Something different today, my favourite Oxford records of 2009, as published with other selections on Oxfordbands. The text style of the first line refers ot the fact that Alphabet Backwards' bassist, Josh, was smothered all over billboards, buses and TVs in 2009 as part of one of those infuriating mobile phone ads, in which he talked guff about starting a "super-band", or something equally facile. He is actually a very good musician, but from the ads you'd assume he was just a twat who clumps along to "Smoke On The Water" in his Mum's attic. Hopefully the phone company paid him handsomely for his time, but sadly I imagine he did it for free, the starry-eyed pop flump.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Showing posts with label Mephisto Grande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mephisto Grande. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Punt & Jury
Interesting one, this. A lot of lukewarm reviews of acts that have grown in stature in the interim. Except 32, who are probablys still atrocious - don't think they've played a gig since this. Don't know how they managed to blag this, to be honest. Must be very nice young lads, or possibly schooled in mesmerism.
THE PUNT 2007, various venues
Jessica Goyder’s Joni-Mitchell-meets-jazz tunes are as light, sweet and frothy as a cappuccino topping, and she plays them with great dexterity. But we’re telling you this because we already knew it, not because we heard it at The Punt, where a weedy PA turned Jessica’s Minnie Ripperton scatting into the sound of an adenoidal, constipated Clanger. I know Borders is hardly Knebworth, but really the sound of pages turning shouldn’t be as loud as the music…
Mr. Shaodow seems to have found the volume control, but has inadvertently stumbled across a slapback sound that would make Sun Studios cream. Not really what a rapper wants, we’d have thought. Still, Shaodow overcomes such obstacles with a confident performance of his literate and amusing tracks. Musically it’s superb, but Shaodow really wants to work on his stage patter, he comes off like a desperate Butlins comedian at times.
Thirty Two are repugnant. Ostensibly they’re metal, but the way the guitars chug through their chords with no sense of dynamics reminds us more of some twobit bar room blues band. At one point blue and red spotlights make the band look like they’re on one of those 80s 3D films; if only the music had the same illusion of depth.
Mondo Cada’s brutal grunge metal is just what we need to eradicate the memory of Thirty Two, and they deliver one of the best sets of the evening. Sludge riff bleurgh pounding psychedelic violence Eynsham psychosis rumbled: even sense and syntax cower before the might of Mondo.
Another unexpected treat comes in the shape of Joe Allen and Angharad Jenkins at the rather cramped QI bar. His songs are subtle and well-constructed, but it’s the fluid folky electric violin ladled over the top that really wins us over. It’s like a tiny bonsai Cropredy happening just for us! Joe might want to be careful that his neatly packaged angst doesn’t send him down the white slide to David Gray purgatory, but for now we’ll happily celebrate a great new voice in town.
The Colins Of Paradise is comfortably the worst band name at The Punt. They’re certainly no slouches as musicians, though, resolutely wheeling out light funk grooves with well-trained sax solos battling six string bass flourishes. If only it weren’t so horrifically trite and soulless, we’d be frugging away like anyone. Can we do our “Flaccid Jazz” joke again now, please?
It’s the vocals that make a lot of people wary of The Gullivers, but we think the bruised and awkward quality of Mark Byrne’s singing works rather well against the suburban punk thud of the music. Tonight’s performance is uneven, but lovable, like a gangly Dickensian urchin who’s grown out of his clothes.
Their music oscillates wonderfully between free improv dribbles and testifyin’ gospel rock, with occasional trudges into Tom Waits territory, and Mephisto Grande go down a storm at a crowded Purple Turtle. Much as we like them, it still feels more like half of SCFT than a proper band, but perhaps it’ll take time to heal the loss of one of our favourite Oxford groups.
Stornoway are possibly Oxford’s best band at the moment, and we love them. But when you’re listening to their delicate folk pop from the back of a packed Wheatsheaf, and not all the band are present, it’s hard to take much away from the experience.
