Bloody blimey space invaders, I've been busy today! At work, at home, on the way to my bi-annual haircut, I've been running about like a mad bugger. Not a terrible thing, I like a busy life, but I'm feeling the effect now. Anyway, here's one from a few years ago.
Oh, just in case it looks weird, "PMT" is a music hardware shop in Oxford. It stand for Professional Music Tehcnology; if you think the acronym is embarrassing, you should see the fucking logo.
SLEEPS IN OYSTERS/ THE SILKROOM/ AMBERSTATE - Melodic Oxford, Port Mahon, 5/06
Melody in music works like plot in fiction: it's not essential, but it can be a useful entrance point, and, if done well, is a joy in its own right. Melodic Oxford is cleverly arranging events that explore how wide a variety of musicians have a melodic sensibility at work. With supper jazz drums, sub-aquatic bass, langourous vocals and keys that lalternate between ridiculous Rick Wakeman-style arpeggios and sonar blips (mostly produced by slapping a vocoder mike), Amberstate serve up smouldering tunes like a lo-fi Smoke City. If you like the thought of the second Lamb album made in a garden shed, give them a whirl and go home happy.
Oddly, The Silkroom seem to run on melodic empty. They sound like Franz Ferdinand with three quarters of the songs removed, so to make up for this dearth they play ridiculously loud and put the vocals through some effects. Sadly, all the pedals in PMT couldn't disguise the singer's two-note youth club blurt, and the set feels lax and flabby. They could have a future making Billy Mahonie-style stop-start music, but tonight we infinitely preferred the stop.
Sleeps In Oysters refresh our waning Sunday spirits with an intriguing set. They have enough fuzzy loops and glitches to make Sunnyvale blush, yet they embellish them with gorgeous tuneful figures on toy glockenspiels and such, like a Fisher Price Sigur Ros. The glacial female vocal lines are a treat too, though the male counterpart is a little nasal. Their racks of equipment test the Port's sticky tape sound system, but they shouldn't let it get to them so obviously, as their music is joyous.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
A PAINFULLY POOR PIECE OF WRITING
Christ alive, this is a terrible review. I almost gave up whilst typing it up. How depressing. At least I'm better now than I was then.
The running "joke" is embarassing, frankly.
DIE PRETTY/ TARTFUEL/ VERBAL KINK/ DREAMLAB - The Wheatsheaf, 5/03
Hard to recall in these slick automated times, but electronic music was once closely allied to new wave, and synthpop was punk's natural (Oedipal) bedfellow. Watch Dreamlab play and the link is reforged in a whirl of buzzing Casios and yapping vocals.
One man, one minidisc and two keyboards are all that's needed to fuel this rhythmic tirade. To be honest, sometimes it's a bit of a mess, but what matters is that Rob from Dreamlab's performance is completely honest: he doesn't care whether anyone gets it, or whether he's cool (he's not), he just dives in and plays. And he plays some pretty chunky Numan/Foxx stompers, which can't be bad.
Verbal Kink rock along pleasantly enough, but their vocals let them down, and they aren't overburdened with ideas. It's diverting stuff but doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. Of course, the simple solution is "Don't scrutinise, then", but, hey! I'm a critic. Scrutiny is my job. Not that it's my real job, you understand, but for the purposes of this...
Where was I? Oh, yes: Verbal Kink. Their bassist really should break a string more often, as the ensuing song was more spacious and better for it.
Worse then second rate singer are good singers who don't bother singing, but just shout all the time, and Tartfuel has one of those. Nowt wrong with shouting, of course, as Frank Black, Kurt Cobain, Mark E Smith and Captain Beefheart could testify, but it's a skill just like any other - most people just can't do it very well.
Beyond that Tartfuel are a much more confident and, presumably, experienced outfit than Verbal Kink, and their performance is so much the neater...which is a pity, because it wasn't as interesting. Does that sound patronising? But I'm a critic, patronising is my job. Not that it's my real...
Oh, yes: Tartfuel. Tame the singer, write a few new songs and wash your hair, then we'll see.
Die Pretty, on the other hand, have no homework to do. This, their farewell Oxford gig, is the essence of rock music: take some sweaty people in leather, and have them play visceral driving music. No, it's not very complex, but as the set continues the sequenced drums become more and more insistent, the volume keeps edging up another notch, and the singer gets increasingly animated, and the crowd responds. It really is an art form that lives in the exhilirating moment, and difficult nto describe, the effect is truly electric. But I'm a critic. Describing things is my...
Oh, yes: Die Pretty. A sleazy treat that will be sadly missed.
The running "joke" is embarassing, frankly.
DIE PRETTY/ TARTFUEL/ VERBAL KINK/ DREAMLAB - The Wheatsheaf, 5/03
Hard to recall in these slick automated times, but electronic music was once closely allied to new wave, and synthpop was punk's natural (Oedipal) bedfellow. Watch Dreamlab play and the link is reforged in a whirl of buzzing Casios and yapping vocals.
One man, one minidisc and two keyboards are all that's needed to fuel this rhythmic tirade. To be honest, sometimes it's a bit of a mess, but what matters is that Rob from Dreamlab's performance is completely honest: he doesn't care whether anyone gets it, or whether he's cool (he's not), he just dives in and plays. And he plays some pretty chunky Numan/Foxx stompers, which can't be bad.
Verbal Kink rock along pleasantly enough, but their vocals let them down, and they aren't overburdened with ideas. It's diverting stuff but doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. Of course, the simple solution is "Don't scrutinise, then", but, hey! I'm a critic. Scrutiny is my job. Not that it's my real job, you understand, but for the purposes of this...
Where was I? Oh, yes: Verbal Kink. Their bassist really should break a string more often, as the ensuing song was more spacious and better for it.
Worse then second rate singer are good singers who don't bother singing, but just shout all the time, and Tartfuel has one of those. Nowt wrong with shouting, of course, as Frank Black, Kurt Cobain, Mark E Smith and Captain Beefheart could testify, but it's a skill just like any other - most people just can't do it very well.
Beyond that Tartfuel are a much more confident and, presumably, experienced outfit than Verbal Kink, and their performance is so much the neater...which is a pity, because it wasn't as interesting. Does that sound patronising? But I'm a critic, patronising is my job. Not that it's my real...
