korn, Papa Roach and Sevendust. ARAWAK: East Oxford Community Centre SUNDAY 18 Not bad for a bunch of guys from South – Reggae sound system. THE GREEN: The Port Mahon – Melodic Wales. Fronted by Jamaican-born, Welsh- THURSDAY 15th gothic pop with a hint of Suede from the local rockers. raised singer Benji Webb, Skindred are one of WILD CHILD CLUB TOUR: The Zodiac – SLIDEWINDER: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – that rare breed - a fusion band that actually Trance and hard house touring club package with Live blues. works. Similar in spirit if not sound to The Wildchild regulars JFK, Reece Elliot, Little Gem. BEARD MUSEUM with LOS DIABLOS + Clash and System Of A Down, they mix up GWYN ASHTON + ALLY CRAIG: The Exeter SIMON DAVIES + THE FAMILY MACHINE: dancehall, ragga, punk, metal and drum&bass Hall, Cowley – Acoustic blues and folk from the The Purple Turtle local singer-songwriters. and make party music for metalheads. Webb DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: SNAKE EYES: The Port Mahon – Proper ‘eavy The Old School House alternately rants, raps and toasts over metal of the old skool from Snake Eyes, making guitarist Mike Fry’s chunky grunge and SCOOBY DON’T: The Black Horse, out like AC/DC. Kidlington hardcore riffage. Fry will be familiar to some DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND th local gig-goers since he used to play with FOLK NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd MONDAY 19 Oxfrd metallers Stoo*fa a few years back. – Featuring piano and guitar duo Duo Ventes Didos. NEVER THE BRIDE: The Bullingdon – The Skindred’s hard work – they’ve been out on THE SPIN JAZZ CLUB with BUTCH Monday Night Blues hosts its Christmas party with UK blues-rock favourites Never The Bride, the road pretty much continually over the THOMAS: The Wheatsheaf BARCODE TRIO: The Hollybush, Osney featuring asbestos-lunged front-woman Nikki past five years – and genre-crossing sound SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks Lambourn, likened to Tina Turner and Janis have found them out on their own and SABOTAGE: The Zodiac Joplin and rated as Britain’s best female blues finally reaping their reward. Support comes CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford singer by Roger Daltrey; power-rock backing from Gloucestershire’s Devil Sold His Soul, Community Centre from the band in the style of Heart. current champions of the UK’s metal FRIDAY 16th THE EVENINGS + QUACK QUACK + VIGINATRON: The Wheatsheaf – Possibly a underground, rising from the ashes of YOUR SONG XXX: The Zodiac – Suitable Mahumodo and inspired by the likes of Tool night of paying homage to the mighty Neu! with Case, A Silent Film, the Family Machine, local acolytes The Evenings bursting forth with and Will Haven. Bombshoe, Harry Angel and The Green are esoteric but insanely synth-rocking anthems, plus amongst the stars of the 30th Your Song. You support from Audioscope stars Quack Quack. won’t hear cover versions and all-round musical Museum, including local starlet Richard Walters OPEN MIC NIGHT: The Port Mahon and the appropriately-named Chris Beard, him sacrilege like this anywhere else. th out of Harry Angel. PEEPSHOW with THE EGG + THE TUESDAY 20 LATVIAN RADIO CHAMBER SINGERS SPIRALIST: The Zodiac – Local trance-rock JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: WITH GAVIN BRYARS: St Barnabus heroes return to Oxford – see main preview The Bullingdon Church, Jericho – The British composer teams ALIAS + CHRIST: The Wheatsheaf – One- OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall up with Latvia’s premier choir. time Anticon fella Alias brings his experimental DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC JAM ELECTRIC JAM SESSION: The Exeter Hall, hip hop noise to Vacuous Pop’s club night, mixing NIGHT: The City Tavern Cowley up hip hop beats with the more pastoral side of WEDNESDAY 21st My Bloody Valentine, and Aphex Twin, while DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC SESSION: ADAM BOMB ACOUSTIC: The Exeter Hall, Christ mixes up melody, beats and atmospheric The Old School House Cowley – The LA stadium-rocker unplugs and soundscapes. th shows us his softer side. No flame-throwing MONDAY 12 MARY’S GARDEN + PHYAL: The Exeter guitars tonight, then. SKINDRED + DEVIL SOLD HIS SOUL: The Hall, Cowley – Laima Bite returns with her new Zodiac – Reggae-metal warriors, making it big band after the break-up of The Factory earlier ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE + TRADEMARK + Stateside– see main preview this year. THE DUSTY SOUND SYSTEM + THE WALK GILES HEDLEY & THE AVIATORS: The DIRTY EARTH: The Red Lion, Witney OFF + BLACK MADONNAS: The Zodiac – Bullingdon – Funky Delta and Chicago-style OXFORD FOLK CLUB OPEN NIGHT: The Truck Records’ Christmas party with chums ESP blues from the UK bluesman, renowned for his lap Port Mahon teaming up with label stars Trademark and Robin steel, bottleneck and slide guitar playing as well as CHINESE FINGER TRAP + 20/20 VISION + Bennett’s lo-fi country project, Dusty Soundsystem. an accomplished harpist, kicking it out in the INCANA + PARADOX METHOD: The Net, ARCTIC FOX: The City Tavern – Local funkers. style of Son House and Robert Johnson. Abingdon – Under-18s gig with headline set DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far WHIP + STAFRAENN HAKON: The Port from local hardcore urchins CFT. From The Madding Crowd Mahon – Former-Timesbold chap Jason Merritt ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho DIVINE COILS: The Port Mahon – Dissonant makes a rare visit to town, promoting new album, BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon noise-making from members of Holiday Stabbings ‘Atheist Love Songs To God’, creating stark, ROOTS LOUNGE: East Oxford Community and assorted chums. moody country folk songs in a similar style to Centre ANARCHY IN THE BACKROOM: The Bullingdon – Punk rock club night. SABOTAGE: The Zodiac ROOTS LOUNGE: East Oxford Community CATWEAZLE CLUB: East Oxford Centre Community Centre THURSDAY 22nd FRIDAY 23rd HARRY ANGEL + THE INVISIBLE + THE ONE TOY SOLDIER + THE DHARMA + CORVIDS: The Zodiac – Local goth-rock MARK SOLACE + TWIZZ TWANGLE + heroes round off a hell of a year with support LAIMA BITE + FORK: The Exeter Hall, from 70s-influenced rockers The Invisible and Cowley – Fundraising gig for Wittstock Festival hardcore merchants Corvids. with assorted indie, funk and folk turns. THE BLACK WATCH + THE JAZZ BUTCHER REPUBLICA: The Zodiac – Hard house and + THE NEW MOON: The Port Mahon – trance club night with DJ sets from Kutski and Lovely, star-gazing alt.country from The Black Adam from Lab 4. Watch – aka John Andrew Frederick, back in the OXFORD FOLK CLUB CHRISTMAS PARTY: UK promoting new album, ‘The Hypnotising The Port Mahon Sea’. 80s indie legend The Jazz Butcher continues ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho to make himself familiar with the locals, while BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon acoustic popsters The New Moon open. SATURDAY 24th SNAKE EYES: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – Old th DELICIOUS MUSIC & UP’N’COMING’S Saturday 17 school metal action. CHRISTMAS BASH: The City Tavern DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND BACKROOM BOOGIE CHRISTMAS ROADRUNNER with FOLK NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd SPECIAL: The Bullingdon – Latin-jazz classical guitar duo Los Hombres are OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, NEVILLE STAPLES: tonight’s guests. Cowley SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks CONERSTONE MUZIK: East Oxford The Bullingdon Community Centre - Reggae and dancehall club th The Bully’s monthly celebration of all things Friday 16 night. Mod, ska and 60s beat celebrates the festive th PEEPSHOW with THE SUNDAY 25 season with a star turn from former-Specials Ah, Christmas is it? Gonna catch bird flu off the and Fun Boy Three hero Neville Staples, one EGG / THE SPIRALIST: turkey are