• THE mission to bring carnival back to Cowley Road starts next month with a party fundraiser featuring a startlingly eclectic line-up.

Jouvert! at the O2 Academy on November 30, features Death of Hi-Fi, Secret Rivals, Skylarkin' Soundsystem, the Ran Kan Kan Cuban big band, the Skylarkin’ Soundsystem and special guests. Asher Dust provides the compering duties. The line-up has been devised by Stuart Macbeth, of the Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band, which assures a stamp of quality.

All acts offer their talents free, with proceeds going to the campaign to reinstate next summer’s street party.

Andy Beill from Secret Rivals said: “Anyone who’s been to the carnival and enjoyed it needs to get behind this, otherwise it won’t happen. The people of Oxford can usually be relied upon to give their backing to these kind of events, especially when there’s live music involved, so I hope we’ll all do so again.”

Andy Hill, of Death of Hi-Fi, added: “The carnival has always been a highlight and celebrates the diversity of Oxford’s musical and cultural landscape. I’ve discovered so many great bands through the carnival – it’s an essential part of the scene.”

Tickets £10 (earlybird £7) wegottickets.com or from Pegasus, Magdalen Road, or Truck Store, Cowley Road. To get involved in Cowley Road Carnival 2013, email info@cowleyroadworks.org, call 07941 482376, or visit cowleyroadcarnival.co.uk.

  • HISTORY will be made at the O2 Academy on Monday with the first show by musical icon Kurt Wallinger in 10 years.

The man behind World Party has a cult following, but has been out of the spotlight for a decade after a double-whammy of a debilitating aneurysm that left him unable to speak, and has permanently affected his vision, and a dispute with EMI over the rights to his back catalogue.

Kurt is now back and on great form. His show offers great tunes such as Brit Award-winning She’s the One, which Kurt wrote after the death of his mother, and which was later sung by Robbie Williams. The Ship of Fools star and one-time member of the Waterboys plays Oxford as one of only three UK dates alongside Leamington Spa and the Royal Albert Hall. “I’d like to say I’m playing Oxford because I love it,” Kurt told us this week. “But it’s a warm-up! I am excited about playing after so long, though. It’s been ages but I’m ready. I was also getting bored!”

The show follows the release of Arkeology – a massive, five-CD collection of 70 never-before-heard tracks. It is released with, interestingly, with a 142-page Any Year Diary with rare photos, clips of articles, and World Party memorabilia from Kurt’s own archives, as well as his notes and commentary about various shows and recordings.

Tickets £22.50 for Oxford and from £25-£55 for the Royal Albert Hall from wegottickets.com