And the other contender for top local band title comes from Borderville. If you tried to teach martians about rock music with nothing but videos of Tommy and the musical Buffy episode, a Rick Wakeman album and a scratchy 7” of “Ballroom Blitz” they’d probably turn out performances just like Borderville. Fun though Sexy Breakfast were it’s great to see Joe finding songs that really suit his voice, and a band who can be theatrical without being smug (well, OK, maybe a tiny bit smug). “Glambulance” calls for fists in the air, and for one night The Music Market is a Broadway theatre.
We only catch the last tune by The Mile High Young Team. It sounds pretty good, and certainly better than their rather overly polished recordings. It’s not much of response we suppose, but then Punt should leave you confused, dizzy, and possibly slightly drunk.
THE PUNT 2007, various venues
Jessica Goyder’s Joni-Mitchell-meets-jazz tunes are as light, sweet and frothy as a cappuccino topping, and she plays them with great dexterity. But we’re telling you this because we already knew it, not because we heard it at The Punt, where a weedy PA turned Jessica’s Minnie Ripperton scatting into the sound of an adenoidal, constipated Clanger. I know Borders is hardly Knebworth, but really the sound of pages turning shouldn’t be as loud as the music…
Mr. Shaodow seems to have found the volume control, but has inadvertently stumbled across a slapback sound that would make Sun Studios cream. Not really what a rapper wants, we’d have thought. Still, Shaodow overcomes such obstacles with a confident performance of his literate and amusing tracks. Musically it’s superb, but Shaodow really wants to work on his stage patter, he comes off like a desperate Butlins comedian at times.
Thirty Two are repugnant. Ostensibly they’re metal, but the way the guitars chug through their chords with no sense of dynamics reminds us more of some twobit bar room blues band. At one point blue and red spotlights make the band look like they’re on one of those 80s 3D films; if only the music had the same illusion of depth.
Mondo Cada’s brutal grunge metal is just what we need to eradicate the memory of Thirty Two, and they deliver one of the best sets of the evening. Sludge riff bleurgh pounding psychedelic violence Eynsham psychosis rumbled: even sense and syntax cower before the might of Mondo.
Another unexpected treat comes in the shape of Joe Allen and Angharad Jenkins at the rather cramped QI bar. His songs are subtle and well-constructed, but it’s the fluid folky electric violin ladled over the top that really wins us over. It’s like a tiny bonsai Cropredy happening just for us! Joe might want to be careful that his neatly packaged angst doesn’t send him down the white slide to David Gray purgatory, but for now we’ll happily celebrate a great new voice in town.
The Colins Of Paradise is comfortably the worst band name at The Punt. They’re certainly no slouches as musicians, though, resolutely wheeling out light funk grooves with well-trained sax solos battling six string bass flourishes. If only it weren’t so horrifically trite and soulless, we’d be frugging away like anyone. Can we do our “Flaccid Jazz” joke again now, please?
It’s the vocals that make a lot of people wary of The Gullivers, but we think the bruised and awkward quality of Mark Byrne’s singing works rather well against the suburban punk thud of the music. Tonight’s performance is uneven, but lovable, like a gangly Dickensian urchin who’s grown out of his clothes.
Their music oscillates wonderfully between free improv dribbles and testifyin’ gospel rock, with occasional trudges into Tom Waits territory, and Mephisto Grande go down a storm at a crowded Purple Turtle. Much as we like them, it still feels more like half of SCFT than a proper band, but perhaps it’ll take time to heal the loss of one of our favourite Oxford groups.
Stornoway are possibly Oxford’s best band at the moment, and we love them. But when you’re listening to their delicate folk pop from the back of a packed Wheatsheaf, and not all the band are present, it’s hard to take much away from the experience.
And the other contender for top local band title comes from Borderville. If you tried to teach martians about rock music with nothing but videos of Tommy and the musical Buffy episode, a Rick Wakeman album and a scratchy 7” of “Ballroom Blitz” they’d probably turn out performances just like Borderville. Fun though Sexy Breakfast were it’s great to see Joe finding songs that really suit his voice, and a band who can be theatrical without being smug (well, OK, maybe a tiny bit smug). “Glambulance” calls for fists in the air, and for one night The Music Market is a Broadway theatre.
