Shuffling sweatily through heat-maddened central Oxford, I had low hopes for a good turnout at this month’s Gappy Tooth night at the Wheatsheaf, (Cornmarket street, hazy and violently simmering in the late-evening sun provided proof positive that sometimes a water-cannon is in perfect order) but in the event, the pull of three local bands ensured that while the showing was modest, it was far from negligible.

Minor Coles are a new one on me, but they are making friends and news at a healthy rate, having secured a berth at the Truck festival recently. The honour is well-deserved, the quartet making punchy, melodic, wide-screen indie rock, and possessing two strong lead singers. It’s actually quite difficult to think of specific bands they sound like: the best I could come up with was Seafood with a dash of British Sea Power noise, while others mentioned the spikier end of The Delgados. In any case, their compact set was highly impressive: for a band that’s been together for a matter of months, everything seems astonishingly well-engineered: the vocal harmonies are note-perfect, the occasional double lead-guitar passages pulled off with ease, and the only imperfections were non-musical: a non-authoritative set-list and a comical onstage argument about the right position for a capo- of course these human blemishes made us like them all the more.

The Sidewinders are likeable for different reasons: their utter commitment to an art which was exhausted long before ‘This is Spinal Tap’ administered the last rites is both amusing and slightly sad. They are what Jeremy Clarkson might call a proper rock and roll band: the bassist looks like he could pack down in the front row for Banbury Town Third XV, the guitarist spends half the gig with his eyes shut and his tongue out, and the lead singer was sporting an extremely hirsute chest- no doubt there’s still a breed of lady out there who finds that sort of thing attractive- perhaps the kind who swoons over DCI Gene Hunt. In any case, they made loud, dumb, hairy rock music very effectively, even if most of the content felt like it had been culled from an obscure AC/DC album circa 1983 (interesting trivia point: AC/DC once wrote fifteen songs in one afternoon, eight of which contained the word ‘Rock’ in the title. What boundless invention!)

Closing the show were Punt stars, From Here, We Run!, who judging from their Myspace page, have an array of clever math-rock tunes. But it was a patchy set. Actually it was near-disastrous. Beginning well with the spiky yet catchy ‘Abdul Jafur Lives to Fight’, the band showed their best qualities: singer Pietke has a strong, slightly husky voice, and the instrumentalists (bass, drums and guitar) are nimble and energetic. But from there, things went awry. The second song train-wrecked, which is no biggie, but the second take didn’t sound a lot better than the first, and the impression soon formed of a band operating outside the level of their technical abilities, and (even worse) suffering internal division. It’s almost as if Pietke wants to be in a melodic, girly, indie band like Sleeper, while the three blokes prefer to ape the time-signature juggling and nutty chord shapes of bands like Youthmovies and This Town Needs Guns. I noticed as the set ended, that the singer jumped off stage before the last song had even ended, with barely a look at her bandmates. Whether this was a pose or not, it felt worrying, and  they need to get it together quick.

By Colin MacKinnon.

Sunday

What could be more Gallic than a stripy top, an accordion and a Jacques Brel cover?  Except for singing in like, French, and Les Clochards do that too.  But even if you’re semi-bilingual, like us, there’s tons to enjoy here, from the intimate vocals to the tight, buoyant drumming, to the rich chocolaty bass, which wraps round us on “Lavinia”.  Like The Relationships, a band with whom they share a close history, Les Clochards show that you don’t have to be like Tristan & The Troubadours, and fill your lyrics with death, ravens and black portent to be poetic, a well phrased piece of story telling can cut right to the quick.  Pound for pound Sunday’s lineup wasn’t a patch on Saturday’s, but Les Clochards quietly turned in one of the sets of the weekend to a smattering of listeners.

Oh, fuck off!  Look, we like covers bands in principle, we like ska and punk, we even like fun every once in awhile, but the repugnantly named When Alcohol Matters come from that horrible school of non-thought stating that a complete absence of talent and ideas are instantly justified by putting on some silly clothes.  So, here we go, one of WAM is wearing a red beret and a kilt. Wild.  The new wave era tunes they play are generally fine - “Geno”, “Too Much, Too Young”, and so on - and the dual saxes aren’t bad, but the rhythms are sluggish and the vocals are just terrible.  Talk about a paucity of ideas: simply playing songs you quite like doesn’t make you a good band, especially if you don’t play them very well.  Still, a kilt.  Just imagine.