you? Family arguments? Nothing on of the most significant figures in the history the telly? Nothing a large glass of red wine and of UK ska. Alongside Terry Hall he fronted The Zodiac nice blast of Anaal Nathrakh can’t solve. The Specials until 1981, including classic hits th With Peepshow now firmly established as MONDAY 26 like ‘Too Much Too Young’ and ‘Ghost Oxford’s most inventive and eclectic dance At least there’s football on today. Unless it’s all Town’, before he, Hall and Lynval Golding club night, featuring everything from live frozen off. Wouldn’t surprise in the slightest. But split to form the equally successful Fun Boy bands to elaborate VJ sets, this Christmas c’mon, are we seriously expected to travel all the Three. Staples also toured the States with special is a particular treat. Foremost it sees way down to Torquay on Boxing Day? Guess we’ll Rankin Roger as Special Beat and has the return to town of prodigal trance-funk have to make do with The Great Escape after all. continued to tour in his own right ever since, sons The Egg, a band who spent much of TUESDAY 27th mostly abroad. With the 25th anniversay of the 90s as the biggest live draw on the JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM GREY QUINTET: Two Tone Records and the increasing Oxford circuit as well as an internationally The Bullingdon influence of The Specials unique take on ska successful band. Their first two albums, OPEN MIC SESSION: The Exeter Hall, on new British bands (The Libertines, The ‘Albumen’ (its title inspired by an early Cowley Streets, Dead 60s and Hard-Fi all owe a Nightshift review) and ‘Travelator’, mixed DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC JAM massive debt), the time is ripe for Neville to up funky grooves and techno with a NIGHT: The City Tavern resurface with a new album, ‘The Rude Boy WEDNESDAY 28th psychedelic rock edge. The original band DELICIOUS MUSIC OPEN MIC NIGHT: Far Returns’, where he is joined by Mick Jones split a few years ago, with bassist Dave From The Madding Crowd and Rat Scabies amongst others. Tonight’s Gaydon going on to work for the Po Na Na THURSDAY 29th set will feature plenty of Specials material as chain and guitarist Mark Revell working on well as ska classics and material from the THE BIG SPEAKEASY with SUBTERFUGE + various solo projects, but twins Ned and PAUA + BIG SPEAKERS + MC OPEN MIC new album. As well as Staples’ live set Maff Scott reconvened in London and have SESSION: The Bullingdon – New monthly hip there’s support from Nine-Ton Peanut revitalised the band and their old local hop night from the Big Speakers boys. Junglist Smugglers – the old-school ska band formed fanbase is sure to be out in force. A new beats from London’s Subterfuge at tonight’s by Sir Bald Diddley and former Milkshake generation of local live dance is represented launch night, plus electronica from Bristol’s Paua, Bruce Brand, plus a DJ set from Trojan by The Spiralist, formed by former as well as a set from the Speakers themselves and Records’ Dave Edwards. Animalhouse people Jason King and Hari an open mic MC session. Teah, and featuring one-time Egg man Mark RED BUBBLE CLUB + PHIL BENTLEY + st DANNY McGURN + SOPHIE POLHILL + SATURDAY 31 Revell. Mixing up trip hop, soul and old DANI WILDE: The Exeter Hall, Cowley – KLUB KAKOFANNEY NEW YEAR’S EVE fashioned jazz they exude a stylish cool and Local singer-songwriters night. PARTY with THE PETE FRYER BAND + are the natural local successors to The Egg’s DELICIOUS MUSIC JAZZ, BLUES AND REDOX + KOHOUTEK + OPAQUE: The inspirational legacy. As well as the live sets FOLK NIGHT: Far From The Madding Crowd Exeter Hall, Cowley – Klub Kak Krew welcome there’s visuals from Mach V as well as – Featuring blues duo Chico and the Man. in the New Year in typically maverick style. HOGGZ: The Red Lion, Witney – Rocking resident and guest DJ sets. SKYLARKIN: The Brickworks SABOTAGE: The Zodiac into the New Year with Oxfordshire’s premier th heavy rock covers band. FRIDAY 30 NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY: The Bullingdon – THE JJ SOUL EXPERIENCE + DAN AUSTIN With DJ Tony Nanton. + DREW ATKINS: The Exeter Hall, DELICIOUS MUSIC & UP’N’COMING NEW Cowley YEAR’S EVE PARTY: The City Tavern ACOUSTIC NIGHT: The Victoria, Jericho EOCC ALLSTARS: East Oxford Community BACKROOM BOOGIE: The Bullingdon Centre

Nightshift listings are free. Deadline for inclusion in the gig guide is the 20th of each month - no exceptions. Call 01865 372255 (10am-6pm) or email listings to [email protected]. This gig guide is copyright of Nightshift Magazine and may not be reproduced without permission. LIVE Four Tet photo by Miles Walkden

AUDIOSCOPE 06 The Zodiac For the first time in its five-year to be Bis. Often written off as a history, Audiscope runs to two days, squeaky, screechy novelty which means a double dose of annoyance, they always packed a experimental pop, post-rock, punk rock punch that too few folks hardcore and downright ever appreciated and today they’re disorientating electronica. It’s also a still a joyous bundle of kiddy energy, bit daunting – can the human mind giddy synth noises and urgent, really withstand a whole weekend of shouty punk. Manda Rin still sports leftfield noise and serious-looking the same haircut she had ten years men with beards? The biggest, and ago while Sci Fi Steve has lost most best, surprise on Saturday is just how of his. They’re Devo dismembering accessible most of the music is. Tina Marie; Gang Of Four messing That’s not such a shock when you with The Silicon Teens. An utterly consider the festival’s openers are infectious barrel of fun. Unlike FELL CITY GIRL, Oxford’s prime Texas’ EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY purveyors of guilded stadium-sized whose ecstatic welcome only serves pop anthems. Such is their stature to make us wonder what we’re now that they could have sold out missing all the more. Maybe if your today’s gig by themselves. But then idea of genius is repeating the it’s Audioscope business as expected opening bars to an old Ride song for from BULLET UNION, a raw rush half an hour you could understand of blood to the head in a melodic the chin-stroking rapture, but for punk style. They break their guitar “oceanic” simply read “tedious”. strings and slam out each short, All that is quickly forgotten – blown sharp skewed song with scant regard away to be specific. Because here’s for logic or the venue’s foundations. Saturday night’s headliners FOUR Similarly bullish and muscular are TET, the man a suddenly packed strangely melodic edge and But end it must, to make way for late stand-ins IVORY SPRINGER room has been waiting for. Keiran Nightshift’s old despeciption of LORDS’ frenetic math-rock, which whose initially by-wrote DC Hebden is a scary-looking bloke – them as Kraftwerk remixed by is all very clever but lacks the sheer hardcore wins you over in much the Hammer Horror make-up, a Shellac still rings as true as any. lunatic invention of Quack Quack. same way as a steamroller might maniacal stare and the look of a And speaking of NOUGHT, today’s At least they’re better than SUPER subdue an indignant strip of tarmac. stoned cadavar. If he approached you set is as astonishing as any we’ve NUMERI, who might as well be the They’re a blur of false endings and at a bus stop you’d worry he was experienced from them in ten years. house band on The Fast Show’s Jazz pin-tight 90 degree turns, their last either packing a machete or was James Sedwards is a genuine virtuoso: Club. Chin-stroking, beardy song sounds like a lost Big Black about to bore you to death with a like Steve Albini tutored in the dark indulgence that’s far too self classic and – despite the beards – monologue about binary code, but arts by John Coltrane, he blurs the satisfied. Which is something you’d there’s enough humour on show to reports suggest he’s an all-round divide between jazz and hardcore be hard pressed to accuse American warm the hardest cynic’s heart. geezer and tonight’s laptop set is as