We only catch the last tune by The Mile High Young Team. It sounds pretty good, and certainly better than their rather overly polished recordings. It’s not much of response we suppose, but then Punt should leave you confused, dizzy, and possibly slightly drunk.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Truck 2008 Pt 3
And onto Sunday...Oh, This Is Seb Clarke turned out to be anything but, but I never found out who they actually were, so I'm leaving that bit in.
Chefs will tell you that many different dishes can be created with the same base sauce. Mephisto Grande are like that. As a duo they’ve got the basic recipe down - free reed drones, brimstone Beefheart growls and bludgeoning rhythms – but today they’re augmented with skronking sax and members of The Oxford Gospel Choir for a dense slab of Pentecostal rock, featuring the best cover of “Frere Jacques” ever. If the vicar of Steventon had got on stage during this and announced we were all going to hell, the local church would have been filled with repentant sinners by tea time.
This Is Seb Clarke have some excellent burgundy Beatles suits, and create some decent straight up trio rock that’s a bit like half of The Hives, but the programme had promised us 12 piece horn driven heaven, so we slope off feeling hard done by.
If anyone wasn’t sure what a kora was, Jali Filli Cissokho explained it to us; he then explained how one plays it with four digits, just in case nobody was yet flawed by the man’s talents. The rippling cascades of notes he plucks from this African harplike instrument are as succulent as they are impressive, and can seem heartbeat simple or cortex complex depending on where one focuses. Perhaps his voice, though sweet, is a little limited, but then again as he comes from the story-telling griot tradition, maybe understanding the lyrics would have helped. It hardly matters when you can lose your Sunday afternoon exhaustion in this impeccable playing. If you saw anyone walking round Truck with their jaws dangling open, they probably hadn’t got over Cissokho’s set yet.
On Sunday the Pavilion was given over to Piney Gir. Not wanting to venture in between sets in case she makes us do cross stitch or dress up as a raccoon, we edge into a strange hinterland at the edge of the campsite, full of non-musical attractions, including craft demonstrations, a cycle powered entertainment system (sadly closed at the time) and a little hut where a frankly petrifying man attempted to draw us in for some lessons in “woooing” (sic) whilst scratchy easy listening played. We also get to see the large number of Truckers who like to hang out in the campsite all day, playing footie and strumming guitars: quite an expensive way to camp out with your mates, but each to their own. In search of another subset of Truckers, some children explain that the playbus is fun, but would be better if it drove around, and that Truck is a good festival because they “saw a tractor”.
We return in time for Bordervillle, who are excellently dressed as if they’ve come from a time travelling wedding, except Joe Swarbrick who looks like a boy band Edward Scissorhands. Dead Kids should be watching this outstanding set – this is how you do pastiche and genre melding. In some ways it’s a parody of 70s pomp bands like Queen, and Broadway musicals, but it’s also a celebration of what can be great about those things, presented with imagination and a well-rehearsed flow. The sort of arch and theatrical act that makes you want to describe them like a Victorian playbill: “A vaudevillian confection of sonorous majesty” it is, then.
Luke Smith’s set is delayed because of generator problems. Doesn’t matter, we’re happy just to stand and listen to him talk, seeing as he’s the most erudite and charming man at the festival. The music might well be somewhat derriere garde, stemming from music hall ditties and 70s MOR, but as an extension of Luke’s chummy personality it works perfectly. Nobody else here would pen a tune like “You’ll Never Stop People Being Gits”, ridicule their bassist, take the piss out of audience singalongs, and still come out looking like the nicest man in town.
We’ve always admired KTB, but never really been that excited by her. Good, therefore, to see her as part of the excellent folk quartet Little Sister, doling out melismatic harmonies, acoustic tapestries and hot Appalachian fiddle licks. They somehow manage to get some of the audience doing forward rolls round the field, which is no mean feat when we’re this tired.
Les Clochards are sadly not mentioned in the programme, and misadvertised outside the Pub Tent, so it’s not surprising they start playing to a mere scattering of listeners. Their tasty Gallic café indie sound soon draws in passers by, however, because nobody could resist that mix of syrupy vocal, French accordion and fluid bass. Also, that’s Peter Momtchiloff from Talulah Gosh and Heavenly on guitar, should you have your I Spy Book Of Jangle Pop on you.
