Punt Up Emotions

Most of this review appears in the current issue of Nightshift.  The new bits are mainly the bits where I say people are not so good - fair enough, as Nightshift booked the event.  So, read on if you are hoping for some negativity to leaven what you've already read.

PUNT, Cellar, PT, Wheatsheaf, White Rabbit, Turl Street Kitchen, 13/5/15

The stage at the Purple Turtle is dedicated to the late sound engineer, blues fan, musician, husky owner and huskier singer, Tony Jezzard.  If his spirit dropped by tonight, it would certainly appreciate the volume levels on display, but more likely his spectre would smile wryly at the tales of a locked venue, a PA shoved together at break-neck speed, and an electrocuted soundman.  After such a start to the proceedings, it seems churlish to moan about the stage running late when James Serjeant has had the national grid pumped through his skinny frame, so we start our night at the Cellar, with only the most cursory grumble...just for the sake of form, you understand.

There, Balkan Wanderers are kick-starting the night with more crackling energy than James Serjeant’s first piddle of the night (yes, yes, we’ll stop now), buoying the crowd with spicy East European pop, and inspiring some surprisingly early hedonistic dancing, considering it’s Oxford on a Wednesday and most of us are still digesting our burritos.  Superficially they resemble gypsy punk rabble rousers Gogol Bordello, but listen carefully beyond the thumping drums and shoutalong choruses, and you’ll find that Balkan Wanderers have replaced the wild aggression with chirpy, quirky mid-80s indie pop, in the vein of Grab, Grab The Haddock, or even Stump.  This allows the band’s secret weapon, the conversational intimacy of Claire Heaviside’s clarinet, to slowly steal the show.  In what will become a leitmotif throughout the evening, we overhear someone saying the band should have finished the Punt.

Back at the PT, The Shapes have now taken the stage, offering a breezy cocktail of Radio 2 melodies and light rock styles.  They have a track that resembles The Beautiful South, they have a tune that sounds like Tom Petty, they even have a song called “Tom Petty” that sounds a wee bit like 10cc and a wee-er bit like Darts.  In many hands this would all be pretty generic fluff, but there’s a mercurial, alchemical sensibility at work that keeps the music interesting; take “Mr Sandman”, a mash-up of The Beatles’ “Something” and Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage”, with keyboard player Colin Henney throwing properly loopy jazz-dance poses as he doles out elegant fruity chords.  You’ve heard of Dad rock, but this is more like Eccentric Uncle rock – enjoy it, but don’t sit on their knee.

Entering The Wheatsheaf’s upstairs room, you can really tell that this is the only Punt venue that exists solely for listening to live rock, such is the room’s dinginess, the cosy crush of the crowd, and the full-fat glory of the sound.  It’s a sound that suits Ghosts In The Photographs, who open the dam to wave upon wave of Explosions In The Sky styled guitar noise.   Perhaps we’ve come across this tumescent post-rock business before, and Ghosts do nothing new, but who ever complained that a sunset was unoriginal, eh?  Imposing, impressive stuff.

“Money is the devil’s pie”.  Did Rhymeskeemz really just say that?  Let’s assume we misheard.  Ah, now, he certainly did just slip “I’m sick of my dad’s impressions” into a litany of politico-social criticisms, which we like a lot.  Yes, there’s a lot to enjoy about this rapper, who has a vibrant wit that keeps his bars the right side of cliché, and a nice rhythmic variation.  But the vocals just don’t seem to bear any relation to the music, as if the backing tracks were composed in isolation, and DJ Bungle has just unleashed them for the first time.  An enticing new discovery, but a frustratingly unconvincing set.

Outside The White Rabbit, a morris side is giving it the full hanky.  Considering it’s as close as we can get to a native Cotswold music style, there really should be some morris on the Punt bill one day.  Get your applications in for 2016, chaps!  Inside, things are less old-fashioned, but sadly, rather more dated.  White Beam, featuring local band veteran Jeremy Leggett, are certainly not too bad, but hark back to 1991 or so, when indie dance has dissolved into lightly funky, floppy rhythms and thin, fuzzy guitar provided a sickly European cousin to grunge.  Probably, lots of older Punters feel a warm glow of the post-Ride Oxford sound displayed here, but it simply reminds us exactly why Britpop happened.