with an unnerving nonchalnce – songstress SCOUT NIBLETT of. New York’s ILL EASE – aka one- joyous and celebratory as it is while the bassist cuts heroic shapes She’s coy to the point of being twee, woman band Elizabeth Sharp – is an unpredictable and abstract. Songs are and drummer Johnny hammers but while her almost nursery-rhyme intriguing collision of art-punk fed through the digital ringer, himself into a froth behind the kit, simple songs initially seem to lack confrontation and rootsy melody spasticated robot rhythms twisted James looks like he’s barely trying depth, they’re fiery little nuggets of and simplicity. She sets up distorted out of shape as the set builds to a and yet the noise that comes from pop and with Shellac’s Todd Trainer guitar loops before retreating behind monolithic climax and yet always his guitar is incredible. Nought bring on drums it’s quite a spectacle. her rudimentary drumkit to thrash remains irresistably danceable – well, new meaning to the idea iof This being Sunday and tomorrow out urgent folk vignettes that are, as long as you’re a wobble-headed industrial music – this really is the being a school day and all, it’s almost impossibly, halfway between alien high on crystal meth. Hebden sound of foundaries and smelting unfortunate but unsurprising that the Lydia Lunch and kd lang. has taken Coldcut’s cut-up blueprint plants, as oppressive as the heat of crowd has diminished spectacularly So, it’s looking good and can only and run with it. As unlikely a dance molten steel and the intense pressure by the time headliner LUKE get better with the arrival of Jon hero as you can imagine, tonight he of hammer into anvil. VIBERT gets stuck into his DJ set, Chapple’s new band, SHOOTING is every inch the superstar DJ. We almost break for food a few mixing up his own material that’s AT UNARMED MEN. A truly great minutes into Leeds’ QUACK seen him move from Warp to Nnja misanthrope in the tradition of Typically for the Audioscope QUACK’s obtuse instrumental set Tunes to Mo’Wax in a diverse Mark E Smith and Steve Albini, organisers, they don’t break us into but something holds us back. Here career, to classic tracks from Future Chapple was always the real star of the second day of the festival gently. are more intense, skinny men with Sound of London and Squarepusher. his former group McLusky and here In fact there they are on stage beards and no tunes, led by a chap In a way it’s sad, low-key way to end simply continues his reckless, fists- themselves in their musical guise, with an apparently out of tune what is a great weekend of some of out rampage into punk rock. Each SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB- keyboard, but slowly they engulf the most inventive bands to grace song sounds like Chapple is trying to ELEMENT, as uncompromising a you, like Neu! lost in Toytown, the Zodiac stage all year. Another condense the entire history of punk noise as Oxford has produced since Young Marble Giants with an added three grand raised for Shelter, a good into two minutes while dissecting all Nought, and a band who can only be dose of craziness or, as the sound few minds broadened to the of society’s nastier problems with a properly appreciated in a loud and engineer suggests, Jean Michel Jarre possibilities of music, and, hey, give wit as sharp as a butcher’s cleaver. live setting. While there’s a crushing Ja Binks. In the end it’s like the us another Audioscope like this next And so to what is possibly the virulence to their guitars-and- soundtrack to one of those drug den year and we might even lose our highlight of a weekend of highlights. electronics soundtracks, familiarity scenes in a ‘60s cop show and you prejudice against beards. DATA PANIK are the band that used with much of the set lends them a don’t want it to end. Dale Kattack MEW THE WEDDING The Zodiac PRESENT Denmark’s contribution to great pop has rarely amounted to much, but with Mew Brookes University they might just have given the world the How strange that the Wedding Present greatest live rock experience of the year. released their first single twenty years ago. Looking like a gang of Eton dandies gone Two whole decades! So many lesser bands to pot, they’re certainly more stylish than have become trite and lost their spark in far the current crop of British indie urchins, but less time than this, and it’s great that the the band are mere human conduits for a Weddoes maintain the things which people musical and visual storm that literally takes love about them. your breath away. The relatively restrained Tonight they play some old songs, some ‘Circuitry Of The Wolf’ tumbles in on a new songs, some Cinerama songs; but dense barrage of hardcore guitars and they’re all bound together by that terrific tumbling beats before frontman Jonas guitar hyperstrum, a God-given, innate sense Bjerre’s gentle vocal reverie allows the song of melodic correctness and the effortless to bloom with an incandescence that charm of David Gedge. Not forgetting matches the showers of sparks and strobes Gedge’s voice, of course… one of the best that provides the backdrop to the opening ‘non-singing-voice’ singing voices of all salvos. From there the only way is up. Up time. beyond the stratosphere to drift in the The beauty of this band is that they know firmament, lost in the glacial splendour of exactly how simple things can be kept. In a songs that are alternately airy or world overrun with bands trying their portentous, rising from gentle reveries into hardest to prove how complex they can get, vast almost space-rock anthems. This isn’t it’s extraordinarily refreshing to experience going overboard; Mew’s new album, ‘And a band who seem to do nothing more than The Glass Handled Kites’, contains at least getting up on stage and playing songs. They half a dozen of the most incredible pop don’t run about, they don’t leap into the songs you will hear this year or next. From crowd. These songs show a confidence, the daydreaming, teasing ‘Special’, whereby maybe learnt through the twenty-year life Killing Joke’s ‘Love Like Blood’ gets a experience of the band, in their simplicity Flaming Lips makeover, to tonight’s riotous and finesse. There’s nothing missing here, encore of ‘Apocalypso’ that takes My and nothing to be added. The secret of the Vinyl Frontier Bloody Valentine’s sky-soaring theft of Wedding Present is that they know how to rock’s soul and gives it a pure pop heart, put together a good tune, and they can do it Second hand and Mew conjure magic and melody from again and again. Even when they’re not collectable records and CDs something disjointed and malevolent. playing their own songs (tonight, for And then there are the visuals: grotesque example, they play out Julee Cruise’s ROCK - INDIE - DANCE - SOUL - JAZZ - CLASSICAL etc. ‘Falling’) Gedge’s distinctive tones make animations and a billion fairy lights moving records and CDs bought, sold and exchanged across a screen that fill the entire back wall them sound like Wedding Present originals. – disfigured nightmare dolls, and bizarre Is this effusive praise pure nostalgia? I 101a Cowley Road, Oxford man-animals, perfect if unnerving think not – even though I’ve loved this (near corner of Rectory Road) accompaniment to the ebullient, escapist band for a large part of their twenty years, tel: 01865 201204 Mon-Sat 11-6pm noise Mew conjure up. This is music from they play like they’re playing for the first stranger and more beautiful world than we time, and like they’re overjoyed just to be can possibly imagine. playing. It’s hard not to be won over. Dale Kattack Simon Minter THE BARN at The Red Lion Hotel KIMYA DAWSON / JASON ANDERSON PRESENTS Freud’s The Sidewalk Café this ain’t. A million miles away from the spiritual home of New York THE HOGGZ Antifolk, Freud’s seems like an odd choice for a show such as tonight’s. Unfazed by the vastness of the venue, Jason Anderson embraces its God-fearing past and FOR NEW YEARS EVE 2005 strides into the middle of the tables, guitar brandished