Truckulence

A lot of this review is in the latest Nightshift, some of it is "previously unreleased".  You can decide whether the latter is Richard James Soundcloud or Mike Paradinas Soundcloud, can't you?

The Saturday half will be up in a few days.

TRUCK, Hill Farm, Steventon, 17-18/7/15

There are people who believe that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike.  The proof has to do with flowers and backwards records and the fact that “goo goo g’joob” is ancient Etruscan for “the bassist just snuffed it”, or something, but mostly because photos from 1967 look a wee bit different from photos from 1963.  But that’s how it works, isn’t it?  As time goes by, features shift and alter slightly, whilst the face remains recognisably the same.  And whilst Truck 18 is in some ways very different from Truck 8, it isn’t hard to see that it’s clearly the same festival underneath.  It may have got bigger in the past decade - haven’t we all? - and has clearly had a bit of cosmetic work done, but what is wonderful over these two days is the realisation that really not much has changed from the great Trucks of yore.

The biggest difference, of course, is that now Truck is part of a boutique festival circuit that it helped to instigate, and as such a third of the bill could have been predicted by anyone with an internet connection and a bit of nouse, but as ever the greatest discoveries are squirreled away on the smaller, more curated stages.  Take the first act we see properly on Friday, London’s Passport To Stockholm, who sing delicate melodies over icily precise electronic percussion, in a winning fashion that reminds us of defunct Oxford act undertheigloo.  Considering they are 40% down, and the PA is limbering up for the weekend by making some odd squeaks, it’s an impressive set.

We can imagine Sulky Boy checking their emails a few months ago.  “Hey, we’re going to play Truck! There’ll 6000 people and we’ll be supporting all these cool bands!”  What really happens is that they perform to a smattering of people, sitting in the Market stage, idly checking their phones and wondering whether it’s bad that there was an extra bendy pole left over when the tent was pitched.  Of course, they could make more of an impact by not playing floppy inoffensive pop that’s a bit like baggy with the attitude, swagger and drugs replaced by some horrible Hale & Pace dungarees.  Said dungarees are inexplicably popular amongst punters this year, only outweighed in oddness by the native American head-dresses that a number of independent people are sporting: it looks like some wires got crossed in the organisation of a Village People reunion.  Still, it’s better than the four guys in Charlie Chan villain get-up, one of whom has come in full yellow-face: Number One Cock.

Raleigh Ritchie are an unpleasant melange of Wham! and The Streets and they sound like Bicester Village, so we scoot over to see Gorwelion Horizons.  This turns out not to be a lost Autechre EP, but a special stage solely featuring young Welsh performers, a line-up addition as lovely as it is unexpected (and, down a little passage, hard to find), and a place we retire to regularly whenever the crowds or predictable main stage gestures are getting too much.  They also have a giant wooden ghetto blaster, which wins them points, as does Hannah Grace, a singer who edges towards blues fire and soul sultriness, but without losing sight of the bullseye of good tunes.  She would do well at Cornbury.

We shy away from the Most Improved award here at Nightshift, as it either looks like a snide backhand or a sop for rubbish musicians who don’t have the decency to give up and concentrate on procreation or move somewhere else.  Praise is deserved for Orange Vision, though.  When we first saw them they were trading in pseudo-baggy and infuriating wackiness, but nowadays they use driving indie-funk basslines as the jumping-off point for woozy, reverb-drenched flights which send half the crowded Virgins stage into a misty reverie and half into a dancing trance.  A satisfying set that has nor pop nor psych, but as it were an after dinner sleep, dreaming of both.

We love Truck, and we’re as nostalgic as the next old deaf rocker, but, really, isn’t it time to retire the Barn?  Surely it has the worst acoustic of any festival stage in Europe, and is a pain to get in and out of, meaning that we miss a number of acts over the weekend.  When it was less busy, there were some fun, unpretentious rock bands on display making it worth the effort to listen through the echo, such as Bloody Knees, whose last tune sounds like “Come As You Are” sung by gibbons, which is just fine and dandy by us.

Going to festivals always makes us feel old, but it’s amplified by Ags Connolly’s good old days number, “When Country Was Proud” which starts with someone holding a CD.  CDs still few new-fangled to us, godammit!  Mind you, in the chorus poor old Ags tries to put his CD “on the turntable”, which can’t have gone well.  Still, this lyrical slip is the single criticism we can make of an excellent set by a naturally gifted musician, who knows exactly when embellishments get in the way of a song, and when to give his rich melancholic voice space to communicate.   Truck has had its fair share of Americana over the years, but Ags’ country isn’t alt or nu or avant, it’s just fantastic.