Oh, yes: Tartfuel. Tame the singer, write a few new songs and wash your hair, then we'll see.
Die Pretty, on the other hand, have no homework to do. This, their farewell Oxford gig, is the essence of rock music: take some sweaty people in leather, and have them play visceral driving music. No, it's not very complex, but as the set continues the sequenced drums become more and more insistent, the volume keeps edging up another notch, and the singer gets increasingly animated, and the crowd responds. It really is an art form that lives in the exhilirating moment, and difficult nto describe, the effect is truly electric. But I'm a critic. Describing things is my...
Oh, yes: Die Pretty. A sleazy treat that will be sadly missed.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Charlbury Pt 2
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE 2008
SUNDAY
Strolling past a random tent we find wizard-bearded Jeremy Hughes picking out some bucolic instrumentals on his guitar. He’s not officially part of the lineup, but frankly he’s better than at least half of the stuff we saw yesterday, and five minutes in his company is five minutes well spent. Plus you can’t deny he looks the part. It’s a neat start to a far more satisfying day of music; plus the sun stays out. It’s not the sort of thing we’d normally do, but permit us to quote a poem, in full:
The music comes and goes on the wind,
Comes and goes on the brain.
This was Thom Gunn’s take on Jefferson Airplane, and it could easily refer to The Tim May Band’s set on the main stage Their lilting folky AOR is expertly controlled and performed with some panache, but ultimately proves too polite to make much impression on us, even whilst we have to give them credit for their chops. The lyric “Nice to meet you, I must be going”, however, reminds us painfully of Phil Collins, so they blow it at the last hurdle.
I suppose it’s unhealthy prejudice, but forgive us for thinking that Tamara Parsons-Baker was going to be chortling jodhpurred lass singing nasal, plummy songs about palomino geldings. Imagine our surprise in being confronted with a beautifully clear voice that trickles through the air like a limpid stream above some subtle guitar. The first name that springs to mind is Laima Bite, even though some of the wispy Global Traveller lyrics remind us more of Jessica Goyder. There’s a slight danger of the featherlight tunes getting lost in the breeze, but this is still a great little start to the Second Stage’s day.
Vultures quickly ramp up the tempo with a series of early 60s pop nuggets that have approximately one riff and about 5 lyrics between them. This is not a criticism, in case you were concerned, and it’s like early Kinks played with Arctic Monkeys bounce and insouciance. There’s something about the way the drummer innocently stabs at the snare like it’s 1963 rather than whacking round the toms like it’s 1975 that puts a huge spring in our step.
The farcically named Bommerillo would have to do a lot to kill our mood, and their generic country rock is well turned and cheery even as it’s forgettable. On a Truck stage this wouldn’t last five minutes, but for now it’ll serve. A charming Californian bluegrass banjo player pours us a glass of homebrew and explains that US folk songs are exactly the same as English folksongs, “except at the end they hang the fucker”. Goodbye moral ambiguity. It turns out that Americans wanted simple endings long before Hollywood arrived.
We chat to Banjo Boy quite happily during Bourbon Roses’ set, as their straight up blues has little to offer, beyond some really rather decent harp playing (you know which sort of harp, don’t make me come down there). Once again, dubious non-native accents seem to be pretty common here on the Second Stage – we wonder if American folk musicians try to pretend that they’re Cornish…or whether we should "hang the fucker"
“Tell me, Captain Strange, won’t you be my lover?”. This next band might have taken their name from “I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper”, one of our favourite camp SciFi disco romps (believe me, we’ve got a list), but they haven’t quite captured the fun with their sax-flecked ska-tinged cabaret rock. It’s quite like The Drugsquad with half the band missing, and maybe some fleshing out of the sound could reap dividends.The spirit is there, but most of the music isn’t.
We’re not 100% convinced by Stuart Turner’s growly voice – remember, we saw Mephisto Grande right here just 24 hours ago – but his chugging rockabilly guitar, replete with slapback sound, is a cracker. Banjo Boy offers Seasick Steve as a reference point, which can hardly be sneezed at – we certainly respect Stuart’s ability to lock into a groove and let his rhythms do the talking.
Toby is “the hottest new talent to come out of Oxford this year,” according to the MC. Never heard of him, we must admit. We do love to discover other pockets of music fan beyond our immediate East Oxford Mafia circle, but in this case they’re welcome to keep Toby. The boy can sing, we’ll give him that, but his dull slightly latin songs recall Ben Harper at his weediest, and even Jack Johnson (anecdote: a couple of years ago we overheard two teenage girls in a record shop excitedly discussing their purchase of the Jack Johnson album; we thought they meant the Miles Davis LP of the same name, and were on the brink of deciding that the young weren’t complete idiots, until we discovered he was just some strumming fucker). Toby’s music is accomplished, but only the way that building a model of Minas Tirith from lolly sticks is: accomplished, but pointless and faintly embarrassing. For a performer who’s not yet old enough to visit the beer tent, he has plenty of talent, but at the moment it is being squandered.
We should have watched Gunbunny instead, who seem to have improved roughly tenfold, if the brief snatch of their set we caught was indicative. Seriously tight and meaty grunge, it sounds like all of Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff played at once. Do people still call this The Eynsham Sound?Hang on, did they ever call it The Eynsham Sound outside of our tiny mind?
Chantelle Pike has all sorts of elisions and vocal trills in her arsenal, but never pushes them too far, like certain R n B divas we could mention (at least we would if we could tell which one was which). Maybe her songs aren’t all winners, but “Save Me” for one puts us happily in mind of Juliet Turner, and she deserves her high billing.
Before the main stage home stretch we pop in on Deviant Amps, whose cheeky monkey zydeco pop is 50% The Ralfe Band, and 50% a bloody big mess. Good fun, though, and the Klub Kak contingent are dancing in force, which is entertainment in itself.
With their theatrical pomp, natural sense of drama and Woody’s intricate keys, Borderville burst onto the stage like a cross between ELP and Alvin Stardust. We’ll be frank, we have seen better sets from them, but full marks for the audacity of playing a lachrymose “Send In The Clowns” to an audience who were expecting to leap about to The (cancelled) Moneyshots…and then following it up with some Leonard Cohen. So, not up to their own high standard, but still light years ahead of most of the lineup.