like a crucifix, eyes burning with religious zeal. Soon half the audience are on their feet, joining him up at the altar as an ONE OF THE BEST ROCK COVER impromptu gospel choir, singing choruses and giving him every “heck yeah” he demands. BANDS AROUND It could seem cheap but his delivery is so sharp, his timing so perfect and his attitude so honest that everyone happily joins him in his state of quasi-religious fervour, glad to be out of their seats, grinning at his scissor kicks until their faces ache. TO INCLUDE HOT/COLD BUFFET Kimya Dawson takes the stage next with the crowd coming forward to sit around her feet. FREE TICKET DRAW FOR A Sporting a new mohawk, the one-time Moldy Peach starts by playing through the first three songs of her as yet untitled forthcoming album. It takes a special kind of artist to MAGNUM OF CHAMPAGNE open with a song about their hospitalised mother but from the moment her trademark stream of heartfelt, tightly-rhymed lyrics begins, Kimya has the crowd rapt. It’s not just ENTRY FROM 9.30 – 10.30PM the quality of the songwriting that makes the show so special, it’s the overwhelming friendliness and sense of intimacy that Kimya inspires. Half of her set, for example, is CLOSE IN 2006 PRICE £20 made up of requests, darkly funny songs punctuated with sadder ones, covering everything from tsunamis to the fall of Michael Jackson. Moldy Peach humour still pervades, thank God: “You can sing along to this next one. Or if you’re shy and you don’t want to sing, just KEEP MUSIC LIVE come and sit on my face or something”. Maybe Freud’s wasn’t such a bad choice after all. WWW.REDLIONWITNEY.CO.UK Catherine Clark LACUNA COIL MOTÖRHEAD The Zodiac The New Theatre Just days before Hallowe’en, blokes frequently engage are Lemmy Kilminster strides onstage mess with Lemmy. But anyway, Milan’s Lacuna Coil prise open enjoyably silly, creating an amusing at Oxford’s premier non-smoking here are more songs about drugs (or their coffins to join the recently- juxtaposition between the clichés theatre, spits his fag butt into the lack of), remorse (or lack of) and risen dead for a sold-out Zodiac gig. of death metal and manufactured monitors and announces that, “We warfare. ‘No Class’ is 12-bar Ten years old, this black-clad goth- pop as they do. Less amusing – are Motörhead and we play rock boogie taken to the Nth degree, metal sextet has built up a aside from a worrying absence of and fucking roll”. And so they do. ‘Metropolis’ a deceptively formidable reputation, and the irony – is the way in which this But Motörhead, celebrating 30 complex thunderous cacophony, crowd reveres them with fingers pop-metal cocktail seeps into the years on the road and fronted by while ‘Sacrifice’ ups the speed- splayed in the traditional gesture of music itself. A sheep got up in the iconic Lemmy – 60 years old metal ante even by Motörhead’s devil-worship. wolf’s clothing, if you will. Dull on Christmas Eve – don’t just play incredible standards. And when the However, there’s not much devilry the drums and guitars of songs such any old rock and fucking roll. They band finally do slow it down, on taking place on stage. As Oxford’s as the demi-ballad ‘Entwined’, play the loudest, fastest, heaviest, the acoustic ‘Whorehouse Blues’, tots trick-or-treat for chocolate whip aside its scary costumery, most brain-crunching rock and Lemmy demonstrates that beyond spiders and liquorice bats, Lacuna and a perfectly harmless Kelly fucking roll in the world; full all the excess, he’s got a great, Coil boil up the auditory equivalent Clarkson track is revealed beneath. throttle, no remorse. From classic lived-in blues voice, akin to Muddy of such confections: cutely kitsch Proficient, note-perfect, but oldie ‘Love Me Like A Reptile’ Waters. nuggets of gothery. Cristina sanitized of the dirty grit it needs. through to ‘Killers’ from ‘Iron Fist’ climaxes the main set; Scabbia’s vocals – all soaring, girly Elsewhere, especially on Motörhead’s latest album, the encores bring ‘Ace Of Spades’, sweetness – are undercut by ‘Humane’, there is a truly uncanny ‘Inferno’, the pace rarely drops the apex of heavy metal Andrea Ferro’s James-Hetfield- similarity to copycats beneath breakneck, Lemmy songwriting, and an extended, joins-Linkin-Park gutturals. Evanescence, right down to the crunching out heavy-duty chords synapse-fusing finale of ‘Overkill’ Meanwhile, aggressive guitars and corporate goth-next-door aesthetic. on his bass while guitarist Philip and then it’s just time for a quick, drums jerk and judder like dancers Plastic fangs puncture the music Campbell creates a soundtrack to “We were Motörhead and we from the `Thriller’ video amidst and suck out all the sex, subversion nuclear conflagration all on his played rock and fucking roll”. And unearthly synth sequences. They and spontaneity, until little more own. when Lemmy Kilminster finally, are a cartoon band, their creepiness than a slick, shiny skin is left. For an old man who barely moves inevitably, collapses and dies on as stylised as that of a Tim Burton But maybe to criticize them for on stage, Lemmy has astonishing stage, like the great warrior on his animation. this is to miss the point: like charisma, tall, lean and with a face beloved battlefield, he’ll have that The stage show, too, is pure Hallowe’en, Lacuna Coil offer silly, that could end wars. His humour is carved on his gravestone. Quite pantomime. The carefully- spooky fun in a package that is bone-dry and self-mocking but he’s simply, no-one plays it better than choreographed head-banging unashamedly commercial. never become the kind of cartoon him, and probably never will. routines in which the long-locked Emily Gray figure that Ozzy has. You wouldn’t Dale Kattack

thethe portport mmahonahon THE HELLSET ORCHESTRA / BIG JOAN Live Music in December The Cellar st Thu 1 THE FAMILY MACHINE / NICK BREAKSPEAR / A four piece band, two of whom out their organ-led tales of PETER MOORE & RACHEL GREY are drummers? Call me unsubtle, malevolent science, mayhem and, nd Fri 2 OXFORD FOLK CLUB OPEN NIGHT but I like those percussive odds, erm, ornithology. Like a Hammer Sat 3rd THE SKYNNY NYRDS and when one of them is playing an Horror film performed by Mon 5th OPEN MIC NIGHT old metal bin we know we’re in for metalheads on a Victorian pier end, Tue 6th PORT MAYHEM with MARIANA MAGNAVITA some clattery goodness. Opening the effect is patently ridiculous, Wed 7th OXFORD IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA instrumental aside, Big Joan trade but like our very own Suitable Case Thu 8th MURRAY TORKILDSEN (ex-Sweeney) / HOOCHIE in the sort of brutal yet insidious For Treatment they take farcical Fri 9th OXFORD FOLK CLUB with JESSICA & AL MARSHALL simplicity McLusky used to elements and weld them into th deliver, with the vocals smeared imposing and somehow logical Sat 10 HOT SILK POCKETS / BETTY & THE greasily over the top in the forms. WEREWOLVES / LIFE WITH BEAR beguiling style of a pitch-perfect There’s a certain intelligent th Mon 12 WHIP / STAFRAENN HAKON Kim Gordon. A superb racket, by economy in the way the grotesque Tue 13th DREW ATKINS any other name. It would have been ingredients are melded that stops Thu 15th SNAKE EYES slightly better if they’d made more the show falling into the flabby Fri 16th OXFORD FOLK CLUB OPEN NIGHT of the quieter sections, and much novelty camp – ‘Temporary Sat 17th OSPREY & FRIENDS better if an angry little monster had Stronghold of The Weather Sun 18th THE GREEN popped out of the bin shouting Thieves’ has got to be the best song Mon 19th OPEN MIC NIGHT “Hey, lady! Tryin to get some title of the year, surely – and if the th sleep over here!” but you can’t string section were ever in tune Tue 20 THE DHARMA have everything. we’d be nearing pop music st Wed 21 THE DIVINE COILS Ever noticed the similarity territory. Well, alright, you’d have nd Thu 22 THE BLACK WATCH / THE JAZZ BUTCHER / between an old Hammond and a to excise the vocal growls and the THE NEW MOON child’s coffin? Or between a black free