Bluetoneberries

The Art Bar is the new name for The Bully.  As yet the internal art count is low, and I fear this tally will not improve.  It looks hideous - no more hideous than the hideous Bully, of course, but this hideous was at the cost of money and half-baked conceptual brainstroming, I suspect; I wonder whether it will mean an increase in turnover?  I wonder, but I don't predict.   At what point, precisely, did clumsy, blanket rebranding replace thinking about how to servce customers or supply a product calculated to be liable to turn a profit?  Anyway, here's the October Ocelot thingummy.

In October, Klub Kakofanney celebrates its 22^nd anniversary.  Just think about that for a moment.  22 years of monthly events.  In a culture where nights like My Friends Stopped Coming After Three Events Productions, This Is Harder Than It Looks Promotions, and What Does “Budget” Mean Again? Incorporated come and go, the idea of a promoter lasting more than 6 months is barely conceivable, and yet Phil Freizinger and Sue Smith, two bedraggled punk hippy renegades, have managed to put on events for over two decades that are surprising, engaging and welcoming.  And sometimes rubbish, granted, but often one of the best nights out in Oxford.  Join them at The Wheatsheaf for 3 days on the first weekend in October, and on the first Friday of every month thereafter.  You’ll find an eclectic range of performances, a quirkily friendly atmosphere, and dancing so clunky it looks like it was choreographed by George Romero.

Phil and Sue can also be caught most weekends in some benighted Oxfordshire pub or other plying their trade with The Mighty Redox.  It’s a presumptuous adjective to have in the name, but their woozy syrup of psychedelia, funk, blues and Gong-scented silliness really is a powerful pick-me-up.  There aren’t many bands who can throw squealing guitar workouts, harrowing banshee howls and even bass solos at rural bar-proppers and not only get away unscathed, but actually make them frug like fools by the end of mammoth sets.  If you’ve been doing something for 22 years, you’re either doing it right, or are oblivious to what you’re doing wrong; either way, we’ll be there to do it too.

SUPERFOOD/ ARTCLASSSINK/ GUS ROGERS, DHP, Art Bar, 14/10/13

Kill Murray are unable to perform because of illness, so vocalist Gus Rogers fills in solo, strumming a fuzzy guitar over what could be A-Ha backing tracks, and singing in a high, delicate slur, like the ghost of a tramp.  Gig cancellation is pandemic in this town, so we applaud Gus’ decision to perform under straitened circumstances.  It’s impressive that one track even sounds quite spell-binding, even as it’s depressing that there are trendy types all over the shop offering essentially the same half-baked fare and garnering plaudits from every angle.

Never trust a restaurant where the main menu is more than two pages.   Chefs should be celebrating what they do best, not offering everything in a desperate attempt to please the world.  Artclasssink approach music like a beered-up posse at such an establishment, ordering willy-nilly, and suggesting “just put it all in the middle, mate, and we’ll mix and match”.  And so Joy Division portentousness scratches against glistening Cocteaus guitar, whilst Mansun choruses straddle mall-rock thumping.  That it makes no sense is its charm, but when the band lose their rhythm or let their composure slip – worryingly regularly – it’s as if that dining party were passing out one by one.

Birmingham’s Superfood are an up-and-coming band.  You can tell because the tracks on their Soundcloud have so many celebratory comments that listening to them creates a pop-up strobe effect that burns the word “sick” onto your retinas.  Sadly, this online fever has not translated to a large turnout, which is a shame, as it feels as though the band would thrive on a vibrant crowd.  Their rhythms are insistent, but lithe and bouncy, and the vocals are approachable and warm, and they look as though they’re just waiting for the next good time to catalyse.  The songs sound like Ride without the pedals mixed with first album Blur, which is fine, even if they also resemble The Bluetones with alarming regularity.  It would be supercilious to claim that a young band can’t find inspiration from the music of the mid-90s, but it would be nice to see these decent musicians stretching themselves.   After all, look at the back page of this magazine: Britpop clearly hasn’t yet finished eating itself. 

Lau Played!

Contemporary World Good: I'm listening to the new Death Grips album, which I downloaded for free.  Why don't you?

Contemporary World Bad:  The new iTunes.  Is that not repulsive?  Maybe it's good if you want to put your earbuds in a cloud and tag each semibreve (or something), but if you just use it to load an iPod and burn CDs, it's a pain in the arse.

LAU – DHP Promotions, Jericho, 16/11/12

Enjoying a pre-gig pint in the Gardener’s Arms, Jericho, we admire the old records displayed round the walls.  What a great way to celebrate vinyl, we think; followed by, well, not as much as actually playing it.  We’re sorely tempted to indulge some proper vinylphilia, and half inch a twelve inch, and that’s the paradox: as soon as you start actively celebrating something, you’re effectively admitting its demise - the living need no eulogies, after all.  Which makes Lau an interesting band.  The gig’s promoters describe them as sounding like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which they do, but only in the sense that a shrew probably looks like a puma from the point of view of a cuttlefish.  Crazy comparisons aside, it’s quite hard to pigeonhole an eclectic trio that fights hard to walk between the twin evils of preserving folk as a taxidermied museum piece and clogging the arteries of a living tradition with an excess of gloopy crossover syrup. 

And, to a great extent, they succeed.  The playing is impeccable, especially Aidan O’Rourke’s fiddle, the mid-range so creamy and rich, the phrasing so natural, you’d swear it was talking to you, murmuring secrets so comfortingly indulgent they’d make Nigella sound like Dot Cotton.  The atmosphere is wonderful, too: some of the apparent ad libs were probably well aired, but they stopped the gig getting too salon polite or rock pompous.  There are impressive musical twists to discover, “Horizontigo” displaying the clockwork sugar locals might associate with Message To Bears, and “Far From Portland” a stately plucked coda that reminds us unexpectedly of Papa M.  There are also less successful departures from the folk path, like fuzzy laptop snuffles somewhat akin to Four Tet, and it’s frustrating to watch Martin Green leave off the spry accordion lines to tinkle faux-atmospherically at a Rhodes.

Folk trios don’t normally sell out the Jericho, or require much award storage space, so it would be easy to assume that Lau had cynically cross-bred their music to make it palatable. It would also be downright wrong, as the honest love of what they’re playing oozes from the musicians.  It’s just that, in general, the more folk they are, the more we like them, and the pieces that transport us are “Torsa”, with its lively Scottish rhythms, and Kris Drever’s lovely, straight take on Lal Waterson’s “Midnight Feast”.  Not perfect, then, but still great to see a band with a love of British folk, and wide enough tastes to distract the barman at the Gardener’s whilst we swipe that old Warp EP.