#audioscope

Damo Suzuki / Oxes / The Telescopes / Bikini Atoll / Vibracathedral Orchestra / Large Number / Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies / Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element

The Zodiac, Oxford :: AUDIOSCOPE04

...And once again onto the main event. Audioscope04 was our first little leap up into the (ahem, relatively) big time, as we got Damo Suzuki THE SINGER OUT OF CAN OH MY GOD to come to Oxford for the first time, as part of his neverending tour, travelling the world to improvise with musicians anywhere he can. To this day, waiting in Stansted airport for Damo Suzuki to emerge off a Ryanair flight to get into my car and drive to our festival is one of the most surreal experiences I've had. I remember him saying 'you look young. I thought you were older from emails', and later sitting in the car thinking 'WHAT THE HELL DO I TALK TO THE BLOKE FROM CAN ABOUT?'. Absolutely lovely, genuine bloke, happy chatting about German football or anything else really. He came, he drank Guinness, he helped blow up balloons to decorate the venue (I would dearly love to get hold of the only photo of this happening), and his performance with members of Lords was outstanding. I'm really happy to say I arranged for Damo to come back to Oxford four or five times, had the honour of playing with him twice, and am still in touch with him.

Other assorted Audioscope04 highlights:

- Vibracathedral Orchestra almost being ejected by the bouncers during their set for lighting incense on stage; being declared genius by a quarter of the audience and utter bollocks by three quarters;

- The Telescopes breaking the hearts of a room full of 90s shoegaze fans by playing a set of oppressive, experimental drone culminating in drilling through their guitar pickups. I swear I saw at least two grown men crying at this point;

- Oxes stealing someone's glasses off their face during their set, wearing them, then disappearing backstage. All while still playing their song note-perfect.

Six By Seven / Electrelane / Comet Gain / Max Tundra / Lapsus Linguae / The

 Young Knives / Jarcrew / The Edmund Fitzgerald / Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element

The Zodiac, Oxford :: AUDIOSCOPE03

This was the second Audioscope that Sunnyvale played, and though I can't remember much/anything about our set, it was one of the most fun Audioscopes. Six By Seven's GIANT, GIANT singer Chris was pretty stroppy for some of the evening, shouting at Simon for moving his microphone to introduce Six By Seven, shouting at someone else for getting a beer near his amp, and generally shouting at people. But they were brutally loud and great - it was around the time The Closer You Get came out, and from the opening notes of 'New Year' it was a winner. Worth the hassle.

Comet Gain disappointed a lot of people by appearing not to know how to play quite a lot of their own songs, but it's all part of their ramshackle charm. Electrelane were also brilliant, and lovely people - we'd driven to one of their Reading shows specially to collar them afterwards about Audioscope, and I think they appreciated the personal approach rather than thinking we were mental stalkers. 

It also seems to have been a year of Oxford bands going onto much, much bigger things. The Young Knives had become quite good friends of Sunnyvale and recorded our first EP in their house - they've since been Mercury-nominated and toured the world. And The Edmund Fitzgerald, a remarkable, joyfully-complex math rock trio, are now two-fifths of the mighty Foals.