Keeping the local flag proudly aloft on the Virgins stage are Death Of Hi Fi, who have tempered their dark and brooding hip hop with some lighter, slinkier songs, pick of which is “Roses And Guns”, wherein punchdrunk electro synths stumble through the picture window of Portishead’s refined drawing room. Top cabaret marks for featuring a lightning quick costume change on a small stage, and throwing flowers to the crowd with download codes attached.

We’ll sadly probably never see (m)any metal bands at Truck again, so having played the other day at Download, Beasts are probably as close as we’ll get.  Big drums, big chords, big soaring vocal lines, a slightly more aggressive Foo Fighters?  Check.  A little bit boring after a while?  Check.

In the past, the main stage at Truck has featured some surprisingly slight acts.  For every Fixers or Bellowhead, there’s been some wispy indie band or subtle American strummer who, although sometimes good, have got lost on the breeze.  This year, the promoters have worked out just what people want, rightly or wrongly, from a festival main stage.  Take The Bohicas.  Nobody knows who they are, we suspect, but they go down a storm with their broad-stroke thumping pop, and chunky melodies that seem to fall somewhere between XTC and Bryan Adams.  The power goes off mid-song, and everyone hangs around cheering till it’s back on, which is as much evidence of winning the crowd over as we can imagine.  They’re quite good.  Pity, really, we were hoping we’d be able to just say they were Bohollocks.

After buying some food from the ever-lovely Rotary Club, we are accosted by a wandering woman from the church snack stall: “You know what goes really well with chips?  Sweets!”  Full marks for dedicated sales patter, dear, but you don’t have to be Jay Rayner to know it’s not true.  Her culinary error comes back to us for Neon Waltz, who are the musical equivalent of a Haribo melting over a spud, having ill advisedly taken the harmonies, the electric piano and the rootsiness from The Band and melded them with Flowered Up’s brash proto-Britpop.  How on earth is this any good?  Nay, rather delightful?  Perhaps because, in pop, character and ideas trump showing off and artisanal moustache stylists every time.  We especially love the singer, a vat-grown Micky Dolenz mini-me who looks as though he literally just got out of bed...and that his bed was made of temazepam and dumplings.

Speaking of character, back at Gorwelion Horizons a trio called HMS Morris provide one of the best sets of the weekend, despite not actually being sailors waving hankies.  Their synth-based pop is held together by charm and Blu Tack, and provides warm fuzzy memories of vintage bookings on the old Trailer Park stage.  One of them is a cute pop powerhouse, what you’d get if Gwen Stefani had been given away free with Coco Pops; one of them is a keyboard player with a croupier’s hat, a bushy beard and a glorious falsetto; the other is a drummer tight enough to keep it all together, but sensitive enough to keep the songs bubbly fresh.  A highlight is a gorgeous plinky skank with lashings of twangy guitar, like Vienna Ditto in dub (and in Welsh), but it’s all wonderful.  Swnami who come afterwards were pretty good, too, in the vein of early Foals, and it’s a pity that so few people see it. 

Mind you, perhaps they were all just queuing for the toilet.  What happened, Truck, has Steventon been hit by Dutch Bog Disease or something?  The only downside to a lovely festival is the acute lack of portaloos.  At one point, we take a walk along the entire length of the campsite to try to find a short toilet line, and it can’t be done.  Mind you, one in five tents have a bunch of Truckers sitting outside, and a bit of eavesdropping reveals that lots of them are planning on sitting about killing time until Clean Bandit come on.  That’s the spirit, kids, stick to bands that have been on telly adverts, otherwise you might see something new and exciting, which would hurt your little heads.

You know a band are pansy-arsed panty-waists when they set up the drums and keyboards side on.  It’s a just a fact. But here at Nightshift we like bands who iron their socks as much as bands who lose their clothes each night fighting drunken tigers, so long as they’re good.  William Joseph Cook and his band are good, for the most part, especially when he edges towards strength-in-delicacy Jeff Buckley territory.

We’re not sure whether Aberystwyth’s Mellt have an infuriating Google-maximising spelling, or whether it’s just Welsh, but they’re worth a visit, with strong basslines pulling sweetly against bookish new wave vocals, something in the ballpark of The Lemonheads, with Sebadoh as jovial groundskeepers.  They’re good, although may not have quite found that magic ingredient to be truly special.  Speaking of ingredients, beware of the coffee stall, where an espresso is a pound, and an Americano is two; just to check, the difference is still some water, right?  Thank Christ they don’t sell squash.