It’s left to Witches to wrap up proceedings. At first we thought they’d blown it, the opening two numbers sounding rather like empty stadium bombast, but thankfully they soon settled into their dark, brooding mariachi menace; in fact they build to quite some heights of intensity, Dave at one point hopping round the stage waving some red maracas, looking for all the world like an air traffic controller who’s busting for the loo. “In The Chaos Of A Friday Night” is a jet black lump of insidious passion, which is balanced by a harpsichord led tune that comes off like a baroque consort playing 80s Tangerine Dream, and over it all Benek’s trumpet lines arc poetically. There aren’t many local bands who could take lineup changes in their stride like this and still keep soaring onwards.
And with that, it’s off to the station to get the train (except we find a lift on the way, woohoo!), satisfied with another Charlbury. We can’t pretend the music was as good as last year, and as noted The Beard Museum’s input was much mourned, but still we appreciate the enormous effort that has gone into creating a free weekend of entertainment, just for us. And, criticisms aside, we’d far rather be here for nowt than in Wakestock for £100+. We’ll be there in 2009, maybe we’ll bump into some of you; watch out for Banjo Boy’s homebrew, though, it’s a bit cheeky.
SUNDAY
Strolling past a random tent we find wizard-bearded Jeremy Hughes picking out some bucolic instrumentals on his guitar. He’s not officially part of the lineup, but frankly he’s better than at least half of the stuff we saw yesterday, and five minutes in his company is five minutes well spent. Plus you can’t deny he looks the part. It’s a neat start to a far more satisfying day of music; plus the sun stays out. It’s not the sort of thing we’d normally do, but permit us to quote a poem, in full:
The music comes and goes on the wind,
Comes and goes on the brain.
This was Thom Gunn’s take on Jefferson Airplane, and it could easily refer to The Tim May Band’s set on the main stage Their lilting folky AOR is expertly controlled and performed with some panache, but ultimately proves too polite to make much impression on us, even whilst we have to give them credit for their chops. The lyric “Nice to meet you, I must be going”, however, reminds us painfully of Phil Collins, so they blow it at the last hurdle.
I suppose it’s unhealthy prejudice, but forgive us for thinking that Tamara Parsons-Baker was going to be chortling jodhpurred lass singing nasal, plummy songs about palomino geldings. Imagine our surprise in being confronted with a beautifully clear voice that trickles through the air like a limpid stream above some subtle guitar. The first name that springs to mind is Laima Bite, even though some of the wispy Global Traveller lyrics remind us more of Jessica Goyder. There’s a slight danger of the featherlight tunes getting lost in the breeze, but this is still a great little start to the Second Stage’s day.
Vultures quickly ramp up the tempo with a series of early 60s pop nuggets that have approximately one riff and about 5 lyrics between them. This is not a criticism, in case you were concerned, and it’s like early Kinks played with Arctic Monkeys bounce and insouciance. There’s something about the way the drummer innocently stabs at the snare like it’s 1963 rather than whacking round the toms like it’s 1975 that puts a huge spring in our step.
The farcically named Bommerillo would have to do a lot to kill our mood, and their generic country rock is well turned and cheery even as it’s forgettable. On a Truck stage this wouldn’t last five minutes, but for now it’ll serve. A charming Californian bluegrass banjo player pours us a glass of homebrew and explains that US folk songs are exactly the same as English folksongs, “except at the end they hang the fucker”. Goodbye moral ambiguity. It turns out that Americans wanted simple endings long before Hollywood arrived.
We chat to Banjo Boy quite happily during Bourbon Roses’ set, as their straight up blues has little to offer, beyond some really rather decent harp playing (you know which sort of harp, don’t make me come down there). Once again, dubious non-native accents seem to be pretty common here on the Second Stage – we wonder if American folk musicians try to pretend that they’re Cornish…or whether we should "hang the fucker"
“Tell me, Captain Strange, won’t you be my lover?”. This next band might have taken their name from “I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper”, one of our favourite camp SciFi disco romps (believe me, we’ve got a list), but they haven’t quite captured the fun with their sax-flecked ska-tinged cabaret rock. It’s quite like The Drugsquad with half the band missing, and maybe some fleshing out of the sound could reap dividends.The spirit is there, but most of the music isn’t.
We’re not 100% convinced by Stuart Turner’s growly voice – remember, we saw Mephisto Grande right here just 24 hours ago – but his chugging rockabilly guitar, replete with slapback sound, is a cracker. Banjo Boy offers Seasick Steve as a reference point, which can hardly be sneezed at – we certainly respect Stuart’s ability to lock into a groove and let his rhythms do the talking.
Toby is “the hottest new talent to come out of Oxford this year,” according to the MC. Never heard of him, we must admit. We do love to discover other pockets of music fan beyond our immediate East Oxford Mafia circle, but in this case they’re welcome to keep Toby. The boy can sing, we’ll give him that, but his dull slightly latin songs recall Ben Harper at his weediest, and even Jack Johnson (anecdote: a couple of years ago we overheard two teenage girls in a record shop excitedly discussing their purchase of the Jack Johnson album; we thought they meant the Miles Davis LP of the same name, and were on the brink of deciding that the young weren’t complete idiots, until we discovered he was just some strumming fucker). Toby’s music is accomplished, but only the way that building a model of Minas Tirith from lolly sticks is: accomplished, but pointless and faintly embarrassing. For a performer who’s not yet old enough to visit the beer tent, he has plenty of talent, but at the moment it is being squandered.
We should have watched Gunbunny instead, who seem to have improved roughly tenfold, if the brief snatch of their set we caught was indicative. Seriously tight and meaty grunge, it sounds like all of Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff played at once. Do people still call this The Eynsham Sound?Hang on, did they ever call it The Eynsham Sound outside of our tiny mind?
Chantelle Pike has all sorts of elisions and vocal trills in her arsenal, but never pushes them too far, like certain R n B divas we could mention (at least we would if we could tell which one was which). Maybe her songs aren’t all winners, but “Save Me” for one puts us happily in mind of Juliet Turner, and she deserves her high billing.
Before the main stage home stretch we pop in on Deviant Amps, whose cheeky monkey zydeco pop is 50% The Ralfe Band, and 50% a bloody big mess. Good fun, though, and the Klub Kak contingent are dancing in force, which is entertainment in itself.
