Folk Festival: very good; Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio: just about passable; Duck Baker's Roots & Branches Of American Music show: ace. Busy weekend.
WITCHES – IN THE CHAOS OF A FRIDAY NIGHT
Confession time. I never understood the attraction of eeebleee. For all the talk of understated folk balladry, all I heard were half-hearted drum machine pop songs nervously performed, something like a mixture of OMD after they were interesting and a particularly timid rabbit. I appreciate I’m the probably the only person in the Thames Valley who thinks this, but I stand by my opinion.
Well, we can argue about that if you like – hey, it’s the internet, that’s what it’s for, arguments and porn – but it’s far more pressing at the moment to concentrate on the fact that this recording by the newly expanded version of Witches, is absolutely superb, against all my expectations. Melodic, intricate, noisy, emotionally direct, this record is a multi-layered joy. Hell, even the cover is lovely, a sticky cross between Robert Rauschenberg and Kurt Schwitters.
Early Belle & Sebastian is undoubtedly the first reference point within easy reach, but this only tells half the story. Yes, as on records such as The Boy With The Arab Strap, Witches marry tuneful frailty with ornate arrangements, and there’s a pungent whiff of sordid low life about the subject matter (is it me, or is there something sleazy going down in the distorted melee of “Liked The Teacher’s Hair”?), but Witches throw a whole slew of fresh ideas into the pot to brew up something enigmatic and individual. The title track welds a loping, trumpet-led tune onto a propulsive bassline, rather like Tindersticks indulging in a krautrock binge, and “Putting You Back In The Ground” is a pastoral ramble bolstered by a dirty percussion loop, which unexpectedly ends in a sort of lo-fi digi-dub rhythm. I never thought I’d jotting “Arab Strap” and “Zion Train” next to each other in review notes, but that’s Witches for you, full of surprising touches.
Perhaps the best track is “I Wish I Could Lead The Life You Lead”, which is odd because the wistful piano song at its centre is closest to the old eeebleee territory. Still, it boasts the strongest vocal performance from Dave Griffiths - who has never been the most agile singer in town, to be frank - not to mention some gorgeous analogue synth washes, the musical equivalent of a slow motion film of waves breaking, backed by a colliery band style brass part. This mournful, sepia song seems at odds with the title of the record: forget Friday night madness, this is the beautifully melancholic sound of sad Sundays lost in a musty library of arcana. Most importantly, all these varied sounds and influences are artfully deployed. Where many bands would shove elements together randomly (and eclecticism is never its own justification, any more than dogged traditionalism is), Witches build a composite and very moving structure. If this is witchcraft, direct me to the coven forthwith.
Showing posts with label Witches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Witches. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Scry Me A Riverside
I'm sure I went to the whole of Charlbury weekend in 2007, but for some reason I only reviewed one of the days, can't think why.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Postcode Rock
One of many festival reviews that I'll be posting from the archives in the next couple of weeks. Elements from this were used in Nightshift, but the tone of the printed review was rather different. I'm more cynical, essentially. But that's how you like it, you slavering dogs. Oh, happy new year, by the way.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Punt In The Mirror
So, this year's Nightshift Punt festival was announced yesterday, to the usual moans, arguments, and shockingly punctuated internet missives. In celebration, here's the first Punt I ever reviewed...or at least, the first full night I did (The Punt being a glorified Oxford music pub crawl). I did review 3 acts, I think, the year before, but that review has been lost, along with many others. Try to contain your devastation, please.
Parts of this review were printed in Nightshift and www.oxfordbands.com, but some are being seen for the first time. Try to contain your devastation, please.
THE PUNT, various venues, 10/5/06
For the truest response to the Punt’s opening acts, at Borders bookshop, we should probably get the coffee sippers and meandering browsers to write the review. Whilst the pastoral strummings of last year’s performers probably didn’t impinge too much on a quiet flick through a slim volume of verse, I suspect that this year’s more angular sets might have raised a few eyebrows amongst the store’s afternoon clientele. It’s not just his horizontal guitar technique that makes Ally Craig stand out from the acoustic crowd, it’s the fact that his intricate music owes far more to Slint and Sonic Youth (namechecked in the lyrics) than to Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. Some of his songs were as spiky and awkward as the Finnish verbs in the lexicons beside me, and his guitar playing had a tensile attack not normally associated with singer-songwriters, but Ally’s warm voice stopped anything getting overly austere and calculated. Perhaps there was one gratuitous falsetto break too many, but ultimately this was a perfect opening to the evening, from an outstanding local talent.