Over at the Turl Street Kitchen, 18 year old Katy Jackson is pulling the carpet from those over twice her age with some delicately tuneful acoustic ditties.  The first impression is of Joni Mitchell without the paranoia and patchouli, but it soon becomes clear that there’s a sardonic side to Katy, as if she’s looking askance at her melodies and raising her eyebrows at her own undoubted ability.  Our next reference point is the smooth cynicism of Evan Dando, and before we know it we’ve spotted a Lou Reed influence in the vocal delivery.  We’ll definitely be revisiting this songwriter at a less hectic date.

But for now there’s a pint to be tossed back, and a wobbly jog back to The PT on the cards, to check out another very young act, fraternal duo Cassels, who take the flea-bitten sneer of early Sebadoh and weld it messily onto the fuzzy tuneful surge of The Pixies.  They’ve got the ‘flu today, apparently, and if so, we’re quite excited to see them at peak fitness.  Apparently, we hear, if they were feeling better, They Could Have Closed The Punt (mark 2).

At every Punt there’s one act that ends up with a crowd that’s just a little too large.  Sometimes it’s a band that just proves too big a draw, as anyone who stood craning at the doorway to see The Young Knives or Little Fish in earlier years will attest, but often it’s a quieter act who can’t battle past the increasingly, ahem, relaxed crowd.  Whilst Water Pageant might not have been quite as up against it in the volume stakes as The August List a few years ago, we can’t really hear anything from the back of the White Rabbit but some pleasant vocal fragments and what sounds like a mellotron.  A couple of tasty ingredients, doubtless, but we can’t really judge the dish.

Sometimes we worry that the Turl Street Kitchen is a little too refined for the maelstrom of spilt pints and tinnitus that is The Punt.  In about three minutes flat Despicable Zee has destroyed that notion by calling the audience grumpy, and starting a good natured argument.  Then again, Zahra Tehrani, of Baby Gravy/BG Records fame, probably starts an argument at every rehearsal.  And she’s the only band member.  Beyond acting like a surly drumming Jack Dee, her music stretches from drunken clockwork electro in the style of Plone, through MIA flavoured attitude pop and a kind of Capitol K home-made doodling, to a beery hip hop barn dance featuring various local MC luminaries...some of whom may have even known how the track goes.  This is messy, abusive, unfinished music, of the sort that dodges every traditional indicator of quality.  It’s almost certainly the best set we see all night.

Zaia and Maiians on at the same time?  Don’t the organisors realise how confused we are by this point?  How about some other vowels to help us get our bearings?  The former are a phenomenally slick reggae band, with plenty of juicy bass and stabbing brass, who sound wonderful in the Cellar’s resonant gig space.  Strictly, this is the sort of band you want to listen to at a festival, in a set long enough to allow you to take all the substances, read a book, fall in love, start a political party with a stranger and still have time to nip to the cake stall a few times, but our brief exposure tonight leave us impressed.  Maiians are equally bouncy and dancefloor-focused, but a little more ornate, with their excellent cross-rhythms and organic kraut-electronica keyboard lines.  Those who discover the band tonight will go home very happy, we suspect.  These are two acts that exemplify the observation that crowd-pleasing isn’t always the same as stupid.

And, incidentally, we hear they both Could Have Closed The Punt.

Like Cassels, Esther Joy Lane has apparently climbed from her sick bed to play for us.  Seriously, we’d never have known.  The trick of unfurling rich reverbed vocal melodies over freeze-dried beats suggests a strong Grimes influence (as does the T-shirt Esther wears on her Soundcloud page), but there’s a sultry steeliness to the delivery that contrasts with Grimes’ pastel comedown haze.  If this set might have been suited to a PA bigger than what could be squeezed into the corner of a city pub, in quality it cuts easily through sonic paucity. 

Sadly, we don’t make it back to Turl Street to catch Adam Barnes, having got confused, lost a notebook and accidentally drank some beers, but we’re present and correct for Rainbow Reservoir back at The White Rabbit.  The trio play a punky pepped-up pop racket, with a devil take the hindmost insouciance, but without any vestige of aggression.  In this sense the band reflects the singer’s American roots, harking back to US college keg parties rather than British commuter town basements, red cups hoisted rather than glasses in the face, and if the wordy songs sound a bit like Kim Deal reading out her PhD, the best of the tunes are packed with fire, fun and energy. So much so, we think the band Could Have Closed The Punt.

Oh, wait a minute.  They did.  Right, is the bar still open?

HIgh Windows Of The House Of Usher

I was going to make a joke about buying a piano which was a few millimetres too wide for my house, and being in luck that they had a pre-pared piano...except it turns out that the word "prepared" and the word "pared" are etymologically the same.  Never mind.  Shit joke, anyway.