Anyway, if you really want to know when alcohol maters, talk to some of the revellers about their attempts to smuggle it onto the site!  Some were successful, but Banjo Boy, our homebrew proffering chum form last year, was stopped at the gate with four cans of beer, so he just stood there in front of the entrance and drank them one after the other.  Before lunch.  You have to admire that sort of behaviour…unless you’re a hepatologist.

Over on the second stage young Chipping Norton outfit Relay may not be laden down by new ideas, but they’re worth a hundred WAMs.  Most of their songs are lean and poppy jaunts very much on the vein of Arctic Monkeys, but when they strip things down they have quite a subtle touch, and Jamie Biles has the beginnings of a pleasant indie croon. 

“Hi, I’m Judi, and I’m fourteen,” says Judi Luxmoore of Judi & The Jesters.  And then she says it again.  It’s either an apology in advance, or an attempt to make your friendly neighbourhood hatchetman reviewer look deep into his dark soul.  And, no, we’re not in the business of destroying the dreams of nervous teenagers who have bit the bullet and climbed onstage, so let’s get this over with. The Jesters play dirt simple lightly countrified songs, that are part Kitty Wells, and part “The Wheels On The Bus Go Round & Round”, and once she gets warmed up Judi has a pleasing voice.  There’s a huge amount of potential here, but let’s be straight, at the moment that’s all there is, and Judi’s presence on the bill is something of an indulgence.  Worth investigating in a couple of years, perhaps, and definitely worth investigating if the alternative is WAM.

A walk back to the main stage really brings home how very different in size the two stages are.  We wonder how many festival goers never even get past the toilet block over the weekend.  Anyway, Alan Fraser is getting the benefit of the excellent PA on the main stage, and his jazz sax floats across the crowd with crystal clear sound.  His tone is amazing, so pure and smooth, but the set itself is a real old West Coast jazz dawdle, like Stan Getz locked in an old folks home store cupboard and half buried under discarded surgical trusses.  As the set progresses Fraser starts to bring out some interesting low end honks and rasps, and a decent swipe at Miles’ “All Blues” mean we almost let him get away with it, until his sanctimonious sign off, “Thanks for listening, those of you who were listening and not just hearing“.  And there we were waiting for you to start playing, and not just making the right sounds.  Supercilious old trout.

We’ve got a bit muddled, but we think the band we drop in on back at the second stage briefly is Man Make Fire.  How about Man Throw All Your Instruments On It Whilst He There, if the limp soggy rendition of “Purple Haze” is anything to go by.  Time for a swift exit.

Back To Haunt Us, Part Four:  billypure make mention of our review of last year’s festival during their main stage set, and our allegation that they want to be The Waterboys.  Well, that’s not quite what we meant, but they do knock out the same Waterboys cover version and unless we misheard, it sounds as though they actually got their name from the lyrics, so we reckon they’re being a bit defensive.  Anyway, the song actually sounds lacklustre amongst some of their own, and their arrangement of “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” is a searing folk rock delight.  It’s a chirpy, chunky set, with some useful fiddle parts, and we enjoy it enormously.  Does remind us a little of another band, though…oh, what are they called again…

Rob Stevenson from A Silent Film is firmly in the same breed as Juju from Little Fish, he looks so relaxed prowling around on the huge stage you’d think he was born and raised there.  They play a textbook set of wide-armed emotirock (featuring a genius reworking of Underworld’s “Born Slippy”), Rob’s warm, falsetto-happy voice twining gorgeously around his keyboard lines (a synth in the body of a parlour upright piano, nice touch).  No offence meant to the man, but our favourite track is the opener during which the guitarist is busy trying to sort out his hardware, and we get a spacious marimba led tune, as some of the music felt clogged and overly rich.  And that’s our only criticism: ASF are like Inlight - although clearly so much better - in that their songs are all huge and simple, as if they’re trying to create music that can be seen from space.  Look, we’re just over here, a few feet away, no need to telegraph the emotions, just let them happen.  When the scale is brought down a peg or two, this band is disarmingly impressive.

