OxfordBands.com

 Recent Nightshift cover stars International Jetsetters are something of a local supergroup, featuring Loz from Ride, Mark Crozer and Fi McCall, who has guested with the Jesus & Mary Chain.

1.What do you think you sound like?

The Rolling Stones fronted by an angry Karen Carpenter trying to sound like The House of Love

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

We all do different things. Bert is a big star on the science circuit in Germany as his alter-ego Professor Neuberger; Paul is heavily into Morris Dancing; Loz is studying to be a classical composer; Fi makes sculptures of 1970s Children’s television characters out of papier-mache and I like to garden dressed in a full suit of armour. Only two of these facts are true but I’m not saying which ones.
3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

Well, I’m totally besotted with anything and everything that Bat For Lashes does. Haven’t bought the new one yet but her first album is one I listen to all the time. It’s got handclaps (which I sampled and used in a couple of tracks actually) and minimal instrumentation and her voice just gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I also heartily recommend Paul McCartney’s recent Fireman album. It is ‘well wicked’ as the youngsters say. Oh and Fleet Foxes album is bloody great too. That’s three in case you lost count.

4. Where did you get your band name from?

I came up with it ironically as at the time of conception the band (me and Bert) never went anywhere beyond the Kirtlington village boundary. Very quickly though the irony deepened as we started flying all over the world for one thing and another.
5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

I love Oxford for its flora and fauna and loathe it for its pissed-up rich kid students who seem to think they’re the height of original cool when they are vomiting on your car bonnet or throwing bags of flour at each other. Musically speaking Oxford is the bees knees for its eclectic and exciting music scene. In one city alone we have more great bands than most of the others put together.

Junkie Brush have supported punk legends Discharge at the Zodiac, headlined the Riverside Stage at Cornbury Festival and co-organised OxfordBands.com’s inaugural 5-a-side football tournament. Despite a Spinal Tap-esque revolving door of drummers, they finally found one alive and breathing after a 2two-year search and started gigging again at the end of 2008. They’re currently recording new material for a mini-album due for release in mid-2009.

1. What do you think you sound like?

Dragging an iron bath full of loose scrap metal uphill, while someone shouts obscenities and outrage at you. In musical terms I guess we’re loosely hardcore punk. Someone called us ’secret prog rockers’ once. We didn’t like that.

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

Create or recover from hangovers, wrangle computers, take pictures of light refracting through crystals.

3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

Our musical spectrum of tastes and influences is too vast to sum up in a pithy one liner. The fact that we choose to ignore most of them and play nasty punk is neither here nor there. We’d never come to a consensus on one album: however Rabid would say ‘anything by the Ruts or Killing Joke’, Big Tim is a closet hippy and would probably say something by Primus or Frank Zappa, and Jim doesn’t care as long as it’s horrible, loud and aggressive – try Napalm Death’s Time Waits for no Slave.

4. Where did you get your band name from?

A misunderstanding that turned out to be better than the original idea.

5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

Great scene, great bands, lots of diversity, but no-one seems to own their own gear and never asks, but assumes, they can use yours.

The Gullivers reckon they ‘don’t sound like they used to, the energetic punk of youth now replaced by a more solemn and rewarding blend of reverby post rock-influenced indie pop.’

1.What do you think you sound like?

Least favourite question ever. Big, swirling, beautiful and melancholic.

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

Think about making music, work, promote Three Blind Mice nights, go to the Cellar and meet people who we nod at in vague recognition the next week, dance, take exams – that’s about everything.

3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

Just one? It’d be very easy to say Alligator by The National but I think Turn On The Bright Lights by Interpol and Takk by Sigur Ros have influenced us most, mainly due to the way a particular mood and atmosphere runs through and defines each of them (don’t care if that’s cheating).

4. Where did you get your band name from?

From reading A Clockwork Orange: it’s not Gulliver’s Travels, although most people think this.

5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

Like: The bands, most of the promoters, the fact that the city is still small enough for there to be a sense of community (unlike London), the fact that it’s beautiful to walk around.

