Live Music Highlights - July, 2008

Edinburgh

Isosceles couldn’t sound more Glasweigian if they tried, so if you dig on choppy riffs, hip-shaking rhythm sections and an oh-so-insouicant frontman then these boys will make up with sheer chutzpah what they lack in originality. That might sound harsh, but you won’t care when you’re lost in the groove of their infectious melodies. Should be good fun, so be there. Cabaret Voltaire, 17 July.

“Does humour belong in music?” asked Frank Zappa. Well the Dickies certainly think so, and these LA punk veterans will go hell for leather to prove their point when they play the Liquid Room on 28 July. Expect a Ramones-esque riff fest and plenty of smiling faces.

And now for something completely different... Ola Onabule will deliver some soothing soul melodies in the plush surrounds of the Voodoo Rooms on 1 Aug. This boy can wail fo' sho, and his band can drop the funk. Onabule is packing a serious payload of sexual chocolate. Believe.

Glasgow

Impractically barnetted sprogs Look See Proof will blow the cobwebs from your attic with a set of super-tight indie-pop at King Tuts on 4 July. These young guns probably have a way to go before they transcend their influences, but their no-nonsense tuneage has pleasant shades of Bloc Party to our ears.

Mixing Nick Cave’s booming dramatics with Tom Waits’ knack for spinning tall tales - imposing influences indeed - Indiana’s Murder by Death should be applauded for having the chops to pull off their ambitious conceit with such aplomb. Heady, bombastic stuff - should be a cracker. King Tuts, 16 July.

All manner of unnatural strangeness is set to be released when the partially-reformed Butthole Surfers take to the stage at the ABC on 20 July. Jeff Pinkus, Teresa Taylor and King Coffey are confirmed along with “a mob of teenage geniuses” who will be standing in for Paul Leary. Sounds like it could be total fucking pandemonium.