Daft Punt

Here is my thorough review of this year's Punt festival.  I thought it was a strong night out, I saw nothing bad, and nothing phenomenal.  Mutagenocide were unoriginal and a wee bit sloppy (by the incredibly high standards of classic metal, anyway, where you have to be spotlessly good in a crowded field), but they were still worth a listen, and Manacles Of Acid were my favourite act.  It didn't feel as though there were enough surprises for me to call it a top rank Punt, but I guess that skipping last year  contributed to that somewhat.  It's a wonderful insitution, anyway, I'm looking forward to 2013 already!  


Elements of this review are to be found in Nightshift's Punt mega-article.

THE PUNT, Purple Turtle/ Cellar/ Duke’s Cut/ Junction/ Wheatsheaf, 16/5/12

Ostensibly, The Punt is a showcase for Oxford music, but secretly might not be.  Sounds like an idiotic observation, but in fact the annual night-long, multi-venue event isn’t a glossy advert for local sounds, or an aural taster menu to invite putative new listeners, it’s more like an initiation test for potential recruits to the scene.  In its duration and complexity The Punt is a challenge, not a night out – the musical equivalent of Atomic Burger’s Godzilla meal, the sonic sister to an episode of Takeshi’s Castle.  And if proof were needed curator,  Nightshift’s Ronan Munroe is a puckish trickster as much as a promotional ambassador, we need look no further the presence of Tamara Parsons-Baker as the opening act.  She is a performer of some talent, with a powerful voice, but her dark vignettes of wispy intensity are a deliberately perverse introduction to the night, barbed lines left hanging portentously in the room, wintry guitars providing the lovelorn backdrop .  It’s a strong set, but she’s at her best when she comes over as a more animated Leonard Cohen, and at her worst when she just sounds like someone bitterly sniping at their ex-partner.

Secret Rivals are a perfect foil to this opening gambit, with their melodic, 6 Music friendly pop nuggets.  On record we just keep on finding more to love in their scrappy indie pop flurries, but live they’re still a smidgen sloppy.  In a way that doesn’t matter, the joy of the band is that they toss the Mentos of pop into the Diet Coke of indie with gay abandon, and let the sugary mess explode across the venue.

Undersmile are a geologically-paced sludge metal band fronted by two atonally chanting ladies who look as if the creepy twins from The Shining have grown up listening to Babes In Toyland.  It all sounds horrifyingly like half-orc mating calls played at quarter speed, and is absolutely brilliant.  And also pretty rubbish.  But mostly brilliant.

The Duke’s Cut is a new Punt venue, and one where the fact that the performers are completely invisible to all but about ten of the audience is balanced by the decent ale and the cosy camaraderie.  Toliesel sound at first like The Band with some pub rock elements, and are perfectly pleasant, though they seem to be pushing too hard, turning sweet vocals into rough hollers.  But, we decide to stay for their whole set, and soon the music makes perfect sense, revealing winning melodies under the murk.  Even the crackles from a slightly overstretched PA add to the natural warmth of the music.  In a reversal of Punt logic, Toliesel win us over with slow increments of quality songwriting, rather than flashy bandstanding, making us glad we stayed the distance.  Although it was mostly because it was too much effort to push our way back out of the crowd.  We sincerely hope there was one random person sitting at one of the pub tables in the early evening, who was hemmed in and forced to listen for the entire night.

Simple probability dictates that there’s always one Punt act that gets an underservedly small audience, and this year it’s Band Of Hope.  Mind you, the fact that they’re playing in the cavernous Junction club compounds the problem.  Incidentally, the venue turns out to be a pretty good addition to the night, although we’re not sure a pile of rocks and road signs is a great decor choice, it makes the room look like a student’s back garden.  The band is a lush ensemble playing relaxing country and folk, with excellent flourishes from fiddle and pedal steel. At times they have a lackadaisical Sunday jam session air that erases some of the character form the songs, but “Baby You’re A Mess” is a solid gold winner.

We catch the end of Deer Chicago, and their sound, which can often seem unnecessarily bombastic and forcedly epic, works far better in a cramped sweaty Duke’s Cut.  Sadly, as things are running late we only catch a fragment of The Old grinding Young.  They sound a little like parent band Ute, but with Radiohead twitches replaced by expansive rootsiness.  Too early to tell whether this will prove a good move.