“Come and see The Nuns tomorrow”, says a flier tout on Saturday. Your smug reviewer answers, “OK, as long as they’re an all female tribute to The Monks”. “Yes,” she replies, “yes they are.” Put us in our place, didn’t it? If you don’t know who The Monks are, you’re stupid. They are one of the finest alternative rock bands, and quite possibly the first. They started in Germany in the early 60s in an attempt to create an anti-matter Beatles, and they’ve influenced approximately everyone who’s any good, ever. They’re the only band better than The Fall, according to Mark E Smith, which is unprecedented praise. The Nuns’ set is good, but doesn’t quite capture the full distorted grandeur of the originals. A celebration of, rather than an alternative to, The Monks.
Neil Halstead, from Slowdive, feels somewhat guilty about playing acoustic guitar on the shoegazing bill. “I don’t even have a pedal,” he admits. No matter as he performs lovely smoky wisps of song that keeps the small crowd happy. Nothing onstage to explain why he’s held in reverence, perhaps, but something rather lovely all the same.
Scotland’s Camera Obscura are so twee and melodic, we imagine that Swiss Concrete are backstage with their diary open ready to catch them. At times they’re like The Sundays, but more twee, or like The Cowboy Junkies, but more twee. They’re good, but they’re really twee. There’s no synonym for “twee” so we’d better stop now.
Ulrich Schnauss fills the barn with delicious vox humana keyboard washes and synth squiggles, which are underpinned by drum parts, until he sounds like a cross between Klaus Schulze and 808 State. The trouble is that the beats sound kind of tired, especially in the Barn’s reverb, and it may have been better to let the drones do the talking.
Chefs will tell you that many different dishes can be created with the same base sauce. Mephisto Grande are like that. As a duo they’ve got the basic recipe down - free reed drones, brimstone Beefheart growls and bludgeoning rhythms – but today they’re augmented with skronking sax and members of The Oxford Gospel Choir for a dense slab of Pentecostal rock, featuring the best cover of “Frere Jacques” ever. If the vicar of Steventon had got on stage during this and announced we were all going to hell, the local church would have been filled with repentant sinners by tea time.
This Is Seb Clarke have some excellent burgundy Beatles suits, and create some decent straight up trio rock that’s a bit like half of The Hives, but the programme had promised us 12 piece horn driven heaven, so we slope off feeling hard done by.
If anyone wasn’t sure what a kora was, Jali Filli Cissokho explained it to us; he then explained how one plays it with four digits, just in case nobody was yet flawed by the man’s talents. The rippling cascades of notes he plucks from this African harplike instrument are as succulent as they are impressive, and can seem heartbeat simple or cortex complex depending on where one focuses. Perhaps his voice, though sweet, is a little limited, but then again as he comes from the story-telling griot tradition, maybe understanding the lyrics would have helped. It hardly matters when you can lose your Sunday afternoon exhaustion in this impeccable playing. If you saw anyone walking round Truck with their jaws dangling open, they probably hadn’t got over Cissokho’s set yet.
On Sunday the Pavilion was given over to Piney Gir. Not wanting to venture in between sets in case she makes us do cross stitch or dress up as a raccoon, we edge into a strange hinterland at the edge of the campsite, full of non-musical attractions, including craft demonstrations, a cycle powered entertainment system (sadly closed at the time) and a little hut where a frankly petrifying man attempted to draw us in for some lessons in “woooing” (sic) whilst scratchy easy listening played. We also get to see the large number of Truckers who like to hang out in the campsite all day, playing footie and strumming guitars: quite an expensive way to camp out with your mates, but each to their own. In search of another subset of Truckers, some children explain that the playbus is fun, but would be better if it drove around, and that Truck is a good festival because they “saw a tractor”.
We return in time for Bordervillle, who are excellently dressed as if they’ve come from a time travelling wedding, except Joe Swarbrick who looks like a boy band Edward Scissorhands. Dead Kids should be watching this outstanding set – this is how you do pastiche and genre melding. In some ways it’s a parody of 70s pomp bands like Queen, and Broadway musicals, but it’s also a celebration of what can be great about those things, presented with imagination and a well-rehearsed flow. The sort of arch and theatrical act that makes you want to describe them like a Victorian playbill: “A vaudevillian confection of sonorous majesty” it is, then.
