Records :: Feature 01 Dec 2008
Nick Mitchell: First to shake yer mother’s finest china this month are Belgian rockers dEUS, flaunting their filmic tastes with The Vanishing of Maria Schneider (1 Dec, ***), which proves that bare-cheeked arthouse cinema, brooding post-rock and Elbow’s G...
Music :: Feature 01 Dec 2008
Billy Hamilton: Having trailed around Edinburgh’s venues unescorted for four years, Burnley-born troubadour Rob St John recently unshackled himself from the baggage of the ‘singer/songwriter’ tag and acquired a brethren of likeminded souls who walk u...
Music :: Heads Up :: Preview 21 Nov 2008
Euan Ferguson: Ever since Geldof and co assembled the cream of the 80s for Live Aid 23 years ago, charity and music have gone hand-in-hand. We’ve been spoilt for choice recently in Scotland, especially with the month-long Oxjam celebrations. Joining the benevo...
Music :: Live Review 20 Nov 2008
Darren Carle: It seems it's been a long yet rewarding year for Frightened Rabbit (**), touring the globe, letting folks know what a long yet unrewarding life they've had. Basically, singer Scott Hutchison's voice sounds like it's had it, as ready to disintegrate as ...
Music :: Feature :: Label 07 Oct 2008
Billy Hamilton: If variety is the spice of life then FatCat Records are piquant enough to have even the most resistant tastebuds burning. Established almost 20 years ago by Dave Cawley and Alex Knight, the label has developed into one of the UKs finest purveyors of m...
Student Life :: Music :: Feature 23 Sep 2008
Ally Brown: In Scotland we like to boast about how brilliant we are at just about everything. We invented pretty much the whole modern world, including television, the telephone, antibiotics, the steam engine, and probably sliced bread and dogs and football and se...
Music :: Live Review 23 Sep 2008
Ally Brown: The underlit crags of The Caves' interior make it a uniquely beautiful setting to watch live music in; a venue where gazing at the walls isn’t necessarily indicative of a pharmaceutical malfunction. Unfortunately, the height of the main chamber a...
Music :: Heads Up :: Preview 19 Sep 2008
Ally Brown: We've been pleasantly surprised by the way The Tennent's Mutual seems to be going so far. Perhaps it was the sheer chutzpah of the idea that led to scepticism in some quarters, but the Season One line-up is mightily impressive, and it's led by a really...
Student Life :: Music :: Feature 16 Sep 2008
Scott Hutchison: When I first arrived in Glasgow to study at the Art School, I was dropped off by my parents at the Margaret Macdonald House halls having enjoyed an unbearably tense and quiet meal with them both at an Italian restaurant. I wish I'd never taken them up ...
Music :: Live Review 08 Sep 2008
Ally Brown, Nick Mitchell, Colin Chapman: The Connect Festival – this year renamed Hydro Connect thanks to a sponsorship hook-up with Scottish Hydro Electric – has got everything going for it, in theory. The location – and the journey to get there – is absolutely gorgeo...
Records :: Feature :: Round Up 01 Sep 2008
Nick Mitchell: The Dirty Dozen does like a band to seduce it a bit. So when newly-formed Londoners Rock City Sixteen send in a 7" of Lunettes Noires Pour Nuits Blanche (****, 8 Sep) in appropriate black and white design with creative press release, I am easily swayed...
Music :: Preview 29 Aug 2008
Ted Maul: Zoey Van Goey set the bar high early in September with a gig at GRV in Edinburgh on 4 Sep (+ Glasgow on 18 Sep at 13th Note). Not yer typical indie outfit, this continually evolving three-piece deal in beautifully understated pop songs that sparkle and...
Music :: Live Review 18 Aug 2008
Darren Carle: The Liquid Room suits Frightened Rabbit well tonight, though their burgeoning popularity ensures that a good viewing spot quickly becomes a closely guarded commodity. But even after a thorough work-through of a surprisingly strong set for a band just t...
Heads Up :: News 15 Aug 2008
Jason Morton: Making good on their promise for the integration of beer, democracy and music, Tennent's Mutual announced today a trio of warm up gigs set for the months of September and October. Headlining two dates - one at the Glasgow CCA on Sat, 20 Sep and anothe...
Music :: Preview 24 Jul 2008
Billy Hamilton: With T On The Fringe a distant memory, Edinburgh has a new musical mainstay on its festival calendar. Picking up where T left off, The Edge Festival will be supplying the city’s culture-soaked droves with a smorgasbord of tune-churning local and ...
Music :: Feature :: Preview 10 Jul 2008
Ally Brown, Finbarr Bermingham, Nick Mitchell: From Will Young to Holy F**k, the line-up for this year's annual shindig in Balado certainly can't be accused of one-dimensionality. Here's five acts from a range of 140 that you'd be a dafty to miss this weekend: Rage Against the Machine Back in the ...
Music :: Review :: Live Review 22 May 2008
Nick Mitchell: Dunfermline's Carnegie Hall isn't your usual gig venue. It's a provincial theatre with cushioned seating, suited ushers, pinned-up notices of stage times and a drinks ban in the auditorium. It's a comfortable yet contrary setting, and local trio Dirty ...
Records :: Round Up 26 Apr 2008
Nick Mitchell: Most agree that the indie-fication of pop has been a change for the better. Except, that is, when bands like The Pigeon Detectives bring their knuckle-dragging post-Libertine shtick to the table with new single This Is An Emergency (2stars, 5 May). A r...
Records :: Album Review 01 Apr 2008
Nick Mitchell: In medieval times it was widely held that your state of mind was inseparably tied to your state of body. Hence all the talk of apothecaries in Shakespeare and Ben Jonson's Humour Plays. The theory may have been rightly trashed by modern medicine, but t...
Music :: Feature 01 Apr 2008
Nick Mitchell: When The Skinny first spoke to Frightened Rabbit's Grant Hutchison last year his band were still lurking behind a seemingly intentional cloak of enigma. No surnames given; sparse MySpace; hoodie-clad in their few publicity pictures – it all seeme...
