The Skinny April 2011 by The Skinny

.CO.UK

FREE

ISSUE 67 • APRIL 2011

INTERVIEWS:

PLUS:

KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE

KELLY REICHARDT

TREMBLING BELLS

AARON KATZ

ADAM GOLDBERG

RACHEL ADAMS

JAMES BLAKE

OMAR ZINGARO BHATIA

GLASVEGAS

SCOTTISH BALLET

TRAIL OF DEAD VS RIVAL SCHOOLS

WEREWOLVES

PA N D A B E A R NOAH’S ANIMAL INSTINCTS

Reasons to We’ll show you knowledge is power. Get info on careers, housing, health, money and more.

We’ll keep your belly full. Exclusive discounts on eating out.

us. We’ll put a smile on your face. Life Support for young people up to 26 years old.

We’ll keep the money in your pocket. Further discounts on travel, driving lessons, gym memberships and much more.

We’ll keep you in fashion. Thousands of offers on the top labels.

We’ll get you in. The Young Scot NEC card is valid proof-of-age.

To get these exclusive discounts, all you need to do is like us on facebook.com/ysextra Scan this code to go straight to our fan page.

youngscotextra.org

CONTENTS

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

ABERDEEN MUSIC HALL EDINBURGH PICTURE HOUSE GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY SATURDAY 23 APRIL SUNDAY 24 APRIL MONDAY 25 APRIL WWW.SEETICKETS.COM 0871 220 0260 WWW.ARTISTTICKET.COM

Shelbyynne L

Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire

plus special guests

EDINBURGH

GLASGOW Oran Mor Fri 27th May

Queens Hall SUNDAY 01 MAY

0871 220 0260

SUN 17TH APR O2 ABC2 GLASGOW 0871 220 0260

0131 668 2019

Tue 1O May Glasgow Oran Mor

O871 22O O26O

Loudon Wainwright III plus special guest Lucy wainwright Roche

EDINBURGH

Glasgow Concert Hall

Sun 22nd May 0131 668 2019

P.16 WALTER SCHREIFELS OF RIVAL SCHOOL (ABOVE, RIGHT) IS QUIZZED BY TOURMATE CONRAD KEELY OF TRAIL OF DEAD

P.14 KELLY REICHARDT

Queens Hall

Friday 6th May 0141 535 8000

c o n c e r T PHOTO: EUAN ROBERTSON

i n

P.20 JAMES BLAKE QUIZZED ABOUT HIS JUMPER AND OTHER THINGS

saTurDaY 3rD sePTemBer

eDinBurgH casTle TickeT HoTline: 0871 220 0260 www.seeTickeTs.com www.regularmusic.com

ST CE JU OUN N

D ST CE JU OUN N AN

g n a l k.d.

by arrangement with Asgard

Smiss Boo ang B

and t

IMELDA

EDINBURGH

HMV PICTURE HOUSE 0871 220 0260

WED 30TH NOV

www.seetickets.com

In association with Neil O’Brien Entertainment

plus special guests

PresenTaTion in associaTion wiTH wme agencY

THE SKINNY APRIL 2011 Issue 67, April 2011 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, The Drill Hall, 30-38 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more.

E: sales@theskinny.co.uk

Glasgow Clyde Auditorium Monday 6th June

0871 220 0260 www.seetickets.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.

Printed by Mortons Print Limited, Horncastle ABC verified Jan – Dec 2010: 32,147

TREMBLING BELLS printed on 100% recycled paper

EDINBURGH Queens Hall FRI 15TH APR

0131 668 2019

TICKETS: www.seetickets.com 0871 220 0260

or in person from Ticket Scotland: Argyle Street Glasgow, Rose St Edinburgh & Ripping Records and all usual outlets

THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

P.19 AYYY! IT'S OMAR

Editorial Editor Music & Online Editor Art Editor Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Competitions Editor Digital Editor DVD Editor Fashion Editor Film Editor Heads Up Editor Listings/Cyberzap Editor Performance Editor Reading Editor Travel Editor

Rosamund West Dave Kerr Andrew Cattanach Luke Dubuis Lizzie Cass-Maran Adeline Amar Alex Cole Keir Roper-Caldbeck Alexandra Fiddes Jamie Dunn Anna Docherty Anna Docherty Gareth K. Vile Keir Hind Paul Mitchell

Production Production Manager Designer Chief Subeditor

David Lemm Lewis MacDonald Paul Mitchell

Sales/Accounts Head of Sales & Marketing Advertising Sales Execs

Lara Moloney Jan Webster Liam O'Brien

Publisher

Sophie Kyle

Interns

Louise Robertson Eilidh Hickman Aimee Cassells

DF CONCERTS PRESENTS…DF CONCERTS PRESENTS…DF CONCERTS PRESENTS…

6: Opinion: Hero Worship by Teddy; The Proposition takes on Rebecca Black; Skinny on Tour sees a river dyed green; Jamie Dunn argues the case against Apocalypse Now re-releases; GKV talks the Role of the Critic. 8: Heads Up: What to do, where, when and how for the next month.

FEATURES 10: Panda Bear: Ahead of the release of his new album, Tomboy, our cover star Noah Lennox tells us that multiple personalities can be confusing. 13: Kode9 & The Spaceape: The cutting edge dubsteppers talk about everything under the sun; the Black Sun, that is. 14: America Indie celebrates the simultaneous release of Cold Weather and Meek's Cutoff by interviewing respective directors Aaron Katz and Kelly Reichardt. 16: Trail of Dead vs Rival Schools: Co-headliners extraordinaire square up in a journalistic face-off. 18: Rachel Adams: tells us all about her love of paper ahead of a solo show in Glasgow's Duchy Gallery. 19: After being demonised by the Evening Times, Jeremy Millar talks about his CCA exhibition and how freaky it is to see a highly realistic sculpture of yourself drowned. Omar Zingaro Bhatia: The Skinny Award winner tells us why his favourite subject is himself. 20: James Blake: In a Scottish exclusive, the Londoner seems suitably unruffled by his catapulting into the spotlight. He’s very chillaxed, that youngster. 21: Autechre: As they release a comprehensive boxset, we provide a no-bullshit guide to their back catalogue. 22: Gamma Ray Dali talks Confusion is Sex ahead of the night’s second birthday. 23: Adam Goldberg: The actor turned musician on forming a band with his female (and fictitious) siblings. 25: Horror Madness at the Cameo: looking forward to a horrific film celebration of Easter. 26: Scottish Ballet venture through the looking glass with a new production of Alice Beltane: Yes, it's time for the fire and the drums and the facepaint. Happy paganism everybody! 27: Author Glen Duncan tells us why werewolves are a perfectly valid subject for a serious novelist. 28: Electrikal talk to us about their mega soundsystem. LIFESTYLE 29: Travel: Couchsurfing dos and don'ts from an experienced surfer and host. Try to wash, don't demand to be fed, and know when to piss off, essentially. 32: Showcase: David Lemm: Illustration, animation, painting, production management, a fondness for old walls... This one’s multi-talented. 35: fashion: Looking forward to the fashionista events of the next month, including Nightwalk and No Concessions at Inspace. 36: Food & Drink: How to homebrew – a guide from a novice and some experts.

+ PEARL AND THE PUPPETS + DAVEY HORNE (GLASGOW ONLY)

EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOM

FRIDAY 15TH APRIL

TUESDAY 17TH MAY

GLASGOW THE ARCHES WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY

GLASGOW O2 ABC

THURSDAY 28TH APRIL

MILES KANE

GLASGOW KING TUT’S T U E S D AY 1 2 T H A P R I L

+ LUYAS

GLASGOW THE ARCHES

EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOM

WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY

DUNDEE FAT SAMS

THURSDAY 19TH MAY

SATURDAY 21ST MAY

WWW.MILESKANE.COM

GLASGOW KING TUT’S

+ YAAKS + THE BIG SLEEP

GLASGOW ORAN MOR

SUNDAY 1ST MAY

SUNDAY 8TH MAY

FIXERS GLASGOW KING TUT’S

GLASGOW KING TUT'S Saturday 14th May

FRIDAY 6TH MAY

GLASGOW KING TUT’S MONDAY 4TH APRIL

Glasgow King Tut’s wed 4th may

REVIEW 39: Music: This month’s New Blood are the fantastic Trembling Bells, plus we’ve got April’s music highlights and dozens of the latest reviews. 46: Clubs: A preview of the exciting Electric Frog Easter weekender plus the best of the forthcoming club action. 48: Film: A Werner Herzog season and some All Night Horror Madness are included in a roundup of the best Film events in April. 50: Art: Things we like this month – RSA New Contemporaries, Craig Mullholland curating Generator Projects and Ric Warren. 51: Books: Our reviewers take a look at Edward Ross' Filmist #3 among others. Digital: Alex Cole confirms that the days of the PC are at an end. 52: Performance: Profiling the Arches, and looking forward to Pandas. 53: Comedy: An interview with that delightfully clever oddball that is Simon Munnery plus a profile of new act David Innes. 54: Competitions: #WINNING! To make a now-old joke. Win Samsung Galaxy tablet PC or a recording session for your band. 55: LIstings: We live in busy times, busy places. Here we try and help sort the confusion. 63: Starter for 11 The battle for the haggis supper hots up, with Adam Goldberg in contention this month, plus Mystic Mark checks himself out of rehab in order to see/seal your fate.

GLASGOW ARCHES

+ BEARS DEN

GLASGOW CAPTAIN'S REST SATURDAY 9TH APRIL EDINBURGH SNEAKY PETE'S SUNDAY 10TH APRIL

MONDAY 18TH APRIL

NEW ALBUM WOUNDED RHYMES INCL. ‘GET SOME’ & I FOLLOW RIVERS WWW.LYKKELI.COM

GLASGOW THE ARCHES TUESDAY 17TH MAY

Tickets 24hr credit card hotline: 08444 999 990 Online: www.gigsinscotland.com | www.ticketmaster.co.uk In person: GLASGOW SECC B/O, Tickets Scotland | EDINBURGH Tickets Scotland, Ripping | ABERDEEN B/O, One Up Records | DUNDEE Grouchos.

April 2011

THE SKINNY

Hero Worship Sean Hughes

Editorial Ah April, the only month that begins with a free pass to create elaborate hoaxes. We tried to send people to the Last Drop to watch Gene Simmons for free, but unfortunately due to the nature of our deadlines I don’t actually know how that went down yet. Hopefully as well as last year’s Terence Trent D’Arby speed metal set. Or as well as the Bon Jovi gig a few years back. That got some people up from Newcastle apparently. But anyway… To the issue in hand. This month we lead with an exclusive and enlightening interview with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear, whose new album Tomboy builds on the promise of 2007’s critically hailed Person Pitch and looks set to be essential listening for the coming months. We then caught up with Glasgow-native Kode9 and The Spaceape, whose new album Black Sun has got bass music fans excited as all hell. In anticipation of the Rival Schools and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead co-headlining tour we somehow convinced Conrad Keely to interview Walter Screifels, and the fruits of their tête-à-tête can be seen on these very pages. Elsewhere, we ask James Blake what it feels like to be So Hot Right Now, and hear from Adam Goldberg about his new musical forays, before quizzing him on actor/musicians (he doesn’t do very well, and then pretends he didn’t want to win a haggis supper anyway, the sore loser). Glasvegas frontman James Allan talks to us about the new album, and the decision to retreat from the limelight for a wee while. In Film, we celebrate the simultaneous release of two gems of American indie cinema with interviews with each of the directors, namely Kelly Reichardt and Aaron Katz. In Art, we talk to paper-sculptor Rachel Adams, tabloid sensation Jeremy Millar (he’s sculpted a highly realistic life size model of

himself, drowned, for the CCA), and local narcissist Omar Zingaro Bhatia. We’re actually organising an exhibition for Omar in Glasgow’s Briggait which runs throughout the month, part of a prize awarded him at last year’s RSA New Contemporaries exhibition. You should definitely, definitely go to it, as it will be fantastic. Our Showcase this month is David Lemm, our long suffering production manager who has now left to go freelance as an illustrator / animator / wall fancier / dog lover. We’re very sad to see him go, and feel you should take this opportunity to have a closer look at his wonderful artwork. Other noteworthy content includes my own attempts at homebrewing, as well as the usual extensive array of fascinating, weird and wonderful insight into all things cultural forming a generally essential guide to the month of April. Have a read. [Rosamund West]

Fans' confusion reached the site of Mr. Simmons himself. His response – look at the date

The Glasgow-based comedian, Teddy, talks about his love for another man Frankie Boyle, Doug Stanhope, Sam Kinison. All comedians that I admire, but all ones that I was only exposed to after I began performing stand-up comedy. The first two live, and the latter via recording. Before I began performing stand-up at the age of 18 though, one of the few comedians I’d seen performing live was Sean Hughes – at the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline. I’d spent my early teenage years watching his series Sean’s Show on Channel 4. It was only watching it back a couple of years ago that I realised just how many of the themes and styles explored in that show had unconsciously osmosed into my own act. A desire to deconstruct, the musings of a disappointed romantic, and the occasional attempts to inject pathos into humour are all things that I’ve dabbled with in a considerably less successful manner than the man who won the Perrier Award at the age of 24. By the time I’d got to see him live it was already a different Sean Hughes. In his show, Alibis For Life, the levels of pathos had grown. Even as a 17 year-old without the life experience to fully appreciate the show’s nuances, it was still inspiring to see someone bring such emotional depth to comedy. Since Sean’s Show he’s been a poet, a writer, an actor… but for me it’s as a stand-up that he becomes all three in one. Anybody who only knows Sean Hughes from Buzzcocks or Coronation Street should shell out the paltry £3.93 Amazon are currently asking for Sean’s Show on DVD and treat themselves to the work of one of the most talented and

influential comedians of the last 30 years. Then get your tickets for the Citizens Theatre and enjoy him live too. Sean Hughes: Ducks and Other Mistakes I’ve Made, Citizen’s Theatre, 8 Apr, 8pm, £15 For details of Teddy’s upcoming gigs, see comedyteddy.com

Shot of SKINNY the month ON TOUR On a Saturday that wasn't even 17 March, our Blogs Editor put on a green dress, grabbed a green Shamrock Shake and joined a bunch of greened up people by a river that'd just been dyed bright green. Can you guess where that picture was taken? Enter your answer at www. theskinny.co.uk/competitions to win a bottle of lovely wine, courtesy of our friends at VINO WINES.

Closing date: 30 April 2011 Terms: www.theskinny. co.uk/terms and www.drinkaware.co.uk for the facts.

Primal Scream SECC 18 Mar By Colin Macdonald

THE SKINNY April 2011

Over 18s only. The prize isn't redeemable for cash and is to be collected from one of the Vino Wines stores. www.vinolovesyou.co.uk

Reel Talk

Film distributors love the smell of easy money in the morning

Illustration: El Famoso

OPINION

The Proposition

Rebecca Frankenstein Black: or The Post-Modern Prometheus According to recent internet polls, Rebecca Black is now officially the most hated human being in history. As her debut music video Friday continues to infect the planet via the world wide web, she has even outstripped Colonel Gadaffi and tectonic plates for low approval ratings online. That’s fast work for someone who had barely graduated to embryo when Hanson’s MMMBop made its equally ignominious way to number one. Yet Rebecca Black is purely a means to an end; the product of an industry honing the science of marketing to a fine art without any regard for the consequences; seeing just how much can be achieved with less and less; playing God with popular culture. At the time of going to press, Friday sat on a staggering 73 million YouTube views. To put that in perspective, the famous Zapruder handy-cam film of John F Kennedy’s assassination has only recently scraped past the 1.5 million mark. Ergo Kevin Costner is already in talks for an adaptation of Rebecca Black’s story wherein he lists the months of the year, the hours of the day and perhaps the alphabet, censors allowing. Rumours also abound that Denzel Washington has been pencilled in for a chauffeur cameo where he discusses school buses and the merits of passing them in traffic. The very fact we are even discussing this lousy song is testimony to the power of “viral”

marketing and, given the fairly undisputed shiteness of the clip in question, that in turn illustrates the perverse rubber-necking, car-crash voyeurism that pervades society. Friday is a monstrosity. A real freak show. And as such it is being both elevated to astonishing prominence and simultaneously persecuted mercilessly. Yet the bludgeoningly obvious irony is that Friday has only entered into our public consciousness out of our need to loudly object and lambast it. The more we hate it the bigger it gets like some giant swirling vortex of negativity, gradually consuming the planet. We created this monster to embody our worst fears and, like the monster in Mary Shelley’s classic novel, the toll it takes on humanity is born of our own shortcomings. Put simply, the most ghastly thing about Friday is not the hideous auto-tuning, the stupefying lyrics or the gormless rap, it’s the fact that it reminds us what a bunch of slack-jawed imbeciles we actually are. It brings us face to face with our own bovine idiocy. Okay let’s quickly get something out of the way for the literary pedants. I’m aware that the real Frankenstein in this scenario is actually Ark Music Factory, the detestably shrewd production company behind this whole farce. Frankenstein was the doctor – that’s Shelley 101 – so quell your tutting. Yes, in this scenario Miss Black plays the monster and in the same way Frankenstein’s creation, corrupted by years of abuse and ostracision, reflected the lesser aspects of human nature, so Friday has become a scapegoat for vitriolic rhetoric stemming from our frustrations with the appalling state of the music industry and the

dehumanising nature of marketing. Yet what could be more grotesque than some of the reactions the video has evoked: “I want to punch her mum for smoking crack while she was pregnant”; “somebody should just shoot her”; “die of butt hole AIDS” and the thoroughly reprehensible “violate that bitch”? As with that classic novel, it's the monstrosity of human beings that is being made crushingly apparent. Miss Black herself has enjoyed substantial media attention on the back of her new-found infamy. Appearing on daytime TV shows across America, she described crying when she read one critic proclaim “I hope you cut yourself, and I hope you’ll get an eating disorder so you’ll look pretty.” Totally brutal when you consider that this is a 13 year old girl we’re talking about. Rebecca goes on to lament the derision her fame has incurred but, as one lamentably-rare astute blogger retorts, “We don’t hate you because you are famous, you are famous because we hate you.” As to whether Ark Music Factory are held to account for that which they have unleashed remains to be seen. By all accounts they have a warehouse in LA full of such potential musical catastrophes. Yet as the hit-count increases and the virus spreads, the lynch-mob gathers in the global village, torches and rakes in hand, baying for blood. Eventually, in fittingly medieval style, that mob might well advance on Ark Music’s castle screaming with one final Tweet “KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!” (Copyright – SlugBoi69). [Marc DeSadé] Marc DeSadé is not impressed with the modern being

Everyone loves 70s American cinema, right? The scattershot chaos of Altman, the swaggering rock and roll of Scorsese, those DePalma fever dreams; a golden age where mainstream and arthouse collided in an explosion of violence and beauty. How fitting that the decade’s cinematic climax was Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), a hallucinatory orgy of madness as overblown and poetic as anything in the New Hollywood canon. And it’s back in cinemas on 27 May. “Fuckin’ A!”, I hear you say. A chance to go back into the heart of darkness, only this time on a screen the size of a double decker bus with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries reverberating in Dolby surround sound. Will I be rushing out to see it come opening weekend? Not a chance. My boycott isn’t for iconoclast kudos, it’s a selflacerating protest against film distribution myopia. Apocalypse Now is not a film that needs to be rediscovered: its director’s cut ‘Redux’ was released in 2001; search its name on Amazon and you’ll find a plethora of DVDs, Blu-rays and special editions; start channel surfing and you’ll barely wait a week before it turns up on some TV station. If you haven’t seen Apocalypse Now by now then you don’t want to. Let's not be fooled into thinking this rerelease is about education or cinema heritage: it’s about commerce. This is cinema with broad appeal, loved by Sight and Sound snobs and Nuts knuckle-scrapers alike. I love this era of movies too, but the truth is that the cultural omnipresence of the New Hollywood movie brats, and Coppola in particular, stifle those undervalued films that are truly in need of your patronage – films like Ivan Passer’s criminally underseen neo-noir Cutter’s Way (1981), rereleased on 10 June by Park Circus. There’s also another reason I hope Apocalypse Now bombs. Dracula’s 20th anniversary is coming up in 2012. Let’s not give Coppola, or those distributors, ideas.[Jamie Dunn]

CRITICal mass

The role of the critic

It is fair to say that March was equally frustrating and elevating. New Territories redefined itself after winding up the National Review of Live Art through a programme that was both accessible and challenging: the NTS supported new work through their Reveal season. While the two festivals emphasised the amount of new work Scotland hosts, they managed to coincide, making it difficult to support both sets of events, beyond keeping an eye on the regular programmes coming through the Theatre Royal. Given the amount of energy in Scotland’s performance scenes – and the recent news that only London has a more supportive audience base than Glasgow, I am increasingly irritated by the apparent lack of old media support for the arts. Scotland has a remarkable cohort of critics, yet these are not supported by ongoing features – weekend newspapers are more interested in generic articles about American screen stars, or long meditations on the latest Rangers-Celtic antics. While a few theatre companies seem to think that the economic depression means that audiences want an escapist laugh, there are plenty of plays that grapple intelligently with socio-political issues – Stellar Quine’s Age of Arousal – and further the sort of debates that gather around actions like the Free Hetherington occupation, or the massive anti-cuts protests. In this context, the role of the critic is crucial – to further the arguments, to reach behind the headlines and encourage debate. Performance is a political act, and writing about it even more so. Excluding the critic from the national press is a form of censorship, reducing opinion to the usual columnists and excluding those places where shared experience, community and discussion are encouraged. As long as the career of a Gossip Girl trumps the arrival of Michael Clarke at Tramway, there is a danger that the media is pumping out an insipid aesthetic, that neither challenges nor engages. [Gareth K Vile]

April 2011

THE SKINNY

Sonic boomer, and one third of Inspector Tapehead, Jonnie Common gathers together a merry bunch of pals for the launch of his self-produced and self-funded compilation CD. Included on the bill (and on the album) are Meursault, Conquering Animal Sound, Panda Su, and eagleowl, all playing in minimal format and giving Common free rein on instrumentation duties. Captain's Rest, Glasgow, 8pm, £5

Photo: Chris Byrne

BYOB church singalongs, the electronic alldayer of Electric Frog, baboons doing Macbeth, and fire club (aka Beltane). Spring is definitely in the air...

wed 6 APR

Traversing the line between monolithic drone and whispering metallic riffs, Earth have got the doom-laden depressive thing down pat. It's music at its most ominous and epic, and the new album's taken them on a rather nice uplifting, instrumental bent. Who'd have thought. Stereo, Glasgow, 7pm, £10 Photo: Sarah Barrick

HEADS UP

Tue 5 Apr

SUN 10 APR

MON 11 APR

Steven Spielberg's 70's epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind screens alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's new kid on the sci-fi block, Paul, as the Cameo pit old again new in the world of cinematic alien adventures. For the record, Spielberg wins this battle, hands down. The Cameo, Edinburgh, 1.30pm, £7 (£5.50)

The one man band that is Japanese War Effort (aka Martin Moog / James Scott / one half of Conquering Animal Sound) brings his inspired kit bag of lo-fi electronica beats and rhythms to the intimate surrounds of Mono. Watch, listen, and learn, kids. Mono, Glasgow, 8pm, Free

COMPILED BY: ANNA DOCHERTY

SAT 16 APR

SUN 17 APR

The all singing, all dancing extravaganza that is Balkanarama gets even more riotous for April's special edition, which sees Orkestra Del Sol launch their new album amidst the usual mix of DJs, belly dancing, live drumming, and free plum brandy. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, 10pm, £11. Also playing Edinburgh's Liquid Room the following night

Started in 2007 by some American chaps, Record Store Day is a yearly celebration of stores of the independently run, unique musical emporium, variety. There will be a string of special events across Scotland, in particular Edinburgh's Avalanche, which'll kick things off with an early afternoon slot from Frightened Rabbit, then Broken Records and Glasvegas will be in-store the following day from 3pm. Avalanche, Edinburgh, all day, Free

Instrumental duo A Hawk and A Hacksaw do beautiful things on the accordian and harp, in the ethereal setting of The Caves, while stellar support comes from local chap Jamie Sutherland (of Broken Records), and kindred English folkies Dan Haywood's New Hawks. Lovely, lovely stuff. The Caves, Edinburgh, 7pm, £10 (advance)

THU 21 APR

FRI 22 APR

Sat 23 apr

Edinburgh author Alexander McCall Smith and composer Tom Cunningham join forces for their first foray into opera, with The Okavango Macbeth. It's essentially the Macbeth story, but set in north Botswana and played out by a troop of baboons. An inspired gem of a thing. Yes, with monkeys. Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £16 (£8)

Celebrating the frivolous, but joyful, pleasures of fashion, Night walk returns to the Arches with its kit-bag of electronic beats, catwalk showcases, live performance art, and unique visuals. Oh, and dancing 'til you drop with DJs playing into the wee hours. Profits go to St Margaret's Hospice. The Arches, Glasgow, 10pm, £16 (£10 limited earlybird)

The rent-a-noise electronic micro festival that is Electric Frog Carnival takes to SWG3 with a line-up full of superheroes of the DJ world. We're talking Francois Kevorkian, DJ Yoda, Erol Alkan, Danny Krivit, and, oh, some 15-odd others, right through to the loveable rogues that are Optimo's Twitch and Wilkes. SWG3, Glasgow, 4-11pm (also 24 Mar), £25 (£45 weekend)

Photo: Bartosz Madejski

FRI 15 APR

Francois Kevorkian

Wed 27 Apr

Thu 28 Apr

Fri 29 Apr

LA trio Best Coast bring a little taste of the Californinan beach-bum life to Glasgow with their lo-fi, scuzzy indie-pop, where paint-by-number lyrics of boyfriends and sunshine get bathed in lead singer Bethany Cosentino's lacadaisical drawl. Summer mix tapes, here they come... The Arches, Glasgow, 7pm, £12.50

An exercise class you say? Well, yes. But this ain't no hum-drum affair. The No Lights No Lycra craze hits Glasgow with a 90-minute dance party in the dark, held in the GSA's Vic Bar and set to a handpicked selection of cool beats. Apparently it's the future (aka they're doing it in New York). Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, 6pm (weekly Thursdays), £2

A delightfully avant-garde bunch of poets, musicians, and filmmakers are at it again for another installment of Neu! Reekie!. On the bill this time is infamous muso Jock Scot, rockabilly folkie Emelle, and virtual musical A-Z, Roy Moller. There is also the tease-of-a-promise of a short-play about a magical talking cow with a taste for toffee apples. Genius. Scottish Book Trust, Edinburgh, 7pm, £5 (£4)

Roy Moller

THE SKINNY April 2011

thu 7 APR

fri 8 APR

sat 9 APR

We liked the RSA's batch of New Contemporaries for 2010 so much that we decided to give one of them a prize. And here are the fruits: a solo exhibition by artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia, featuring new work in video, photography and Harris Tweed tailoring. Briggait, Glasgow, Tue-Fri 9.30am-5.30pm, Sat 12-5pm, until 28 Apr, Free

We bid a bittersweet farewell to the Futuristic Retro Champions, who bow out with a bang in the form of 26-track retrospective LP Love and Lemonade. And thus, it seems, these happy hardcore pop poppets have come full circle, as the, play their last ever gig in the venue of their first ever gig, back in 2006. Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh, 7pm, £5 (also playing Glasgow's Captain's Rest the previous night)

TUE 12 APR

WED 13 APR

THU 14 APR

After its weekend opening, Victoria Clare Bernie's new exhibition, Slow Water, enjoys its first week proper. An ambitious and inspired beast of a thing, Bernie has created a visual document of insect life and death in a Highland loch, through digital video, filmmaking, drawing and photography. And it's quite, quite beautiful. Street Level Photoworks, until 5 June (closed Mondays), Free

As part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival (9-22 Apr) the Filmhouse screen a collection of Jean Painlevé’s short films. A pioneer in underwater filmmaking, his mini documentaries capture the lives of sea animals in the coastal waters of France, dating as far back as 1927. Pretty magical. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 6pm, £7.50 (£5.50)

Our favourite BYOB church hall plays host to two lovely Scottish noisemakers, with Beta Band co-founder, Lone Pigeon (aka Gordon Anderson), playing a rare double headliner with DIY Fence Records chap The Pictish Trail (aka Johnny Lynch). Did we mention it's BYOB (i.e. pack a keg)? Pilrig St Paul's Church, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £8

MON 18 APR

TUE 19 APR

WED 20 APR

Swedish Chanteuse Lykke Li brings her near sell-out show to Glasgow. And lucky for you lot there's still some tickets left for this one, so a gentle dose of primitive beats, sparse keyboards and airy, monotone vocals shall be yours. Arches, Glasgow, 7pm, £12.50

21 years after becoming the youngest ever Perrier-award winner, Sean Hughes (aka probably our favourite Buzzcocks panelist ever) is back on Scottish soil with his new show entitled Ducks and Other Mistakes I've Made. Expect quick-fire banter of the intelligently hilarious variety: man's got talent. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £12 (£10)

Balancing upon, hanging off and spinning about on crutches, Claire Cunningham questions the idea of the aesthetics of dance by, well, making crutches look as elegant and dynamic as anything we've seen. She'll perform a double bill of solo works, offset by her wry humour and classically-trained vocals. G12 Gilmorehill, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £9 (£7/£5). An Arches off-site event (booking via The Arches)

Photo: SARAH ROBERTS

Take A Worm For A Walk Week unleash another batch of discordant thrash upon the unsuspecting, with the launch of their self-released new LP. Supporting them in their rock'n'roll adventures will be Graeme Ronald (of Remember Remember) and newly formed supergroup OV (made up of members of The Unwinding Hours and De Salvo). CCA, Glasgow, 8pm, £5

Sun 24 Apr

Mon 25 Apr

Tue 26 APR

The Fruitmarket's new exhibition, Narcissus Revisited, officially opens on Friday (22 April), but, well, we like a Sunday gallery trawl, so we'll be saving its delights for today, when we'll likely get thoroughly lost in the potency of the Narcissus myth, as displayed through a mix of art, photography, installation, film and video. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 26 Jun, Free

Metronomy is Joseph Mount's musical dalliance into the world of electronica, but where in the past the sound was swathed in dirty robotic beats and addictive bass hooks, new album The English Riviera wanders into more soulful territory, making for nuggets of perfectly-polished pop that shine with real craftsmanship. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 7pm, £10 (advance)

Marking the occasion of the Royal wedding (or, more accurately, dropping kecks and mooning the whole affair) Inky Fingers host a loosely-themed open mic, where writer and musician Colin Donati, and Eliza Langland, who does a good line in the comically profound, will be on hand to contribute their words of wisdom. It'll all be MC'd be Harry Giles, and you can join in too. Forest Cafe, Edinburgh, 8pm, Free

Mon 2 May

Providing our monthly splash of colour, and fire, and, er, drums, the Beltane crew stage their annual celebration of the coming of summer. Rooted in ancient pagan history, the creative group behind it put in months of planning into make their modern day version a pretty bloody amazing all-out party of a thing. Go witness and make merry.. Calton Hill, Edinburgh, from 8pm

In true Beltane style, the celebrations go well on into the next day. The Caves host the official after-party that kicks off at 1am, and continues until the sun comes up, with even more drumming, and a large DJ helping of gypstep, D'n'B and nu-school folk. Then comes the annual crawl home of shame, where the official three-day facepaintremoval scrub begins. The Caves, Edinburgh, 1am, £7 (£5)

Set in springtime Edinburgh (by way of China), local playwright Rona Munro straddles the line between rom-com and thriller with her new play Pandas. It's basically a love story set amongst cherry blossom, as we follow three separate couples moving towards a stage of commitment. Tender stuff. Traverse, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, From £12 (£10). Other performances available between 19 Apr-7 May

Photo: Danny Williams

Sun 1 May

Photo: Neil Hodgins

Sat 30 apr

Photo: Euan Myles

Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937

April 2011

THE SKINNY

10 THE SKINNY April 2011

MUSIC

Noah’s Arc

Taking subtle cues from Nirvana and fatherhood, Noah ‘Panda Bear’ Lennox readies his inner Tomboy Interview: darren carle

How do you follow up one of the most acclaimed alternative records of the past few years? Well, for Noah Lennox, perspective is everything. Whilst the bulk of critical opinion bestowed ‘album of the year’ type plaudits on 2007’s Person Pitch, his third effort under the Panda Bear pseudonym, the man himself has a rather more grounded view. “It was pretty shocking, definitely,” he agrees when asked if the reception took him by surprise. “When I first handed it to the label it was just, ‘Yeah, sounds pretty good.’ My only hope was that it would do a little bit better than the last one. I was hoping to at least have a slight upward trajectory with it.” That much Lennox can feel confident in having achieved. The success of both his solo work and as one-quarter of Animal Collective has been as meteoric as it has been surprising. However, as is obvious during our trans-Atlantic conversation, having the proverbial spot-light in his eyes is not something he is entirely comfortable with. “I really don’t mean to complain in any way,” he worries. “I feel really lucky to have everything I have, but it is curious the way my life has gone considering the type of person I am. I’m very shy and reserved, so for me to have this public life as a performer is a weird thing to be doing.” It’s a situation that has fuelled the creation of Tomboy, the album that will inevitably seek to follow in the success of Person Pitch. “A lot of the songs on Tomboy deal with those sort of opposites that are in my life,” he explains of how the dichotomy of a tomboy itself cemented the album concept for him. Does this conflict extend to performing under the Panda Bear name? “Yeah, I think it does,” he says as if the thought had never crossed his mind. “That’s another weird paradox, to have these two personas, isn’t it?”

❝

It’s a weird paradox, to have these two personas

❞ Things can’t have been any simpler in the recording studio, with mixing duties bestowed upon Peter Kember, AKA Sonic Boom. Lennox is unequivocal on the influence the Spacemen 3 founder had on the finished album. “I feel like Sonic really put his perspective on there and took the record to the next level,” he praises. “He took whatever was the strength of each song deep down and built his ideas around that. On the last day of mixing, I went up to New York to spend the day in the studio with him and I remember listening to it and thinking ‘this is exactly what I wanted to do.’” Does this eureka moment qualify as a first for Lennox? “My past records have always come out different on the way out than what I imagined going into them,” he explains. “[Animal Collective’s 2009 triumph] Merriweather [Post Pavilion] was close to what we wanted it to be like, but even then there were things that we didn’t really

anticipate. Even after playing the songs live for a while, the recording process always throws up curveballs. Certain songs really come together when you record them, whereas others often don’t. You’re kinda just shooting from the hip, or at least we are when we record.” Yet Lennox concedes that the live process provides a wealth of opportunities towards shaping the final song. “I get to a point in playing a song live where I’m not even thinking about it anymore,” he explains of testing out new material. “I’m no longer having to concentrate on hitting the right notes or singing the right words. When I reach that sort of ‘no mind’ part of the process, I start unconsciously thinking about how I’m going to do other things within the song and what it needs as far as the arrangement goes. One part of your brain turns off and the other part takes over.” Where Person Pitch took the sampler as its main tool of expression, Lennox was keen to re-ignite his love of the guitar for Tomboy. “I wanted to force myself to do something different,” he reasons of picking up the instrument again. “With a sampler, I’d be working with two or maybe three seconds of sound, which is very repetitive. You can’t really get a whole lot of chord changes in there. This time I really wanted to do songs that darted around a little more, melodically speaking.” Citing Nirvana and The White Stripes as two influences in this regard is not entirely obvious upon listening to Tomboy, though Lennox explains that this is not to be taken too literally. “Their sound is over-driven and buzzed out and that wasn’t something I was really into,” he qualifies. “But the guitar is still a real focal point of the music and this source of power. I had seen [televised] performances by both those bands in the space of a day, just as I was thinking about how I was going to approach Tomboy. It was exciting to see that from a simple set up, these bands can crank out some really heavy jams. I think I just took inspiration from that kind of approach more than anything else.” Anyone worried by such talk can rest easy in the knowledge that, whilst being a definite progression, Tomboy is not a wholly unexpected change of pace. Part of the reason for this, as Lennox himself admits, is to do with location, both in space and in mind. Where his second album, 2004’s Young Prayer, was a response to his father’s ill-health and subsequent death, Person Pitch felt like the spiritual renewal that understandably came when Lennox moved to Lisbon with his wife and quickly started a family. “I’m still in the same city and the same general area as when I was writing the last album,” he reasons. “The thing I’ve noticed is that it was more the actual room and the space that I was working in that had an influence on how things were going. I did Person Pitch in our apartment in Lisbon, which is three floors up, so there’s a lot of light that came in and you could look out across the city. With Tomboy, I finally found a studio space here, but in contrast it was down two floors in this basement. There was no light, it was really dark and it was kind of lonely.” Tomboy may not exude these feelings as much as Lennox suggests (opening track You Can Count On Me, for example, sounds as if it could have been conceived and recorded on an African savannah) but it is perhaps tinged with a more tangible sense of melancholy than Person Pitch. “Deeper responsibilities and the mental spaces that puts you in,” is his take on this. “Just getting deeper into fatherhood, that was on my mind a lot. That’s probably the big influence on the album, lyrically speaking.” It’s not that Lennox isn’t enjoying family life. In

point of fact, he and wife Fernanda Pereira had their second child last June, but the enforced need to put bread on the table has become a driving force for his creative output. “I wouldn’t say it makes me feel like I have to write music that I feel people are going to want to buy,” he clarifies. “I’m pretty sure if I tried to do that I wouldn’t be too successful. It’s more like doing the best I can and working hard all the time to ensure that I’m doing everything I can to make things happen.”