With their theatrical pomp, natural sense of drama and Woody’s intricate keys, Borderville burst onto the stage like a cross between ELP and Alvin Stardust. We’ll be frank, we have seen better sets from them, but full marks for the audacity of playing a lachrymose “Send In The Clowns” to an audience who were expecting to leap about to The (cancelled) Moneyshots…and then following it up with some Leonard Cohen. So, not up to their own high standard, but still light years ahead of most of the lineup.
It’s left to Witches to wrap up proceedings. At first we thought they’d blown it, the opening two numbers sounding rather like empty stadium bombast, but thankfully they soon settled into their dark, brooding mariachi menace; in fact they build to quite some heights of intensity, Dave at one point hopping round the stage waving some red maracas, looking for all the world like an air traffic controller who’s busting for the loo. “In The Chaos Of A Friday Night” is a jet black lump of insidious passion, which is balanced by a harpsichord led tune that comes off like a baroque consort playing 80s Tangerine Dream, and over it all Benek’s trumpet lines arc poetically. There aren’t many local bands who could take lineup changes in their stride like this and still keep soaring onwards.
And with that, it’s off to the station to get the train (except we find a lift on the way, woohoo!), satisfied with another Charlbury. We can’t pretend the music was as good as last year, and as noted The Beard Museum’s input was much mourned, but still we appreciate the enormous effort that has gone into creating a free weekend of entertainment, just for us. And, criticisms aside, we’d far rather be here for nowt than in Wakestock for £100+. We’ll be there in 2009, maybe we’ll bump into some of you; watch out for Banjo Boy’s homebrew, though, it’s a bit cheeky.
Charlbury Beret
Charlbury is ace, because it's completely free, put on for the hell of it, and about 20 minutes on the train from Oxford centre, even though it feels like it's lost somewhere in the 1920s. Always challenging to review because you have to balance the celebration of a great free day out with the fact that some of the music is, inevitably, a bit duff.
The punters tend to be 50% dyed in the wool Oxford live music fans, 25% local retirees who've popped along for a day out, and 25% 16 year old identikids from the surrounding villages, mashing themselves on cider and skunk, and kicking shite out of each other by Saturday evening. Heh heh, brilliant.
The exhaustive text below formed part of Oxfordbands' report of the day. I see I accidentally wander between the 1st person singular and plural quite randomly in this review, but I left it in, because that sort of thing amuses me. Banjo Boy is real, by the way, we really did meet him & drink his frightening homebrewed ale
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FREE FESTIVAL, 2008
SATURDAY
Charlbury’s a grand mix of your favourite local scenesters, some less well known (to us, anyway) Oxon musicians, and some random bands from places like Essex and Leeds, who frankly must wonder where in the name of holy fuck they are. We love it.
First up is the Leeds contingent, who kindly save us the effort of writing a review by calling themselves Dead Leg, which captures their clumsy loping pretty well. They offer litely funky Zep rock with a good drummer and a silly rawk vocal, and then they offer some more. Was that first number called “Batten Down The Hatches”? Oh yes! Does the following tune boast the refrain “Wanderlust, wanderlust, wooh yeah”? Damn straight! Do they actually claim their slow tune is “One for the ladies”? Scout’s honour! Do we grudgingly like them just a teensy bit? Yeah, they’re a laugh, we can imagine far worse openers. In fact, their attempt at rock hedonism falls wide of the mark in a lovably British way…perhaps in the same way that our dreams of musically freaking out with Mother Nature end up with us huddled in a kagoule opposite a train station…
Over on the other stage (the eccentric placing of the toilets means that everybody at this festival will see something on the Second Stage, which we rather like the idea of) Huck shimmers out ghostly slivers of country/blues laments, which would be rather lovely if the sound wasn’t mired in some horrible mid-range bubble, and his tuning wasn’t so wonky. He’s probably shooting for subtle, fragmented and delicate, but he’s ended up stuck in a maudlin and minimal country marsh. Can we do our Boggy Prince Billy joke now, please?
“Family time is over, people”. So claims Eliza from Ivy’s Itch, and her stunning orc maiden operatics doubtless send children round the festival running for cover, except the ones that think they’ve ended up in Where The Wild Things Are. It’s easy for frequenters of seedy basement gigs like us to forget just how powerful playing bloody loud can be, and after all that hatch battening nonsense from earlier, Ivy’s Itch sear across the field with tautly reined in sludge rock and artfully controlled cacophony. This is probably the best we’ve seen them, and it’s certainly the most cohesive – oddly we find ourselves thinking of Nirvana, especially their tribute to dumbass rock, “Aero Zepellin”.
Dave Oates is a big hearted, open throated, string strummin’, Van Zandt coverin’ classic singer-songwriter, who is perfectly adequate, but sounds woefully 2D after Ivy’s Itch, although some mandolin accompaniment enlivens proceedings. He also alleges that “Folsom Prison Blues” was written by Cash especially for the famous prison concert, which is about 15 years wide of the mark; whenever he wrote it, he certainly didn’t write what the lead guitar plays. Oops.
By the time Jamie Foley starts up, we’re beginning to really miss the Beard Museum input into this second stage, because we seem to be confronted by an average open mic night instead of the well picked selection of performers we saw last year. His performance isn’t terrible, but his sloppy pub voice is so far from “strong” and “unique” that we start to think that the programme writer must have been on a bet. Or have been Jamie Foley.
Nagatha Krusti bring some straight up rocking with touches of rap, metal and ska, but most importantly they bring a bit of blooming fun to the Second Stage. We’d be lying if se said it was the tidiest and tightest set we’ve ever witnessed (it’s more a sort of Vague Against The Machine), but we are definite converts. They have some nicely silly cowbell too, which always tickles our fancy.
Much as we’ve always respected Rubber Duck’s ability, we’ve never quite been convinced; they’ve always sounded somewhat polite and tinny, whereas we expect sweat from our funk bands. Blood, sweat and beers. Out in the open air, however, the buzzing synths and the chirpy rhythms seem not only intoxicating but a neat companion to Nagatha Krusti. “Emotional Revolution” proves itself to be a solid gold toe-tapper, and we leave with our mind changed.
