Oxjam in Glasgow: 102 bands in two nights

[Yahweh. Photograph by Andrea Heins]

The sheer scale of Glasgow’s Oxjam Takeover is a daunting proposition. With over 100 bands playing a slew of venues across city in just 48 hours, the co-ordination required to maximise this two-day aural extravaganza will rival that of an Olympic standard synchronised swimming troupe.

Of course, in these capitalist climes where value for money is the whole enchilada, Oxjam’s west coast roster of tune-chugging rapscallions is the musical equivalent of a five fingered discount at Harrods - thrilling fun, with the added knowledge that you’re benefiting a greater good by not lining the pockets of an intolerably rich buffoon.

Mhairi Love, Glasgow volunteer Oxjam Regional Manager, says of the two day shindig: “In Glasgow we are spoiled for choice when it comes to music. It’s fantastic to be able to use the talent of local musicians to help raise so much money to fight poverty, and put on a great show at the same time. I’m really excited about our multi venue event. We have a great line up ranging from local talent to living legends.”

She’s not wrong. The parts that make up Glasgow Oxjam’s whole gleam with musical brilliance. A number of UtR favourites decorate this glittering roll call, including The Seventeenth Century, Barn Owl and the always exceptional Yaweh.

But really, Oxjam is not about the bands, the venues or, indeed, the price. No folks, [Ruffles up hair and puts on best Bob Geldof-at-his-most-stoic tone] this is about music and people uniting to make a difference in a world that can be achingly unjust. And, for this reason alone, you need to be there.

Words: Billy Hamilton

Oxjam Glasgow takes place this Saturday (24th) and Sunday (25th). Tickets are £8 and are available here.

The current line-up (subject to change) is as follows:

SATURDAY 24 OCT
2pm-12am
Venues 1-8

1. 13th Note (Acoustic Riot Stage) 3pm-11.30pm
Dave Hughes and the Renegade Folk Punk Band
Roscoe Vacant
El Bastardos
Judith Harron
Jimmy Richards
Billy Liar
Roberto Cassani
The Moth and the Mirror
Shambles Miller

2. Metropolitan 3pm-6pm
Martin John Henry (De Rosa)
Mike Nisbet
Jamie Keenan
Ben Chaddock

3.ABC - Polar Bar 3pm-6pm
Brother Louis Collective
John B McKenna
Full House
Mike and Solveig

4.Panoptican 6pm-8.30pm
Johnny Jack
Paul McGranaghan
Pure Brass
Compere TBC

5.Blackfriars 6pm-10pm
The Xcerts
Cuba Cuba
The LaFontaines
Atlas Skye
The Marder
Young States

6.The V Club 6pm-12.00am
My Cousin I Bid You Farewell
Esperanza
Lions.Chase.Tigers
Young States
Maple Leaves
Odeon Beat Club
Glider
Hidden Masters

7.The Vale 7pm-11.30pm
Vendor Defender
Homework
Ben TD
Gong Fei
The Reveres
Endor

8. Sloans (The Skinny Stage) 7pm-12am
Strike the Colours
Zoey Van Goey
The Low Miffs
Yahweh
Le Reno Amps
The Seventeenth Century

SUNDAY 25th OCT
2pm-3am
Venues 9-15

9.Brunswick Hotel Penthouse Suite
Emma Curran
Andrea Marini
Kristina Cox
Jamie Marshall
David Bova
Mark McCabe

10.Pivo Pivo 2pm-11.30
Tango in the Attic
The Deals
Schnapps
The Dull Fudds
Big Ned
Bwani Junction
Wilson Tan
Eddy and the T Bolts
The Black Delorean
The 123s
Three Blind Wolves
The Deneros
The Cellophanes

11.The Admiral 6pm-3am
Trapped in Kansas
Yoshi
The Social Services
Haight Ashbury
The Apologists
Alex Wayt
The French Wives
Castaway

12. Capitol 6pm-12am
Tempercalm
Nacional
Ming Ming and the Ching Chings
Call Me Ishmael
Barn Owl
Maple Leaves
Boycotts
Casino Brag
Man at the Window

13. McChuills 5.00pm-10.30pm
Nine Circles
My Actions Your Exit
Little Eskimos
Reginald
Bad Day?
Albino Monk
Fanzine Hero
The Dirt

14.Mono 6pm-12am
Attic Lights
El Dog
United Fruit
The Mode
Foxgang
The Meatmen
Man at the Window

15.Basuro Blanco(Brunswick Hotel basement) till 2am
Lowreck
Jan Cree
Gareth Whitehead
My Evil Twin
Chris Coulston

T in the Park review: Sunday

[Sunday in pictures, by Su Anderson; music by Findo Gask]

Saturday was a hard act to follow with great shows from Broken Records, Bronto Skylift and Young Fathers, but Sunday did not disappoint as UtR returned to an over-populated airfield in Balado. If only we could work the waterproof poncho look...

