Lee "Scratch" Perry The Upsetter Coming to Oxford!

On June 4th Lee “Scratch” Perry (aka Pipecock Jackxon aka The Upsetter), the great Jamaican eccentric will be descending upon Oxford for some kind of roast at the Regal. Although his name often precedes him for his bizarre behaviour which may or may not include burning down his own backyard recording studio, what really made Perry’s name was his role in pioneering dub music.

By dissecting the songs of Reggae bands and reassembling them as bass and rhythm-heavy mixes, Perry and his contemporaries essentially created the art of the remix and helped earn the producer as much respect as the musicians and songwriters themselves. Indeed, his original take on Reggae and Dub helped to spread both genres to audiences around the world.

At the ripe old age of seventy five God only knows what the man has in store for us but make no mistake - this is a chance to witness a real, living legend whose influence on Western music is almost impossible to put into words do his thing live. This means that we can expect some blissed-out, laid-back riddims and a variety of songs from his long, illustrious career. Probably.

Support comes from Laid Blak and tickets are available from We Got Tickets and at the Regal box office.

[Originally printed in The Sampler Issue 1, May 2011]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/sampler1.pdf

Yellow Fever - A Grin That Never Falters

(Self-released, 2011)

When the new Nightshift comes out, I, like a great number of Oxfordians, go straight for the Demo Dumper page to see which poor sap has been verbally crushed this month. I guess this gut reaction stems from that innate morbid curiosity that lingers within us all – waiting for an opportunity to see destruction when it is strewn before our eyes. But let’s be honest, if you’ve played in many local bands then there’s a good chance that you may have veered close to or have been thrown into the Demo Dumper (for the record, my first band got the Demo Dumper treatment – fortunately it was so long ago that the magazine isn’t available online… shame, that). It’s not the end of the world, and this month’s Demo of the Month is actually a band that had previously fared far worse in the same magazine so it does show that a band can learn from their criticisms and turn it around. But for a young band like Yellow Fever it must leave a mark.

We’d heard of Yellow Fever before reading their recent drubbing, perhaps through their association with other Oxford likely lads Dead Jerichos. Whatever it was that made us remember the band, it was hard to understand how, for example, their chums could get such laudatory reviews while Yellow Fever got so thoroughly condemned. Perhaps it’s because Dead Jerichos take their musical cues from slightly ‘cooler’ bands, bands whose music is comprised chiefly of digital delay, reverb and attitude – whereas Yellow Fever just want to dance.

At first listen, opening track ‘Premature’ is actually really quite dynamic, with some interesting chord changes, replete with youthful swagger. It even has a cowbell to add to the overall danceability of the song. This is clearly a band that grew up listening to The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys – bands who enjoy making wilfully retrospective music to dance to. All measured guitar leads and rhythmic stabs.

‘Fiend’ begins with a chiming guitar and we are worried that it will descend into a mushy emo love song before the aforementioned rhythm kicks in and gives it a more palatable context. We can’t tell if the middle-eight freak-out is good or bad – it’s certainly a jolt in the song that comes just as we’re beginning to get a bit bored so in that sense is a welcome addition. ‘Dead Intent’ has a nice driving bassline that recalls Interpol and thus Joy Division before a typically nu-indie chorus slightly detracts from the promising intro, but it’s nevertheless a well-structured song and pretty good.

The thing that we found most hard to overcome was the more Oxford-than-thou vocal stylings of singer Dele coupled with the overbaked, overly earnest lyrics. The first verse of ‘Premature’ is almost comically packed with alliteration, assonance, internal rhymes and various other literary tricks, as if it were written during the singer’s English lesson. Elsewhere in ‘Dead Intent’ he sings “I’ve seen the future/and you’re not the only one who can be vindictive.” For some reason, it really grates. Perhaps it’s because it is an archetypal indie lyric; somewhat clever, somewhat meaningless and wholly destined to be sung by a gaggle of sweaty teens who live inside an episode of Skins.

