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So last night was the annual Oxford Punt festival, showcasing Nightshift’s pick of the best new bands in town. How did you find it and what were your highlights? Leave us a comment here on your Punt 2009…

The lineup for this year’s annual showcase of new musical talent, the Oxford Punt, has been announced by organisers Nightshift. The show takes place across five venues on the evening of Wednesday 13 May, and is your one-stop shop to discover the bands to listen to in Oxford for 2009.

The full lineup looks like this:

 Borders
6.15 Matt Kilford

7.00 Bethany Weimers

Purple Turtle
7.30 Pistol Kixx

8.15 From Here We Run

9.00 Beaver Fuel

9.45 Winchell Riots

Wheatsheaf
8.15 Phantom Theory

9.00 Mary’s Garden

9.45 Response Collective

10.30 Black Hats

Thirst Lodge
8.30 Hearts In Pencil

9.30 Dr Slaggleberry

10.30 Desert Storm

11.30 Dial F For Frankenstein

The Cellar
9.00 We Aeronauts

10.00 From Light To Sound

11.00 Spiral 25

12.00 Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band

All-venue Punt passes are on sale now for £7, with only 100 available, either from Videosyncratic on Cowley Road or online here.

Together with Truck and Audioscope, the Punt remains one of Oxford’s must-do music events. The excitement starts at Borders, where people gather to meet and design their Punt routes with the dual aims of seeing more bands and drinking more beer than last year. It ends at the Cellar in a blur of noise, beer and bleach. The Cellar always smells of bleach. Apologies to bands missed or bands part seen.

Borders begins with a hastily eaten pasty and Desmond Chancer and The Long Memories. Harking back to the days when suited and booted crooners bashed out sad miserable ballads, this lot pile through a treacle-infused set of doom. The vocalist sings with a low level drone reminiscent of a broken vacuum cleaner, and while the group highlights the variety and diversity of the Punt, the singer’s voice seems to lack the depth needed to get this sort of music right. One of the songs claimed “there were no rainbows” – there were certainly no rainbows in Borders tonight.

Next, it’s a brisk walk to the Purple Turtle to see International Jetsetters. Formed by a who’s who of Oxford’s good and great, they work their way through an assured set in front of a rammed venue. The first two songs are their best by far, underlining the indie credentials of some of the band members, but the set is derailed as they veer into pub rock territory, the sort which would be enjoyed by estate agents everywhere. While the singer’s voice is pristine, some of the set reminded me of a long lazy Sunday lunch in some village outside Oxford, with a ROCK band providing the desert. More songs like the first two please.

Moving on, it’s Cat Matador at the Wheatsheaf, largely because we like the name. They are nervous it seems, but given more practice and confidence they could have something. Their songs are part pop and part misery, with the added texture of a violin, which I feel could be used more to accentuate melody, freeing up the guitar to provide a bit of bulk. They sound like the Tindersticks with the odd guitar jangle reminiscent of a whole host of post-hardcore bands. Towards the end the crowd swells, maybe signalling the end of another band and it’s time to leave. Good effort.

The Thirst Lodge live room shows that someone is taking music seriously there. There must be at least 18 miles of cable trays, lights and a good size desk. Black Skies Burn are a hardcore metal band with all the trimmings. Overpowering and LOUD, they scream their way through a set of unashamed thrash which must make the singer’s voice sore. The musicianship is second to none, with an amazing drummer, but that is it. Once the sheer fear of confronting this lot subsides, the songs become a blur of dull manic riffage, grumpy looking smirks and aggressive head nodding. Another beer please. Towards the end of the onslaught, the crowd cram in, no doubt anticipating Little Fish. A two-piece of drums and guitar, they spit and hiss their way onto the stage. The label interest shown in them is justified, as they play well-structured songs with the air of confidence that such interest brings. The crowd are going mad as the singer stares and jiggles around, manically strapped in to the pounding percussion to her right. Many of the songs seem heartfelt pleas and she reminds me of PJ Harvey as well as evoking other obvious two-piece band comparisons. In the end, the songs are nothing new: just well-done bluesy indie rock delivered with a venom that turns heads. They just seem to be trying a bit too hard tonight – relax and it will happen.

With several beers down, the walk back to the Purple Turtle flies by and time is running out on this year’s Punt. Raggasaurus bring the venue’s entertainment to a close. They are seemingly a bunch of fresh-faced kids fronted by an older, frazzle-haired singer, playing dub grooves which get the thinning crowd moving. Once again, the diversity of the Punt is underlined by the inclusion of this sort of band and its booming bass lines. The singer’s vocal style tends towards the ‘wailing of a strangled dog’ school and ultimately gets harder to listen to. While such exotic influences are to be applauded, the vocals ultimately force an exit from the venue.

Finally, it’s the Cellar. And yes, it smells of bleach. 50 Foot Panda are on and belting out a mishmash of drums and guitar played at pace and sounding like a dentist’s drill doing root canal work while a jumbo jet takes off outside. The noise is unrelenting and while some songs follow an experimental path, others just sound like two guys messing about in their garden shed. Get themselves more guitars to bolster their sound and 50 foot Panda may really reach the heights that they promise.

By Mark Baker

I hadn’t really planned to do Punt this year. My own tardiness had prevented my purchasing a pass and staying in one venue for the duration seemed against the spirit of the enterprise, so I had resolved to watch the free stuff in Borders then make for bed. To my surprise, I was with pass by eight o’clock (thanks to a generous pal) and managed to last the duration, fuelled by the variety of cheap lagers available from the five locations. So, what of the bands?