❝

The guitar is still a real source of power

❞ As well as motivating Lennox to greater heights, he reveals a more direct influence that his children have had on his music. “My original mix of Tomboy sampled a lot of these little children’s movies that my daughter was watching at the time,” he says. “She was really into them and I just remember hearing this sonic clutter in the house all the time. A lot of these kids things feature crazy, weird voices and sounds that I wanted to try to inject into my songs. It’s not as obvious in Sonic’s mix but I’m hoping that those sorts of things will make it feel a little more weird, like a broadcast coming from space.” Whilst a new Panda Bear album is rightly being awaited with great anticipation, it would seem wasteful not to ask about Noah’s other main musical concern. Although primarily over in Baltimore for a little family R&R as we talk, he and his fellow Animal Collective band members will be using the

opportunity to hook up. “We’re working on some songs just to play live right now, and I’m sure we’ll get round to recording sometime in the future, but there’s no concrete plans,” he claims. However, parallels between his solo work and that of the Collective are rebuked when asked if Tomboy’s approach will have any influence on the band’s next record. “I doubt it,” he says without hesitation. “With Person Pitch, the sampler was essentially my instrument. I was writing some of the songs that I wrote for Merriweather at the same time, so that helped with a connection between the two, but I haven’t played guitar with Animal Collective for a really long time. The drumming and the rhythm are usually my duties so I think even just the fact that I can’t have the same set-up means there won’t be much correlation between the two.” With his long list of personal paradoxes, and a seeming overlap of writing between his two musical concerns, how does Lennox know who he is at any one time? “I usually decide before I start writing,” he says. “When I’m writing a song for myself, there are no boundaries, sonically speaking, so I can take it wherever I feel it needs to go. But with Animal Collective I have to be conscious of space. I have to know the terms of my particular input to allow the others to put their mark in there without the sound feeling crowded. So, I usually go into a song knowing what my intentions are.” So, to paraphrase the original question; how does Noah Lennox, AKA Panda Bear, follow up Person Pitch? By rebuking conventional wisdom on its status, by embracing the contradictions that make him who he is, by turning off his conscious brain and by focusing on that which is dearest to him; his family and his music. Noah himself puts it more succinctly. “I’d say my overall goal is to make music that I’m excited about, music that I feel good about and to be able to support my family doing it” he claims. “That’s essentially the beginning and the end of it.” Tomboy is released via Paw Tracks on 11 Apr. Be among the first to hear it whilst swigging beer and claiming signed Panda Bear posters at Monorail Records’ midnight listening party in Glasgow on Sunday 10 Apr www.myspace.com/pandabear

April 2011

THE SKINNY 11

CLUBS

Under the Black Sun Five years on from their landmark debut Memories of the Future, Kode9 and The Spaceape return to reinvent bass music once more with the epic follow-up, Black Sun Interview: Bram E. Gieben

Until this year, Steve ‘Kode9’ Goodman and Stephen ‘The Spaceape’ Gordon’s seminal debut was perhaps the most diverse and formally experimental piece of work to have come out of the dubstep music scene. Kode9’s productions incorporated his far-reaching knowledge of dancehall, techno, jungle and 2-step, refusing to settle for long on one style. Meanwhile, The Spaceape subverted and deconstructed the traditional style and content of emceeing, telling tales of tentacle-sprouting musical aliens and sprawling futuristic cities over the spare, morphing rhythms put down by Kode9. Defiantly refusing to be pigeonholed by genre, the duo garnered critical acclaim from music fans and futurists alike. In 2011, they have returned with a follow-up, Black Sun – a heavy-duty concept album with more upfront beats from Kode9, and with Spaceape bringing some of the righteous anger he previously showcased in collaboration with The Bug. Equal parts bass music, protest and speculative fiction, it is a complex and layered album. We spoke to Kode 9 and Spaceape about the making of Black Sun, and how the ambitious project was realised. On Black Sun you have constructed a vivid dystopian world – can you tell us a little bit about how the ideas for this started to come to you, and how you built them up into a narrative structure? Spaceape: The truth is I didn’t know what I wanted to explore when I started writing for this album. But I knew I didn’t want to cover things I’d written about on Memories of the Future. I began writing about things that either touched me or hurt me in some way, and as I was writing and the stories moved further and further away from me, it became clear they inhabited the same world. A place that breathed a different atmosphere; had different rules; politics; desires; religions; even a different light to our own. Many things, although recognisable, are shaped in a different way, where elements of what we know still exist but are now either warped or fragmented. That sense of a distorted reality comes directly from our own recent experiences. Many of the tracks I wrote – like Neon Red Sign, about a man struggling with a spiritual dilemma, or Black Smoke, which is basically an exorcism, or Promises, which is a love song about an illicit, destructive love – are about realities that might seem impossible, but exist and make sense under the Black Sun world we created for it. The production feels a lot more upfront and intense than that of Memories – what led you to the particular sounds and techniques you employed on this album? Kode9: We wanted a bit more energy in the music this time around; we wanted to capture the energy of the live sets we’ve been doing for the last couple of years. Also, there’s no point in us just repeating what we did last time. I’m not sure we could anyway – that was quite a unique state of mind we got into for the first album. Both your lyrics and delivery on Black Sun seem angrier than on Memories – what has changed for you personally and politically to influence this change? Spaceape: I feel more comfortable with my voice and I have grown into a style that is my own. Playing in front of hundreds sometimes thousands of people has given me a confidence that was only emerging back when Memories was released. I feel that my writing has developed, my studio knowledge has grown through working with people like Kevin Martin (The Bug) and the fact that we no longer pitch-shift my voice immediately lifts the whole vibe of the album,

vocally at least. I wouldn’t say it’s angrier, it’s just more direct, less ambiguous not just lyrically but in tone and delivery. How optimistic are you about humanity’s chances in the next twenty years – do you believe we will inhabit a world as dangerous as the one you depict in Black Sun, or is it an exercise in speculative fiction? Spaceape: The world depicted on Black Sun is the world we are living in right now. All the ideas are just extensions of what we see now. The world right now is a pretty fuckin’ dangerous place so I don’t even think I’m exaggerating that much. I’m no prophet so I have no idea about humanity’s chances twenty years from now, but I would imagine we’ll still be here in some shape or form. What influence, if any, did the Glasgow club scene have on your musical development as a producer and DJ? Kode9: None at all, I never really thought that much of the club scene in Glasgow when I lived there (70s, 80s and early 90s). It sounds much better now to be honest, with clubs like Numbers. It pains me to say it, as a Glaswegian, but I actually got into clubbing in the early 90s in Edinburgh, at places like The Venue, and clubs like Pure and Chocolate City. You are playing live PA at some festivals this summer – which ones are you looking forward to in particular, and why?

Kode9: Primavera Festival in Barcelona in May is the one I’m looking forward to the most – a really great and diverse line up including Darkstar, Odd Future, Games etc. Spaceape: We’re playing Outlook in Croatia in September and by all accounts it looks ‘off the hook’. The Worldwide Festival in Sète in July should be interesting; it’ll be a different kind of crowd we’ll be playing to. Is bass music given enough attention by the mainstream press? Is this a good or bad thing? Kode9: I’m not really so concerned about that. Hyperdub have had some decent response from some newspapers over the last few years, and some awful bullshit from papers like The Sun during Burial’s Mercury nomination, but I think certainly there are some people who deserve more attention. At the moment, mainstream press seem to be enjoying a particular crop of artists such as James Blake and Jamie XX. Would have been nice if the mainstream press picked up on people such as Mala who have been doing their thing for so long, but ultimately I don’t think it matters so much, as it’s not really a primary aspiration of all artists anyway. Black Sun is released on 18 Apr on Hyperdub Records. Kode9 plays the Electric Frog Easter Weekender at SWG3, Glasgow on 24 Apr To read more of Bram’s writing, visit www.weaponizer.co.uk

❝

Black Sun is a place that breathes a different atmosphere; has different rules; politics; desires; religions; even a different light to our own… the Spaceape

❞

www.hyperdub.com

April 2011

THE SKINNY 13

FILM

American Indie

“At times it feels as if we’re living in something of a cinematic golden age, but one that’s altogether different from earlier halcyon days.” So said Richard Brody recently in the New Yorker. Alas, it seems this golden age is kept out of most film lovers’ grasps because of the poor distribution given to any film not designed to make 13 year-old boys mess their underwear. April sees the release of films from two of America’s finest cinematic voices, Kelly Reichardt and Aaron Katz. Both appear on the same day and both, unfortunately, will receive limited releases. By way of endorsement we spoke to both of these filmmakers to discuss what is, for each of them, their finest achievement so far Interviews: Jamie Dunn

Redefining The Western

Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt talks to The Skinny about her new film Meek’s Cutoff

The Wild West wasn’t a place for womenfolk, or so the movies would have us believe. It was a macho world of cutthroat bandits, whiskey drinking sheriffs and squinting strangers who knew their way round a six shooter. Sure you’d see the odd woman, the heavyset battle-axe who’d fix John Wayne’s grits when Walter Brennan wasn’t available, or the girls at the local whorehouse ready to give Clint Eastwood a sponge bath after three months in the saddle, but their story ended as soon as Wayne cleared his plate and Clint shot his load. There have been a handful of westerns that have tried to address this, most notably Sam Raimi’s underrated spaghetti western homage The Quick and the Dead, where Sharon Stone played a deadly sharp shooter, and Nicholas Ray’s wildly subversive Johnny Guitar, with Joan Crawford as a square shouldered saloon owner. But in these two fine films it is the female characters who do the compromising, with Stone’s “Lady” and Crawford’s Vienna merely shapely versions of the macho anti-heroes the western is built on. Kelly Reichardt, the director behind Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy, and the hard to find River of Grass, challenges this genre convention with her new film Meek’s Cutoff by aligning the film’s point-of-view with its female protagonists. “I was just wondering what it would be like for a woman on the outside watching all that macho posturing. Like in The Searchers, what is the world like for the woman serving John Wayne his soup? What does it look like from where she’s standing, listening to all his bravado?” Reichardt tells me from her home in New York.

14 THE SKINNY April 2011

Based on a true story of a wagon train that got lost crossing the Cascade Mountains in 1845, the film centres on a small group of pioneers, three families in three wagons, who are following the eponymous Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood, hidden under a mass of hair that suggest the same barber as ZZ Top), a prospector who they have hired to shepherd them West across the barren planes of Oregon to a promised land of gold, or a “second Eden”, as Meek describes it. The film begins with the party mid-journey, crossing a river and replenishing their water supply. From the outset it is clear that Meek is lost, but he continues to talk a good game with tall tales of battling grizzlies and surviving attacks from “Injuns”, much to the frustration of the tired, starving travellers who’ve put their faith in this blowhard. But, with no alternative, the male heads of the families decide better the devil you know and follow on despite their increasing doubts. While the men are off making decisions the camera lingers with the women, who include Michelle Williams, the lead in Reichardt’s previous film Wendy and Lucy, as they go about their arduous daily routine of collecting firewood, darning clothes and preparing meals from their meagre supplies. Williams’ Emily has mutiny in her eyes but has no say in the matter and quietly respects her husband (Will Patton)’s decision. A female perspective is not the only genre inversion. Gone too is the gunplay and violence. “It is a super masculine genre,” explains Reichardt of the western, “and it really focuses on these

❝

I was just wondering what it would be like for a woman on the outside watching all that macho posturing. Kelly Reichardt

❞ completely heightened moments that constantly set up a situation, or masculinity, to be proven, and proved again and again and again.” Focusing on “completely heightened moments” is not a charge that could be levied at Reichardt, whose films unfurl like elliptical daydreams, with drama coming from small day-to-day struggles. In Wendy and Lucy, for example, a young woman (Williams) is trying to make her way to Alaska by car to start a new job but is quickly running out of money. The drama comes from her quiet

desperation, but there is no cataclysmic event that brings her to breaking point; it’s a whole load of little things – a broken down car, a shoplifting fine, a missing dog – that push her toward the precipice of abject poverty. It is this type of day-to-day struggle that Reichardt and the film’s writer, Jon Raymond, discovered when researching the film. “We were looking at the diaries from the time, and a lot of the diary keepers were women, and suddenly you can get a look at the West from this feminine point-of-view. It has much more to do with the trance-like component of just walking across the country, and how time works, and how days bleed into each other. It’s not at all about heightened moments, it’s quite the opposite. It’s really about endless landscapes and endless days that become familiar nights, and it’s such a different feeling to how those journeys West are presented in American cinema.” Does she see herself as a feminist filmmaker, then? “No, I wouldn’t say that. I just think that it’s important that not all cinema is shown from a white, male perspective. Do we have to absolutely label it as something specific as opposed to being a different voice?” Reichardt asks forcefully. “I, myself, wouldn’t even call [the film] a western. I was trying not to use the word when I was making it, just to keep any expectations for how it would be shot, or whatever, at bay.” Reichardt may not consider herself a feminist filmmaker, but she’s certainly a political one. Wendy and Lucy is a clear criticism of the lack of state support in America for people on the breadline. In Old Joy, Reichardt compares the fortunes of two life long friends, one who’s living the American Dream and the other who’s practically a hobo, and throughout the film a talk radio station laments America’s crumbling social fabric. Both films are set in rundown towns in America’s North West. While never overt, an analogy with modern America isn’t too hard to decipher from Reichardt’s quick plot synopsis of Meek’s Cutoff. “Our story is based on this true story of a guy who basically didn’t really seem to know what he was doing and led a bunch of people into the desert without really having a plan to get them out,” Reichardt says wryly, “which seemed quite contemporary.” Meek’s clueless leadershwip and hollow rhetoric certainly calls to mind America’s previous cowboy president and his foreign policy follies. Perhaps it’s not a stretch, then, to see the native American that the convoy encounter, and who may hold the key to their salvation, as the country’s current incumbent? “I’ll leave it to the audience to put it together, I think,” says Reichardt. It’s this quality, the instinct to leave things unsaid and leave plot lines unravelled, that sets Reichardt apart from many of her contemporaries. The ending of Meek’s Cutoff, for example, offers no catharsis, no clear resolution. It will madden many, but Reichardt believes it’s a key part of her filmmaking. “All my films, I guess, are asking questions rather than providing any kind of message or statement. They are presenting an idea I hope, but it would be nice, I think, if two people sitting next to each other in the film would leave and both have different ideas about it, and that could lead to a conversation.” You can join in the conversation from 15 Apr when Meek’s Cutoff goes on general release www.meekscutoff.com

Mumblecore Comes In From The Cold Aaron Katz, the talented director behind mumblecore hits Dance Party USA and Quiet City, discusses his new film Cold Weather

cold weather

Last year mumblecore went mainstream. This ethereal, unfortunately named genre is no longer ghettoised to hip indie film festivals SXSW and Sundance. For the uninitiated, mumblecore is the accepted term for the unofficial wave of movies that have flourished with young American filmmakers over the last decade thanks to cheap DV cameras and home computer editing software. These films, from directors such as Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation) and Joe Swanberg (Kissing on the Mouth, Hannah Takes the Stairs), have such low production values that they make so-called American indies like Juno look like epic Cecil B. DeMille productions. Usually autobiographical, the typical mumblecore movie is low-key and episodic. The plots, if they can be described as such, involve groups of white, middle-class 20-somethings floundering in the quarter-life funk between college and gainful employment. They’re often romantic and funny, but they are not rom-coms – the emotions are too raw and the comedy is too toe-curling to satisfy Jennifer Aniston aficionados. Mumblecore filmmakers, because of their limited budgets, have relied on friends and family to make up the bulk of their films’ casts. But lately familiar faces have been drawn to the genre. Last year’s Cyrus, directed by mumblecore veterans Jay and Mark Duplass (Baghead, The Puffy Chair), was a big studio-mumblecore hybrid starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Judd Apatow favourite Jonah Hill. The film was a success and found a similar audience to Apatow’s films without having to make too many compromises. Elsewhere, mainstream filmmakers are co-opting the movement’s style and casting its actors. Director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), for example, having admired the easy-going naturalism of mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig (Hannah Takes the Stairs, LOL), cast her opposite Ben Stiller in Greenberg. The timing seems perfect, then, for Aaron Katz (Dance Party USA, Quiet City), the most talented and lyrical of the mumblecore bunch, to make his move towards the mainstream with his third

feature Cold Weather, which blends the mumblecore style with a detective procedural. “I started writing a script about a brother and sister, and it was supposed to be a straight family drama,” Katz told me after the film’s UK premiere at the London Film Festival, “but I had been reading a lot of detective fiction – things like Sherlock Holmes and Raffles – and then late at night, probably sleep deprived, I started pushing the script in that direction.” The idea stuck, but as a filmmaker whose greatest strength is capturing intimate, painfully real moments, was he worried that the genre element would spoil that? “I was, but even in the scenes that were more mystery orientated I wanted people to put the dialogue in their own words. I really want actors to be comfortable and be themselves essentially, but in the fictional situation of the movie.” Indeed, much of the film’s humour comes when the mumblecore aesthetic and slacker attitude collide with the plot contrivances of the detective genre plot. However, would he be tempted to drop the genre style he’s helped pioneer if the money was right? “Cold Weather was the ideal experience in that we had a little bit more money to play with so we were able to have access to a few more resources. At no point did anyone say, ‘You have to do it like this, you can’t do it like that’. In the end, the money invested was so little that everyone basically left us to make the film we wanted to make – there’s nothing better than that.” That’s refreshing to hear, but will there come a point where it’s no longer possible to make films in this way? Could we see mumblecore commingling with another, more expensive, genre? A mumblecore period drama, perhaps, or mumblecore in space? “Hopefully, regardless of budget level that’s what we’ll keep being able to do: making films the way we like to make them. Whether that’s two people talking in a room together or a movie set in the old West with dinosaurs chasing people.” Get initiated with mumblecore when Cold Weather goes on limited release from 15 Apr www.coldweatherthemovie.com/

Cask Ale Hobgoblin, Deuchars IPA & Guest Ale Addlestones Premium Cloudy Cider Student Discount On All Food Including Our Famous “Big Nachos” Metal, Punk & Goth Jukebox Find Us In CAMRA’s 2011 Good Beer Guide! www.theauldhoose.co.uk 23-25 St. Leonard’s Street, Edinburgh EH8 9QN

April 2011

THE SKINNY 15

MUSIC

Tao of the Tourmates

As ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and Rival Schools prepare to share a tour-bus for a co-headlining tour of Europe, Conrad Keely makes his journalistic debut with a get-to-know Q&A for Walter Schreifels Interview: Conrad Keely illustration: david lemm

Dear Rival Schools,

and easy consumption. Do you personally hold yourselves in any particular genre, or are you content to say that you are a rock band (feel free to elaborate)? I’ve never been crazy about “post-hardcore,” though Emo is the more awkward one. The goal is to be a genre onto yourself, post-genre.

Conrad from Trail of Dead here. I hope these questions aren’t too typical, they represent my first foray into the world of rock journalism, a world I have long made the object of my ridicule! Here it goes: If my memory serves me right, the tour we are about to embark upon was the result of a chance meeting I had with Sam [Siegler, Rival School’s drummer] in the Union Square farmer’s market. What I want to know is, did I imagine this event? Walter Schreifels: That’s the same story Sam is telling. I believe Sam was with his kid at the time, who looked about the same age as my bandmate Jason’s kid. How has band members having kids affected the band getting together, if at all? Since we’re all pretty much awake with our kids by 7am anyway, we’re no longer confined to just rocking at night. We get most of our rehearsing in before noon, pick up the kids from school and carry on. I think we’re all more prompt as well. There was a long gap between your previous releases and your most recent one. I imagine people wonder what you were up to during that time. Was this hiatus a question of enjoying a life away from music, or exploring other musical endeavours? I lived in Berlin for a few years, toured around the world solo acoustic, made a couple of albums and most importantly became a father. I was still doing Rival Schools somewhere in my mind but it was just on the back burner. Has there ever been talk of properly releasing the “Unreleased” album, or is this something you are content to have available for free on the internet? I’d love to release it on vinyl, it wouldn’t hurt to give people the option of downloading it legally too. I was a little annoyed when I first heard that the songs were available on the internet but in hindsight I can see that it was ultimately a good thing for us because it helped to tide fans over while we were off working on our official “released” album for the last ten years.

❝

We live in a weird time for rock music Conrad Keely

❞ In my opinion we live in a weird time for rock music. Do you get the sense that it is a dead end, that every road and by-road has been explored only to be re-hashed, or do you believe an evolution of the rock idiom will lead to new and experimental forms of music? The Sex Pistols were a rehash of many things yet they completely re-energized the medium when

16 THE SKINNY April 2011

❝

I've been listening to the Annie soundtrack a lot lately Walter Schreifels

❞

they hit. On the flipside of that, PIL – which sprung from the ashes of The Sex Pistols – is a band I still don’t think the world has gotten its head around in terms of experimentation and evolving the form. I don’t think it’s a zero sum game. In reference to this last question, where would you like to place yourselves? I want to write better songs, better lyrics, sing more, try things we haven’t tried before, save rock and roll. For me the lyrics are crucial to the depth and character of any song. Can you name a few lyricists who have been influential in your own music? Morrissey would be a cornerstone. Ian MacKaye, I love Pete Shelly’s lyrics too. Chuck D., Bob Dylan of course, Syd Barrett... I like lyrics with a sense of humour, some bite and sadness. These days we get asked to do a lot of email interviews, and there is often times very little contact with the journalist – we don’t see a face or hear a voice (much like the interview we’re doing now). Personally I don’t mind doing email interviews, but do you think this new trend in journalism will lead away from the personalitydriven journalism of the sixties into a more sober, disembodied, spiritless form of interview, or do you feel answering interviews this way allows you more freedom of expression?

I’m ok with online interviews, sometimes I prefer them. In terms of being able to express my point of view or get my personality across, sometimes I think I do that better in person where other times I wish I could learn to just shut my big yap. In the sixties there were way less bands and exponentially less media outlets to cover them, the journalists were paid and exposure weighed heavier, so it was better. I’m always annoyed at how people assume that just because we are in a rock band and play rock music, that all we listen to, day in day out, is rock music. I’m sure the case must be the same for many rock musicians. What music outside of the rock world do you think people would be surprised to discover you listen to? I’ve been listening to the Annie soundtrack a lot with my daughter lately, the original cast recording of Hair. Carpenters’ Now & Then has also been on pretty steady rotation. The great thing about music and being a musician is that there’s so much out there to discover, enjoy, dissect and eventually regurgitate in my own music. Variety is a beautiful thing. On the internet, your band name seems to be closely associated with the term “posthardcore”, which to me is another one of a million meaningless attempts to categorize and sub-categorize music for the sake of marketing

I personally rail against being categorized. How important is genre, in your opinion, to people’s appreciation of music at the end of the day? I saw an interview from the late 70s with Paul Weller and Joan Jett on the Tom Snyder show recently. I was surprised to see Paul Weller trying to position himself and The Jam as part of the New Wave thing as that was happening at the time. Wanting to be classified, it was pretty transparent that Paul saw advantage in being considered part of New Wave. To Joan’s credit, she stuck to her “Rock And Roll” guns. As you pointed out, making up names for different genres dumbs it down but as creating awareness and finding new fans is important to maintaining and growing a band, I can live with it. Lastly, I assume the video game reference of the band name and first album was intentional. Were you fans of this particular Playstation game? And as a follow-up question, are there any games you like playing now (On our last few tours, Lego Star Wars has been a big hit)? Ironically, I’m not into video games at all, though some of them have great names. I wrote a song for Gorilla Biscuits back in the day called Stand Still. One of my favourite lyrics from that goes “Instead of thinking we play Donkey Kong, there’s something wrong with that.” I would have liked to call the band Space Invaders if I thought they’d give us the rights. Lego Star Wars sounds like fun, though; I’d like to give it a try. Lego Star Wars could be a band that you would hear about at SXSW. They’re a rap band who wear masks and sample CAN. Thanks Conrad for the thoughtful questions, I love your new record and I’m stoked for the tour! Yours, Walter, Rival Schools ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and Rival Schools’ co-headlining tour comes to the Garage, Glasgow on 17 Apr

Tao of the Dead by Trail of Dead and Pedals by Rival Schools are both out now. www.trailofdead.com / www.rivalschools.net

OF ALL THE DAYS TO CALL IN SICK, THIS WOULD BE A POOR CHOICE.

The first Friday of every month is what folks at the Jack Daniel Distillery like to call “Good Friday.” Because it’s on that day that every distillery employee is given a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey as a token of appreciation for all their hard work. It’s nowonder we have such a highly motivated workforce.

Crafted with care. Please enjoy the same way.

The Skinny finds Rachel Adams' solo show at The Duchy set to make a splash interview: andrew cattanach

To be installed in a small back room in Glasgow’s The Duchy Gallery this month, the oversized paper bale will be a meeting between minimalist sculpture and traditional handicraft. It will evoke New England ennui and 1960s New York in equal measure. Likewise, the front space will be a play of similar references. She describes how a series of paper objects, not unlike traditional marble busts, will be installed in the gallery. “It’s sort of to do with the domestic environment, so there’ll be a set up between things that are lying on furniture plinths – like a chaise longue – and also plinths in the more traditional sense.” The interplay between gallery and living room that is central to Adams’ practice is in some ways manifested in the show’s title, Marble Mouthed. Alluding to artistic traditions – the custom of making likenesses in marble – and the old elocution exercise of putting marbles in your mouth when speaking, it conjures outmoded Edwardian quackery and bygone sculptural traditions – My Fair Lady meets Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This is perhaps the destiny of everything achieved by the avant-garde, she seems to suggest, that it will always be subsumed by the living room – the stark minimalism of Ikea furniture, for instance. “I remember reading, embarrassingly, a Clement Greenberg essay, and he was saying how minimalism could just become a door, or a coffee table. And you just realise that that is kind of what happened.”

Marble Mouthed runs until 30 Apr 23/25 Duke Street Glasgow G4 0UL www.theduchygallery.co.uk

RSA ANNUAL EXHIBITION 2011 The Royal Scottish Academy

18 THE SKINNY April 2011

30 APRIL - 8 JUNE 2011

Stuart Duffin RSA ‘All Corners of the Earth’ (detail)

The Mound, Edinburgh. T 0131 225 6671 Mon To Sat 10-5pm, Sun 12-5pm

www.royalscottishacademy.org

ART

Papering Over The Cracks

Rachel Adams makes sculptures from paper, amongst other things. “I started using paper when I was at college, and I had this realisation halfway through my final year that everything I had made was something flat made into something sculptural,” she explains. Crumpling, painting and shredding, she manipulates the paper into three dimensional forms. Her ability to give something so distinctly flat such sculptural integrity is her foremost skill. Folded tightly in on itself, the paper occupies space, derisively brandishing its rigidity. There’s also something of paper’s accessibility that makes it such an obvious starting point, that it is quite fundamental to the art-making process, despite one’s preferred medium. “There was that immediacy that you could just go to a shop and do something really quickly, and I think that’s what drew me to it,” she explains. “Of course, I never realised I was going to end up painting rolls and rolls of the stuff.” Among her various techniques, Adams often begins by painting the paper. Not solely decoration, the paint gives the paper a firmness it wouldn’t normally possess, allowing the sculptures to hold in place, resting upon their own folds. Carefully selected, the colour of the paint often complements the colour of the paper, and when it shows through seems to simulate an exaggerated depth of field, as though the paper’s folds were chasms on the surface of a larger object seen from afar. In many ways her sculptures are painterly. They cavort with illusion in a way only two dimensional art normally feels it necessary. Implying a size beyond their means, they are scale drawings of distant, astronomical bodies or microscopic objects. Affecting mass and rigidity, they are flat and delicate tracings of complex organs. On the other hand, they are the products of a crafts hobbyist. Shredding sheet upon sheet upon sheet of paper to make a huge bale, they are the self-flagellations of a puritan out of work, performing the most tedious and labour-intensive task imaginable.

ART

A Portrait of The Myth Maker the Artist as a Drowned Man

Life as an artist is hard, according to artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia. Not convinced, The Skinny looks to catch a glimpse of the man beneath the fiction interview: andrew cattanach

Artist-cum-shaman Jeremy Millar makes work inspired by the greats. Ahead of his new show at CCA, Jac Mantle hears about the ghostly apparition of one of his heroes interview: Jac Mantle

Jeremy Millar likes the idea that art can have an effect, can bring about a change in the world. At a time when contemporary art seems under ever more pressure to rationalise the world, he prefers to see the artist as a kind of mystic. Magic, rituals and transformations, Cabinets of Curiosities and shrunken heads fascinate him. “It’s interesting how an object can become activated, and how it becomes deactivated by being placed in a museum,” he says. “What’s its state when it’s not performing in that ritual? Before the priest or the shaman chants on it? Nothing changes, but during these rituals people treat it in a completely different way.” For his show at Glasgow’s CCA Millar is presenting a combination of new and existing works, including sculpture, photography and video. Formally quite disparate, his works evolve through a process he tries to have as little control over as possible. Instead, he lets himself be guided by others who have gone before him. One such work is the photographic series A Firework for WG Sebald, a paean to the late German author, whose genre-defying novels are semi-autobiographical meanders through obscure histories and English countryside, and someone Millar hugely admires. Following a chain of random connections, he paid tribute by lighting a firework at the site where Sebald died. Upon inspecting the documentation of his memorial act, Millar claimed that Sebald’s face was visible in the smoke. Meeting the artist to chat about the show, I was keen to find out more. Surely he doesn’t actually believe he has captured an apparition of Sebald? And more importantly, does he seek to persuade the viewer of the presence of supernatural phenomena in the work? “It really sent a shiver down my spine,” he says.

“I took that as an acknowledgement – I mean, I know it isn’t him coming back from the dead, but it feels like he’s acknowledging the gesture that I made. Everyone who’s seen him says it really does look like his face, so I know it isn’t just me projecting because I want it to be true.” It’s something of a relief to find that he doesn’t claim to imbue his pieces with any kind of ritualistic power. On the contrary, he identifies connections that already exist in the world, rejecting accusations that he attempts to do otherwise. “When you say you’re ‘making connections’, stretching them – well, that’s not good enough. It feels like you’re forcing it and it never works. You have to be patient, because work needs time to develop.” This patience is evidenced in the show’s centrepiece, a newly commissioned and suitably dramatic life-size cast of the artist lying face down on the floor. Self-Portrait of a Drowned Man (The Willows) has emerged from a journey of literary and historical links that are each as developed as the sources themselves. “I don’t have a rich imagination at all,” Millar claims, “but the world is so rich that I don’t need one. There are so many amazing things out there, and if you allow them to start joining together in unexpected ways, they sort of amplify each other in unexpected ways, too.” Nothing could have been more unexpected, he says, than making a sculpture of himself dead. On seeing it finished, he had an out-of-body experience and needed a stiff drink. Viewers of a nervous disposition beware. For everyone else, the prospect of encountering something shocking and repulsive on the CCA floor couldn’t be a more welcoming surprise. 350 Sauchiehall Street Glasgow G2 3JD www.cca-glasgow.com

In terms of certainty, we can only really talk of our own experiences. No-one really knows what anyone else is thinking or feeling, do they? You can’t honestly tell if your mum is pleased to see you or not, and you certainly don’t know what your mate actually thinks of your new boyfriend. This being the case, it’s probably better we all mind our own business and stick to what we know best – ourselves. Where this has been a quandary puzzling all kinds of epic brainiacs, Omar Zingaro Bhatia, on the other hand, is quite at ease. He subscribes to the age-old belief that we, as artists, can assume nothing of the outside world, and that we are destined to make art about how we impact on the things around us. Suave and well dressed, Bhatia cuts an impressive figure. It’s no wonder he takes a prominent, performative role in his art, often appearing alongside his work, inhabiting his installations. And with his forthcoming show at the Briggait, Glasgow, it’s no different. Performing in a video as a version of himself, he looks to enact a recent personal crisis. Entitled The Art World: A Tragedy, he will explore the difficulties he faced as a recent graduate living at home and struggling to find ways to exhibit his art. “The video is about that period between June and now, where I was just sitting at home – I wasn’t getting any press coverage, I wasn’t getting any shows, and I felt quite frustrated. And then I understood what they talk about at arts school – that black hole you experience post graduation.” Along with his brother, who helped him make the video, Bhatia has collaborated with the fashion designer and style blogger Marina MacLean for the forthcoming exhibition F I G M E N T S. Together they designed a conceptual ‘art suit’ that he will wear at the opening. “I first met Omar when I photographed him for my Glasgow style blog, Style Scanner,” MacLean explains. “He has such a strong look. Then, on discovering his art, I adored it too.” Bhatia describes how he first bonded with MacLean over shared reservations about their chosen industries. “There were certain things she didn’t like about the fashion world, and there were things I didn’t like about the art world,” he says. “There’s just too much artwork in Scotland that’s overly academic.” In the second of the two gallery spaces, Bhatia will exhibit something similar to his well received degree show, Spuriosity Shop. Far from academic, it will be an eclectic assortment of trinkets and paintings that will intimate a character – probably him again. “My art is about life,” he explains. “My own life, admittedly.” Despite the ego and the bravado, not to mention

❝

My art is about life – my own life, admittedly Omar Zingaro Bhatia

❞ all the suffering he must endure at the hands of a cruel art world, Bhatia is shy and, at times, painfully self-conscious. He apologises more than once for not having his usual demeanour, revealing an awareness of a world beyond himself – that there are people who apprehend him, and not just he them. This is perhaps the real tragedy of Omar Zingaro Bhatia, not that he suffers at the hands of an indifferent art scene, but that he cares. Perhaps one of the last truly tragic characters, we should wholeheartedly celebrate this dying breed – the self-mythologising, narcissistic artist. 8-28 Apr, The Briggait, Glasgow, Tues-Fri 9.30am-5.30pm, Sat 12-5pm, Free F I G M E N T S is presented as part of The Skinny Award from RSA New Contemporaries 2010. The exhibition is also supported by Own Art www.ownart.org.uk To see more of Omar’s work, go to one of his many blogs http://zingaromar.blogspot.com/

F I G M E N T S will open on Thursday 7 April with a launch event featuring a wide variety of entertainment, an eclectic mix of music and dance that mirrors the eclecticism and personal taste of the artist. The night will feature Mischief La Bas and their entertaining Art Police, Angie Dight performing flamenco with David Freel on guitar, LOOKLOOK photobooths for personalised photography memorabilia and music performances from Hurty Gurty Man and local musicians. The exhibition is supported by Own Art, a scheme which helps to support more adventurous art buying through the provision of interest-free loans of up to £2000, repayable over 10 months. www.ownart.org.uk

April 2011

THE SKINNY 19

MUSIC

Dub’s Bunny

2011’s great white hype James Blake on keeping his family life private, and why his debut LP was definitely not dubstep interview: Paul Mitchell PHOTO: Euan Robertson

“Thanks, I bought it especially.” James Blake deadpans as he receives (well-intentioned) compliments on his new jumper as he poses for our photographer. It’s a deserved focal point of attention, engulfing his elongated, spindly frame and thoroughly dominated by the presence of a large cartoon bunny head. It’s certainly eye-catching; and whilst this could be a cue for some sub-Freudian analysis – a suggestion that within the mind of this resolutely solo artist there is some deliberate reaching to be the sole centre of attention – the reality is, and we all agree on this, that it’s just a nice jumper, we just thought we’d say. Of course, what really merits mention here is Blake’s rather spectacular rise to prominence in such a short space of time. He produced three EPs (The Bells Sketch, CMYK and Klavierwerke) last year, nominally grounded in dubstep, which managed, collectively, to end up in Pitchfork’s top ten ‘albums’ of 2010. Then, the BBC stepped in to help; playlisting his eerie, off-kilter take on Feist’s Limit To Your Love on Radio One before plonking him at number two in their Sound of 2011 list, kick-starting a veritable shitstorm of media attention with all the attendant hype that this entails. Not that the refreshingly sanguine and altogether unruffled Blake seems to have noticed: “I’ve not really felt like much has changed to be honest. We’ve just been getting down to the hard work of producing the live show so I’ve not really had a lot of time to look around. It affects my day to day only in the fact that I have to do more interviews.” Ah, and how is that working out for you (we ask rather apprehensively)? “It’s quite nice. I like meeting people I wouldn’t otherwise meet. People who like to think and talk about music which is always good.” Having played piano since the age of six, and studied formally at the selective music grammar Latymer and then Goldsmith’s University, might it be fair to suggest that this Londoner has had this career in mind for quite a long time? “Well, you can’t call it your career when you’re like, ten, but I think at some point you have to take stock and make a conscious decision about it.” Does he think that perhaps his attitude to music might be different if he hadn’t approached it with such academic rigour? “I don’t know, to be honest, if I would have had three years to write in an organised environment, to get a sense of a tiny bit of structure, which gives you incentive to write on your own. I didn’t really write anything for the course that I thought of doing full time. Some of the exercises didn’t interest me at all. It was quite collaborative which I wasn’t used to and didn’t particularly like – not with people you’ve never met before. It’s a load of people who are musically, really different. That just leads to an awful lot of compromise, which I’m not a massive fan of. I mean, we did play around with the genres and all that kind of stuff, but it was basically about being given a role and told what to do.” The eponymous debut full-length was released earlier this year to widespread critical approval on both sides of the Atlantic; a melodically ethereal, soulful effort which critics struggled to categorise, possibly in the light of his association with the dubstep genre. Has he been tempted at all to pitch in on the debate? “Not at all. Because the thing is, by the time magazines and blogs have come up with their genre descriptions for a type of dance music, that music’s already been done, so it’s quite a sad process for the bloggers really [he laughs]. Also, in that flurry of words that tend to be used as descriptors, most don’t stick.” So it’s definitely not a dubstep album? “No, it’s not, but I’ve released a lot of 140 [BPM] music that has got bass in it, which is pretty much the only genre specification

20 THE SKINNY April 2011

for that category of music. Outside of that it can be anything. The album is definitely a step away from that, but in ethos it is as true to that as it could possibly be. The nature of dubstep is one of progression; you never hear the same stuff twice. When you go to a club the DJ is playing all new stuff, every single week. People get bored of the same sounds week in week out, so the sound has to move on. That mindset carries into the album. I wrote it over a year and a half, and it sounds a lot different now to how it did at first.” Blake happily admits that he tinkers with every single aspect of a track in the production process, most obviously the vocal, where he is yet another worshipper at the Auto-Tune altar, a phase he suggests “will pass.” To replicate his studio trickery in a live setting, he prefers to use a synth and assorted hardware “because laptops can be so unreliable”. Another predominant feature of the album is his ‘minimalist’ lyrical style, with many of the tracks consisting of repeated ‘mantras’ rather than fully expressed ideas. This, he explains, is a matter of him “just not liking every lyric that I write down. Normally they are basically poems when they start. Then, there are things that don’t sing well, or I don’t like the sound of, even if I like the structure of the poem. I’ll only sing what sounds right, and represents me as a vocal artist.” Recently, Blake was moved to admit on Twitter that Limit To Your Love wasn’t in fact the only cover on the album. The album’s second single, The Wilhelm Scream, uses the lyrics and melody of a track called Where To Turn, by British musician

❝

The thing about family is... well, this isn’t politics. I’m not sure I need to give anything away if I don’t want to James Blake

❞ James Litherland who happens to be Blake’s father. So why was James Jr. so reticent to reveal this earlier on? “I don’t know what’s fun about finding out who people’s parents are. It’s completely irrelevant, unless one of the songs is your dad’s song. I’ve actually dropped hints about it all along. It was something that I was deeply moved to cover, so I’m really proud to have done that. The thing about family is... well, this isn’t politics. I’m not sure I need to give anything away if I don’t want to. On this occasion I just chose to. By giving away, I mean I was just saying; ‘Here’s my dad, he’s really good’.”