Truck & Coverage

Here's the Friday from this year's Truck.  Some of it has been in Nutshaft, and some of it hasn't.  And here's the July Ocelot thingummy, whilst we're about it:

I was going to write about Hot Hooves this month, but you all know about them already.  You do, right?  If you don’t know about Hot Hooves and Mac and The Point and Talulah Gosh and Les Clochards then simply chuck this magazine over your shoulder and go and find out. 

Instead, I’m going to talk about a band I know nothing about, just because I saw them last night and they were good.  All I know about Jeff Wode is that they’re named after a scene in Withnail & I, and that they’re from Oxford, and that I saw them last night, and that they were good, but I still want to write about them because randomly walking into a small venue to see a young trio playing raucous but witty music is what makes me happy.  Jeff Wode don’t take themselves too seriously, but still put their backs into the music.  Not enough bands do this.  Jeff Wode are sloppy and untrained, but not half-arsed.  Wish I could say that more often, too.  Their abrasive, melodic, angry, sensitive thrash pop reminded me a little of Sebadoh at their grimiest, and even of The Lemonheads in their early punk days, but their real victory is making stodgy, sticky grunge thumping sound sly and hypnotic, and not brattishly petulant.  A band like this is a wonderful discovery at the bottom of the bill. People who turn up late wonder why they never see the great new bands before anyone else: well, it’s free to those that can afford it, very expensive to those that can’t.

TRUCK FESTIVAL, Hill Farm, Steventon, 19-20/7/13

This year, it’s a sort of Omnitruck.  There are little bits of everything that has been popular in Trucks past (except metal) all dotted around the site on special stages: there are big, slightly backward looking indie names on the main stage, there’s a little metal shed full of Americana, there are old characters and a smattering of new local bands, some stoned East Oxonians spinning reggae, and a BSM/Alcopop! stage for people who like math pop and dressing like Ferris Bueller.  It’s a lovely lineup, and our only wish is that it could be a little less ghettoised, and that styles could be mixed up on different stages, as it was this that drew us to Truck in the first place.  And there should be probably be some metal. 

Our weekend starts with Oxford’s Dallas Don’t, who attack Postcard Records’ jangle with the snarl of Future Of The Left, and who spark up rich, poetic indie tunes by throwing themselves at them full pelt – the drummer especially plays like he’s trying to stab excitable cockroaches with a skewer.

We feel as though new stage The Great Western Whiskey Saloon And Blues Kitchen was probably created by polling the residents of the Abingdon area about what they’d want from a festival: proper pub stools, no stupid new-fangled pop music and vintage Watneys beermats, please, squire.   Apart from the fact that the doorway isn’t really big enough, and that moving on to spirits would be ill-advised in this searing sunshine, this turns out to be a wonderful stage, hosting quality performers, and warm-natured crowds.  Opening act The Spare Room, for example, layer some wonderful West Coast three-part harmonies over pretty little guitar and glock ditties, which proves that novelty isn’t the only route to success.

Although we could have done with more as we approached the Market Stage for Wildswim.  Instead of the mixture of quirky electronica and Victorian light opera we’ve got from them before, we hear something that sounds worryingly like Tears For Fears, so we do a quick 180 and visit Truly Ford at the Virgins stage instead, which seems to be the old BBC Introducing stage, give or take.  She’s a young singer from Faringdon (although her Twitter account proves she can’t spell it, so it may be some sort of elaborate lie, probably connected with the moonlanding), and she shows some real promise, dark cello tones enriching strong, approachably dramatic compositions.  Our only real complaint is that she tends to over-emote vocally, which is the curse of current pop music: schoolkids should be made to listen exclusively to Billie Holiday and Leonard Cohen for at least two years before being allowed a sniff of Alicia Keys.

Same story with Lillian Todd Jones, who seems to be inflating some perfectly decent songs to bursting point, when they might be better off left alone.  Still, the main stage is a poisoned chalice in the early afternoon when it’s too hot even to muster the energy to throw rocks at the twat in the woodland onesie,so she and her band are allowed to try anything to keep people’s attention.  Plus she uses the word “meniscus” in a song, which gets her bonus BBC4 points.  She should have been on at Cornbury, they would have flipped for her over there...they’d probably think this was some of that punk rock they’d been hearing so much about.