Next up, Ginger Toddler Rucksack Headbutt.  No, not the latest Poor Girl Noise booking, just a thing that happened whilst we were laying back watching Two Fingers OF Firewater.  And, hey, it’s a festival, if you want to express yourself by bashing our bag about, feel free - decent soundtrack to do it to, as well.  We could talk about Two Fingers’ dry humour, their contempo-country lope, their chiming pedal steel or their ‘60s rock touches (we heard the odd waft of Love in the climax), but all we can think about is their wah-wah mandolin.

The Epstein has long been a favourite of ours, and it’s been a long while since we saw them, but at first our rendezvous wasn’t too joyous.  The opening two numbers just didn’t grasp us, and seemed overly polished and polite after Two Fingers.  Thankfully, “Black Dog” gets things back on track, Stefan Hamilton’s electric banjo scuttles drawing us in, and Oli Wills’ easy, fruity vocal grasping us by the hand and leading us down some dusty mesa.  Even if it’s not their finest set, their encore was the track of the weekend, despite an awkward false start, a monolithic sonic surge creating valleys in its wake. 

And after that, Liddington were a disappointment, to put it mildly.   All the things that have been alleged about Inlight, and against which we have (partly) defended them, ring clear and true of Liddington: empty, vacuous stadium pop, with no discernible character and a vocal that is drab and lifeless just when the music is crying out for something, anything, to lift it out of the slough of over-amped indie balladeers swamping our nation’s musical profile.  And, yet again, we feel bored stupid by the giant gestures that the music is trying to make: what’s wrong with you lot?  Are you so concerned that your point won’t get across that you have to make it as big and obvious as possible?  What are you, a pop band or air traffic controllers?  After all, you don’t find us standing dead centre of the stage miming an elaborately theatrical yawn to show how little we’re enjoying the set, do you?  OK, OK, Liddington aren’t the worst band of the day (no kilts, see), and a few of the keyboard sounds were well chosen, but by this time we really need something to engage us, and not a whole bunch of vapid honks that sound like old Huey Lewis tunes left out in Chris Martin’s allotment for twenty years until every glint of colour has been bleached out, and nothing is left but the clumsy shell.

But, this brief concluding burst of rage notwithstanding, this has been an excellent festival.  It’s our third Riverside, and the first at which we’ve felt that the two stages have been equally interesting.  Once again, the effort of putting on this event for free is an astonishing thought to contemplate, and whilst we wish that the organisers could try paddling outside of their safety zones, we’re always happy to roll up our trouserlegs and join them for a dip.  Book us in at Diplomat’s Coffee, we’ll be there as soon as the doors open in 2010.

 By David Murphy

 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 Tree 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 be 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 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 fiery 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 years; 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 comic-book 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.           

After a quick burst of Winnebago Deal’s palate cleansing bludgeon, we check in with Oxfordshire’s other favourite duo, as Little Fish crank up on the main stage.  Reviewing them makes us feel like some Oxford music Grinch - no matter how good they clearly are, nor how entertaining their set is, we just can’t see them conquering the world and changing the face of music as we know it, as so many people seem to expect.  A topic for another day, perhaps, as they certainly don’t put a foot wrong onstage (although not talking breathless nonsense about chickens between every song might be nice), and Juju and Nez are definitely the only people performing today who look like they were born to be onstage: they manage to eclipse the spectacle of Smilex’ caffeinated cabaret just by, you know, being there.    In fact, far from being the authors of life affirming pop anthems, we think of Little Fish more as old fashioned craftspeople.  The songs are pretty much all two chord bashes, with little more than repeated blues rock yelps over the top, and they don’t really say or do anything at all, but they are gorgeously honed and shaped and whittled to perfection.  Less like the universal soul poetry of the much referenced Patti Smith, then, and more analogous to expert niche electronica producers, creating generic yet immaculate music for the discerning connoisseur.

“We’re very lucky to have them,” announces the Riverside MC about the closing act.  Wait, is it a reunited Morrissey and Marr?  Has Beefheart been coaxed out of retirement?  No, it’s Tristan & The Troubadours, some lads from down the road. Keep some perspective, love. But admittedly they’ve come a very long way since they opened the main stage two years ago, and now offer a very confident set, replete with literate lyrics and interesting arrangements, something like Belle & Sebastian’s early effete library pop filtered through the matinee rock of locals Witches and Borderville. Very good indeed, and a fitting end to what had been a hugely satisfying afternoon of music - and all for blinking free, lest we forget.  Some acts made more impression than others admittedly, but there was literally nothing on the bill deserving harsh criticism, and it was a pleasure from start to finish. The effort that goes into the festival should be applauded by all right-minded music fans.