jazz sax too, but who’d want Fri 23rd OXFORD FOLK CLUB CHRISTMAS PARTY clad cellist and a melodramatic to? Anyone noticed the similarity mourner? Watching The Hellset between The Hellset Orchestra and Book your band into play at Oxford’s best small music venue! Orchestra’s catalogue of camp a bloody great band? A Cellarful, 82 St Clements, Oxford. Tel: 01865 202067 horror tropes starts bringing these roughly. odd images to mind, as they crank David Murphy KNIFEHANDCHOP / NERVOUS TESTPILOT / THE NAILBOMB CULTS The Wheatsheaf Tonight’s Vacuous Pop night would journeys through hard house, rap be a good case study for a scholar and drum&bass towards gabba - of the current state of laptop and back again. It’s a lot more electronica. Knifehandchop and coherent than TNC’s stuff, but The Nailbomb Cults are at seems to suffer from being more opposing ends of the spectrum, like a DJ set than his recorded December with Nervous_testpilot slotting output; tonight, the emphasis is on Every Monday: somewhere in between. the audience rather than the Birthday boy The Nailbomb Cults inventiveness and creation he only THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES – is a complete aural onslaught - a shows glimpses of. ‘Hooked on The best in UK, European and US blues. 8-12. £6 disjointed crash of noise, cut-ups, Ebonics’ stands out amongst the 5th PAUL BYRD (USA) mangled samples, frenetic beats and plethora of familiar samples. 12th GILES HEDLEY & THE AVIATORS (UK) breaks, and so on. It’s not exactly Nervous_testpilot is tonight 19th THE FAMOUS MONDAY NIGHT BLUES commercial and an immediate playing more from his recent game comparison with Aphex Twin soundtrack EP ‘Determinance’ than CHRISTMAS PARTY featuring NEVER THE springs to mind. The apparently his earlier stuff. He’s not quite BRIDE plus international guest artistes to be announced. random nature of the set becomes living up to his Venetian Snares- more cohesive a few tracks in, but and Autechre-influenced billing; the Every Tuesday: it’s still hard to discern any sort of newer stuff is trancey, but amongst structure. However, the the build-ups and sweeps there are THE OXFORD JAZZ CLUB with THE TOM unpolished, harsh, edgy sounds still traces of his trademark breaks, GREY QUINTET – make the overall performance more cut-ups, glitches and jazzy Free live jazz plus DJs playing r’n’b, funk and soul until 2am interesting than it could be if it melodies. ‘Spacetime’ and the older were dominated by drum&bass ‘Raiders of the Lost Arp’ Every Thursday: breaks and relentless gabba. demonstrate the development of By comparison, Knifehandchop is his style, and in the process BULLSEYE – Student Indie, Festival, Funk (10pm- the epitome of smooth dance beats. encroach into both The Nailbomb 2am - £2 or free entry with flyer from The City Arms) Starting with dark hip hop rhythms Cults and Knifehandchop territory. and heavy vocal samples, he Kirsten Etheridge Every Friday: BACKROOM BOOGIE – THE MASS / SUITABLE CASE FOR Funk, soul and R&B. 9-2am Free B4 10pm; £4 after. TREATMENT / BULLET UNION Every Sunday: THE CHAPEL - LOCAL BANDS SHOWCASE. The Wheatsheaf 8-11pm. £3 It all starts out so well. Camden’s filling silence that descended over Bullet Union flail out of the traps the audience during his “You do at a furious tempo. This is music not fear the darkness… but you you fight to; the kind of proto- will!” rant at the end of ‘Dead Plus punk to have on your iPod if you Pigeon Teachers’, simply Thursday 1st WHO’S NEXT – happen to be charging across no- reinforces why what follows with Who tribute band (Early show 8-10.30pm £5.00) man’s land toward an enemy The Mass never has a chance of Saturday 3rd SIMPLE with special guest ANNIE machine gun nest. It’s Sonic Youth getting off the ground. on fast-forward, the Youth Brigade Six thousand miles from home, MAC (Radio 1). Tickets £10 adv from the Bully. kicking Idlewild’s head in, and all touring what sounds like a pretty Wednesday 7th LIVE STAND UP COMEDY coming out of double-stacked far-out grindcore/jazz album, Saturday 10th THE ZIMMERMEN - Marshall speakers. ‘Perfect Picture of Wisdom and A Tribute to Bob Dylan. It’s these speakers belonging to Boldness’, The Mass come over as th The Mass which loom like the dated and as clichéd as it’s possible Saturday 17 ROADRUNNER portals of Hell over the whole to be when simply playing like (Ska, Mod, 60s, Funky Hammond + more), with speical evening and eventually prove to be Neurosis or Carcass. live set from NEVILLE STAPLES (ex-Specials / their undoing. This is because It doesn’t help that the singer, Fun Boy Three) plus NINE-TON PEANUT Suitable Case For Treatment are let Matt Young, is only a foot taller SMUGGLERS. loose with them beforehand, and than a munchkin, with a scare st believe me someone should have factor of zilch. Wednesday 21 ANARCHY IN THE warned The Mass about SC4T. His saving grace is a batch of BACKROOM – Punk Classics. Much reviewed already in impressive high-speed sax solos, Saturday 24th BACKROOM BOOGIE Nightshift, I’ll just say this: but by this time two prolonged CHRISTMAS SPECIAL – Classic funk, soul and disco. normally they are incredible. intervals for broken bass strings th Tonight they are fucking incredible. means the crowd had seen their Thursday 29 BIG SPEAKEASY - New Hip Hop Singer Liam should be on the front opportunity to melt away into the club night with live bands. cover of every rock magazine in the night. Doom rock needs proper Saturday 31st NEW YEAR’S EVE DANCE world before he explodes forever doom! PARTY with DJ TONY NANTON into tiny pieces. The utter pant- Paul Carrera Photo by Sam Shepherd pretty, that’s when your that’s pretty, of place playing through the rolling credits of the next James Bond movie. In ‘Be There’ he lovingly laments, “When you don’t feel so beauty shines”, with the grace and emotion of Jeff Buckley or Damien Rice. Ah yes, emotion. Matt has lots of emotion. Sometimes… maybe too much. He has an amazing and dynamic voice; his stagecraft and performance persona would have most local acts spitting with envy. that best when he forgets But Matt’s an audience even there. actually there’s When he plays it up he can fall into a Bob Dylan-esque pretence, over-annunciating his words. But when he forgets the melodrama, like in the heartfelt ‘Lilia’, he closes his eyes and in his own world he his best song tonight It’s goes for glory. and leaves little doubt as to why this big happy family will all be sitting here rapturously next time. Katy Jerome remixes, further smacks of multi-market overkill. Well, So how did they get it so right at Reading? for a we couldn’t hear the moon-and-June lyrics Rob start, and didn’t have to put up with singer to ‘the educational endless paeans McVey’s it majesty of Oxford’ between songs. Maybe was that the material was still fresh and they caught a mood that simply belonged to the moment. Either way they need to start pulling some rabbits out of hats to avoid becoming just another band that could have achieved greatness. Art Lagun and ‘Stoneage Dinosaurs’. All three are evidence that Tim Smith is one of Smith Tim All three are evidence that Dinosaurs’. and ‘Stoneage one is an emotional Each songwriters around today. the most undervalued an almost hymnal quality. journey mapped out in pop songs that possess example of noise ‘Dirty Boy’ in particular is an astonishing eight-minute Quite how Cardiacs have and beauty that could make grown men weep. on this evidence they are remained a cult band for so long is a mystery; to see. one of the finest live bands you are ever likely Allin Pratt SAGE TT MA The Zodiac Until tonight I was a Catweazle Club At first I thought I had accidentally virgin. walked into a prayer meeting. Everyone sitting on the floor mostly crossed-legged with smiling faces gleaming up at the And it stage. Like one big happy family. is. Thanks to Matt Sage. The hyper and loveable Steve Larkin from Inflatable Buddha is our compére for the Any rigidity on my part (ok I’m not night. used to sitting on the