Throughout our discussion, Blake repeatedly emphasises his desire to constantly evolve. Moving away from his recent song-based recordings, he vows that his next release “should a 12", and it’s going to be vocal-less and chord-less; so instrumental, beat kind of stuff, because I haven’t done that before.” He certainly doesn’t feel any pressure to conform to a variation of his existing style simply because that style has garnered a large exposure. If anything, he views that as an opportunity to do the opposite. “It actually gives me more freedom to do the things I’ve always wanted to do, and possibly couldn’t have done

straight away. Why? Because there are more people to listen to it, and whatever you do, it will get attention. It just needs to be good.” To underline the notion that he has his sights set very high indeed, he cites an example of where this might be the case. “For instance, Thom Yorke could make an album in any style he chooses, and it would probably be successful. Primarily because he happens to be very good.” James Blake’s as yet unnamed 12" is due for release in June. His debut album is out now jamesblakemusic.com

MUSIC

FLUX CAPACITY

Cutting through the shit to get to the root of AUTECHRE’s brilliance WORDS: MARK SHUKLA

Saturday 2nd + Sunday 3rd HADDOW FEST BAINBRIDGE alternative stage.

noon-3am. an astonishing assortment of Alternative Rock and Pop over the 2 days. wIth Wolf party DJs playing till 3am.

Tues 5th April AFTER SCHOOL CLUB. FREE arts and music event over 2 floors. We give you a roll of wallpaper and you guys draw all over it! tunes from B-Sides and Green Door djs. doors 7pm over 18s only

Thursday 7th April TERROR's 1st Birthday Party. 2 ROOMS OF HIP HOP, HARDCORE AND MORE. featuring FEXOMAT,LOKI, VINYL VANDAL AND MORE

http://www.facebook.com/terrorscotland Entry £1.99 11P TILL 3AM

FRIDAY 8th April Choir of Robots + Solar Phoenix + More - Live! ‘WHERE TO start with Autechre?’ – along with ‘Do you crave to supersize your wang?’ – seems to be a question that the seasoned online messageboard user is faced with on an almost daily basis. The Skinny has long held that the best advice is simply this: Start at the beginning, work through chronologically and don’t miss anything out. It’ll save time in the long run. Anyone who’s ever tried to compile any kind of Autechre best-of will testify to the trauma involved – like trying to put together a compilation of Jim Davidson’s shittest jokes, the sheer wealth of eligible material nullifies the very point of the process. It’s pleasing then that Warp have more or less adhered to this philosophy when compiling the new EPs 1991 - 2002 boxset – a sprawling 5 cd collection of the duo’s non-album releases from the first half of their career thus far. As is fitting for a group that cut their teeth spinning Belgian techno on Manchester’s IBC radio in the early 90s, the collection kicks off with the Cavity Job 12 – comprising a pair of wily UK hardcore cuts dedicated to the pirate station that gave them their first airplay. With its up-front acid synths and rave-friendly vocal loops it’s hard not to view this release retrospectively as a calculated attempt to get their name out into the musical consciousness – a foot in the door that would provide some creative breathing space. Indeed, within a year Autechre would find themselves prepping a markedly different pair of tracks for Warp’s classic Artificial Intelligence compilation – a watershed moment that reified the burgeoning feeling that techno could only continue to evolve if people realised they didn’t actually have to dance to it. This sense of deliberate evolution really becomes evident on 1995’s Garbage and Anvil Vapre EPs as Autechre go about the process of stripping down the techno form to its atomic core – the relentless pulse that condenses time into a single energetic moment – and repurposing it as a vessel for pure

experimentation. In this crucible we find Autechre gleefully employing the magical timbres of Coil to transmute Kraftwerk’s perky melodies into something strange and imperious; we hear the empyrean tones of Jon Hassell’s ‘fourth world’ music acquire distorted inflections as they react to the agency of Basic Channel’s unyielding kinetic flux. Whilst Anvil Vapre’s innovations would find particular resonance with the Birmingham-based coterie of Surgeon, Female and Regis (a gifted triumvirate whose mission to perfect a superstrain of aerobic, atmospheric techno continues to this day), by 1997 Autechre had moved on by going back to their roots; their Envane EP taking the blueprints of 80s hiphop as a launchpad for increasingly ambitious experiments in texture and rhythm. With each new release came new epiphanies brought about by intuitive developments in their methodology; this process perhaps reaching its apogee during the title track of their 2002 EP, Gantz Graf. Here was a music which seemed to apply a combative b-boy logic not only to the history of electronic and experimental music, but to the very idea of sound itself – each tone turned inside-out to explore its abstract potentials; each rhythm energised then atomised to make way for the next. At such moments it seems as though Autechre are capable of almost anything; of not only mining the past for the meanings and potentials that fell between the cracks, but also presaging that which is to come and using it to shape the present. In their work Autechre have created a language of possibility and EPs 1991 - 2002 stands as an integral component of their discography – one of the most unassailable bodies of work in contemporary music.

Entry £3 11pm-3am

Sunday 10th Djs Black Diamond express + Hobo Djs. £1 before 11 £3 after. 10pm till 3am

Friday 15th April WOLF PARTY's 1st BIRTHDAY Pavement, Yeasayer, Memory Tapes, Surfer Blood, Animal Collective, The Cribs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hot Chip, British Sea Power, The XX. £3/4 entry 11pm-3am

Sunday 17th April Dark Jokes + hobo DJs till 3am. £1 beofre 11 + £3 after

Friday 22nd Noizteez Legacy

DUBSTEP / JUNGLE / DRUM&BASSREGGAE / HIPHOP

Sat 23rd April Minimalism presents SLG ( Trapez, Pets, Play It Down)

Electronica - House - Techno £4/5 entry

EPS 1991 - 2002 IS AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD NOW FROM BLEEP.COM. THE 5 CD BOXSET IS RELEASED ON 11 APR WWW.AUTECHRE.WS

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 21

PERFORM

The Two Year Itch

For the past two years, Gamma Ray Dali has been evolving Confusion is Sex as more than just another dance club: her active interest in performance, visual art and capturing a unique atmosphere has seen her incorporate influences from the worlds of fashion, Live Art, burlesque and gigs. As April's second birthday party approaches, The Skinny decided it was time to have a word with her

interview: GARETH K VILE

PHOTO: Scott

For the second birthday party of Confusion is Sex, Gamma Ray Dali has lined up a science fiction special that hopes to transform the Bongo Club into an otherworldly palace of carnal delight. And while Gamma is the name and the poster star of Confusion, a dedicated team bring her visions to life. “We’ve got Creative Electric, who are going to be creating some theatre installations around the club: the Lynch Mob are going to be creating a space environment upstairs and in the hallway and the main room,” she enthuses.“ We’ve also got some graffiti artists coming down and I’ll bring some sparkles and random mannequins to decorate the club.” To celebrate this anniversary, CiS has gathered together old supporters, while developing new acts. “We had to have Dolby Anol: he started with us, and I am really loving the new releases,” she says. “And his tranny glitch electro beat style is perfect for the science fiction theme.” Although the club has grown in vision and prestige over the two years, Gamma refuses to forget those who helped define its early outing. “I really wanted to have all the gang who have been there from the beginning to celebrate two years of CiS. And we are welcoming Impressive Johnson back with his fabulous Darth Vader comedy striptease. I haven’t booked him for a while, so it will be great to have him back.” Gamma has always taken a particular interest in matching the music to the overall atmosphere: “The Glitch – Frequent Flyers, Pop Secure and Anarkid – are going to be starting it off in the main room.” Gamma even had a hand in bringing this

collective together under one name. “I named them The Glitch for Confusion to reflect their style.” Gamma’s enthusiasm extends to the development of the Freaky Brides: strange hostesses wedded to rock’n’roll and the key to CiS’s identity. “I am lucky to have had this idea grow and have people interested in being part of a live art group: the girls bring a lot of life to The Brides with their suggestions and passions.” To mark the graduation of The Brides into a company, they are plotting a new act. “We’re just deciding now which Bride is going to be which hot sci-fi babe and we’re going to take it from there and turn it into a feminist, but slightly cheeky, burlesque strip: and then getting a bit of gore and blood into it.” The magpie imagination of CiS is reflected in the addition of Cuff Keys, a bondage act and the Kamikaze Girls, who, Gamma explains “will be doing a Weird Science burlesque act and pole-dancing throughout the night: when all the acts are finished, we’ll have the pole on the stage, creating that David Lynch atmosphere.” This atmosphere frequently extends well beyond the arranged acts. “The audience are an important part: we started doing best dressed, and it is hard to tell who is a performer and who is part of the audience. It becomes a massive freaky family. I love that people are starting to get CiS and make an effort to think about it, and make an effort with their costumes. We are creating a whole vibe, and you are either with it, or you are getting naked.” 15 Apr, the bongo club, 11pm-3am, £8/£7 or £5 in advance www.myspace.com/confusionissexclub

Cedric Price Think the Unthinkable Price’s celebrated architecture projects and their continuing power to inspire and challenge.

Gallery 2, The Lighthouse Thurs 31 March – Sat 3 Sept ‘11

FREE ENTRY

Opening times: Mon, Wed – Sat – 10.30am – 5pm Tues – 11am – 5pm Closed Sundays

Kathy de Witt / RIBA Library Photographs Collection.

The Lighthouse

22 THE SKINNY April 2011

www.scottisharchitecture.com

Architecture + Design Scotland The Lighthouse 11 Mitchell Lane Glasgow, G1 3NU

MUSIC

Adam Goldberg, Dilettante?

dil·et·tante/ dili'tänt/ – noun 1. a person who studies an art or subject merely for amusement; dabbler. 2. a lover of an art or science. 3. Adam Goldberg? Interview: David McGinty

His own website, and hub of information for all that is Adam Goldberg’s multi-medium creative output, refers to the actor/filmmaker/photographer/musician as a dilettante, but to what extent is that a fair description? “I don’t know. I just think it’s kind of funny, to me it’s just a good way of beating people to the punch,” he says. “I think there’s some things I definitely dilettante about more than others, but probably not music.” With the release this month of his second album, the first under new name The Goldberg Sisters, he is on the phone from a New York hotel to talk about his music career and how he balances the various projects vying for his attention. Following the release of his debut album, Eros and Omissions, under the moniker LANDy, Goldberg found that a quick Google would lead to the discovery of a number of other proponents of that name including Taiwanese pop sensation Landy Wen, Landy Cognac, Snoop Dog’s song about Landy Cognac, and a MySpace rapper. Troublesome, as the latter’s potential hit-in-waiting I Just Wanna F**k is about as far removed as is possible from the musical endeavours of the character actor perhaps best known for his roles in films and TV shows such as Saving Private Ryan, Dazed & Confused, and Friends. Though disappointed at having to give up LANDy, changing to The Goldberg Sisters allowed for a new approach. “I also think of LANDy now as the culmination of many years of recording stuff, and calling it something in a post-facto way. It wasn’t as though I existed as a band necessarily,” says Goldberg. “I was just recording in a variety of different settings with a variety of different people and then had to call it something when I put it all together.” The Goldberg Sisters is a record that demonstrates a quiet confidence in terms of songwriting and instrumentation, sounding at times as though influenced by the later albums of Elliot Smith, and with a thematic lyrical sensibility that evokes the cinematic background of its filmmaking creator. Yet Goldberg does not classify this as a sideproject, considering that those are “things that you do on the side, after, or in concurrence with something else,” and rather, as he says, when it comes to music he doesn’t dilettante. “When I’m working on music it’s consuming probably as much as, if not more than anything other than having directed movies – that would probably be the single most consuming thing I’ve ever done – but music I think would probably be a close second.” The interconnection between film and music is obviously a subject on which Goldberg has first hand experience, yet it appears as though the initial romance of acting has worn off as he has explored his other creative endeavours. “I definitely think of acting as a job that I have, and that’s what I need to do in order to make a living. I don’t know that the actual call to perform as an actor is even remotely similar to what it was when I first began.” Whilst this aspect of his career may seem separate, he views music and filmmaking as being “extremely meshed in one another,” claiming that he thinks of music, writing, and film as “under the same umbrella.” Directing his own film I Love Your Work led to a change in Goldberg’s approach to music and ultimately to LANDy. Relying heavily on musical sequences, the film draws upon songs written by the filmmaker and arranged in collaboration with Flaming Lips multi-instrumentalist Stephen Drozd. This relationship has clearly influenced Goldberg’s

songwriting, which he admits was impacted by the Lips’ orchestral and psychedelic sensibilities after hearing their critically acclaimed album The Soft Bulletin. Whilst he seems to have a clear understanding of his intentions in each medium, Goldberg muses: “I actually get concerned that there’s a certain lack of cohesion in the stuff that I’ve been doing.” Though there is a clear progression from I Love Your Work to The Goldberg Sisters in terms of influence and style, things become confusing thanks to Goldberg’s insistence on mischievous distractions, such as the purported existence of his bearded twin sister and bandmate Celeste. (This may seem familiar to those who recall Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother Donald with whom he apparently co-wrote Adaptation.) Ruses like these are exemplary of Goldberg’s preoccupation with questions of identity, a recurring theme present in much of his music and film work. “There’s this underlying thing that intrigues me in almost everything whether it’s a photograph or a film, which is this idea of there being some kind of identity confusion.” Considering to what extent these concepts express themselves in his songwriting, he elaborates: “I end up having these sorts of narrative devices that end up working their way in there almost unconsciously. Even if the actual subject matter has nothing to do with issues of identity, I think that I like that narrative device because to me it reflects my take on existence a little more than your basic “I this” or “you that”.’

Songs such as Erik Erikson and Third Person Blues explore this theme with a self-aware playful touch that elevates the record out of naval gazing intellectualism and into the realms of idiosyncratic pop. Goldberg jokes that it is this quality that differentiates himself from Adrian, the ambitious overly cerebral curmudgeon, and arrogant musician/sound-artist he portrayed in (Untitled). “The major difference between me and him, is that he didn’t have any self awareness… and that’s something I actually have lot of to the point of almost complete debilitation.”

❝

I actually get concerned that there’s a certain lack of cohesion in the stuff that I’ve been doing adam goldberg

❞

So is Adam Goldberg a dilettante? Though it would be easier to label him as such and cast him into the same role as numerous other actor/musician triple threats, this would be unfair. Goldberg has more in common with those more credible in each field such as Jason Schwartzman or Zooey Deschanel, committed to the project at hand regardless of the medium. Though he may consider one more like a day job, Goldberg slips comfortably between discussing both his music and film careers. On his rumoured attachment to David Mamet’s The Prince of Providence, seemingly stuck in development, he clarifies: ‘Every year they put it to the top of the IMDb page saying ‘in preproduction.’ It was this script that came to me a long time ago, that actually officially I was never even signed on to. I was interested in doing it and they offered it to me, but it has still never been made. It was a fantastic script and a really great story; I don’t know what the problem in getting it made is.’ As for the future of his music career Goldberg affirms that The Goldberg Sisters is a unique project but for the sake of continuity he may stick to the name for his future releases. “I suppose I probably should so that you can find my records in one place. I’m fairly sure I’ll approach the next album in a different way and maybe feel compelled to call it something else, I don’t know.” The Goldberg Sisters is released via PIAS on 11 Apr www.adamgoldbergdilettante.com

April 2011

THE SKINNY 23

MUSIC

Out of Exile

Returning from the wilderness with album number two this month, Glasvegas frontman James Allan reveals the reasons for the band's retreat Interview: Paul Neeson

Late in 2009, Dalmarnock’s most famous musical export were on top of the world. Having seen their profile change from that of a speakeasy, cult-band with a clutch of promising lo-fi demos, to critically acclaimed rock and roll saviours within the space of a few short years, their potential seemed limitless – their fate, surely, to conquer the industry. Their eponymous debut album was pitching itself at the top end of numerous industry year-end lists, and the nominations were following, having already claimed the NME Philip Hall Radar Award in 2008. Quickly recording a follow-up mini-album in a Transylvanian Castle – the darkly inspired Christmas ode A Snowflake Fell And It Felt Like A Kiss – had proven that there was plenty more in James Allan’s creative tank, and the band were beginning to hang with some true heavyweights, providing support for U2 and Oasis. But it was at this unlikely point – with the world at their feet – that Glasvegas took a step back, and disappeared off the radar. Fast-forward almost fourteen months, and the band has returned to the fore, with a tour of some lesser-expected Scottish venues – Troon, Kirkwall and Dunoon all fall on the itinerary – leading to a fully fledged European trip. They’re also poised and ready to release their long awaited sophomore album, EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\. Their resurfacing has brought with it some notable changes; ex-drummer Caroline McKay has departed, replaced by the Swedish Joanna Lofgren. Their leader has also pulled rank, dropping the band’s trademark all-in-black outfit, favouring a born-again, celestial white instead; though the dark shades remain. When we talk with James he’s in Paris – juggling an afternoon of media commitments prior to their show that evening at Nouveau Casino. With rumours having hinted at a classic rock and roll breakdown for James around the time of their retreat from the limelight – they reputedly cancelled their last few shows with the Kings of Leon as a result – quite what to expect from the conversation is uncertain. It’s with a disarming honesty then, that he informs us in the least possible rock star terms that his morning has been spent raiding Euro Disney for merchandise, followed by a relaxing bath. “There’s Mickey Mouse balloons everywhere!” he booms. “We’ve got Disney dog bowls – mugs as well – they always go down well with the family.” Relaxed, warm, friendly, and seemingly in the mood to banter, the benefits of Glasvegas’ break seem to be written all over him. But why step back at what seemed like such a career making point? “For the band, it was the right time,” he states unapologetically. “It was ‘write an album’ time, not showbiz time.” Did their departure from the public arena need to be so dramatic – could there not have been some compromise? “My sister [who manages the band] just didn’t want us to do any more interviews. She was kind of like, ‘People will be sick of ye. Give them a break!’” Allan seems unconvinced by the suggestion that the at times sycophantic posturing of the music media may have been detrimental to band and fan alike. “To be honest with you, I don’t know how any bands could complain about overhype. All the media attention is what gives people the chance to connect with and invest time in the music – or not. But it gives them and us that chance. And I’m appreciative of that. Where do you draw the line and say ‘I can’t believe these magazines keep on writing about the band?’” So what of the rumoured breakdown – did James really bow under the pressure, reduced to singing to his pet goldfish? Again, he laughs, perhaps defensively on this one. “I’d like to think I was having fun,” he says, “but then I’m not going to say I was losing my mind. I’m a bit biased that way.”

24 THE SKINNY April 2011

❝

When you reduce yourself back to your beginnings, that’s kinda like shattering yourself to put the pieces back together James Allan

❞ Regardless of motive, the band ultimately took their manager’s advice, decamping to Santa Monica in March of 2010 with the intention of using the space and time to clear their minds and get back to basics, to what mattered most – writing music. As James puts it: “When you reduce yourself back to your beginnings, that’s kinda like shattering yourself to put the pieces back

together, so then you can move forward.” A sojourn abroad to regain perspective seemed to make perfect sense. But, as James explains, with the band inhabiting a luxurious mansion on California’s sun-kissed coastline for the duration, the situation on this occasion was very different to that of the sessions for their debut album in New York. “We had people calling up asking about the new songs, and we had a blank canvas. I mean, just for us to stay on that beach – I probably shouldn’t say this – but it cost 25k a month. It was only a few years ago that I was unemployed and had nowhere to live. That was a big difference from writing the first record. There was heavy financial pressure.” Besides being tasked with meeting the hopes of their label, much of the pressure the band faced was internal. “The way I see it, your own expectations are always going to be greater than those around you. I think you can say that for most people, in most walks of life.” As for James’s personal demands, he states them in simple terms. “I just wanted to make the album as good as it could be.” Again, the issue of hype raises its head: Can Glasvegas ever live up to the headlines? James’s answer is measured. “There have been times when I really felt the pressure – I’ve been lost, scared, petrified. I don’t mind admitting that. But when you’re writing the songs, when you’re that focused, everything else disappears.” He asks if The Skinny plays football, to which we mumble something about ‘occasional five-a-side with pals.’

Regardless, he enthusiastically continues with the analogy: “It’s like when you play football, and you’re running with the ball, and you’re focused, and there’s this silence all around you. You can’t hear anyone. You’re just acting on instinct, and in a split second you do something and you don’t really know what you’ve done until it’s happened. That’s what I love about football and music.” The approach clearly worked, with EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ primed and ready for release this month. It’s very much still set in the Glasvegas mould – a colossus of choruses, dark emotional drama, and distortion – but with more in the way of hooks. “I think I’ve let go of fear, most of all,” says James of the fundamental change in his own approach to the band. “When fear kicks in, it can put you out of character, whether that’s being overconfident or big-headed, or whatever. I promised myself in Santa Monica that this time around, if the band were to last to make another record, I would let my guard down a bit, show some compassion, some more affection,” he offers with a quiet sincerity. “I hope that’s the one difference.” EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ is released via Columbia on 4 Apr Playing Aberdeen Music Hall on 23 Apr; Edinburgh HMV Picture House on 24 Apr; Glasgow 02 Academy on 25 Apr and RockNess, Inverness on 12 Jun JOin GLasvegas for a meet and greet at avalanche records on 24 Apr www.glasvegas.net

FILM

All Night Horror Madness 2

The Cameo brings the blood and terror this April Words: Alistair Roy

re-animator

Ever since Jesus rolled back that rock all those years ago and scared the shit out of some Romans, people have loved a sequel. And what better way to celebrate His return from the dead this Easter than back-to-back horror films, courtesy of All Night Horror Madness 2. To get things going, Stuart Gordon offers his own take on the resurrection story with Reanimator (1985). Based on HP Lovecraft’s unholy living dead tale, it sees bat-shit genius Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) find a soul mate in fellow medical student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). The macabre twosome share a calling to bring the dead back to life and, like all great double acts, they have each other’s backs when the reanimated prove less than grateful. Cue Chuckle Brothers’ horror slapstick as the two saw, slice and bludgeon the mutated back to their maker. With trademark prosthetic gore and deadpan acting, Gordon shows us it’s okay to laugh at decapitation. Like Stuart Gordon, Dario Argento has survived from the original All Night Horror Madness. For his second coming, The Cameo presents the horror master’s last undisputed masterpiece Opera (1987). Loosely based on the Phantom of the Opera story, the film follows a masked madman as he stalks opera starlet Betty (Cristina Marsillach) who’s about to get her big break in a lavish version of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth. Pre smartphone, the killer creates snuff-theatre by capturing Betty, taping pins to her eyelids, and forcing her to watch his elaborately staged murder moneyshots of her friends and loved ones. If you thought Black Swan was messed up, you ain’t seen nothin’. While Argento brings high culture to the horror film in Opera, Brian Yuzna (Re-animator’s producer) drags the upper-crust of Beverly Hills into the gutter in his feverish brain-melter Society (1989). Billy (Baywatch’s diminutive hunk Billy Warlock) feels different from the rest of his WASP family and he’s having strange urges towards his blond-bombshell sister with extremely flexible

hips. Like an episode of the The OC directed by David Cronenberg and scripted by Karl Marx, it’s a riotous mix of 90210 bland beauties, bombastic body horror and class satire. Its debauched coming-out ball finale, with effects courtesy of Screaming Mad George, is worth the price of admission alone. Director Paul Morrissey addresses the glaring lack of sex scenes in Mary Shelley’s original with Flesh for Frankenstein (1973). Barron Frankenstein (played by blue-steel Udo Kier) and his servant, Otto, plan to create a super-race by hewing together the most attractive body parts from cadavers to create a Dolce & Gabbana Adam and Eve. All the Baron needs is a George Clooney head for his Adam and some scented candles to set the mood. A trash-gore classic, Morrissey puts Kenneth Branagh’s efforts to shame. Before Peter Jackson got all epic and bluescreen, there was Braindead (1992). Here he tackles Tolkien’s lesser known story of a son coping with a zombie mum who embarks on a killing streak after being bitten by a rat-monkey. Said son, Lionel, does the decent thing and tries to sweep zombies under the carpet. But there’s only so much a basement can hold, and soon Lionel finds he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Braindead’s shoe string budget proves far better at dealing with exposed intestines, ripped out spinal cords, severed heads and disembodied limbs than any CGI could render. And Jackson’s mother / son showdown is up there with Simba looking down from the cliff as one of the most enduring moments of cinematic familial tragedy. To find your seat with the congregation, get down to the Cameo at 10pm on 23 April to enjoy these classic horror movies (three of which are screening from original 35mm prints) shown with some vintage horror trailers. There’s even a raffle. Praise the Lord. 23 Apr, Cameo, Edinburgh www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Cameo_ Picturehouse/film/All_Night_Horror_Madness_2

TO BE USED FOR THE SKINNY ONLY

“I’m going to marry a sweet, pure, simple girl. Because your intellectual types, they make my toes curl.”

By Liz Lochhead

A translation of L’ecole des Femmes, by Molière

8 April–7 May 2011 BOX OFFICE: 0131 248 4848 GROUPS 8+: 0131 248 4949 www.lyceum.org.uk/agnes Company No. SCO62065 Scottish Charity Registered SCO10509

April 2011

THE SKINNY 25

PERFORM

Through the looking glass Scottish Ballet venture into wonderland with their new production of Alice interview: Gareth K Vile

Although it arrives in the last year of Ashley Page’s tenure as Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet, Alice, taking in episodes from the famous Lewis Carroll stories, is his first full length original choreography for the company. His previous ballets have interpreted existing scores – Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty – revisited past glories, like Fearful Symmetries, or been part of a mixed bill. For Alice, however, Page has commissioned an original score and taken a subject not easily adapted to notions of classical ballet. As composer Robert Moran points out, the story lacks the romantic drive that features in so many traditional ballets, and has a psychedelic aura that is more Haight-Ashbury than Ballet Russe. For soloist Tama Barry, working with Page on such challenging material is a delight. “Although Ashley has a strong vision of what he wants, he allows considerable artistic interpretation. He treats us as artists and not just dancers.” Tama elaborates: “The ballet is very real, based on deep

PREVIEW

ideas and the characters come from a deep place. I am constantly being pushed into difficult places!” This balance, between a powerful, personal vision and a willingness to collaborate with all members of the company, marks out Page’s reign at Scottish Ballet, alongside the loyalty and enthusiasm of the dancers. Under his leadership, the company has become internationally recognised as proponents of a contemporary ballet style: never held captive by the tutu and pointe shoe stereotype, they have demonstrated that ballet can be both traditional and experimental. Despite being the most popular form of dance. in terms of audience numbers, ballet has often been disrespected by contemporary dance communities. Indeed, the earliest contemporary choreographers, such as Isadora Duncan, regarded themselves as reacting against the discipline of ballet. Yet recent visits to Scotland from Rambert, who call themselves Dance Theatre while clearly relying heavily on classical training, or even Sol

Pico’s marvellous use of pointe in her recent New Territories turn, demonstrate that the lines between contemporary and ballet have blurred. And Page’s signature piece, Fearful Symmetries, questions the dividing line even as it critiques City greed. The plot of Alice – surreal and episodic – offers him further opportunities to introduce ballet audiences to contemporary movement. Barry is excited by his role: “The Mad Hatter is a lot of fun, and it is great to have the opportunity to have a character made on me, to see the ideas develop into characterisation.” Having moved from the Queensland Ballet, he is enthusiastic about both Scottish Ballet and his adopted homeland. “For a country with not a huge population, Scotland has always been creative,” he says. “We have an audience that is joyous and vocal.” This audience support is perhaps what has encouraged Page to develop Scottish Ballet’s distinctive identity. Robert Moran, who has known Ashley Page since the 1980s, when Page first choreographed to his music, supports Barry’s identification of the characters in Alice as the driving force. Talking about the composition process, which involved a transatlantic dialogue between composer and choreographer, he explains how, alongside his love for the BBC film of the book, the characters defined his music. “For example, the caterpillar is sitting on a mushroom, smoking a hookah. I asked Ashley: ‘How am I going to write that?’ And he said: ‘I don’t know. But why don’t you write me a tango?’ I had this feeling that the caterpillar was a tango teacher,” Moran laughs. “But that wasn’t enough: he’s a paranoid schizophrenic and, when he is trying to teach tango, he flips out and she’s like – what are we doing now? It’s that kind of thing I have to construct in my head for each scene. Whether Ashley used them is not the point, I had to have that to give me the motivation for the sound, how we move along.” Head of Wardrobe Caro Harkness elaborates on how Page is intimately involved at every stage of the production, even attending fittings to ensure that the costume design works for the dancer’s role. “For the Jabberwocky, the costume had a cardboard box head. Since the dancer needs to roll on the floor, this box could cause problems.”

For a country with not a huge population, Scotland has always been creative Tama Barry

❞ Page, Caro acknowledges, is not content to have big ideas, but is willing to attend to the challenges they provoke. Harkness also emphasises how a new ballet engages the entire company in its creation. Although Page has introduced many classics to the repertoire, including Ashton’s Scenes de Ballet and Balanchine’s Rubies, a new work allows her to be more involved in the development of the costume, once she has received the design. Finding the right material, the right costume makers, is more immersive than simply making slight corrections to existing costumes. With no Scottish Ballet presence in the International Festival this year, and Page’s time in Glasgow coming to an end, Alice is an important moment in the company’s history. Perhaps by default, it will become the work on which Page’s evolution of Scottish Ballet will be judged, and offers an exciting chance to see what the man who guided them from obscurity to limelight is capable of, across a full evening. And more than this, it will make a claim for ballet as a contemporary medium, expressive of complex ideas and merging spectacle, technique and imagination. 12-16 Apr, Theatre Royal, 20-23 Apr EFT, various times and prices www.scottishballet.co.uk/whats-on/currentproductions/alice/films/films.htm

Beltane Festival Although it has now become associated with a cod-paganism – with fundamentalist Christians worrying at the foot of Carlton Hill about satanism and the emphasis on the ancient roots of the Celtic fire festival – Edinburgh’s Beltane originally emerged from the late 1980s dance music scene, and was conceived as a protest against the government’s attempts to close down public gatherings of ravers. Wikipedia lists musical collective Test Dept’s Angus Farquhar and Glasgow’s master of Butoh, Lindsay John, as instigators: while the format was shaped by research into ancient rituals, its immediate meaning was far more political than religious. The annual jamboree on Carlton Hill, now joined by a parallel Samhuinn in October, symbolises the arrival of Spring through a mixture of ritual drama, drumming and crowd participation. The Beltane society operates throughout the year – that a handfasting ceremony has become attached to the event suggests how seriously it has been taken – and builds up teams of Red and Blue Men, spectacular puppets in the style of totems or

26 THE SKINNY April 2011

❝

wicker men for an immersive event that has grown from its counter-cultural beginnings to become part of Edinburgh’s cultural establishment. The current Beltane Fire Society stresses how each of the elements within the event symbolise different aspects of the Celtic mythology, while retaining an imaginative reinterpretation of the past. The ascension of the May Queen, and her dispelling of the winter court that has dominated the past months, claims a pre-Christian heritage: the Green Man, her consort, has appeared in mythology and fairy stories around the world. As Beltane has grown, its original political intentions have been hidden by the charm of the ritual: the introduction of tickets was controversial, but ensured the festival’s survival and respectability. However, as the Conservatives return to power, and public assembly becomes contested once again, perhaps Beltane will recover some of its revolutionary intent.[Gareth K Vile] 30 Apr, £8 (£6 advance) www.beltane.org/about/beltane/

BOOKS

THE WOLF RETURNS

Spring Season 2011 www.eusalive.co.uk

Why would an acclaimed literary author write a book about werewolves and vampires? Why not, asks GLEN DUNCAN

SEVERAL YEARS ago, Bolton born author Glen Duncan was named by The Times Literary Supplement as one of the UK’s twenty best young novelists. Yet, seven novels into his career, the literary establishment still isn’t entirely sure what to make of him; kindly, he’s been described as ‘an idiosyncratic talent’, writing novels that ‘can’t easily be pigeon-holed’ – an uncertainty, in part, thanks to his willingness to take on subjects and archetypal characters usually found in commercial/genre fiction. For example, his 2003 novel, I, Lucifer was narrated by the titular Fallen Angel; two years later, Death of an Ordinary Man had a dead narrator. His new novel, The Last Werewolf, published 7 April, brings us a world where lycanthropy and vampirism are just as real as in the lightest post-Twilight novel. Any surprise about Duncan taking on such horror archetypes isn’t shared by the author. “Why not?” he asks. “My interests throughout my seven books have remained pretty much the same: love, sex, death, the capacity for compassion, the capacity for cruelty, and an imaginative grammar that demands meaning in a universe that demonstrates its absurdity on a daily basis. What I think my books have shown so far is that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and sometimes you can skin a cat with a werewolf.” Admittedly, you could say there’s also a far more pragmatic reason. “The novel I published before this, A Day And A Night And A Day, was a serious political post-9/11 novel that was, by and large, well received but read by virtually nobody,” he says, laughing. “So, after a conversation with my agent, I made a somewhat mercenary decision to write a novel that I was more confident we would be able to sell.” The best laid plans, though, can go awry. “If it was going to be genre, it was going to be horror because I’m a huge horror film fan,” he explains. “That said, once I started writing the book, incrementally it stopped feeling like a straight commercial or genre book, and it became much more about the relationship between genre and ideas about other kinds of fiction.” Certainly, on more that one occasion, the book’s narrator, Jake Marlowe, points out how real life repeatedly fails to follow the narratives we learn from Hollywood movies. Having lived more than 200 years, however, this hardly concerns him; he has seen ‘the death of certainties’ and just doesn’t want ‘any more life’. Initially, it looks as if he will get his wish; the book opens with Marlowe being told that he is now officially the last of his kind, thanks to both the good work of the World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena (WOCOP) and the fact that, for more than a century, no one has survived being ‘turned’ into a werewolf. Marlowe initially has no plans to avoid being hunted down during the next full moon by chief WOCOP operative Grainer, the son of one of his victims, but it soon becomes apparent that others have their own plans for the last werewolf, be they the great Vampire families, abandoned lovers or rogue operatives within WOCOP itself. From kidnappings to helicopter attacks on secluded mansions, The Last Werewolf is a gripping enough thriller; it just happens to have a remarkably intelligent and well-read protagonist at its heart. ‘All paradigm shifts answer the amoral craving for novelty,’ as an early chapter begins. Given that the acclaimed science fiction writer Jon Courtenay Grimwood recently took on vampires in The Fallen Blade, a ‘quality’ response to the werewolf is perhaps only to be expected.

GLEN DUNCAN

“There’s a long tradition of literary writers taking a bizarre premise seriously and really running with it,” Duncan insists. “There’s also this kind of collective sense that, if the genre is going to thrive, if these figures are still going to be meaningful, then we’ve got to really take them more seriously than we have been.” As an example, Duncan points to Anne Rice’s incredibly successful 1976 novel, Interview With The Vampire. “That was really the first time in narrative fiction that somebody had actually taken the condition of being a vampire – and being required to kill people and drink their blood to live – seriously, rather than the sort of stock figure who lopes around gurning and being automatically all that is evil. Anne Rice asked: What if it was you, with all the conscious that you have, with all your faculties and traits? What would that do to you?” This isn’t the first novel to use the werewolf as a symbol of humanity’s innate animal instincts, but The Last Werewolf in part holds your attention thanks to the narrative journey seen in Marlowe’s changing attitude to his condition. “It’s not so much that the man and the wolf are far apart at the beginning and closer at the end,” Duncan says, “it’s just that it was always going to be a narrative that moved from melancholy and nihilism to... hope, or at least something celebratory. Jake’s relationship with his condition is what shifts, from being one of regret and misery to one of celebration.” If you’re worried this all sounds too pretentious for words, don’t be. Taking the idea of a werewolf seriously doesn’t mean you have to ignore the conventions. “You do have to have a transformation scene, to have kills, to address libido – all the traditional aspects of the monster that are there in pop culture,” Duncan admits. “But every time you take on one of these archetypes, there’s more that you can bring to it.” Such as references to Sigmund Freud’s Essentials of Psycho-analysis, the poetry of William Empson, and a delightful homage to Charlotte Brontë – ‘Reader, I ate him.’ – perhaps? The Last Werewolf is an intelligent, thoughtful read that never forgets to excite and entertain. How that will go down with the literary critics, though, we’ll just have to see. RELEASE DATE: 7 APR. PUBLISHED BY CANONGATE. COVER PRICE £16.99 HARDBACK

PHOTO: NICHOLAS LATIMER

INTERVIEW: PAUL F COCKBURN

Set in the late 19th century, this rock musical concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality. Pleasance Theatre | 24-25 May @ 8pm | £9/£8 conc.

