There’s a bit of a musical legend swinging by Oxford on Tuesday 30 July. Mike Heron, an original member of the intensely influential and excellent Incredible String Band, will perform in the marvellous setting of Oxford’s St John the Evangelist Church. He’ll be joined by Glasgow’s Trembling Bells, who have worked with Heron previously. They’ll be performing a wide variety of material including many choice items from the Incredible String Band’s past output.
More festival action! So much of it about at this time of year. On Saturday 3 August there’s the Irregular Folk all-dayer at the Perch in Oxford. This relatively new promoter has very quickly made a new for organising carefully-crafted, elegantly-presented events, and this eleven-hour-plus spectacular will include sets from Message To Bears, Salvation Bill, Bright Works (previously known as Nairobi), Jordan O’Shea and more. Fingers crossed for lots of sun!
More Jordan O’Shea gigging on Sunday 4 August: his art/music collective Bear On A Bicycle will launch their new compilation album Family with an in-store gig at Truck Store in Oxford. As well as from O’Shea, there will also be performances from My Crooked Teeth, Joshua Gilbert, Sier Pin Sky and Rhys Baker, all of whom and more appear on the new album.
There’s another doozy of a festivalmania weekend from Thursday 8 August. Fairport’s Cropredy Convention takes place from then until Saturday 10 August, and features Fairport Convention as well as Alice Cooper, 10CC, The Levellers and a lot more; Wilderness Festival (at Cornbury Park) runs from the Thursday until Sunday 11 August, with a massive line-up of food, arts and music that will include live performances from Rodriguez, Empire Of The Sun, Noah And The Whale and more; and the beautifully strange Supernormal (at Braziers Park) runs from the Friday until the Sunday and has a line-up of fantastic treats including Clinic, Shit & Shine, Terminal Cheesecake, Mugstar and lots more. Looks like that tent is going to take a bit of a beating. If that doesn’t sound too pervy…
Full details of these and loads more gigs can be found in the events calendar.