By David Murphy

“What are you here to see?”, asks the girl at the Jericho’s desk. “Just, err, music”, I reply. It turns out that the organisers use this method to calculate how much to pay the performers. Bit depressing, really, isn’t it? A whole system predicated on the assumption that nobody is going to come out on the off-chance they’ll hear some good music looks like a tacit admission that the promoters have already given up on the idea of enticing fresh blood into the venue, and are relying on the acts to bully their friends and colleagues into coming along. What’s even more depressing is that they’re probably right.

Anyway, as the system seems grossly unfair to Samuel Zasada, who is standing in after a change to the advertised lineup, we put our tick against his name. But before we get to Samuel, there’s the unpleasant matter of Luke Keegan’s set to deal with. There he is, strumming away at some forgettable acoustic songs, droning in a voice that’s half pub singalong, and half lax karaoke Bowie, whilst a chap who looks fantastically like a spry Erroll Brown adds some very proficient, but rather disjointed bongo accompaniment. Looking up at one point I see I am one of four people actually listening, three of whom appear to be close friends or family, and the gig begins to feel like an episode of Flight Of The Conchords. “Did you hear about tomorrow?”, sings Luke; yes, it was when I woke up and realised this was a bad and very boring, dream. Thankfully the last song has a bit of drama, featuring the howled chorus “I never had that bloody hammer”, which is either an impassioned defence in a brutal murder inquest, or the sound of petty argument in a carpentry workshop.

When Mr Zasada starts up, we decide that he’s well worth our cover charge support, as his voice is immense: creamy, guttural and melodic, with the breath control to rip into some intriguingly wordy verses. He’s got a real talent, but this set seems deliberately designed to hide this fact. The accompanists don’t help any: a man playing possibly the most uninspired cajon we’ve seen, and a woman who might well be Britain’s top canine ventriloquist, as she seldom opens her mouth, and when she does, the sound is clearly inaudible to human ears. Ignoring this dismal pair, the songs just don’t seem to be quite there. We’d like to see Samuel with a nice tight band at the more literate end of roots pop - say, something in the Counting Crows line - and then we feel we’d have something to get excited about. Once again, the last track is the winner, as the two stooges leave the stage to let Zasada sing a brutal murder ballad, which sounds like Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” rewritten by Travis Bickle. At one point I look up and discover that I’m one of two people actually listening. I’m not sure which is sadder, that the braying horde is not giving this musician a chance, or that he’s not utilising such a great voice to make them sit up and listen.

Jessie Grace’s appearance ups the quality of the night enormously. Put simply, she has a gorgeous voice, and some pretty impressive control to go with it. In the opening number along, which sounds like a version of “Heart Attack & Vine” rearranged by Joni Mitchell, she swoops from sweetly sinister incantation a la mid-period P J Harvey to gutsy rock stridency, with just a hint of soul. She plays the first half of the set on a tiny guitar - is it an alto? - giving just the right amount of garage fuzz to offset her clear, winning voice. Later she switches to a standard acoustic, and the set drifts a tiny bit into Tunstallised neo-folk pleasantries, before the final number (it’s a good night for set closers, evidently), with its playfully lopsided rhythms impresses us once again with Grace’s abilities. I’m reminded of the first time I saw Laima Bite, or Richard Walters: with a voice like this, why isn’t everyone in the room twitching with excitement? But, like Bite or Walters, behind the voice the songs themselves don’t make a gigantic impression on first listening; there are certainly no lyrics that caught the ear. Still, with a voice like that we’re quite prepared to put the effort into finding out whether Grace’s songs turn out to be growers.

When Inlight crank up, the first thought is that there’s been a gross miscarriage of musical justice in this town. They’ve had any number of stinking reviews, but the first tune not only shows a band who look like they’ve been playing together since they were put on solids, but is also an epic piano-led swoon that really isn’t far from A Silent Film’s celebrated stock in trade. The following track only serves to bolster such musings, revealing an instinctive knack for balancing the quartet’s sound, and showing the bassist’s subtle inventiveness.