Dislike: Because town is so small there are sometimes a lack of punters to go around, but let’s focus on the positives shall we?

The Scarletts are ‘three boys and a girl from in and around Oxford, whose music is influenced by old punk records, two tone, Britpop, being young and booze.’

1.What do you think you sound like?

A young band. Not completely intentionally and I don’t say that as an excuse for being shit at playing our instruments, but a band that hopefully celebrates, comments on and pokes fun at youth culture. Which from what we can make out consists mainly of getting drunk. So to some it up, we sound a bit like pissed up children.

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

crawl our way through various forms of further education, all loosely based around art. Gap year, next year at last. Apart from that, drink tea, drink beer, films, gardening, child mind, work in pubs, support Tottenham Hotspur f.c, play on Mario kart.

3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

Supergrass- I should co co. written by pissed up children growing up in oxford. We relate, obviously. Brilliantly simple and immediate as well being very inventive and clever.

4. Where did you get your band name from?

My little baby cousin’s name who was born at around the time we formed.

5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

Like:

- Good sound men.

- Johnny Moto.

- Nightshift: I think we are very lucky to have a music paper of such a good quality.

The new crop of young slightly more punky bands coming through now – it’s exciting to be a part of.

Dislike:

The 18+ rule at almost all the good venues, which in turn means there is sometimes a lack of atmosphere at gigs. By the time you reach the age at which you are allowed to attend the gigs, you care far to much about what others think to jump around like a tw*t. Kids have less restraint and they just have more fun with it.

 The Scholars say they’re ‘five scholarly gents who united through an appreciation of music in all its forms’ and play tonight at The Jericho with Manpoints.

1.What do you think you sound like?

As Colin Mac has pointed out on the site, our sound is fairly similar to Editors, Interpol and some of our favourite New Wave bands from the eighties. While the post-post punk and White Lies-esque production gloss is there, we are moving more towards a more eighties sound and are planning to buy a load of new gear and synths to push our keyboard love.

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

We study full time and have fun whenever we can – this is partly an answer to question 4.

3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

We’re big fans of Glaswegian alt rock outfit The Cinematics and their debut album A Strange Education. The band have been unfortunate enough to be dwarfed by Franz Ferdinand due to their location when they are, however, far superior. The album’s honest attitude towards genuinely good tunes makes their debut charming, endearing and definitely worth a look: it shames the superficiality of more exposed acts.

4. Where did you get your band name from?

We’ve always found the process of choosing a band name interesting and boring at the same time – while it’s completely arbitary on the one hand, it is of course one of the most important elements which goes towards presenting an overall image. While ‘The Scholars’ isn’t exactly groundbreaking, we feel it demonstrates that we are just a bunch of normal kids who have to study first and rock out second. We’re also very proud to represent Oxfordshire when we play away from home and our ’scholarly’ tag works well with the classic image of an academic Oxfordian to give us what we hope is our bookish appeal.

5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

We love the warmth and locality of Oxford and how it is a thirving community in its diversity. We find that we’re always welcomed to the city so warmly and it doesn’t present the daunting challenges that Birmingham does, for example.

On the down side, however, we sometimes feel that the city is very sheltered and because the music scene is so hectic, it is difficult to pick up on big audiences and sometimes opportunities seem few and far between.

1.What do you think you sound like?

A bus full of  ravers on a bad  acid trip through the darker realms of counter culture.

2. What do you do when you’re not making music?

Most of the band are always making music in one band or another: Spiral 25, Beaver Fuel, Drunkenstein, We are ugly (but we have the music), or can be found watching, mixing or promoting other bands.

3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.

Alphabet Backwards: loads of fun live  and songs you can sing along to.

4. Where did you get your band name from?

It’s a line from  obscure Leonard Cohen song: ‘I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me .’

5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?

Like: The width and diversity of music created is delightful. The venues are great and we have things like Nightshift and the Punt.

Dislike: It’s a shame some  people aren’t that interested if it’s not tipped by the media or if they have to pay more that £3 to get in to watch diverse and interesting bands.