At this point we take our second trip to the Barn.  Now, are you reading this, Truck festival?  Because, let us just mention something at this juncture, that we end up saying every year: the Barn is awful.  It could have been purposely designed as the worst acoustic environment in which to listen to music by an evil sonic scientist – a sort of anti-matter Lee Perry, perhaps – and yet the logic seems to have been to throw all the loudest acts in there.  When each strike of the snare takes 12 bars to decay, actually hearing a band takes a heroic effort of concentration and deduction, and even the very best act’s set is like watching 2001 through the bottom of a pint pot.  The Physics House Band are not the very best act, although they’re certainly not hateworthy, doling out complex jazz rock objets d’art.  They loosely resemble Battles, although they’re really just Skirmishes, and beneath all the math slapping crescendos their hermetic muso style reminds us ultimately of Weather Report.  And speaking of weather report, it’s glorious summer, so why are we in a boomy cattle shed listening to this?

Liverpool’s Ady Suleiman provides one of a couple of examples this weekend of an act that is shamelessly commercial, yet not hideously calculated (NB: we steered well clear of Lewis Watson).  He has a fine vocal style, with plenty of contempo-chops and smooth jazzy phrasing, existing in a strange but comfortable space between Sheeran and Sade, and he can pen an ear-catching lyric too.  Good luck to him.

We’re sitting back at the main stage, trying to think of a way to describe Milo Greene, so we ask the man next to us for an adjective.  “Benign”, he says.  Yeah, that’ll do.  Their Fleet Foxes style music seems to want to be anthemically big and subtly intimate simultaneously, and so ends up middlingly harmless.  Benign.  Good like a tumour is good: not exactly desirable in and of itself, but you suppose things could have turned out a lot worse.

Max Raptor make some popcore shapes, mixing wiry, lean energy with friendly old new wave chorus lines, something in the manner of early Biffy Clyro covering The Skids at a screamo night, but we’re in a sitting down mood so we return to the Virgins stage.  Generally, pretention is the worst crime a singer songwriter can commit – in the literal sense of pretending to be what they’re not, we quite like it when songs are about gryphons and particle physics and Mallarme, it at least fills the review word count nicely – but Ags Connolly is the exception.  Despite being a rural Oxfordshire boy who can almost certainly spell Faringdon and who has a speaking voice like a turnip salesman, when he sings it’s in a deep, western croon that sounds as though it’s being broadcast direct from Nashville (to us, that is – to Americans it probably sounds like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins).  And that should mean that we walk away without giving him a second listen, but something about his songs keep us enrapt.  It’s probably the lazily lachrymose melodies, and the sleepy-eyed resignation, that hits the spot in the soul where songs don’t need to be complex or original, they just need to be right.  That whiskey bar suddenly seems like a much better idea.

We love the members of the local Round Table and clergy who have supplied food at Truck for so many years, but we’re not complaining that there’s a nice a separate enclave for other culinary options this year, including fresh bread, pizzas, smoothies and real coffee, which is particularly welcome on Saturday morning, even though the organisation behind the counter makes the Jamalot crew look like NASA.  There are also stalls from charities, instrument builders, second-hand clothes sellers: it’s like a cheery little market place, which is only let down by the fact that it’s in a different field from the, err, Market stage.  The History Of Apple Pie are on there.  But The Masterclass On Mic Technique certainly ain’t.  Despite the fact that the vocals are pretty much inaudible, the music sounds like Weezer played by fifth-formers, which wouldn’t be so bad, if the gloriously useless programme hadn’t claimed they sound like Galaxie 500 and Smashing Pumpkins.

Tony Jezzard, who sadly passed away recently, provided sound for most of the events in Truck’s history, so we go to see one of his old bands, The Shapes, in the Saloon to raise a glass in his memory.  Whether the band find it as emotionally charged as we do, we’re not sure, but they play fantastically, and with more a touch more gusto than we’ve witnessed previously, adding a tang to their accessible mixture of Van Morrison, The Rembrandts and Squeeze.

If you find Ten Benson a bit too baroque, then you might appreciate guitar and drums duo Wet Nuns, who bash away at their huge stoner punk tracks like a cross between Winnebago Deal and Status Quo.  They do one song that just sounds like the riff from “Foxy Lady” made out of concrete over and over again.  Then they do another that sounds exactly the same.  Cracking stuff.

