May To Play

Three sad facts. 1) KK don't run Bank Holiday weekenders any longer, or any big events for that matter 2) The X has been a curry house for a couple of years now - a tasty one, mind 3) Somehow I just don't have the time to watch snooker, or indeed any sport, anymore. I don't like most sport, as it happens, but don't let that stop a good bit of self-pity.


MAYDAY FESTIVAL, The X, 1/5/05

Jump off a bloody bridge if you want to, but for me the May Bank Holiday has two great traditions: one is the snooker final, and the other is the Kakofanney weekender. I found myself there for the whole of Sunday.

Glenda & Sam kick things off. She is better known as the hair-swinging leader of metallers Phyal and he is the drummer from oddball punks Fork, so it's unexpected to see them play some quiet folk songs, with plenty of bodhran and flute. Diverting, if lightweight.

Can you lot really not think of names for your acts? Mauro & David turns out to be Mauro and David from Inflatable Buddha (well, be honest, whcih Mauro did you think it would be?), playing hurdy-gurdy and percussion respectively. Some of you will already know that Mauro can make his odd screechy instrument song, and David turns out to be a dab hand (pardon the pun) as an accompanist, which almost excuses the fact that he's wearing some mangy old purple curtains.

I find the winning simplicity fo Jeremy Hughes' playing quite delightful, especially on a sunny day. However, if you find the idea of Gandalf's beard double wibbling out an instrumental called "Rainbow" a turn off, steer well clear.

Laima Bite proves once again that she has one of the best vocal deliveries in Oxford, with a relaxed set. If I don't think she's as outstanding a talent as some local writers, it's less a criticism of her, and more a celebration of our local acoustic musicians.

Frei Zinger (flute) & Chris Hills (tabla) are both superb musicians, but their set sadly made no impression on me whatsoever. Unlike the first beer of the day.

Trip hop without the hip hop? It's odd, but it's Stem. Emma's voice, backed by acoustic guitar, is wonderfully weary and emotive, recalling Portishead or early Lamb, but the percussion is a clunky beast and keeps the set from taking off. Pity.

Clearly, getting the fun-loving but less than vocally dextrous landlady of the pub to sing some cheesy show tunes should be an embarassment, but luckily Condom (yes, that's really the band's name) have such an unpretentious vivacity that it's almost impossible to dislike them; hardly a highlight, but a bit of Bank Holiday larking about never hurt anybody.

With their relaxed AOR songwriting and West Coast sax solos, Veda Park will never be one to make the heart beat faster. Still, they're such natural ensemble players and the whole show is so incredibly tight you have to go with them. Especially after another beer.

Trip hop without the - hang on, I've done that one. But, for different reasons, Drift deserve the description as much as Stem. The vocals have a similar torch song yearning to them, but whilst the drum machine and bass are laying down dubby grooves, the guitarist is on an entirely unrelated psychedelic mission. Every time the neat arrangements make some sonic space, it's filled with an FX-laden guitar part whcih defeats the point somewhat. The again, the ring modulation solo is scorching so maybe...

The night really starts with the arrival of Harry Angel in all their goth-punk glory. Taut, angular Bauhaus style rackets led by a great tall chap leaning over the mike like the speed freak son of the Twin Peaks giant: time for a celebratory beer.

A keening and forceful North African vocal suddenly fills the pub, covered in reverb and synth pads. It sounds pretty powerful, but when the drum and bass kicks in great things start to happen. That's live drums played with brushes and a double bass, by the way, but they still have the punch of a Moving Shadow classic. We've just witnesses the debut gig by Tunsi. I hope we witness many more.

I've seen The Epstein many times. I saw them at The Zodiac on Friday. Yet here I am again front and centre. That's all you need to know. Still the best of the (inexplicably large number of) country bands in Oxford.

There's alwasy a sneaking suspicion that I shouldn't like a sprawling ska punk band that calls itself The Druqsquad, singing songs about washing machines and fat fish. but when they play, I forget all that and just enjoy the volume, the exuberance and the extremely sily keyboard noises. A fitting end.

So, it was fun. So, it was Bank Holiday Sunday. So, I may have let my critical faculties off the leash for a bit (did I mention the beer?), but that seems to be the right approach to one of these big Exeter Hall events. We've just had over nine hours of music in a warm atmosphere for less than a fiver, and I can't really think of anything I'd rather be doing with myself, which is ultimately the only important thing.

Dublodocus

Right, tonight I havce to write a long overdue review of a new LP, I don't have time to talk about old stuff, so you'll have to just find your own way around without any guidance.

RAGGASAURUS/ VIGILANCE BLACK SPECIAL/ THE TALC DEMONS/ JEREMY HUGHES – Klub Kakofanney, The Wheatsheaf, 4/1/08

We’re all justly proud of our music scene, but it’s worth remembering what Oxford is: a small provincial town in a semi-rural county. This means that for every Little Fish bursting into the limelight we have a bunch of market town blues bands dawdling through the classics. It also means we have Klub Kakofanney, a fantastically unglamorous hippy enclave that has been making people happy for as long as anyone can recall, and is about as far from the flick of a cool kid’s haircut as one can get…in fact, half the audience haven’t had a haircut in years. And the other half are bald.