Luke Smith’s set is delayed because of generator problems. Doesn’t matter, we’re happy just to stand and listen to him talk, seeing as he’s the most erudite and charming man at the festival. The music might well be somewhat derriere garde, stemming from music hall ditties and 70s MOR, but as an extension of Luke’s chummy personality it works perfectly. Nobody else here would pen a tune like “You’ll Never Stop People Being Gits”, ridicule their bassist, take the piss out of audience singalongs, and still come out looking like the nicest man in town.
We’ve always admired KTB, but never really been that excited by her. Good, therefore, to see her as part of the excellent folk quartet Little Sister, doling out melismatic harmonies, acoustic tapestries and hot Appalachian fiddle licks. They somehow manage to get some of the audience doing forward rolls round the field, which is no mean feat when we’re this tired.
Les Clochards are sadly not mentioned in the programme, and misadvertised outside the Pub Tent, so it’s not surprising they start playing to a mere scattering of listeners. Their tasty Gallic café indie sound soon draws in passers by, however, because nobody could resist that mix of syrupy vocal, French accordion and fluid bass. Also, that’s Peter Momtchiloff from Talulah Gosh and Heavenly on guitar, should you have your I Spy Book Of Jangle Pop on you.
“Come and see The Nuns tomorrow”, says a flier tout on Saturday. Your smug reviewer answers, “OK, as long as they’re an all female tribute to The Monks”. “Yes,” she replies, “yes they are.” Put us in our place, didn’t it? If you don’t know who The Monks are, you’re stupid. They are one of the finest alternative rock bands, and quite possibly the first. They started in Germany in the early 60s in an attempt to create an anti-matter Beatles, and they’ve influenced approximately everyone who’s any good, ever. They’re the only band better than The Fall, according to Mark E Smith, which is unprecedented praise. The Nuns’ set is good, but doesn’t quite capture the full distorted grandeur of the originals. A celebration of, rather than an alternative to, The Monks.
Neil Halstead, from Slowdive, feels somewhat guilty about playing acoustic guitar on the shoegazing bill. “I don’t even have a pedal,” he admits. No matter as he performs lovely smoky wisps of song that keeps the small crowd happy. Nothing onstage to explain why he’s held in reverence, perhaps, but something rather lovely all the same.
Scotland’s Camera Obscura are so twee and melodic, we imagine that Swiss Concrete are backstage with their diary open ready to catch them. At times they’re like The Sundays, but more twee, or like The Cowboy Junkies, but more twee. They’re good, but they’re really twee. There’s no synonym for “twee” so we’d better stop now.
Ulrich Schnauss fills the barn with delicious vox humana keyboard washes and synth squiggles, which are underpinned by drum parts, until he sounds like a cross between Klaus Schulze and 808 State. The trouble is that the beats sound kind of tired, especially in the Barn’s reverb, and it may have been better to let the drones do the talking.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Charlbury Beret
Charlbury is ace, because it's completely free, put on for the hell of it, and about 20 minutes on the train from Oxford centre, even though it feels like it's lost somewhere in the 1920s. Always challenging to review because you have to balance the celebration of a great free day out with the fact that some of the music is, inevitably, a bit duff.
The punters tend to be 50% dyed in the wool Oxford live music fans, 25% local retirees who've popped along for a day out, and 25% 16 year old identikids from the surrounding villages, mashing themselves on cider and skunk, and kicking shite out of each other by Saturday evening. Heh heh, brilliant.
The exhaustive text below formed part of Oxfordbands' report of the day. I see I accidentally wander between the 1st person singular and plural quite randomly in this review, but I left it in, because that sort of thing amuses me. Banjo Boy is real, by the way, we really did meet him & drink his frightening homebrewed ale
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FREE FESTIVAL, 2008
SATURDAY
Charlbury’s a grand mix of your favourite local scenesters, some less well known (to us, anyway) Oxon musicians, and some random bands from places like Essex and Leeds, who frankly must wonder where in the name of holy fuck they are. We love it.