Good Will Punting

Here's my review of this year's Punt festival. Fragments of it were used in Nightshift's roundup, but obviously only the nice bits, because they booked the acts.  Music In Oxford didn't do a review this year, sadly, so most of this is being seen for the first time.  Calm your thundering heart and read on.

Random thought for today, has anyone ever made this awful joke?  Cartoon frame of Minnie the Minx or similar, clearly the last one on the page, in which she's tucking into the traditional pile of mash with snorkers sticking out at angles having a "nosh up" in a "snooty" restaurant.  She's looking at us, saying.  "Reader, I married him *Chortle*".

THE PUNT – Purple Turtle/Cellar/Wheatsheaf/Duke's Cut/White Rabbit, 8/5/13

Like cultural futures market traders, some people go to see unsigned acts so that they can spot successes early on: “I saw them before you’d ever heard of them, chum” is a common cry, and might be one familiar to anyone who caught Young Knives, Stornoway or Fixers at previous Punts.  Tonight’s event is odd because, although it may well source a few similar anecdotes for future pub raconteurs, for those of us who live in the here and now the bill is chock full of potential, but a little short on match-fit performers and finished articles.

The Purple Turtle PA, sadly, doesn’t seem to be either of those.  As an engineer battles gamely throughout the night, the timings fall further behind schedule, and the sound becomes more and more wayward.  For Phil McMinn (who has played the Punt previously as part of Fell City Girl and The Winchell Riots, despite his cheeky onstage claims) this is a minor issue and, although the mix might be missing some laptop trickery, his acoustic songs with violin touches cut through technological difficulties. We’ve always admired rather than loved his previous acts, finding them too bombastic and desperately emotional to truly embrace, but this outstanding set hinges on his fantastic, ruby port voice, and a knowing way with melody and dynamics.  If the music is more down to earth than his old bands’, then the lyrics certainly are, touching on mountains, tents and, quite possibly, pony trekking and Youth Hostels, with a wordy dexterity that occasionally recalls Joni Mitchell.  Give that man a gold star, and some Kendall mintcake for his napsack.

More veterans stripping things down next door in The Cellar, as Listing Ships take to the stage for the first time as a trio, having lost a member to parenthood (which has probably killed more bands than drink, drugs and gate reverb put together).  No offence to the departed guitarist, but the band is a revelation as a threepiece, giving the compositions enough space to add a cheeky sashay to what was once a clumping krautcore goosestep.  Tonight keyboard parts reveal new squelchy qualities, and basslines suddenly exude the aromas of dub and New York punk funk: seriously, we can suddenly hear ESG in there, along with the predicted Tortoise and Explosions In The Sky. 

Candy Says...relax!  They might as well, they’re still soundchecking back at the PT.  Oh, they’re about to start...oh, no they’re not.  Must dash.

Beginning to know what a ping pong ball must feel like, we nip back to The Cellar for a bracing waft of Duchess.  We enter to a delightful bit of summery, Afropop fluff, which bears a marked resemblance to Bow Wow Wow.  It’s often lovely stuff, but they could do with going a little more wild (in the country) to lift these promising songs.  Perhaps if they swap one of the percussionists for some gigging experience, we’ll have a great band on our hands.

Limbo Kids have made some superb recordings, which is what you’d expect from members of Ute and Alphabet Backwards.  In the White Rabbit, though, the glacial fragments of late 80s chart hits they arranged into delicate towers of song seem to topple like so much icy pop Jenga.  The vocals are cheery but thin, the band look a little uncertain, and the whole affair is tasty, but somewhat undercooked.  This is their debut gig, we understand, and the conclusion is that they could well have been the best act of Punt 2014, but for now they’re just providing the hold music before our first visit to our favourite Oxford venue.

The Wheatsheaf, apparently held together by scraps of tattered carpet and the accrued tar of ancient cigarettes is not only our Oxford bolthole of choice, but also the most fitting venue for some proper rock in the Punt, making its rock ‘n’ roll case from the tattooed boozers in the downstairs bar to the leaking toilets in the venue above.  In the darkness with a pint of cheap ale is perfect place to see Bear Trap, a scuzzy quartet of grungers who look as though they should come from Oxford, Michigan, making mall rock in the back room of the local Lutheran chapel to kill drab small town weekends.  There are backwards baseball caps on- and offstage, all nodding vigorously to greasy rock that kicks like an irate lumberjack, but whines like a petulant teen.  We’d be lying if we said that these thrashed chords and raw snarls were in any way original, but we’d also be lying if we said we don’t sup back that cheap ale at double speed, with a dumbass grin on our silly face.