Ally stayed on stage and was joined by a ‘cellist, to accompany Rebecca Mosley. Her vocal style may be a little more in the acoustic singer tradition than Ally’s, but her intelligently awkward compositions continue the trend he set. It’s as if Rebecca is performing a set of soaring love songs, only to be undercut by Ally’s dissonant guitar picking and enveloped in sheets of wonderfully sour ‘cello. Occasionally the ornate arrangements get a little too much, like a room crowded with art deco furnishings, and not every song has the flowing ease of Ally’s set, but Rebecca’s prog acoustica approach is refreshing blast for anyone bored with the current proliferation of acoustic balladeers.
In the over lit and reverb drenched school hall that is Jongleurs, Witches’ trumpet led pop gets a bit oppressive, and starts to sound like a Northern colliery garage band. Perhaps their baroque arrangements are hard to reproduce live, or perhaps it’s the unfortunate booming acoustic that makes them sound like Belle & Sebastian playing Slowdive, but this performance can’t match the grandeur of Witches’ recordings. Things work best when they find some space, letting a subtle glockenspiel lead the tunes, and giving room to some surprisingly melodious vocals. It’s very good stuff, but hear them on record to get the full effect.
Speaking of being better on disc, here come Xmas Lights. It’s a paradox that metal, like hip hop and reggae, is a genre that relies in the passion and intensity of its performance, yet oddly tends to fare better in the studio than on the stage. Seeing as Xmas Lights boast local isolationist soundscaper Umair Chaudry in their lineup, they’ve set themselves an impossible task to recreate the claustrophobic intensity of their recordings live. But they do have a bloody good stab at it. As in stab, rend, tear and, quite possibly, devour. Xmas Lights produce some seriously brutal metal, the pummelling force of which is only matched by the underlying exactness of the construction. Not only that, their lead vocalist has got a serious scream in his armoury, which marks itself indelibly on your eardrums long after the set has concluded.
In a brief visit to The Purple Turtle we discover a few minutes of Dusty Sound System, who bring a nice, relaxed campfire feel to proceedings, as they drift unconcernedly into songs and openly wonder where the other members of the band can have got to. Nothing revolutionary, maybe, but I wish Goldrush could capture some of this lackadaisical attitude, it’s very hard to dislike.
What was I saying about live hip hop? Zuby gets it right, not overloading the performance, just getting back to the basics of rap: some head nodding loops and a tight MC in the spotlight. Whilst he doesn’t get the crowd he deserves, the emptiness of the room lets us hear Zuby in all his wordy glory (if there’s one thing that’s pointless, it’s rap where you can’t make out the rhymes). Big Speakers are great in their very British way, but it’s amazing to hear such assured mainstream rap in li’l old Oxford, and Zuby has all the braggadocio and swagger of American hip hop, plus he’s got the flow to match, shooting off quick fire rhymes with barely a pause. Not surprising that he advocates that we wear a “lyric-proof vest”, then. His sometime vocal accompanist is also a delight, curtailing an excellent, jerky style so as not to over egg the pudding. Too shiny and clean for some tastes, perhaps, but Zuby deserves support for bringing us the sort of music you won’t hear in Oxford every day.
And at the other end of the scale, we have the more abstract stylings of Asher Dust. Using beats with more than a hint of Aphex acid, interjecting some lovely raggafied singing and stalking the stage with his dapper hat, there’s a little hint of Buck 65 cabaret to AJ. Not that it’s all a joke – there’s a suppressed violence to the impassioned vocals for all the lo-fi feel of his stage show. At times it reaches a level of intensity to almost match the humid fug of The Wheatsheaf. Again, perhaps the live arena isn’t the best place to meet them, but Asher Dust boasts some fascinating compositions that switch styles without warning.
My mate advises me that 100 Bullets Back are like “The Pet Shop Boys crossed with Franz Ferdinand. They’re alright”. Well, that’s my review written, cheers very much. With stuttering new wave guitars, pumping synth lines and bouncy, shouty vocals there’s plenty to like about 100 Bullets Back, especially at this time of night, when the beers and the running around town start to take joint effect. The preppy look of the band gives them a slight 6th form common room feel, which is at once endearingly energetic and slightly forced. They may not be quite the sum of their parts, but the parts are so great it doesn’t matter a great deal, especially not on a night like this.
