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?

Bank Data

The review of this year's Riverside is up at MIO. No arguments yet, but it's early days. Course, I like people moaning about my reviews, because it proves they're being read...yes, even idiots who don't understand what a review is are welcome to join the fun.

I did want to post the first paragraph and put the rest up 24 hours later, but the editor wasn't up for me fighting my petty battles on the front of his website. Pah.

I'll stick Sunday up in a day or two.



RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, CHARLBURY, 18-9/6/11


Riverside was brilliant because it was free and everyone had a good time and all the musicians were great and it was brilliant.










Right, is the coast clear, have they gone? You know, those people who can’t tell the difference between a review and a press release? That lot who don’t quite grasp that the best compliment you can pay a musician is actually to listen to them? The gaggle who do one of the absolute highlights of Oxfordshire’s music calendar a disservice by getting upset if someone dares admit that one of the performers was, perhaps, not that great?

Good, then we level headed people can get on with talking about the Charlbury Riverside festival 2011, always a beautifully run, welcoming event, and one that we organise our summer around because we’d hate to ever miss it. In some ways, it doesn’t spoil the event if the music is duff at Riverside but we must admit, this year the lineup was, pound for pound, the strongest it’s been for quite some years. And starting with Peerless Pirates certainly couldn’t dampen anybody’s spirits, even as the first of many showers blew across the festival. They play classic indie welded onto rugged, shanty-style basslines that justify the band’s name: think The Wedding Present with arrangements by Guybrush Threepwood. Not always painfully original – you don’t have to be Scott Bakula to make the quantum leap from their opening tune to “This Charming Man” – but they offer friendly, jolly music that inaugurates the festival almost as well as the near visible battle in compere Lee Christian not to say naughty words on the mike.

This year’s lineup on the second stage is definitely the strongest and most intriguing since the Beard Museum left the helm, and our first visit rewards us with one of the sets of the weekend. Last time we saw STEM, it was all acoustic guitars and bongos and it couldn’t have been more worthily earthy if the PA were powered by a tofu wind turbine. Now they’ve returned to their Neustar roots to give us fat, brooding trip hop in the vein of Portishead and Lamb. Emma Higgins has a richly soulful but mysteriously intimate voice, like Grace Jones whispering secrets in your ear over port and cigars, and John West’s electronics envelop her with dark wings of autumnal sound, that's often only a breakbeat away from early Moving Shadow material. Perhaps a tad too in thrall to their mid-90s influences, this is still a band that is worth investigating as soon as possible.

We cock a quick ear in the direction of Mundane Sands, whose expansive folk rock is played with relish and personality, before visiting the charmingly odd man selling the coffees. You want a tasty Americano and a string of confounding non-sequiturs, you won’t get a better option anywhere in England. Last year we began to wonder whether he was some sort of live theatre installation, so unexpected were his utterances. You wouldn’t get that at your corporate energy drink sponsored mega-fests, eh?

They ought to show videos of Samuel Zasada before every acoustic night and open mike session in the county, with a subtitle reading “This is what you’re aiming for; if all you’ve got are miserable sub-Blunt moans, go home and try again. Thank you”. There have been alterations and expansions to the Zasada lineup since our last meeting, but they can still imbue their tunes with a gravitas and texture that’s sadly lacking from nearly all of their peers.

The Black Hats have only really got one song. It’s a goodie, though, a slick new wave canter with an anthemic culture-yob chorus and the hint of some amphetamine ska lurking just below the surface. They play it a bunch of times today. We like it every time. Job done.

Like Samuel Zasada, Tamara Parsons-Baker has been showing up the paucity of talent in most acoustic performers with a powerful, dramatic voice and some bleakly imposing lyrics. The Martyrs is her new rhythm section, featuring colleagues form the recently disbanded Huck & The Handsome Fee (not to mention much-missed sludgehogs Sextodecimo). We like the fact that there is pain and bitterness evident in the songs, but the delivery is always melodically accessible; they sugar the pill like Oxford’s answer to The Beautiful South.

What’s that? No, we quite like The Beautiful South. No, honestly. Anyway, Tamara & The Martyrs don’t actually sound like them, they play a sort of gothic blues, it was just an analogy. Look, let’s make this easier, and move on to The Dirty Royals. No room for confusion here because they sound – and to a certain extent, look – like first album Blur. Not a band that has “develop sonically” at the top of the To Do list stuck to their fridge, maybe, but to dislike their mixture of upbeat indie and airy West coast psychedelia you’d need a cold, black heart and a suspicion of music in general. And we have both those, and we still enjoyed it.

