The lovely people at Southsea's Pie & Vinyl have teamed up with the equally lovely folk at Strong Island Recordings to curate an Oxjam Portsmouth festival. Hurrah!
Oxjam, if you didn't already know, is a multi-venue music event, held annually, that supports grassroots music across the UK whilst also raising valuable funds for Oxfam. Oxjam events take place in towns and cities nationwide, organised by volunteers, that can be either one-off gigs or music festivals.
In previous years Portsmouth has hosted several smaller Oxjam events, usually at the Edge of the Wedge, but this year Pompey is going large; Oxjam Portsmouth is a one-day festival, to be held at Portsmouth Pyramids on Saturday 13th October, and features both a family-friendly day session (from midday-1700) and an evening music session (from 1800-2300).
The line-up announced so far for the evening session includes Superdrone, Highlights of our Modern World, Barbudo and Lucid Rising, with further acts still to be announced. All that and it's for a good cause too, how great is that?
Tickets are available now via WeGotTickets, priced at £4 (Early Bird, standard price £5) for the day session and £8 (Early Bird, standard price £10) for both the day & evening sessions (ticket prices are subject to booking fee).
New York's indie popsters The Drums, who release second album Portamento next month, have announced a string of UK dates this November and December. Notable on the list is a return visit to The Pyramids on Tuesday 6th December; the band played there previously on the 2010 Shockwaves NME Awards Tour. Tickets go on sale this coming Friday, available from The Wedgewood Rooms, priced at £14.50.
The News is reporting that Portsmouth City Council are pulling the plug on The Pyramids; apparently the cost of upkeep is too great to justify the expenditure given the numbers of people using the facility.
Of course it could be argued that, if proper investment had been made in the building over its lifetime, it wouldn't be in the rundown and more than a little bit dog-eared condition it now finds itself (and so the numbers of people using it wouldn't have plummeted). The bean counters have spoken however, and the complex looks likely to be demolished. In its place will be built a shiny new hotel and conference centre (which is just what Portsmouth needs... not).
The Pyramids might not be the greatest venue in the world but it's still a venue and one that fills a prime spot in the Portsmouth scene. It sits between The Wedgewood Rooms and The Guildhall, catering for bands too big for one and too small for the other, so it's going to be sorely missed should/when it goes (already the Frog On The Front, underneath the complex and one-time home of Messclean, has closed).
When The Pyramids was first used as a venue for bands it was, if memory serves, at the instigation of the Portsmouth Venue Campaign. Ironically, in their efforts to build a new venue in the city the ended up creating one out of a leisure centre. I wonder if they can do the same with a conference centre.