Findo Gask
BBC Introducing Stage, 12.30pm

Sunday’s opening act on the BBC Introducing stage is a sight for sore eyes and a sound for cold ears. Led to the fore by luminously attired frontman Gerard Black, Findo Gask’s melody-stained motifs brilliantly shake away the day’s rain-sopped inception.

The zig-zagging splendour of Korg and percussion emanating from this nerdish quartet has a bulging crowd jigging from the off; with tracks like 'Go Faster Stripe' and 'Va Va Va' revisiting the gleeful slurps of jangle-friendly vanguards Orange Juice.

But where Edwyn and co glossed up a distinctly New Pop finish, Findo Gask fashion out demented sonic lightning bolts that sound equally at home on the moshpit of a muddy field as they do an indiekid’s darkened bedroom.

Pirouetting across the stage one final time, Black bows his head to a bluster of clapped hands. If they maintain this heady momentum, there’ll be much, much more to follow. [BH]

Barn Owl
T Break Stage, 12.50pm

Barn Owl's shimmering, melancholic indie rock is the perfect accompaniment to a dreary and hungover Sunday afternoon at T in the Park. That said, with the heavens pouring down outside, it's not entirely clear which is the bigger draw: the band themselves or the sheltered confines of the T Break Tent.

Either way, Barn Owl take it in their stride, delivering a dreamy and gentle set to a chilled out crowd. Occasionally, the Glasgow five-piece meander into a soaring chorus, slightly reminiscent of latter-day Idlewild, but calm is soon restored and we return to emotive minor chord progressions, accompanied by rich and resonant percussion.

Indeed, Barn Owl's elaborate percussion ensemble is one the more intriguing aspects of the performance, a collection of bells, chimes and xylophones adding a wistful, ethereal dimension to their sound. As the set draws to a close, the clouds outside finally break, revealing a thin crack of blue sky.

But, even as the sun makes a fleeting appearance, still the punters try to push their way inside the packed tent. It seems Barn Owl don't need the Scottish weather's help to fill the canvas arena after all. [JM]


Tango in the Attic
T Break Stage, 1.30pm

Every year there is one T Break band who do the pre-show legwork to ensure they're not playing to a wind-whipped, half-empty tent. Judging by the discarded flyers that litter the ground, the makeshift banners held aloft and the fans clad in branded t-shirts, this year that band is Tango in the Attic.

But at least the chirpy Fifers repay the sizeable crowd they have amassed with an energetic performance of their sun-flecked guitar pop grooves. Embellishing the standard garage rock set-up with an antique organ and sax, the smiling quintet belie their band-next-door image with tightly-coiled, sonically distinctive jams.

When they kick into the double-speed, Vampire Weekend-esque beat of 'Blunderground', their branded fans go wild with the kind of enthusiasm that no exhaustive marketing could inspire. [NM]


The Twilight Sad
BBC Introducing Stage, 2pm

It's slightly ironic that the sun breaks out over Balado and the rain finally stops as The Twilight Sad begin their show at the BBC's Introducing stage. The hyped Kilsyth band make the kind of brooding rock that's more apt to soundtrack rolling thunderclouds than blazing sunrays.

But any contextual niggles are soon rendered irrelevant as the band launch into one of their best, albeit briefest, live shows in recent memory.

In a half-hour set it seems daft to select highlights, but 'I Became a Prostitute', the disturbingly primal new single from their upcoming album, is undoubtedly it, closely followed by traditional set-closer 'And She Would Darken the Memory'.

Before they leave singer James Graham jokes, "What the f*** are ye daein' here? The Saturdays are on!" Evidently some T in the Parkers still value good music over good looks. [NM]


We Were Promised Jetpacks
T Break Stage, 6.40pm

It can be a challenge for bands in the T Break tent to do anything more than give the audience a taster of their burgeoning opus in the alloted 30 minute slot. But when fast-rising Edinburgh-via-Glasgow band We Were Promised Jetpacks inspire a mass of sweaty kineticism and unprovoked clapping, it feels like an occasion.

It's not that the cherub-faced four-piece do anything special to rouse the 1,000-odd folk in attendance. But then they don't need to, because their rough-edged, propulsive indie-rock is performed with such effortless gusto and untamed aggression that you can't help but be taken along for the ride.

Like most of the tracks from recent debut album These Four Walls, 'Thunder and Lightning' has added drama today, and when they launch into 'Quiet Little Voices', it really does feel like a T in the Park moment that will live long in the memory. [NM]


Dananananaykroyd
BBC Introducing, 8pm

Scotland's most ridiculously named band need little introduction to native audiences after blazing a path across the country with their anarchic gigs over the past few years. But to anyone stumbling across them for the first time, this was a fitting first encounter.