First up is the Leeds contingent, who kindly save us the effort of writing a review by calling themselves Dead Leg, which captures their clumsy loping pretty well. They offer litely funky Zep rock with a good drummer and a silly rawk vocal, and then they offer some more. Was that first number called “Batten Down The Hatches”? Oh yes! Does the following tune boast the refrain “Wanderlust, wanderlust, wooh yeah”? Damn straight! Do they actually claim their slow tune is “One for the ladies”? Scout’s honour! Do we grudgingly like them just a teensy bit? Yeah, they’re a laugh, we can imagine far worse openers. In fact, their attempt at rock hedonism falls wide of the mark in a lovably British way…perhaps in the same way that our dreams of musically freaking out with Mother Nature end up with us huddled in a kagoule opposite a train station…
Over on the other stage (the eccentric placing of the toilets means that everybody at this festival will see something on the Second Stage, which we rather like the idea of) Huck shimmers out ghostly slivers of country/blues laments, which would be rather lovely if the sound wasn’t mired in some horrible mid-range bubble, and his tuning wasn’t so wonky. He’s probably shooting for subtle, fragmented and delicate, but he’s ended up stuck in a maudlin and minimal country marsh. Can we do our Boggy Prince Billy joke now, please?
“Family time is over, people”. So claims Eliza from Ivy’s Itch, and her stunning orc maiden operatics doubtless send children round the festival running for cover, except the ones that think they’ve ended up in Where The Wild Things Are. It’s easy for frequenters of seedy basement gigs like us to forget just how powerful playing bloody loud can be, and after all that hatch battening nonsense from earlier, Ivy’s Itch sear across the field with tautly reined in sludge rock and artfully controlled cacophony. This is probably the best we’ve seen them, and it’s certainly the most cohesive – oddly we find ourselves thinking of Nirvana, especially their tribute to dumbass rock, “Aero Zepellin”.
Dave Oates is a big hearted, open throated, string strummin’, Van Zandt coverin’ classic singer-songwriter, who is perfectly adequate, but sounds woefully 2D after Ivy’s Itch, although some mandolin accompaniment enlivens proceedings. He also alleges that “Folsom Prison Blues” was written by Cash especially for the famous prison concert, which is about 15 years wide of the mark; whenever he wrote it, he certainly didn’t write what the lead guitar plays. Oops.
By the time Jamie Foley starts up, we’re beginning to really miss the Beard Museum input into this second stage, because we seem to be confronted by an average open mic night instead of the well picked selection of performers we saw last year. His performance isn’t terrible, but his sloppy pub voice is so far from “strong” and “unique” that we start to think that the programme writer must have been on a bet. Or have been Jamie Foley.
Nagatha Krusti bring some straight up rocking with touches of rap, metal and ska, but most importantly they bring a bit of blooming fun to the Second Stage. We’d be lying if se said it was the tidiest and tightest set we’ve ever witnessed (it’s more a sort of Vague Against The Machine), but we are definite converts. They have some nicely silly cowbell too, which always tickles our fancy.
Much as we’ve always respected Rubber Duck’s ability, we’ve never quite been convinced; they’ve always sounded somewhat polite and tinny, whereas we expect sweat from our funk bands. Blood, sweat and beers. Out in the open air, however, the buzzing synths and the chirpy rhythms seem not only intoxicating but a neat companion to Nagatha Krusti. “Emotional Revolution” proves itself to be a solid gold toe-tapper, and we leave with our mind changed.
Some bands choose their covers to show their versatility, some do it for a laugh, whilst some just play the song they wish they’d written and make no pretences about how much they’ve nicked in the rest of the set: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as evidence of this last breed, I give you billypure and their Waterboys tune. Still, there’s nothing much wrong with admitting your influences, and billypure throw out some well put together folk rock songs with some useful fiddle interjections. The children love it, and there are moshing toddlers everywhere we look, which lifts the spirits. Careful though, kids: The Waterboys are harmless, but they can lead to stronger and more deadly vices, such as The Levellers. Tell a grownup if anyone offers you a dog on a string.
script’s opening tune is a tasty mixture of Blondie and Morrissey. Songs like this are superb, and belie the fact that this is the first gig for a new lineup (which is good, because the rhythm section is the best it’s been since script’s very early days); at other times, however everything gets a little timid, such as when four harmonising vocalists are managing to make less impact than one. script’s Pete Moore is the songwriting equal to anyone on the bill today, and tracks like “City Limits” are arresting, but they could do with loosening up if they want to capture the passing toilet-bound punter. File with The Mile High Young Team, and expect some great music from this line-up (if it can stay together for more than 10 minutes, that is).
