The Art Bar in Oxford – formerly The Bullingdon, and before that The Bullingdon Arms – have started to get serious with gigs recently, with a lot of interesting stuff taking place. An example is on Wednesday 30 April, as the hectic, slightly unhinged rock music of Leeds’ Pulled Apart By Horses will be supported by a band called The Witches. That’s not Witches, the band from Oxford; it’s something else. It’s difficult to keep up with all of this, sometimes…
After their recent DJs’n’films EP launch event at The Library, Listing Ships do the decent thing and launch The Flat Holm Island Sessions – an EP available as a USB stick in a bottle (no joke) – with a gig at The Jericho Tavern in Oxford. Joining them on Saturday 3 May will be the much-loved shoegaze’n’Joy Division types The Workhouse and Oxford’s rhythms’n’jaunt electro-pop types Grudle Bay.
The Old Fire Station in Oxford presents the latest of its ‘Listening Room’ local band showcases on Tuesday 6 May. The sublime Vienna Ditto will be joined by poppy types Crayon and folky-singer-type Matt Carter, for an evening of fun’n’frolics in a really nice venue.
Haven’t seen We Aeronauts playing live around these parts for a little while now, so it’s good to see that they’re playing The Cellar, Oxford on Thursday 8 May. As they’re finishing up their debut album, there may be some new tracks being aired; and there’ll be strong support from new energetic melodicists Maiians and the spectacularly badly-named Shhhh! The Deaf Have Aids!
Seems like the event on Friday 9 May at St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford will be a special one. Mercury nominee Sam Lee mixes up many strands of folk music old and new, and The Magic Lantern are described as “deceptively spare and starkly beautiful”. Sounds like a keeper.
Dive into some classic band times on Saturday 10 May at O2 Academy Oxford: Echo & The Bunnymen will be doing their increasingly-influential moody indie rock thang, supported by Black Submarine, who are noteworthy for featuring two members of The Verve.
Full details of these and loads more gigs can be found in the events calendar.