Some bands choose their covers to show their versatility, some do it for a laugh, whilst some just play the song they wish they’d written and make no pretences about how much they’ve nicked in the rest of the set: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as evidence of this last breed, I give you billypure and their Waterboys tune. Still, there’s nothing much wrong with admitting your influences, and billypure throw out some well put together folk rock songs with some useful fiddle interjections. The children love it, and there are moshing toddlers everywhere we look, which lifts the spirits. Careful though, kids: The Waterboys are harmless, but they can lead to stronger and more deadly vices, such as The Levellers. Tell a grownup if anyone offers you a dog on a string.
script’s opening tune is a tasty mixture of Blondie and Morrissey. Songs like this are superb, and belie the fact that this is the first gig for a new lineup (which is good, because the rhythm section is the best it’s been since script’s very early days); at other times, however everything gets a little timid, such as when four harmonising vocalists are managing to make less impact than one. script’s Pete Moore is the songwriting equal to anyone on the bill today, and tracks like “City Limits” are arresting, but they could do with loosening up if they want to capture the passing toilet-bound punter. File with The Mile High Young Team, and expect some great music from this line-up (if it can stay together for more than 10 minutes, that is).
If Ivy’s Itch played like demons, Mephisto Grande play like a vengeful Old Testament God with a serious hangover. As they intone “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as a prelude to their own gospel-inflected gasoline rock, we imagine Mephisto as the soundtrack to judgement day. You can just see them bashing out some blues dirges behind St Peter whilst he checks his ledgers, Liam gappily grinning, shaking his head and pointing downwards.
Some lads are beating the shite out of each other, the rain has started in earnest and the bar’s closed: this looks like a job for…Smilex! Just as we consider sneaking off home our spirits are lifted with what is possibly the best set we’ve ever seen from Oxford’s cartoon punk crusaders. Lee’s unfortunate haircut is Travis Bickle via the council gardeners, but everything else about this set is perfect, from the high octane thump of the rhythm section, to the preposterous guitar heroics and the expected vocal tomfoolery. Smilex only really have one song, but it’s a cracker, and it’s testament to their honed craft that no matter how many times we see them, we always leave happy (and covered in beer if we’re too near the stage): in fact, could there be mileage in describing Smilex as the punk equivalent of Redox? In truth, there’s not really mileage in anything except shaking your head like a loon and just going along with the whole gloriously silly rock blancmange that is Smilex. Oh look, even the rain’s stopped.
The punters tend to be 50% dyed in the wool Oxford live music fans, 25% local retirees who've popped along for a day out, and 25% 16 year old identikids from the surrounding villages, mashing themselves on cider and skunk, and kicking shite out of each other by Saturday evening. Heh heh, brilliant.
The exhaustive text below formed part of Oxfordbands' report of the day. I see I accidentally wander between the 1st person singular and plural quite randomly in this review, but I left it in, because that sort of thing amuses me. Banjo Boy is real, by the way, we really did meet him & drink his frightening homebrewed ale
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FREE FESTIVAL, 2008
SATURDAY
Charlbury’s a grand mix of your favourite local scenesters, some less well known (to us, anyway) Oxon musicians, and some random bands from places like Essex and Leeds, who frankly must wonder where in the name of holy fuck they are. We love it.
First up is the Leeds contingent, who kindly save us the effort of writing a review by calling themselves Dead Leg, which captures their clumsy loping pretty well. They offer litely funky Zep rock with a good drummer and a silly rawk vocal, and then they offer some more. Was that first number called “Batten Down The Hatches”? Oh yes! Does the following tune boast the refrain “Wanderlust, wanderlust, wooh yeah”? Damn straight! Do they actually claim their slow tune is “One for the ladies”? Scout’s honour! Do we grudgingly like them just a teensy bit? Yeah, they’re a laugh, we can imagine far worse openers. In fact, their attempt at rock hedonism falls wide of the mark in a lovably British way…perhaps in the same way that our dreams of musically freaking out with Mother Nature end up with us huddled in a kagoule opposite a train station…
Over on the other stage (the eccentric placing of the toilets means that everybody at this festival will see something on the Second Stage, which we rather like the idea of) Huck shimmers out ghostly slivers of country/blues laments, which would be rather lovely if the sound wasn’t mired in some horrible mid-range bubble, and his tuning wasn’t so wonky. He’s probably shooting for subtle, fragmented and delicate, but he’s ended up stuck in a maudlin and minimal country marsh. Can we do our Boggy Prince Billy joke now, please?
“Family time is over, people”. So claims Eliza from Ivy’s Itch, and her stunning orc maiden operatics doubtless send children round the festival running for cover, except the ones that think they’ve ended up in Where The Wild Things Are. It’s easy for frequenters of seedy basement gigs like us to forget just how powerful playing bloody loud can be, and after all that hatch battening nonsense from earlier, Ivy’s Itch sear across the field with tautly reined in sludge rock and artfully controlled cacophony. This is probably the best we’ve seen them, and it’s certainly the most cohesive – oddly we find ourselves thinking of Nirvana, especially their tribute to dumbass rock, “Aero Zepellin”.
Dave Oates is a big hearted, open throated, string strummin’, Van Zandt coverin’ classic singer-songwriter, who is perfectly adequate, but sounds woefully 2D after Ivy’s Itch, although some mandolin accompaniment enlivens proceedings. He also alleges that “Folsom Prison Blues” was written by Cash especially for the famous prison concert, which is about 15 years wide of the mark; whenever he wrote it, he certainly didn’t write what the lead guitar plays. Oops.
By the time Jamie Foley starts up, we’re beginning to really miss the Beard Museum input into this second stage, because we seem to be confronted by an average open mic night instead of the well picked selection of performers we saw last year. His performance isn’t terrible, but his sloppy pub voice is so far from “strong” and “unique” that we start to think that the programme writer must have been on a bet. Or have been Jamie Foley.
Nagatha Krusti bring some straight up rocking with touches of rap, metal and ska, but most importantly they bring a bit of blooming fun to the Second Stage. We’d be lying if se said it was the tidiest and tightest set we’ve ever witnessed (it’s more a sort of Vague Against The Machine), but we are definite converts. They have some nicely silly cowbell too, which always tickles our fancy.
