Live Music Highlights – April 2012

Let’s not fuck about, people; Helmet in their prime could wipe the floor with your favourite band. A bit jazz, a little hardcore, and very metal, theirs is a formula that countless others have been struggling to rip ever since. So bow down and show some God damn respect when they show up at The Cathouse (4 Apr) and bang yo’ head like it's 1992 as Page Hamilton’s men celebrate the 20th anniversary of Meantime. 

Glasgow venue Stereo are showing a lot of love for the mighty riff of late; they've booked a fair few of our picks this month: The first date for your calendar is a figurative 21-gun salute for fly-by-night noise rock nutters Take A Worm For A Walk Week (5 Apr). The boys are sadly calling it quits, but you can put big money on Burrito King Quimby's men bowing out in shocking style. Will they don the spandex one last time? Bar Bloc hosts the free wake directly afterwards, with Fat Goth, Evol and Young Philadelphia on hand to counsel your grieving lugholes.

Back with much of their original incarnation, Bruce Loose and San Franciscan punk progenitors Flipper come through Stereo (8 Apr); these gents have been around in one form or another since the late 70s (counting one Krist Novoselic in their ranks for 2009 album Love). Known to inhabit the sort of barbed post-punk and depraved sludge rock that jolted The Melvins to life (indeed both bands steamrollered Glasgow Garage some years back), expect a satisfying blend of both, plus a straight-up evil cover of Scentless Apprentice.

In case you forgot, Andrew WK is in the business of partying hard, in the same clothes, rocking the same look, tweeting about partying methods and constantly wondering why he just can’t get out from under that mental pop rock debut he unleashed in 2001 (I Get Wet). Whether he’s the construct of a sinister record exec committee or simply a lone drunken maverick (we never did find out), there’s no question that these are awesome anthems for the quadraspazzed. Glasgow Garage on 14 Apr is the where and the when. 

Swedish tech-metal architects Meshuggah require no introduction in these pages; all you need to know is that they're promoting the release of their latest mathy monster Koloss by holding a cranium-crushing chugathon at Glasgow Garage (15 Apr). Mixed support comes from intricate proggers Animals As Leaders and pissed-off Albini-endorsed Geordie agit-punks We Are Knuckle Dragger. We’ll be gurning with a doomclaw down’t front.

While Damon swans off with cartoon supergroups and monkey operas, Alex James is all about getting papped at Turdstock with David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson, and Dave Rowntree’s busy being ginger; Graham Coxon’s the only member of Blur with his dignity intact (just kidding, Dave). Coxon shrugs off his 2009 folk excursion The Spinning Top and gets back to the improvised weirdness we love him for with A+E this month. Witness the new material first hand at Edinburgh Liquid Room (16 Apr) and Glasgow Garage (17 Apr).   

If the perplexed people of Edinburgh just can’t deal with that moody, Doors-mangling wubstep maniac Skrillex crossing the Forth Bridge on 18 Apr, let the Lemonheads soothe the migraine away with another throwback from ’92 as they roll into town with the blissful It’s A Shame About Ray. It went down a treat at Òran Mór late last year, HMV Picture House gets the encore.

Picking the tempo back up in the west (and ensuring we walk away from April a bauckled, sweaty wreck), tireless DIY booker Cry Parrot hosts its fifth birthday celebration at The Glue Factory on 27 Apr. Rhythmic afro-house wunderkind Auntie Flo tops a bill fleshed out by the righteous post-punk jams of Sacred Paws, a live set from Halleluwah Hits' Dilla disciple and abstract master Dam Mantle, plus sets from Silk Cut, The Rose Crucifixion and Blue Sabbath Black Fiji & Gum Takes Tooth. One thing's for sure, without the tireless efforts of promoters like the Parrot, the live scene in Glasgow would be a different caper altogether. Recognise, fools!