And then it hits me; this music was not made for me. I am not Yellow Fever’s audience. With that knowledge I can sit back, giggle at the silly bits and have a little boogie in my office chair. There’s definitely a generational divide that prevents me from fully embracing Yellow Fever (as well as one or two matters of taste), but if we judge their music for what it is on its own terms, it’s well done and really rather enjoyable.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 02/06/2011]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/06/02/yellow-fever-a-grin-that-never-falters-ep-self-released/

Shattered Dreams - Lessons Through Living

(self-released, 2011)

Things seem to be going pretty well for Shattered Dreams; they’ve already played the O2 and the Regal, they’ve recorded with local legend Rich Haines and seem to come fully endorsed by Nightshift who recently awarded them the coveted Demo of the Month honour. Which makes us wonder: what has everyone else been listening to?

Everything about Shattered Dreams seems to be a preset; from the band’s logo (which looks like it was created using some kind of Myspace band logo generator) to the song names (“Round and Round”, “Live and Learn”). Everything is safe, generic and ultimately anonymous.

And unfortunately the same can be said of their music. Their recent Nightshift review suggested that they were the antithesis of what “some Disney executive’s idea of what grunge should sound like.” It’s actually quite the contrary – they sound like the aforementioned exec combined the elements of every pop-punk band that managed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 in the last three years and threw them together with a lashing of glue hoping that the resulting pile would resemble a cohesive, viable band. But where the Disney exec might have had the good sense to create hits with repeatable lyrics, hooks and infectious vocal melodies, Shattered Dreams can only offer us a pedestrian, haphazard assembly of chords and an uninspired delivery.

Indeed, the lyrics and the way they are delivered are the most troubling aspects of Shattered Dreams’ songs. We can tell that Steph is a powerful singer; she can hold a note (for the most part) and by all accounts is a good front-woman but she sounds uncomfortable as the voice of this band. Too often she simply mimics what the guitar is doing and uses it as a guide for her vocal melody and the rhythm with which she delivers the lyrics (see “Round and Round”) without emoting or expressing. Perhaps this is because the lyrics are so banal that there’s nothing too compelling to express. They are ripe with laboured couplets and references to being “so free” and “flying high” – meaningless, regurgitated metaphors and buzz words. We hate to be mean to a band so obviously full of optimism, excitement and enthusiasm but Shattered Dreams sound like a bunch of thirteen-year-olds (they’re not) who take all their musical cues from Green Day and all their lyrical inspiration from CBBC teen-dramas.

“Unparalleled” contains a few noteworthy drum fills and a guitar lead that is noteworthy only for its absurdity. Likewise the solo in “Song 109” is a free-roaming, uninhibited affair, the prospect of which would sound appealing if it were coming from the likes of Neil Young or John Frusciante, but the reality of which is cringe-worthy and illustrative of a lack of musical understanding. Scales be-damned!

“Live and Learn” is the diamond in the rough, relatively speaking. Here singer Steph spreads her wings and chooses to wander, albeit at arm’s length, from the guitar’s melody for a spell. And to be fair the song is quite pretty and nicely put-together in places. Musically the song sounds a bit like when bands like Green Day and Blink-182 get a mellow-on; it sounds similar to the latter’s “Adam’s Song.” The arpeggiated electric and acoustic guitars compliment each other nicely. The song is genuinely a breath of fresh air. And then we are dragged back down into the putrid swamp.

Throughout this EP the chord progressions are so recycled, so clumsy and predictable that the results go beyond being amusing and instead become a depressing series of death-dirges for the pop-punk era. It’s horrible to have to shit on a band for their musical limitations, but it’s also horrible to have to listen to Shattered Dreams for any prolonged period of time.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 31/05/2011]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/05/31/shattered-dreams-lessons-through-living-ep-self-released/

The Rock of Travolta Feature

This month sees the return of post-rock local legends The Rock of Travolta who release Fine Lines, their first album since 2003’s Uluru, on Big Red Sky Records on the 14^th March. OMS recently caught up with guitarist Matt Spooner to talk about the new album, the band’s tumultuous history and the current state of the Oxford music scene.

The Rock of Travolta formed in 2000, released their debut album My Bands Better Than Yours and was handpicked by Radiohead to open their South Park homecoming gig in 2001, instantly making them the darlings of the Oxford music scene. Uluru gained the band national recognition but after the promotional blitz that followed the album’s release, the band went through a transformation. “I joined the band on Valentines Day 2004” Spooner remembers. “At that point there was some new music but, by July, two of the original band members had quit and as a result we didn’t do anything for a while. As you can imagine we were a bit disheartened.”