Sadly, the effect is marred once they get to a mawkish ballad, because not only is the song asinine and vacuous, but the same audience who were literally shouting and banging tables during the previous sets are in rapt silence and serving me a stew of black looks just for having a conversation near the back of the room about how good the band are! Still, you can’t judge an artist by their fans; I’d certainly have to sling the old Wagner records on the fire, if so. Ultimately Inlight don’t quite have the compositions to hold the attention for a full set, and too many songs seem to exist solely because they can play them well. It’d be nice to see some more adventurous writing, and an appeal to something other than the broadest emotions, but we can imagine that on a huge stage in the summer dusk Inlight could be just the ticket. Does the critical reappraisal start here?

By David Murphy

This year’s Punt is a kind of family reunion for Oxfordbands.com - in a nice warm, nostalgic way of course rather than some sort of Monchensey hell - as Colin and David have persuaded a few of us to take up our reviewing pens for the first time in a while. What an incredible night on which to begin again. First thing’s first though, apologies must go out to Dial F for Frankenstein, who, in a total failure of organisation, none of us managed to get to see.

BORDERS

Borders gives the performers a lovely big space to play their sets - larger in fact than some of the proper venues involved in The Punt can offer. Cynically, it could be seen as a side benefit of having a shop that hardly stocks any bloody CDs, perhaps - how can the current difficulties in record retail be solved by paying premium Oxford rent for a vast floorspace that only stocks about 5 different records?! Still, getting involved with The Punt is exactly the kind of thing Borders should be doing to drum up local custom, so kudos for that, although they could have kept off the tannoy during songs.

Opening the night’s festivities, singer songwriter Matt Kilford wore his bobbleless-bobbler with confidence, and rightfully so. His voice is soulful and plangent. But while the material itself is downbeat, it’s intelligently reflective rather than morose or self-pitying and is pleasantly undercut by warm inter-song wit. The calm assuredness of Matt’s delivery is crucial to his success, giving his songs space and time to hit home. It was an unhurried performance of unhurriedly beautiful songs.

While Matt was adept at creating his atmosphere, Bethany Weimers‘ set lacks some of the same cohesion, partly because the wide range of vocal techniques at her disposal do not fully gel. In theory, and at times in practice, her voice is stunning - deep, precise and vivid, like a less robotic Nico - but she doesn’t always seem to have it under complete control. The power of her voice also seems to somewhat overwhelm the delicacy of her folkier songs, which is a shame because she is lyrically imaginative and engaging - a story-telling song-writer of real talent.

THE PURPLE TURTLE

They look quite like Guns ‘N’ Roses, so it’s fitting that Pistol Kixx take to the stage late. OK, ten minutes is hardly in the Chinese Democracy bracket, but every second counts with The Punt’s crazed itinerary. They sound a bit like G’n'R too, although perhaps somewhat more low budget: we’re thinking Dogs D’Amour, The Quireboys or Skid Row, with hair treatments by Mosh ‘N’ Go. It’s been a while since Oxford has witnessed such flagrant use of wailing solos or bandanas, and the conclusion has to be that Pistol Kixx are embarrassingly awful, but also, in some masochistic way, hugely entertaining. Thank you, Sir, may we have another.

With young bands like From Here, We Run! around, the town’s music future is bright. Stylistically, they’ve been compared elsewhere with math rock, and at their best they are crisp and intricate, but without the dispassionate introversion which the moniker implies. The key is that all the tapping and complexities are treated as features in a smooth, brooding underlying landscape, rather than the be-all-and-end-all, making the music immediately approachable, without compromising its more jagged elements. A good deal of the underlying atmosphere is created by Pietke’s vocals which are happily less prominent in the live scenario than in their recorded material (judging from Myspace at least). That is not to imply it’s a voice that needs hiding - it is extremely powerful with great colourful tone and bags full of personality (although also a slight tendency to become a little flat at the lower end of her register). But the band’s balance does seem more effective and, importantly, more individual when the vocals meld rather than stand out. From a conspicuously nervous start they grow visibly in confidence across the four songs they manage before the tight schedule sadly forces your tireless reviewer to move on.

