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

This is another EP, like the record from Hearts in Pencil earlier in the year, where there is a disconnect between the intriguingly arty record cover and the generic obviousness of a fair bit of the music. In the present case, the FLM record is graced by James Cottell’s elegant pencil-drawing of a child holding a balloon in the midst of a storm-lashed hayfield, but how this has any connection with the tidy but often-unspectacular rock on the inside defeats me.

Opener ‘Titan’ is built on a couple of basic classic-metal riffs, but instead of Bruce Dickinson operatics, the singer goes for an East End drawl, which actually works fine. The song itself is pretty forgettable, but there is evidence of power and co-ordination in the four-piece band’s meaty performance.

‘Following Dreams’ is closer to indie-rock, and indeed folk-rock. The former is represented in the pretty, finger-picked intro, the latter by the vocal melody, which has a pleasingly natural arc and is sung with a rather loveable guilelessness. The entry of the fuzzy rhythm guitar is predictable, but doesn’t damage the vibe too much. The lyric, describing the experience of a teenage runaway in the city, is unoriginal and clumsy in places, but the singer sounds both sincere and compassionate. In all, the song is a qualified success, though it could do with pruning to remove a few dead bars here and there.

The closing title-track again suggests that FLM are actually progressive folkies in disguise, as the triple time intro section borrows the chords from ‘Nights in White Satin’ by the Moody Blues. The singing is on the variable side, with an ungainly melodic line which pushes the vocalist into the comic depths of his range. Cutting their losses a couple of minutes in, the band junk the folk and introduce a distinctly odd bit of prog metal with some decent rock singing at the end, but this particular hybrid lacks much vigour.

Summing up, FLM have made a decently-produced record, and the band is made up of useful musicians with an ear for a tune, although the level of ambition is not high. There’s more than a little confusion about whether they are a melodic rock band or prog-metallers or indie revivalists, but if they can produce more tunes as attractive as ‘Following Dreams’ and less of the cookie-cutter rock, then they’ll be a welcome addition to the local scene.

FLM Myspace

By Colin MacKinnon

Oxfordbands.com and Junkie Brush are teaming up once again to organise an inter-band 5-a-side football tournament to raise money for Audioscope.

Bands wishing to enter should contact stuart AT oxfordbands.com with their 6-man squad, which must include at least 3 members of Oxfordshire-based bands. Deadline for entry is the 31st July, with the tournament to be held on the weekend of the 22nd/23rd August. More news as it comes about the competition.

 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.

This year’s Charlbury Riverside Festival takes place over the 20^th and 21^st of June. Saturday’s lineup includes Smilex, Little Fish, Tristan and the Troubadours on the Main Stage, with  Sextodecimo and Winnebago Deal on the Second Stage. On Sunday there are a host of Oxfordbands.com favourites on display, including The Epstein, A Silent Film and Les Clochards (album review coming soonish). For full lineup, transport and accommodation details etc. please click here.

This is possibly of little interest to anyone, but the fact is that funk music provoked your reviewer to make his first tentative steps into the shark-infested minefield that is rock music criticism. Specifically, I objected to Armadillo Day at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (the premier live music event of the year in those parts) being hijacked by a bunch of shaggy-haired stoner bores with names like Unkle Funkle playing fifteen-minute one-chord jams and being received with uncritical adulation by the equally-stoned undergraduate audience. And I wrote to the student rag to make my point in no uncertain terms. It elicited a lively response along the lines of ‘Butt out, Gramps’ (I was a post-doc) and ‘If he doesn’t like it here, why doesn’t he go home?’, which is usually a line of attack more appropriately directed towards Islamist terror-sympathisers.

So you’ll forgive me if I have certain prejudices against the genre. However, this rather brilliant little offering from Vibratonic, a refreshingly anonymous East Oxford collective (they have names like Natty Vader) is difficult, strike that, impossible, to resist.

Kicking off is the squelching, clav-tastic ‘Can’t Stop Loving You’, which dances along, propelled by a big-ass programmed beat, playfully taking on board all manner of eighties synths. If you can plug it in, and it goes ‘ping’ or ‘boing’ it’s in. Along the way, the producers have thrown in an infectious vocal refrain and cheeky-monkey muted trumpet, which is a delight. What’s apparent is that although it’s a complex brew, enough space has been left for every part to shine (I love the call and answer sections between the various synthesiser lines in the middle) and the whole is crunchily satisfying.

Equally good is the more obviously seventies-influenced ‘Wise Guy’, which doesn’t so much dance as strut (there may be a Neville Brothers influence in the rhythm section). Whether the guitars are live or just brilliantly sampled is a riddle I doubt I’ll ever solve (the group doesn’t play live as far as I can learn), but their combination with the fat synths and timeless Hammond organ is excellent. Vocals are handled by an unnamed female singer (unless Prince is slumming it in OX4 to spite his record company), with plenty of breathy energy and range- can we have an album of her?

‘Money’ takes us back to the intricate clav-work of ‘Can’t Stop’ and again kudos must go to the producer for keeping the balls in the air at once- it takes a sharp musical intelligence to maintain all those legions of keyboards bouncing off one another so merrily.

Closing the joint is ‘Here With Me’, an understated but playful mooch, which uses some gorgeous flute and a string sample which seems very, very familiar but which I can’t quite place (something from Marvin Gaye, perhaps? Throw me a bone here, guys!). Overall, the record is clean, clever and soulful, with no song outstaying its welcome (the cardinal virtue of funk, but seldom observed). The band is well named: despite my initial worries, they’ve proved themselves to be both vibrant and a tonic.

Vibratonic Myspace

By Colin MacKinnon