The morbidly-named Exquisite Corpse perform on Tuesday 3 September at Old Fire Station in Oxford. It promises to be an interesting and challenging couple of hours – with ‘minimal drones and fragments, barely audible to deafeningly loud’ from the experimental two-piece whose instruments include ‘prepared electric guitars, acoustic objects and other objects’.
Lots of local band options on Saturday 7 September. There’s a folky-songwritery collection of brilliance at Modern Art Oxford with Huck, Stuart Clark & Sarah Lucas, Tamara and Reichenbach Falls; a noisy blast of rock’n’sludge mayhem at The Wheatsheaf, Oxford with Peter Pan Speedrock, Blasted, Desert Storm and Bear Trap; refined alternative/indie melodics at The North Wall, Oxford with Wild Swim and Kill Murray; and a super-solid line-up of some of Oxford’s weird and twisted guitar manglers at Port Mahon, Oxford with The Cellar Family, X-1 and Agness Pike. Choices, choices, choices… what’s it gonna be, huh?
The week starting 9 September is kind of a quiet one, although you can avail yourself of some local talent on Wednesday 11 September at The Wheatsheaf in Oxford. “Gothic, spiky, abrasive, melodic, charming and bouncy” – so are described the combination of Dropout, Mary Bendy Toy and Gag Reflex.
On Friday 13 September Babyshambles – remember them? – will rock up to the O2 Academy Oxford to play songs from their new album and, probably, a selection of the earlier stuff that made them initially famous and popular. Or maybe they won’t rock up at all; they’ve got a habit for dropping out of gigs, haven’t they?
If that’s too indie-schmindie for you, get over to The Wheatsheaf, Oxford, instead on Friday 13 September, and celebrate Friday 13th with the thundering brutal metal sonic assault of Bloodshot Dawn, who will be supported in similar vein by locals Black Skies Burn as well as by Japan’s Gotsu-Totsu-Kotsu and the South (of England)’s The Florentine Camerata. Devil horns all around!
Full details of these and loads more gigs can be found in the events calendar.