As McLaren was involved, the band bumped into controversy rather often (check out the Wikipedia page for more details), but in spite of this they still banged out a pretty feisty set of hits. Here’s them performing ‘Wild In The Country’ on Top Of The Pops in 1982:

The band has reformed for a 2012 tour of both the United States and England, and will swing by the O2 Academy 2, Oxford, on 20 April. Find out more and buy tickets here.

This month there’s an interview with Spring Offensive, lots of news from the local music scene, and reviews of new releases from Spring Offensive, Gunning For Tamar, Jonquil, Brickwork Lizards, Scott E Cooper, Family Machine and Robots With Souls. To celebrate the 200th issue there’s a gallery of some of the landmark covers from the magazine’s history, and an overview of some of the best Oxford gigs from 1995 onwards. There are also a comprehensive gig guide, live reviews including Wild Swim and Vienna Ditto, an introduction to Jada Pearl, a look back at what was going on in Oxford music five, ten and twenty years ago, and this issue’s Demos section has Unpunished Monsters as the demo of the month and Jane Doe in the Demo Dumper.

Download the March 2012 issue here, and find loads of back issues here.

Boat to Row are a five piece from Birmingham, that thankfully you can’t tell are from there. With a vocal style similar to the Decemberists, Michael King delivers each song with an understated passion. This is a fundamentally likeable band, with a musical understanding of eachother that leads to a professional and engaging performance. They have markedly individual songs, from a genre with many potential pitfalls that Boat To Row keep away from, using driving rhythm and focused instrumentation rather than ‘folk for folk’s sake’. These are poignantly worded, well-constructed songs, with good-time musical interludes to mask their potentially heavy nature. These guys are easy to listen to, and not so insistent that you love them right now – but they have such a self-assurance in their music that you will in time.

Going to see a band in order to see one or two songs probably isn’t the worst thing anyone’s ever done. However, I think anyone approaching Dog Is Dead with that mindset tonight will have been blown away by the plethora of great music for them to get their… ears into. Dog Is Dead, on the back of a glorious festival season in 2009, were featured in Skins. Like many others before them, having gained popularity through mainstream media they have had to spend their time reminding people that they have other songs. Other glorious songs, other wonderful endorphin-inducing songs.

From the opening of their set, without prior knowledge you’d be hard pushed to pigeonhole these Nottingham boys. Introducing themselves with a dark, metallic opening, and following with an almost chillwave offering, the harmonies are always there and pretty soon Trev’s brass is thrust to the forefront of attention. The marvellous ‘Talk Through The Night’ is a highlight of a great set, along with the expected adulation for ‘Young’, and despite the surprise omission of ‘Zoo’ the euphoria is reserved for ‘Glockenspiel Song’. One danger of seeing Dog is Dead is that they’ll be stuck in your head for days afterwards but there’s worse things to have in there.

By Simon Outroversion

They’re marking the occasion of the new album with a gig at The Cellar in Oxford on 17 March. Everybody that attends the event can claim a free CD copy of the collection, and enjoy a rather spiffing line-up that will see The Half Rabbits supported by Listing Ships and The Cellar Family. Entry to the gig is £5 on the door or in advance.

The Half Rabbits are also in the process of ‘working on new material’ and will soon be recording tracks with Umair Chaudhry (of Xmas Lights, Abandon, Monday Morning Sun and many more).

What do you think? Let us know in the comments…

And yes, frankly, any stage show that starts with the performer sitting amongst a carpet of vinyl, spinning tunes whilst the audience files in, and sharing little facts on a vintage overhead projector, is already a hit with us. All these records came from a large box of vinyl that Osbourne won in a competition to write a slogan for the John Peel show (including a tantalising LP by Oizone, a punk Boyzone tribute), but anyone dreading – or even hoping for – a Peel-obsessed troglodyte’s celebration of obscure U-Roy versions, or Hefner B-sides, couldn’t be more wrong. Despite the title, this excellent show is less about the great Mr Ravenscroft himself, and more about the importance of radio to people’s lives, and how this cherished medium is rarely discussed or celebrated.

John Peel’s Shed only has a few proper jokes (and one of those was cribbed from Terry Wogan), yet the audience is constantly somewhere between a warm smile and a hearty guffaw, because Osbourne’s delivery is so natural and unaffected: it’s not a slick, predictable comic monologue, it’s more like a cheery chat with someone on a long train journey who unexpectedly shares most of your views. When he stumbles over his words, or fluffs Jo Whiley’s name at a pivotal moment in the script, it only endears him to us more. The only downside of the show is that you want to join in the conversation, and spin a platter of your own.

Osbourne is at his best when he’s passionate about his subjects. His wide-eyed joy at describing Resonance FM’s Me & My Floor, a show in which a child mikes his house carpet for half an hour a day, makes it sound like the greatest piece of conceptual radio ever created. Similarly, Tommy Boyd is someone we have cast into the awkward dustbin of childhood TV memories, along with Gaz Top and Kate Copstick, and yet Osbourne is such an admirer that he’s dubbed Boyd “the Peel of talk”, for his Human Zoo show on TalkSport. You can also feel his disappointment and anger when he discusses second rate, homogenous culture, a trap commercial radio falls into at a depressing rate (although Radio One is far from immune). It made us think of the aftermath of Peel’s death, and the way it was handled by the BBC. Celebrating Peel’s work doesn’t just mean playing ‘Teenage Kicks’ and The White Stripes every ten minutes, and mentioning – but, of course, not broadcasting – The Fall and Captain Beefheart; it means keeping an open mind and a curious set of ears, and ignoring bullshit on every side. For all Osbourne’s celebration of radio, we were reminded that there’s still no substitute for John Peel on national radio, and for anything like his unpretentious inquisitiveness you have to explore Resonance FM, or perhaps Norwich’s Future FM, where Osbourne broadcast shows exploring the Peel box.

What was the slogan that won Osbourne this vinyl treasure trove? “Records you want to hear, played by a man who wants you to hear them”. It’s actually quite sad that this isn’t the rubric of all music broadcasting, but this wonderful show staves off bland corporate gloss for one more night. Highly recommended.

John Peel’s Shed
By David Murphy