Oxjam!
You may or may not be aware of Oxjam, it's a month long charity music festival organised by Oxfam, various music events are hosted during the month of october by various members of the public and venues all around the country. To launch Oxjam, Oxfam convert one of their charity stores in London to be a music venue for 4 nights and invite some great artists to play. I've been going to the launch gigs since 2009, these gigs are pretty special.
This year it was held at an Oxfam store in Dalston, I went to 3 of the 4 nights. On the first night Diana Vickers was headlining, with support from Pearl and the Puppets and Liz Lawrence.
Pearl and the Puppets (http://www.myspace.com/pearlandthepuppets)
I'd never seen Pearl and the Puppets, but was very impressed, Katie Sutherland has a lovely voice, and she has some great songs, you might have heard some of her music already, 'Because I do' was used in the Tamara Drewe trailer.
Liz Lawrence (http://www.myspace.com/lizlawrencelive)
Liz Lawrence was a last minute replacement for Gabriella Cilmi, I was disappointed when I heard Gabriella had pulled out, as I've wanted to see her live for a while, but Liz Lawrence was a great replacement. She seemed a bit shy and didn't talk much, but has a very nice voice and played a great set.
Diana Vickers
You might be surprised to find out that I quite like Diana Vickers, as she's far more mainstream than most of the artists I follow, well you can blame Nerina Pallot for this, Ms Vickers is a fan of Nerina Pallot, and asked if she'd write a song for her, so Nerina gave her an existing unrecorded song called "Put It back Together" which made it on to Diana's first album.
I hadn't really listened to much of Diana Vickers work, but Hearing Put It Back Together performed live for the first time at the Union Chapel made me realise that Diana Vickers actually has a really nice voice. It's highly variable, as I've seen her live a few times on TV when she's sounded pretty rough, but when she's good, she's very good. I suspect that the slightly unpredictable nature of her voice is down to that she's still very young and has been a bit overworked this last year.
Taking this into account I was a little apprehensive at seeing her live at Oxjam, but she put on a very good performance, her voice did get a little shaky during her final 2 songs, but the rest sounded great. I discovered something I didn't know about her: she can play the trumpet!
Annoyingly, although I like her live, most of her album isn't quite as good as it should be, the songs are decent enough, and some of them are very good. but most of them feel a little overproduced, the one exception is Put It Back Together, which does sound better, but that was produced in-house by Nerina Pallot & Andy Chatterley (Nerina Pallot's husband) so it's to be expected, but even this has a little over-level clipping and distortion on Diana's vocal (it's most noticeable during the line "I think we'll be alright" around 45 seconds in), so I suspect someone fiddled with the levels during final mastering. :(
I'm getting a bit tired of hearing pop tracks that have been mastered to -5Db+ and have had the dynamic range compressed out of them, I haven't analysed the album closely enough to verify that it has been mastered to this level, but it feels like it has.
But I digress. Anyway... The first night of Oxjam was a lot of fun, probably one of my gigs of the year.
Oxjam gig 2: Johnny Borrell
I didn't know what to expect, I like Razorlight's music, but have never seen them live, but I was curious to see what Johnny Borrell was like as a solo artist live.
Little Comets (http://www.myspace.com/littlecometsmusic)
First on were Little Comets, never heard them before, but I liked them a lot, reminded me a little of 2 Door Cinema Club, I've heard them played a bit on 6 Music since, so I suspect they are going to go far.
One Night in October is a good song to listen to if you want an idea of what they sound like.
Pope Joan (http://www.myspace.com/popejoan)
I liked them, they sound quite different so a little difficult to categorise, haven't had chance to check out their music since, but might sometime. I was quite impressed that they used a Novation BassStation live on stage. :)
Johnny Borrell
Very impressed, he played a set of new material and new versions of Razorlight classics, his solo sound has quite a punk vibe to it. He even sang Dalston :)
Night 3: Ikonika and Four Tet
Ikonika (http://www.myspace.com/ikonika)
Ikonika was a last minute replacement for Howie B, I didn't know Ikonika's music, but I'd heard of her within dubstep circles, what followed was a set of quite minimalistic heavy dubstep, now I like dubstep, but not knowing her tracks made it pretty difficult to get into her music at first. After a while I began to hear some tracks I liked the sound of, and by the end I was quite disappointed she was finishing.
Four Tet (http://www.myspace.com/fourtetkieranhebden)
Four Tet is a remixer who is known for remixing Radiohead and for creating his own tracks, he mainly played his own tracks, but his set was very good and the crowd loved it.
My only complaint about this evening is that it wasn't as good as last year's DJ lineup, which had the Stereo MCs, Basement Jaxx and Fatboy Slim on the bill, but that set a very high standard to live up to.
Found an official Oxjam launch gig video on youtube:
October
6 Fest
6 Fest was a little festival held at Venue 229 on Great Portland Street in celebration of 6Music being saved, the lineup was a closely guarded secret so until I arrived at the venue I didn't know who'd be playing.
Unfortunately, Grace (a friend of mine who wanted to attend), couldn't go. :( Completely understandable as She was majorly jetlagged and not feeling great, she'd only just returned from Australia after running the Sydney Marathon! Completed in 5h, 24m. Very well done Grace!
The Lineup was interesting, hadn't heard of many of the acts, Saw too many to go into them all, but a few of the best were:
Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny (http://www.myspace.com/bethjeanshoughton)
I liked them, they have a folk inspired sound, reminded me a little of Theoretical Girl.
Adam Buxton
Utter genius, he even did a live version of Help The Police, this is the original sketch if you haven't seen it:
Total Shambles
The 6 Music house band comprises various DJs and staff from 6 Music, they actually were very entertaining.
The Jim Jones Revue (http://www.myspace.com/thejimjonesrevue)
An absolutely amazing modern Rock and Roll band, I can understand why rock and roll must have sounded so exciting when it first appeared on the scene.
Part 4 coming soon....
No comments:
Post a Comment