Another of MusicInOxford’s very own musical showcases, those dubious masterminds at MiO HQ brought together a mixture of local and out-of-town talent at that most venerable of Oxford venues, the Wheatsheaf. Unfortunately, being Friday the 13th and all (and Stagecoach bus company being what they are) not everything went to plan, and as such I arrived too late to see any of Space Heroes of the People’s set, although I was impressed by the turnout at the Wheatsheaf for what was such an eclectic line-up. People seemed to enjoy SHOTP’s set as a whole, one person summing it up as (and I’m paraphrasing) “space-age dance music with lots of weird samples.” Sounds like a pretty good start to the evening to me.
Next up were Canterbury’s Delta Sleep, who had already caused some controversy by showing up quite late which in turn made the night run a bit over. Anyway, they played what could lazily be described as math rock – that is, their music was characterised by melodic, mellow guitar leads, tricky, overly-complicated drums, sudden shifts in time signatures, and a quiet-loud-quiet dynamic. In all honesty, their set didn’t really do much for me – the first song stirred my interest well into the second, but from there on I more than got the picture, and what I heard started to sound more like an exhibition of musical one-upmanship than music with heart and soul. A harsh summary, perhaps, but these guys clearly have the enthusiasm and chops to disregard anything this cantankerous chump has to say about song structure and cohesion of ideas. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I suppose.
Von Braun proved that even on what drummer Gary Atkinson called an “off-night” the sheer twitchy energy of their live performances and the brilliance of their songs would show up many bands in town on what they would call a good night. Renditions of ‘Opener’, ‘Mustard Picasso Man’ and ‘Cat Dog’ demonstrate the band’s mysterious, twisted song-writing style, combining elements of Radiohead, Pixies, Nirvana, and even Elliott Smith, without ever sounding overly derivative or indebted to any of their influences. What can I say? They were certainly the highlight of the evening and definitely a band to check out at the Punt if you’ve not yet discovered their unique racket.
Perhaps Grudle Bay were victims of unfortunate placement on tonight’s bill, but after all that has preceded, their set seemed a bit underwhelming. Having really enjoyed some of their recorded material as Grudle Bay Riots (‘Pia’ was the standout track on recent local electronic compilation We Do Not Have a Dinosaur), it’s not hard to see why the “Riots” has been dropped from their name, based on tonight’s performance. I was expecting an intoxicating combination of Air, Radiohead and Warpaint, but what I got was more like a disco version of ‘Sex on Fire’ for half an hour. I’ll look forward to hearing more where ‘Pia’ and ‘Hon’ came from.