At their best, indie-punk quartet Beaver Fuel combine uncomplicated fifties rock-n-roll energy with a scabrousness which is pure twenty-first century. Imagine Eddie Cochrane’s gently subversive rock classics but with Trey Parker writing the lyrics. Indeed, the infamous ‘I Want to Live in Your Buttcrack’ not only sounds like a tune worthy of ‘South Park’, but could even provide the plot for an episode. Tonight there’s a celebratory attitude to the set: a band pulling out a big performance for a big crowd, and that crowd engaging whole-heartedly with them. This was not, however, at the expense of musical control; the band is tight, focussed and has obviously worked hard to make Leigh Alexander’s vocals the centre of the show. Technically, he isn’t a great singer but that’s hardly the point- his strength is as a composer of baffled, occasionally sardonic social commentary and the group is now supporting him rather than drowning him out.

The Purple Turtle finishes with The Winchell Riots, the nearest Oxford has to U2 or Snow Patrol. Phil McMinn’s effortless tenor remains the best reason to catch them but they also boast one or two gorgeous pop songs, notably ‘The Man Who Mapped the Oceans’. One ingredient is missing- they do not rock. This can traced to the technically proficient but somewhat buttoned-up drumming style of James Pamphlion- perhaps he could give the clever syncopations a break for a bit and allow the songs to flow more naturally. The set was immaculately performed, but sagged in the middle for lack of variety and to be honest, the Riots’ studious, painstaking balladry is best appreciated on record rather than live.

THE WHEATSHEAF

Phantom Theory and their heads-down, charging hardcore get The Wheatsheaf’s programme off to a stomping start. A guitar and drums duo, they have a pleasing line in dirty scuzz rock, something like 50 Foot Panda having their blood replaced with hillbilly hooch by the devil’s dialysis. It is a towering, monumental set of thrash and pace and noise, and is thoroughly wonderful.

Next up are Mary’s Garden, the evening’s second goth-tinged band fronted by an accomplished female vocalist. Interestingly, Laima, who seemed to be fabulously dressed for a burlesque funeral, plays almost the opposite role to Pietke (From Here We Run). Mary’s Garden’s stunning instrumental song dynamics allow room for Laima’s velvety voice to roll around providing colourful illumination to the dark backdrop. Hers is the strongest lead performance of the evening - the centre of a sound which is at turns thunderous and tremulous.

A rush to The Wheatsheaf for The Response Collective is a must for a Punt that otherwise threatens to contain no bleeps. Sadly, neither does the set, it being a series of drab vocals atop some stale trip hop loops and loosely post-rock guitars. The kindest you can be is to say that there are moments of pretty ambience, and spice is added by some proficient scratching, and some moody projected films featuring evil vivisectionists and a car chase in a Ford Fiesta. However, the net effect is a sound that is not only uninspired and anaemic, but also a few years out of date, trapped in some kind of early ’90s time warp where Morcheeba are the height of excellence to which one must aspire - the closest thing there is to a dance music cardinal sin.

The Wheatsheaf finishes its eclectic line up with Black Hats. Are Black Hats the first stirrings of the Britpop revival that we must surely be on the cusp of? Certainly, they have that aimless punky, funky vibe that you found in your average Gene B side or a Denim album track. This is simply not music that will change your life, but it is extremely accomplished. The vocal harmonies in particular are effortlessly magnificent while the lead guitar has that Britpop trick of threatening overblown soloing histrionics but always pulling back at the last minute, letting the song breathe and breathing more life into the song. Top stuff.

THIRST LODGE

It’s worrying to realise that it’s nearly a decade since The Libertines entered the public’s consciousness. Are people already becoming nostalgic for the early 2000s already? Hearts in Pencil seem to owe some debt to that post punk revivalism that filled the airwaves seven or eight years ago. The vocals have that half croon, half screech quality to them, which can be a little grating at times. The music is more pleasing though, with hints of Talking Heads’ faux funk (sans electronics) bubbling to the surface on a few occasions, particularly at moments when the bassist seemed to be gripped by St. Vitus’ dance. Above all else, Hearts in Pencil have haircuts. Cool haircuts. You wish you had Hearts in Pencil’s haircut.

Thirst tonight has the most stunningly disinterested bouncer who couldn’t care less whether I have a Punt pass. Ho hum. Anyway, Dr Slaggleberry appear to be doing some kind of curious visual tribute to Slipknot, all wearing masks. The music’s a lot better than the Iowan horde’s though; tight, pummelling prog-metal, driven along by a drummer who seems to have some kind of broken metronome in his head, so neatly does he flit between changes in tempo. It’s challenging stuff - especially for those on the dancefloor who try their hardest but were in the end a bit thrown by all the sudden gear changes - but expertly done.