Boothby Graffoe is back with music and his own uniquely warped view of life. “a master of the surreal” The Scotsman Pleasance Theatre | 27 May @ 7.30pm | £10/£6 conc. Pleasance Theatre, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ Box Office @ Teviot Row House, 13 Bristo Square, EH8 9AJ Box Office 0131 650 4673

www.eusalive.co.uk

Live Music Theatre Comedy Dance Literature Film Club Nights

WWW.CANONGATE.NET

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 27

CLUBS

The Feeling in the Air Is Electrikal

Having been responsible for some of the best underground bass music nights in the past year, the Electrikal Sound System has been turning heads and tuning ears into the emerging Scottish (and UK) underground sounds. We caught up with the core members of the collective to talk about how it all started, what they have achieved and what they hope to do in the future interview: Luke Dubuis

The rig is finally back on home turf after a quick pause for repairs, sanding down and polishing in Wales. Electrikal’s collection of speakers now numbers 20KW+ of sound and counting, enough to provide for up to three thousand people when the need should arise. Setting up at over 60 gigs in the last year, the coming months could see further expansion as the sound system helps cause a spin northward on the UK bass compass. So what is it that tends to make a band of audiophiles, DJs, producers, artists and promoters pry off their headphones and put their collective will to work in making a sound system project come to fruition? Hark back to the mid-50s: the forefathers of dancehall styles saw talent bottleneck in the same way. What started initially as a way for young entrepreneurial characters to hold cheap parties turned into a big business, showcasing emerging Jamaican sounds in a way that eclipsed any kind of live musical performance. Around 60 years later the tradition continues, with a chance meeting at an outdoor event with Jerome from B.A.S.S. Alliance (a rig known for being half of sound system legends Mungo’s Hi Fi) being the catalyst for the sound system’s formation. A few of the group fondly remember the moment when a random bunch of guys dressed in boiler suits turned up in a van asking if they needed any extra speakers. As core member Richard puts it, “We said yes, loaded the speakers into the barn and

28 THE SKINNY April 2011

rocked the shit out of the place until early morning with some reggae/dub vibes... From then on, we were hooked.” Roughly four months later, the five initial members began building their sound system through Welsh DIY speaker enthusiasts Stable Audio. Having started out by running free outdoor events in 2009, the collective quickly moved indoors to provide solace to music fanatics over the winter months. Through hosting a bunch of successful nights in and around Scotland, it allowed the sound system to grow both as a brand and a physical entity, bringing in bigger and bigger headlining acts for Edinburgh’s inhabitants. Having re-invested all the profits from their own nights and hires, the collective have been gradually increasing the stage production value with more speakers, lighting, Kamikaze girls dancing on stage and an array of tongue-in-cheek themes. However, they continue to embrace the fundamental aspects of sound system culture, where the value is placed on the freshest cuts available. With a huge roster of DJs and producers on board, each genre can be placed safely in the hands of a competent selector. This has always been a conscious decision for the collective, as it allows for their work to reach a range of different people without ever sounding stale and out of touch. As Richard puts it, “We are a diverse bunch because one person’s taste isn’t limited to any one genre,

and subsequently it produces an environment where people’s tastes constantly evolve, allowing artists to ‘explore different avenues in music." The line up of DJs and producers championing the integrity of the rig varies from established names on the scene, such as Taz Buckfaster and J Bostron (G31) to up and coming names such as Noface, Daojia, Era and recently announced Glasgow residents Boom Monk Ben and S-Type. Arguably the most notorious figure within the group is February's featured artist Taz Buckfaster, whose barefaced take on dubstep and bass music has gained him plenty of credibility in his own right. His involvement has undoubtedly been part of the group’s initial and continuing success. The passion and enthusiasm of the collective is evident but they assure me that the experience has been a steep learning curve for all of them. As Richard notes, “Some people don’t appreciate the logistics involved, a lot of people come together to make things possible. People assume it's easy and there’s plenty of money in it but that’s the least of concerns when you want to make ends meet, yet stay on the cusp of new sounds at the same time.” So how have they managed to stay on top of it all? I think the answer can be found in the collective’s overwhelmingly positive attitude, based around working as a group. Richard elaborates: “There are just too many people out there trying to do their own thing, and I think we have succeeded

where others have failed because what we do is a product of our combined efforts.” This philosophy has also trickled down to the many followers of Electrikal, who can often be found pitching in, handing out flyers and moving speakers in return for free entry to events. This positive and communal attitude is a refreshing one in the day and age of profit-driven PR work and does nothing but add to the appeal of the collective. The Electrikal crew are quick to point out that this is only the beginning of something they hope will flourish and branch out. With a planned night in Glasgow with Noface at the helm, expect to see and hear the sound system pushing the limits of UK bass sounds across Scotland. The collective also demonstrate a wider social awareness, through plans to start up workshops for budding musicians as well as offering work experience for up and coming artists, photographers and event managers. Such initiatives only go to show that this motley crew aren’t messing around and as the collective grows, one can only wonder what is in store for them. Viewpoint Sessions 2011 #1 - Psychedelic Forest Disco!, Kelburn Castle 15 May Viewpoint Sessions 2011 #2 - Mixed Bizness Takeover, Kelburn Castle 5 Jun www.electrikal.net

TRAVEL

Rancid Authenticity and Other Stories Or how to be a decent couchsurfer - websites like couchsurfing.org are increasingly popular for finding free accommodation, but users may need to get to grips with the etiquette WORDS: Nine Illustration: Peter Locke

Mark had stayed at Miguel’s for eleven nights already before he decided it was time to move on. He was going to hitch-hike to Seville. Never mind that it was approximately a million miles away and hitch-hiking is uncommon in Spain: logic be damned. He left early in the morning, and that afternoon Miguel and I realised we were alone together for the first time in a week. It didn’t last long. There was a knock at the door, and Mark swept in again. He dumped his rucksack in the corner, flopped down on the sofa, picked up Miguel’s laptop and started looking stuff up on the internet. “I think the problem is you suggested a bad place to stand,” he announced. “So, it’s okay if I stay another night, right?” This is the point at which many people will claim that Miguel was partly to blame for Mark overstaying his welcome. But there are a few variables to consider. First of all, they broadly got on, though Mark apparently took this as tacit approval for his couchsurfing stint to continue. Secondly, the prospect of telling a guest in your home that you’d like them to make other arrangements now, please, may not appeal if you’d rather avoid conflict. And perhaps most significantly, Miguel just wasn’t expecting this approach. He didn’t have time to consider. Same with Armin and Dalius, who hosted me in Vilnius. A previous pair of guests in their home had returned from a day out sightseeing, sat down at the kitchen table and asked, “So, what’s for dinner?” Yes, the correct response would be to tell them

where to go: the homes of couchsurfing hosts are not simply free hotels. But Armin and Dalius were so stunned by their guests’ audacity that they found themselves meekly donning aprons, as if in a dream. As couchsurfing.org gains popularity, newcomers may sign up without a real grasp of its spirit of reciprocity. The basic idea is quite simple: hosts provide a free place to stay, and guests are supposed to respond by not behaving like arses. Nobody is actually expected to do anything else, but frequently the two parties will spend time together. And most of the time – I say this having hosted dozens of people – this goes without a glitch. But although it’s massively enriched my travel experiences, there are concerns that the quality of connections forged through the site will become diluted as it moves from alternative to mainstream. If you set up a profile the day you show up in town and find that all the hostels are booked up, a veteran host is liable to regard you with suspicion: do you just want something for nothing, or are you prepared to welcome guests to your own town also? This needn’t involve actual hosting: it’s recognised that not everybody is able to do this, but there’s nothing to stop you showing a visitor around. And if you’ve barely filled in your profile and you’re sending generic “Can I surf your couch?” messages without the personal touch, don’t expect positive results. Newsflash: those of us who open our homes to strangers generally like to have some idea of who those strangers are.

❝

The basic idea is quite simple: hosts provide a free place to stay, and guests are supposed to respond by not behaving like arses

❞ Similarly, show interest in your host and not just their couch. Explain why you’re interested in meeting them – what interests do you share? What was it about their profile in particular that appealed to you? Why do you think you’d get along? You could show your appreciation by offering to bring duty free, or giving your host something you made; split the bill if you go grocery shopping together, or buy a round in the pub. One memorable

guest of mine not only took me out to dinner one night, but made me a smoked salmon omelette for breakfast on her last day. This was lovely, of course, but crucially, none of the above is mandatory, so all such instances are just a pleasant bonus. Still, if you’ve got no money and you can’t cook, it’s always a nice idea to at least do the washing up. Above all, it helps to have some awareness of personal boundaries. Although your host may encourage you to feel at home, this probably doesn’t extend to moving in long-term, scattering your belongings liberally across the floor, or creeping up behind them to inspect whatever they’re viewing on the internet. Mark, though generally pleasant company, not only seemed to have a certain sense of entitlement to Miguel’s tiny studio flat, but bragged about how long he’d gone without washing. The sofa, when he finally left, smelled so rank that Miguel needed to have it cleaned. Jess, who’s hosted couchsurfers in Khartoum, notes that those who’d done “seriously hardcore things like walked or cycled from Europe” were “generally desperate to have a go of my shower, rather than avoiding it for the sake of rancid authenticity.” So, to recap: be nice, offer to help out, respect your host’s space, don’t take the piss, and, for the love of all that is good and holy, wash yourself regularly. It’s not really that hard. Some names and details have been changed, to protect the rancid www.couchsurfing.org

April 2011

THE SKINNY 29

TRAVEL

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

SZIGET FESTIVAL BUDAPEST

One of the world’s largest musical and cultural festivals takes place in August, but you knew that already, right? And that it offers exceptional value for money in one of the cheapest capital cities in Europe? Gotcha! That’s right, for the price of a fish supper (organic) and a Michael McIntyre ticket, you could indeed be spending seven days on an island in the middle of the Danube at Budapest’s Sziget Festival. Pitch your tent wherever you like (including in front of the stage, nutter) and soak up the rays with the sounds of Iron Maiden unleashing their new album wafting gently away in the background. Muse, Faithless,

Pulp, Dizzee and Marina are featured acts you should be familiar with, as well as Kasabian, with whom you shouldn’t; dozens of acts across all genres are playing over the space of five days. Cinema, theatre, sport-playing facilities, a conveniently placed Budapest and the opportunity to get properly mangled in a foreign country (something we don’t do enough of here in Britain) are available if the music’s not really your thing. [Paul Mitchell] 10-15 AUG (OPEN TO CAMPERS FROM 8 AUG) FLIGHTS DIRECT TO BUDAPEST ARE AVAILABLE FROM EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW. EARLY BIRD TICKETS COST 140 FOR A SEVEN DAY NON-CAMPING PASS, 170 FOR A SEVEN DAY PASS WITH CAMPING. SEE SZIGETFEST.CO.UK FOR MORE DETAILS

GO AWAY!

Go Away! Outdoor Activities in Fort William and Lochaber

Where? Adrenalising outdoor activity in Fort William and Lochaber. What? More specifically, a mountain bike marathon, or if H2O’s your thing, white water rafting and canyoning in the Outdoor Capital of the UK. Why? Well, the clue is ‘Outdoor Capital of the UK’. A rather bold statement to make, but easily backed up by the stunning geographical backdrop and the range of activities and facilities available. No Fuss Events are mountain bike-crazed adventure junkies, organising everything from bike-based ‘avalanches’, downhill endurance events and on 21 May bring you 10 Under The Ben. This event, in its seventh year, sees teams of 2-4 bikers complete as many laps of a 10 mile course as they can in 10 hours. Sounds tough? Well, yeah, it is, but then some people really enjoy the pain. Of course, they don’t expect us all to be masochists, so the event can take the form of a relay, with one member out on the course at a time, while the others kick back and take in the refreshments and live music which will be available all day. Highland Activities co-ordinate a mind-boggling range of land and aquatic based undertakings and are particularly adept at catering to large gatherings, from unruly mobs (corporate events) and group bonding experiences (stag

and hen). They also offer the best summer white water rafting in Scotland because of the guarantee of... well, water. The rivers Garry and Awe have their flow guaranteed as a consequence of hydro dams so the fun of crashing through rapids and dropping over falls never has to stop. They also specialise in Canyoning, which has been described as white water rafting –without the raft. Sounds ominous, but basically, it is the extremely exhilarating process of sliding, abseiling, swimming and generally making any way you can down a deep gorge on a spectacular mountainside. Well why not? How? Getting there: Fort William is well serviced by trains and buses from the Central Belt.[Paul Mitchell] MORE INFORMATION ON HIGHLAND ACTIVITIES RANGE OF OPTIONS CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.HIGHLANDACTIVITIES.CO.UK

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON 10 UNDER THE BEN (21 MAY) AND TO BOOK CAMPING SEE WWW.NOFUSSEVENTS.CO.UK/EVENT/10-UNDER-THEBEN/1805/

FOR INFORMATION ON OUTDOOR ADVENTURE ACTIVITIES AND ACCOMODATION OPTIONS IN LOCHABER AND FORT WILLIAM VISIT WWW.OUTDOORCAPITAL.CO.UK

TOURS TO SUIT ALL LEVELS OF INTEREST SHOP STOCKING SOME EXCLUSIVE DISTILLERY-OWN BOTTLINGS CAFE SERVING SNACKS

Compass Scotland has specialist experience with helping individuals, groups and organisations with stress measurement, management and stress avoidance techniques. We also offer anger management courses for individuals who find that anger is having an impact on them and on the people around them. Compass Scotland provide Psychotherapy, Counselling and Clinical Hypnosis to help you achieve your full potential. Call 01334 474737 or 01382 201089 or visit our web site www.compassscotland.co.uk for more information.

0134 3

BRUCELAND ROAD

5 50 9 0 0

•

ELGIN IV30 1YE •

WWW.GLENMORAY.COM 30 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

April 2011

THE SKINNY 31

SHOWCASE

David Lemm

David Lemm has been Production Manager and Picture Editor at The Skinny for the past 3 years. In this time he's also continued his practice as an artist and illustrator, as well as making a few music videos. He's now moving on to concentrate his efforts fully on freelancing and producing new work. His illustration work can best be described as a digital collage of drawing, photography and mark making, where compositions can be formed from an incidental splash of paint, a sketched observation or an interesting stain on a pavement. He works from Such and Such, a studio/gallery in Edinburgh he co-founded in 2010 (www. suchandsuchstudio.co.uk) and currently has a particular interest in old walls, theoretical physics and the occult, amongst other things. You can see more of his work at www.davidlemm.co.uk

32 THE SKINNY April 2011

April 2011

THE SKINNY 33

Hibiscus Flower Celebrating our First Birthday this month- join us for birthday celebrations from 29 April! Fabulous Fair Trade Fashion! 48 St Stephen Street Edinburgh EH3 5AL

www.hibiscusflower.co.uk 0131 225 4211 LAUNCH SHOW SUNDAY MAY 1ST 2011

FISHBONE the hostiles DOORS 7.00 PM | £15 ADV

Ginger (Solo Acoustic Tour)

LAUNCHES SUNDAY MAY 1ST 2011

APOLLO23.COM

APOLLO 23, 11 RENFREW ST, GLASGOW, G2 3AB TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM WWW.APOLLO23.COM WWW.SEETICKETS.COM RIPPING RECORDS WWW.TICKETSOUP.COM WWW.TICKETS-SCOTLAND.COM

PASSIONATE about fashion?

WEDNESDAY

MAY 4TH £10 ADV

THURSDAY

MAY 19TH £10 ADV

[THE BLANKS] SUNDAY

JUNE 26TH £10 ADV

SUNDAY

OCT 9TH £14 ADV

DREAM

about working in the fashion sector?

Want to continue your studies at post graduate level? Why not find out more about the new MSc FASHION MANAGEMENT which starts in September 2011 at Aberdeen Business School.

Visit: www.rgu.ac.uk/mscfashionmanagement Email: m.hamilton@rgu.ac.uk

34 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

No Nightwalk SS2011 Concessions at Inspace

PHOTO: Grant Alexander

FASHION

PREVIEW

Inspace will be hosting a series of events starting on 1 April and continuing for three months, focusing on the links between fashion and technology. This No Concessions season will examine the fashion process as a whole, from trend forecasting and design to manufacturing right to marketing and retail. A highlight is sure to be Encounters: Neuroscience In Fashion on 14 April, where professors Joanna Wardlaw and Burkhard Scafer will discuss the use of scientific technology within the fashion industry, including the use of brain imaging by marketing companies to test the preferences of the consumer. Additionally, the programme includes Edinburgh’s first ever ‘pop-up’ Stitch Lounge that will take place over one weekend (21 and 22 May) inspired by the growing resurgence of traditional craft skills. It promises to be “totally freeform,” encouraging participation and experimentation from members of the public, artists, designers and fashion enthusiasts. Workshops and tuition will be available

throughout the weekend with up to twenty local designers taking part, there will also be a catwalk show on Sunday to showcase the pieces made by everyone involved in the 48 hour ‘sew in’. The aforementioned 48 hour Stitch Lounge project aims to acquire a tonne (a tonne!) of fabric for use in this event, so everyone who drops in over the weekend will be able to pull some fabric out from the “one tonne pile” and get creative with a sewing machine donated by legendary brand Singer. The organisers need to have all clothing donations in by 1 May so don’t throw away any old unwanted garments, drop them into Stills Gallery on Cockburn Street, Edinburgh as soon as you can! [Alexandra Fiddes]

Encounters: Neuroscience In Fashion, 6pm-7.30pm, 14 Apr, tickets are free but limited www.facebook.com/TheStitchLounge for more details about how to get involved www.inspace.mediascot.org

Nightwalk’s Spring/Summer 2011 edition will bring fashion to one of Glasgow’s favourite clubs, The Arches, on 22 April from 10pm-2am. This independent fashion showcase will feature some of Scotland’s very best creative talents with designers, models, DJs, artists and photographers uniting to take part in this large multi-media event. The show will be in a catwalk format without traditional rows of seating, so guests will be able to watch and wander freely giving them a better view of the collections. Over 20 designers including Ten30, Betty Spoke, Obscure Couture, Fair Feathered Friend and also pieces from GSA’s fashion students will be shown. Nightwalk will also be a platform for other types of performance with DJs like local double act Ally & Sandy and the Nightwalk organiser herself, Angie Koorbanally (DJ Ursula) making an appearance on an elevated platform behind the catwalk. There will also be a performance piece by burlesque performer Cat Aclysmic. Angie is “especially excited about Betty Spokes' exclusive sea inspired collection and seeing Fair

Feathered Friend on the catwalk for the first time!” She says “the event aims to bring the underground into the spotlight” to show the public something “a little bit different for everyone to enjoy.” A perfect example of something a little bit different is Swedish but Glasgow based designer Jennie Lööf. “My entire collection for Nightwalk is inspired by the way I felt when I heard Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.” The theme of the collection is “To feel like home wherever you find happiness,” and “is made to make the women wearing it feel confident, beautiful and so comfortable.” As well as enjoying the various creative talent being showcased, there will be a £15 Vidal Sassoon voucher and a goodie bag given to everyone who attends. A portion of the profits generated from every ticket goes to a worthy cause, St Margaret’s Hospice.[Nadine Walker] Tickets for Nightwalk SS2011 are priced at £15 and can be purchased from Ticket Scotland, TicketWeb and also in Sassoon Salon in Princes Square, Glasgow. For more information please go to facebook.com/ pages/Nightwalk-Events/116177201780944 twitter.com/~/NightwalkEvents

PHOTO: Fraser Stephen

Big Apple Turns Tartan For Top Fashion Show Design houses like Vivienne Westwood who are enamoured with the most famous Scottish fabric, tartan, might now find themselves faced with a bit of competition, as this year’s Dressed To Kilt catwalk event showcases a Scottish students exquisite design. Grays School of Art student Daniel Crozier, 22, will be jetting off to the US this month to see his tartan coat parading down the runway as part of New York Tartan Week. Dressed To Kilt is the highest profile Scottish themed event and one of the top three fashion shows in the world – coming right behind the glamorous Victoria’s Secret. Daniel, a fourth year fashion design student from Aberdeen, says he’s over

the moon and describes it as “an amazing honour” to have been chosen to present the tartan coat he created as part of a University project. Support from Edinburgh’s Sakura Scotland and Aberdeen’s Thomas Blake Glover Foundation meant one hundred meters of tartan were donated to Grays School of Art to create a clan of diverse designs. Made from Sakura’s vivid pink and green Spring tartan the coat features a corseted bodice with large puff sleeves, lace cuffs and a full-tiered skirt. Daniel’s ‘coat-dress’ is elegant yet quirky and is inspired by court portraits of Marie Antoinette. He also says he always keeps fashion legend Daphne Guinness in mind.

New York’s Tartan Week will celebrate Scottish culture until 10 April and Daniel hopes it’ll open up new opportunities for himself while promoting Scotland. “I think far too often the global scene tends to look on Scotland as a place full of freckled redheads that drink all day, not as a place with as much talent as anywhere else, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to represent Scotland through my design.”[Bethany Ewen] For more information about New York Tartan Week and Dressed To Kilt (5 Apr) please visit www.tartanweek.com www.rgu.ac.uk/areas-of-study/ subjects/art-and-design www.sakurascotland.com

April 2011

THE SKINNY 35

FOOD & DRINK

Home is where the Brew is

In these days of rising tax rates it’s no wonder homebrewing is on the rise. The Skinny decided to give it a go (all in the name of informative journalism, you understand) Words: rosamund west Illustration: Jamie Johnson

Why did I want to homebrew? Well the price for a start. My walk to work used to take me past the Edina Home Brew shop, and I was always a little in awe of the prices they were advertising for a host of DIY beers. Prices like 30p a pint are quoted, and if you stick to the kits then that seems to be accurate, once you’ve discounted the start-up costs of barrel, keg, bottles, etc. Edina Home Brew provided both equipment and support throughout the process. The company shop, set up by David Martin in 1983, is well known in the Scottish brewing community, and forms part of a friendly network of beer makers who do things like meet up once a month to exchange ales, lagers and wines and compare notes while eating cheese. Martin’s daughter Shirley Easson came round to my flat to help me set up, and talked me through the processes and pitfalls as I supervised my boyfriend doing all the actual work. For the basic starter homebrew, it’s surprisingly straightforward if you just follow the supplied instructions. The kit includes a barrel for first stage fermentation, a keg to mature the fermented beer in, a hydrometer, a bubbler airlock that allows carbon dioxide to escape during fermentation, a very long spoon for sterilised stirring and a pipe for siphoning between barrel and keg. Sterilisation powder is also key, as sterilising every item of equipment before use helps avoid the vast majority of disasters in the brewing process. Stage one involved around an hour of preparation, followed by a week of a barrel sitting and

bubbling in the corner of my kitchen. Stage two required checking that fermentation was complete, transferring it into a keg with a pile of sugar (makes the bubbles and the booze apparently) and then leaving it to sit for a further 4-6 weeks. Which doesn’t make for the most scintillating narrative. To find out more about beers and brewing, and to contrast an experienced brew with my own first attempt, I met up with two of the guys from popular beer blog Beercast, Richard Taylor and Paul Marshall. So can they cast any more light on the rise of the homebrew? According to Richard; “Homebrewing started in the 70s and now it’s coming back in a big way, primarily because beer’s so expensive now. The duty’s just risen again.” Paul interjects, “That’s not the only reason though. Homebrewers want to make beers they really, really like. It’s not just about cheapness. It’s about brewing a beer that you want to drink.” Says Richard, “There are two types of people who want to homebrew. People who want to learn about brewing, and work through all the styles, and then people who want to make crazy beer with chilli or lots of other stuff in it – experimental homebrewers. They probably get more misses than hits, but then when they get something right it tastes really good.” Paul has been brewing for a year and a half, and fits into the first category. He started off with the brewing kits, then moved onto the more complicated (and pricey) process of experimenting with hops and mash and different types of yeast, all in

the quest for the perfect beer. “I like the creativity that’s involved in it. I scaled it down a bit too, so I’ll take a recipe and reduce it down to five or ten litres instead of 40 pints and bottle everything.” He has had a bash at the crazy style of brewing though: “I did one Christmas brew that had allspice, ginger, cloves… We had it at Christmas last year and it tasted of medicine. It was horrible. I tried it again recently and it tasted alright actually. Just to prove that maturing of beer can really change it.” What’s the next step after he’s perfected the process? “I’m trying to spend this year developing recipes and working out what’s involved in setting up a brewery. Understanding the full process, and working out if I can afford to do it.” Perhaps setting up a brewery isn’t every homebrewer’s end goal, but it is certainly one possibility judging by the current climate. Says Richard, “In the 70s in America when homebrewing started, the guys who did it in their kitchens then, now own the big craft breweries. Guys at Sierra Nevada, Rogue, Odell... And now over here in the past 5 or 10 years, the guys who’re doing that now are starting to get their own small breweries together.” And what happened with my own beer? Well, no plans to set up a brewery as yet. After four weeks it tasted good, but was somewhat flat due to an as yet undefined error at some stage in the process. The Brewstore folks were kind enough to come round with a Cornelius keg – think giant soda stream – and reinvigorate it, leaving me with 40 pints of pilsner for a fairly minimal effort. I’ll be trying homebrewing again. Created by Cailean McGregor from Bond No. 9, Reekie’s Reviver puts a Scottish twist on the Corpse Reviver series of drinks – drinks traditionally consumed to refresh after a heavy night. Whether or not it cures a hangover is to be debated, however this powerful, delicious cocktail is definitely worth a try!

Reekie's Reviver 50ml Edinburgh Gin 25ml Fresh Pink Grapefruit juice 10ml Lemon Infused Gomme 3 Pinches of Ground Fennel Seed Method Shake all ingredients over cubed ice and fine strain into a chilled Cordon glass. Garnish with a Thistle.

Bond No. 9 84 Commercial Street, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 6LX 0131 555 5578 www.bondno9.co.uk/

36 THE SKINNY April 2011

REVIEW

L'ESCARGOT BLEU I arrive at L’Escargot Bleu after a long day in the office and a windswept rush up the road. “Are you OK?” asks my dining companion Jenny, tactfully, as I appear round the corner with bird nest hair and a mad glint in my eye. “You look a bit… harassed.” All is calm within the popular French bistrorestaurant. Friendly staff (in clear defiance of stereotypes of French waiters) greet us, whisk off our coats and dispatch us to a quiet corner table. A glass of sauvignon blanc – perfectly chilled, crisp, a hint of gooseberry – helps to restore my equilibrium. We’re brought an appetizer, or maybe an amuse-bouche? Nuggets of hard, tangy goat’s cheese in olive oil act as a fine complement to the wine and a hint of deliciousness to come. For starters, I go for moules ’ala Parisienne, de-shelled mussels in a garlic, butter, ham sauce topped with croutons and grilled. It is impossibly tasty, even though finishing it presents a fairly good chance of ruining the rest of my dinner. Jenny goes for the crispy frogs’ legs, which turn out to be surprisingly substantial, with a remarkably delicate flavour. “Like a cross between fish and meat,” says Jenny. That’s what they are, come to think of it. For mains, I have the pan-fried Inverary Roe Deer – vast, medium-rare cuts of tender meat in a juniper jus – served with a date and walnut

pastille (a bit like a sweet spring roll). Jenny’s boyfriend having recently gone vegetarian, she embraces the red meat too – who knows when she will next have an opportunity to eat a guilt-trip free steak? She opts for a Scottish matured rib-eye with peppercorn sauce. Classic French, classic taste, delicious and “Properly medium rare.” Full marks all round. For desserts we go for selection of sorbets and some macaroons – raspberry, vanilla, chestnut and blueberry. The macaroons are light and crispy on the outside with a substantial centre and good, distinct flavours. The crisp lemon sorbet would be a refreshing palette cleanser had we not already consumed more than should be humanly possible. To end, the maitre d’ brings back memories of Mr Creosote as he tries to encourage us to eat the complimentary chocolate before leaving. No, please, no. It will be delicious, and I will eat it, and then I will die. L’Escargot Bleu succeeds admirably in providing a blend of French fine dining and local Scottish ingredients, in a classic bistro restaurant with friendly staff who put genuine effort into making sure you enjoy your meal. I will be going there for significant occasions from now on. [Caroline Fenton] DINNER FOR TWO WITH WINE APPROX £70 56 BROUGHTON STREET, EH1 3SA WWW.LESCARGOTBLANC.CO.UK

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

FOOD NEWS MARCH

Since 1988 Leaflet & Brochure display Street team and flyering Magazine and shop drops

BRASS MONKEY LEITH The Brass Monkey, long a favourite haunt of Edinburgh's old town, has spawned a new outpost on Leith Walk just past Pilrig Church. It's got the same feel as the old Brass Monkey – laid back, good sounds, lots of film posters – but with more beer, more spirits, and more space. They're still working on developing it, but they are open and they have some very tasty beers in the fridge at extremely reasonable prices. What they have now: Two flat-screen televisions and a projector for films on weekdays and for football on the weekend. Free Wi-Fi, board games, espresso coffee. What they have coming up: All new Monkey Tortilla-Pizzas, soup and sandwich deals during the day, a new range of Weissbeers, ciders and ales, including the likes of Fürstenberg, Weihenstephan, Addlestone's, and Brew Dog. New long-mix cocktails to come. Open 11am-1am Monday to Saturday, 12.30am to 1am on Sunday. Space available for reservations and functions. 362 Leith Walk, Firth of Forth, Edinburgh, EH6 5BR 0131 554 5286

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 37

38 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

MUSIC

Live Music Highlights

METAL COLUMN

words: Mark Shukla

Attention youths! Emotional guitar rock this way comes courtesy of Aberdeen (via Brighton) three-piece The X-certs. A solid rhythm section, battle-tested alt-rock chord changes and anthemic choruses dictate that any floppy-haired young colts who’ve yet to make the inevitable transition from rebellious angst to trenchant despair should get down to Dundee Doghouse on 5 April, Aberdeen Cafe Drummonds on 6 Apr, Stirling Fubar on 7 Apr or Edinburgh Studio 24 on 8 Apr. Enjoy it while you can – we’ll be at home trying to work out whether or not the new Radiohead album is shit. Having graduated from Biffy Poly with a 2:1 in applied riffage, Ayrshire trio Sucioperro are now carving out a decent career thanks to their dependably forceful live shows – even if their compositions have a frustrating habit of drifting into prosaic indie terrain on occasion. Check them at Aberdeen Tunnels on 5 Apr, Dundee Beat Generator on 6 Apr, Glasgow Arches on 7 Apr and Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s on 8 Apr. Aggressively odd high-energy/low-fidelity threepiece Trash Kit make the trek up from darn sarf to play Glasgow’s 13th Note on 9 Apr. A penchant for explosive, arrhythmic songs, facepaint and chanting lends these girls a charming fresh-from-the-asylum frisson that will delight the open-minded listener. Swedish veterans Jeniferever land at Glasgow Captain’s Rest on 13 Apr to promote their new album, Silesia. Equally adept at deploying both elegant indie rock and atmospheric slow-burners, they’re old hands at weaving a weighty, contemplative sound that works surprisingly well in the live setting. Lone Pigeon (aka Fence Collective stalwart Gordon Anderson) marks the release of his lush 7-CD boxset, Time Capsule, with a pair of gigs at Edinburgh Pilrig St. Paul’s Church on 14 Apr and Aberdeen’s Blue Lamp on 15 Apr. Expect gently psychedelic folk and buckets of quirkiness from this lad. Support from Pictish Trail. Glasgow Garage on 17 Apr will be the scene of some uncompromising sensory stimulation as ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead lead a charge against your central nervous system with assistance from post-hardcore favourites Rival Schools. Both packing alternately expansive and punchy new records, we confidently predict a dizzying maelstrom of freaky moves and heavy grooves. Formed in the shadowy subconscious of Glasgow’s Injuns, The Dead Man’s Waltz will temporarily materialise for an evening of tall tales, musical improvisation and much more at Glasgow Bar Bloc on 21 Apr. Support comes from Adopted as Holograph (Sluts of Trust’s John McFarlane). Recommended.

Bronto Skylift

Featuring two thirds of the now defunct Saint Jude’s Infirmary, Edinburgh School For The Deaf will play Edinburgh Wee Red Bar on 23 Apr. Oscillating between spectral ballads and ballsy rock action, their sound is informed by a noisy-yetfragile, fuzzed-out shoegaze aesthetic. Support from Black Heart Generator and Verse Metrics. Fresh from interacting with the police by the medium of guitar in the middle of an Austin street, The Skinny’s favourite motherfuckers Bronto Skylift bring it back indoors to Glasgow King Tut’s on 23 Apr. With an innate understanding of what it takes to put on an engaging show (protip: attacking your drum kit like a schizophrenic gorilla trying to beat out an imaginary fire REALLY helps), their set will put hairs on your chest. Co-headline duties come from fellow Weegies St. Deluxe who revive the spirit of US slacker alt-pop then immediately drown the bugger in syrupy scum-gaze textures. Should be a righteous night. Super-versatile art-pop heroes Metronomy hit up Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on 25 Apr and Aberdeen Tunnels on 26 Apr. Stitching together

HOT TICKET of the month Mount Kimbie Glasgow Stereo 21 Apr, Edinburgh Bongo Club 22 Apr

Sometimes The Skinny likes to think back to simpler days; days when ‘dance’, ‘classical’, ‘pop’ and ‘rock’ were the only genres worth mentioning; days when the man who decides what section an album goes into on the racks at HMV didn’t have to neck cooking sherry in the toilets just to get through the day. Mount Kimbie, with their post-UK funky ambientpop mandate firmly established, are the type of genre-hoppers that make this poor chap (let’s call him Ken) hate his life even more – but for the rest of us, their supple blend of hyper-edited funk and orgasmic sub-bass with live guitars and drums is manna from heaven. Sorry Ken. [Mark Shukla]

ass-shaking electronic rhythms, weird postpunk angles and soulful pop hooks is no mean feat, but these cats make it look easy. Totally essential vibes. As longtime fans of Pocahaunted, the meteoric rise of Bethany Cosentino’s Best Coast is not something we anticipated – even in our wildest psilocybin-fuelled reveries. Having reinvented her image and sandpapered the jagged edges from her bitter-sweet surf-pop songs, punters at Glasgow Arches on 27 Apr can decide for themselves whether or not she’s taken one step too many towards the mainstream. Drone-lords Barn Owl (not to be confused with the Scottish indie outfit of the same name) play Glasgow Captain’s Rest on 30 Apr. Having moved from a heavily Earth-centric orbit (the band, not the planet) to more abstract, isolated realms of late, their current sound somehow manages to be both heavy and ambient at the same time. Support comes from the brilliant Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, whose album Love is a Stream was arguably the best noise record of 2010.

As we slink into April, rolling news coverage continues to resemble about a dozen simultaneous disaster movies. Whilst continuing to be pummelled unmercifully by axe-wielding government pennypinchers, the Middle-east and North Africa have gone absolutely bat-shit crazy in their quest for political freedom and mother nature has unleashed a sobering wake-up call to us all by flat-out waging war on both New Zealand and Japan – the latter left teetering on the brink of nuclear fallout. So, allow me to present you with some metalclad entertainment to see us through this month. Because, let’s face it, if we’re to keep our heads down right now, we might as well be bangin’ them. Kicking us off are Tennessee death-metal miscreants Whitechapel who head up a packed-out night of visceral chaos at the Cathouse, joined by aptly-named Californians Impending Doom and Massachusetts-born juggernauts The Acacia Strain (8 Apr). Aberdonian metalcore upstarts Dividing The Silence then blaze a trail across the country, taking in a hometown headliner at Aberdeen Tunnels (7 Apr) alongside shows in Edinburgh (The Store – formerly The GRV, 8 Apr) and Dundee’s Dexters (10 Apr) before taking to Glasgow’s Classic Grand with brothers in arms, Sacred Betrayal (11 Apr). Also in Glasgow, US underground thrash masters Malevolent Creation lay waste to Ivory Blacks (12 Apr) two days before seemingly invincible UK metal titans, Saxon, descend upon the ABC (14 Apr) with the recently reunited Wolfsbane, though don’t expect original vocalist and short-lived Iron Maiden frontman Blaze Bayley to be back on pipes as he makes his own appearance at Ivory Blacks at the end of the month (30 Apr). Elsewhere, Skinny-approved Scottish death metallers Cerebral Bore set their murderous sights on Edinburgh, looking set to slay Bannerman’s ahead of releasing their debut album, Maniacal Miscreation on legendary metal label, Earache. Support comes from Aeon and Flayed Disciple (22 Apr). Back in Glesca, Canadian wrecking crew Comeback Kid head up a night of gut-churning, arm-flailing hardcore at the Garage (18 Apr), joined by fellow Canucks Gravemaker, Californian melodicists The Ghost Inside and Norwegian miscreants Kvelertak. Rounding off, metalcore poster boys Bring Me The Horizon return to Scottish soil, joined by an army of new-school riff-merchants – namely Parkway Drive, Architects and The Devil Wears Prada – and are sure to reduce the Garage to a sweaty, slam-dancing mess (26 Apr) while Swiss sludge-peddlers Knut hit up Nice ‘n’ Sleazy alongside Cleveland stoners Keelhaul to pulverise your bowels (28 Apr). Enjoy yr fix.[Ryan Drever]

Playing Glasgow Stereo on 21 Apr (8pm, £8), Edinburgh Bongo Club on 22 Apr (10pm, £8) Lone Pigeon

Whitechapel

www.myspace.com/mountkimbie

April 2011

THE SKINNY 39

Cry Parrot presents: John Maus Mono, 29 Mar

photo: Euan Robertson

rrrr

Deerhunter Òran Mór, 28 Mar

rrrrr

John Maus’s new album, We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves is released on 27 Jun via Upset the Rhythm www.myspace.com/johnmaus

deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com

photo: michael gallacher

Deerhunter are riding the crest of a wave that hasn’t let up since 2005’s Cryptograms, both critically and in relative commercial terms. After a quiet start to their sold-out show tonight, it gradually becomes evident why. The Atlanta quartet’s blend of nostalgia-heavy, tripped-out indie is even more convincing live than on record; it simultaneously evokes the more melancholy shades of 80s pop and the blissed-out drone of My Bloody Valentine, while always retaining its own identity. The crystalline melodies of Memory Boy, a standout track on last year’s Halcyon Digest, take on a psychedelic richness in this context, mesmerising

the crowd with interweaving layers of ringing, reverb-soaked guitars. At such moments, Deerhunter manage to conjure an authentically childlike joy, without ever slipping into emotive mawkishness. Nothing Ever Happened, another highlight, builds to a dizzying, hazy crescendo, over which singer Bradford Cox shouts a few lines from Patti Smith’s Land – a joining of lyrical dots that parallels the masterful use of sonic influences. It’s that ability to chart their musical lineage, while always remaining within their own distinctive parameters, that enables Deerhunter to transcend mere revivalism. On tonight’s evidence, they more than warrant the steady stream of attention. [Sam Wiseman]

The loop pedal artisan is becoming a busy genre in its own right, but Remember Remember’s Graeme Ronald, performing solo tonight, is comfortably ahead of any curve you care to plot. His layered compositions are more millefeuille than thick-tiered sponge – airily structured and never clagging. The only disappointment is the length – three songs feels frustratingly brief. Plug are tonight’s unknown quantity, neither local nor niche icon. By the time they finish they should be firmly stamped on Mono’s collective consciousness: the duo’s curbed aesthetic turns synths, drums and vocals into something fresh and vibrant, with highlight Body Song resembling Le Tigre covering DJ Shadow’s Blood On The Motorway.