We wander over the see Welcome To Peepworld, and are simply astonished by the first two songs we hear. Their semi-acoustic sound is cohesive and balanced, but like mid-period Dylan the songs are allusive and intriguing to keep you hooked as the music floats by. We’re just wondering how amazing it is that two vocalists as different yet as impressive as Tamara Parsons-Baker and Fi McFall could share a stage at a free provincial festival, and pulling out the thesaurus to look up “astounding”, when Welcome To Peepworld toss it all away. Why, why, why did they have to start the affected cod-Brazilian vocal trilling? What possessed them to do all the horrible, Morrisette trash with the lazy repetitive lyrics about bad relationships and the criminally uninteresting use of two good guitarists? We thought we’d found one of the best bands in Oxfordshire, but Peepworld broke out heart and we had to leave. No, no, it’s nothing, there’s just something in our eye...

Things are more reliable over on the main stage, with The Anydays. As the name suggests, they’re a band for all seasons. So long as that season is early summer. In North London. In 1964 or 1994. Again, this is a good band, but not one who are interested in pushing the envelope. In fact, they probably wouldn’t even open the envelope unless they knew it contained loads of lager and Chelsea boots and old Pye seven inches. But if ever there’s a place for well-made moddish rocking, that place has got to be a big field at a free festival. Even as we’re nodding along, we imagine somehow merging The Anydays, The Dirty Royals and The Black Hats, to turn three solid local bands into one world-beating Friday night behemoth.

Smilex are playing on the second stage, uncredited in the programme. If you don’t like Smilex, you should get a bit tired and a little damp, and walk over to find them playing a set just when you weren’t expecting it, and we reckon you’ll come out loving them. Days like this is what Smilex are for - well, this and Your Song - rousing flagging crowds with their irrepressible energy and remarkably well-made sleaze-punk. Each of their songs is like the quick, sharp tingle of pulling gaffer tape from your chest; can’t think where we got that image from, Lee.

Borderville are sort of the opposite of Smilex. They are a truly excellent band, but one whose music, for all the bow ties and bombast, works better on record, where the sensitive playing is evident and where it’s possible to relish the subtle melancholy beneath every epic composition. An evening in a field just doesn’t do them justice, the environment seems to demand more immediate gratification than they offer. It’s like putting P G Wodehouse on Mock The Week. A favourite act of ours, but not a set that we really got much out of.

And then it was home, because that’s what the transport dictated - the countryside’s all very well, but it’s nowhere near our bed. There was still Charly Coombes, The Rock Of Travolta and Leburn to go, all of whom we know to be highly reliable options. A very strong day of music, in a delightful setting, it’s pretty hard to find fault with that.

Riverside Is Painless

The harpsichord was once described as a "cage of flies". Apparently this is suposed to be a bad thing. Madness. I love a bit of harpsichord, me, the more like an insect prison the better.

RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, Mill Field, Charlbury, 20-1/6/09

Saturday

Back To Haunt Us, Part One: A year ago we saw Jeremy Hughes busking before the 2008 festival started, and suggested that he was better than many of the official artists. We’re certainly not deluded enough to think that his presence as half of Moon Leopard has anything to do with that observation, but they are the ideal opener to the festival, encapsulating the strengths of this year’s best bookings: approachable, handmade, rootsy, melodic and with a pleasing absence of pretension. The aforementioned Hughes (who looks like a gentle cross between a blasted hippy and Dumbledore’s understudy – you’d recognise him even if you don’t know him) adds chiming, lucent guitar lines to Julie Burrett’s rhythm and vocals on a selection of relaxed Americana tunes. The set might contain more noodles than Norris McWhirter’s chilli ramen, and Burrett’s voice may occasionally drop into a mildly grating whinny, but they do manage to turn “Big Yellow Taxi” into a subtle waft, hanging in the air like a Texarkana blacktop heathaze, and many moments of the performance are implausibly lovely.