However the band was soon bolstered by the addition of Jennie Bates on Cello, Keyboard and Bass guitar duties. “By the time Jennie joined in September 2005 we had found a new way of working, and written new music. Jennie’s input gave an extra dimension to the ideas, our confidence lifted and the band suddenly seemed real to us again.” So, how has the change in line-up affected TROT’s sound?

“The music on Fine Lines is more complex. It takes more skill to play. We’re realising this at the moment, having played a lot of the old material recently to promote the re-release of the last two records. We realise that some of these technicalities could be lost on people.”

The recording of Fine Lines began at the end of 2007 at Martin Newton’s Studio 101, and was co-produced by the band and Jimmy Hetherington. “We took a lot of time over the recording and mixing the album. It was pretty meticulous stuff. Jimmy and Martin have both played huge roles in making it a reality. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.”

“Jimmy is brilliant in the studio and a bloody good musician too. Martin and Big Red Sky really gave us the kick up the arse we needed to get the album out there. We’ve learnt a massive amount from both of them.”

So where do TROT fit into the local music scene, and are there drawbacks to being a purely instrumental band?

“Most bands have words and sing melodies. The traditional approach gives them an immediate familiarity. We have to work a bit harder. Somewhere in the writing process we need to decide whether we’re going to try and provide a focus, carry peoples attention with melody and if so, what instrument will carry it? Sometimes it’s the case that we’re going to emphasize the absence of a lead instrument.”

As for the challenges of being an instrumental band, Spooner notes “It’s pretty easy gaining an audiences attention, holding it is the real trick.”

“It must be challenging for an audience listening to us. One minute it seems like we’re building serious guitar atmospheres, and the next we’re blowing a big musical raspberry at it all with some tongue-in-cheek squelchy electronica.”

Having already mentioned a few local bands, Spooner was enthusiastic about the current state of the Oxford music scene.

“There’s some brilliant music coming out of Oxford at the moment. Bands like Ivy’s Itch, Dive Dive and Smilex are as disturbing, inventive and brutal as ever but Oxford also has an exciting younger crop of bands too. I’m really enjoying Von Braun, Gunning for Tamar, Phantom Theory, Spring Offensive and Undersmile. The continuous wealth of bands in Oxford shows that music is about life just as much as ambition.”

So what’s next for TROT? “We’re doing a lot of work to give the album the push it deserves but we also have an EP mixed and mastered that we would like to release at the end of the year. On top of that, there are four other tunes written.”

So Oxford’s instrumental darlings are back and in beautifully, anarchic form.

“We didn’t set out to make something difficult, we just play what we want.”

[Originally printed in Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine, issue 13, April 2011]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue13.pdf

Listing Ships - Maiden Voyage

(self-release, 2011)

[NOTE: I’ve actually written reviews of this EP for both OMS and Music In Oxford]

Listing Ships combine elements of many of the great nineties post-rock bands; from the cyclical, jarring grooves of Rodan, the tense, spidery guitar work of Slint, the interlocking rhythms of Shipping News and the expansive, airy elegance of Tortoise. Add to that some anthemic guitar heroics via Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins and we’re clearly off to a winner. Opening track ‘Equus Ager’ is a glorious, triumphant start to the collection while ‘All Aboard the Andrea Doria’ builds from a Slint-playing-schizoid-jazz opening to an “oh-shit, Slint-are-about-to-sink-the-ship” finale. ‘Skipper’s Daughter’ borrows from the kinetic, rhythmic sonic palette of Tortoise and the whole collection nods to 90s-revialists like Broken Social Scene by way of a series of big indie choruses - choruses without words. Boasting former members of Witches and Sunnyvale, it was clear that Listing Ships would be an interesting band but Maiden Voyage illustrates that they’re on their way to becoming a great one.

[Originally printed in Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine, issue 13, April 2011]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue13.pdf

Whether Maiden Voyage is a reference to the seminal Herbie Hancock album of the same name or merely a nautical metaphor for their debut release, Listing Ships arrive on our shores in a triumphant blaze of post-rock guitar heroics. This gang of merry sailors includes former members of Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element and Witches and they return to the local scene in glorious fashion.