John Maus, meanwhile, is John Maus: eccentric, irregular and brilliant in all the expected ways. Maus takes the total kinetic energy expelled by the average band during a ninety minute gig, and condenses it into one juddering body and half an hour. His performance style exists somewhere between Limmy’s eckied dad minus the heartbreak, and a cake-clad kid on his birthday (postsugar rush, pre-teary adrenalised tantrum). The song being played at any particular time is irrelevant: whether Do Your Best’s melancholic ballad or the jittery pace of Maniac, Maus gives it laldy. Two parallel but opposed tempos exist: the tempo of the synth-based, romantic-oddball alt-pop coming through the speakers, and the somewhat heightened tempo of Maus himself. His set flares briefly, but that’s for the best – think of the man’s heart. [Chris Buckle]

This Is Music presents: Y’all Is Fantasy Island photo: Kat Gollock

Sneaky Pete’s, 11 Mar

rrrr

Iron & Wine HMV Picture House, 11 Mar

rrrr In an effort, no doubt, to recreate the continued expansion of his recorded sound, Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam is joined on stage tonight by an ensemble of six musicians, whilst the setlist is dominated by songs from his most recent full-length offerings, this year’s Kiss Each Other Clean and 2007 LP The Shepherd’s Dog. An early apology for the condition of his voice (he’s recovering from a cold) is rendered redundant by the gusto with which he delivers the opening salvo of Boy With A Coin and Walking Far From Home, the band gradually building before hitting what

40 THE SKINNY April 2011

sounds like an all-out freeform jazz jam on House By The Sea and Love And Some Verses. Beam’s voice doesn’t fare so well on notional closer Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me, with the measured vocal layers of the recorded track sacrificed for all out bombast; but this is compensated for by an expansive encore of Wolves, and preceded by perhaps the highlight of the evening, a stirringly plaintive rendition of Fever Dream, from 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days, illustrating that whilst this new direction is certainly admirable, the older, reflective stuff is mightily impressive too. [Paul Mitchell] Kiss Each Other Clean is out now on 4AD www.ironandwine.com

“I guess it’s true what they say, if folks don’t come then the band won’t play.” So railed Y’all Is Fantasy Island’s front-man Adam Stafford on early demo Consider Yourself Swallowed. Prophetic words indeed as YiFI sign off to a less-than bulging Sneaky Pete’s tonight. First up though are Two Wings, a Gallic-tinged five-piece personally invited by Stafford after they missed an earlier gig at the now-defunct Roxy. Vocally they are definitely an acquired taste, straddling somewhere between a helium-inflected Beth Gibbons and Babooshka-era Kate Bush. Refusing to be pigeon-holed they flit from mid-Americana country to anthemic seventies rock, which helps soften with their appeal. By their final curveball, there’s a noticeable ripple of head nodding and feet tapping amongst the growing crowd. Loch Awe, by comparison, seem an odd choice to follow

up. Quite simply, the young four-piece are not ready for such a spotlight. Nerves are clearly evident, mistakes crop up with embarrassing regularity and the sound is often flat, overly trebly (there’s no bass player, natch) and simply out of tune. Yet they can obviously write a song, with their later folk-esque material a welcome progression from the opening run of slightly staid acoustic indie fare. Time and a little Dutch courage could make Loch Awe worth another visit yet. So, another underappreciated local talent bites the dust (see De Rosa, Come On Gang et al). Choosing an overview which steadily and stealthily increases in volume and bite, Y’all is Fantasy Island bow out with a chronological snapshot of their prolific output. From the hushed, ominous tones of These Are The Days to the touch-paper ignition of With Handclaps, Stafford and co. play it straight with no fanfare or frills. “We’ve never been a party band,” Stafford astutely acknowledges at one point. Perhaps not, but tonight’s celebration marks a dignified exit. [Darren Carle] www.myspace.com/yifimusic

The Twilight Singers

Bearsuit

The Arches, 19 Mar

rrr

rrrr

King Tut’s, 6 Mar

Tonight’s support, the Londonbased Bookhouse Boys are something of a conundrum. The voice of Catherine Turner – at times tacit and tender, at others sadistically lashing – is steeped in the myre of the octet’s haunting choral refrain, a thundering percussive storm, and a dark concierge of mariachi horns. It’s at times masterful, often chaotically misdirected, though always mesmerising. They set an appropriate stall for the indulgences of Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers, who emerge amidst the fittingly cavernous gloom of The Arches – minus his legion of high-profile studio contributors – immediately delving into Last Night in Town, the thundering opener to Dynamite Steps. The band may be experiencing the ravages of middle age, but they retain a ferociousness which drives a set that takes time with each of their five studio albums; Teenage Wristband, a blistering Bonnie Brae, and curtain closer, the garrulous Waves, provide the customary crowd pleasers. Yet it’s in the stripped back moments with only Dulli’s tortured wail and a resonant piano where the light truly pours in tonight. Dulli’s bare-boned rendition of synth-pop act Desire’s Don’t Call proves inspired, heart-breaking and utterly levelling. [Paul Neeson]

Support tonight comes from Paisley’s Siamese Ghosts, who sound something like a male-fronted Gossip: big, soulful riffs, plenty of dramatic pauses, and incongruously operatic vocals. In many ways, in fact, the antithesis of Norwich’s Peel favourites Bearsuit, who prefer to eschew sassiness for silliness. That said, the electro-indie five-piece – who have undergone significant personnel changes of late – have toned down the crazed exuberance somewhat for their new album, The Phantom Forest. Early material is conspicuous by its absence tonight; although it’s understandable that Bearsuit are reluctant to trot out their career-defining Hey Charlie Hey Chuck for every gig, it’s a risky strategy to pursue. The new material lacks the gloriously messy qualities of their early gems: single Please Don’t Take Him Back is almost subdued by their standards, and sounds a little formulaic live. Yet Bearsuit’s pop sensibilities are still evident in everything they do, and ten years into their career, it’s understandable that a reflective edge is creeping into the songwriting. Highlight tonight is A Train Wreck, another new song, which entwines that edge with the kind of shouty pop hooks that make the early material so good. If this is the sound of a band growing old, they’re doing it surprisingly gracefully. [Sam Wiseman]

www.thetwilightsingers.com

www.bearsuit.co.uk/

photo: colin macdonald

Live Reviews

Fu Manchu The Cathouse, 3 Mar

rrrr Embarking upon a 15th anniversary tour to celebrate their seminal In Search Of album, the veteran Californian quartet loosen up with a few crowd-pleasers – Mongoose in particular is a cowbell-thumping treat – before playing their classic LP in its entirety. Fu Manchu have always eschewed emotion and meaning in favour of an almost abstract pursuit of pure dynamic energy; as a band they live and die by the

sound they summon from their instruments – and tonight they sound huge. They pace their set expertly to peak with The Falcon Has Landed – one of the record’s weaker moments but tonight a revelation; the dumb repetition of its monolithic riff playing out like a paean to the majesty of amplified electrical current. The encore of Lazerbl’ast! and King of the Road just about brings the house down and the band bow out with the energised crowd baying for more. [Mark Shukla] www.fu-manchu.com/

RECORDS

THE DIRTY DOZEN

Pulling no punches, GREG SINCLAIR and DUNCAN MARQUISS of THE PHANTOM BAND stick it to the April singles INTERVIEW: DARREN CARLE PHOTOS: DAVID LEMM Greg: Yeah, I’m getting fed up with it to be honest but I think it’s worth a two. Nevada Base – Love In My Mind (Flowers In The Dustbin, 18 Apr) Greg: Lyrically it’s a peculiar record, definitely. Duncan: It reminds me of The Beloved – but that’s a bit of an insult to The Beloved. Greg: I’m kinda thinking more ‘if Talking Heads were illiterate...’ Duncan: It gets a point for being hard to classify. And for Greg’s reaction to it. Greg: And I’d give it a two, so it’s a two. Younger Brother – Shine (Twisted Records, Out now) Duncan: It says here in the notes that singer Ruu Campbell’s voice is ‘hopelessly soulful’. Greg: (sarcastically) Sam Cooke stuff, that is. Duncan: I could see this coming on at an emotional bit of a Channel 4 program for young adults. Greg: It’s weird that people want to have a band that sounds pretty much the same as Temper Trap. It’d be OK if you said you wanted to have a band that sounded exactly like, say, Jerry Lee Lewis, ‘cos that would be awesome. But this is getting zip.

Colourmusic – You For Leaving Me (Memphis Industries, 11 Apr) Duncan: When this started I immediately thought of the Fiery Furnaces, who I’m very fond of, but that soon stopped. It’s not floating my boat to be honest. It’s got that euphoric, choral sound that you’d associate with the Polyphonic Spree which I find slightly suspect in a cult way. I’d give that a one (out of five). Snoop Dogg vs. David Guetta – Sweat (Parlophone, 18 Apr) Duncan: It’s not his finest work, but it’s probably safe to say that he’s not trying to fool anyone – he’s just making some money. It’s honest, cynical music. Greg: I’d like it if I was on the waltzers. It’s the waltzer song of the week. Duncan: I’ll give that a three. Greg: (aghast) What? No, it’s another one! Deerhunter – Memory Boy (4AD, 11 Apr) Duncan: Do you think they’ve actually hunted deer? So far I’m not really feeling this. Greg: It’s a bit anodyne. Duncan: It doesn’t sound like it could kill a deer. Greg: I feel like they’re probably capable of better, but you know, who isn’t? Let’s go for a two. The Domino State – You Are The Winter (Exhibition Records, Out now)

EP REVIEWS DEADBOY

HERE (NMBRS15) 11 APR, NUMBERS

rrrr Numbers have had a relentless quantity of quality releases in the past 12 months, with Deadboy’s Here EP being no exception. Having provided the label with their first release, the Brighton based producer has undoubtedly had a huge part in pushing the boundaries of UK bass music. His talent for chopping vocal melodies is astonishing, yet it’s his percussive work on Here that stands out the most. Here 4 U and Ain’t Gonna Lie stand out with some magical drum programming and huge vocal hooks. This is by far one of Numbers’ most promising releases of 2011 so far, surely bound to influence the emergent underground sounds of his peers. [Luke Dubuis]

WWW.NMBRS.NET

Duncan: It’s making the Editors sound urgent. It mentions ‘shoegaze’ in the press release but I’m just hearing sub-U2. Greg: Yeah, if you told me this was the new Editors single I would have believed you. It just sounds like so much other stuff around at the moment. That has to be a zero. Duncan: Nah, I think we should give them one for trying. Or at least existing. Feldberg – Don’t Be A Stranger (Smalltown America, Out now) Greg: I just don’t get it. It has that youthful element that I’ve grown out of being able to understand. Duncan: It’s not that her voice sounds like Björk or Múm or other Icelandic alumni but she’s got that slightly cutesy thing which is getting a bit irritating. Greg: I’d like it if I was in Tesco. If Dido went raucous this would be the result. One, I’m afraid. Fenech-Soler – Stop and Stare (B-Unique, 18 Apr) Duncan: I guess value judgements are relative, but to me I don’t see why this needs to exist. Greg: I just think it’s cynical music again. I can’t imagine there’s any fun in making it at all and that it’s just an exercise in working out compression techniques so that it sounds good on a club P.A. Duncan: It’s just noise to try and distract you from the fact that you’re really miserable. Zero points.

SOMETHING BEGINNING WITH L THE LISTED BUILDING EP

11 APR, ARMELLODIE

rrr Don’t let the opener of London trio Something Beginning With L’s debut EP deter you from further investigation. Angel Sized might prove to be a somewhat vapid slice of sugar-coated indie-pop, but what follows after is rather special. A dramatic shift finds Younger Thoughts drifting amidst the harmonies of Lucy Parnell and Jen Macro, flanked by a flutter of piano and a woozily sedated rhythm section, whilst their cover of Expansion Ride by Norfolk indie veterans Magoo plays out like a fantastic, fractured fairy tale. But it’s the closing track, Unwittingly Beautiful, which takes the trophy, with its sophisticated, slow-burn of soporific bass, electro-textures and shimmering distortion removing it as far as one can imagine from this EP’s shaky start. [Paul Neeson] WWW.MYSPACE.COM/SOMETHINGBEGINNINGWITHL

The Ezra Beats – Tonic and Gin (iTunes, 18 Apr) Greg: Well, firstly it says several times in the press release that the band feature Pete Doherty’s sister... Duncan: I don’t really care (taking a look at said press release) It also says they are ‘anti-folk indie’. What the fuck’s anti-folk? Greg: (attempting a positive slant) Well, they’re young and (checking photo more closely)...actually, I’m not even sure they are that young. They’re young-ish, it’s skittish and upbeat and it gets... zero. A half if we can give halves then? I don’t want to aggrieve Pete Doherty. Smith Westerns – Weekend (Domino, 2 May) Duncan: Do you remember Sleeper? It sounds fairly toothless. Greg: It’s a good sounding record, I just don’t get it. It sounds like everything else. Duncan: I’d give this a half-mark again. Greg: We’re going to look like total dicks. Give them one. Trogons – Contina (X-Ray Recordings, 25 Apr) Greg: It sounds like a bit of a trendy genre thing but maybe that’s not fair as I might actually enjoy hearing a bit more of them. Duncan: I think because of everything we’ve heard so far, the spooky melodies were initially a good change of pace more than anything but in the end it’s still fairly straight forward indie-pop.

SINGLE OF THE MONTH Steve Mason – All Come Down (Domino, 25 Apr) Duncan: I was just thinking about the first King Biscuit Time EP which was really good. This feels like it’s ploughing the same furrow, but in a good way. Greg: It definitely sounds like Steve Mason. He has a similar thing in everything he’s done from the Beta Band onwards but I couldn’t get fed up listening to it... his sound is unique. Duncan: Yeah, it’s miles ahead of anything else here.

MONO/POLY

JESCA HOOP

OUT NOW, BRAINFEEDER

OUT NOW, LAST LAUGH

rrr

rrrr

MANIFESTATIONS EP

SNOWGLOBE EP

Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder imprint does a solid line in off-kilter hip-hop productions with soul; the label counts among its prodigious ranks the likes of Teebs, Ras G, and now multi-faceted young Californian Mono/Poly. The Manifestations EP – his Brainfeeder debut – starts in a fug of ambient synth that wouldn’t be out of place on a release by his boss, before settling into some brash, HudMo-like, clattering drums on Forest Dark, ushering in the relaxed boogie of Glow. On the EP’s latter half, Mono/ Poly’s penchant for cranked up bass takes hold on the abrasive, M.O.P. sampling, Punch The Troll In The Neck, and the cathartic dubstep of Vibrations (Alternate). A promising and varied EP, with serious dancefloor clout. [Martin Skivington]

Manchester-based, Californiaborn songstress Jesca Hoop may tread with genteel folk footsteps, however her musical associates – legend Tom Waits once employed her as a nanny, multifarious maestro Andrew Bird brought her on tour as support, and Elbow leader Guy Harvey convinced her to relocate to British shores – tell of the heavyweight impact which her music brings. Following on from 2009’s sophomore album, Hunting My Dress, Hoop remains utterly devoted to layered harmonies, cavernous production, and slow, slow, sombre seduction; and whilst the unaccompanied, whispered vocal which comprises Storms Make Grey the Sea may ghost past many listeners, the remaining trio of tracks all-too-briefly remind us of Hoop’s canny ability to reel us in with the subtlest of hooks. [Paul Neeson]

WWW.BRAINFEEDERSITE.COM

WWW.JESCAHOOP.COM

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 41

ALBUM REVIEWS

RECORDS

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE BLACK SUN

18 APR, HYPERDUB

rrrrr

Hyperdub has always been the most experimental and forwardthinking of dubstep labels, and the panache with which Kode9 and Spaceape reinvented and deconstructed the templates of 2-step, techno and dub on Memories Of The Future set a high standard for those who were to follow. Five years on from Memories the duo have returned with an album of similarly breathtaking scope and ambition, and effortlessly surpassed their sophomore effort. The pitch-shifted vocal effects are gone: Spaceape sounds liberated, confident, and full of righteous philosophical fire. Furthermore, he has created an entire alternative reality in which the narrative of his lyrics take place – the world of the Black Sun. His imagery, delivery and the stories he tells are vivid and strange, familiar but distorted visions of our own world.

The political clarity of Am I and Bullet Against Bone are matched for intensity by the spiritual explorations of Neon Red Sign and Black Smoke. Musically, Kode9 has successfully captured the energy and impact of his live performances and solo tracks, and harnessed it to the ceaselessly inventive production techniques employed on Memories. He plays with 2-step and house on Green Sun and The Cure, employing a lighter, less oppressive darkness to the dread dubscapes of Memories. The menace here lies in stretched synths; the echoing, whispered vocals of Spaceape and Cha Cha; the contrast between dark and light. Thrilling stuff, with real weight and depth, effortlessly stepping beyond bleeding-edge dubstep into new sonic realms. [Bram Gieben] KODE9 PLAYS THE ELECTRIC FROG EASTER WEEKENDER AT SWG3, GLASGOW ON 24 APR WWW.HYPERDUB.COM

LOW

FOO FIGHTERS

PANDA BEAR

11 APR, SUB POP

11 APR, COLUMBIA

11 APRIL, PAW TRACKS

rrrr

rrr

rrrr

C’MON

Low have been making beautiful albums for almost two decades now, but ninth effort C’mon may stand as their most gorgeous yet. The Minnesota trio have hinted at such aspirations since diversifying with 1999’s Secret Name, but it’s taken the channelling of overt rock sensibilities and gloomy, political rhetoric to fully clear the path for this full-on, unapologetic paean to love. It’s complemented by a lyrical directness to match their minimalism, with penultimate offering I’m Nothing But Heart simply repeating the title’s refrain to a building crescendo of hypnotic proportions. Less is assuredly more, yet C’mon is steeped in some lavish production, relatively speaking. Opening gambit Try To Sleep is draped with twinkling xylophones, the tectonic lap steel rock of Witches is countered wonderfully by some bluegrass banjo picking and finale Something’s Turning Over bows out to a children’s choir. It sounds like Low are in their element once again, a trait which C’mon is rabidly infectious with. [Darren Carle] PLAYING CLASSIC GRAND, GLASGOW ON 17 MAY WWW.CHAIRKICKERS.COM/

WASTING LIGHT

Expectations in the rock fraternity surrounding Wasting Light, the seventh long player from Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters, have been reaching fever pitch. With Nevermind producer Butch Vig twiddling the knobs and a back-to-basics recording technique that saw the band recording the entire thing in Grohl’s garage on analogue tape, fans were hoping for some of the brilliance that made the Foos' debut stand out back in ’95. Those fans won’t be disappointed, but maybe they won’t be a hundred percent satisfied either. There’s a good number of quality tunes here; most notably the White Limo, all lo-fi screaming and drifting melodies, while These Days showcases some of the emotional staying power that Grohl’s throwaway lyrics have sometimes lacked. Elsewhere it’s journeyman rock fare; as if even in the garage Grohl can’t quite get the glare of the stadium lights out of his eyes. At their 80s commercial peak, critics said The Clash were a garage band playing stadiums; the Foo Fighters are the opposite – a stadium band, slumming it in the garage like when they were kids, but not quite reconnecting in the way they probably hoped. [PJ Meiklem]

TOMBOY

Bringing an aural sharpness in contrast to the kaleidoscopic, woozy swirl of 2007’s Person Pitch, Tomboy finds Noah Lennox further straddling the experimental/pop divide with increasing dexterity. Favouring song-writing and relatively more traditional instrumentation may blunt Lennox’s trailblazing for some, but those who appreciate more of a pop nous will revel in such directness. Tomboy’s four preceding singles make up the bulk of the first half with the title track setting a blueprint of inventive guitar progressions, looped samples and otherworldly reverb effects. Lennox’s vocals continue their steady progression as a focal point, being lifted from their previous soupy production style by Peter ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember. Yet at its heart, Tomboy is a wildly eclectic and unpredictable beast, with tracks such as Alsatian Darn belittling their modest time-span by cramming in more inventive ideas than is strictly necessary and still sounding like a Panda Bear cut that was always meant to be. As insurmountable as it may seem for some, Tomboy stands as an absolute progression. [Darren Carle] JOIN MONORAIL RECORDS’ MIDNIGHT LISTENING PARTY IN GLASGOW ON 10 APR

TAKE A WORM FOR A WALK WEEK

DAEDELUS

ORKESTRA DEL SOL

7 APR, ITS A STIFF!

11 APR, NINJATUNE

18 APR, SOL MUSIC RECORDINGS

rrrrr

rrr

rrrr

T.A.W.F.A.W.W

Given their two previous recordings, at 25 minutes, T.A.W.F.A.W.W qualifies as something of an epic for this feral Glaswegian quartet. In fact the days of 30 second blasts of Locust-esque fury are apparently behind them. Instead this time we have ten servings of almost sensibly paced, acerbic post-hardcore nihilism: akin to Tom Waits being minced, fried and messily eaten by the band Daughters. Indeed “nihilism” is almost certainly the key word here. Tracks end abruptly. Lyrics spiral into post-modern farce. Trumpets and pianos find their sarcastic way in amongst guitar lines as sharp as broken bottles. Meanwhile the rhythm work is as flawless as ever. It’s this seamless blending of flippancy and water-tight musicianship that has been the underlying secret to Take A Worm’s continuing reputation for unpredictable excellence and thus much of their appeal. T.A.W.F.A.W.W is an inventive, utterly compelling barrage of sneering cynicism mixed with driving hardcore and about as progressive as this genre gets. [Austin Tasseltine] PLAYING CCA, GLASGOW ON 7 APR

BESPOKE

Daedelus can tear up a dancefloor with his live sets, but his recorded output is about as related to mainstream notions of ‘dance music’ as John Coltrane’s style was to Dave Brubeck’s. Just as Coltrane pushed and mutated jazz into new forms, drawing on a huge palette of influences, not just from music, so Daedelus reinvents and riffs on house, bossa nova, folk, electro, hip-hop, Victoriana and pastoral imagery. On Bespoke, his chosen palette is a blend of classical and folk instrumentation, overlaying the hip-hop drums of Sew, Darn, Mend or the clockwork 2-step styles of the exquisite opener Tailor-Made, featuring the beautiful vocals of Milosh, while Bossa makes a welcome return in Penny Loafers featuring Inara George. Overall, the effect is wondrously hypnotic; musical ideas crash and break against each other in a seamless, organic way, always with a sense of playful wonder. Bespoke is a joy from start to finish; and Daedelus one of the finest producers working today. [Bram Gieben]

LUNG CAPACITY

There are two ways of setting about summing up Lung Capacity, the latest album from Edinburgh’s brass-steppers extraordinaire. The first would be to focus on the exemplary musicianship on offer throughout, and the ways in which this 9-piece twist a wide-reaching variety of styles into novel ideas that even the most inventive of musical minds would struggle to conceive of, such as the unlikely brass-driven dubstep jam of Boney Kit Steppa, or the Carnivale toe-tapper that is El Malandro. But that would be missing the heart of the matter, namely the abundance of vitality that they proudly display in every flourish of accordion and frenetic trumpet blast, and the feeling of joy that the soul intercepts on each listen. It’s the spirit of celebration and drunken revelry, of plate smashing and Horas; if Lung Capacity doesn’t make you want to dance through to the next morning then you’ve never known how to party. [David Bowes] PLAYING GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART ON 15 APR AND EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOM ON 16 APR

PAT JORDACHE

MOON DUO

LITTLE SCREAM

25 APR, CONSTELLATION

18 APR, SOUTERRAIN TRANSMISSIONS

11 APR, SECRETLY CANADIAN

rrrr

rrr

rrrr

FUTURE SONGS

MAZES

Future Songs was first released as a low-quality, self-mastered cassette last summer. It looked destined to remain in such rough form when Pat Jordache’s laptop was tea-leafed from a cafe, 'til an old Mediafire account containing the original files was exhumed. They’ve been given a wipe-down and a tune-up for this rerelease, and praise Constellation for ensuring this remarkable record didn’t languish as the preserve of Montreal hipsters. It’s a fascinating listen, its peculiarities encapsulated by the unclassifiable closer ukUUU: six and a half minutes of string bending, field recordings, machine song and Jordache’s idiosyncratic croon. Yet despite its unorthodoxies, Future Songs remains ‘pop’, albeit in the same sense that John Maus or tUnE-YArDs (Merrill Garbus and Jordache previously played together in the also-ace Sister Suvi) are pop, with accessible melodies filtered through layers of hiss, fuzz and reverb. The results are comfortingly familiar, yet innovative and rather special. [Chris Buckle]

Thanks to some well-received EPs, last year's LP Escape, and the success of guitarist Ripley Johnson’s other band Wooden Shjips , there are some pretty cut-and-dry preconceptions as to how Moon Duo’s debut album would pan out, but there’s still enough in its 45 minutes to surprise even the most devoted of followers. It’s the output of two individuals who are not only considerably more relaxed, but also of a couple who are in a state of transition, a constant air of movement and progression evident from Ripley’s lazily advancing solos and Sanae Yamada’s eccentric organ meanderings. One thing that has remained intact from those earlier recordings is their well-established San Franciscan vibe, with Fallout propelling onwards with the kind of unhurried nonchalance that only SF could have birthed, coupled with the righteous abuse of sustain and distortion. It’d be simple to call Mazes a nostalgia trip, but fairer to call it a trip and leave it at that. [David Bowes]

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/MOUNTAINMANPATJORDACHE

WWW.MOONDUO.ORG

42 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

THE GOLDEN RECORD

Earlier in the year, a free download of The Heron And The Fox gave an early taste of Little Scream’s debut album. Modestly backed by The National’s Aaron Dessner, it felt honest and candid, with lines like “They say anything’s possible but I know that that’s not true, especially when it comes to you,” delivered with palpable sincerity. The Golden Record is a busier affair, with more prominent production on the likes of The Lamb rendering The Heron And The Fox’s simplicity the exception rather than the rule. Yet that’s never a flaw: Laurel Sprengelmeyer instead fulfils her promise via dissimilar yet complementary pairings like the sepulchral People Is Place and the exuberant Red Hunting Jacket, the latter a tap-shoe away from Tilly and the Wall. In Little Scream’s chosen musical style, the top of 2011’s podium may still belong to PJ Harvey, but The Golden Record can accept silver proudly. [Chris Buckle]

PLAYING CAPTAIN’S REST, GLASGOW ON 14 MAY WWW.LITTLESCREAM.COM

LE RENO AMPS

OvO

THE VIVIAN GIRLS

18 APR, ARMELLODIE

18 APR, SUPERNATUAL CAT

11 APR, POLYVINYL

rrr

rrrr

APPETITE

COR CORDIUM

SHARE THE JOY

Amongst the more perplexing criticisms to crop up in reviews is ‘X is not life-changing’. How much personal tumult does a listener actually crave? How unstable must emotions be for cataclysmic transformation to be not just a rarity, but a legitimate yardstick with which to beat those who don’t measure up? Is a record that leaves a listener relatively unchanged really a failure; surely enjoyment, however transitory, is honourable in itself? Take Le Reno Amps: they’re not life-changing (other than at the smallest biological level, with their catchy genre-hopping more than capable of getting the endorphins flowing) and they’re unlikely to be playing through your mind as you lie prostrate on your death bed. But for Appetite’s duration, they’ll lift spirits pleasingly with a mix of Elvis Costello-style pop (Saturation Day), haunted house theatrics (Never Be Alone) and Green Day circa Warning (You Must Remember). Screw hyperbole; that’ll do us nicely. [Chris Buckle]

Drifting in the limbo between the percussive sludge of Jucifer and the surreal assault of Fantômas is OvO, an Italian duo who have been conducting audio terrorism for the past five years, stripping metal down to its very foundations and crushing all beneath the power of their live shows. Cor Cordium captures this on record with terrifying accuracy, producing that same gravitational sense of dense claustrophobia but in the confines of your own headspace. Waves of distorted noise and feedback set an almost constant backdrop to Bruno Dorella’s precision-crafted drumming, made all the more impressive by the minimalistic kit which he utilises, while Stefania Pedretti’s guitar produces some of the most distressing noise ever emitted by a stringed instrument. Then there’s her voice, occasionally possessing the softness of a J-pop chanteuse but more often it’s near-demonic, a nightmarish array of growls, screeches and croaked whispers, guiding a twisting path through this harsh and fascinating journey. [David Bowes]

There’s not enough mathematical analysis in music reviews, is there? Shame – a wee bit of number crunching can be insightful. For instance, take the average track lengths of The Vivian Girls albums to date: approximately two minutes on their debut, two and a half on its successor, and now another thirty seconds added on their third. Seems they’re growing up and out, flexing their song-writing talents further with every release. Get closer, and you discover Share the Joy’s data is skewed by the six-minute outliers that top and tail the album. In a sense, they’re atypical, with Dance (If You Wanna) and Take It As It Comes elsewhere consolidating the charm and fuzzpop Spector-echoes that have long constituted the band’s sound. But they also reveal a more ambitious side to the Brooklyn trio; cut from the same cloth as their scrappier past, but, to mix metaphors, mining new seams. [Chris Buckle]

PLAYING GLASGOW CAPTAINS REST ON 21 APR

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/OVOBARLAMUERTE

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/VIVIANGIRLSNYC

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY

GLASVEGAS

MAZES

18 APR, BELLA UNION

OUT NOW, COLUMBIA

11 APR, FAT CAT

rrrrr

rrr

rrrr

TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE

EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\

Because of the often protracted periods between albums, a new Explosions record always brings with it a mixture of expectation and trepidation, but this…well, let’s just say there was no reason to fret. From the tranquil intro of Last Known Surroundings to its eventual ecstatic climax, everything sounds exactly like you think it should but in a beautifully adjusted fashion. Human Qualities then offers eight minutes of unadulterated bliss, while Trembling Hands picks up the pace with the most energised drumming Chris Hrasky has ever thrown down. Once again their strength is shown not only in their near-orchestral manipulation of dynamics but also in the intricacy of their melodies, flightily fluttering progressions that intertwine in the most dazzling of patterns, a crystalline whirl of musical ingenuity. With Take Care, Explosions in the Sky have abandoned any uncertainties and produced what may be the most polished and, dare we say, perfect album of their career. [David Bowes]

So here we go again, the difficult flipside to the great debut, as inevitable as glorious Scottish sporting failure. Euphoria and heartbreak, right enough. True brilliance rarely strikes twice, and rarer still twice in a row. And so it goes with Glasvegas’ second full-length outing, a decent enough collection of songs that see the four-piece abandon their emotional punch for extra reverb and a few FM friendly bass lines. There was a longing about the debut: for love, justice, for hope; Glasvegas were the archetypical band to believe in, and maybe still are. At times here they recall The Killers in their full pomp, done with a kooky Scottish accent. But glorious moments do break through the fuzz; see The World Is Yours and its chorus of “You don’t need me as much as I need you,” or the emotional confusion on Stronger Than Dirt, but EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ ultimately expresses more a longing for a larger share of the US market, than for the shared dreams of yore. [PJ Meiklem]

PLAYING HMV PICTURE HOUSE, EDINBURGH ON 15 MAY

PLAYING ABERDEEN MUSIC HALL ON 23 APR; EDINBURGH HMV PICTURE HOUSE ON 24 APR; GLASGOW 02 ACADEMY ON 25 APR AND ROCKNESS, INVERNESS ON 12 JUN

HTTP://WWW.EXPLOSIONSINTHESKY.COM/

A THOUSAND HEYS

After a bunch of splits and cassette releases, Londonbased quartet Mazes clambered onto the old Lightship 96, moored on the banks of the Thames, to kick out some warm analogue sessions. The upshot: a full-length debut entitled A Thousand Heys, running just over thirty minutes. The raw spontaneity of the record might be likened to snatching one’s eyelids and squirting limejuice in the sockets. A crude crayon title and the misshapen photograph of two warped urchins aptly bespeak the youthful delirium captured so succinctly on the LP, as Mazes spit out tracks scarcely longer than three minutes in length. With a punchy unadulterated sound more befitting the other side of the Atlantic, Mazes seem to suckle off Tom Petty’s teet, whilst Cooper’s vocals are distinctly redolent of Stephen Malkmus. Penultimate number, Death House, is of a noticeably more substantial nature, and suddenly a trashy record bursting with life is precipitating to a snappy close. Much to be cherished – well beyond the buoyancy of current touring partners Dum Dum Girls. [Era Trieman] PLAYING GLASGOW STEREO ON 3 APR

SARABETH TUCEK

TUNE-YARDS

COLD CAVE

OUT NOW, SONIC CATHEDRAL

18 APR, 4AD

OUT NOW, MATADOR

rrr

rrrr

GET WELL SOON

WHOKILL

Sarabeth Tucek’s second album is, as the title suggests, about illness – bodily and mental – and its overcoming. From the record’s opening line, “The world turned upside down,” a narrative unfolds that works through themes of bereavement, vulnerability and survival. On Smile For No One, The New Yorker’s sense that, alone, she is “free, but it’s not better” captures Get Well Soon’s powerful emotional ambivalence. Tucek’s voice and lyrics have a directness and intimacy which ensure that she stands alongside peers like Laura Marling, although that cannot fully compensate for a slight lack of imagination in the arrangements. The record’s themes are explored through the juxtaposition of sparse, mournful pieces like A View, and bruised country rock. On the closing title track, Tucek’s realisation that ‘looking back’ her mind ‘was cracked’, completes the record’s sense of progression and ultimate resolution – ensuring that Get Well Soon has a compelling narrative cohesion. [Sam Wiseman]

How do you follow a debut that fashioned pieces of Dictaphone recordings into a dog-eared – but utterly bewitching – showpiece of low-fidelity pop? Answer: you throw out the portastudio and move into a real one, expanding your band in the process. These are the tactics of tUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus, who gives clarity to the kitchen sink ethics of her homespun debut with crisper production on w h o k i l l. Her weapons of choice remain a distorted ukulele and those seductive-whisper-to-a-scat-rap vocals (horns, bass and drums are also present), and the style flits from rap to calypso via riot grrrl pop, in a veritable cocktail of genres. Brilliant moments abound – the sassy Powa and energised lead single Bizness to name but two – although Wooly Wolly Gong falls short of those, um, yArDsticks and live favourite Gangsta is muddied by a busy studio mix. Minor gripes on an otherwise charming and inventive release. [Martin Skivington]

PLAYING KING TUT’S, GLASGOW ON 8 MAY

PLAYING THE TUNNELS, ABERDEEN ON 14 JUN AND CAPTAIN’S REST, GLASGOW ON 15 JUN

PREFUSE 73

THE ONLY SHE CHAPTERS 25 APR, WARP

rrrr Followers of Guillermo Scott Herren’s work as leftfield electronica conjurer Prefuse 73 will naturally expect the unexpected, but his latest full-length under the guise is truly a puzzle to get all Sherlock Holmes over. Titled The Only She Chapters (each track name is prefixed with ‘The Only...’, but we’ll stick with the latter half of the titles here), it largely abandons the modular hip-hop constructions of his last few releases in order to build a labyrinth of sensual textures with percussion and obfuscated female vocal parts. Featuring no fewer than seven vocalists, each contribution is absorbed by Herren’s brew like a chopped ingredient, so that you might not recognise the voice of late Broadcast singer Trish Keenan on the fiendish Trial of 9000 Suns, or the fractured wail of Zola Jesus on Direction In Concrete. Strange and impenetrable though it can be, this is Prefuse 73 at his most compelling – an exemplary snapshot of modern psychedelia. [Martin Skivington] WWW.PREFUSE73.COM/

CHERISH THE LIGHT YEARS

The follow-up to 2009’s acclaimed debut Love Comes Close sees the New York-based Cold Cave continue to hone their addictive, irrepressible take on 80s goth and electro. Although Cherish the Light Years wears its influences on its sleeve – the Cure and Depeche Mode in particular – they function more as initiating inspirations than inflexible sonic templates. From opener The Great Pan is Dead onwards, the relentless, razor-edged industrial percussion underpinning the majority of these songs recalls A Place to Bury Strangers’ own updating of similar touchstones. The mood, though, eschews that outfit’s nihilistic fixations in favour of an overwrought romantic intensity. When the tempo does let up, as on the arpeggiated stadium electro of Underworld USA, the tone remains defiantly epic. There is sonic diversity and subtlety here, but a singularity of vision which means that, for all its pop sensibility, Light Years is an emotionally demanding record – and one which rewards the attention it craves. [Sam Wiseman]

TOP FIVE ALBUMS

THE GOLDBERG SISTERS

rrr

2 3 4 5

KODE9 & THE SPACEAPE

BLACK SUN

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY

TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE

TAKE A WORM FOR A WALK WEEK

T.A.W.F.A.W.W

PANDA BEAR

TOMBOY

LOW

C’MON

THE GOLDBERG SISTERS 11 APR, PLAY IT AGAIN SAM

Adam Goldberg is The Hebrew Hammer, director of I Love Your Work, Julie Delpy’s squeeze in Two Days in Paris – oh, and Chandler Bing’s nutty roommate. The Goldberg Sisters is destined to join his portfolio of projects that, to the world at large, remain less well-known than a stint on Friends fifteen years ago, but such is the legacy of a recurring role in the nineties behemoth (it took Paul Rudd years to lose the tag, “y’know, Phoebe’s husband”). As with former act LANDy, The Goldberg Sisters delivers dreamy pysch-pop; a natural fit given his fandom and friendship with the Flaming Lips (Goldberg crops up in both The Fearless Freaks documentary and Christmas on Mars). But the results feel largely wan, sitting too comfortably in the shadow of more daring practitioners. In the end, this is The One Where Goldberg Came Close to Something Awesome, But Fell Ever-So-Slightly Short. We still have hope. [Chris Buckle] WWW.ADAMGOLDBERGDILETTANTE.COM/

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 43

OPEN ‘TIL 3 AM 7 DAYS A WEEK GIGS 7.30PM-11PM EVERY NIGHT

FOOD SERVED 12.30-9PM EVERY DAY CLUBS WED-SAT 11.30PM-3AM

APRIL FRI 1 SAT 2 SUN 3 MO 4 TU 5 WE 6 THU 7 FRI 8 SA 9

SU 10 MO 11 WE 13 FRI 15 SA 16 SU 17 MO 18 TU 19 WE 20 THU 21 FRI 22 SA 23 SU 24 MO 25 TU 26 WE 27 TH 28 FRI 29 SA 30 VENUE

THE IMAGINEERS ERRORS + HAPPY PARTICLES SCORDATURA + GRANT ME REVENGE + TURYBNE ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) EPICO + THE WORKD UNSEEN + OBVIOUS OUTCOME MAGIC CIRCLE + THE GREAT NOTION + MOSCOW OLYMPICS + BLUE WATER THE SCUFFERS SONIC HEART FOUNDATION + EDINBURGH SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF AFTERNOON GIG: TRACER TRAILS PRESENT ELI KESZLER + IAN CAMPBELL + USURPER EVENING GIG: JAPAN TSUNAMI APPEAL NIGHT: BMX BANDITS + HONEY & THE HERBS + MORE EDGING ON ECSTACY + WARREN CAPALDI + THIRD LETTER’S DIFFERENT ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) MAN IN THE WINDOW + ALL STAR MEZZANINES + DJ MAXIROOTS PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH + SUIS LA LUNE + DEPARTURES + YOUR NEIGHBOUR THE LIAR + NOTEBOOKS WRONGNOTE + GUESTS SKULLFLOWER + WEREWOLF JERUSALEM + REPTILIAN BASTARDS ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) JAPAN TSUNAMI APPEAL NIGHT JOHNNY FOREIGNER INNER SIGHT + THE NK JAYS + FOLSOM PELMET NITES PRESENT: PART WIND PART WOLF NICE N SLEAZY CD COMPILATION LAUNCH NIGHT EDDY & THE T-BOLTS +BLOODLUNCH + SOUTHPAW ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) DANIEL HIGGS TRIO + SPECIAL GUESTS WHITE RIBBON CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISER: COMANAM + CHRISTINE BOVILL + MERCANT KNUT + KEELHAUL + BLACK SUN NAN TURNER + HAIGHT ASHBURY + FRANCES McKEE TIMES NEW VIKING + WET PAINT + KILL SURRRF

NIGHT CLUB

BAR

421 SAUCHIEHALL ST

GLASGOW

Wed 6th April

SECRET CDS with BIRDHEAD+ POLLY AND THE BILLETS DOUX+ SPARRAHAWK+ ROSIE NIMMO From 7.30pm in The Speakeasy. £3.