The Inventions Of Jerry Darge is a glorious development on Moon Leopard’s opening gambit, taking us further into the mid-west, and playing an even more ethereal set. Theirs is a blurred, intoxicating sonic mist, sounding like a sleepy mixture of country balladry and vintage shoegaze. Gram Parsons fronts Slowdive, if you will, with added ‘cello and a guitar with tolling bells dangling from the headstock. A barely audible vocal even adds to the woozy effect. We’re so floored by the allegation that this is a Deguello side project that we check the programme twice and order a strong coffee.

Ah, yes, the coffee. Non-musical festival highlight is the excellently named Diplomat’s Coffee, served by a dapper, well-spoken chap with a gentility that belies the drizzly surroundings. Presumably a Rocher pyramid is available on demand. We chat about whether the toddlers in the crèche adjacent to his stand will prove louder and more difficult to handle than the musicians on the stage opposite. Probably a draw, all things considered.

Ex-members of Mondo Cada shock us slightly less than the Deguello boys with new act Ruins. They play deep fried, artery clogging rock, with plenty of passion and intensity. However, not only does the under-powered vocal mike cause them more detriment than Jerry Darge, but the bass and drums duo is becoming an increasingly over-stuffed corner of the rock spectrum, and they may have to come up with something else to make a mark. A decent listen all the same.

“No one can hear you scream”, alleges Thin Green Candles’ Elm Street referencing track. That’s as may be – it certainly sounds like none of the band can hear each other, such are the wild variations in tuning and time-keeping. But whilst “tidy”, or even “vaguely proficient”, are terms highly unlikely to be applied to TGC in the foreseeable future, their twisted, hallucinogenic, paranoid techno rock actually gains from being a bit out of whack. Listening to their set is like watching a 3D film without the special glasses – you’re not likely to follow the plot, but you might have a whale of a time all the same.

We’d completely forgotten we saw Jamie Foley’s adequate semi-acoustic rock combo, until we wrung the beer out of the notebook. That probably speaks volumes, though what we can actually recall was pleasant enough. The fader for the vocal channel seemed to have been located by this time, but the effect was negligible, as the singing was an incomprehensible slur somewhere between Damien Rice and Rab C Nesbitt. The last tune reminded us unexpectedly of Pearl Jam, and we conclude that it’s all decent, but not for us.

Music For Pleasure were forced to pull out of the gig, so Dave Bowmer is promoted to the main stage, widdling away on his Chapman stick, whilst a chum clatters about on a percussion rack that seems to primarily constructed from biscuit tins and washing up liquid bottles, placing him equidistant between Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Blue Peter’s Yvette Fielding. Pretty easy to ridicule this sort of polite mid-80s fusion (especially when they have a reggae tune celebrating hippy Volkswagen vans called – wait for it – “V Dub”), but the playing is able without being ostentatious, and the arrangements are intricate without being poncy, and Dave ends up as our surprise hit of the weekend.

“This does sound very heavy, but it’s certainly not classical,” says a man walking near us back towards the second stage, who has clearly misread the programme slightly. This turns out to be the sound of Punt favourites Desert Storm, who turn in some top notch, Pantera influenced metal. “Roaches feed on my brain,” growls Matt Ryan; we dare say, but they’ll probably find your black gravelly larynx less digestible.

There are three glaring reasons why you shouldn’t name your band Flutatious: 1) It’s a frankly unforgivable pun, 2) “Flautatious” would be more eloquent, if you really must go down that drab route, and 3) it’s liable to be misspelt in listings until the end of time. Lo and behold, the official Riverside T-shirt claims that “Flutations” played, although seeing as this was just one of a wopping seven errors, we suppose it’s immaterial. They’re a surprisingly good band, though, cooking up a crusty shuffle that loosely recalls Afro-Celt Soundsystem, with plenty of firy folky fiddle and (duh) flute. Unlikely to make the transition for balmy afternoon field to dank city centre basement well, but plenty of fun at the time.

Back To Haunt Us, Part Two: Just a few weeks ago we claimed that given a large enough festival stage, Inlight could make a huge impact. Well, OK, we didn’t find ourselves transported with bliss at the section of their set we caught, but it was a good listen. They do have a well thought out, wide-angled sound, that’s neither over-egged nor emptily bombastic, but once again we felt that the songs lacked depth, even if they were well-played. A note on the Wishing Tree read “I wish the world were one big sweet”. If you think like this, you’ll adore Inlight; if you find the very concept of a Wishing Tree to be fatuous claptrap, then you can come and scowl in the corner with us.