Desert Storm’s sort-of-thrash-metal laced with weed smoke was very much in fashion at the height of Pantera’s success a few years back, and they have clearly drawn a good deal of inspiration from the (in)famous US rock monsters, right down to Matt on vocals who, albeit with an overcoat which makes him look like a Joy Division fan, appears to have borrowed Phil Anselmo’s guttural roar. Metal is as metal does, to a certain extent, and Desert Storm don’t rewrite the rulebook, but they do know when to drop in and out, and when to let the music chug on regardless. The playing is all extremely tidy, especially the drums, which are busy but incisive, just how we like them. It’s not anything massively new or innovative, but they’re plying their take on this part of the metal pantheon very well. The crowd got into the spirit of the thing, with something almost approaching a mosh pit breaking out; probably not entirely what the staff of Thirst were expecting from the Punt.

THE CELLAR

The overriding tone of a We Aeronauts gig is one of slightly mussed amiability, and tonight’s set is the usual tasty gumbo of singing accordionists, romantic sea-shanties and the odd digitally-delayed mandolin solo. Their sound is built on folky intimacy, created right from the gloriously delicate opening, a hushed blur of clicking drumsticks, guitar and accordion sounding like soft waves washing a pebbly beach. Still, they occasionally bubble up into a big-boned rock chorus, some bold, simple vocal melodies grasping at the heartstrings like Elbow at their best. At the moment, the Aeronauts are seen as understudies to folk maestros Stornoway and The Epstein, but if they can bust out a couple more tunes of the calibre of ‘Chalon Valley House Band’ or ‘Boatswain’s Cry’ then they will be waiting in the wings no longer. That said, they could do with getting their trumpeter and female vocalist back: the brass is an important element, as it makes the band’s output less obviously classifiable as folk music and Anna’s gloriously unpredictable countermelodies provide great richness and depth.

A successful gig is as much about right-time-right-place as it is the technical merits of the music, and although in conversation afterwards From Light to Sound reveal they aren’t entirely happy with what they produced, their enormous sound gave a much- needed boost to some flagging reviewers. Their music is as rich, textured and guitar-heavy as the members’ reputations would suggest, and is burgeoning with playful and intelligent ideas. It is at turns brutal, ethereal, and bludgeoningly funky - a stunning and uplifting mixture of intimate soundscapes and ballsy bombast. Never, however, does it stray towards pomposity - all the tunes are just too enthusiastic and exuberant for that. Tonight’s set was a genuine Punt treasure.

By this point in the evening, it must be said reviewers’ notes have become pretty incomprehensible, and their memories have since become somewhat patchy. What is clear, though, is that the contrasting styles of the final two bands provide a fittingly superb ending. First we are taken down a notch. After the soaring enthusiasm of From Light To Sound, Sprial 25 turn The Cellar into a dark womb of numb bliss and stoned paranoia with their molasses-thick drone rock. It’s a claustrophobic experience, an expertly controlled swirling fug of heavy grooves and sweeping vocals, with definite narcotic nods to the likes of Spiritualized, Loop and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Finally, after what seems like three hours, we are thrown high in the sky as The Original Rabbit’s Foot Spasm Band takes the stage. (Pedant’s note: they’re not strictly a spasm band, as they don’t use home-made instruments). They represent an inspired piece of scheduling, and demonstrate to a jubilant, dancing Cellar that jazz can be so much more than pretentious doodling. ORFSB are what it feels like to be brutally assaulted by a jazz elemental. Up a back alley in New Orleans. At the turn of the forties. But in a good way. They transform the Cellar from a gig venue into a party venue, and emphasise that Punt should not be seen simply as a showcase of Oxford music but into a triumphant celebration of why it’s so damned good.

By Daniel Mitchell, Alastair Tervit, Rachel Smart, Colin MacKinnon and David Murphy.

After what was by all accounts a storming show at last week’s Punt, the opportunity to see more than the last half-song of Phantom Theory’s set is an appealing one, and it draws us to the mid-week Wheatsheaf for a show of four interesting and energetic new noisemongers.

