Towersey Festival (Thursday 21 August to Monday 25 August @ Towersey): This properly long-running independent festival is celebrating its 50th birthday this year (!) with five days of music and entertainment. There’s all kinds of stuff lined up, including Seth Lakeman, Richard Thompson and The Bootleg Beatles. Happy birthday to Towersey!

Spinner Fall / Personnel / Lee Riley: LR/GW (Thursday 28 August @ The Library, Oxford): Free gigs are always good, and here’s one in a cool little venue with a couple of diverse and excellent local acts. Spinner Fall make shoegaze-inflected noisy hardcore, and Lee Riley (aka LR/GW) constructs washes of cloying noise and tone into dizzying soundscapes. Reading’s Personnel are also on the bill, promising a “stark chronicling of tedium Britain”.

Bright Works / Flights Of Helios / Wardens (Friday 29 August @ Castle House, Banbury): The Strummer Room Project regularly put on decent gigs in Banbury, and this one – with an entry cost of only two quid! – includes a couple of Oxford’s best in Bright Works and Flights Of Helios.

The Kites / Octopuses / These Are Our Demands (Saturday 30 August @ The Wheatsheaf, Oxford): The latest Gappy Tooth Industries gig has indie-pop from The Kites, ‘alt-pop’ from Octopuses (formed by two members of Foxes!, who you may remember from a few years ago), and moody rock from These Are Our Demands (formed by three quarters of Harry Angel, who you may also remember from a few years ago!)

Full details of these and loads more gigs can be found in the events calendar.