Back To Haunt US, Part Three: In last year's review we hoped that Death Of A Small Town (FKA script) could hold onto their rhythm section for long enough to get their wonderful baroque pop across to the people of Oxfordshire. Sadly personal issues mean that the whole band can’t be present today, but Pete Moore and Corinne Clark put in the effort and turn up with an unrehearsed set of songs for piano and guitar. Several thousand marks out of ten for not letting the organisers down, but the reserved, slightly hesitant set won’t be one for the annals.

A recent viewing of the 2004 Riverside DVD reminded us how good Smilex can be, but this year’s show blew that old recording out of the water. Recent claims that their show is becoming more grown up and less theatrical only serve to remind us that everything’s relative: yes, there is no full frontal nudity or bloodshed during the performance, but the rest of their comicbook punk maelstrom is all present and correct, thankfully. Mind you, Lee Christian’s eye-jarring lime shirt and purple satin jacket make him look like a gameshow host in Hades, and we almost prefer him half naked. Almost. Anyway, none of that matters when the music is so great, with sleazerock hooks tossed onto monumental glam punk rhythms, and Tom Sharp’s formidable guitar (his technical ability is sorely under-rated, but then again does a band that looks like a massacre in clown town want people stroking chins over their technique?). Even if they don’t like the music, locals can amuse themselves by shouting “Sorry, Trev” every time Lee swears.

Les Mix

This is the second review in which I've used the phrase "Suicide's plastic Elvis shimmy"! I think I just forgot the second time that I'd put it in a review already. I've also knowingly described Baby Gravy's sound as reminiscent of "Gwen Stefani's striplit mall pop" twice, and that was just because I like the sound of it. Sue me. I'll give you 100% of the income from both reviews, if you like.

SMILEX - SMILEX VS OXFORD (Quickfix Recordings)

Remix albums are alwaysa hall of mirrors for the listener, especially the reviewer, unless they're pretty deeply au fait with the styles of all involved: to whom, exactly, is one listening at any given moment, the mixer or the mixee? Smilex amplify the problem, because they haven't exactly released that much material in their own right as yet. In our case, there is an immediate difficulty, in that although we've enjoyed Smilex shows on a few occasions, they tend to blur into one big, damp maelstrom of rock noise and exposed flesh, laced once or twice with a few drops of blood. To be frank we don't recall precisely which song is which. None of this makes the LP any less enjoyable, but it does make the review process something of a minefield. Plus there's only a finite number of times we can type the words "Smilex remix" without it starting to look like joke Latin.

But enough of our problems. You could certainly imagine worse subjects for the remix treatment than Smilex, as their music has an immediately recognisable character, but is pretty simple in construction, all wham, bam thank you ladyboy pseudo-ma'am. This undoubtedly makes the pieces easier to deconstruct.

It's fascinating to see the different approaches on display, some adorning and accessorising the original music, while others rip it to shreds and stitch it back together in grotesque new forms. The first two mixes on the CD, perhaps wisely, choose the former option, boywithatoy sticking beats behind "Quickfix", and The Evenings turning "Sex 4 Sale" into a frenzied chipmunk cabaret. Conversely, The Gentleman Distortionist somehow manages to find a hands aloft, whistle crew pleaser in 16 second miniature "Kidz Klub 666", whereas The Beta Prophecy turn "P.V.C." into a crunchy industrial plod, something like Aphex Twin's "Ventolin" played at half speed. Most extreme of all is Sunnyvale's completely abstract attack on "Noize", which has Smilex reincarnated as tiny worms, crawling through the dense loam of some dank forest floor. It's absolutely superb, but the question remains whether this is a Smilex remix, or a new track sampling a few Smilex moments. A pointless question, we suppose. The Young Knives' mix of "She Won't Get out Of Bed", is one of the most intriguing on offer, surprisingly managing to sound very little like Smilex or TYK, merging a hissy disco pulse with touches of Suicide's plastic Elvis shimmy.