LARKIN POE/ JESS MORGAN, Empty Room Promotions, Bully, 10/4/15

We tend to celebrate rich and complex voices, but sometimes there’s something to be said for simplicity and clarity.  Jess Morgan’s tones are light and instantly likable, less single malt smoke, more Baileys sweetness, and she has a winning way of delivering a lyric or melodic line (the latter of which her country-tinged ditties are far from short on).  “Connecticut” might be her best tune, a gritty but uplifting tale of low-rent hotels like a slightly morose Sheryl Crow, and if the show tends towards the airily forgettable, affable young ladies with acoustics swarm the circuit in their hordes, and Morgan clearly outstrips the majority.

Despite its tin-eared title, the Ameripolitan movement is a fine thing, saving US roots music from vapid cabaret chicks and Republican pinups whose only link with country is outsized headgear who look like fireman strip-a-grams and, but that’s not to say all commercially-minded Americana is bad.  There are many definitions of “populist”, but one of them is the neo-Benthamite desire to bring pleasure to as many people as possible, which is hard to argue against.  Atlantan sisters Larkin Poe could be ambassadors for this ethos, clearly determined tonight that the entire Bully should have as much fun as they do, and whilst their bluesy country pop might sometimes bring to mind the smooth stadium roots of Alannah Myles, it’s equally aligned with AC/DC – the opener “Wade In The Water” develops into a joyously huge dumbass rocker that could soundtrack a Southern fried reboot of Bill & Ted, and gospel groove “Hey Sinner” stretches stickily like cooling toffee, before mutating into a funkily minimal take on “Black Betty”.  The playing is sharp, especially Megan Lovell’s molten lapsteel solos, and the vocals impressive, but the duo never veer off into empty melisma or fiddly chops if the songs would suffer (and kudos to the one-man backing band, on drums and synth-bass, a clinically relentless mixture of Meg White and Mantronix).

Their three-cover encore might be the sort of thing to win over Terry Wogan’s listeners (“He’s so English” – hilarious), but sells an intelligent, creative and infectiously hedonistic duo short.  Tellingly, they make a point of celebrating the single dancin’ fool in the room vainly trying to turn a polite Oxford crowd into a moshpit: Larkin Poe aren’t afraid of commercial trappings, but beneath beats a heart of purest musical fire

We Need To Talk About Jo(h)n

I Googled Myleene Klass quickly whilst writing this review.  Now I see her knickers in my sidebar whenever I go on Facebook.  It must be by far the most commercially viable thing I've Googled in about 2 years.

LCO SOLOISTS & JONNY GREENWOOD, Beard Museum, St John The Evangelist, 21/2/15

There are a number of people who have taken the sometimes shaky walk between pop and classical but, whether they’re iconoclasts who rubbed against their new world (Zappa), surprising traditionalists (Lord; Sting) or vapid embarrassments (Klass), the popular star generally retains centre stage.  Interestingly, neither Jonny Greenwood nor his promo people have over-publicised his recent compositions for concert hall or celluloid and, whilst this event probably sold out more quickly than your average contemporary music gig, it’s clear that serious (if not necessarily austere) music is the sole focus tonight.  Perhaps we should file Greenwood as “cross-under”.

Tellingly, Jonny isn’t onstage that much, leaving the spotlight to the excellent London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists.  His one solo showcase, Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint” has surprisingly bluesy phrasing, as if yanking the airy serenity of Metheny’s famous version down from the clouds to dingy bars and city streets.  As a composer his work is balanced and varied, highlights being “Miniature”, which adds to tambura drones a cold constellation of Satie piano notes and aching violin that is positively Vaughan Williams, and “Future Markets”, a full throttle dirt-ride for strings like a cross between Bernard Herrmann and Can.  Occasionally the soundtrack origins of much of the music can make it feel a little pat and guilty of emotive signposting, but the sound has a depth and mystery that makes it far more Penderecki than Korngold.  Only “Self-Portrait With Seven Fingers” disappoints, using the audience’s phone-triggered tinny plinks to create a Fisher-Price carillon: the aleatory concept is intriguing, but it’s mostly just annoying.

Although the LCO musicians are a honed ensemble, the night’s highlights come from two solo pieces.  Oliver Coates’s version of cello and effects piece “Love” by Mica Levi takes the blasted romanticism of the original version and emphasises a cheap seasick awkwardness, until it resembles V/Vm tackling Nyman, and Anna Lapwood’s take on Messiaen’s Bachian boogie-woogie pile-up “Les Anges” on the SJE’s organ perfectly mixes the twitchy intricacy with the devotional intent.  That the applause for these two pieces is as warm as that for Jonny’s guitar spot speaks volumes about the quality of these performers, and the open-minds of the audience.