You’ve got to see a band that The Holiday Stabbings have described as “loud and a bit abstract”, so it’s Deguello next. The tempo is doomily slow, the riffs are monolithic, and the style is definitely Stoner. With extra stones. And such hair! It’s like the sweepings from a busy barber’s glued onto the skeletal remains of a metal gig. I can easily imagine a situation in which this band could eat us alive, but tonight it just doesn’t seem to fit together. I suspect that this music demands complete attention and immersion to work, and I fear my palette is getting a touch jaded by this point, but there’s a secret part of me that would rather be watching Phyal.
“Funk: jazz’s deformed cousin”. That’s how The Mighty Boosh described it, and there’s a lot of truth in this, which is why Jaberwok don’t hit the spot as well as they used to. Their acid funk instrumentals with widescreen Floyd moments are toe-tappingly decent, but they seem to have lost any sense of focus or development that they once had, which is where they could take a leaf from the jazz tome. It’s all impeccably performed and crowd pleasing, but somehow they’ve become rather unexcitingly easy on the ear. If they ever make elevators big enough for fifty people to dance stupidly in, I daresay Jaberwok will be on the PA.
“Easy on the ear” is a phrase you won’t often see connected to gabba massacre The Nailbomb Cults. The Sound Of Music and Lulu are sliced and diced into supersize me breakbeats and swathes of digital noise by one man and his musical Moulinex of destruction to impressive effect. The sneaking feeling that there could be more to this music than an endless string of mentalist tropes is easily counterbalanced by the density of the sound, the nearest musical equivalent to the Alien facehuggers that Oxford has to offer. It’s fitting that a set that mangles and samples such a vast array of sources should conclude what has been one of the most eclectic and varied Punts yet, and it proves yet again what a diverse and healthy scene we have at the moment.
Parts of this review were printed in Nightshift and www.oxfordbands.com, but some are being seen for the first time. Try to contain your devastation, please.
THE PUNT, various venues, 10/5/06
For the truest response to the Punt’s opening acts, at Borders bookshop, we should probably get the coffee sippers and meandering browsers to write the review. Whilst the pastoral strummings of last year’s performers probably didn’t impinge too much on a quiet flick through a slim volume of verse, I suspect that this year’s more angular sets might have raised a few eyebrows amongst the store’s afternoon clientele. It’s not just his horizontal guitar technique that makes Ally Craig stand out from the acoustic crowd, it’s the fact that his intricate music owes far more to Slint and Sonic Youth (namechecked in the lyrics) than to Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. Some of his songs were as spiky and awkward as the Finnish verbs in the lexicons beside me, and his guitar playing had a tensile attack not normally associated with singer-songwriters, but Ally’s warm voice stopped anything getting overly austere and calculated. Perhaps there was one gratuitous falsetto break too many, but ultimately this was a perfect opening to the evening, from an outstanding local talent.
Ally stayed on stage and was joined by a ‘cellist, to accompany Rebecca Mosley. Her vocal style may be a little more in the acoustic singer tradition than Ally’s, but her intelligently awkward compositions continue the trend he set. It’s as if Rebecca is performing a set of soaring love songs, only to be undercut by Ally’s dissonant guitar picking and enveloped in sheets of wonderfully sour ‘cello. Occasionally the ornate arrangements get a little too much, like a room crowded with art deco furnishings, and not every song has the flowing ease of Ally’s set, but Rebecca’s prog acoustica approach is refreshing blast for anyone bored with the current proliferation of acoustic balladeers.
In the over lit and reverb drenched school hall that is Jongleurs, Witches’ trumpet led pop gets a bit oppressive, and starts to sound like a Northern colliery garage band. Perhaps their baroque arrangements are hard to reproduce live, or perhaps it’s the unfortunate booming acoustic that makes them sound like Belle & Sebastian playing Slowdive, but this performance can’t match the grandeur of Witches’ recordings. Things work best when they find some space, letting a subtle glockenspiel lead the tunes, and giving room to some surprisingly melodious vocals. It’s very good stuff, but hear them on record to get the full effect.
Speaking of being better on disc, here come Xmas Lights. It’s a paradox that metal, like hip hop and reggae, is a genre that relies in the passion and intensity of its performance, yet oddly tends to fare better in the studio than on the stage. Seeing as Xmas Lights boast local isolationist soundscaper Umair Chaudry in their lineup, they’ve set themselves an impossible task to recreate the claustrophobic intensity of their recordings live. But they do have a bloody good stab at it. As in stab, rend, tear and, quite possibly, devour. Xmas Lights produce some seriously brutal metal, the pummelling force of which is only matched by the underlying exactness of the construction. Not only that, their lead vocalist has got a serious scream in his armoury, which marks itself indelibly on your eardrums long after the set has concluded.
