Band Line Up 2013

Welcome, my friends, to the world of the mighty Oaf: the English seaside’s premier exponents of deeply peculiar and obnoxious hardcore pronk. Bereft of ambition and far too old to give a toss, this intermittently dynamic duo have been confusing the merry horse out of audiences across the UK (and not really much further) since 2007. Fronted by chief bellower and five-string wizard Mr. Dom Lawson and just-a-bit-to-the-sided by thing-hitter extraordinaire Mr. James Rayment, Oaf failed to emerge from the Brighton punk rock scene (which has studiously ignored them from day one, which is lovely) when their debut album Botheration assaulted the nation’s indifference back in 2010. Despite garnering numerous highly positive reviews from the likes of Metal Hammer, Kerrang! and Terrorizer (and a handful of misguided and largely illiterate reviews from assorted interweb fanzines) the album sold in meagre quantities and failed miserably to make even the slightest dent in the British hit parade chart list rundown. Fortunately, neither Mr. Lawson or Mr. Rayment are aware of their lack of success and both continue to harbour the ludicrous belief that they are among the UK’s favourite entertainers.

This astonishing level of idiocy and bravado reached an unfortunate peak when Oaf were mistakenly invited to perform at the extremely well-attended and damp Download Festival at Castle Donington in 2011. Although stunned to find that they were not headlining the main stage, our heroes did manage to delight and appal a sizeable tent full of drunken reprobates, further emboldening their own ill-advised feelings of adequacy in the process. Numerous other moderately well-received “gigs”, including appearances at Hammerfest (in 2010 and 2011) and as supporting warm-up chaps for Ginger Wildheart and Graham “Him from Blur” Coxon, have also taken place, although the majority of video footage that can be found online appears to have been doctored by Her Majesty’s Secret Service to make it look as though Oaf are not capable of packing out Wembley Stadium. Or at least that’s what Mr. Lawson claims when he’s had one too many glasses of ginger beer.

And now we arrive, with sweaty brows and mouths agog with panic, at the year known as 2013. The mighty Oaf have somehow managed to make another long-playing record and are hell-bent on making it available to the general public, displaying once again a flagrant disregard for taste, decency and the law of diminishing returns. Graced with the pithy title ‘Birth, School, Oaf, Death’, the album was recorded with the help of producing and engineering genius Russ ‘Russ’ Russell at Parlour Studios in Kettering and features 11 brand new original compositions – including current Soundcloud “hits”* (*not hits) ‘Fuck Off Seagull’ and ‘Yes Sir, I Can Tina Turner’ - and a Tin Machine cover. Also, thanks to a sustained campaign of Rohypnol and blackmail, it features guest appearances from Ginger Wildheart, keyboard maestro Per Wiberg (ex-Opeth/Mojobone/Spiritual Beggars), guitar lord John Mitchell (It Bites/Arena), turbo-widdle supremo Jase Edwards (Wolfsbane), parping horn-wielder Pete Fraser, Norwegian garage rock queen Sassy Kraimspri and Mr. Lawson’s friend Todd, who recites a lovely poem at the end of the album’s epic finale, ‘Wash Your Faith In My Think’.

With a barely perceptible smattering of public appearances planned – or, at the very least, mooted – for later in 2013, the mighty Oaf are clearly determined to continue wasting everyone’s time until someone forces them to stop. In the meantime, why not take pity on a couple of deluded middle-aged fools and join in the carnival of desperation and tuneless squawking? Lower your expectations, folks. The mighty Oaf are coming. Not like that. Perish the thought.