Boasting two drummers, two guitarists and two singers at various points in their set, the now all-male Glasgow group (having dropped bassist Laura) are an assault on the senses, albeit a non-threatening one.

Because when they ask two halves of the audience to part and run towards each other, the goal is not a 'Wall of Death' but a 'Wall of Cuddles'. Perhaps unaccustomed to trying this out on such a tightly packed crowd, this time it results in half the onlookers falling like dominos before laughingly helping each other up.

While their debut album Hey Everyone can be a trying listen, Dananana... are designed to be experienced up, close and personal, and with their endless crowdsurfing and cuddling, it doesn't get much more personal than this. [NM]

Words: Nick Mitchell, Billy Hamilton, Jodi Mullen

On the radar: Barn Owl

This week is T in the Park week on Under the Radar. OK, so Scotland's biggest music festival isn't exactly under our radar, your radar, or any radar for that matter, but if you can drag yourself away from the main stage (or the tacky t-shirt stall) you'll find an eclectic swathe of our nation's brightest up and coming talent on the T Break and BBC Introducing stages.

We'll be covering the event over the weekend with live updates, reviews and pictures, but before that we'll profile a band each day this week that we think you should see at T. First up is Barn Owl ...

Play: Light Through Spaces


“We never took it seriously. [It was] more a means to amuse ourselves and replicate the music we appreciated,” says Greig Jackson of cushion soft Glasgow rockers Barn Owl.

Such a humble, if slightly bewildering, attitude epitomises a band that's encountered myriad line-up and name alterations since its founding members converged at college under the tongue-knotting moniker ‘On This Day We Met Gambas Pil Pil’.

But for a group who aren't taking things seriously, Barn Owl’s music begs to differ. Resplendent with instrumentation and a deep-seated sense of purity, it's a sound that makes the world around stop and realise that: Yes, this is good. Very good.

Flowing between languid instrumentals and more conventional indie tunes, the quartet clearly put in more thought than they realise. Yet, pondering the potential reasons as to why the band do what they are doing, Jackson remains as humble as ever:

“We play together more or less just to be together: It's a past-time we all share and enjoy,” he says reticently. “There are no overarching goals beyond the realms of realistic probabilities and I would say we've achieved more than we ever set out to do.”

Such modesty is always a flattering trait, particularly as it’s one more well-known acts increasingly seem to forget about. Not taking their situation for granted is something that Barn Owl do well, and if any band was ever in it for simply the music, they are it.

“Every step we take forward is neither planned nor expected and therefore nothing is forced or fabricated,” say Jackson. “This is something we've noticed in the other Glasgow bands we play with on a regular basis. There is a genuine sense of contentment in just playing with and knowing other musicians.”

Speaking of “what ifs’, Jackson's innately aware of how lucky he is to be spending time doing something from which so much pleasure is derived: “We are at the mercy of gig frequenters and MySpace perusers, so we try not to get ahead of ourselves.”

It isn't hard to see why the MySpace droves choose Barn Owl - one listen to [UtR’s featured cut] Light Through Spaces would have anybody hooked. The track encapsulates the band in all its eclectic glory; spinning from eerie organ to the rise and fall of atmospheric crescendos, before exploding as a cacophony of crashing guitar. It’s one to be played at 3am, the high upon which a night is ended.

Their biggest influence, Yo La Tengo, is unmistakable, although Jackson is, as ever, modest about the comparison: “This is mostly incidental or a conscious effort to steal their musical identity that failed miserably - it could go either way.”

Yet when describing Yo La Tengo as having the “breeze of open vulnerability that pulls you in” Jackson could very well be speaking about his own band. There’s an air of sweetness complimented by chiming glockenspiel and hazy organ that’s non-threatening and beguiling. Even when this changes into a sudden and determined rock-out, their sense of musicianship ensures the result is balanced evenly.

As well as making excellent music, there's a thread of humour running through the band. Good with words and amusingly deadpan, Jackson wasn't joking when he maintained time and again that they do not take themselves seriously: “The bands we listen to would read like a very refined and eternal dream festival line up and we could give you a list that proclaims how hip and cool we think we are,” he says. “However this is very contrived. We assure you though, that we are very hip and cool.”

He's not wrong.

Like what you hear? Catch Barn Owl at the following shows:
9 Jul @ Captain's Rest, Glasgow
12 Jul @ T Break Stage, T in the Park, Balado

Words: Kirstyn Smith

Will you be witnessing this Barn-storming troupe tear up TiTP this year? Let us know below..