The Glasgow School

While Christmas is the season of celebration, Glasgow's music scene will be mourning the departure of two of its most original acts in recent times: Uncle John and Whitelock and Arab Strap are both playing their farewell gigs. Although the Strap hail from Falkirk, their inventiveness and poetry has captured a strand of Glaswegian nightlife in vivid yet blurry detail while Uncle John have delivered a unique West Coast zombie blues. They play the ABC on the 4th and King Tut's on the 23rd, respectively.

Yet, even as these two giants of misery disappear to their retirements, Glasgow's scene moves forward. The Fratellis continue their campaign for world domination with a show at the SECC on the 7th supporting Kasabian. That is, after the rising star of the Dykeenies shines brightly at the Garage on the 2nd. Another relative - this time Unkle Bob - promotes a new album while The hardest working band in Scotland, We Are the Physics, drop into Tut's. Bloc and Nice'n'Sleazy continue with their usual programme of local artists.

Appropriately for the season of sentimentality, many of the major gigs this month are either tributes or comebacks: Riders on the Storm (Clyde Auditorium, 29th) manages to be both, as two of the surviving Doors revive Jim Morrison's memory. See our interview with Robbie Krieger in this issue. Meanwhile, the Arches sees Scottish super-group Four Good Men recall Simple Minds, Big Country and, less impressively, H2O. They play on the 29th.

Beyond live performance, Glasgow's indigenous record companies are keeping the flame burning for experimental and independent rock: David Keenan's Volcanic Tongue has opened up a store on the Great Western Road, while Drive Carefully Records build on their early successes with a monthly night at the 13th Note. If the surfeit of major bands is too much, there are undiscovered local treasures hiding away in the racks of Mono or Avalanche and performing in the cellars of the West End and Merchant City. The proliferation of scenes and associated bands is remarkable - with everything from free jazz through to perfect pop echoing through the halls bedecked with holly.

2006 has seen bands from the fair city take on the world and win, as well as being an essential date on the tours of the mighty. With hardly a break for Christmas, Glasgow is roaring into the future.