Sat 14th May

NICK HARPER

From 8pm .Advance tickets £10 stbf

Thirtieth birthday party

Thur 19th May GMH presents

MILLER+ KEITH JAMES LARRY AGAINST THE GRAIN

GMH presents

Thur 7th April

The songs of Leonard Cohen 7.30pm. Advance tickets £8.50 stbf

Fri 15th April

NEARLY DAN

The sound of Steely Dan 8pm. Advance tickets £14 stbf

Sat 16th April

We Luv Musik with CURATORS JOHNNY & THE GIROS, THE IMAGINEERS, BLOW, BEGBIE BOYLE

From 7.30pm in The Ballroom

Wed 20th April

From 7pm. Advance tickets £10 stbf

Sun 22nd May

Miles Hunt Erica Nockalls and

From 8pm. Advance tickets £8 stbf

Tue 31st May

SLUM VILLAGE

Kobi Onyame DJ Bunty Beats (Mixkings)

7.30pm . Advance tickets £15 stbf

LITTLE BUDDHA+THE CATHODE RAY+DONNA MACIOCIA Fri 3rd June From 7.30pm. Admission £5. GMH presents

Tues 26th April

CHANTEL MCGREGOR

7.30pm. Advance tickets £8.50 stbf

Thur 5th May

SHOOGLENIFTY

FORT KNOX FIVE (DEEJAY SET)

From 9pmAdvance tickets £6 stbf

Sat 11th June

ELIZA CARTHY

The Bevvy Sisters

From 7pm. Advance tickets £12 stbf

Fri 23rd Sept

7pm . Advance tickets £10 stbf

LEA DELARIA

Tickets for most shows available from The Voodoo Rooms, Ripping Records, Tickets Scotland and www.ticketweb.co.uk

www.thevoodoorooms.com

7.30pm. Advance tickets £17.50 stbf

WWW.NICENSLEAZY.COM

From 8pm - late in The Ballroom. Admission £18 stbf available from Ripping Records, Tickets Scotland (Edinburgh) & Ticketweb.

A festival in SW Scotland:

SATURDAY 16 APRIL 7.30PM

AFRICAN SOUL REBELS PRESENTS A world of music in the hills!

26th-29th MAY 2011 Horace Andy and Dub Asante * DJ Yoda * Salsa Celtica * DJ Food * Adrian Edmondson and the Bad Shepherds *

The Demon Barber Roadshow * Lau * Russkaja * Aberfeldy * Future Trad Collective ft Michael McGoldrick * Found * Hidden Orchestra *

SEUN KUTI & EGYPT 80 AND DONSO

Mungo's Hi Fi Sound System * Dr Meaker * Departure Lounge * Niteworks * Dolphin Boy * Bombskare * Mim Suleiman Gol * The Horndog Brass Band * Bajaly Suso * Black Cat * Northern Xposure * Stagger Rats * Walter Strauss * Asazi Space Funk Explosion * Captain Slackship's Mezzanine Allstars * Plus workshops, dance tent, crafts, kids area, real ales, stalls, sessions, healing area, open mic, cabaret, camping, cinema, silent disco

More info and tickets: www.knockengorroch.org.uk 01644 460 662

44 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

0131 228 1155

www.usherhall.co.uk

MUSIC

WILD LIFE

With TREMBLING BELLS’ third album on the way, drummer ALEX NEILSON is all too happy to debate the finer points of folk music. INTERVIEW: DAVID BOWES

ALEX NEILSON’S musical calibre is not something to be questioned, as the list of his collaborators will no doubt pay testament to. Jandek, Current 93, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; you name ‘em, chances are he’s got them on speed-dial, but 2009 saw his first release with Trembling Bells, a vehicle for making his way in a more song-oriented world. Two years on, he and his band are about to set off on an extensive UK and Ireland tour to celebrate the release of third full-length The Constant Pageant, another sublime mix of airy folkisms, psychedelia and the powerful voice of Lavinia Blackwall. We manage to catch a few words with him before he leaves for greener pastures. For the uninitiated, how would you describe the Trembling Bells live experience? Hopefully it’s quite varied from show to show. I like to use the gigs as an opportunity to road test

some of our newest songs so they are really well drilled by the time we come to record. We have been expanding our line up to accommodate some brass and accordion players to reflect the fuller sound you would hear on the albums. We’ve also been working with a female Morris dancing troupe called The Belles of London City and my brother, Oliver, has been doing some projections too, so hopefully it is more of an interactive ‘happening’ than a regular basement bar gig. What do you feel to be the biggest change in your music since the band’s inception? I guess getting Mike Hastings in on guitar was quite a big change from when the band first started. He has a really vibrant style and puts his all into everything he’s doing. I always think that he could be jamming Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and he would be sweating blood into it. This has

opened up more space for guitar solos and things like that – something I would have run a mile from when we first started. I’ve also been much more open to other styles of music infecting my song writing. I’ve been listening to a lot of country, easy listening and show tunes while trying to get to the very heart of classic song writing. Are there any rituals or patterns to your songwriting process? I find that mobility helps a lot. If I’m travelling then that helps stimulate the mind and I can think more clearly about what I’m doing, whether this is walking through the Clyde Tunnel to Scotstoun Swimming Baths or gazing at the bone-white remnants of the Acropolis while on tour in Athens. Travelling gives you a much healthier perspective and it’s much easier to see beyond the petty grind that you can lapse into when in the same place for too long. How much does location play a part in your sound? I am fascinated by the resonance certain places can have, which invests them with almost heroic proportions. The very name of a place itself can inspire awe and credibility. There are countless examples of this in American folk and pop music and beyond and I am trying to key into a mode which elevates places around Britain, which have a personal resonance, into the realm of myth and mystery. In this sense certain locations play a big part in the music we make; trying to mythologise a place which provided the backdrop to some great personal realisation or other. You’ve said that the reason the band was formed was to pursue more song-based structures. What do you think are the advantages of that over a looser, more free-form style of writing? Writing songs was a drastic change from what I had been doing previously – mainly improvisation, traditional folk singing and drumming for other people. It has been a way of combining my experiences of playing with lots of talented and unusual musicians over the years with all my other interests. It is a much more formally considered realisation of my interests than the improvised music that I was doing before but, in some ways, it feels like a natural refinement of many of the same themes. I am very interested in tapping into the elemental energy that traditional music and improvised music smacks of, but with more of a directly joyful aspect. The new album seems to have touches of Scottish, English and American folk music. Do you think that there are universal themes or sounds that are common to folk, regardless of the origin? It’s interesting to chart the migration of many of the antique British Folk ballads over to America. Fragments of native British songs are clearly discernable on the Harry Smith Anthology of American folk, for example, (The House Carpenter or The Cuckoo or Four Nights Drunk). It seems like some of the songs lost some of the paganistic/ supernatural quality when they travelled across the pond and were assimilated more for the purpose of social commentary than recounting some mythic tale of lycanthropy as an example of fatal love (eg Molly Bawn), though I do think that many traditional songs speak of archetypal human experience that are transferable between cultures and centuries even if the details and language can seem anachronistic.

Is there any desire to further explore new territories? As I said, I am listening to a lot of easy listening music – a term that I find to be very misleading as a lot of the music under this glitzy banner can be very melancholic and death defying – and recently my mother passed onto me details of a competition to submit a song entry for a musical so I might have a pop at that. I’m reading Steven Sondheim’s book to get some insights into the mechanics of The Classics. I’d also really love to do some percussion in an ‘early music’ ensemble. That is another big passion of mine that I would like to get more practical insight to.

❝

I’d probably be a professional footballer if it wasn’t for Trout Mask Replica ALEX NEILSON

❞ What would you be doing in your life if music wasn’t an option? Taking up music encouraged me to start smoking from the age of 13 and engage with my more feminine side. I’d probably be a professional footballer if it wasn’t for [Captain Beefheart’s 1969 classic] Trout Mask Replica. You’ve always had quite a hectic schedule. What do you have lined up for the near future? We’ve just had our third album out, The Constant Pageant, so we’ll be playing some dates around that. I’m also writing songs for our next album which is set to be a series of duets between Lavinia [Blackwell, Trembling Bells singer] and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy with Trembling Bells providing the backing. I’m helping curate a music festival with Alasdair from Le Weekend and Hamish from Café Oto to be held in Glasgow and London next year. I’m touring extensively with Current 93 and Baby Dee this year and playing at Ray Davies’ Meltdown, which I am super excited about as I’m a massive Kinks fan. What do you see yourself doing in ten years’ time? Same thing I’m doing now; nursing a failing liver and telling anyone who stands still that I used to drum with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (but with an expanded waistline and a retracted hairline). PLAYING EDINBURGH QUEEN’S HALL ON 15 APR; ABERDEEN LEMON TREE ON 16 APR AND GLASGOW ARCHES ON 17 APR THE CONSTANT PAGEANT IS OUT NOW VIA HONEST JON’S WWW.MYSPACE.COM/TREMBLINGBELLS

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 45

CLUBS

PREVIEWS Coalition presents AC Slater (Trouble & Bass) Sneaky Pete’s 17 Apr

Having recently hosted a packed out night with Dutch wonder kid Dem Slackers last month, Coalition are back with another heavy hitter on the electro scene: AC Slater. Being one of the backbones of USA label Trouble & Bass and recently starting up Party Like Us Records with Udachi and B. Rich, AC Slater has shown that he can move with the times and continue to be an innovator within the scene. Being responsible for some fantastic remixes from the likes of Boys Noize, Crookers and Jack Beats as well as a slew of original tracks, his take on electro has been a refreshing angle on the genre. This is truly a rare chance to catch him play in the sweaty and intimate Sneaky Pete’s. Support comes in the form of Bass Syndicate’s Believe, up and coming bass music producer and volume resident Paranoise and Coalition’s own aMeldrum. [Luke Dubuis]

TicTacToe Second Birthday The Arches Café 9 apr

This month TicTacToe will be celebrating its second birthday with a night of residents and friends. For a night that has only been running for such a short time, they have brought a number of Scottish exclusives to various venues across Glasgow before settling in the stylish surrounds of the Arches Café Bar, and attracting an equally stylish Glasgow following. So far this year they have already brought ‘act-of-the-moment’ Art Department to their new home, as well as announcing that they will be hosting the infamous Circoloco party when it comes to town in May in the main Arches venue with Matthias Tanzmann, Jamie Jones and Dan Ghenacia headlining. While most clubnights like to go all out for the birthday celebrations, this particular event will most likely be overshadowed by the hype for the next TicTacToe date. However this ‘residents and guests’ night should provide a good warm up for the Ibiza party, with TicTacToe DJs Andrew and Stevo Doran providing the tunes for the evening, accompanied by local friends Anna Gram, Domm (Subcity) and Brazz. [Kat Young]

17 Apr, 11pm - 3am, £2/£3

11pm-3am, Free preclub from 9pm, £5

Numbers with Shed & Lory D

Spectra presents Turbo w/ Gesaffelstein & Thomas Von Party

Sub Club 1 Apr

Numbers seem to be just about everywhere at the moment. A tour of the USA that incorporated Miami and SXSW, a label party at Bloc weekender, their first Edinburgh night, Jackmaster’s fabriclive mix due out in May, a showcase at Sonar. And in the middle of all of this, a return to the Sub Club with Shed and Lory D. Berghain resident and Ostgut Ton artist Shed makes his Numbers debut, bringing his own distinct brand of techno to the Sub Club. Known under various production guises including Wax and Eqd, you never really know what to expect from a Shed DJ set, except that it will be good. Having released his album The Traveller late last year, it signalled a shift from his club-friendly efforts to something altogether more boundary pushing, as Shed himself voiced his discontent with the outdated constraints of the genre and demonstrated an experimentation with the likes of dubstep and break beat within the techno tradition. Numbers favourite Lory D adds to the lineup ahead of his new EP, Strange Days Vol. 1 (NMBRS13) due to be released on the label. Playing techno since the early nineties in Rome, Lory D’s occasional Glasgow performances have become much anticipated events and will provide an excellent start to what will be surely be one of the best Glasgow Numbers events of this year. [Kat Young]

Stereo opens its arms out at the end of the month to welcome two of Turbo Recordings’ finest party smashers, Gesaffelstein and Thomas Von Party, courtesy of team Spectra. A truly raucous night is in the making with two of Tiga’s label’s most uncompromising artists at the helm – cue fervent embraces, ecstatic bouncing and a couple of hundred noise holes mouthing ‘WTF’ to one another in quick succession. Thomas Von Party, something of an artistic director for his older brother’s imprint, music video artist and all round tune mangler will no doubt have the place in pieces before many of the first drinks have been purchased, his highly adaptable and variant style suited to whatever situation he happens to find himself in. Add to this Gesaffelstein’s penchant for high octane, intelligently incandescent electro and you’re left with what promises to be an evening served well flambéd and dripping in Parisian brandy. With further upcoming releases on Turbo and Ed Banger, as well as being supported by James Holden, Chloé, Damian Lazarus and Laurent Garnier, Gesaffelstein is definitely one to keep your eye on (which may be more difficult than it sounds at this party). Bring sparklers.[Calum Sutherland] 11pm-3am, £8 early bird, £10 advance tickets

How’s Your Party? vs Killer Kitsch Presents: Congorock & Canblaster

Sensu Presents Loco Dice

How’s Your Party? will be squaring off with Killer Kitsch to offer one of this month's most exciting lineups featuring Congorock and Canblaster. Italy’s Congorock is no stranger to Scotland, having given a truly stellar performance in Edinburgh back in February. Within the past 12 months, Congorock has released a host of stunning remixes that have had both underground and commercial success. Expect to hear a bold percussive take on electro and fidget that has gained him support around the globe. The highlight of the night however will be the Scottish debut of the mad scientist of music, Canblaster. The young French producer is really at the forefront of modern French dance music, mixing elements of electro, ghetto, juke and bass emerging from the UK scene. With a fierce output in the past year, Canblaster has completed some mind bending remixes for the likes of Teki Latex, Drop the Lime and Crystal Fighters to name but a few. Be sure to head down to this for a truly futuristic musical display. [Luke Dubuis] 29 Apr, Sub Club, Glasgow 10pm - 3am, £8 advance £10 door, Advance tickets available from Tickets Scotland

46 THE SKINNY April 2011

We look forward to an Easter dance Eggstravaganza! Words: Craig Massie & Luke Dubuis

Stereo 29 apr

11pm - late, £10

Sub Club 29 Apr

Electric Frog Festival 2011

Sub Club 15 Apr

Sensu continue on with their succession of double take inducing bookings with Loco Dice; a dance floor hugging multi faceted sonic force who surely needs no introduction to anyone whose fists have ever grazed the roof of that beloved basement on Jamaica Street. Having reached a status of legendary proportions many years ago, Loco’s credentials are fairly mind blowing. Releases on Cocoon, M_nus, Cadenza, Ovum and his own imprint Desolat have brought him critical acclaim, a residency at DC-10, and never-ending worldwide bookings which render him nothing short of a wholly captivating and continually intriguing mainstay on the global techno scene. The intuitive and experimental nature of a Loco Dice set ensures something for everyone, funky tribalisms underpinned by the firmest of grooves which expand to reveal something soft and sweet at its minimalist core. Plus he brought 7 Dunham Place into all of our lives so you should probably go thank him personally for that whilst he’s here. Support comes from Paul Ingram who has consistently been a reason to get down early this year.[Calum Sutherland] 10pm-3am, £12

DJ Yoda

The Scottish weather isn’t known for welcoming festivals outwith the summer months, but it hasn’t subdued the population’s appetite for festivals all year round. For resourceful music lovers, there are so many ways to make use of warehouse space for what Electric Frog would humbly term a ‘micro-festival’, a term we’d use cautiously seeing as it’s doubled up since last years one day event, taking place on 23 and 24 April. Whilst capitalising on this expansion, they’ve managed to circumvent the problems of generating that real festival vibe within the city limits, with a host of bars, food vendors and the space to indulge in different styles of music throughout. The attractions are spread over the breadth of SWG3, a colossal warehouse complex that normally serves as a refuge for inspired artists. The lineup is a plucky challenge to any of the established Scottish festivals, boasting a roster of revered figures of the dance music world that have never failed to pull a crowd throughout their lengthy careers, to the cutting edge acts emerging from the UK. Saturday’s selection celebrates decades of glossy big-room music, Erol Alkan’s tidy blends of disco and electro, Glasgow chiefs Optimo represent their city with homegrown house and techno whilst Thunder Disco Club do likewise in their own soulful style. The first night also pays tribute to some seasoned masters of their musical craft that have consistently stood the test of time, namely Francois Kevorkian and Danny Krivit (both making exclusive Scottish appearances). They’re two beloved New York DJs who have had the pleasure of working with some of the world’s most iconic artists over several decades and have witnessed untold amounts of electronic music

being born from NY’s natural funk. Turntablist guru DJ Yoda is set to demonstrate the fine art of splicing pop-culture with all manner of tempo right through from hip hop to drum and bass, his love of diverse genres being well attuned to the feel of a true festival. The Sunday line up is a great marriage of old and new sounds that have been pushing the boundaries of dance music as we know it. As you would expect with any Glasgow event, Electric Frog stick to their roots with a healthy dose of techno, having leviathans Dave Clarke and Slam dominate the line up in an impressive show of force. Chicago’s Green Velvet will also be showcasing his percolated sound that has defined the landscape of house and techno coming from overseas. One would be fooled into thinking that Sunday was all about epic techno but for those of you who like your music sub heavy and future facing, look no further than the likes of Kode9 and L-vis 1990. Glasgow born Kode 9 will never fail to impress with his twisted approach to bass music that has made his label Hyperdub so successful. L-vis 1990 has also proven himself as one of the country’s most important tastemakers, co-running bass imprint Night Slugs alongside Bok Bok. Amongst the big names, local talent will be in no short supply, with dubstep act Electric Eliminators, and the lads from both Melting Pot and Animal Farm providing some beats to warm the day up. With the likes of Slam (a.k.a Pressure), Electric Elephant, Liquid Events and those at venue SWG3 coming together to make this possible, this Easter weekend is bound to be special. 23 & 24 Apr, SWG3, £25 day, £45 Weekender www.theelectricfrog.co.uk

CLUBS

clubbing HIGHLIGHTS Words: Ray Philp

Photo: Birgit Kaulfuss

Electro-house has long been fair game for music journalists. With a few notable exceptions, the genre’s short spell at the Zeitgeist of things owed much to its sheer, singular loudness, making its transition from big-time Charlie to scurrying prey that much faster. But, without wishing to exhume a corpse that was neither loved nor greatly missed, one fears that the bloodhounds might yet be exercised by the return of one of electro-house’s more celebrated exponents, Justice. While there isn’t the space for a thorough dissection of their long-awaited single, Civilisation, it would suffice to say that it isn’t much cop. And that’s a shame, because there are many other pellet-riddled, sidechained remains we’d sooner see splayed out on a cold slab. That said, one of the aforementioned notable exceptions has reasonable claim to represent all that was right with 2006. On the back of his new album Mosaik, a commendable longplayer released via Monkeytown Records, an appointment to see Siriusmo alongside Jackmaster, Spencer, and Modeselektor at The Arches on Fri 29 Apr comes highly recommended. Elsewhere, Optimo’s Hung Up! welcomes Oneohtrix Point Never to the Sub Club on Sun 10 April. Daniel Lopatin’s meditative take on techno and krautrock calls to mind the sort of ethereal textures last exercised by The Knife and Luke Abbot, though Lopatin’s hisses and frequency distortions will find company in a sprinkling of 4/4 alongside GAMES, one of his more dancefloor-oriented side projects. Jimmy Edgar’s irrepressible blend of post-Prince funk and Leisure Suit Larry electro finds a home at Hung Up! two weeks later on Sun 24 April.

After inviting Hyperdub’s Cooly G to Edinburgh last month, Ultragroove continues to broaden its palette on Sat 16 Apr with a Prime Numbers special at Cabaret Voltaire. While Linkwood and Fudge Fingas make mutual overtures to soulful house, Fudge Fingas’ luxuriant swells of mellow, Moodymann-evoking rhythms are offset nicely by Linkwood’s more industrial compositions, marrying metallic 80s synths and Mega Drive bleeps to substantial melodic undercurrents. Our ‘Hot Ticket of the Month’ Mount Kimbie find themselves at Wonky in the Bongo Club on Fri 22 April. Kai Campos and Dom Maker curate a melange of hollowed-out dubstep, house and broken beat that appeals to shoegazers and grooveheads in equal measure, and has a wider appeal than the ‘post-dubstep’ tag sometimes ascribed to them might suggest. Despite a two decade career at the hub of Amsterdam techno ecology, 2000 and One remains a low-key figure. A notable mix for the Voltt series, featuring tracks from David Labeij and Luciano, should serve as a decent primer if you find yourself swithering over his date alongside Circus ringleader Yousef at Musika in Liquid Room on Sat 9 April. Loco Dice’s appointment at Sensu in Sub Club on Fri 15 Apr should induce no such hesitation. The Düsseldorf DJ’s hip-hop origins, though often overstated as a direct influence, do at least transpose onto his innate understanding of the rhythmic relationships between techno, house and everything else in between. The following evening, Deadly Rhythm host a must-see date with Instra:mental, after pulling in the impressive 2562/A Made Up Sound for their inaugural night at La Cheetah last month.

MODESELEKTOR

April 2011

THE SKINNY 47

REVIEWS

March Events

FILM

The Cameo in Edinburgh continues its Werner Herzog season with Even Dwarfs Started Small (6 Apr), featuring a cast entirely made up of dwarves. It is followed by The Enigma of Kasper Hauser (13 Apr), based on the true story of a man who appeared in Nuremberg in 1928 after allegedly being held captive for his entire life, and Heart of Glass (20 Apr). A prolific director with sixty films under his belt, Herzog is one of the most fascinating and diverse filmmakers today, and this is a rare chance to see his earlier works on the big screen.

Essential Killing Even dwarfs started small

Meek’s Cutoff

Essential Killing

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski

Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Shirley Henderson, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano Released: 15 Apr Certificate: TBC

Starring: Vincent Gallo, Emmanuelle Seigner, David L. Price Released: out now Certificate: 15

rrrrr

rrrr

In the stark, arid landscape of the Oregon Trail, a small group of people wander aimlessly towards an uncertain destination. Kelly Reichardt’s remarkable Meek’s Cutoff tracks the three families who have followed their guide Stephen Meek (an unrecognisable Bruce Greenwood) into the wilderness, and examines the critical decisions they are faced with as they realise they are hopelessly lost. Do they stick with this increasingly unreliable and mysterious blowhard? Or do they follow a different path, one that could lead them to either salvation or damnation? Simultaneously a compelling allegory and a hallucinatory fable, Meek’s Cutoff is the most ambitious and accomplished film Reichardt has yet made. Thanks to her rigorous and richly atmospheric direction, her impressive use of sound (and, just as potently, silence) and her brilliant work with the cast, Meek’s Cutoff feels like a distinctive and precious American masterwork. The film’s vivid sense of place and unsettling ambiguity lend it a timeless, dreamlike quality, making it both the strangest and finest revisionist western since Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. [Philip Concannon]

After being detained as an enemy combatant, Taliban fighter Mohammed (Vincent Gallo) is fortuitously freed mid-rendition, forcing the escapee to endure the inhospitably alien wilds of rural Poland. If you’re averse to political preaching, fear not: geopolitics acts as little more than window dressing in Jerzy Skolimowski’s wilfully enigmatic but structurally-familiar drama. Essential Killing is effectively Homeward Bound with plucky pets and jovial hijinks replaced by a beardy Gallo and existential despair; a wilderness drama uninterested in wagging fingers at Bush’s terror war or the Taliban insurgency, driven by a mute protagonist whose actions are born of desperation rather than ideology. Gallo – so frequently a liability – is the film’s strongest asset: willing to go to trademark extremes (add ‘breastfeeding from an unconscious woman’ to his list of onscreen depravity), yet otherwise carefully cryptic. The oblique tone may itself constitute an endurance test for those craving polemical engagement, but for the patient, Mohammed’s twin journeys (both geographical and metaphysical) prove magnetic. [Chris Buckle]

Pina

Little White Lies

Director: Wim Wenders

Director: Guillaume Canet

Starring: The Tanztheater Wuppertal Released: 22 ApR Certificate: U

Starring: François Cluzet, Marion Cotillard, Benoît Magimel, Gilles Lellouche Released: 15 Apr Certificate: 15

The Filmhouse in Edinburgh is collaborating with the Edinburgh International Science Festival, screening a season of documentaries and classic films between 9-18 Apr. Included in the programme is The Big Blue, a rare cult classic by Luc Besson starring Jean Reno, and Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts, a black comedy about twin zoologists and their growing obsession with life and death. The latter is followed by a Q&A session with Frank Hepburn of BBC Scotland’s project Afterlife: The Science of Decay.

The Big Blue

rrrrr

rrrr

A long-held passion project of director Wim Wenders, who had planned a collaboration with renowned choreographer Pina Bausch before her untimely death in 2009, Pina is simultaneously a gorgeous tribute to Bausch, Wenders’ most vital film in years, and a remarkable example of what 3D can add to the cinema experience. Using dancers who worked with Bausch and learned their craft under her, Wenders stages four of her most acclaimed choreographies as well as giving each dancer the opportunity to honour their mentor through solo performances. The result is a film that’s mesmerising to watch; an enthralling celebration of movement, energy and imagination. Wenders captures these bodies in motion with some fluid, subtly composed camerawork, and he uses the third dimension at his disposal to create a sense of spatial awareness that draws us into each routine. This approach works particularly well in the Café Müller and Le Sacre du Printemps sequences, but nearly every scene has something wondrous to behold. Pina is one of a kind. [Philip Concannon]

Guillaume Canet’s follow-up to Tell No One is a change of pace, from intense thriller to ensemble comedy-drama, but it’s no less compelling. Starring François Cluzet and Marion Cotillard, the film concerns a group of thirtysomethings as they holiday at wealthy friend Max’s (Cluzet) beach house. All the while, one of their number lies in a critical condition in a Parisian hospital, having been involved in a brutal traffic accident at the film’s opening. Inevitably tensions between the friends escalate and they struggle to keep the titular fibs and secrets that exist between them unexposed. In a style reminiscent of Woody Allen, Canet balances the characters’ fraught relationships with the script’s lighter comedy, keeping the audience invested in a group who many may relate to but whose lifestyle is seemingly fantastical. Regardless of how odious their actions may seem, the characters are well defined and their faults entirely human. As a result it is no strain to spend the film’s 154 minute runtime in their company. [David McGinty]

Killing Bono

Oranges and Sunshine

Director: Nick Hamm

Director: Jim Loach

Starring: Ben Barnes, Robert Sheehan Krysten Ritter, Pete Postlethwaite Released: out now Certificate: 15

Starring: Emily Watson, David Wenham, Hugo Weaving Released: 1 Apr Certificate: 15

For many there’ll be no more tantalising film title this year than this one based on Neil McCormick’s autobiographical tale of his rivalry with high-school chum Paul Hewson. By the late 80s, one had become an arrogant frontman with bad hair and the other had turned out exactly the same, but with international success and an endorsement from the Pope. Ben Barnes is pleasantly goofy as the hubristic McCormack, a man incapable of making a wise career decision for himself or his gormless brother and band-mate Ivan (Misfits motor-mouth Robert Sheehan), and Pete Postlethwaite, in his swan song, is gloriously camp as the boys’ predatory homosexual landlord. Hamm’s knockabout direction rattles and hums, but there’s little mileage in jokes about 80s fashion and well-read gangsters. More disappointing than the lame script, however, is that bogus title. Rather than cudgel Bono it cuddles, portraying the diminutive singer as a humble altruist with piercing eyes and the patience of a saint – even his mullet looks good. This isn’t homicide, it’s hagiography. [Jamie Dunn]

Diplomatic dilemma and political blame-dodging; children being removed from their mothers, dispatched for ‘better lives’ in the colonies only to be abused by the very institutions responsible for their wellbeing. It’s potentially captivating, but Jim Loach misses the mark somewhat with his debut feature. ‘Based on a true story’, social worker Margaret Humphreys (Watson) travels to Australia in an attempt to reunite British orphans with their families some thirty years after their deportation. Opting for the Erin Brockovich approach, Loach uses Humphreys to provide not only the film’s perspective, but also its sentimental focus. This is where problems begin. It’s difficult to care about Humphreys’ strained family life – complete with supportive husband and relatively understanding children – within the context of the horrific accounts being retold by the victims of abuse. Consequently any interest in the film dwindles, and the compulsory ‘where they are now’ credits evoke, at most, an ennui-inspired shoulder shrug. A disappointing attempt to illuminate a dark time in Commonwealth history. [David McGinty]

48 THE SKINNY April 2011

In Dundee the DCA is offering a chance to see Howard Hawks’ convoluted classic, The Big Sleep on 3 and 4 Apr. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the detective story featuring blackmail, gambling and murder is based on a novel by Raymond Chandler and demands multiple viewings – mainly in an attempt to understand the plot, but also for the sizzling onscreen chemistry between the two leads. All Night Horror Madness returns to the Cameo on 23 April, with five more films to give you nightmares – if you dare to fall asleep, that is. Starting at 10pm, this is not an event for the faint hearted or very sleepy, with movies like Re-Animator, a gory horror-comedy based on an H P Lovecraft story, and Dario Argento’s Opera, a slick, stylised tale of obsession and murder. Also screening are Flesh For Frankenstein, Society and Braindead. Finally, the GFT in Glasgow is hosting a special event in which Keith James, a well known acoustic guitarist and singer, provides a live concert of Leonard Cohen songs. Cohen is one of the most famous Canadian singer-songwriters, with a lucrative and influential career. James’ interpretations of his songs aim to ‘strip the songs down to their roots’. A special documentary about Cohen’s life and music will be screening as part of the event on 10 Apr.[Becky Bartlett]

Leonard Cohen

FILM

DVD REVIEWS THE TUNNEL

BLOOD SIMPLE

THE BE ALL AND END ALL

DIRECTOR: ROLAND SUSO RICHTER

DIRECTOR: ZHANG YIMOU

DIRECTOR: BRUCE WEBB

STARRING: HEINO FERCH, SEBASTIAN KOCH RELEASED: 25 APR CERTIFICATE: 12

STARRING: SUN HUNGLEI, YAN NI, NI DAHONG RELEASED: 18 APR CERTIFICATE: TBC

STARRING: JOSH BOLT, EUGENE BYRNE, LIZA TARBUCK RELEASED: 11 APR CERTIFICATE: 15

rrr

rrrr

Made in 2001, The Tunnel’s longdelayed release in Britain – and its origins as a television movie – is no indication of its quality. Inspired by the true story of a group of people attempting to help their loved ones escape from East Germany by way of an ambitious tunnel below the newly erected Berlin Wall, Roland Suso Richter’s film is a masterclass in suspense and tightly-wound drama. One does not require great knowledge of the historical events in order to sympathise with the characters’ mission; this is about the lengths people will go to for their families. There are solid performances throughout, with Heino Ferch (Downfall) particularly impressive – as the group’s leader, he is ruggedly charismatic and bears a striking resemblance to Bruce Willis at his best. Expertly shot, The Tunnel is captivating and emotional, while its lengthy running time (edited to 160 minutes) passes by quickly, particularly during the tense, desperate, thrilling finale. [Becky Bartlett]

In this re-make of the Coen brothers' tourniquet-tight thriller about what happens to best laid plans, sweaty Texas is swapped for the scorched deserts of ancient China. Here an adulteress and her lover brainstorm about bumping off her rich husband. The big boss gets wind of their affair, however, and sets his own plan in motion – greasing a policeman to do away with both. When the copper brings his own schemes to the mix, it’s not long before arses can’t be told from elbows. With its slapstick comedy, bizarre setting and psychedelic filters, watching Zhang Yimou’s Blood Simple is like blearing at an episode of Monkey through a bong cloud. It’s a look that works with the nightmarish quality of the story. Because the characters are so outlandish though, it’s hard to buy into the base instincts behind their actions. Gaudy and ridiculous, Yimou’s re-imagining is a welcome change from Hollywood’s paint-by-number re-makes of Asian cinema. [Alastair Roy] WWW.THE-ASSOCIATES.CO.UK/DISPLAYTITLE.PHP?ID=540

As if adolescence isn’t difficult enough, The Be All and End All does a commendable job in giving perspective to teenage trials within the much broader scheme of life, without detracting from their importance. Robbie (Josh Bolt) and Ziggy (Eugene Byrne) are best friends whose main concerns centre around football and losing their virginity, when Robbie‘s hungover collapse one morning leads to the devastating discovery he has a terminal heart condition. Instead of becoming less important, these wants become amplified, and with their only meaningful communication being exclusive to each other, Ziggy sets out to ensure his friend's dying wish is fulfilled. While the story is undermined slightly by the occasional woodenness, the convincing performances of the two central leads and their parents manage to rescue the film from turning into children’s TV drama. Tending towards realism yet also successful in its farcical shenanigans, this tragic buddy-movie captures the limbo of burgeoning adulthood in an unusually engaging way. [Juliet Buchan]

SOMEWHERE

WAKE WOOD

THE TOURIST

DIRECTOR: SOFIA COPPOLA

DIRECTOR: DAVID KEATING

DIRECTOR: FLORIAN HENCKEL VON DONNERSMARCK

STARRING: STEPHEN DORFF, ELLE FANNING RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 15

STARRING: AIDAN GILLEN, EVA BIRTHISTLE, TIMOTHY SPALL RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 18

STARRING: ANGELINA JOLIE, JOHNNY DEPP, PAUL BETTANY RELEASED: 25 APR CERTIFICATE: 15

rrr

With its insider depiction of Hollywood life Somewhere will do little to change the minds of those critics who have seen director Sofia Coppola as a movie brat trading on her gilded upbringing. Johnny Marco (Dorff) is a troubled film star living at the Chateau Marmont in LA. His life is a round of parties, casual sexual encounters with beautiful women, and press calls at which he gets asked banal, yet existentially disturbing questions like: “Who is Johnny Marco?”. Unexpectedly, his teenage daughter (ably played by Fanning) comes to stay and her presence seems to invigorate him. After her departure his disaffection returns and turns to depression. With its long, slow takes and cool, detached visuals Somewhere is never less than watchable. It paints a seductively melancholic picture of Hollywood stardom, but after the clunkily symbolic final scene, there remains a sense that it is little more than an exercise in aspirational angst. Oh, to be young, famous and depressed. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

It’s fitting that the revitalised Hammer Films should return to what they do best: a creepy supernatural tale about a middle class couple who get more than they bargained for. In this case a secret village ritual allows grieving parents a chance to spend another three days with their daughter, but violating the pact between the world of the living and the dead has dangerous consequences. Right from the start there’s a cheeky sense of Hammer coming into the 21st century. In days gone by, we’re told by a wonderful Timothy Spall as the village leader, mystics would have crushed bones with a sledgehammer but these days they sensibly use a forklift truck. The traditions and customs of the town are fascinating. As is the resurrection ritual itself, a delicious mix of farmyard paganism and literal (re)birth. Less successful are the two (terrible) leads and an underdeveloped threat. But long afterwards the images remain. A spine-chillingly good return for Hammer. [Scotty McKellar]

WWW.FOCUSFEATURES.COM/SOMEWHERE

WWW.HAMMERFILMS.COM/PRODUCTIONS/FILM/FILMID/10/WAKE-WOOD

Hollywood and European glamour collide, leaving the scattered fall-out that is Oscar-winning director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark’s The Tourist. Jolie stars as enigmatic beauty Elise. She’s under surveillance by gangster Reggie Shaw since her boyfriend, mysterious embezzler Alexander Pearce, has him monumentally pissed off. Hapless tourist Frank (Depp) – perhaps math academia’s only first-class traveller – is the target of her faux-affections in order to confuse poor Scotland Yard. Predictably, none of them are what they seem, so it’s fairly easy to guess who really works for whom. Hollywood is as Hollywood does, and The Tourist’s head-on approach is almost refreshing. What kills it is the self-aggrandising tone and showbiz cliché that pervades it from start to finish. Like a trashy sunbed parlour, the film labours under the pretence that glamorous starlets speaking bad French with cardboard cut-out Englishmen in suits (that means you, Bettany) makes for a suspenseful thriller with elegant European refinement. But isn’t Venice pretty? [Nicola Balkind]

LAUNCHES SUNDAY MAY 1ST 2011

APOLLO23.COM LAUNCH SHOW SUNDAY MAY 1ST 2011

FISHBONE the hostiles DOORS 7.00 PM | £15 ADV

Ginger (Solo Acoustic Tour)

WEDNESDAY

MAY 4TH £10 ADV

THURSDAY

MAY 19TH £10 ADV

[THE BLANKS] SUNDAY

JUNE 26TH £10 ADV

SUNDAY

OCT 9TH £14 ADV

APOLLO23.COM

APOLLO 23, 11 RENFREW ST, GLASGOW, G2 3AB TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM WWW.APOLLO23.COM WWW.SEETICKETS.COM RIPPING RECORDS WWW.TICKETSOUP.COM WWW.TICKETS-SCOTLAND.COM

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 49

ART

RSA New Contemporaries It takes stamina to brave the abundance of the New Contemporaries show. The Skinny reports back from the front line words: emma fyvie photos: Chris Fernandez

Stephen Thorpe

REVIEW

Strange Loops @ Generator Projects Generator Projects Until 24 Apr

rrr Not often will you find a gallery deviating quite so boldly from the traditional group show format. With the Craig Mulholland-curated exhibition Strange Loops at Generator Projects, most aspects remain the same: there are more than two artists, a curator, a title, a map of the gallery and a piece of accompanying text. But beyond the comfort of these exhibitionary customs, Strange Loops is a veritable recurring nightmare. Entering the first of three rooms you find a conventional exhibition with six works, one by each of the participating artists. Some of the artworks are floor-based while some hang on the wall. No surprises so far. Textile designer Carmel O’Brien’s intricately pleated skirt and collar, pinned to a tailor’s dummy, is an intriguing study of repetition in design. Sovay Berriman’s spindly-legged, triangular sculpture, made from old doors, has an odd black growth

50 THE SKINNY April 2011

Now in its third year, RSA New Contemporaries brings Scotland’s latest art graduates to the attention of the capital’s gallery-going public. Evolving from their annual student show, this exhibition of almost sixty artists serves to reinforce the Scottish Academy’s commitment to supporting the best and brightest of contemporary art and architecture. It’s also a good opportunity for visitors to invest in the future of British art, as most of the pieces on display are available to buy. In an exhibition dominated by painting, the installation pieces more than hold their own, and the most successful of these have a distinct ecological theme. Kim W. Wilson’s peat, ash and gelatine composition easily dominates the room with its interesting contrasts of colour and texture, while Shaun Fagan’s trembling Perspex hemispheres and Colin Bury’s bustling mix of flora and scaffolding also hint at an exciting future for installation art. There is similarly a nod to the recent past in some of the compositions. Jamie Robinson’s installation that comprises a series of screens and cables is reminiscent of Jenny Marketou’s Translocal: Travels in my Tent (1996-2001), which tapped into a cultural fascination with globalisation in art. And in the hallway stands an imposing white box by Francesca Miller. Recalling Rachael Whiteread’s seminal Ghost (1990) – a large plaster cast of the inside of a room – the stark, white-cube exterior juxtaposes an interior clad with reclaimed wood. In the main hall the more monumental works are invited to battle it out amongst themselves. Ruth A. Nicol’s exciting landscapes merge romanticism and urbanism to captivating effect. Across the room, Gordon Simpson’s steel constructivist elevation is almost overwhelming in its scale, geometry, exploring light and shadow through glossy surfaces and jostling plains. Equally arresting is the work of The Skinny award-winner Stephen Thorpe, whose beautifully vibrant oil on canvas works evidence great accomplishment. Thorpe seamlessly guides the eye around a large-scale work, displaying a style evoking Robert Rauschenberg in his use of cultural comment and Zeitgeist merging.

