R.I.P The Zodiac

"Where it all happens apparently. Unless you're a Uni student straight out of public school in which case it's where all the scary drug pushers, muggers and lefty bohemians hang out. A myth we're more than happy to perpetuate to keep bastards out." Nightshift Magazine as quoted in Wikipedia

Even as I type, The Zodiac on Cowley Road, here in Oxford is in the throes of its final night. I've mentioned this band/club venue several times on this blog and I've spent many other nights there that have gone un-catalogued.

The venue is going to undergo a 4 month, £2 million (or 3 million depending on which website you read) refurbishment and will reopen as the Carling™ Academy Oxford. The Zodiac name will survive as the name of the middle-sized of the three new venues within the new Entertainment Palace.

Those of you unfamiliar with The Zodiac may experience a glimmer of recognition if I say that the video for Radiohead's song, Creep from their 1993 album Pablo Honey was shot on the stage of the Zodiac (although I'm informed that back then The Zodiac was called The Venue). In fact, it's the very stage that you can see in the vid I took last Friday of The Destroyers, as blogged in the post directly before this one. Anyhow, there's more history on Wikipedia, if you care.

Once again, the magic of YouTube means that you can see Radiohead's Zodiac video below...

I'm reasonably ambivalent about the Zodiac sell-out. The venue will benefit from a good refit, hopefully with an improved PA (although the current one isn't too bad) and facilities. There will be an extra space (bar) to add to the 2 existing performance spaces and there may well be a boost in the touring bands who play in Oxford.

On the other hand, I hope that this doesn't mean that smaller bands such as my friends Stornoway and acts such as Sol Samba now won't get a look-in. I also hope that the new management won't suddenly feel the need to introduce character killing "security" measures (such as bag searches for "contraband" water bottles) in order to accelerate the Return on their £2m Investment by "protecting" sales of Carling. Likewise, I hope the ticket prices don't go up too much either.

That may be wishful thinking but we will see. The next time I'm there is likely to be The Decemberists in October. I'll let you know what it's like.

Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Here's a bit of Arcade Fire's performance of Wake Up, another track from Funeral. Sorry it cuts out but I wanted to enjoy some of the song without having to hold the camera still. It captures the flavour of how much they had the audience in the palm of their hands. You weren't supposed to stand up at all in the circle but there was nothing the bouncers could do about it :)

Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

Here's a flavour of Saturday's show at Brixton Academy, as mentioned in the last post. It's a song called Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) from Arcade Fire's album Funeral.

The other photos are here.

More later.

Arcade Fire!!!

Arcade Fire. Uploaded to Flickr by Platform 3

In another display of my Canuckophilia, I went and saw Montréal based, Arcade Fire perform at the Brixton Academy, last night...and it was frieking great! A great end to a great day.

From Oxford Fire to Arcade Fire in the space of 24 hours...what a convenient segue!

More later...

Another Monday....another gig

Tonight, I passed up the opportunity to see the wonderful, cycling, animated film Belleville Rendezvous which was playing with a live soundtrack at the cinema in my neighbourhood, in favour of venturing to the Fez Club for my first ever gig in Reading. it was more effort to get the train through the lashing rain to go gigging on a Monday night, but a wise man once told me "Effort = Results".

The gig's protagonists? Howling Bells, who I mentioned in the comments of a previous post. I'm trying to make a point of getting back to my roots and getting into some Australian bands again.

It was a most excellent gig, with good acoustics and crystal clear vocals through the PA, which was edifying. The performance/music was a little theatrical and slightly dark but energetic and very tuneful. The room was quite full considering it is a Monday with miserable weather outside. There were at least 5 photographers doing the "first 3 songs" thing too. I didn't realise that Howling Bells were so renowned as to attract such photographic attention.

The video above is of their new single which, as Juanita from the band pointed out, is "on sale from today, so go buy it".

Their site has their whole album as a stream, so go check it out...I recommend it.

http://www.howlingbells.com

Metric gig, Canuckophilia and Canadian Music (AKA some Canadians I know)

I went to see Metric play at The Zodiac here in Oxford on Sunday night. It was a great show, capped off by an energetic stage-dive by Emily Haines, as can be seen in the pic above. I was just out of range from being jumped on, so I fished my camera from my pocket and was able to get this mainly in focus shot.

My friend Nick is a huge Metric fan. When I was in the gents, I spotted a discarded YYZ (Toronto)-LHR (London Heathrow), Air Canada baggage tag and gave it to him as a joke. I later found out that he got it signed by the band...lol.

Ever since I spent a great year in Canada, I've had a soft spot for most anything Canadian. My Canadian friend Anne-Marie even gave me a book called So, You Want to Be Canadian? I actually knew quite a lot of stuff that was in the book already such as:

• What Ogopogo is. (thanks to my time in the Okanagan)
  
• What a Beaver Tail is.
• The tune of and a good chunk of the words (in English) to Oh Canada.

At work I have a maple leaf coffee mug, when it's slow at work I sometimes listen to CBC Radio 1 via the Internet and my favourite outdoor store is the Mountain Equipment Co-op. I also once stayed up all night to watch the Calgary Flames play in a Stanley Cup game...although I admit that my love of hockey isn't such that I would hurry to do that again.

I admit it, I'm a Canuck-ophile.

I also listen to quite a bit of Canadian music. This all stemmed from my time in Vancouver when I met Mason, who now works at This Magazine in Toronto. Check out his blog, which looks great after a make-over. Mason first played me the music of The New Pornographers, amongst others. Their show at The Borderline in London was the best that I went to in 2006...well equal with Broken Social Scene at The Zodiac. They are also Canadian.

I met Anne-Marie after eavesdropping on a conversation about Calgary on the Oxford Tube bus. She used to play me Canadian music on the stereo of the Phoenix Cinema bar, where she used to work and tell me stories about working on Canadian indie movies, once dating the bass player from The Arcade Fire and working on a New Pornographers video shoot.

The last time I went to Canada was in 2005, when I visited Anne-Marie in Montreal. Before leaving, I emailed Mason and got him to send me a list of CDs I should check out. He doesn't know this but I ended up buying every CD I could find on his list, spending about $250 in one go.

His list actually duplicated many of the artists that I'd heard on the CBC Radio 3 podcast. I highly recommend this weekly podcast as they play a wide variety (not just indie rock) of great music. The host, Grant Lawrence has an enjoyable announcing style too, in my opinion. I don't always get a chance to listen every week, as the podcast is usually an hour long or there abouts. I do get iTunes to download it every week though and get to catch up on journeys to London or long train journeys to Scotland. There is really some fantastic music of all genres coming out of the Great White North.

Australia's radio equivalent, Triple J FM could really learn a thing or two from CBC Radio 3. Triple J have podcasts and now and again, I have a listen to popular scientist, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, but there is nothing that I know of that showcases Australian bands as well as the CBC Radio 3 podcast does for Canadian artists. I liked Triple J a lot better before they sold out in 1990, anyway! Viva 3RRR-FM!!

Coincidentally Dr Karl's last name is the same as another British-based Canadian I know, Dallas Kruszelnicki. He's a musician, yoga instructor and former guitarist of The Dirtmitts.

Anyway, that's enough proselytizing about Canada for now. Time to ski Mt Mattress.