O2 Love Music Column – June 2014

Preview by George Sully / Ted Maul | 29 May 2014

With a voice which allegedly impressed Johnny Cash back in the day, and a fifteen year musical career off the back of it, Canadian country songstress Tia McGraff (O2 ABC2, Sat 7 Jun) is touring the UK to support sixth studio album Break These Chains. Her sweet, spellbinding tones have netted her rave reviews in the Americana scene stateside, so if you’re hankering for a dose of earnest country music, tie your nag up here, pardner.

If you wake up the next day covered in bourbon and sawdust ‘cos you partied too hard with McGraff, there’s still time to cross the Clyde and make it to Snoop Lion at the O2 Academy (Sun 8 Jun). He’s a man that needs little introduction, but for the uninitiated, Snoop – aka Snoop Dogg, aka Snoop Doggy Dogg, aka Calvin Broadus – is a multi-platinum selling rapper responsibizzle for over twenty years of quality hip-hop. He may have changed his name through a recent conversion to Rastafarianism, but he’s still the same ol Dogg at heart.

Joining the legions of bands now touring their most seminal album, NYC art-punks Television will be playing their 1977 album Marquee Moon in full at Glasgow's O2 ABC on 14 Jun. Tom Verlaine's guitar-playing has influenced generations of musicians, and since their initial 2001 reunion for All Tomorrow's Parties, the band have come out of retirement semi-regularly to engage with their fans and their legacy, which is an impressive one, even if it is based on three studio albums in total. 

If you like your hip-hop classic, it doesn't get much more exciting than the occasional returns of Jurassic 5 – they headline a show at the O2 ABC in Glasgow on 23 Jun, reuniting the full, original lineup. Their solid take on boom-bap hip-hop and collaborative emceeing is no less impressive than it was when they broke through in the late noughties, and even as the band approach the middle age spread, they can still fulfil their promise to "take four emcees and make them sound like one."

Many things turn 25 this year: Magnum ice creams, the World Wide Web, and Ghostbusters II – but not least of all independent British label XL Recordings. With an enviable roster including, but not limited to, The Prodigy, Radiohead, The xx, M.I.A. and many more, TV, radio & YouTube funnyman Adam Buxton brings his usual brand of idiosyncratic humour and informative banter to a celebration of the label's output at O2 ABC on Thursday 26 June. Adam Buxton Presents BUG: XL Recordings Special will showcase its earliest influential work (On A Ragga Tip, anyone?) and most famed music videos. Expect to giggle while learning. [George Sully / Ted Maul]

http://www.o2abcglasgow.co.uk