If it isn’t already implied by the repeated mentions of ‘post-rock’, this is a strictly instrumental affair and as such Maiden Voyage may divide opinion, but there’s enough going on here to grab the attention of even the most jaded of music fans. Opening track ‘Equus Ager’ is a nineties alternative and post-rock nostalgia trip, combining elements of Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins and Tortoise to create an anthemic, vast soundscape.

‘All Aboard the Andrea Doria’ starts with a nod to the jarring rhythms of legendary Louisville bands such as Slint and Rodan before easing into the expansive, airy sound of Tortoise and stretching out to the horizon. The song’s tense build up and terrifying, fuzzy outro (which is presumably the part where the Andrea Doria crashes into the SS Stockholm and sinks) suggests a band more indebted to Tweez than Spiderland. ‘Skipper’s Daughter’ successfully manages to evoke the stirring, kinetic motion of fresh water before it crescendos into a tidal wave of rollicking guitar fuzz that finally crests as the song comes to an end and the collection is over.

Listing Ships join the likes of Broken Social Scene and Yuck in having fun reinterpreting (some might say regurgitating) the aesthetics of alternative nineties guitar music and managing to create something interesting. It’s a shame that the ‘supergroup’ iron has already been branded onto these guys’ buttocks because all bands need to earn their place in the limelight but luckily Listing Ships have done that by making a really good first record.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 12/04/2011]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/04/12/listing-ships-maiden-voyage/

The Half Rabbits - Optimists EP

(self-release, 2011)

‘Gasoline’ starts Optimists promisingly with frenzied drumming and a sleek, subtly driving bassline reminiscent of Interpol. Singer Michael Weatherburn turns in a strong vocal performance and his voice is now immersed into the mix where it had previously been too prominent. Conversely, the most interesting element of ‘Poor Me, Poor You’ – the lead guitar part – is buried too deeply into the mix and the song fails to put enough emphasis on any particular section. ‘Extremadura’ is similar; there are interesting things going on here – we enjoy the Joey Santiago-esque guitar bends – but the song ends kind of abruptly. ‘How The West Was Won’ and ‘Gasoline’ show that The Half Rabbits can write a chorus but they continue to be a bit of a frustrating band and we wish Weatherburn would drop the mannered vocal style and let loose with the rest of the band from time to time.

[Originally printed in Oxfordshire Music Scene magazine, issue 13, April 2011]

http://www.oxfordmusicscene.co.uk/images/oms_issue13.pdf

Vienna Ditto - The Vienna Ditto EP

(self-released, 2011)

Vienna Ditto are the kind of band which you can only presume will go far; that is to say, they sound rather like a band jumping through hoops. Their songs are clearly written with a wide audience in mind and although this is by no means a bad thing it can sometimes detract from the overall power of the songs. ‘Wintertime’ is a sultry start to the EP, sounding like Portishead if they were fronted by Lily Allen rather than Beth Gibbons. They do the sassy front-woman-on-a-mission thing on ‘This is Normal’, with Hatty Taylor singing “this is f’d up” like a combination of Allen, Róisín Murphy and Florence Welch. EP closer ‘Dang’ is a brief but well written love song with an infectiously wily rock guitar riff and suitably ‘indie’ middle eight.

That’s the thing – all the songs are pretty well written and infectious and sound like they’d be at home on the radio, but it’s unlikely that they’d stand out amongst all the other hit-makers who reside there. They’re not quite edgy enough to hook in the hipsters, and nowhere near inane enough to compete with most commercial drivel which leaves Vienna Ditto in a somewhat awkward position. Ironically, the most introverted song here, ‘Best Shot’, is the one in which Vienna Ditto spread their wings musically and where Taylor’s voice feels most comfortable. The song is experimental and atmospheric, unusual even, and the lyrics are suitably bruised; the marching drums and strong expressive vocals recall some of Bjork’s quieter moments. This is where Vienna Ditto’s real strengths lie, but with a Glastonbury performance and a Maida Vale session under their belts already, they may already be on the path to moderate stardom.

[Originally published on MusicInOxford.co.uk, 24/02/11]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/02/24/vienna-ditto-ep/