If Ivy’s Itch played like demons, Mephisto Grande play like a vengeful Old Testament God with a serious hangover. As they intone “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as a prelude to their own gospel-inflected gasoline rock, we imagine Mephisto as the soundtrack to judgement day. You can just see them bashing out some blues dirges behind St Peter whilst he checks his ledgers, Liam gappily grinning, shaking his head and pointing downwards.
Some lads are beating the shite out of each other, the rain has started in earnest and the bar’s closed: this looks like a job for…Smilex! Just as we consider sneaking off home our spirits are lifted with what is possibly the best set we’ve ever seen from Oxford’s cartoon punk crusaders. Lee’s unfortunate haircut is Travis Bickle via the council gardeners, but everything else about this set is perfect, from the high octane thump of the rhythm section, to the preposterous guitar heroics and the expected vocal tomfoolery. Smilex only really have one song, but it’s a cracker, and it’s testament to their honed craft that no matter how many times we see them, we always leave happy (and covered in beer if we’re too near the stage): in fact, could there be mileage in describing Smilex as the punk equivalent of Redox? In truth, there’s not really mileage in anything except shaking your head like a loon and just going along with the whole gloriously silly rock blancmange that is Smilex. Oh look, even the rain’s stopped.
The punters tend to be 50% dyed in the wool Oxford live music fans, 25% local retirees who've popped along for a day out, and 25% 16 year old identikids from the surrounding villages, mashing themselves on cider and skunk, and kicking shite out of each other by Saturday evening. Heh heh, brilliant.
The exhaustive text below formed part of Oxfordbands' report of the day. I see I accidentally wander between the 1st person singular and plural quite randomly in this review, but I left it in, because that sort of thing amuses me. Banjo Boy is real, by the way, we really did meet him & drink his frightening homebrewed ale
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FREE FESTIVAL, 2008
SATURDAY
Charlbury’s a grand mix of your favourite local scenesters, some less well known (to us, anyway) Oxon musicians, and some random bands from places like Essex and Leeds, who frankly must wonder where in the name of holy fuck they are. We love it.
First up is the Leeds contingent, who kindly save us the effort of writing a review by calling themselves Dead Leg, which captures their clumsy loping pretty well. They offer litely funky Zep rock with a good drummer and a silly rawk vocal, and then they offer some more. Was that first number called “Batten Down The Hatches”? Oh yes! Does the following tune boast the refrain “Wanderlust, wanderlust, wooh yeah”? Damn straight! Do they actually claim their slow tune is “One for the ladies”? Scout’s honour! Do we grudgingly like them just a teensy bit? Yeah, they’re a laugh, we can imagine far worse openers. In fact, their attempt at rock hedonism falls wide of the mark in a lovably British way…perhaps in the same way that our dreams of musically freaking out with Mother Nature end up with us huddled in a kagoule opposite a train station…
Over on the other stage (the eccentric placing of the toilets means that everybody at this festival will see something on the Second Stage, which we rather like the idea of) Huck shimmers out ghostly slivers of country/blues laments, which would be rather lovely if the sound wasn’t mired in some horrible mid-range bubble, and his tuning wasn’t so wonky. He’s probably shooting for subtle, fragmented and delicate, but he’s ended up stuck in a maudlin and minimal country marsh. Can we do our Boggy Prince Billy joke now, please?
“Family time is over, people”. So claims Eliza from Ivy’s Itch, and her stunning orc maiden operatics doubtless send children round the festival running for cover, except the ones that think they’ve ended up in Where The Wild Things Are. It’s easy for frequenters of seedy basement gigs like us to forget just how powerful playing bloody loud can be, and after all that hatch battening nonsense from earlier, Ivy’s Itch sear across the field with tautly reined in sludge rock and artfully controlled cacophony. This is probably the best we’ve seen them, and it’s certainly the most cohesive – oddly we find ourselves thinking of Nirvana, especially their tribute to dumbass rock, “Aero Zepellin”.