Ultimately Smilex Vs Oxford is rather an odd proposition if you;re looking for that elusive Smilex album, as most of the acts tend to pull the material too far from its source (and if you can tell that the three mixes of "Spike My Drink" are based on the same composition in a blind trial, you should probably just walk straight to the Oxford Music Faculty and pick up your doctorate). Having said that, as a listening experience, this is a wonderful twisted record, which works excellently as a snapshot of what Oxford's more leftfield electronic experimenters are up to: in fact, if there were something from nervous_testpilot and a representative from the My Initials Club label here, we'd almost have a prospectus for Oxford bleepery. Oh, and it's for charity too, raising money for the John Radcliffe's new Children's Hospital...though this record is likely to send most children into hiding under the bedclothes, wailing for the bad men to go away. On reflection, not enough reviews end like that.

Crepuscule's Out

Sorry, I'm busting for the loo, got to go.

THE EVENINGS – LET’S GO REMIXED (FREEDOM ROAD)


Local remix projects: collaborative fruit of a fertile scene, or the tarnish on the gate of the clique enclosure? Discuss with reference to the new Evenings remix album.

OK, we’ll spare you the sophomore essay for now, but it is a vexed question, as remix LPs rarely have any internal logic and often come with the lumpy, lopsided feel of a bootleg rather than the balanced, polished heft of a proper album. Most don’t even have the curatorial input of a compilation, as tracks are accrued at various times from disparate sources, which is especially true in the case of this CD, which was a few years in the making. But, despite the imperfections of the form, this is still an intriguing record, and even if it can’t claim to be as successful as Smilex’ recent mixfest, there are still some gems to be discovered.

Not least the very first track, which could well be the best on the entire album. King Of The Rumbling Spires takes “PA” and lays it out on a warm afternoon to meditate as a cowpoke ambles by at a country lope. It brings to mind long forgotten ambient “supergroup” FFWD (which consisted of members The Orb with Robert Fripp and Thomas Fehlmann) and even blissed out Sunday tea new agers Channel Light Vessel. Other successes must be Boy With A Toy’s ruination of “Golf Audience Reaction To Missed Putt” to a hellish miasma of loops (and if you think that’s a criticism, you don’t know us very well!) and nervous_testpilot’s Hammer House Of Hardcore cheap gothic remake of “Pink Breakfast”. The most conceptually intriguing selection is Wendy And The Brain’s take on “SHRR001”, a jokey spoken word interlude on the original album - the string of chopped samples and FX may not be entirely successful, but it’s a darn sight more amusing than the original flat gag.

At the less enticing end of the spectrum, Oliver Shaw doesn’t do much more than play a bit of guitar over the top of “Harness The Yearn” and Smilex don’t make a vast impact on “Lee The Way”, whereas the second mix of “Let’s Go” is…well, put it like this, we listened to this CD without checking the tracklist, so as to be completely impartial in our response, but it didn’t take us long to work out that this was Twizz Twangle’s effort. Huge chunks of the original are brutally intercut with uncomfortable loops from some 80s soul tune and what sound s like it could be R.E.M. Full marks for audacity, but you’ve got to conclude that this is a failure. Perhaps it’s inevitable that a man who’s gloriously incapable of playing a song the same way twice can’t grasp the idea of the remix?

Between these poles there’s much tuneful techno of a diverting nature, which is well worth a listen, even if it’s fails to live up to The Evenings’ wired wonder. Perhaps it’s because there’s a certain undertow of cheap cabaret about the band. From Mark Wilden’s original dream of a supper band called Tony Fucker & The Evenings to their occasional nod towards phone hold muzak melodies, there’s always been a ghost of some Murph & The Magictones monstrosity behind The Evenings’ music. It could be that upsetting the balance of the original material gives this cheese factor a little too much prominence, and thus the lovely “Minerals” finds itself transformed into two forgettable pieces of synth twiddle. Or it could be that in general remixes are on a hiding to nothing, as they either sound too much like the original to be worth it, or too much like the remixer to make much sense. Maybe only someone who’d never heard of The Evenings could give an honest appraisal of this record. Or The Evenings themselves, of course…

Smirk Gently's Holistic Invective Agency

I don't think I meant "titration" here, probably "clinical evaporation" would have been more accurate, but I'm not certain. Fuck chemistry, let's dance.

SMILEX/ HEADCOUNT/ BEELZEBOZO/ DEATH VALLEY RIDERS – Quickfix, Wheatsheaf, 10/7/09


Repetition, like excessive volume, is a musical trick that’s childishly easy to achieve, yet incredibly difficult to pull off convincingly. Death Valley Riders play huge, near static rock instrumentals, with a distant basis in metal, and the merest hint of goth in the bass effects, and come off like Einstellung divided by Nephilim. The ever-chugging longform tracks are doubtless supposed to be monumental, and in a way they are, but that isn’t always impressive: imagine the monolith in 2001 made of, not mysteriously sleek adamantine, but warm guacamole. Ultra-minimal music can be hypnotic, but it can also just be, you know, sort of…long.