Faceometer were first up in Borders. Starting out as one man and a guitar, what followed were some witty, pretty little ditties. Eschewing any sort of PA, his voice and the acoustic carried remarkably well across the shop floor. A second guitarist joined the fray midway through, adding further weight with vocal harmonies and the occasional strum duel. The pair even managed to elicit some crowd participation at one point, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone manage with a sober audience before.

The latter of the bookshop-based entertainments was provided by Desmond Chancer & The Long Memories. The Long Memories provided some competent bar room jazz accompaniment to Mr. Chancer’s slightly ill fitting, Tom Waitsian voice. The show that they were putting on was possibly a little too incongruous with the bookish environment, as I could see them going down quite well in a proper venue, but poking my head over Romantic Fiction to get a look seemed more than a little wrong. Nice costumes though.

International Jetsetters managed to pack the Purple Turtle’s music catacomb. This was presumably because no other acts were playing at the time, rather than any massive following they’ve acquired. This may take a while yet, as their set did feel a little pedestrian. There was nothing wrong with the playing and some of the tunes weren’t half bad, but the overall sound seemed a little bland to me.

I did go to see Cat Matador next, who were first up in The Wheatsheaf, but can remember next to nothing at all about them. I can’t say whether that’s because of my own poor memory or because they failed to do anything that engaged my mind enough to force it to remember. I fear it may be a combination of the two. Probably quite average then (though my brain is probably somewhere below that).

I made it back to the P. T. just in time to hear the last thirty seconds of Tristan & The Troubadours set. Those thirty seconds were quite pleasant – I seem to recall liking the squelchy keyboard – but couldn’t really say much more with any authority. I moved next door to find Eduard Sounding Block kicking off in The Cellar. I had heard some talk of their playing nothing but U2 covers all night, but know too little of either act to say whether this was the case. What we did get was some of their epic (fill in verb of your choice here)core rocking, which is always a joy to see. Explosive guitars, jackhammer percussion and plenty of shouting. Can’t really go wrong, can you?

Back in The Wheatsheaf, the improvised funky dub type noises of the night were provided by Non-Stop Tango. It’s hard to know what to say about a completely improvised set you’ve only seen half of – certainly the sections I caught were excellently performed, if not entirely my cup of tea, but it’s utterly plausible with a group that are able to gel together as successfully as this that the tangents I missed may have surpassed the minutes I witnessed. Or they might have fallen apart, though that seems unlikely. It was time for me to dash once more having failed to formulate a proper opinion.

Foolishly I attempted to have a look at Little Fish next. I had been warned that the Thirst Lodge would be packed, but having only managed to hear a couple of songs at my last opportunity (having been dragged away by a girl I utterly failed to get off with), I decided to give it another shot. I managed to get as far as the doorway to the venue, where my passage was halted by sheer volume of people. The sounds drifting from the stage sounded rather good, but the cramped environs proved too much and I was driven away. Perhaps the band and I simply aren’t meant to be . . .

My final wander into the Turtle got me there just in time to catch the last minute or so of Elapse-O. That cheery wall of guitars thing that Oxford bands do so well crescendoed and then I was off next door again. I’m still unable to work out why I like David K Frampton. All of the elements are wrong, yet when they’re all stewed together they come out so right. Churning beats, flatulent feedback and screamed rawck chants should leave him sounding like a less verbose Andrew WK, but somehow it still manages to be far more enjoyable that. I wish that I could put my finger on what that extra element actually is – it continues to elude me. I can’t see it working on record, but as a live experience the man is electric.

Alphabet Backwards seem to have garnered quite a following of late, judging by the crowd packed back into the ’sheaf. To some degree I can see why – the quirky lyrics (“if we all threw an ice cube in the sea/Could we save the polar bears?”), some splendid keyboard work and a cheerful, contemporarily ‘indie’ sound obviously check many peoples boxes. For me, some of the tunes weren’t quite there yet, but the group definitely have potential.

Thirst had become inhabitable once more by the time I went for a look at Sikorsky. Two men, two laptops, who left me feeling painfully old with a Grand Theft Auto related shout out. Were they sampling from the game (there was certainly dialogue from somewhere in the following track)? Are they just enthusiastic players? Could they have been mocking the audience (especially those of us who didn’t understand their youthful referencing)? Perhaps I’ll never know. The music itself was fairly pleasurable, meaty beats with some simple though affecting washes pasted over the top. I departed just as a leather clad vocalist was joining them on stage – possibly a mistake, but, as is the nature of the night, there were other groups to explore.

Soft, sorry, 50ft Panda were that next group and jolly enjoyable they were too. Maybe it was the myriad flavours of booze churning in my belly, though it was more likely the band themselves that caused the joy I received from their set. Standing just far away enough from the post in rock to make them fun, while being close enough for them still pull out some interesting noodling. I was splendidly inebriated by this point, but maintain that my judgement was sound.

Someone had described the man who is Clanky Robo Gobjobs as ‘the ultimate floor emptier’ and it turned out that this wasn’t far of the mark. Never before have I seen a final Punt act playing to such an unpopulated room. With good reason though – Clanky is essentially doing the same thing as the aforementioned Mr. Frampton, yet somehow in his hands the same ingredients mix together into something entirely unpalatable. Perhaps it’s because his screaming seems to have a point (which is lost, because it is screamed) while his music lacks one (a single pre-recorded track per song, with no live manipulation). I only managed a couple of songs before staggering off into the night, ears ringing, but largely content.

By Alastair Tervit

Here’s a shot of Elapse-O from last week’s Punt. Stay tuned for a review and some audio clips from the Punt right here. In the meantime, more Punt pics over here – if you have some, please upload them to the Oxford music group on Flickr too…