One Alauda

I just watched a film called Octopus 2.  I hadn't watched the first one, but I managed to follow the plot anyway. This review, from the latest Nightshift, features the typo I made, "Glad Plugin".  The editor either didn't notice the missing E, or just assumed it was something cool he'd never heard of.

SKY:LARK/ SCREEN WIVES/ MASIRO, Idiot King, Cellar, 7/2/15

Depending on where you cast your gaze you can see any number of representation of underground music in the media: glossy molls swigging bottled lager and singing along with the next big thing; gorgeous soft-focus festival folkies snapping each other on smart phones; rock-crazed ne’er-do-wells spiralling into drug abuse; Swindon.  But nothing sums it up for us better than the sight of a man dressed only in his pants crawling round a basement stage, trying to gaffer a bass drum back together.  Either side of this dose of literal DIY music, in a necessarily curtailed set, London’s Screen Wives twist out an angular, Fugazoid hardcore that kicks like a hoof to the solar plexus, but has room for cheeky, witty little trills and paradiddles.  The songs are brief, the band hissing short bursts of noise into the venue like a demented Glade Plugin.

Before that, Oxford’s Masiro had treated us to one of their displays of sonic science. The twitchy, multi-part structure of their music is always impressive, like a metal-flavoured Don Caballero, and even like Primus without the schoolyard japes, but they always manage to bring in some melodic or textural originality to save us from mere academic cleverness.  The set is like a spiderweb from a fly’s point of view: intricate, beautiful, sludgy, and completely deadly.

Intricate being one thing we wouldn’t accuse Sky:Lark of trying for.  Over a bed of unwavering feedback, the trio thrash through dense repetitious snarling grooves something like Motorhead with a krautrock fixation.  The best moments of the set are when the vocals bawl and screech over two note unriffs like Finnish minimalists Circle crossed with Megadeth, and the worst moments are when they stop.  There’s the odd snatch of fuzzy melody, but in essence theirs a brief onslaught of brash noise, to finish a night of intriguing, exciting music...and not an iPad or a crackpipe in sight.

Music To Buck An Ear To

I may not have achieved much during January, but I did come up with the name Cloaca Bilk, which any punk bands are welcome to have.

PEERLESS PIRATES/ OUI LEGIONNAIRES, Moshka, Wheatsheaf, 10/1/15

It’s hard to know what to say about Cheltenham’s Oui Legionnaires.  On one hand their twitchy post-rock flavoured emoting feels unexceptional and a good few years out of date, yet on the other they play with ability and passion that demands attention.  On one hand their angsty US yelps sound like Doogie Howser getting snarky with his ISP, yet on the other the insistent cubist guitar parts give them a Cap’n Jazz intensity that keeps them interesting.  On one hand their final off-mike refrain chanting undershoots its mark and falls awkwardly flat, yet on the other their toes inwards, balls of the feet, nervous tic meek-core energy is infectious.  It’s fifty-fifty; we’ll let them play the advantage and see if they can score in future.

Like Post-It notes and selfie sticks, Peerless Pirates’ main idea is so beautifully simple you’re annoyed you didn’t think of it yourself: The Smiths without the egos.  They’ve taken some of Britain’s greatest pop music, and stripped away not only Morrissey’s passive-aggressive poetics, but also Marr’s penchant for guitar hero classic rock chop-wankery; it’s as if the rhythms section ruled The Smiths, and they were always the best ones (smack notwithstanding).  And the true stroke of genius?  They’ve filled the void with pirates.  Pirates are synonymous with fun, where childhood abandon meets hard liquor and entry level cosplay, and pretty much make most things in life more enjoyable.  Over the years Peerless Pirates have become as tight as well-kept rigging and as solid as a hundred year old capstan, and slowly, unobtrusively their indie-shanty schtick has become one of the best nights out in Oxford.  Barring the odd dashes of Tex-Mex hot sauce, their sound has not noticeably developed, but their focus has, and we defy anyone to leave a set like this without a big silly-arse grin.

Plus, because Peerless Pirates were on our radar first, we’re able to dismiss a certain syndicalism and winkie obsessed comedian as a mere sartorial copyist of lead singer Cliff Adams. Revolution?  Maybe later; for now there’s a rum keg to be tapped.