First up are two-piece Adrenochrome, a debut gig for former members of Tactical Sekt and Sow, and a very promising start - the vocalist tells us the music has been a year in the making, and it’s certainly very polished for a new band’s first gig. In fact the vocalist tells us all kinds of other things, thanking friends for coming and singling out individual members of the crowd for praise in a way that makes us feel like we’re intruding on a private party. Musically it’s what you’d expect from the pedigree: techno-industrial synth backing typical of the Noi-Tekk stable, hard and thumpy, with metal-style growled and shrieked vocals, a lot of jumping around and dreadlock-swinging - so much that we wonder if the tempi of the tracks is chosen to match the singer’s dreads’ resonant frequency. If there are lyrics, they’re almost completely unintelligible, but the performance is strong and the backing is solid; it would be misleading to say it’s the most “promising” debut gig we’ve seen in a long time because that would imply they have lots of room to improve, and that’s not necessarily true. They’re a fully-formed industrial act, and what they lack in gigging experience they make up for with excitement and energy.  It’s hard to fault the optimism in trying to get a moshpit going at the Wheatsheaf at 8.30pm on a Wednesday evening, and we’ll look the other way for the comment about other promoters failing to put electronic music on in Oxford, which is just silly - promoters aren’t putting on much local *industrial*, perhaps, but experience suggests that’s because there hasn’t really been any. Here’s hoping Adrenochrome can change that. They certainly have the ability - up against some competition, they’re our band of the night.
 
Kamikaze Test Pilots are definitely not from round here. From Zimbabwe via Wokingham, apparently, and their outsider status is worn proudly with a strange mish-mash of styles and influences that wouldn’t likely be taken seriously round these parts. They’re a strange mix of different stereotypes of serious muso: guitarist A looks like Chad Kroeger with a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, mad staring eyes and a manic grin; guitarist B sports dreads and a flying V; bassist plays an Ibanez and somehow wears a beat-style goatee and leather trilby without shame; drummer takes a no-nonsense no-frills look and just pounds away undistracted. All are immensely good at their instruments and they play very tightly together.  Unfortunately, what they’re playing is a kind of prog-funk-rock cross between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Phish, starting like an indulgent, shabby sort of show-off jam. The lyrics are completely forgettable, and feel as if they’re only there to mark the difference between the verses and
choruses, and the whole thing is supremely cheesy. But after a couple of songs it becomes increasingly difficult to hate them; they’re a good-times group, playing very tight party tunes on a lineup of bands trading on punky energy and distorted aggression. They start their set looking very out of
place, but their refusal to act like they feel out of place, combined with well-practiced and solid musicianship, is a winning combination. They aren’t from round here, but it looks like where they are from is probably more fun.
 
And so to Exit International. Drums and two bass guitars, played by short men built like brick walls flinging themselves around with tightly controlled abandon. It’s prog-post-rock in the vein of all kinds of bands that Vacuous Pop et al have been promoting in Oxford since 2004 or so, and while it’s enjoyable to watch, they don’t seem to be bringing anything new to an already overcrowded genre. The vocal consists of atonal unintelligible shouting, the riffage is heavy and the drums are punishing, but there is a feeling that they’re showing off rather than rocking out -time signature changes and precision musical manoeuvres measured to impress actually just break the flow and make it difficult to sustain interest. It’s slick without being interesting. Exit International are a does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin band, and while it is an enjoyable ride it’s not one you’d find yourself recommending to your friends.
 
Straight away it’s clear that Phantom Theory have something that the other bands tonight don’t, something that justifies the headline slot. Musically it’s not too dissimilar to Exit International but where the former had a tendency to showboat at the expense of momentum, Phantom Theory take a riff and run with it. Seeing as there are only two of them, it shouldn’t be impressive that they play so well together, but it all looks simultaneously effortless and energetic - the drums and guitar mesh
tightly together, with the two vocals linking well over the top. Having said that, it does all start to sound the same pretty quickly; there are brilliant moments, but it seems best appreciated in short bursts. The latter part of the set, however, brings in the tunes, and the last song has an almost euphoric quality in the style of a slower Parts & Labor. When they veer away from the indie-rock time-signature-bothering template and crack out the grandiose riffs, it really works. Though for anyone else who only caught the last half-song of their set at the Punt, that was the best part of their set by some way. Hopefully in time they can fill the rest of their set with that kind of greatness.

By Sarah Morton