Much as we’ve always respected Rubber Duck’s ability, we’ve never quite been convinced; they’ve always sounded somewhat polite and tinny, whereas we expect sweat from our funk bands. Blood, sweat and beers. Out in the open air, however, the buzzing synths and the chirpy rhythms seem not only intoxicating but a neat companion to Nagatha Krusti. “Emotional Revolution” proves itself to be a solid gold toe-tapper, and we leave with our mind changed.
Some bands choose their covers to show their versatility, some do it for a laugh, whilst some just play the song they wish they’d written and make no pretences about how much they’ve nicked in the rest of the set: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as evidence of this last breed, I give you billypure and their Waterboys tune. Still, there’s nothing much wrong with admitting your influences, and billypure throw out some well put together folk rock songs with some useful fiddle interjections. The children love it, and there are moshing toddlers everywhere we look, which lifts the spirits. Careful though, kids: The Waterboys are harmless, but they can lead to stronger and more deadly vices, such as The Levellers. Tell a grownup if anyone offers you a dog on a string.
script’s opening tune is a tasty mixture of Blondie and Morrissey. Songs like this are superb, and belie the fact that this is the first gig for a new lineup (which is good, because the rhythm section is the best it’s been since script’s very early days); at other times, however everything gets a little timid, such as when four harmonising vocalists are managing to make less impact than one. script’s Pete Moore is the songwriting equal to anyone on the bill today, and tracks like “City Limits” are arresting, but they could do with loosening up if they want to capture the passing toilet-bound punter. File with The Mile High Young Team, and expect some great music from this line-up (if it can stay together for more than 10 minutes, that is).
If Ivy’s Itch played like demons, Mephisto Grande play like a vengeful Old Testament God with a serious hangover. As they intone “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as a prelude to their own gospel-inflected gasoline rock, we imagine Mephisto as the soundtrack to judgement day. You can just see them bashing out some blues dirges behind St Peter whilst he checks his ledgers, Liam gappily grinning, shaking his head and pointing downwards.
Some lads are beating the shite out of each other, the rain has started in earnest and the bar’s closed: this looks like a job for…Smilex! Just as we consider sneaking off home our spirits are lifted with what is possibly the best set we’ve ever seen from Oxford’s cartoon punk crusaders. Lee’s unfortunate haircut is Travis Bickle via the council gardeners, but everything else about this set is perfect, from the high octane thump of the rhythm section, to the preposterous guitar heroics and the expected vocal tomfoolery. Smilex only really have one song, but it’s a cracker, and it’s testament to their honed craft that no matter how many times we see them, we always leave happy (and covered in beer if we’re too near the stage): in fact, could there be mileage in describing Smilex as the punk equivalent of Redox? In truth, there’s not really mileage in anything except shaking your head like a loon and just going along with the whole gloriously silly rock blancmange that is Smilex. Oh look, even the rain’s stopped.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Bloomsday
Since starting this blog I've pretty much managed to upload 3 reviews a week, but I'm away for Easter, so regular readers (splutter) will have to wait a bit for the next installment. Well, I've only been reviewing for about 6.5 years, there are a finite number of reviews in the pile, so it's best that we don't glut on them all at once, like chubby cosseted scum children. This is an old OHM review of the sort of odd free day out Oxford council used to run a lot, before they ran out of money.
I also interviewed fellow OHMer Russell Barker about his Oxford music compilation in this issue, but it's a bit dull, so I shan't type it all out!
FLOWER & FOLK FESTIVAL, Florence Park, 11/9/04
This City Council organised folk festival and floral competition is woefully advertised, and I only find it by chance. A pity, as the sparseness of the audience doesn't reflect the quality of the music. Senegalese visitor Jali Fili Cissokho begins proceedings, singing some quite lovely pieces and accompanying himself on the kora: if you don't like the beautiful grids and skeins of lively plucked notes, you can at least be fascinated by the instrument itself, which looks like the dried remains of a deep space crustacean.
Ed, Bob & Pete are onstage next. I dare say they actually have a band name, but in the absence of a programme we have to grasp what facts we can! Using dulcimer, bouzouki and fiddle, aongst others, they rattle through some traditional melodies, which is all perfectly elegant but somewhat polite and decorative for my tastes. Their vocal pieces are overly earnest too.
Youthfull dub troupe, Raggasaurus, wake us up with hot servings of mammoth antediluvain skank. Their instrumental pieces boast bouncy drumming and plenty of topnotch digi-delay knob-twiddling, and have a ramshackle charm. Thier obvious lack of rehearsal means that tunes grow organically, which is delightful; it also means they die a slow, agonising death, which is less so. Although Raggasaurus run out of ideas before the set ends, their witty bubbling reggae shows plenty of promise, if they're prepared to put the work in. Plus their excellent cover of the Dr Who theme is a highlight of the day - perhaps the TARDIS got stuck in police box mode because it was too stoned to bother changing?
Well, this is probably a timefiller: Pete, who played earlier today, is performing with a member of the headline band. Still, whether it's a desperate remedy or a longstanding collaboration, this turns out to be the best gig of the day. The duo really gets to the pulsing heart of traditional melodies, throwing them into the drizzly afternoon with vim. Unlike the earlier trio, they make the songs sound like vibrant and important music, rather than the soundtrack to some Tourist Board propaganda.
Scratch And Sniff don't really work, sadly. The two fiddle and squeezebox format throws up some decent arrangements, and whilst rhythmically it's not as neat as we'd wish the playing has soul. However, the two young ladies on vocals put in a lacklustre performance, and they look excruciatingly uncomfortable being there at all. To be fair this says far more about their youth and inexperience than their innate talent, and there are a couple of gorgeous moments, but unless they start seeing performance as something other than a chore they won't get too far. Oh, and please drop the Corrs cover, for all our sakes.
I also interviewed fellow OHMer Russell Barker about his Oxford music compilation in this issue, but it's a bit dull, so I shan't type it all out!
FLOWER & FOLK FESTIVAL, Florence Park, 11/9/04
This City Council organised folk festival and floral competition is woefully advertised, and I only find it by chance. A pity, as the sparseness of the audience doesn't reflect the quality of the music. Senegalese visitor Jali Fili Cissokho begins proceedings, singing some quite lovely pieces and accompanying himself on the kora: if you don't like the beautiful grids and skeins of lively plucked notes, you can at least be fascinated by the instrument itself, which looks like the dried remains of a deep space crustacean.