floor at the Zodiac) is soon washed away as he sets the scene for the Matt Sage Trio, with Colin Fletcher on upright bass and Jane Griffiths on violin. I admire Matt for going against the norm. The arrangements with voice, guitar and other instruments are lovely and both simple and complex. They change from sweetness one moment to big movie- scape songs the next. In ‘Around the gets the audience to ‘lalalala’ he’s World’ (yes it is TOO a verb) throughout its entirety and it certainly wouldn’t be out engaging voice. A charitable description could be A engaging voice. Athlete with more depth and slightly rougher edges; after all they do hail from Prestwich, the suspicion is that they Yet The Fall. home of the were snapped up early in a major deal for all they fit in perfectly wrong reasons. Specifically, with the modern trend for bands who create like a shot of nothing more than a warm glow, whisky on a cold night, welcome but entirely predictable. Their main attraction to the to industry may be their songs being unlikely like motivate anyone to hop channels and a few, a flagship single ‘Further’, could fit well into Hollywood soundtrack. But the incessant touring, along with the recent album of tired

Fell City Girl, boast a singer with a distinctive, pronged guitar sound and, unlike support act to The Zodiac. They benefit from a great two- an inch of its life, this being their seventh visit continue to flog debut LP ‘Mercury’ to within succession they play ‘Dirty Boy’, ‘The Everso Closely Guarded Line’, succession they play ‘Dirty Boy’, ‘The Everso release their second proper album, they mid-set. But it’s how Cardiacs close the show that really stuns. In quick mid-set. But it’s they fail to fizz, never mind ignite. Still to Things’, whilst the ‘indie’ hit ‘Is This The Life’ makes an appearance Things’, whilst the ‘indie’ hit ‘Is This The Life’ tonight Yet weekend. admittedly an under-par pop punk of older songs like ‘Tarred and Feathered’ and ‘To Go Off and Go Off and ‘To and Feathered’ pop punk of older songs like ‘Tarred proclaimed it the highlight of what was show, you could not ask for a more qualified band. There’s the perverse There’s you could not ask for a more qualified band. show, such that many was nothing short of incendiary, role with obvious relish. As a soundtrack to this somewhat unsettling role with obvious relish. set in the new bands tent at Reading Festival from his brother Tim; who plays the childish, schizophrenic frontman from his brother Tim; Long-View’s years ago Two a mystery. Here’s become a cult hero in Cardiacs circles, and the threat of ‘sleepy time’ become a cult hero in The Zodiac the baiting of Jim Smith; the frequently put-upon bass player who has the frequently put-upon bass player who the baiting of Jim Smith; best, an almost unlikely pairing of pantomime and Sunday mass. There’s pairing of pantomime and Sunday mass. best, an almost unlikely LONG-VIEW spectacle of the evening. Performance-wise, this is manic theatre at it’s Performance-wise, this is manic theatre spectacle of the evening. of three backing vocalists, and two further percussionists add to the and two further percussionists add to of three backing vocalists, there are now nine of them could appear ludicrous. Instead, the addition there are now nine of ago their line up of seven seemed a little extravagant, then the fact that seemed a little extravagant, then the fact ago their line up of seven the stage set, everything is geared towards the monolithic. If a few years is geared towards the monolithic. If a few the stage set, everything master class. From the songwriting of frontman Tim Smith, through to songwriting of frontman Tim Smith, through master class. From the and the tone is set for the evening. In terms of grandeur this is a pure and the tone is set for They open with the Wagnerian stomp of ‘Home of Fadeless Splendour’, stomp of ‘Home Wagnerian with the They open thirty-year career is represented. thirty-year a keen pop sensibility; and tonight, almost every step of their twisted almost every step sensibility; and tonight, a keen pop added pinches of metal, folk, and classical, whilst also managing to retain classical, whilst also of metal, folk, and added pinches somehow managed to fuse both of these strains of music. They also of these strains of music. to fuse both somehow managed The Zodiac The prog-rock, Cardiacs punk was killing off London in 1977 when Formed in CARDIACS

OSWIN CHIN BEHILIA INSTABILE ORCHESTRA The Zodiac Wesley Memorial Church Oswin Chin Who? I hear you say. comprises of standards from both Tonight is an event as much as a throughout to pondering at the Well that’s sort of the point of the Latin and trad jazz fields, with concert. The enthusiasm and side, coming on to signal a change tonight’s show. The Big Village a few original numbers from experimentation of Instabile creates and retreating, are immense fun to Organisation, tonight’s promoters, Behilia’s studio albums. a delicious atmosphere of risk and watch. are a group seeking to increase The vibe is extremely laid-back uncertainty. For the first half of the show world music awareness in and Behilia and other band The seventeen players from all Instabile’s collaboration with Leeds’ Oxfordshire by putting on a series members follow the sheet music for over Italy have strong individual own iconoclast Mathew Bourne on of gigs featuring different artists some numbers, while the band at musical personalities. They mix children’s toy instruments and from the world over. times glance nervously to each solo and collective freeform ukelele is a sort of novelty addition Which brings us to Behilia, a other as the song’s end approaches; improv, bebop, modern European to the marching band groove of the Latin-jazz guitarist from the Dutch any slight mistakes there are are art music influences like Berio, opener. Bourne conducts his own Antilles, backed tonight by a five- smoothed over by easy-going, Mediterranean funeral marching specially commissioned thirty- piece band. Tonight’s atmosphere shrugged smiles. band, sublime ensemble playing, a minute abstract piece like a is certainly very different to most This lack of polish gives rock sensibility and just having an demented mechanical toy, jerky gigs you would see at the Zodiac, proceedings the air of jam session, exuberant collective thrash, often arms holding aloft placards sparsely populated, enough so for rather than performance, but this, many styles in the same number. emblazoned with “riff” and “solo”. tables and chairs. combined with Behilia’s between- Sometimes the whole thing Instabile cope magnificently. The Even when Behilia and his band song broken English, just seems to threatens to go over the edge but it second half shows off Instabile’s take the stage, the place is make things feel both more never does. They echo the absurd terrific individual and collective decidedly thin on the ground. But endearing and more authentic. The humour of ‘musica futurista’ with musicianship even more. There are regardless of this they spring into a vibe is extremely infectious and shouts of exultation and pain, and delicate lyrical passages to evoke set of mostly upbeat Latin jazz while the band face a tough job of their cooing and mewling response “A raft driven forward by the numbers. The sound they produce getting a seated and early doors to their cello player puncturing wind”, a strange and exuberant re- is fantastic: nylon strings, backed crowd up to dance, their closing their raucous encore with a sweet working of `St James Infirmary’, by lush, exotic percussion and number is a triumph, the what-is- version of the Beatles,`Norwegian and a life affirming blast of a soaked in sunshine harmonies. there-to-lose-in-having-fun? aura Wood’. Not your usual jazz big Thomas Mafumo anthem, a homage From this writer’s admittedly scant making the seats superfluous, and band then, and so unlike the cool to the protester killed at the Genoa knowledge of both Behilia and his for a moment, a little window to sounds of northern European art G8 summit. So, yet again it’s a big hybrid of the Spanish and the Caribbean is opened at the music and jazz. Many of thank you to Oxford Contemporary Potuguese languages, it seems Zodiac. Instabile’s players are also its Music who bring such magnificent tonight’s set mainly Patrick Casey composers. Their different styles players to town to stretch our of leading them through their own musical boundaries. pieces, from being out front Colin May