In a brief visit to The Purple Turtle we discover a few minutes of Dusty Sound System, who bring a nice, relaxed campfire feel to proceedings, as they drift unconcernedly into songs and openly wonder where the other members of the band can have got to. Nothing revolutionary, maybe, but I wish Goldrush could capture some of this lackadaisical attitude, it’s very hard to dislike.
What was I saying about live hip hop? Zuby gets it right, not overloading the performance, just getting back to the basics of rap: some head nodding loops and a tight MC in the spotlight. Whilst he doesn’t get the crowd he deserves, the emptiness of the room lets us hear Zuby in all his wordy glory (if there’s one thing that’s pointless, it’s rap where you can’t make out the rhymes). Big Speakers are great in their very British way, but it’s amazing to hear such assured mainstream rap in li’l old Oxford, and Zuby has all the braggadocio and swagger of American hip hop, plus he’s got the flow to match, shooting off quick fire rhymes with barely a pause. Not surprising that he advocates that we wear a “lyric-proof vest”, then. His sometime vocal accompanist is also a delight, curtailing an excellent, jerky style so as not to over egg the pudding. Too shiny and clean for some tastes, perhaps, but Zuby deserves support for bringing us the sort of music you won’t hear in Oxford every day.
And at the other end of the scale, we have the more abstract stylings of Asher Dust. Using beats with more than a hint of Aphex acid, interjecting some lovely raggafied singing and stalking the stage with his dapper hat, there’s a little hint of Buck 65 cabaret to AJ. Not that it’s all a joke – there’s a suppressed violence to the impassioned vocals for all the lo-fi feel of his stage show. At times it reaches a level of intensity to almost match the humid fug of The Wheatsheaf. Again, perhaps the live arena isn’t the best place to meet them, but Asher Dust boasts some fascinating compositions that switch styles without warning.
My mate advises me that 100 Bullets Back are like “The Pet Shop Boys crossed with Franz Ferdinand. They’re alright”. Well, that’s my review written, cheers very much. With stuttering new wave guitars, pumping synth lines and bouncy, shouty vocals there’s plenty to like about 100 Bullets Back, especially at this time of night, when the beers and the running around town start to take joint effect. The preppy look of the band gives them a slight 6th form common room feel, which is at once endearingly energetic and slightly forced. They may not be quite the sum of their parts, but the parts are so great it doesn’t matter a great deal, especially not on a night like this.
You’ve got to see a band that The Holiday Stabbings have described as “loud and a bit abstract”, so it’s Deguello next. The tempo is doomily slow, the riffs are monolithic, and the style is definitely Stoner. With extra stones. And such hair! It’s like the sweepings from a busy barber’s glued onto the skeletal remains of a metal gig. I can easily imagine a situation in which this band could eat us alive, but tonight it just doesn’t seem to fit together. I suspect that this music demands complete attention and immersion to work, and I fear my palette is getting a touch jaded by this point, but there’s a secret part of me that would rather be watching Phyal.
“Funk: jazz’s deformed cousin”. That’s how The Mighty Boosh described it, and there’s a lot of truth in this, which is why Jaberwok don’t hit the spot as well as they used to. Their acid funk instrumentals with widescreen Floyd moments are toe-tappingly decent, but they seem to have lost any sense of focus or development that they once had, which is where they could take a leaf from the jazz tome. It’s all impeccably performed and crowd pleasing, but somehow they’ve become rather unexcitingly easy on the ear. If they ever make elevators big enough for fifty people to dance stupidly in, I daresay Jaberwok will be on the PA.
“Easy on the ear” is a phrase you won’t often see connected to gabba massacre The Nailbomb Cults. The Sound Of Music and Lulu are sliced and diced into supersize me breakbeats and swathes of digital noise by one man and his musical Moulinex of destruction to impressive effect. The sneaking feeling that there could be more to this music than an endless string of mentalist tropes is easily counterbalanced by the density of the sound, the nearest musical equivalent to the Alien facehuggers that Oxford has to offer. It’s fitting that a set that mangles and samples such a vast array of sources should conclude what has been one of the most eclectic and varied Punts yet, and it proves yet again what a diverse and healthy scene we have at the moment.
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