SUNDAY

Having left David Murphy to root out the goodies during the sepulchral gloom of Saturday, your reviewer showed up at Charlbury on Sunday afternoon in brilliant sunshine, albeit with a howling gale for company. Rosa Klebb provided a strong introduction to the festival; indeed they could have been bussed in from the Isle of Wight circa 1969 to judge from the jangly guitars and shimmering Hammond organs on display. The latter barely needed the obligatory Lesley speaker, as the previously-mentioned howling gale pretty much did the job of phasing, distorting and generally weirding-up-the-vibe all on its own. Who needs a poxy rotating cabinet, when you have meteorology on your side? (They also had a pretty girl singer who has obviously listened to a few Airplane albums, which always helps).

Stannah and the Stairlifts were a bunch of good-timey old-timers playing mercilessly competent blues rock to a largely uncritical audience. And who am I to carp? If I never heard them again I guess I would cope, but lounging under the intermittent Cotswold sun, I wouldn’t have preferred anyone else at that moment in my life.

Liking ska-tinged funk-rock has replaced homosexuality as the love that dare not speak its name, and I was accused by a friend of digging (non-ironically) the efforts of London’s Captain Strange. Indeed, I pathetically felt the need to hastily back-track and pretend I was drunk when caught grooving (non-ironically) to one of their many toe-tappers. I don’t care, I like crazy tenor sax, tight-as-a-gnat’s chuff rhythm sections and hypnotic, slightly macabre lyrics. They had a brilliant tune called ‘I don’t believe that’ which I can’t find on Myspace, and may end up pining for as much as the Sigur Ros ‘Nothing Song’ from Vanilla Sky ( the bastards omitted it from the soundtrack album. Thank you, YouTube!). Oddly, the bass player had more stage presence about him than the nominal frontman, who looked like he wanted his mum. If the band played for about half an hour more than was good for them or us, and indulged in too much festival noodling, those are some of the more amiable vices.

Next up was the class act that is Chantelle Pike, a country-folk-pop singer who is part PJ Harvey and part Tammy Wynette. She was backed by a selfless drummer and bassist who toiled anonymously on a needlessly short leash. Still, they performed their function of augmenting Pike’s sometimes over-clever, sometimes not-clever-enough songs, but it’s Chantelle that really matters and I’ve never heard her sound so good. She has so much technical control, but the swoops and melismas are never overdone and are just part of her emotional rhetoric. She and her band get it exactly right on a song called, I think, ‘Sweet Symphony’ which is passionate, taut and has a superbly singable chorus. She needs more in that vein.

The schedulers inexplicably stuck a sixteen-year-old kid called Toby high onto the bill, and he proceeded to play flawless Spanish guitar for forty-five minutes while singing forgettable little songs in a pretty, posho voice, borrowed mostly from James Blunt. Fair play to him for all that tricky fretting, but it was a triumph of stamina rather than skill.

On to Borderville, who gallantly replaced those useless Moneyshots at the tenth hour, and performed their highly original rock cabaret with well-drilled precision. A polished four-piece now, their principal strengths are Joe Swarbrick’s twitchy, Bowiesque performance art and keyboardist Woody’s clever interstitial flourishes. I can’t say I liked any of it much: the luxuriation in artifice, the hysterical, screamy vocals, the lack of any genuine emotion in the songwriting other than the Brechtian satisfaction at the distance created; Borderville feel like a concept rather than a band. The superb cover of ‘Chelsea Hotel’ showed us Swarbrick’s fabulous vocal talent (he’s also a brilliant rock guitarist) before he moved back into the circus tent.

Closing the set in eternal sunlight were a favourite of mine, anti-folk doomsters Witches, and they were rubbish. Well, at least for the first three songs, which sounded shapeless and indistinct, uncertain parodies of some of their recent classics. They seem to be breaking in new musicians a lot at the moment, so we’ll cut them some slack. Anyhow, the set lurched up a few gears when they started playing songs from their excellent ‘Heart of Stone’ album, as well as the oldie ‘In the Chaos of a Friday night’, which rocked like Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’. Difficult? Esoteric? Introverted? I’ve seen these guys in pink Shirelles wigs. As they moved into the second half of the set, even the new songs sounded ace. Sorry I doubted yis, brothers (and sister).

By Colin MacKinnon

SATURDAY

Charlbury’s a grand mix of your favourite local scenesters, some less well known (to us, anyway) Oxon musicians, and some random bands from places like Essex and Leeds, who frankly must wonder where in the name of holy fuck they are. We love it.

First up is the Leeds contingent, who kindly save us the effort of writing a review by calling themselves Dead Leg, which captures their clumsy loping pretty well. They offer litely funky Zep rock with a good drummer and a silly rawk vocal, and then they offer some more. Was that first number called “Batten Down The Hatches”? Oh yes! Does the following tune boast the refrain “Wanderlust, wanderlust, wooh yeah”? Damn straight! Do they actually claim their slow tune is “One for the ladies”? Scout’s honour! Do we grudgingly like them just a teensy bit? Yeah, they’re a laugh, we can imagine far worse openers. In fact, their attempt at rock hedonism falls wide of the mark in a lovably British way…perhaps in the same way that our dreams of musically freaking out with Mother Nature end up with us huddled in a kagoule opposite a train station…

Over on the other stage (the eccentric placing of the toilets means that everybody at this festival will see something on the Second Stage, which we rather like the idea of) Huck shimmers out ghostly slivers of country/blues laments, which would be rather lovely if the sound wasn’t mired in some horrible mid-range bubble, and his tuning wasn’t so wonky. He’s probably shooting for subtle, fragmented and delicate, but he’s ended up stuck in a maudlin and minimal country marsh. Can we do our Boggy Prince Billy joke now, please?

