A hugely popular fixture in Oxfordshire’s annual live music calendar is Truck festival, which takes place on Friday 20 July and Saturday 21 July. Tickets are still available, and the ever-growing line-up contains a huge number of big names including The Mystery Jets, The Temper Trap, Tim Minchim and British Sea Power, alongside a fantastic selection of Oxford-related bands and musicians like This Town Needs Guns, The Dreaming Spires, Gunning For Tamar, Black Hats, Flights Of Helios, and more, and more, and more…
If you can’t make it to Truck, or for some reason don’t want to go, there’s some alternative musical entertainment available on Friday 20 July. The Cellar in Oxford plays host to the odd-rockabilly-skiffle-magic of The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band (whose last release came in the form of a wax cylinder…), along with DJ sets from the legendary Count Skylarkin’ and some cat by the name of Jason ‘The Cat’ King. We doubt that’s the same moustach-heavy dandy Jason King of 1970s television fame, but we can but hope!
The sunny and slick Grudle Bay – who dropped the ‘Riots’ from the end of their name some time ago – launch their new EP ‘Zoo Papa’ with a gig at The Cellar in Oxford on Friday 27 July. They’ll be supported by Jonathan Krisp, who has previously played gigs with Arcade Fire and Amy Winehouse! Copies of the new EP will be available to buy at the gig.
It’s festival frenzy over the weekend of Saturday 28 July and Sunday 29 July: there are three of them to choose from! On both days, there’s the fantastic – and free – Riverside Festival at Charlbury, with a line-up that includes much of the best of the Oxford music scene such as Smilex, Listing Ships, Alphabet Backwards and The Cellar Family. On the Saturday, if you’re not Riverside-ing you could head off to leafy Drayton, where the Red Lion pub hosts D Fest 3, a day of music curated by members of the recently-ended Dead Jerichos, including The Dreaming Spires, The Graceful Slicks, King Of Cats and (once again) Alphabet Backwards. If you’re not up for either Riverside or D Fest, and are in a more noisy and aggressive frame of mind, try the brilliantly-named Brutal Punishment Fest 2012, which will provide the opportunity to spend the day inside the Bullingdon in Oxford, checking out heavy/metal bands with names like Basement Torture Killings and Today The Sun Dies. (We don’t think that bouncy indie-poppers Alphabet Backwards are playing Brutal Punishment Fest, but we’ll let you know if that changes…)