In contrast to the sludge avalanche of Undersmile, and the doomy prog of Caravan Of Whores, Mutagenocide proffer a far more traditional brand of metal.  There are elements of the post-Pantera stylings of previous Punt stars Desert Storm, but most of the set consists of resolutely old school chugging rhythms, twiddly guitar solos and growled vocals that are probably all about large-breasted elf duchesses in the Hades branch of Games Workshop. There’s very little to set Mutagenocide apart from a vast roster of metal acts up and down the count(r)y, but they’re enjoyable enough, the penultimate track pulling off some good aural pummelling.

When you see LeftOuterJoin expending vast amounts of energy playing live syn drums along with some pounding trance, you have to ask what the point of it is.  It would sound just the same (and fractionally more in time) if the rhythms were programmed.  But, artists don’t have to dwell in a world of cold logic, and in many ways the victory of this act is its very redundancy.  The set veers from excellent techno to cruddy Euro cheese pretty haphazardly, but the sheer spectacle is a euphoric joy.  The fact that he’s also brought trippy projections and two lasers into the Wheatsheaf, Oxford’s least rave-friendly venue, is worth as many extra points as you can tally. Plus there are some over-sized smoke machines, that trip the pub’s fire alarm, and cause the venue’s windows to be opened for the first time this millennium.  A set to remember.

Into the home straight at The Junction with rapper Half Decent.  His delivery is truly excellent, and the backing tracks are chunky but he does share a fault with nearly all live hip hop: paradoxically, what should be a match of visceral rhythms and intimate poetry, generally drifts into empty gesturing.  Half Decent spends a lot of his set asking us to dance and sing along, when he would do better concentrating on delivering some very wry, insightful fast-paced lyrics (and dumb fun lines like “Making girls wetter than a washing machine”, for good measure).  He puts on a good show to a gaggle of exhausted music fans, but we’re sure the rapturous stadium gig happening in his head was even better.

Manacles Of Acid is watched by the hardcore, the shell-shocked and those unbeatable party people who may live to regret it.  We started the night with a harrowingly bleak preacher disguised as a nice acoustic singer, and we end it with unforgivably niche electronica dressed up as a bright clubber’s party.  Using only vintage hardware (including a TR606 worn round the neck) the man named Highscores produces a seemingly endless string of classic acid house and Detroit techno which thrill s the faithful, but is clearly a closed book to half the room.  We fall into the former camp, loving the beautifully crafted layers of mutated basslines and crisp drum patterns.  There are confetti cannons and some sort of cross between a fly and a character from Starlight Express running round the room, who may or may not officially be part of the show, and it’s an uncompromising conclusion to the night.

And so we leave The Junction, dazed and deafened, feeling as though we’ve split the past five and a half hours equally between enjoying, working and speed drinking.  The Punt feels even more like a twisted musical hazing ritual as we wait woozily for the late bus home.  Thank you, Sir, may we have another?

The Joker In The Decade

Funny thing: when The Jukes sent an email to the Nightshift editor about my review, one of their points was that this website wasn't very popular. Since then, the review in question has comfortably become the most viewed page on here in recent memory, and most people seem to have been linked ffrom Facebook. The Jukes' Facebook? Or just a coincidence? I've no idea, but it's sort of intriguing.

Oh, and yes, I am unpopular. That's how you can tell I'm good.


SMILEX/ THE CELLAR FAMILY/ DEER CHICAGO, Coo Coo Club, Jericho, 2/3/12


We saw Deer Chicago a few years ago, and were impressed. Since then they’ve delivered on their potential, and got very slightly worse. Their sound has improved enormously, and is now a huge cascade of emotive noise that fair tumbles out of them. They’re capable of glistering crescendos, but sometimes we wish they’d vary the dynamics, and step away from the screaming stadium in their minds, to regain some of the subtlety of old. All this epic swooning is like super-strong Bavarian lager they sell in your local dodgy cornerstore: doubtless intoxicating, but not big on delicate flavours. A very good band, then, but perhaps not the one we expected them to become, which is out fault, not theirs.

The Cellar Family are less a band, more an annoying muscular twitch in sonic form. Tonight, they play beautifully, lancing their music’s scabrous boils with razor punk incisions, and flooding The Jericho with horrific, visceral imagery delivered with scientific coldness. It’s like a cross between Weird Tales and The Lancet, all buoyed aloft by wittily slurred guitar and snidely forceful rhythms. Humdrum punks take note: everyone can sneer, but only a band like this can actually communicate disgust.