“Family time is over, people”. So claims Eliza from Ivy’s Itch, and her stunning orc maiden operatics doubtless send children round the festival running for cover, except the ones that think they’ve ended up in Where The Wild Things Are. It’s easy for frequenters of seedy basement gigs like us to forget just how powerful playing bloody loud can be, and after all that hatch-battening nonsense from earlier, Ivy’s Itch sear across the field with tautly reined-in sludge rock and artfully controlled cacophony. This is probably the best we’ve seen them, and it’s certainly the most cohesive – oddly we find ourselves thinking of Nirvana, especially their tribute to dumbass rock, “Aero Zepellin”.

Dave Oates is a big hearted, open throated, string strummin’, Van Zandt coverin’ classic singer-songwriter, who is perfectly adequate, but sounds woefully 2D after Ivy’s Itch, although some mandolin accompaniment enlivens proceedings. He also alleges that “Folsom Prison Blues” was written especially for the famous prison concert, which is about 15 years wide of the mark; whenever he wrote it, he certainly didn’t write what the lead guitar plays. Oops.

By the time Jamie Foley starts up, we’re beginning to really miss the Beard Museum input into this second stage, because we seem to be confronted by an average open mic night instead of the well picked selection of performers we saw last year. His performance isn’t terrible, but his sloppy pub voice is so far from “strong” and “unique” that we start to think that the programme writer must have been on a bet. Or at least have been Jamie Foley.

Nagatha Krusti bring some straight-up rocking with touches of rap, metal and ska, but most importantly they bring a bit of blooming fun to the Second Stage. We’d be lying if we said it was the tidiest and tightest set we’ve ever witnessed (it’s more a sort of Vague Against The Machine), but we are definite converts. They have some nicely silly cowbell too, which always tickles our fancy.

Much as we’ve always respected Rubber Duck’s ability, we’ve never quite been convinced; they’ve always sounded somewhat polite and tinny, whereas we expect sweat from our funk bands. Blood, sweat and beers. Out in the open air, however, the buzzing synths and the chirpy rhythms seem not only intoxicating but a neat companion to Nagatha Krusti. “Emotional Revolution” proves itself to be a solid gold toe-tapper, and we leave with our mind changed.

Some bands choose their covers to show their versatility, some do it for a laugh, whilst some just play the song they wish they’d written and make no pretences about how much they’ve nicked in the rest of the set: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as evidence of this last breed, I give you billypure and their Waterboys tune. Still, there’s nothing much wrong with admitting your influences, and billypure throw out some well put together folk rock songs with some useful fiddle interjections. The kids love it, and there are moshing toddlers everywhere we look, which lifts the spirits. Careful though, kids: The Waterboys are harmless, but they can lead to stronger and more deadly vices, such as The Levellers. Tell a grownup if anyone offers you a dog on a string.

script’s opening tune is a tasty mixture of Blondie and Morrissey. Songs like this are superb, and belie the fact that this is the first gig for a new lineup (which is good, because the rhythm section is the best it’s been since script’s very early days); at other times, however everything gets a little timid, such as when four harmonising vocalists are managing to make less impact than one. script’s Pete Moore is the songwriting equal to anyone on the bill today, and tracks like “City Limits” are arresting, but they could do with loosening up if they want to capture the passing toilet-bound punter. File with The Mile High Young Team, and expect some great music from this line-up (if it can stay together for more than 10 minutes, that is).

If Ivy’s Itch played like demons, Mephisto Grande play like a vengeful Old Testament God with a serious hangover. As they intone “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” as a prelude to their own gospel-inflected gasoline rock, we imagine Mephisto as the soundtrack to judgement day. You can just see them bashing out some blues dirges behind St Peter whilst he checks his ledgers, Liam gappily grinning, shaking his head and pointing downwards.

Some lads are beating the shite out of each other, the rain has started in earnest and the bar’s closed: this looks like a job for…Smilex! Just as we consider sneaking off home our spirits are lifted with what is possibly the best set we’ve ever seen from Oxford’s cartoon punk crusaders. Lee’s unfortunate haircut is Travis Bickle via the council gardeners, but everything else about this set is perfect, from the high octane thump of the rhythm section, to the preposterous guitar heroics and the expected vocal tomfoolery. Smilex only really have one song, but it’s a cracker, and it’s testament to their honed craft that no matter how many times we see them, we always leave happy (and covered in beer if we’re too near the stage): in fact, could there be mileage in describing Smilex as the punk equivalent of Redox? In truth, there’s not really mileage in anything except shaking your head like a loon and just going along with the whole gloriously silly rock blancmange that is Smilex. Oh look, even the rain’s stopped.

By David Murphy