PARALLAX BEAT BROTHERS Jacqueline Du Pre Music Building There’s nothing more dangerous which Pete Lockett has enough than a man with an idea, and room to play along, but not the Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud, one space to expand the groove and of tonight’s eponymous brothers, take it beyond its constituent along with percussionist Pete parts. Lockett) is nothing if not brimming There are some mesmerising highs with ideas. Trouble is, these ideas when things do come together, are often better than their however, heightening the sense of execution. Case in point – the missed opportunity. When theory of performing 40 Scanner’s electronics are at their simultaneous live sets using a set of most minimal, providing a circular impersonators is a great one, but rhythm or a fulgent drone as an the cold reality is one of 40 balding anchor, his contributions are more men playing mediocre techno all at lush :zoviet*france: or Avrocar the same time. dreaminess than plodding Ochre Similarly, there’s something about Records-style tedium. Without a tonight’s performance – billed as rhythmic frame to adhere to, the fusing together acoustic and assorted tablas, frame drums and electronic beats – that doesn’t quite percussive miscellanea are free to gel. With both men on opposite explore and add depth to the piece sides of the stage hunched over as a whole, rather than simply their respective hardware, scarcely augmenting the leitmotif provided glancing at one another, there’s by the electronic backing. little sense of synergy between the Moments like this offer up both two elements for much of the set. consonance and the thrill of genuine Too often, the backbone is collaboration we’ve been waiting provided by a predictable mid- for: at its core, there was something tempo beat pattern from Scanner exciting going on here, but it wasn’t (of the kind that’s characterised his half hard work finding it. more recent uptempo work), over Stuart Fowkes ZUPOB Exeter Hall Pub The Spin, The Wheatsheaf Corner Cowley / Marsh Road Zubop’s music is very much like their brassy, clean, punchy sound of two saxes 01865 776431 name. They combine exuberant, highly and trumpet or valve trombone on the www.thex.co.uk danceable global rhythms with jazz South African and ska-influenced improvisation. World rhythms are not a numbers, to atmospheric playing of THE BEST FREE MUSIC superficial gimmick with them; they have clarinet, flute and valve trombone for their paid their dues but perhaps because all bar samba, cumbia, North African and VENUE IN TOWN! Every Tuesday Open Mic 8:30pm one number tonight is composed by them, klezmer-influenced compositions. When Every Wednesday Folk Session 8pm the band’s sound is their own. Flute and the solid rhythm section features, they alto player Ricky Edwards’ Brazilian sometimes add maracas, some particularly December style, ‘Life is Magic’, with the refrain fine triangle riffs and the beating of a Thu 1st Bananarami - FREE Sun 18th Slidewinder FREE “Celebrate, celebrate”, very much sums up strange yellow phallic object akin to an Fri 2nd ESKIMO DISCO / Wed 21st Adam Bomb Acoustic TRADEMARK / NERVOUS FREE the gig. anorexic beehive. “Very interesting”, as TESTPILOT / SCRIPT (£4) Thu 22nd Snake Eyes + support The turnout is respectable even though my therapist would say. Sat 3rd / Sun 4th Winter Warmer FREE – Gappy Tooth Industries & Klub Fri 23rd One Toy Soldier / The Courtney Pine is in town tonight. Zubop Will Embliss on trumpet and valve Kakofanney presents. (£4 each Dharma / Mark Solace / Twizz is not the usual Spin Club menu of a trombone is the night’s star. He is the one day) Twangle / E J Norman / Laima, strong resident rhythm section plus guest, player constantly stretching the envelope Thu 8th Lady Daze - Sophie Fork (£3) Polhill & Antonia King Sing Ella Sat 24th Christmas Eve Open playing established jazz numbers. There is when he solos, particularly on his valve Fitzgerald FREE Mic FREE a some resistance but the audience is won trombone. Throughout Zubop are fresh Fri 9th Doug Hodge Band / Drew Thur 29th Red Bubble Club /Phil Atkins FREE Bentley / Danny McGurn / over by the second half and there is even and lively even though they have been Sat 10th Rock & Roll X Must Sophie Polhill / Dani Wilde the rare sight of some dancing at the Spin, gigging together over a decade. On this Extravaganza! FREE FREE th for which congratulations to both band showing long may they continue Sun 11th Electric Jam FREE Fri 30 The J J Soul Experience Thu 15th Gwyn Ashton Plus Ally / Dan Austin / Drew Atkins and dancers. The band’s front three is entertaining with their Zubop music. Craig FREE FREE versatile. They go from the pleasing Colin May Fri 16th Mary’s Garden (Laima Sat 31st Klub Kakofanney New Bite’s new band) / Phyal FREE Year’s Eve Party - Pete Fryer Sat 17th King Ada FREE Band / Redox / Kohoutek / Opaque (£10 adv) CREEPSHOW 2 featuring HEXSTATIC The Zodiac Creepshow 2 marks the long-awaited throw an incredible party. return of Peepshow to Oxford‘s clubbing So having reminded ourselves that we’re in calendar. Now firmly established as the The Zodiac (virtually unrecognisable with city’s most ambitious and innovative club live projections being beamed onto night, organizers Paddy, Alan, Rob and umpteen screens and glowing pumpkins Ron are passionate about showcasing galore) and berated ourselves for being ROCK-POP-DANCE-GOLDEN OLDIES-INDIE- cutting-edge music and visuals, with almost the only people not in fancy dress, SOUL-TECHNO-HIP-HOP-JAZZ-LATIN-REGGAE- tonight’s headliners the perfect case in we’re presented with Digitonal’s pacey DRUM&BASS-GARAGE—R&B-DISCO-1950s- point. Of course, in the wrong hands such laptop accompaniments to the scary bit, 2000s. Brand new back catalogue CDs £4 - £7 dalliances into the clubbing counter-culture the “Here’s Johnny” bit and the “oh feck each. Brand new chart CDs £5 - £10 each (we arrive, at midnight on a Friday to a he’s running through the maze and he’s live re-scoring of Stephen King’s The going to kill them with a feckin’ axe” scenes Shining) could result in a short-lived from Stanley Kubrick’s chiller. Genuinely exercise in low turnouts and stroked gripping, and all from the hands of a bloke goatees. Peepshow has been packing in dressed like one of those nutters out of A punters (having outgrown the backroom of Clockwork Orange. Class. The Bullingdon) for two years. It does Between that and some frankly devilish this because the promoters know how to tunes from Alan M there’s an overwhelming sense of anticipation as Robin and Stuart Hexstatic enter to the theme from Creepshow 2. It’s a testament to Peepshow’s glowing national reputation that the Ninja Tune pair have prepared an exclusive Halloween-themed set for this evening, mashing and melding the brash (‘Smack My Bitch Up’ makes an early appearance) with the frankly gash (Sir Cliff gets cut up till he’s chanting “Hexstatic” and his face disintegrates before our very eyes), before Rick James gets jiggy with fellow freaks Missy and Chic over a bonkers audiovisual bootleg- athon. Enormously hi-tech, it’s also silly enough to keep us grinning from ear to ear, and achingly brilliant tunes like their two- Available from The Polar Bear, Cowley Road, step reinterpretation of ‘These Boots or via www.therelationships.co.uk Were Made For Walking’ ensure that no- ones boots are going anywhere before 4am. Aidan Larkin DEMOSDEMOSDEMOS If you do not supply us with a proper contact number and address as stated below, we will not review your demo.