Ed, Bob & Pete are onstage next. I dare say they actually have a band name, but in the absence of a programme we have to grasp what facts we can! Using dulcimer, bouzouki and fiddle, aongst others, they rattle through some traditional melodies, which is all perfectly elegant but somewhat polite and decorative for my tastes. Their vocal pieces are overly earnest too.
Youthfull dub troupe, Raggasaurus, wake us up with hot servings of mammoth antediluvain skank. Their instrumental pieces boast bouncy drumming and plenty of topnotch digi-delay knob-twiddling, and have a ramshackle charm. Thier obvious lack of rehearsal means that tunes grow organically, which is delightful; it also means they die a slow, agonising death, which is less so. Although Raggasaurus run out of ideas before the set ends, their witty bubbling reggae shows plenty of promise, if they're prepared to put the work in. Plus their excellent cover of the Dr Who theme is a highlight of the day - perhaps the TARDIS got stuck in police box mode because it was too stoned to bother changing?
Well, this is probably a timefiller: Pete, who played earlier today, is performing with a member of the headline band. Still, whether it's a desperate remedy or a longstanding collaboration, this turns out to be the best gig of the day. The duo really gets to the pulsing heart of traditional melodies, throwing them into the drizzly afternoon with vim. Unlike the earlier trio, they make the songs sound like vibrant and important music, rather than the soundtrack to some Tourist Board propaganda.
Scratch And Sniff don't really work, sadly. The two fiddle and squeezebox format throws up some decent arrangements, and whilst rhythmically it's not as neat as we'd wish the playing has soul. However, the two young ladies on vocals put in a lacklustre performance, and they look excruciatingly uncomfortable being there at all. To be fair this says far more about their youth and inexperience than their innate talent, and there are a couple of gorgeous moments, but unless they start seeing performance as something other than a chore they won't get too far. Oh, and please drop the Corrs cover, for all our sakes.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Holy Fuck
In a hurry. Nightshift review. Some good bands. One bloody dire one. Fun.
FUCK BUTTONS/ THE KEYBOARD CHOIR/ CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES/ EDUARD SOUNDINGBLOCK, Big Hair, The Cellar, 6/7/07
It’s well known that Eduard Soundingblock is the new band from half of the much missed Suitable Case For Treatment. What might be more surprising is that Eduard also features members from such disparate acts as Phyal and The Drugsquad. At first glance the expected metal tropes and spacerock swirls are all present, but the entire effect is surprisingly rootsy. In fact, the clipped, grainy vocals put us in mind of Jon Spencer, of all people. Admittedly, that’s Jon Spencer stretched on a rack in The Melvins’ dungeon while The Cardiacs look on approvingly, but hey. It’s early days yet, but Eduard look as though they shall retain the Beefheart cheekiness of SC4T whilst edging into the scabjazz extremism of N0ught. Warning: it’s going to be good.
Good is not a word that Cutting Pink With Knives inspire – apart from “Good God, are they still playing?” A camp American and a cheap synth originally promises something like Hammer Vs The Snake, but ultimately they just crank out bargain basement hardcore laced with lame jokes. It’s a little like pre-Def JamBeastie Boys, except that it’s unspeakably, unmitigatedly awful.
Watching The Keyboard Choir is something like auditing some bloated Civil Service Administration: “Err, what exactly do you do here?” Whilst there’s probably at least 2 members and four machines more than is strictly necessary, the Choir are a great live experience, especially the flailing mixer-conductor. A lag in the middle notwithstanding, this is an enjoyable set, though oddly for such an unwieldy band the best moments are the simplest, namely the euphoric techno of the closing minutes, or the Tangerine Dream pomp of the opener.
Some acts tickle the intellect and some go straight for the groin, but there is music that punches directly to the gut. The implausibly named Fuck Buttons are a fantastic example of the latter, glorious to experience but hard to put across in words. They play keyboard drones stupidly loud, embellished with occasional loops and heavily treated vocals. It’s a tiny bit like a 90s Front 242 album with a chimp at the mixing desk, but mostly it’s just simple, thrilling noise. We think it’s majestic, but if you don’t like the sound of it you won’t like the…sound of it, it being nothing but engulfing, delicious, visceral sound. Got that? Right, we’re off to dance about architecture.
FUCK BUTTONS/ THE KEYBOARD CHOIR/ CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES/ EDUARD SOUNDINGBLOCK, Big Hair, The Cellar, 6/7/07
It’s well known that Eduard Soundingblock is the new band from half of the much missed Suitable Case For Treatment. What might be more surprising is that Eduard also features members from such disparate acts as Phyal and The Drugsquad. At first glance the expected metal tropes and spacerock swirls are all present, but the entire effect is surprisingly rootsy. In fact, the clipped, grainy vocals put us in mind of Jon Spencer, of all people. Admittedly, that’s Jon Spencer stretched on a rack in The Melvins’ dungeon while The Cardiacs look on approvingly, but hey. It’s early days yet, but Eduard look as though they shall retain the Beefheart cheekiness of SC4T whilst edging into the scabjazz extremism of N0ught. Warning: it’s going to be good.
Good is not a word that Cutting Pink With Knives inspire – apart from “Good God, are they still playing?” A camp American and a cheap synth originally promises something like Hammer Vs The Snake, but ultimately they just crank out bargain basement hardcore laced with lame jokes. It’s a little like pre-Def JamBeastie Boys, except that it’s unspeakably, unmitigatedly awful.
Watching The Keyboard Choir is something like auditing some bloated Civil Service Administration: “Err, what exactly do you do here?” Whilst there’s probably at least 2 members and four machines more than is strictly necessary, the Choir are a great live experience, especially the flailing mixer-conductor. A lag in the middle notwithstanding, this is an enjoyable set, though oddly for such an unwieldy band the best moments are the simplest, namely the euphoric techno of the closing minutes, or the Tangerine Dream pomp of the opener.