With such a large exhibition of works you’d perhaps expect to find only very few diamonds in the rough, but this is certainly not the case. There are a few artists that stand out among the high calibre works and will no doubt be ones to watch in years to come. Alongside the graduates mentioned above, Susan Gauld’s charming paintings combine pretty pastel shades of enamel with scratchy line to recall old-fashioned swimming baths with a Hockney-esque aesthetic. Mary Wintour’s series successfully harbours a quiet hostility quite distinct from anything else adorning the walls of the main hall. The paintings of Shaun O’Donnell are similarly intriguing in their compelling mix of frenzied painterly flesh amidst a serenely abstracted environment, as if portions of a Jenny Saville portrait were banished to a Surrealist purgatory. There is undeniably a lot to enjoy in this show and therefore even greater expectations for the future of contemporary art. This exhibition of exciting new artists provides an opportunity to see the next generation of art graduates under one roof, and maybe even invest in the art market. A must see exhibition for collectors and the curious alike. until 13 apr www.royalscottishacademy.org

Jamie Robinson

PREVIEW

on one corner, undermining its geometry. Craig Mulholand has made a mosaic spelling out “THIS IS NOT A MESSAGE” using a substance called silicon carbide, a compound with multiple applications, used in electronics, bullet-proof vests and in the creation of the gemstone moissanite. At the threshold of the second room, it’s immediately apparent that it contains the same artworks as the previous room. There’s the same pleated design, the same triangular sculpture and the same mosaic text. And then once again in the third room. It’s more than unsettling. The works, now devoid of any apparent aura, are oddly devalued as unique objects, slightly altering in scale in accordance with the size of the room they inhabit. One of the most interesting and ambitious exhibitions seen in a while, it is nonetheless unclear if this is the work of six autonomous artists or a vehicle for Craig Mulholland. Where the exhibition’s conceptual underpinning destabilises the individual works, the exhibition as a work of art in itself here dominates. [Andrew Cattanach] www.generatorprojects.co.uk

Ric Warren @ The David Dale Borders, Boundaries & Barricades: Redeveloping Geographies of Division David Dale Gallery and Studios Until 24 Apr

The title of Ric Warren’s new show is a bit of a mouthful. Typically bookish for the David Dale Gallery, it evokes arid lecture theatres and overlooked essays. But let’s face it, Warren has a thing about divisions (and alteration, it would seem). Continuing his exploration of demarcating territories and urban space, one of his works will cut David Dale gallery in two. A large installation that bisects the space, he hopes to confront the viewer with unavoidable questions about the urban landscape and to what degree we can say it’s ours. Inspired by Sol LeWitt’s modular structures, the wall will have a macho, minimalist look. “It suggests a quiet, territorial war that’s constantly there but you’re not really aware of it because it happens slowly,” says Warren. “It’s also about the temporal nature of construction sites – once

the barriers have been removed, the boundaries are still there. Whatever reason is behind the regeneration of the area, it constitutes a sort of conceptual barricade.” If you’ve seen his recent work, you’ll know it lies somewhere between a golden jobby and a ghetto romance. Well, expect nothing less nuanced from this new work. Gentrification, ghettoisation, and now civil unrest – it’s all in there. And according to Warren, “It’s not all about the middle classes being the baddies.” Except that sometimes, it is. Is the work about the rugged Glasgow east end? “No, but it is about Glasgow, as much as it is about any city. The fact that there’s this inevitable period of regeneration or dilapidation – it’s constantly shifting. That’s what I like about Glasgow. Even in the time that I’ve been here, it’s changed so much.” [Jac Mantle] David Dale Gallery & Studios 71-73 Brook Street Bridgeton Glasgow G40 2AB www.daviddalegallery.co.uk

BOOKS

REVIEWS THE FOLDED EARTH BY ANURADHA ROY

rrrr

Set in the Himalayas, The Folded Earth tells the story of Maya, a young widow who has moved far away from home in order to come to terms with her loss. Other tales are intertwined with her own, however: the stories of the chosen family she comes to treasure in her new surroundings; memories of the aristocracy of India past; religious tensions stoked by opportunistic politicians. As the seasons change, the narrative weaves its way through descriptions of the town of Ranikhet and the mountains in which it lies, so vivid that you can almost smell the earth after the monsoon. Maya’s easy interactions with her neighbours give her a sense of belonging, but secrets still need to be kept and it seems that danger is on its way in one form or another. It’s a complicated story, but it never becomes confusing – a rare and admirable feat. With so many things taking place, the question is how it will end: in love, death, war? This is a breathtakingly beautiful tale, one that remains with the reader after its conclusion, told with great affection and compassion for its complex characters and their contradictions. [Nine]

DIGITAL

OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY MACLEHOSE. COVER PRICE £18.99 HARDBACK

BITE-SIZED TECH NUGGETS WITH ALEX COLE

KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT

FILMISH #3

BY COLIN COTTERILL

BY JO LANGER

rrrrr

rrrrr A re-release of a book first published in 1979, Convictions details Jo Langer’s incredible story of survival in 1950s Communist Czechoslovakia. Langer and her husband Oscar escaped to America during the Second World War, later returning to Czechoslovakia to help build communism. She worked for state exports in Bratislava, while he was a respected economist for the Central Committee. In 1951 Oscar Langer was arrested and detained as part of the anti-semitic purge of the Communist Party that culminated in the infamous Slánský trials. Following anti-Semitic abuse, threats against his family, beatings and solitary confinement, he eventually submitted and was imprisoned. Jo Langer lost her job and was exiled to the countryside, where she fought courageously to piece her life back together. In this impassioned, brutal testimony, she describes trying to protect her two daughters, as she survives the loss of her husband, as well as the loss of her place in society and her faith in communism. Langer’s writing is heartfelt, fiercely intelligent and witty, and it, importantly, manages to completely avoid sensationalism. Convictions is important as a declaration of the terrible costs of political regression, detailing the incredible human capacity to survive the inhuman. An unquestionable classic. [Rebecca Isherwood] OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY GRANTA. COVER PRICE £12.99

Looking for a mystery featuring a murdered monk, a camp-as-Christmas cop and a canine kleptomaniac? You may be in luck. Killed at the Whim of a Hat brings together an assortment of unlikely characters for a quirky crime story set in Thailand. It’s narrated by the melodically-named Jimm Juree, a crime reporter who’s on the verge of promotion when her mother suddenly uproots the family from the big city to a sleepy fishing village. With little to do but gut mackerel, Jimm resigns herself to life in Dullsville. But famine turns to feast when she’s faced with three simultaneous mysteries, including a brutal murder in the nearby Buddhist monastery. Cracking these cases will take all of Jimm’s resourcefulness, along with the support of her oddball family and the theatrical Lieutenant Chompu. It’s a light-hearted tale, as whimsical as its title. But even the cast of eccentric characters can’t save a plot that’s lacking in Thai spice. There’s never any real sense of danger, and the resolution is barely credible. That said, the story is related with a comical charm that’s reminiscent of another single-minded female crime-buster. It could easily have been renamed The Number One Ladies’ Crime Reporting Agency. [James Carson] OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY QUERCUS. COVER PRICE £16.99.

BY EDWARD ROSS

Filmish Number 3 is here, and it is as enjoyable as the first two. If you haven’t seen it before, Filmish is a comic where author Edward Ross appears himself, and talks about some aspect of film theory, whilst in the background images play out to illustrate his points. This makes detailed ideas digestible, and there are little visual jokes along the way, like Ross appearing as Chaplin’s tramp. This issue is one whole essay on ‘Technology and Technophobia’, a great subject in that it gives Ross many goodies to draw – see the panels referencing Things To Come, or the giant ants from Them for examples. Ross takes a chronological approach, showing how film responded as art to technological changes (mechanisation, war, atomic bombs, genetic code) as well as actually being affected by technology itself. Ross views this as a generally positive step, where the micro-budget films that can now be produced, such as The Blair Witch Project, Primer, Colin and Super Size Me have freshened up the industry. It’s a persuasive argument, and it’s backed up by a phenomenally detailed bibliography, quite revolutionary for a 22-page comic! Filmish is a well researched, well drawn and well argued delight. Go buy. [Johnny Chess] FILMISH CAN BE BOUGHT FROM THE AUTHOR’S WEBSITE FOR £3, OR IN VARIOUS FILM THEATRES AND COMIC SHOPS EDWARDMAROSS.BLOGSPOT.COM

DEATH OF THE DESKS PCs have had a good run, but it's over. No, wait, good is the wrong word WORDS: ALEX COLE ILLUSTRATION: JACK HUDSON

YEAH, I’M calling it. I mean, it’s been called before, but this is The Skinny, so you know it’s true now. The PC is dead. I don’t just mean that dusty old Dell desktop you fobbed off on your parents. I mean that shiny new MacBook on your desk, the laptop you brought to uni, the gaming rig you built to play Crisis. All of ‘em. They’re dead. You’re witnessing the last few generations of computers as we know them. And it’s all your fault. Computers didn’t start out as models of user friendly shininess. They were built by nerds to decode wartime signals and fit inside rooms. Even when the first desktop PCs landed, they only used text, the games sucked, and no one had any idea what they would use one for. Sure, businesses picked them up, but they had money to burn. Slowly, people found a reason to buy one: games. They were awesome. And then, one by one, came the internet, email, websites, IMs, mapping, shopping, and certainly not porn. Computers finally found a reason to exist in your home, and your life. All that other stuff, like the programming, the crazy hardware and driver setups, the databases – no one really wanted those. And now that hardware’s finally caught up, with Wi-Fi and touchy screens, now we can put only those important things onto one device, and take it with us. A smartphone, a tablet, whatever fits in your bag. It does all the things you really need, everything you did on your laptop, if you’re honest, and makes it simple enough for toddlers. Sure, if you’re making games or apps, editing video, or going on a marathon novel writing session, you’ll still need a proper keyboard and

THE FEED

CONVICTIONS: MY LIFE WITH A GOOD COMMUNIST

DRAGON AGE 2 PUBLISHER: BIOWARE RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW CONSOLE(S): PC, PS3, XBOX 360 PRICE: £28.99

rrrr

a crazy graphics card. But that’s for people who make things with computers. If you just want to read a blog, post a message on Facebook or watch YouTube, you don’t need any of that nonsense. PCs started as specialty tools for nerds who

had a reason to use them, and that’s where they’re going to end up. You can do everything you really want to on some other toy, something small and svelte that you can lose in your couch. And now you don’t have to figure out why reading Twitter feeds cost you two month’s rent.

BioWare’s one of those gaming firms that’s always done their own thing. Even when they're behind other properties like table-top RPGs and Star Wars, every one of their games has a solid story, characters and dialogue, nuanced gameplay (that you can still bullrush through) and a well-earned feeling of epicness when you’re all done. They don’t do FPSs, don’t do multiplayer, and definitely don’t do sports. They do BioWare, and that’s it. With the Dragon Age series, they tried to stitch together a new fantasy RPG landscape, and more or less succeeded. With this sequel, instead of building a character entirely from scratch, you’re acting out the key details of the hero Hawke, a pivotal figure in the world. The gameplay has been given a much-needed bit of polish, making in-the-thick-of-it fighting fast and visceral, but still deeply affected by strategy and teamwork. The power-trees are more complex and force choices in your play style, and the side quests are as intricate or as superficial as you like. You could rush through the game headlong, but honestly, doing that is just cheating yourself out of a huge array of clever little challenges and story. Plenty of the tropes from the first series are here: paid downloadable content, dialogue options that change the course of the story, earning character loyalty, and decent replayability with different choices. It’s by no means a revolutionary achievement, but it’s worth the money for well over a week of great gaming. [Alex Cole]

IPAD 2 HITS EUROPE, SO THIN NOBODY REALLY NOTICED • FACEBOOK ANNOUNCES PLANS TO STREAM MOVIES, MAY HAVE JUST FORGOTTEN IT BEGAN AS A HOOKUP TOOL • SPACE SHUTTLE ALMOST OUT OF MISSIONS – C’MON BRANSON, GIMME THAT SWEET, SWEET SPACE PLANE • CHARLIE SHEEN’S TWITTER FEED CHECKS IN TO REHAB, SAYS IT OD’D ON DIGITAL TIGER’S BLOOD • NO ONE KNOWS WHO WILL REALLY SUCCEED STEVE JOBS, BUT I’D DO IT FOR A FREE MACBOOK • EUROPE FORCED TO CLAMP DOWN ON COOKIES, HAS NO F&#!ING CLUE HOW TO START SOLITAIRE

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 51

PERFORM

Venue of the Month:

The Arches

Perhaps thanks to the credit crunch, Glasgow's performance landscape is shifting. The Arches usually begins its push for Behaviour around this time - the annual jamboree of international experimental work. Yet this year, it has focused on local, emerging artists, leaving May free for the Tron's festival WORDS: Margaret Kirk

Strictly speaking, neither Davey Anderson, author of Brick Award winner Thickskin nor Claire Cunningham, now an international touring dancer, are emerging talents. The cast of Gareth Nicols’ Platform 18 piece are Gary “Crunch” McNair and Kieran “Hitch” Hurley, who have impressive previous form. But the two awards – the Brick scoops up two pieces from the Fringe, while Platform 18 is all about the new blood – alongside the announcement of Tom Pritchard as artist in residence adds to the feeling that The Arches are supporting young artists who do more than boast about their celebrity friends. Gareth Nicols has been working his way up the directing hierarchy for the past few years: a graduate of the RSAMD’s contemporary performance degree, Platform 18 acknowledges his rising star by supporting his creation of What Happened Is This, a play that combines storytelling, scripted and devised drama. With musical support from Michael John of Zoey Van Goey, this line up is something of a performance supergroup, although the inspiration for the piece was a little more mundane. “I was sitting at home, giggling at these coincidence stories in Bella,” Nicols laughs. “Everyone seems to have one, or people strive to pull threads together to make a coincidence.” From this shared human need to make up stories, and the humour in telling them, Nicols pulled together his supergroup and won the Platform 18 Award. Glasgow does have a strong dance community, and the appointment of Pritchard as associate artist connects The Arches to Dance House, for

whom he runs a community company, and the many improvisers, in dance, criticism and music and film, who have been part of Pritchard’s investigations. And while he is best known for his radical approach to creating dance, he is clearly no elitist. “Education plays a big part in my work, because it is here that I really gauge how well I can communicate ideas on a physical or intellectual level,” he explains, before disavowing the idea that experimental means incomprehensible.”Experimental for me translates as someone who is simply questioning what it is they are doing and how they might do it.” The return of Claire Cunningham’s ME to Glasgow, after success at the 2009 Fringe and an international tour moves The Arches to the West End: although the University’s G12 venue has been quiet for the past year, it serves as a better place for Cunningham’s spectacular high wire acrobatics. ME pairs her two semi-autobiographical works, Mobile and Evolution, and showcases Cunningham as both dancer and aerialist. “Mobile came initially from seeing an exhibition by the sculptor who invented mobiles,” she begins. “It was something about the confusing distribution of weight.” This inspired her to consider how she incorporates crutches into her work, “get them away from their quite negative associations,” and use them to explore balance and suspension in an aesthetic form. The third dance entry, When We Meet Again, was part of Dance Base’s programme during the Fringe, and was described by Shimmy critic Mark Harding as “part ghost train, part date, part fairground ride, part out of body

PREVIEW

With a script by one of Scotland’s busiest playwrights, Pandas is a comic thriller that reaches from Edinburgh to China. Three couples get tangled up in stolen Chinese rugs, broken hearts and murder in a genre-defying adventure into the underground of lust and crime. Director Rebecca Gatward explains all.

52 THE SKINNY April 2011

www.thearches.co.uk/events/arts/ money-the-game-show

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Traverse 19 APR–7 MAY

Ovid's Metamorphoses Tron April

Photo: Euan Myles

19 Apr – 7 May. See www.traverse.co.uk for ticket prices and show times

Thickskin coming on the back of Fringe five stars, the programme is not only full but surveys the best of Scotland’s new companies and artists.

PREVIEW

PANDAS

Pandas was originally conceived to reflect the Beijing Olympics in 2008, so it has been brewing in writer Rona Munro’s mind for some time. Having worked with her before on The Indian Boy, a play she wrote for the Royal Shakespeare Company, I was immediately interested. Rona’s writing is exciting, insightful, funny and moving so I was expecting great things and this particular script didn’t disappoint. As the world is getting smaller and networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter shows us video and tells us stories of the details of people’s lives on the other side of the world the second after it has happened - this helps to break down the distance between us. The drama experienced by others in different cultures is reflected back to us and perhaps we realise we are both extraordinarily alike as well as extraordinarily different. I think this will always hold a fascination for us. Pandas is a wonderfully funny romcom and I expect our audience to be delighted and uplifted by the love story, entranced by the characters and hugely entertained by the dialogue. It is a real feel good piece and I hope it will be a great night out at the theatre. The perfect play to take your date to! [Rebecca Gatward]

experience.” It refuses the rules of most art forms, and is a disorienting delight for stoner and philosopher alike. With Clare Duffy bringing Money – The Game Show as another new work, and the version of

It’s wonderful to see a group of people who are not only willing, but who are actually able to completely disregard the limitations of genre: performers who toss in any element from live performance, stretch it to its limit, and then polish it to perfection. Pants on Fire’s visually spectacular musical retelling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses reinvents each tale in a gloriously technicolour 1940s aesthetic. The show shifts the frame of reference as easily and as efficiently as the shape shifting gods, while keeping the pace upbeat, and the core of myths about love, sex and illusion intact. Behind the show is a concentration of talent that is almost obscene. It’s the work of a handful of individuals, all trained actors, each one a proficient musician. But it also incorporates the stagecraft of professional magician Jonathan Davenport, the background in puppetry of Mabel Jones, the original 1940s music hall score from composer Lucy Eggers, as well the influence of Lecoq as a teacher on Eggers and director Peter Bramley, which may well have contributed to the show’s mastery of physical comedy. The limitations of the live event give this Metamorphoses its unique appeal. Necessity demands a continual reimagining of available

elements, and when a company can harness this the effect is that everything onstage is invested with an infinite and interconnecting network of metaphor. This is what Pants on Fire know how to achieve, effortlessly, and without taking themselves too seriously, and it’s what made Metamorphoses my pick of last summer’s Fringe. It’s theatre about gods, but if the gods were making their own theatre it might look something like this.[Colin Chaloner] 21 - 23 Apr, 7.30pm Tron, Glasgow www.pantsonfire.moonfruit.co.uk/#/tour-dates/4544249503

COMEDY

MOVE YOUR

IN IT FOR THE MUNNERY

SIMON MUNNERY tell us about the loop of alternativism INTERVIEW: BERNARD O'LEARY

SIMON MUNNERY has long been the champion of weird, experimental comedy, a man whose mission was once ‘To discover England, and confuse it’. So his current show, Self-Employed, might alarm some fans, who won’t know what to make of their hero wearing a suit and telling anecdotes about family life. Don’t panic though: Munnery assures us that he hasn’t suddenly gone sane. “The main part of this show has formed like sedimentary rock, through immense periods of time and pressure. I looked back on these notes I had made over the years, and realised that it was all basically true. I think it’s good for the soul that, telling the truth.” So is this a more routine standup show than what we would normally expect from Munnery? “Not really. It starts with a 15-minute sketch set in a conceptual art restaurant. I serve dishes like Absence de Mango – sweet juicy mango fruit, suddenly removed. Works the same way as homeopathy.” Munnery doesn’t like to admit that he’s been in comedy for a long time now. “You know how it is,” he says, “I just started doing something I like. Next thing you know, the wind changes and you’re stuck like that.” Comedy has changed a lot since the

FEET can’t dance?

days of Alan Parker: Urban Warrior though. Does he find it depressing that comedy is veering towards the mainstream again? “No, I’ve seen this happen before. When I came into it in the late 80s, we were the alternative scene as a rival to the mainstream scene, which was dying out by then anyway. And what happens is the alternative gets bigger and bigger, then a new alternative comes up. I’ve been through this loop. We’re back where we started.” He hasn’t given up trying to break new ground and has just begun an ambitious international tour. Of Bedford. Why Bedford?: “It’s near where I live.” So far, Bedford has responded to his attempts at conquest with apathy. “I’ve done about twelve gigs so far, but it hasn’t really taken off. That’s where the conceptual restaurant came from, actually. I wanted to create something I could carry around so I built this cart to carry all the plates and tables and chairs. The idea was that I could set it up in a field or something and serve all of these bizarre dishes.” Has that been a success? “No. It was too heavy to push.”[Bernard O’Leary]

won’t dance!

We are on a mission to help you on your way to finding that inner dancer. What a great joy it will be for us all when you discover that one of those two left feet is actually a right foot screaming to get out and partywith its pal. It’s there, trust us.

THE STAND, EDINBURGH, 5 APR, 8.30PM, £9 (£7) THE STAND GLASGOW, 6 APR 9.30PM, £8 (£7) (PART OF THE MGICF)

Summer courses begin Mon 25 April or drop-in to any of 45+ classes every week

NEW ACT OF THE MONTH:

DAVID INNES PHOTO: SD PHOTOGRAPHY

Age: 43 Based in: Perth First gig: April 2009 Number of gigs: Around 50 Worst gig: Freshers’ Week! How did you get into comedy? I’m showing my age here, but when the Funny Farm first came out in Glasgow, I got really quite into it, but it was more of a sporting interest. But then my life and circumstances changed over the last couple of years, and I got involved with a few courses and took it from there. How would you describe your comedy? I try to avoid the trend for just being shocking. I will mention shocking things in my act, but not as a cheap joke. I’ll write down something I find funny and revisit it, and think how other people would find it funny. I try and find a twist, and grow arms and legs off it. I like to talk about topical stuff as well; I think the audience does appreciate that, and it keeps me on my toes.

14-16 Grassmarket 28-30 Ferry Road 0131 225 5525 Edinburgh dancebase.co.uk

Who are your heroes on the Scottish comedy scene? Gus Tawse. I’ve done a couple of gigs with him and he had the place in absolute stitches. [Lizzie Cass-Maran]

New season of classes begins 18 April and booking is now open Venues across the City

Glasgow

0141 552 2442 dancehouse.org Registered Charities: Dance Base (SC022512) Dance House (SC025343)

SEE DAVID GIGGING AT OPEN MIC NIGHTS AROUND SCOTLAND WWW.DAVIDINNES.NAME/

APRIL 2011

THE SKINNY 53

COMPS

WIN A RECORDING SESSION FOR YOUR BAND AT THE NEW GLASGOW MUSIC STUDIOS LTD.

Glasgow Music Studios (Scotland's first studios to house Boxy/Amadeus rehearsal and recording pods) has teamed up with The Skinny to offer one lucky reader a full day of recording (10 hours) worth £300! Glasgow Music Studios is at the heart of Glasgow's new vibrant cultural hub, The Merchant City. It provides excellent rehearsal studios with crystal clear acoustics and top quality equipment to help you create the perfect sound. A full recording suite offers musicians across all genres a top quality recording service. It runs music tuition in everything from the standard vocals, guitar, drums and piano to the more unusual bagpipes, music production, DJ lessons, fiddle, cello, sax, trumpet and double bass. Glasgow Music Studios also runs youth music workshops – for more information go to www. glasgowmusicstudios.co.uk or call 0141 552 0907.

Q: WHERE CAN YOU FIND GLASGOW MUSIC STUDIOS? To enter, visit www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions Terms: One winner will receive a £300 recording session which includes rental of musical equipment up to the value of £100 and £200 studio time (10 hours in total). Prize must be claimed by 1 July 2011. Times are subject to availability. Prize is not redeemable for cash

WIN A SAMSUNG GALAXY TABLET PC Edinburgh International Science Festival is Scotland’s biggest and best celebration of science and technology. From 9-22 April there will be special events, talks and interactive activities happening all over Edinburgh. To celebrate the opening of the 2011 Festival, we’ve teamed up with the Science Festival and one of their major sponsors, Wolfson Microelectronics plc, to offer one lucky reader a Samsung Galaxy tablet PC. Edinburgh-based Wolfson provide groundbreaking HD audio and ultra-low power solutions for some of the world’s highest profile consumer electronic products, with customers including Samsung,

Microsoft and LG. Wolfson is always looking to recruit graduates across its business areas. Visit www.wolfsongrads.com for more information.

Q: WHEN WILL THE 2011 SCIENCE FESTIVAL TAKE PLACE? To enter, visit www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions Terms: prize is not redeemable for cash. www.theskinny.co.uk/terms Closing date: 30 April 2011

www.theskinny.co.uk/terms Closing date: 30 April 2011

Skinny Ad Print copy.pdf 1 31/03/2011 14:39:00

CMY

skinny ad.indd 1

54 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

31/03/2011 15:35:06

Glasgow music Tue 05 Apr No Need For Idols (Perfect Disaster, Plastic Values, The Shakedown Project, Stingman) Ivory Blacks, 18:30–22:30, £6

Classic rock from the Falkirk five-piece.

Earth (Sabbath Assembly) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £10

Epic soundscapes and doom-laden melodies from Dylan Carlson and the gang.

The Vaccines (Smith Westerns, Caesars) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10.50

London-based indie-rockers, freshly back from SXSW and touring their debut album.

Wiley (Scorcher, Mz Bratt) Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £12

Grime master, fusing electronic and hip-hop beats.

Epico, The World Unseen, Obvious Outcome Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Local alternative types, with a metal and rock bent.

Washington Irving Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £5

The rousing Glasgow seven-piece spread some folk-pop joy.

The Shiverin’ Sheiks Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–23:00, Free

Mad rock’n’roll and 50s psychedelia.

Redwings (Adam Stafford, Theapplesofenergy) 13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Indie-folk types, with strong local support from ex-Y’all Is Fantasy Islander, Adam Stafford.

The Glasgow Slow Club (Kerrie Lynch, Cheryl Risk)

Take a Worm for a Walk Week (Remember Remember, OV) CCA, 19:30–22:30, £5

Another batch of discordant thrash, as TAWFAWW launch their new album, with golden local support.

Dave Dominey

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Funked-up bass loops with laptop, electric bass and a featured guest soloist.

Jim Mullen Quartet

Glasgow School of Art, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

London-via-Glasgow guitarist Jim Mullen and his merry band.

Miss The Occupier

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Glasgow indie-punk trio, with attitude.

Polar Haze (Rising Souls) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:30, £tbc

Angst-fuelled melodies form the grungey Fifers.

Boycotts (Otherpeople, Miniature Dinosaurs) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Female-fronted indie-pop gang from Glasgow.

Zoobiezaretta

Death metal thrash from the US-of-A.

13th Note, 20:00–23:30, £tbc

Chaotic female noisemakers from London, mixing primal punk with melodic folk.

Wishbone Ash The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £14.50

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Blues, pure and simple.

Shiverin’ Sheiks

Larkin Poe (Adam Klein)

Big-quiffed 50s rock’n’roll.

1901 Bar, 21:00–00:00, Free

Oh You Dancer Vs Kaskrute Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Annie Stevenson (Seminole, The Echoes)

Electronic chameleon Jamie Sturt (aka Oh You Dancer) pits his wares against another willing participant.

Alternative rock four-piece from Glasgow.

Sun 10 Apr

13th Note, 20:30–23:30, £3

Psychotropic System, LetÕs Play God, Carrion, Deadalus Ivory Blacks, 19:00–22:30, £6

Wed 06 Apr

The Late Call (Adam Stafford, De Selby)

Flying Duck, 19:00–22:00, £5

John Renbourne, Robin Williamson

Acoustic folk-pop loveliness, with stellar local support.

Dundee pop scamps.

Butterfly Fridays

Magic Circle, The Great Notion, Moscow Olympics, Blue Water

Live acoustic blues, followed by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Alternative showcase.

Turning Plates Flying Duck, 19:30–23:30, Free

Ambient alternative from Glasgow, in the kitchen bar.

The Dirty Demographic, JJ Bull, Persons Unknown Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £8

Alternative rock, folk-pop and exerimental from the local circuit.

Jonnie Common Presents (Meursault, Panda Su, Conquering Animal Sound, eagleowl) Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

Sonic boomer, and one third of Inspector Tapehead, Jonnie Common gathers together a merry bunch of bands for the launch of his selfproduced compilation CD.

Fake Gods (Cloncullen, Ishwell Atmen) 13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Organic-sounding folk rock duo from bonnie Scotland.

Muso (The Barents Sea, The Winter Tradition, Juan Pablo) Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Fusion live band and club night.

Thu 07 Apr The Low Anthem Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £14

Unique indie-folk troupe, with each member using a number of unusual instruments ranging from crotales to singing saw.

The View (Sound Of Guns) Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £15

Dundee pop scamps.

Orkestra Del Sol Paisley Town Hall, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£10)

Bombastic bass meets unruly polkas with this off-beat orchestra.

Sucioperro The Arches, 19:30–22:00, £7

The Ayreshire rockers tour on the back of their third album.

Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Sonic Hearts Foundation (Edinburgh School For The Deaf)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Alternative experimental, with big riffs.

Futuristic Retro Champions (Little Eskimos)

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Champs bow out with some sugary, happy hardcore twee-pop.

Young Rebel Set (Cattle & Cane, John’s Weans) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Mysterious troubadours of gritty urban folk.

Finding Albert

Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Alternative indie-pop. Ain’t it all.

Tronic (Voltergeist, I Am Blip, ESQ, Get-Effect)

The Ferry, 19:00–00:00, £12.50

Guitar versus harp.

Edging On Ecstacy (Warren Capaldi, Third Letter’s Different) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Progressive metallic rock troupe from Glasgow.

The Ray Summers (Mass Consensus, Liam Cairns) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Falkirk’s pop favourites, with a love of psych and harmonies.

Tom Williams and The Boat (Kat Healy Music Project) Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £4

Gentle folk songs, full of hooks and bluesy confessions.

Wraiths (Haar, Sunsmashers, Assynt) 13th Note, 20:30–23:30, £4

Ambient experimental types from Edinburgh.

Nigel and Friends Cafe Cossachok, 21:00–23:00, £6

An intimate set with jazz guitarist and composer Nigel Clark.

Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–02:00, £5

Michael Clarke

Citizens

Acoustic evening, with Michael Clarke of Acoustic Butterfly.

New found electronic and techno. Bloc+, 23:00–01:00, Free

Scottish hardcore with complex arrangements.

Dinosaur Pile-Up King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6.50

The Seventeenth Century

Metal, rock and all-things noisy.

Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £15

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

San Fran and the Siscos introduce, joined by their favourite musical acts.

Ivory Blacks, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

The View (Sound Of Guns)

San Fran and the Siscos

Full Metal Racket

Metal To The Masses heat, with a string of metallic rockers and hellraisers.

Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Ivory Blacks, 19:00–22:30, £13.50

Leeds alternative rock and pop trio.

New wave popsters hailing from Glasgow.

Soundhaus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Hairy metallic rockers of rather legendary proportions.

Trash Kit (Woolf, North American War, Phat Trophies)

Blind Panic

Komatoze, Deat Otter, SoundWhole, Lost Persona

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Inspiringly original tunes from Martin Moog’s fucked up brain.

Up-beat tunes with singing in Scots and Gaelic.

Vendor Defender (Young Aviators)

Fri 08 Apr

Saxon (Wolfsbane, Fury UK)

Tue 12 Apr

Full-on rock noisemakers, as the name would suggest.

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £12

Mono, 20:30–23:00, Free

Contemporary roots five-piece launch their new album.

Malevolant Creation

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Marriage of metal, psych and rock from visionary Steve Austin.

Carefully-crafted Americana folkpop from the young female duo.

Japanese War Effort

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Glasgow experimentalists, of an indie-rock persuasion.

Twin-guitar rock innovators.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £3

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Classic-styled rock. Can’t say fairer.

Paul McKenna Band

Lurach

Today Is The Day (Retox, Madafaka, The Party Program) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £12

Stone Axe (Low Sonic Drift, Stubb, Tricky Wicked)

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Butterfly Strategy Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Mono, 20:30–23:00, Free

Hard-not-to-love baroque pop meanderings, lush with strings and bittersweet brass.

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Alex Garnett Quartet Glasgow School of Art, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

Powerful hard-bop sax from bebop heavyweight Alex Garnett.

Lost City Soul, Jericho Bay, Restless Sinners Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Sat 16 Apr Record Store Day Mono, 11:00–23:00, Free

Global event, with a special line-up of bands and details to be revealed.

Marco Cafolla Quartet Brel, 15:00–18:00, Free

Driving jazz player and Brel favourite.

Alan McKim (Chris Rodger) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £5

Alan McKim with full band, launching his new EP.

Marina Celeste The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £12

Sweet-voiced singer of Nouvelle Vague.

NEARLY DAN Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £14

Steely Dan tribute act.

From Dundee indie-pop to Glasgow alternative rock.

Hunting Bears (Reflections, The Rivieras)

Skinny Villains (Male Pattern Band, Butterflies On String)

Volatile noisemakers with blasting guitars and catchy choruses.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Lyrical indie rockers from Glasgow.

The Madamoiselle

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:30, £6

Christy Moore (Declan Sinnott) Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £26.50

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Contemporary Irish roots singer/ songwriter.

Mad rock’n’roll and 50s psychedelia.

Run, WALK (Prolife, Ultimate Thrush)

Battle of The Bands (Chaos Theory, The Alex Wayt, Running On Empty)

Dusk ‘Til Dawn (Hello! Hello!, Yakuza and The Snow)

Hardcore acoustics from the Southhampton DIY-posterboys.

The Shiverin’ Sheiks Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–23:00, Free

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Indie-rock types.

The Glasgow Slow Club (Andy Lucas, Lichael Maclelland) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

Wed 13 Apr The Wanted SECC, 18:30–22:00, £24

Chart-friendly British/Irish boy band.

Crayons, Tempercalm, Weather Barn, Dilectrics Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £5

Up-and-coming acts from the Glasgow area, in advance of the We Are Glasgow compilation launch on which they feature.

I’m From Barcelona

Alternative rock, with bells on.

Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Fri 15 Apr Adele O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £sold out

Soulful singer/songwriter from London way.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

Alternative electronic from Glasgow.

Butterfly Fridays Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Live acoustic blues, followed by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Mike Fantastic

Grimey punk from the US-of-A.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8

Man In The Window (All Star Mezzanines) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Reggae and dub crossover, with a distinctly danceable bent.

Jeniferever Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

Swedish lo-fi post-rockers with fragile melodies.

Toy Horses King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Off-beat indie-pop gems from the sunny Wales hopefuls.

The Puppet State, Forgotten Sunday, Jamie Cameron Box, 20:30–23:00, Free

Figure 5 Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Popcorn Fiend

Pianos Become The Teeth (Suis La Lune, Departures, Your Neighbour The Liar, Notebooks)

Goofy Cardiff electro-poppers, with a penchant for baseball caps.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

The Future Capital, Chasing Amy, The Conways, The Dirty Hugos Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Local indie and rock types.

Jericho Hill Brel, 20:00–23:00, Free

Johnny Cash tribute.

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun (This Silent Forest, Little Fire) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

Acoustic singer/songwriter from the windswept Outer Hebrides, aka Colin MacLeod.

Vakunoht Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Glaswegian fuzz-rock.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Glaswegian electro-rockers play a one-off headline slot.

Steve Cradock (States of Emotion) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10.50

English guitarist and one-time player with Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller.

Who’s Next (The Black Triangles) The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £10.50

The Who tribute act.

Kolumbia (The Sunshine Social) Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Brit rock outfit from Edinburgh, formed in the hazy summer of 2009.

The Hellfire Club The Griffin, 21:00–23:00, £3

Hell raisin’ Americana, this time featuring the music of Neil Young.

The Shiverin’ Sheiks The Wise Monkey, 21:00–23:00, Free

Mad rock’n’roll and 50s psychedelia.

Paranoid Visions Ivory Blacks, 21:00–23:30, £9

Alternative grunge-rock meets power-punk from the Dublin band.

Paul Shevlin (Rory Butler, Roman Road)

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £22.50

Eli Keszler

Mon 11 Apr

Sinister Flynn (Horza, Lynsy Kelly)

Rock, soul, gospel and 50’s bombastic pop.

Whisky River

Talented composer/multi-instrumentalist from Rhode Island.

Russell Watson

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Ape Man Alien (Dirty Diamond & The Gunslinger, The Toi) Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Bad For Lazarus (Hey Enemy)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 14:00–16:30, £tbc

Rachel Lightbody Quintet Brel, 15:00–18:00, Free

Bright new jazz vocalist accompanied by a selection of players from Scotland’s west coast.

Esperanza (Bombskare) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Scottish ska/reggae band launch their new album.

Hugh Cornwall (Interval Punkanova from the Brothers of Brazil) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18

The former Stranglers front-man performs his acclaimed solo album, Guilty, in its entirety.

Small Fakers

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £11

Small Faces tribute act.

SECC, 18:30–22:00, From £25

Boom-voiced tenor.

Dividing The Silence (Sacred Betrayal) Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Aberdeenshire hardcore gang play all the tracks from their new CD, plus a selection of oldies.

Brooke Fraser Oran Mor, 19:00–23:00, £15

New Zealand singer/songwriter.

Brel Sessions Brel, 20:00–22:00, Free

Fusion of rock, funk and ska from the feisty Glasgow five-piece.

More Than Conquerors (Pacific Theatre) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Irish quartet with a clever sense of melody and dynamics.

Muso Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Fusion live band and club night.

Terry Balfour (Nathan Smyth, Ryan McCartney) 13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Acoustic singer/songwriter from Glasgow, by way of Shetland.

Fortunate Sons The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Foot-stomping blues rock.

Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Intense noise-pop from the onetime Nine Inch Nails guitairst.

Sun 17 Apr Flobots O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Thu 14 Apr

Rock and blues with a country flavour.

The Wanted

Barmellodie (Chris Devotion, The Expectations, Helsinki 7, Steven Milne, Johnny Reb)

Scarcinogen, Absent Manifesto, WhatÕs the Damage, Shapeshift, Search for Solace, Core, Komatoze

Chart-friendly British/Irish boy band.

Michael Simons

Architecture in Helsinki

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Glasgow experimental rockers, with an ear a melodic hook.

1901 Bar, 21:00–00:00, Free

Fronted by MCs Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit, Flobots skillfully flit from rock to hip-hop.

Indie folk session with Laura Wilkie (of Rachel Sermanni) and Sarah Hayes (of Admiral Fallow). Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

Rat Pack tribute act.

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

SECC, 18:30–22:00, £24

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £13

The multi-instrumental Australian band tour their new album.

Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Handpicked acts from the alternative scene, from Armellodie Records.

Ivory Blacks, 19:00–22:30, £6

Metal To The Masses heat, with a string of metallic rockers and hellraisers.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, Free (but ticketed)

D’n’B singer/songwriter.

A stellar selection of musicians play their own interpretation of tracks from David Bowie’s Hunky Dory. Free tickets from www. thejdset.co.uk.