DEMO OF MOUNTED www.appletreestudio.co.uk THE MONTH INSANITY CANNON We know we’ve reviewed this lot before – it’s not the sort of band name you forget SLEEPYHOUSE easily, but memory fails us on their past Bands with names like Sleepyhouse are record except that one half of Mounted usually rubbish. But for once the name is Insanity Cannon used to be in local nu- appropriate, given the music’s hushed, metal tryers Centre Negative. This demo is almost ghostly feel. Taking their cue from described as a min-album and boasts eight both 60s acid-folk and contemporary tracks but given it clocks in at a mere five alt.country, Sleepyhouse’s sound is pretty minutes, mini is the key word there. Still, traditional, but within their limits they MIC manage to stuff plenty of action into create a gothic atmosphere, the songs that brief timespan, kicking off with a dominated by a dark, scraping violin and flurry of apocalyptic sci-fi dialogue before the singer’s fragile, almost jazzy vocals. a motorbike synth revs up and we head off ‘Skank Report’ immediately provokes a into digital hardcore territory with rush of reference points, from The Coral accompanying hysterical screaming, a spot and Devendra Banhart to Canned Heat and of random channel hopping, some scat jazz 80s nu-folksters The Horseflies. ‘My by way of Tom Waits and then back into Name’ recreates the twilight ambience, metal territory. Along the way there’s a again the violin holding the mood while the track titled ‘Autons Attack’, which pleases guitarist and drummer try to edge the song the resident Dr Who fans no end. It’s all a into traditional rock territory. And maybe bit of a clamour and these mash-up things that’s Sleepyhouse’ only real fault, can be ten-a-penny, but while it lasts it 5K seemingly unwilling to play to their keeps you on your toes. 32 strengths and let the gothic mood infect every facet of each song. It’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but it’s sporadically LINER intriguing stuff that coolly distances itself The question every band should ask from any prevailing musical trends. themselves before they even play a note is, “is there really any need for us to exist?”. If they were true to themselves, Liner would have packed up and buggered off THE IDEA down the pub immediately, stopping only The idea is the solo project from a fella to flog their instruments to the local second called Mitch Salisbury whose hand shop. They’re the encapsulation of accompanying photo montage suggests he’s the idea of that competence is an adequate Victor Lewis-Smith simpleton twin brother. substitute for inspiration. Sure they’re Mitch used to be in a band called Tribe of musically adept and the singer makes a Dan who apparently supported The Alarm reasonable if unsuccessful attempt at and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin as well as Cliff emulating Joe Strummer’s vocal spit, but Richard, although we don’t know how it’s so crushingly generic and utterly seriously to take that last claim. Mitch’s lacking in any character of its own that the main claim to fame, however, is apparently whole thing makes us cry like lost kittens upsetting Metallica’s Lars Ulrich at a party just thinking about it. Here’s a bit of Clash- once, although that’s a bit like shooting fish lite; there’s a spot of early-80s indie in a barrel if ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ is revivalism. At its best it sounds like the anything to go by. Anyway, after an least interesting bits of XTC hacked out by opening harpsichord-led jingle we’re into a soulless, jobbing pub-rock band. Liner are plinkety-plonk lo-fi pop territory, Mitch the musical equivalent of a middle-aged sounding not unlike obscure US eccentric bloke in a grey M&S anorak – you could Flour on ‘Nice Girls Don’t Like Boys Like walk past them a dozen times in a day and Me’, although it’s all a bit too camp for its never recall seeing them. own good and suggests there may be more biological reasons why he’s incompatible with the ladies. ‘Time’ is more sullen, SOKYO which goes against the grain of the rest of Another solo project, this time from a chap the demo, while a fourth, untitled, song called Danny Chigley who isn’t sure sounds like an old 1960s folk band covering whether he wants to be in a West Coast Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill’ ten years psychedelic pop band or an early-90s before it was written. Which is perhaps an electro noise outfit. So he opts for both. At achievement in itself. the same time. Which should be a fascinating soundclash but ends up as a he’s got a slightly strangulated, quavering, pretty incongruous mess. First track understated shriek of a voice and it’s the ‘Outside’ is a good start, if overlong, the absolute spit of someone we can’t for the heavy bass synths trying to flatten the airy life of us put a name to. None of which Stone Roses-styled flight of fancy, but as helps you, the reader, any, and it’s driving the song overstays its welcome you start us completely round the bend. There’s a to think that maybe all that electronic large bar of chocolate for the first person assault and battery was added at the last who can put us out of our misery. Answers minute to try and make a rather boring song on a postcard to the usual address. a bit more interesting. ‘Sweet Chilli Sauce’ is more consistent, flitting between Eels- style lo-fi whimsy and Donovan’s folkier, THE FRUSTRATIONS er, whimsy, but soon the collision between The Frustrations are a local ska band, but traditional acoustic instrumentation and they’re extremely keen to stress they’re song structures and the electronics becomes not a ska-punk band. Which is good news. formulaic. It’s clever enough at times and We’ve had quite our fill of third-rate Rancid suggests better things might emerge in the tributes over the years. Instead The THE COURTYARD STUDIO future, but for now Sokyo needs to unravel Frustrations, who we take to be pretty OTARI MTR90 MK11, 24 TRACK TAPE the threads he’s tangled himself up in. young although we have absolutely no MACHINE & MTA 980, 32/24/24 CONSOLE, evidence to support this idea, take their cue SOUNDSCAPE DIGITAL EDITOR, SUPERB straight from The Specials, whose ‘Little CONTROL ROOM WITH GOOD SELECTION OF LE EMU TAVERN Bitch’ they cover here. The three tracks Our hearts beat that little bit faster every here have got a bit of lightweight bounce OUTBOARD GEAR, MIDI FACILITIES INCLUDE time we get a demo from former-Holy about them; they’re a bit clumsy at times, LOGIC AUDIO, 8 MEG S1000, etc Roman Empire frontman Ste Fleming. and covering The Specials is always going Because the guy is a genius in turning shit to be a hard job, but simplistic as they are RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES OPTIONAL into pop gold. This time round he’s joined they’re enthusiastic enough to win you by one-time Candyskins drummer John over. The vocalist, meanwhile makes a Phone KATE or PIPPA for details Halliday as well as local intenet loon decent enough stab at emulating Terry on 01235 845800 Clarence Pistoldinner. ‘In The Garden Of Hall’s deadpan delivery. Best news of all? Destroyed Universes’ is a rock opera in Neville Staples is coming to the Bullingdon comparison to Holy Roman Empire, what this month. Legend. with its Snowy White-style guitar solos and all, and bears a vague resemblance to Pure Reason Revolution in its almost spiritual reach. The scientific theme THE DEMO continues with ‘A Cow’s Tale’, which deals with the very birth of Planet Earth itself DUMPER and suggests some kind of obsession with cosmology. Best of the lot here though, is ‘When Other Kids Stamp On Your SPARE HALF HOUR Glasses’, with its immortal lines, “When This student band have called themselves other kids stamp on your glasses / It is Spare Half Hour and titled their demo they who are blind”, which is a ‘Scraping The Barrel’. Perhaps they should commentary on geekdom that even simply have sent us a letter asking us to Morrissey couldn’t equal. As we’ve come kick their teeth down their throats and to expect from anything involving young spared us the trawl through fifteen minutes Ste, Le Emu Tavern are very slightly silly. of life-wasting bollocks. ‘Habitual Junkie’, But beyond that, there is a strange kind of apart from being a tautology, is the sort of genius at work. rumbling, grumbling, bass-heavy indie thrash that could have graced the preliminary heats of any student band THE VALE competition of the past 25 years, while the This is a bit confusing since we in the knowingly-titled ‘Anodyne’ throws Oxford post-rock clique have a tendency to everything into the scrap to climb the refer to Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element slippery slope to that plateau signposted simply as The Vale in our overly-casual, ‘Anthemic’ but inevitably falls back on its aren’t-we-cool fashion (before laughing and sorry arse with all the dignity of a vomit- sneering at common people who like flecked tramp. Two more tracks left to go, proper songs with tunes and stuff). But no, how can Spare Half Hour save themselves? this Vale, from Wantage, have no truck with Well, why not try the obligatory funk punishing techno beats and sheet-metal excursion? Hey, lads, can you hear that guitar noise. Instead they describe clanking noise beneath your execrable dirge? themselves as an indie-folk band and sound That’s the Nightshift Musical Decency like a cross between Bert Jansch and Tracy Retribution Squad fetching their claw Chapman, with the odd spot of Spanish hammers and dental drills out of the shed. swing added in for variety. Not bad, We’ve just realised we’ve got a spare half although we spend the entire demo trying hour before tea and we’re going to use it to to figure out who the singer reminds us of – teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.

Send demos for review to: Nightshift, PO Box 312, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1ZU. IMPORTANT: no review without a contact address and phone number (no email or mobile- only). No more than four tracks on a demo. If you can’t handle criticism, please don’t send us your demo. Aw heck, you’re not taking the slightest bit of notice of this are you?