Smilex are celebrating a decade of nefarious activity, balancing on a latex tightrope strung between twin poles of grubby punk sleaze and dumb cock rock preening. Whilst it’s tempting to dismiss Smilex as an eager panting puppy amongst rock beasts – gags like Motley Cruecut and Judas Verger would be almost too easy – tonight’s gig reminds you of just how good they are. Lee Christian, of course, embodies his stage school punk persona, dressed as Kenny Everett in the Blue Oyster Club, but his vocal yelps and drawls really do carry the songs well. The band spends a lot of time throwing rock shapes that probably moved from parody to habit nine years ago, but by Christ they can kick out a squall. As with Deer Chicago, it’s always best to take Smilex on their own terms. The way to have a bad time at their gigs would be to imagine what a band of this much ability and stage presence could achieve if they had any taste. The way to have a good time is to neck a crème de menthe spritzer and dive into the nearest wall of flesh. Who could complain about ten years of that?

Riverside Babylon

The giant monkey fun of Truck is coming this weekend, and I shall be there with a biro, some ripped notepaper and a rucksack filled with cheap bitter. To get you in the festival mood, today and Friday I'll post my review of the smaller, freer and, let's be honest, not really as good but bloody great fun all the same, Riverside festival. Lots of people thought this review was too harsh, because the event was free, but I - naturally - disagree. What's the value of giving a band a good review at a free event and a stinker a week later when the gig costs a fiver? And is there a sliding scale in the middle? "£3.50? Hmmm, let's pretend the bass was in time, even though we'll admit the guitar was out of tune". Poppy, and indeed, cock.

RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 19-20/6/10

A work colleague has a mug reading “A bad day fishing beats a good day working”. Hardly Kierkegaard, but bear it in mind when reading this review: although we saw very few acts that really inspired us (on Saturday at least), we’d rather spend a weekend watching disappointing music at Riverside than a night with decent bands at The Academy. It’s something to do with the delightful landscape, the excellent Marsh Gibbon ales, the friendly atmosphere and the knowledge that some people have gone to a lot of effort to create a weekend out for us all, and not asked for a penny.

Deer Chicago are a decent opener to the festival, constructing large scale edifices of ever-so-slightly angular rock with a sturdy, emotional voice spread over the top. All very Fell City Girl, though Jonny Payne’s voice doesn’t have the natural power of Phil McMinn’s. The odd Jam interlude works surprisingly well.

At first Alan Fraser & The Resignation Orchestra offer flat jazz with Tom Waits Gruffalo growling from festival organisor Dave Oates. Diverting, but not much else. However, after a minute or two they start to warm up, and Fraser’s soprano sax solos become more interesting and contrast with some excellent honks and bubbles from Tony Bevan’s bass baritone, which is roughly the size of a hatchback.

Music For Pleasure entertain us as ever. Their mixture of spicy mid-reign R.E.M. melody and pre-leyline Julian Cope energy is always fun, even if it lacks the character of their day job bands (Harry Angel and The Unbelievable Truth). It’s like many of long term local trier Mark Cobb’s bands, but with bigger balls.

The Black Dog Emporium sadly sound nothing like techno trailblazers The Black Dog, nor much like Black Sabbath, despite the programme’s allegations. Instead they play a tedious brand of lightly funky 70s rock. The word “Reef” came to mind, and not least because it felt as though we were grounded inextricably in musical shallows. The drummer made things mildly interesting with some carbonated fills, but the vocals were honked out as if by a bingo caller trying to communicate across a Swiss valley.

More foghorn vocal subtlety from Crackerdummy. They’re a capable post-grunge trio who remind us of average Irish act Mundy. They playing is good, and it’s all well put together, but only in the way a small brick wall is. A small wall where you were hoping to find a bouncy castle and bourbon jacuzzi.

Remember David Oates’ functional blues growling? It starts to feel like a halcyon era once Stuart Turner starts his rubbish gravelly groaning. It sounds as though he’s trying to scare an errant toddler, not entertain adults. Pity, as The Flat Earth Society are a good band, spinning a nice sticky rockabilly web, and capable of a John Lee Hooker style boogie chug. We live in a frustrating world in which most post-rock instrumental bands sound half finished, but where most blues bands are ruined by duff singers.

Last year Diplomat’s Coffee kept us awake for the weekend. Sadly, this year we’re forced to buy our brew from a drunk man selling Mexican food, who was frankly fortunate not to have burnt his fingers off or inadvertently stabbed himself with a potato wedge at any point over the weekend. On one visit he mumbled something impenetrable about Mary Whitehouse and pronounced “hot chocolate” with one syllable, and at the next he blessed our coffee, even though we doubt he’s taken holy orders.

If Music For Pleasure hark back to R.E.M.’s Green, David Celia immediately reminds us of Around The Sun. Wrong choice, Dave. But we give him a chance and although the music is a little grown up for us, he has some a warm voice with decent Neil Young flourishes and some nice delicate keyboard parts, so we’ll give him the thumbs up.