If Bear Trap look American, Ags Connolly doesn’t half sound it.  Not only is his music old school one-man melancholy country – or Ameripolitan music, as he and his fellow Shaniaphobes like to call their sound, to differentiate it from whatever stadium schmaltz is being labelled country this week – his voice is pure Midwest drawl, which is odd as when speaking he betrays his West Oxfordshire home.  Normally this would be an unforgivable crime, but Ags’ voice is just so damn good, unhurriedly lolloping along the melodies like a cowpoke taking an easy stroll back from church on a glorious day, that all is forgiven.  Like Bear Trap, his music isn’t going to break new ground, but if it’s looking to break a few hearts, it might just succeed.

Fearing that we’d neglect The Duke’s Cut if we didn’t make the effort to walk there now, we make the rush there to check out The August List.  Thankfully, it’s not as punishingly busy as last year, but it’s still hard to make out much of this enjoyable duo’s music from the back of the crowd, in the doorway of the Ladies’.  Experience tells us that the music is a sweet, smily balance to Ags’ lachrymose laments, with unhurried porch-swing ditties drifting in from some mythical Deep South farmstead.  There’s an unforced connection between their voices that you only get if the singers are brother and sister, or husband and wife.  Or, judging by their musical reference points, both.

We have thoroughly enjoyed Death Of Hi-Fi’s recent album, but live, and shorn of many of the guest vocalists, their music feels like a functional backdrop, rather than a main event.  Like the paranoid feeling that things keep happening in your peripheral vision, the music always seems as though it’s about to usher in something big - whether that’s a stunning guest turn or a brash corporate pep talk, we’re not sure – but it never quite does.  Only rapper N-Zyme really makes a mark onstage, and he displays a nervous energy that seems to hamper his performance a little.  A strong band best suited to the studio, perhaps.

Our experience of tonight’s Punt has been of people doing old things very well, and people doing new things that might need a little nurturing or rethinking before they’re great, but that doesn’t mean that any of the performances are bad.  Except Nairobi’s, that is.  It’s a little unfortunate for them that both Duchess and Limbo Kids have nodded towards the post-Foals African influenced rhythms they favour, and we try to bear in mind that the PT sound system is shot away, but even with these byes, what we see is clumsy and disappointing.  With guitars doing an ugly Hi-Life widdle over clunky drums and a vocal that sounds like a disconsolate moose, it’s as if this set has been put together solely to annoy Andy Kershaw.  Sadly, the wonky world music jam happening in the doorway of Moss Bros as we wend our way back to The Wheatsheaf is more satisfying.

Like a hideous breeding experiment between Stump and The Peking Opera, The Goggenheim bring some much needed theatricality to the Punt.  Everything about this band is grating, from the unjazz skronk of the sax to the repulsive Man At C&A striped vests to the shrill declamatory dada vocals, and yet, against all logic, their songs feel like glorious pop nuggets. Whilst the band nail the wayward blowouts of improvisors Bolide to trashy backbeats and Beefheartian trellises, matriarchal abstract diva Grace Eckersley wails and coos barely coherent mantras.  There’s an otherworldliness about The Goggenheim, as well as a love of the cheap and brash, as if it were the sort of thing two-dimensional sci fi monsters might listen to on their night off. 

And so, we leave the frugging Macra and boogying Aquaphibians and make our way to The White Rabbit for the Punt’s denouement.  In a way, the biggest revelation of the night is how well this works as a final venue: the Goggenheim provide a mystifying climax, and this welcoming little pub acts as a come down party.  We slurp down a nightcap and enjoy After The Thought, who starts off in the style of Artificial Intelligence electronic acts such as B12 or early Black Dog, and then adds a sizable tray of guitar pedals.  There’s a sparse, almost systems music feel to the loops and rhythms, and a lot of the set sounds like the third Orbital album with half tracks turned down and someone playing guitar over the top.  The effect is hypnotic but, just maybe, it’s not quite as good as the third Orbital album without half the tracks turned down and someone playing guitar over the top.  Like much of tonight’s bill, After The Thought is an act with a relatively short gigging history, and we’re sure that soon this enjoyably textured music will become even more encapsulating.  Whether Matt Chapman will become an “I saw him first” topic for future boasts we don’t know, but we do know that we’ve explored a varied set of local acts, and supported a bunch of excellent Oxford venues that should be cherished, which is perhaps enough of a boast for anyone with a real love of live music.