Dave Oates is a big hearted, open throated, string strummin’, Van Zandt coverin’ classic singer-songwriter, who is perfectly adequate, but sounds woefully 2D after Ivy’s Itch, although some mandolin accompaniment enlivens proceedings. He also alleges that “Folsom Prison Blues” was written by Cash especially for the famous prison concert, which is about 15 years wide of the mark; whenever he wrote it, he certainly didn’t write what the lead guitar plays. Oops.
By the time Jamie Foley starts up, we’re beginning to really miss the Beard Museum input into this second stage, because we seem to be confronted by an average open mic night instead of the well picked selection of performers we saw last year. His performance isn’t terrible, but his sloppy pub voice is so far from “strong” and “unique” that we start to think that the programme writer must have been on a bet. Or have been Jamie Foley.
Nagatha Krusti bring some straight up rocking with touches of rap, metal and ska, but most importantly they bring a bit of blooming fun to the Second Stage. We’d be lying if se said it was the tidiest and tightest set we’ve ever witnessed (it’s more a sort of Vague Against The Machine), but we are definite converts. They have some nicely silly cowbell too, which always tickles our fancy.
Much as we’ve always respected Rubber Duck’s ability, we’ve never quite been convinced; they’ve always sounded somewhat polite and tinny, whereas we expect sweat from our funk bands. Blood, sweat and beers. Out in the open air, however, the buzzing synths and the chirpy rhythms seem not only intoxicating but a neat companion to Nagatha Krusti. “Emotional Revolution” proves itself to be a solid gold toe-tapper, and we leave with our mind changed.
Some bands choose their covers to show their versatility, some do it for a laugh, whilst some just play the song they wish they’d written and make no pretences about how much they’ve nicked in the rest of the set: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as evidence of this last breed, I give you billypure and their Waterboys tune. Still, there’s nothing much wrong with admitting your influences, and billypure throw out some well put together folk rock songs with some useful fiddle interjections. The children love it, and there are moshing toddlers everywhere we look, which lifts the spirits. Careful though, kids: The Waterboys are harmless, but they can lead to stronger and more deadly vices, such as The Levellers. Tell a grownup if anyone offers you a dog on a string.
script’s opening tune is a tasty mixture of Blondie and Morrissey. Songs like this are superb, and belie the fact that this is the first gig for a new lineup (which is good, because the rhythm section is the best it’s been since script’s very early days); at other times, however everything gets a little timid, such as when four harmonising vocalists are managing to make less impact than one. script’s Pete Moore is the songwriting equal to anyone on the bill today, and tracks like “City Limits” are arresting, but they could do with loosening up if they want to capture the passing toilet-bound punter. File with The Mile High Young Team, and expect some great music from this line-up (if it can stay together for more than 10 minutes, that is).
If Ivy’s Itch played like demons, Mephisto Grande play like a vengeful Old Testament God with a serious hangover. As they intone “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as a prelude to their own gospel-inflected gasoline rock, we imagine Mephisto as the soundtrack to judgement day. You can just see them bashing out some blues dirges behind St Peter whilst he checks his ledgers, Liam gappily grinning, shaking his head and pointing downwards.
Some lads are beating the shite out of each other, the rain has started in earnest and the bar’s closed: this looks like a job for…Smilex! Just as we consider sneaking off home our spirits are lifted with what is possibly the best set we’ve ever seen from Oxford’s cartoon punk crusaders. Lee’s unfortunate haircut is Travis Bickle via the council gardeners, but everything else about this set is perfect, from the high octane thump of the rhythm section, to the preposterous guitar heroics and the expected vocal tomfoolery. Smilex only really have one song, but it’s a cracker, and it’s testament to their honed craft that no matter how many times we see them, we always leave happy (and covered in beer if we’re too near the stage): in fact, could there be mileage in describing Smilex as the punk equivalent of Redox? In truth, there’s not really mileage in anything except shaking your head like a loon and just going along with the whole gloriously silly rock blancmange that is Smilex. Oh look, even the rain’s stopped.
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