Beelzebozo are the residue after a clinical hard rock titration – there’s nothing to their music but thumping drums, ceaseless riffs and silly outfits, leaving us wondering why so many other rockers try to dilute their sound with clumsy extraneous ornaments (rap breaks, hasty electronics, embarassing politics). The band’s Satan-raped conference delegate look, all blood-splattered shirts and battered nametags, is amusing, but doesn’t detract from some high quality rock taken at a stately pace. Glance at their website, and you’ll find it boasts more ideas than most bands get through in a lifetime: their music is harmless levity, but they take it very seriously, which is why we love them.

Three chunky lads playing sweary punk should be tedious, so the fact that Headcount are not only listenable, but also one of this county’s best acts, is frankly astounding. We call it The Tommy Cooper Ratio. So, of course we get lumpy clogged-artery punk frolics, but we get subtlety too, in Stef Hale’s surprisingly delicate drum embellishments (shades of Therapy?, perhaps) and Rob Moss’ increasingly melodic vocals. As befits a band that has been working hard for a decade, it’s admirably mature stuff, and even better, as Moss gives his arse an airing onstage, it’s played by admirably immature people.

The temptation before this gig was to cut up all our old Smilex reviews and stick the words back together in a random order. The downside of being vastly professional and reliable entertainers (and you should see Tom Sharp flying into the set, even though he’s sick as a dog), is that people can get immured to your charms. Intriguingly, this turns out to be a set of new and less familiar material, which allows us to focus once again on what a storming rock band Smilex is. We discover afresh how intense the rhythm section is, and how good Lee Christian can be at performing a song (even whilst he’s flailing about with his top off, like the grotesque child of Iggy Pop and Neil Hannon). A wonderful set by a band we shouldn’t take for granted. But don’t spit on us like that, Lee; Rob’s already brought one arse to the stage, no need to be another.

Render Unto Cesar Romero...

The last BBC review I have in my annals. There may be more I've lost; if you find one that I haven't posted, blah blah, who the fuck am I kidding? Anyway, it's not that good, except for the line about Hannon, N. & Pop, I. that I shamelessly recycled for a recent Smilex review.

SMILEX/AT RISK, Cellar, 11/04

At Risk certainly took me back. The play just the sort of music that lttle local bands used to play when I first sneaked underage into gigs some years ago. Sadly, I thought that this harmless, ever-so-slightly gothic, indie rock was dull at the time, and the intervening years have done nothing to change my opinion. At Risk are just very dull, unfortunately. They're not terrible, and they're no worse than any number of bands, but there isn't much to say about them. I fear that the songs are non-starters, but it may help if they played a little less sloppily and if the singer didn't employ an odd strangulated tone (imagine Avril Lavigne having a crack at Mark & Lard's tight-throat style). I need something exciting after that...I wonder whether Smilex will do the trick...?

I heard the recording of Smilex' "Sex 4 Sale" and I confess it didn't grab me. People told me that when I saw the live show I'd understand, and the Lee was an astounding frontman. Again, I'll admit to having my doubts: taking your shirt off and jumping about have pretty low mileage with me.

Anyway, I'm proud to admit I was completely wrong. Lee's antics are original and, seemingly, spontaneous, as he throws himself around the room, drenching the audience with water, looking like a tiny, horrific cross between Neil Hannon and Iggy Pop. Still, these shenanigans are really only a mild distraction, when there's music of such sleazy quality.

The rhythm section grabs every track with the insane ferocity of Cujo in a butcher's warehouse, providing a tight springboard for the eyeball-popping vocal howls. The real star, however, is the guitarist, who throws out squalls of sound that seem uncontrolled, but weave beautifully into the rhythmic twists of the songs. It's a paradoxical effect, like watching tornado with right angles. The audience soon forget the liquid being sprayed over them by an over-zealous singer, and concentrates on the searing rock missives.

Let's be realistic, this band won't change your life, but for 45 minutes they will make it much, much more fun. And probably much more damp.

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.