After mightily-bearded Jeremy Hughes has played some intricate little guitar doodles, The Talc Demons take to the stage. Rami’s band are more often found playing interminable jam sets in empty midweek bars, but thankfully they produce a taut, condensed thirty minutes of his own circus freak pop, in which 70s rock clashes with funky reggae. His songs generally boast about 90 words per minute buoyed up by clipped, nasal guitar lines and bouncy rhythms, and they should definitely ditch the dubious covers gigs and concentrate on this quality fare. And change their name, obviously.

Last time we saw Vigilance Black Special they had a trombone and a lonesome Nick Cave swoon to their music; now they have no trombone and sound a bit like a sleepier version of Goldrush, the lyric “too much time kicking around in the half-light” summing the show up nicely. A decent band, with a rich lead vocal, but nothing to get excited about. Vigilance Grey Average.

Raggasaurus are a group who definitely weren’t formed in their stylist’s office: a bunch of stoned looking students playing dub, with a 50 year old Tunisian singing in Arabic over the top, who would have thought it? And who would have thought they would make such excellent music? The horns are acidic and subtly used, the rhythms are spry and infectious, and the bass is simply gigantic, causing glasses to topple to the floor behind the bar. Add some searing vocals, that seem to communicate messages of love and integrity even though nobody understands a blinking word, and the effect is glorious. A wonderful band, likely to enliven many an Oxford weekend, and one unlikely to appear on Skins any time soon.

Horticulture Club

What can I say about this one? A tiny festival on an allotment, how can you possibly dislike that?

ELDER STUBBS FESTIVAL, ELDER STUBBS ALLOTMENT, 21/8/04

You'd have to boast a heart hewn from cold, unloving rock not to be tempted by a music festival held in a Cowley allotment: if you can't relax with music and poetry amongst the cabbages and frankly terrifying pagan sculptures of Elder Stubbs on a sunny day, I have no hope for you. And at 50p entry, it's something of a bargain!

Skeleton Crew impress immediately with their medieval folk and early music performances. Now, I don't know my sackbut from my serpent, or my pavanne from my galliard, but the sound was enticing, albeit fighting a losing battle with the noise of a bustling cafe.

I'm guessing, from looking at the four of them, that The Noisy Oysters are a family who prefer to play klezmer classics of an evening instead of watching reality TV. Good choice. Their set is somewhat hesitant, but manages ot deliver the goods eventually.

At first glance Jeremy Hughes' guitar instrumentals just sound like somebody practising, doodling around some little trills and getting that muscle memory programmed in. Maybe it was the dappled sunlight and the tin of beer, but today it all made perfect sense, and his cyclical compositions transported us away on light and nimble melodies.

Next up regulars from local pub The Exeter Hall knocked out a couple of tunes each. Quality varied, but the spirit shone through.

When did you last see a table and sitar duo reviewed in Oxford? Proving that there's more to acoustic music than strumming hippies anbd self-pitying wastrels, Pandit Kailash Pawar & Chris Hills perform an hour of traditional ragas. Again, I'm no expert, but the music was spellbinding, if not always as fluid as it might be. Still, considering they hadn't met till that day, and Hills was playing pieces he'd never heard before, you've got to give them credit.

Mark Ginsberg is wearing a polka dot shirt whilst playing pier-end covers on an antediluvian organ. Clearly it's rubbish, but somehow those old bossa nova rhythm presets really kick, in a hissing Autechral fashion...plus his cover of "Purple Haze" reveals he isn't taking this too seriously either...

If Kenny Everett were recording a sketch about washed up 70s rockers, he'd copy Hawkwind alumnus Hugh Lloyd-Langton exactly. He's got the dangling fag, the Rod Stewart hairdo, the stoned chuckle and the leopard print waistcoat. He appears to be completely wasted. He's also got the bluesy Pagesque technique on his acoustic guitar to just about get away with it. A fine exemplum for the avoidance of drugs; nearly as fine as the surrounding sculptures.

Inflatable Buddha could be astonishing, but they don't know their own strengths. They boast weird instrumentation, a freaky stage presence and a ranting poet, yet they insist on performing rock tunes, despite the fact that the rhythm section has no bite and the vocalist can't sing (also for a poet his diction is awful, but we'll ignore that). "I Met A Girl" might make sense if Dive Dive played it, but Buddha should stick to the acid cabaret they know: "Fat Sex" and the one about boiling frogs, now there's some real character.

In a flurry of fiddle-licked hoedown punk, Some Dogs finish the afternoon. They display far more energy than ability (except for the sizzling violinist) but it seems to fit. As they say, if you don't like it, go ask for your 50p back! Nope, money well spent I say, as was the Le Tigre CD I picked up for 20p on a charity stall. A great day out, and I haven't even mentioned the marrow auction, the Backroom Poets, the Oxford Drum Troupe, the oldest-of-schools electro DJ or the free pinball. Prize produce all round!

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.