LIVE: Sofar Sounds Oxford at The Ashmolean Museum (27/01/2017)

Yesterday was my first gig of the year, helping out with the Sofar stage at Oxford's Ashmolean and running the social media. I've been living in Oxford on and off since September 2014 but it's only the second time I've visited the museum, the first time being another Sofar show almost exactly two years ago, both shows being part of the museum's Live Friday events. This time the event was Linguamania, a celebration of languages, so we had four different acts who were all born elsewhere or grew up in another country, singing us tunes in various languages.

Josh Savage, Anna Zed, Count Drachma and The Fusion Project

First up, somebody who is no strange to Sofar, having set up Sofar Winchester and having played the most Sofar shows of anybody - I believe yesterday was his 49th. Josh Savage is in the midst of a living room tour at the moment, and shared some tracks in French as he grew up in Paris... check out his The Living Room Tour documentary below!

Next up was a set from Anna Zed, who was born in Athens and studied in the UK. She played with an electric guitar and sang in a mixture of Greek and English, and I really enjoyed her set, particularly the track Holiness - see a video from a London Sofar below!

Next up, Oli Steadman's project Count Drachma treat us to some Zulu Maskandi music. Oli actually set up Oxford Sofar a few years ago, and there's a video below of Count Drachma performing at a Sofar years ago with percussion, bass, and violin, but this time around there was Oli and a violinist. It's actually almost exactly a year since I started off my uni placement with Oli's company Tigmus who haven't been able to get rid of me since - the year has flown by!

Finishing up the night with a couple of sets for two separate audiences - there was a constant queue outside our gallery for the whole evening - Oxford's The Fusion Project. They fuse together Indian Classical music with Western music, performing their covers of Ed Sheeran and Adele tracks last night and performing in Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, English (and probably more!) They sold out a Tigmus show at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre last year and are doing so well for themselves at the moment, so it was lovely to catch them live again! Check out their most recent cover of The Chainsmokers' track Closer below.

Personally, my next gig is tonight at The Cellar in Oxford, an Independent Venue Week show with Hudson Scott (who I saw supporting Foals at the end of 2015), Catgod and Coldredlight - tickets for that here. The next Sofar Oxford in Feb is sold out, but there's a special show for International Women's Day on 8th March with a bunch of the best local female artists (apply for tickets here.)

LIVE: Record Store Day/Folk Weekend Oxford (16/17 April)

I've had a busy couple of days of music this weekend - which kicked off with queueing early at Truck Store in Oxford for Record Store Day 2016. Although someone pushed in front of me in the doorway and had the Public Service Broadcasting 7" that I wanted, all was good as after a frantic search I found a copy, and got that, as well as the Mumford & Sons and Foals 7"s, Hozier 12" EP and the Communion Music compilation. After a quick trip back to my flat, I popped into town for an early Count Drachma set in the peaceful confines of Blackwells Book Shop. A project fronted by Oli Steadman, bassist of Stornoway, it's a return to his South African roots, performing in Zulu and Xhosa (apart from a Paul Simon I Know What I Know cover) and I am really interested in the music - and loved the set, especially the high kicks!

Count Drachma in Blackwells

Once wasn't enough and I saw Count Drachma for a second time in the early evening, at the Oxford Deaf and Hard of Hearing Centre. The sets were both part of Oxford's Folk Weekend (a weekend where lots of morris dancers and folk lovers descend upon the city) - and to get into the set for free I stewarded afterwards at a French dance. Everyone seemed to be having a great time and I met a lot of lovely people (apart from one random drunk guy who managed to cause trouble for a lot of people, but didn't manage to spoil the evening!)

French ball at Folk Weekend, with the band playing amongst the dancing to let the crew clear the stage as everyone wanted to carry on past the end time!

This afternoon, Truck Store carried on their RSD celebrations with a couple of great artists. The first of which was Jonny Payne, who I saw a couple of months ago with his band (Jonny Payne & The Thunder), so was cool to see his solo set. Second up were local legends Neverlnd, minus a full drum kit (but the keyboard 'impersonating' a drum kit sounded great), playing a few new tracks alongside popular track Cutout in a stripped back style.

Jonny Payne at Truck Store

Neverlnd at Truck Store

Both artists have Oxford shows coming up - Jonny Payne & The Thunder play The Library on the 28th April (details here), I sadly can't make it to that one but Jonny smashed his last show there when I was working on the door! Neverlnd play a show for Tigmus at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building this Friday, 22nd April, tickets available here. 

LIVE: Roberto y Juan EP launch at Art Jericho (5/2/16)

Since coming back to Oxford I've already been to some great gigs and last night was no exception. Roberto y Juan (side project of Robin and Jonny of Balloon Ascents) have just released a new EP entitled Monster Love, which you can listen to above and buy digitally through their Bandcamp here for a mere £3 - last night they played a launch show at Art Jericho in Oxford, with Stornoway's Oli Steadman supporting under the moniker of Count Drachma. I'd really been looking forward to seeing Oli perform as Count Drachma, a band which usually consists of his brother too; born and raised in South Africa, they play traditional South African music as well as other tracks translated into Zulu, bringing a refreshing and new style of music to an English audience (you can listen to some of their demos here.)

Count Drachma (Oli Steadman)

Roberto y Juan

The audience was pretty mesmerised for Oli's set, and by the time Robin and Jonny (joined by George of Homeplanetearth, whose single I recently posted about) took to the stage, the room was packed - there was a really nice communal atmosphere with members of various Oxford bands, family and friends waiting in anticipation, a few who I knew already (predominantly through Sofar Sounds Oxford shows), and others who I met for the first time and were all lovely folk! The guys played a fantastic set to showcase their new EP Monster Love, which I am enjoying an awful lot - it is some of the best new music I've heard so far this year! Below is a video of them performing I Used To Relax, from which I've had the "Where did you go?" "I don't know.." refrain stuck in my head for days.

I took my camera along to the show, take a look at more of my photos here.