Punts Drunk

This is a review of this year's Punt festival, an annual Wednesday night pub crawl with random local acts doing sonic things to detract from proper beer drinking. It's like the Camden Crawl but cheaper, in every sense of the word. This is an interesting review, as elements of it appeared in Nightshift and on Oxfordbands, where it was part of an OHM reunion. If only BBC Oxford could have got in on the act, the whole history of my reviews could have been covered.

THE PUNT, various venues, 13/5/09

Matt Kilford gets a lovely big space in Borders to play his set, which is larger than some of the proper venues involved in The Punt. A side benefit of having a shop that hardly stocks any bloody CDs, we guess. We may not be financial gurus, but we honestly can’t fathom how the current difficulties in record retail will be solved by paying premium Oxford rent for a vast floorspace that only stocks about 5 different CDs! Getting involved with The Punt is exactly the kind of thing Border should be doing to drum up local custom, so kudos for that, although they could have kept off the tannoy during songs.

Such interruptions, however, are a source of comedy for Matt, whose wry humour is as much a highlight of his set as his sweet mellifluous voice. He might look rather unprepossessingly like Badly Drawn Mike Gatting, but his voice is not only gorgeous, but has the tiniest jazz and blues traces around the edge, and his guitar technique displays some incredibly subtle embellishments way beyond your average strummer. In fact, we preferred his woozy, hazy slower laments to his upbeat tunes, and it isn’t often we think that about an acoustic balladeer, that’s for damn sure.

By contrast, Bethany Weimers’ set is a riot, her excited guitar attack bursting with flamenco fireworks, and her dynamic singing full of theatre. Bethany has a wide range of vocal techniques in her arsenal, but we aren’t sure that they fully gel, and we feel that she is sometimes left grasping too desperately for the emotional payoff, like a cross between Edie Brickell and Bonnie Langford. She’s at her best when keeping things folky, especially in a sea shanty flavoured ditty about her great-grandparents, with a winning melody oddly reminiscent of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.

They look quite like Guns ‘N’ Roses, so it’s fitting that Pistol Kixx take to the stage late. OK, ten minutes is hardly in the Chinese Democracy bracket, but every second counts with The Punt’s crazed itinerary. They sound a bit like G’n’R too, although perhaps somewhat more low budget: we’re thinking Dogs D’Amour, The Quireboys or Skid Row, with hair treatments by Mosh ‘N’ Go. It’s been a while since we witnessed such flagrant use of wailing solos or bandanas, and we’re forced to conclude that Pistol Kixx are embarrassingly awful, but also, in some masochistic way, hugely entertaining. Thank you, Sir, may we have another.

Phantom Theory, on the other hand, squeeze the maximum dosage of rock hedonism from the simplest of means. A guitar and drums duo, they have a pleasing line in dirty scuzz rock, something like 50 Foot Panda having their blood replaced with hilbilly hooch by the devil’s dialysis. The effect is enormous, but minimal, like a juggernaut pulling a wheelie, and they have enough ideas to keep the fantastic set fresh as it powers long.

Part of the fun of the Punt is seeing people at gigs beyond the usual inner circle, and this does provide us with the wonderful sight of two girls huddled at the top of the Purple Turtle’s steps, saying “One of the bands is called, like, Beaver Juice”. However, we choose The Cellar instead of Beaver Fuel, where the opening of We Aeronauts’ set is gloriously delicate, a hushed blur of clicking drumsticks, guitar and accordion sounding like soft waves washing a pebbly beach. Although their sound is built on folky intimacy, they occasionally bubble up into a big-boned rock chorus, some bold, simple vocal melodies grasping at the heartstrings like Elbow at their best. A completely unamplified track is a brave move, but they clearly make an impact – on a trip to the toilet mid-set, a chap in the cubicle is unabashedly singing a wordless version of one of their earlier melodies!

Realising we haven’t set foot in the place since last year’s Punt, we wonder why there aren’t more gigs in Thirst Lodge – it’s a neat little room, with a good crisp PA and a wall made entirely from speaker cones. It just needs a good reliable promoter to kick things off. Whilst there we catch up with masked math metal magnates, Dr Slaggleberry, whose intricate arrangements and hard rock savvy are instigating some of the best unfettered dancing this side of The Spasm Band. It’s righteously impressive jazz metal, although, fussy buggers that we are, we’d like it if the guitars were more jazz, and the drums more metal.

A rush to The Wheatsheaf for The Response Collective is a must for a Punt that otherwise threatens to contain no bleeps. Sadly, neither does the set, it being a series of drab vocals atop some stale trip hop loops and loosely post-rock guitars. Spice is added by some proficient scratching, and some moody projected films, but the net effect is a sound that is not only uninspired, but also a few years out of date, which is the closest thing there is to a dance music cardinal sin.

Lack of excitement from The Reponse Collective does give us time to nip back to The Cellar for From Light To Sound. They might have an Oxford track record to rival Roger Bannister’s, but we’d always found their music intriguing rather than exciting. Until tonight that is. The Cellar’s engineer has found them a huge sound, and the music simply soars across the packed venue, all Explosions In The Sky grandeur, Billy Mahonie twistiness and Stereolab intelligence. And they have some proper bleepy noises, at last – when the keyboards aren’t coming on like ELP filtered through Battles, that is. Yes, there are mistakes and technical hitches, but these flash by in an instant, the euphoric effect of the music stays with us all night.

“We play solid metal, for fans of solid metal”, claims Desert Storm’s singer. Well, duh. Luckily the music far outstrips the announcements, and their classic, Pantera-sized rocking is perfect for flagging energy levels. Metal is as metal does, to a certain extent, and Desert Storm don’t rewrite the rulebook, but they do know when to drop in and out, and when to let the music chug on regardless. The playing is all extremely tidy, especially the drums, which are busy but incisive, just how we like them. Special mention for the singer’s long overcoat, which makes him look like a Joy Division fan, even as he growls like a man with a throat made from barbed wire and magma.