Some acts tickle the intellect and some go straight for the groin, but there is music that punches directly to the gut. The implausibly named Fuck Buttons are a fantastic example of the latter, glorious to experience but hard to put across in words. They play keyboard drones stupidly loud, embellished with occasional loops and heavily treated vocals. It’s a tiny bit like a 90s Front 242 album with a chimp at the mixing desk, but mostly it’s just simple, thrilling noise. We think it’s majestic, but if you don’t like the sound of it you won’t like the…sound of it, it being nothing but engulfing, delicious, visceral sound. Got that? Right, we’re off to dance about architecture.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
It's Brigand It's Not Clever
An old BBC review. It's a pity I didn't just print the comments of my Sheffieldian mate, getting apoplectic with rage about "mindless Rizla monkeys", and turning the immortal phrase, "this is what I left the North to fucking escape"! The Young Knives may be known to you now without the definite article, as seen on T4 or whatever: they used to be brilliant though, but you'll just have to take my word for it.
Tim the BBC Ox editor, introduced this review with the line "David Murphy was left cursing the day The Bandits rode into town", which is great, and far better than my hurried signoff. I was tempted to write something decent now, but I feel it's good for my humility to print 3rd rate reviews from the dim days.
Pretty sure I never heard of JOD ever again...
THE BANDITS/ THE YOUNG KNIVES/ JOD, The Zodiac, 4/03
Firstly, an admission: I hadn't seen JOD before, solely because my cursory eye always confused them with JOR, a band I never liked; my loss, if tonight is anything to go by. JOD play powerpop, but powerpop in the sense of simple, arching songs drawn in big bold strokes, rather than the blocky bluster of the Undertones school. The singer's yearnig vocal is powerful, managing to dominate the songs, and yet avoid dropping into the embarrassments of an angst-ridden confessional.
The biggest surprise in store is how funky they are. Alright, they're not Parliament, but the songs hide some bouncy secrets: "Oliver Twist" sounds as thought it might launch into the Dr Who theme, the second track boasts an elastic two note bassline that The Chemical Brothers might find a good home for, and "Sparks" opens with a clattering drum pattern.
Speaking of which, the drummer plays simply, but effectively, flailing around like a two-legged octopus constantly feeling around for the other six limbs. Seems to enjoy it too. It all adds up to a most pleasant half hour. JOD won't blow you away, but they may provide a stiff refreshing breeze. And they're better than JOR.
Not much has changed since I last saw The Young Knives a few months ago (not even their outfits), but I'm not complaining: three pottery teachers jerkling like new wave robot penguins, talking rubbish and chopping out spiky slices of sound, pitched somewhere between Iggy and The Pixies. "Walking On The Autobahn" still sounds like The Banana Splits, the bassist still begins meaningless anecdotes at every opportunity, and it's still a cracking show. Bands who are this consistently good make for hard-to-write reviews, though...
You may have heard that The Bandits sound a bit like The Coral, and you'd have heard right. What you have to decide is whether "The Coral" translates as "widescreen intelligent rock with an eclectic bag of tricks," or "bunch of stoners reheating some baggy cliches with a couple of exta guitar sounds thrown in". I'm afraid I subscribe to the latter opinion.
It's the supposed eclecticism that most grates, the theory that old Charlatans castoffs can be excused by massaging a few sounds...as if Animals drums, Gram Parsons guitar and Doors bass is a particularly wide range of references in the first place. Lots have turned out tonight to see six petulant swaggerers (two of whom just muddy the sound) churn through forty minutes of crass youthclub doperock, so maybe I'm wrong, but I hear nothing that even hints at subtlety, originality or excitement. Sometimes a guitar solo limps in to try and add life to the event, but it's as effective as the desperate addition of a car chase to a drab TV movie. Who'd have thought banditry was so lacklustre?
Tim the BBC Ox editor, introduced this review with the line "David Murphy was left cursing the day The Bandits rode into town", which is great, and far better than my hurried signoff. I was tempted to write something decent now, but I feel it's good for my humility to print 3rd rate reviews from the dim days.
Pretty sure I never heard of JOD ever again...
THE BANDITS/ THE YOUNG KNIVES/ JOD, The Zodiac, 4/03
Firstly, an admission: I hadn't seen JOD before, solely because my cursory eye always confused them with JOR, a band I never liked; my loss, if tonight is anything to go by. JOD play powerpop, but powerpop in the sense of simple, arching songs drawn in big bold strokes, rather than the blocky bluster of the Undertones school. The singer's yearnig vocal is powerful, managing to dominate the songs, and yet avoid dropping into the embarrassments of an angst-ridden confessional.
The biggest surprise in store is how funky they are. Alright, they're not Parliament, but the songs hide some bouncy secrets: "Oliver Twist" sounds as thought it might launch into the Dr Who theme, the second track boasts an elastic two note bassline that The Chemical Brothers might find a good home for, and "Sparks" opens with a clattering drum pattern.
Speaking of which, the drummer plays simply, but effectively, flailing around like a two-legged octopus constantly feeling around for the other six limbs. Seems to enjoy it too. It all adds up to a most pleasant half hour. JOD won't blow you away, but they may provide a stiff refreshing breeze. And they're better than JOR.
Not much has changed since I last saw The Young Knives a few months ago (not even their outfits), but I'm not complaining: three pottery teachers jerkling like new wave robot penguins, talking rubbish and chopping out spiky slices of sound, pitched somewhere between Iggy and The Pixies. "Walking On The Autobahn" still sounds like The Banana Splits, the bassist still begins meaningless anecdotes at every opportunity, and it's still a cracking show. Bands who are this consistently good make for hard-to-write reviews, though...
You may have heard that The Bandits sound a bit like The Coral, and you'd have heard right. What you have to decide is whether "The Coral" translates as "widescreen intelligent rock with an eclectic bag of tricks," or "bunch of stoners reheating some baggy cliches with a couple of exta guitar sounds thrown in". I'm afraid I subscribe to the latter opinion.
It's the supposed eclecticism that most grates, the theory that old Charlatans castoffs can be excused by massaging a few sounds...as if Animals drums, Gram Parsons guitar and Doors bass is a particularly wide range of references in the first place. Lots have turned out tonight to see six petulant swaggerers (two of whom just muddy the sound) churn through forty minutes of crass youthclub doperock, so maybe I'm wrong, but I hear nothing that even hints at subtlety, originality or excitement. Sometimes a guitar solo limps in to try and add life to the event, but it's as effective as the desperate addition of a car chase to a drab TV movie. Who'd have thought banditry was so lacklustre?
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