Murderburgers

Johnny Foreigner

Brother (All The Young, Ace City Racers) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

13th Note, 20:00–23:30, £tbc

Pop-punk scamps from Glasgow.

Gitane Ecosse

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Fast and loose guitar-pop thrashing.

Cafe Cossachok, 21:00–23:00, £6

Lost In Audio, Raoul Duke, We Used To Call This Summer, Point Zero, Death By Ambition

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead + Rival Schools

Live music showcase, in aid of CLIC Sergent.

Polish gypsy-jazz four-piece, with authentic interpretations of classics and standards.

Garage, 19:00, £13.50

Heavy grooves and Post-hardcore mooves. The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Butterfly Strategy Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Live acoustic acts; local and far-flung.

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Glasgow New Music Expedition Mono, 20:00–23:00, Free

New work by emerging Glasgowbased composers Alexander Horowitz, Christopher Duncan, Brendan Toal, Blair Russell and Richard Greer.

Thom Bresh

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £12.50

Guitar pickin’ singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.

Mon 18 Apr

No Babies (Eternal Fags, Gropetown, Neighbourhood Gout)

Lykke Li

Progressive experimental.

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £5

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Primitive beats, sparse keyboards and airy, monotone vocals from the Swedish singer/songwriter.

Brel Sessions Brel, 20:00–22:00, Free

Indie folk session with Laura Wilkie (of Rachel Sermanni) and Sarah Hayes (of Admiral Fallow).

Michael Simons Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

The Mummers (Kettle of Kites) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £8

Alternative and experimental pop sung in Khan-Panni’s bewitching tones.

Muso (Twisted Melons, Jack The Wolf, Kieran Robinson) Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Fusion live band and club night.

Thu 21 Apr Jody Has A Hitlist (Forgotten Sunday, Sacred Betrayal) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

Noisy punk-rock Dublin five-piece.

Mount Kimbie

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £8

Post-dubstep dancefloor experiments from Dom Maker and Kai Campos.

Tim Booth

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £18

Tue 19 Apr

The James frontman heads out on his own to support his new solo release.

Angus & Julia Stone

N-Dubz

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Acoustic folk brother/sister duo from Oz.

Paul Rodgers SECC, 19:30–22:00, £34.50

English rocker and former frontman of Free and Bad Company.

Gus Stirrat

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £25

Camden Town hip-hop trio.

Inner Sight (The NK Jays, Folsom) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £4

Freakout dance rock from Glasgow.

Andrea Heins

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £3

The Shivering Sheiks

The Rat Pack is Back

Sat 09 Apr

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

Classically-inspired Danish singer/ songwriter.

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter (The Dirt, First Tiger)

A mixture of indie and rock from a selection of Glasgow up-andcomers.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £10

The JD Set: Sharlene Spiteri, Kate Nash, Steve Mason, Kid Adrift, Ramona

Monthly jazz session with bassist Gus Stirrat and guests.

Live acoustic acts; local and far-flung.

Eli Paperboy Reed

Agnes Obel

An unholy racket of rock, static drone and guitars.

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Hook-laden indie-pop from the romantic Irish chap.

Ivory Blacks, 18:30–22:30, £6

A mostly-local showcase of hardcore and metal.

Soulful and bequiffed Boston talent.

Acoustic evening, with David Dixon of the Shivering Sheiks.

Glasgow rockers, straddling the line somewhere between postpunk and progressive.

Shatter the Solace, A Ship Going Under, Skud Boots, Zaun, In Search of Ignorance

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Wrongnote

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £10

Fridge Magnets (Indian Red Lopez, VS VS)

Skullflower, Werewolf Jerusalem, Reptillian Bastards

David Dixon

Clare Maguire Featured in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 list, Maguire tours her new album.

The Arches, 19:30–22:00, £15

Emotive singers, backed by pianos and fiddles, marrying words with music.

Live gig-cum-musical battle, in aid of Yorkhill Children’s Hospital.

Alternative roots from Glasgow.

29-piece melodic indie-pop band from Sweden, led by Emanuel Lundgren.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £12

Soundhaus, 19:00–02:00, £tbc

The Unthanks (Trembling Bells)

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8

Alternative country singer/songwriter hailing from Seattle.

Sick Of Sarah (Audio Model) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Minnesota all-girl quartet playing punk-infused pop.

The Shiverin’ Sheiks Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–23:00, Free

Mad rock’n’roll and 50s psychedelia.

The Glasgow Slow Club (The Know and Ion Duo, David MacGregor) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

Wed 20 Apr Jamiroquai SECC, 18:30–22:00, From £40

Funk rock outfit fronted by Jay Kay, back on the UK circuit after five years.

Canadian-born singer songwriter on guitar, vocals and auto-harp.

Brass Jaw

Glasgow School of Art, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

Experimental Glasgow wind ensemble, working without a traditional rhythm section.

Le Reno Amps

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Alternative indie from Glasgow, with countryesque tendencies.

The Dears (Alice Gold) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £11

Progressive soul from Murray A. Lightburn and co.

No Award (Zoe Sams, 100 Paper Boats, Dave Lang & Niall Murray) 13th Note, 20:00–23:30, £tbc

Experimental types.

The Fiction

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Gracious melodies and chunky riffage of the alternative rock/ pop variety.

The Dead Man’s Waltz (Adopted As Holograph, John McFarlane) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

The darker alter-ego of Scottish indie-folk pioneers, Injuns.

April 2011

THE SKINNY 55

E D I N B U R G H music

G lasgow music Fri 22 Apr Fugative O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £10

Bronto Skylift, St Deluxe (Paws) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

The Glasgow Slow Club (Findlay Napier, A Trespassing Scott, Marc Evans) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Young Essex rapper and producer, touting his twisted hooks and colourful rhymes.

Double-headliner, with the noise-rockers Bronto Skylift going head-to-head against the fuzzpop of St Deluxe.

Roads To Siam (Verse Metrics, New Town Triptych)

U2-2 (Hunkey Dorey)

Wed 27 Apr

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £10.50

U2 tribute act.

Best Coast

Instrumental quartet moving in tone and texture, rather than huff and puff.

Simone Felice Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £10

The Felice Brothers and Duke & The King man combines book reading with a live acoustic show.

Trey Songz O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £25

The Virginia-based R’n’B star, making waves in school playgrounds (i.e. the kids love him).

Voodoo Johnson Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £7

The alternative rockers hit Classic Grand in support of their new album.

Huevo and the Giant (Calum Jarvie, Sean Kennedy) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:30, £6

All-too-bloody-sweet indie-pop from the Glasgow foursome.

Charlie & the Bhoys Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £18

Celtic and folkie favourites.

Butterfly Fridays

Captain’s Rest, 19:30–23:00, £5

Ivory Blacks, 21:00–23:30, £6

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

So Many Animal Calls (Campfires In Wnter, Makethisrelate) 13th Note, 20:00–23:30, £5

The Glasgow alternative popsters launch their new EP.

PP Arnold (PP Arnold) The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £18.50

Soulful songstress with plenty of passion.

Jack In The Green (Till This Night)

We Came From The Sea

Aly Macrae and The Macrazy Vaudeville Orchestra

Chantel McGregor

1901 Bar, 21:00–00:00, Free

Cult musician Aly Macrae presents songs concerning kilts, cults and favourite jumpers.

VOTE YES!: We Are The Psysics, What Would Jesus Drive? Bloc+, 23:00–01:00, Free

New free music showcase, aimed at igniting the social masses.

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:30, £15

Metalcore young guns from Yorkshire.

The Ultimate Eagles The Ferry, 19:00–00:00, £15

Eagles tribute act.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £4

Power of Accordian Cafe Cossachok, 21:00–23:00, £6

Virtuoso accordianist Georgie Gajjic performs a selection of classical and Eastern European tunes.

That Fucking Tank (Shield Your Eyes) 13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Progressive and classic-styled rock from Leeds.

Michael Clarke The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Acoustic evening, with Michael Clarke of Acoustic Butterfly.

Butterfly Strategy Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Live acoustic acts; local and far-flung.

We Come In Pieces

Brel, 15:00–18:00, Free

Local line-up of graduates from Strathclyde’s BA Applied Music degree.

Deminishion (3 Days Born, Pilljaw, Larch) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

Glasgow-formed death metallers rising from the ashes of Stabwound.

My Passion The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £9.50

Bleepy and shouty emo-style rock.

Sensational David Bowie Tribute Band Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £10

David Bowie tribute act.

Scheme Barrowland, 19:00–23:00, £10

New face of the blues scene, on guitar and vocals.

Muso Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Thu 28 Apr

70s style foot-stomping rock’n’roll.

Mon 25 Apr

Bill Fleming Quartet

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £9

Fusion live band and club night.

Glasvegas

Sat 23 Apr

Experimental Glaswegian scamps.

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Indie folk types.

Big-riffing Irish trio.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Majestic Dandelion

Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Bloc+, 23:00–01:00, Free

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Unsigned Glasgow gang with a diverse range of influences from the rock spectrum.

Metallic punk-rock, all bishybashy and that.

Strathaven bluesy rock four-piece.

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:30, £16

Glasgow quartet led by the boomvoiced James Allan.

Michael Simons Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

Golden Grrrls Mono, 20:00–23:00, Free

Fuzzy indie-pop from Glasgow.

Saint Saviour (The Organs of Love) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6.50

Spell-binding London-based singer and composer.

Aloe Blacc Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Country and folk crossover.

Tommy Concrete (Black Talon)

Blues rock meets indie rock.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £9

Aching, country-tinged harmonies from the Scottish four-piece. Pass the moonshine.

Knut, Keelhaul, Black Sun Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £8

Glasgow School of Art, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

The London-based US bassist tours with his band.

Listener (Esther Sparks, Old Solar) Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £6

Experimental indie types.

Polarsets (People, Places, Maps) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Emphatic indie-pop trio.

The Oli Brown Band The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £12.50

Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Female-fronted post-punk, with touches of synth.

Sat 30 Apr Brel, 15:00–18:00, Free

The Wildhouse, Obey, Guanoman, The Cosmic Dead, Space Victim 13th Note, 16:00–23:30, £5

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12

New Celtic/rock crossover act, featuring ex-Red Hot Chilli Pipers frontman Gregor James.

Blaze Bayley Ivory Blacks, 19:00–22:30, £9

Birmingham metal-heads.

Times New Viking (Wet Paint, Kill Surrrf) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £7.50

Experimental noisemakers. Slouch, 20:00–22:30, £5

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Local artist showcase hosted by Natalie Clarke.

Pensioner (Mondegreen, Trapped In Kansas) Bloc+, 21:00–01:00, Free

Alternative post-hardcore Dundee-ers.

Fri 29 Apr Fires Attract (Vukovi, Cities and Skylines, A Balcony Scene) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

The swaggering alternative fourpiece launch their new EP.

The Seventeenth Century (Sunshine Social) Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £5

Hard-not-to-love baroque pop meanderings, lush with strings and bittersweet brass.

Leith Folk Club: Kirsty Law, Ryan Young The Village, 19:30–22:45, £6

Alternative folk-rock trio from Glasgow.

Aerials Up (I Dream In Colour) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7

Orchestral strings meets driving rock.

Barn Owl (Jefre Cantu-Ledesma)

NYOS: Spring Concert

Usher Hall, 19:00–22:00, From £10

Three youth orchestra ensembles perform pieces based around the theme of heroes. The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £13

My Tiny Robots (Ghost Ride The Whip, Chris Hunter) Electric Circus, 19:30–01:00, £5

Local indie electronics, in aid of MS Society Scotland.

Secret CDs (Birdhead, Polly And The Billets Doux, Sparrahawk, Rosie Nimmo) Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £3

Live gig-cum-CD sale from musicians based in and around the Edinburgh area.

Scottish Ensemble

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £4

The Ka-Tet

RSNO: Greig Piano Concerto

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Grizzled blues.

Late ‘n’ Live: Diwan

Pulsing afro-beat four-piece led by Senegal’s Samba Sene.

Sat 09 Apr Bongo Club, 19:00–22:00, £7

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £6

Glasgow beat-makers, straddling the line between electronica, house and techno.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

The Last of Barret’s Privateers

Aki Remally-fronted funk four-piece.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sun 10 Apr

Etheral guitar drone collaboration between Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras.

SCO: Mozart at the Piano II Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, From £9

Robert Levin leads a piano concerto of Mozart’s Quintet.

Soloist Robert Levin delves into his fascination for Mozart and Haydn.

Big Vern ‘N’ The Shootahs (Tom Urie)

Hair of the Dog Sundays (Donna Maciocia)

Keith James: The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Melodramatic popular song and loops.

The Ferry, 20:00–00:00, £12

Keith James performs music from the back catalogue of one the most enigmatic and sub-textural songwriters.

Melodic ramblings and affected vocals.

Lucky 13

Unpeeled

The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £5 (£3)

1901 Bar, 21:00–00:00, Free

Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

The former Inspiral Carpets front-man drops by for a bit of alternative blues.

Shimmering indie epics.

Muscles of Joy Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £tbc

An exotic and psychedelic mix of tunes from the Muscle of Joy gals.

Leith Folk Club: Anna Massie, Mairearad Green The Village, 19:30–22:45, £8

Scottish traditional duo, delicately blending the old and new.

Christy Moore (Declan Sinnott) Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £26.50

Contemporary Irish roots singer/ songwriter.

Wed 13 Apr Alex Garnett Quartet The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

Powerful hard-bop sax from bebop heavyweight Alex Garnett.

Christy Moore (Declan Sinnott) Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £26.50

Queen’s Hall, 14:30–17:00, £12

Conscious Route The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £4

The On-U Sound 30th Birthday Bash (Tackhead, Mark Stewart & The Maffia, Adrian Sherwood) Cabaret Voltaire, 20:00–03:00, £18

Producer Adrian Sherwood celebrates 30 years of his influential On-U Sound imprint.

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Wee Rogue (The Late Call)

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Melodic and folkie Fifers, misty-eyed and lovely.

Three Long Words, What’s Yours Is Ours

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local indie rock and folky pop.

Paul Vickers and The Leg (Zed Penguin, Andy Brown) Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Indie experimentalists with frightening panda-suited backing group.

Lone Pigeon

The Mars Patrol

Aki Remally-fronted funk four-piece.

Karen Cargill sings Mahler

Showy rock and pop five-piece from London.

Tango In The Attic

Tight Scottish three-piece band fronted by Kirsty McCafferty on guitar.

Pivo Pivo, 19:30–23:00, £6

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £10

Moving Pictures Rush tribute act.

The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £5

Acoustic popsters from Scotland.

NEARLY DAN Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–01:00, £14

Steely Dan tribute act.

Late ‘n’ Live: The Ordinary All-Stars The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Off-the-wall hip hop from the driving five-piece, powered by two MCs.

Sat 16 Apr 8 Track Stereo, The Illustrated, Echo Arcadia, The Seven Deadly Sins Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Alternative showcase from Yrock.

Last Minute Glory, Work & Weather, Selfish Needs, Time For Tee, Animal Passion Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local indie and alternative types.

ONZLO, Justified Sinners Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £6

Classic rock benefit in aid of Parkinsons Disease Research.

The Aspect, Kerrie Lynch, Sacre Noir Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Alternative acoustic and dark, beat-led pop.

The Dangleberries The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £8

Acoustic singer/songwriter from the windswept Outer Hebrides, aka Colin MacLeod.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7

Strangetouch, The Other Side, The Kitsch

Small Feet Little Toes

Six Storey’s High, People, Places, Maps, Squares That Look Round, Kalatara

Talented young singer/songwriter with a gentle raspiness.

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Heavy metal all the way. Say a prayer.

Kate Nash

The Freaky Family

Fireproof Match

Firebrand Super Rock, Torn Face (Battle of the War Machines)

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun

Marcus Foster

Fri 08 Apr

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–00:30, £5

A mix of punk bands play in aid of the Hunt Saboteurs Association.

Thu 14 Apr

The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £4

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Gin Goblins, RPG, Critikill, Down To Kill

Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

Pilrig st. pauls church, 19:30, £8

Experimental blues Edinburgh troupe.

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

A fresh interpretation of the famous piano concerto.

Traditional troupe on bagpipes, drums and guitar.

Fence Collective psych-folk with support from pictish trail.

Lipsync for a Lullaby

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:30, £15

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Mon 02 May

Hard rockin’, genre-defying trio.

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Gruff-voiced American singer/ songwriter with gentle folk-pop narratives.

Reggae, soul and hip-hip.

SCO Chamber Concert

Nine piece covers band with a horn section in tow.

Tue 12 Apr Josh Ritter (Tift Merritt)

Live tribute to Joey Ramone, marking the 10th anniversary of his death.

Henry’s Cellar, 20:30–03:00, £5

Late ‘n’ Live: The Freaky Family

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £8.50

Jazz rock powered by drummer Jordie Gilmour.

Contemporary Irish roots singer/ songwriter.

Edinburgh alternative folkies, moving in swathes of strings and Scottish-brogued laments.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

The Jazz Bar, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£1)

Joey Ramone Tribute Night (Jackhammers, Acid Fascists, Dead On The Live Wire, Babylon Dub Punks, Shock & Awe)

The two-time Grammy-nominated country singer/rocker from Nashville.

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Glamour & The Baybes

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Alternative showcase from Yrock.

Bongo Club, 19:00–22:00, £12

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £tbc

Alternative showcase of a mostly indie and rock nature.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Thu 07 Apr

Kim Richey

The Number 9’s, Coup D’etat, People, Places, Maps, Fireproof Match

Feisty pop-punk.

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns.

The Libertines/Dirty Pretty Things man plays solo.

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by Fiona Lynch.

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local showcase, moving from indie blues to progressive rock.

The Son Henry Band, Jed Potts (John Hunt)

Six Storeys High, Kalatara, Squares That Look Round, People, Places, Maps

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £14

The Sunday Sinners

The Koves, What’s In Alaska?, Donnie Willow, The Brief Encounters

Leftfield folk leanings from the Northumbria sisters and their band.

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Carl Barat

Live rockabilly and roots.

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £9

Aching, country-tinged harmonies from the Scottish four-piece. Pass the moonshine.

Lennox

Built on Tradition

Up-tempo alternative rock from Stirling (by way of Liverpool).

The Store, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Kassidy

Eclectic live showcase fundraiser, in the Forest Hall.

Radio Arcade (smallPRINT, The Rahs)

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Unthanks

The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £5

Lovely folk-rock crossover from the local favourites.

Local indie-poppers who penned an ode to Leith Walk.

The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £4 (£3)

Mon 11 Apr

The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £3

The Champs bow out with the launch of their 26-track retrospective. Expect sugary, happy hardcore tweepop, and lots of it.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Summery pop from this happy-golucky Glenrothes bunch.

Real Dave & The People. Portnawak and the Woo, BludSlugz

Futuristic Retro Champions (Emelle, Spill DJs)

Tom Hingley

Folk-cum-pop-cum-rock.

Edinburgh 12-piece soul band playing classic hits.

London-via-Glasgow guitarist Jim Mullen and his merry band.

Katalina Kicks, Cry & The Blocks

Blues-influenced singer/songwriters.

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £tbc

Jim Mullen Quartet

Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Soulacoaster

Alternative and acoustic folk, with jazzy influences. Plus, punters get a free copy of the new album.

Broken Records (Donna Maciocia)

Tom Adamson Quintet

Black Diamond Express (Hobo DJs)

A performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.

Fri 15 Apr Foxgang (Monsters of Movie Posters, Stu Goodall Band)

RSNO: Great Concertos

Bosie

The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:30, £3

Fun indie-pop from Edinburgh, for those who like to boogie (aka dance).

The Edinburgh psychedelic heavy metaller launches his new EP.

Queen’s Hall, 19:45–22:30, From £12

Orchestral performance, guest directed by Anthony Marwood.

The Spook School

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £6

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

Showcase of four handpicked and unsigned new bands.

Wing and a Prayer

Sucioperro (He Slept On 57, Aviation For Kids)

Wed 06 Apr

Hard rock and blues.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Long-serving Glasgow rockers.

Butterfly Fridays Live acoustic blues, followed by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, Free

Double bill of bright young stars of Scots song and fiddle.

The Welsh emo-rockers create their usual frenzy.

Siphon Plane

The Wise Affair

Local noisemakers launch their new EP.

Scrap Brain

The Baby Janes, Terminal Parade Experimental types.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £tbc

The Blackout

Bright, young blues guitar chap.

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £13

Chicago-style blues. Smooth.

Bags Of Rock

Jackie Treehorn (Vasquez, Radiation Line)

56 THE SKINNY April 2011

1901 Bar, 21:00–00:00, Free

Mike Janisch Paradigm Quintet

The Subordinates, The Jigawotts, New Noise Pollution

Progressive rock from the firey furnace of Livingston.

The George Lindsay Band

Live music all dayer, moving from noise-pop to minimal trance.

Experimental indie-pop singer/ songwriter, who does a rather good line in wailing.

Blackfriars Basement, 21:00–23:00, Free

Rock and blues with a country flavour.

Experimental hardcore rock and metal, times three.

Magic Carpet Cabaret

The Shiverin’ Sheiks

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Jazz funk from the sunng Largs pianist and his new band.

Nan Turner

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, £2

Fortunate Sons

Kassidy (Pearl and the Puppets)

Tue 26 Apr A night of poetry, song and story, with a featured open mic session.

13th Note, 21:00–23:30, £tbc

Derek Fairlie Quartet

Katzenjammer

Hard rockin’ local bands, times three.

Jazz and funk collective, led by the clattering drums of Tom Adamson.

Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

American soul singer, rapper and musician.

Mad rock’n’roll and 50s psychedelia.

Bluesy-reggae-rock from Glasgow.

The Marrs Effect, The Stantons

Alternative five-piece fresh from SXSW.

The Regiment, Good Bad News, The Conways

The Black Rates (The Morra, Dead Electric)

Defcon One

The Blind Watchmakers, The Media Whores

Hollowpoint (Graceless Age, He Hates Us)

Eddy & The T-Bolts (Bloodlunch, Southpaw)

Mixed showcase, of the indie and rock variety.

Alternative indie and experimental rock types.

Noisy experimental types.

The Scottish bluesy rockers launch their new album.

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

An acoustic set with Jaret and Erik from the band.

Acoustic pop loveliness from the Glasgow-based outfit.

Dry The River (Cherri Fosphate, The Fiction)

Part Wind Part Wolf

The Ghosts Of Progress (The Girobabies, Filthy Little Secret, Retrofrets)

Parastatic, Steady State Regime, My Electric Love Affair. Avenging Force

Alternative indie-rock from the streets of Dundee.

Bring Me The Horizon (Parkway Drive, Architects, The Devil Wears Prada)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Bowling For Soup

The Serious Men, Invidia

Maggie May’s, 20:30–22:30, Free

Sun 24 Apr

The progressive four-piece launch their new EP.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Tue 05 Apr

Lauries Bar, 20:15–23:00, Free

LA indie trio, fronted by the punchy drawl of Bethany Cosentino.

Colour Coded

Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Live acoustic blues, followed by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Relaxed music night with live guests from the local scene.

Latecomers

Alternative indie and rock types.

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

Scottish mezzo star Karen Cargill proves herself a fine Mahler interpreter.

Lindsay & The Storm, Caro Bridges & The River, James Whyte

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–22:30, £4 (£3)

Ethereal, folk-tinged indie from three of Edinburgh’s finest.

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £7.50

Not A Day Goes By Voodoo Rooms, 20:00–01:00, £10

Off-beat cabaret with Graham Mackay-Bruce performing the music of Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers and Stephen Schwartz.

The Freaky Family The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Aki Remally-fronted funk four-piece.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7.50

African Soul Rebels Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, £17.50

The king of afrobeat, Seun Kuti, is joined by Egypt 80 and Donso.

SCO: Musical Toybox Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, From £9

Composer Oliver Knussen weaves some of his orchestral magic.

We Luv Musik Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £tbc

Monthly live music night featuring the best new and established acts.

Existing Threat, Necrotize (Today the Sun Dies) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Extreme death metal.

Pineapple Chunks (Billy liar) The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £5

Edinburgh’s own progressive popsters. Lovely, too. Punk-folk support.

Late ‘n’ Live: The Leonard Jones Potential The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Inverness vocals-fronted six-piece, with a hot brass section.

Glasgow CLUBS Sun 17 Apr Hair of the Dog Sundays (Kat Healy) Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

Beautiful, soothing acoustic numbers.

2:34, Eagulls, Dead Boy Robotics Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £tbc

Ultra-cool bill with witchy sounds abounding.

Edinburgh Youth Orchestra Easter Concert Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, £12 (£5)

The young players are joined by acclaimed pianist Joanna MacGregor.

Voltage

The Harlets

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£4)

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Interactive live music showcase night.

Ben Howard Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £6

Technically-gifted acoustic singer and guitarist.

The Okavango Macbeth Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, £16 (£8)

The Macbeth story played out in a troop of baboons in Botswana, from writer Alexander McCall Smith and composer Tom Cunningham.

Battery Face, Mr Peppermint, Forkeye Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:30, £5

Artisan Trio

Noise rock. That’s all we have to say.

Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, £10 (£5)

We Luv Musik

Educations project finale, highlighting the lineage of Edinburgh-based composers.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw (Dan Haywood’s New Hawks, Jamie Sutherland, Adam Stearns’ Band) The Caves, 19:30–23:30, £10 adv.

The instrumental duo do beautiful things on the accordian and harp.

Stormy Sunday Blues The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £5 (£3)

Monthly blues showcase, handpicked by singer James Carr.

Paul Shevlin, Roman Road, Neoviolet Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £tbc

Edinburgh’s newest monthly live music night featuring the best new and established acts.

Napier Guitar Quartets The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £4 (£3)

Four guitar quartets from the Napier Music Course.

Naisian, Sagat Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Intense post rock.

The Freaky Family The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Aki Remally-fronted funk four-piece.

Fri 22 Apr

Acoustic singer/songwriters showcase.

Bonobo (Hidden Orchestra)

Dark Jokes (Hobo DJs)

The sample-led musician, producer and DJ known to his mammy as Simon Green.

The Store, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Showtune club beats.

The Sunday Sinners The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by Fiona Lynch.

Mon 18 Apr Beady Eye Corn Exchange, 19:00–22:30, £sold out

Liam Gallagher’s new band, formed from the ashes of Oasis.

Glamour & The Baybes The Jazz Bar, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£1)

Jazz rock powered by drummer Jordie Gilmour.

Official Beady Eye After-Party (Paul Gallagher, Evol DJs) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £tbc

The official after-party to the sellout Corn Exchange gig, with brother Paul Gallagher on deck duty.

Tue 19 Apr Leith Folk Club: Maeve Gilchrist The Village, 19:30–22:45, £8

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £15

Crayons, Bwani Junction, T Bird & The Blonde Spirit Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Alternative local showcase, with the much-hyped Bwani Junction.

Sebastian Dangerfield Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, Free

Alternative Americana-tinged indie from the Edinburgh chap, all jaunty and muddy-knee’d.

The Electric Jazz Quartet The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £4 (£3)

Marco Cafolla and his quartet, on sax, electric bass and drums.

Aeon, Cerebral Bore, Neuroma (Flayed Disciple, Nerrus Kor)

Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, £16 (£8)

The Macbeth story played out in a troop of baboons in Botswana, from writer Alexander McCall Smith and composer Tom Cunningham.

Little Buddha (The Cathode Ray) Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £5

Cinematic soundscapes from Fifers Kat McDonald and Grant Tyrie.

Brass Jaw The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £6 (£5)

Experimental Glasgow wind ensemble, working without a traditional rhythm section.

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns.

The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £5

A sneaky peek at some of the acts set to play Doune The Rabbit Hole in June.

Norman Silver And The Gold, Dominic Waxing Lyrical, Stoned Holy Rollers Henry’s Cellar, 20:00–03:00, £5

Late ‘n’ Live: Das Contras

The surviving members re-united for more new wave rockin’.

Glasvegas HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £16

Edinburgh School For The Deaf (Black Heart Generator, Verse Metrics) Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £6

Fuzzy noise-pop from the Edinburgh gang.

Kid Canaveral (Thee Single Spy, Monster Island) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

The local lovelies dish up some lyrical indie-pop.

Messiah, The Steels, Velvet Morning Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Alternative indie and rock types.

Penny Black Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Bongo Club, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Glasgow eight-piece play self-penned tunes of a soulful skafunk-punk vibe.

Screen Kids The Forest Café, 20:00–23:00, £5

Alternative pop from Edinburgh.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

Power Tools

Punters provive the iPod playlists.

90s tunes, all night long in the kitchen bar.

Operatic greats sung by a young mezzo singer.

Killer Kitsch (Evil Nine)

Ballbreaker/Team-Up

Korben Dallas and Nushta Drognova play a mix of Italo, disco and house.

Dana Dixon Band

Electronic music of all ages, with special guest Evil Nine playing classic-inspired dance.

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

Revolt

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

SCO: Symphonic Opera Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:30, From £9

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £tbc

Authentic R’n’B with original flourishes, as Dana Dixon and band launch their new CD.

Red Dog Music night, with live guests and a top secret headliner.

Moss Freed Band

The Freaky Family

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

AV (Sasha Carassi)

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Why Not?

Techno, funk and breakbeat with guest Sasha Carassi, plus the usual big soundsystem and AV visual installation.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £4 (£2)

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by Fiona Lynch.

Mon 25 Apr Metronomy Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £10 adv.

The brainchild of a bored drummer, Metronomy is Joseph Mount’s extended foray into the world of electronica and dirty robo-beats.

Young Scottish indie-rock whippersnappers.

Crash Shed, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Banjax and MHA get together for a Coin Op records showdown.

Gaga Wednesdays

Kino Fist

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with Andy R.

Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, From £10

Octopussy

Mike Janisch Paradigm Quintet The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £8 (£6)

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub.

Stoked The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Megadeth UK Megadeth tribute act.

An unabashed mix of 80s pop, electro and techno beats. They will play Phil Collins.

Urban Scot Raw (Dr Syntax, Silver Tongue)

Thu 07 Apr

The Jazz Bar, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£1)

Tue 26 Apr The Village, 19:30–22:45, £8

Chantel McGregor Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–01:00, £8.50

Rock and blues singer/songwriter with her trusty guitar.

Wed 27 Apr Polarsets Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £6

Happy-go-lucky dance pop from the Newcastle scamps.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £tbc

Queen’s Hall, 19:45–22:30, £10 (£7)

Works by Claude Vivier and John McLeod, including a Chinese opera for solo percussion.

Outhouse The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £8 (£6)

Improvisational collective, with an unusual line-up of two tenor saxophones, double bass and drums.

November Orchid

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Studio 24, 20:00–00:00, £3

Three Card Trick

Local hip-hop showcase.

The Wise Monkey, 21:00–00:00, Free

Late ‘n’ Live: Paul Mills Funk Band The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Drums-powered funk and soul four-piece.

Sat 30 Apr Great Junction Music Studios Showcase (Ian McLaughlin and the Outsiders) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Local music showcase night.

The Dull Fudds, Kat Healy, Aperture Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Mini showcase, headlined by The Dull Fudds twitchy brand of folk-rock.

Unknown Pleasures (The Draymin) The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

A Joy Division celebration, with Peter Hook and The Light.

Tango In The Attic Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Summery pop from this happy-golucky Glenrothes bunch.

Thu 28 Apr Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Ambient Edinburgh collective, trading in alternative melodies and fuzzy guitars.

Fires Attract, A Day Overdue Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Swaggering alternative and pop punk.

Co-Op Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

Feel My Bicep Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Cosmic mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Greatest Hits Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

Jurassic Glasgow School of Art, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Jungle and D’n’B, in the Vic Bar.

Love Music O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and the Killer Kitsch DJs.

Mega line-up of 22 punk and crust bands, playing for charity. The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Beltane Festival After-Party The Caves, 01:00–05:00, £7 (£5)

Beltane denizens, even more drumming, and a large DJ helping of gypstep, D’n’B and nu-school folk. All proceeds go to the Beltane Fire Society.

Sun 01 May Madeline Peyroux Usher Hall, 19:30–22:00, £26.50

The French-American jazz songress does her melancholic thing.

Gaga Wednesdays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

A night of chilled-put techno and synth-laden electro.

Chart and classics with Andy R.

Wrong Island

Glasgow School of Art, 23:00–03:00, £5

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics.

Tictactoe 2nd birthday Arches cafe bar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (free pre-club)

Knock Knock Experimental clubbing, with live bands, DJs and explorations in light.

Octopussy The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub.

Wednesdays

Sleazy R’n’B, jump jive and exotica. Tropical, yes.

80s synth and funk with Dom and Darrell.

Come Up

In About It

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Only Fools and House Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

New York house, disco and 80s electro.

Propaganda

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated massive indie night.

Riot Radio

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Indie rock and roll, past and present.

The Cave

Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Garage punk, sleaze and good ol’ rock’n’roll.

Sat 09 Apr Voodoo

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 members)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

Saturday @ Bookclub

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Flat 0/1, 21:00–02:00, Free

Flying Duck, 22:00–03:00, £4

Brand new night, playing chilled bass beats to proper D’n’B, plus streamed live visuals.

Thu 14 Apr Mixed Bizness

Punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet.

Hung Up! (Oneohtrix Point Never) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 before 12

Weekend party curated by Optimo’s Twitch and Wilkes, with a live set from Oneohtrix Point Never (aka electronic US native Daniel Lopatin). Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

House and R’n’B with sisters Lisa Mafia and Lil Gem.

Disuko (Juniour Lazarou, Ziggy Gee, Trojan) Soundhaus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

Booty-shaking (their words) mix of wobble and bassline.

Yoyo Saturday

Shed, 22:00–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

From pop classics to hip-hop.

Absolution

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Cathouse Saturdays

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Mish-mash of funk, disco and electro. The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sunday Sabbath Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Rock Radio night of classic rock, with DJ Father Ted.

Co-Op Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

Feel My Bicep Cosmic mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Greatest Hits Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

Love Music O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and the Killer Kitsch DJs.

Rumble Thursdays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Themed student night, complete with a bouncy castle.

Shake It Up Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Out

Indie, rock and pop with DJ Jopez.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £tbc

Skint/Vengeance

Brand new night of electro, techno and dubstep courtesy of some local up-and-comers.

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

Thursdays

Mon 11 Apr

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Alibi Mondays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

I Heart the Garage more than yer Maw

Burn

Rock, punk and metallic beats.

Rockin’ weekly with Boom Monk Ben.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Sin City

Fun club night, with a cocktail kitchen and beats from electro to hip-hop.

Indie rock, pop, new wave and psych.

Glasgow School of Art, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Shedkandi

Broadcast Beach

Mono, 21:00–01:00, Free

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £4 (£3)

Techno and disco from the Subcity Radio crew.

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Stride Of Pride

Funk, soul and hip-hop with Andy Taylor.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Cathouse Sundays

Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Club 69, 23:00–03:00, £5

Shed, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Pop, dance and hip-hop.

Button Up

Misbehavin’ (Dolly Daydream, Drucifer)

Rumble Thursdays

The Ka-Tet

Dark Jokes

Rockin’ weekly with Boom Monk Ben.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Pop and frunk four-piece, fronted by the charming Miss Nikki Kent.

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns.

Glasgow School of Art, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

House of Crust All-dayer

Late ‘n’ Live: The Number Nine

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Mixed Bizness

Monthly special of electro, alternative and dirty pop.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Up-and-coming Edinburgh indie rockers.

Dealing a deck of hits from the past six decades.

United Noise Ibiza Grooves (Marco Loco)

Wed 13 Apr Crash

Chart, indie and hip-hop with Disco Dave et al.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britian

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £4

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

The regulars and guest Wee Fi unite those two happiest of bedfellows, goth rock and, er, classic disco.

Pop, punk and ska. In the Attic.

Vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £1 (£3 after 12)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sun 10 Apr

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £18

Y’Uptae

Stoked

Wednesdays 80s synth and funk with Dom and Darrell.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock and alternative, plus video DJ’ing. In the Attic.

Residents and guests.

Mobile Disco Fridays

Old Skool

Take It Sleazy

Jazz rock powered by drummer Jordie Gilmour.

From 60s psyche to modern sleaze with residents Charlotte and Rafla.

Pop, punk and ska. In the Attic.

Eight-strong ukulele troupe, somewhat wizards in their craft.

Glamour & The Baybes

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:00–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

The London-based US bassist tours with his band.

To Catch A Thief (Atlas, Your First Mistake, The Winter Tradition) The local rock heroes grace Edinburgh with their presence once again.

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £10

Pop, dance and hip-hop.

RSNO: Spanish Rhapsodies Exuberant and flamboyant scores of Spanish origin.

Banjax Vs Mount Heart Attack (Mustard Gunn, Squire of Gothos, Rrritalin)

Revolt

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £2

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

The Rock Shop

Glasgow School of Art, 23:00–03:00, £7

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Danse Macabre (DJ Wee Fi)

Subculture

The up-and-coming superstar of dance.

Wed 06 Apr

The Sunday Sinners

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Chart, disco and indie.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Student night with Andy Wilson.

Killer Kitsch

Student night with Andy Wilson.

Y’Uptae

Fri 29 Apr

Rough-and-ready acoustic punk.

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

Rubbermensch

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic.

Spanish Gamble, Unfun, Moonshine Docks (Pianosa, Teen Rebel Dope Fiends)

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £5

Damnation

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £19

Aki Remally-fronted funk four-piece.

The Industry

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Block party-style solo scratch skills from Krash Slaughta.

Afrojack

Original jazz and funk five-piece from the ex-Edinburgh guitarist.

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Common People

Rock and alternative, plus video DJ’ing. In the Attic.

Banging tunes from all over the electronic spectrum.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Blackfriars Basement, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £tbc

Post hardcore from Ireland.

The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:30, £4 (£3)

Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Pass The Peas (Krash Slaughta)

I.DJ

We Come In Pieces

Myth and Ritual

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £12

Fri 08 Apr Friday @ Bookclub

Classic and underground disco.

The Caves, 21:00–01:00, £6

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:30, £5

Tue 05 Apr I Am Residents Beta & Kappa joined by varied guests.

The Dog Show (The Marrs Effect, Size Queen)

DOORS ALIVE Doors tribute act.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Handpicked delights from Edinburgh’s hardcore scene.

Glasgow quartet led by the boomvoiced James Allan.

Fine Dundee rockers launch their new album, with stellar support.

The Cut Throat Razors

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £20

Spazzy pop rock madness.

Sat 23 Apr

Alabama 3

Big Country

Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

Pensioner (Bronto Skylift, Pinky Suavo)

Four-piece alternative band from Edinburgh.

The Brixton collective play an acoustic and unplugged set.

Hair of the Dog Sundays (Super Adventure Club)

Breezy Latin-tinged funk and reggae five-piece.

Thu 21 Apr The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £15

Sun 24 Apr

New York noir-country with a heart of twang.

Wed 20 Apr

The Okavango Macbeth

High-energy disco-pop from the Glasgow seven-piece.

Doune The Rabbit Hole: Band Preview

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Brutal death metal and grindcore.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Unique harpist moving effortlessly between her traditional roots and the freedoms of jazz.

Balls-to-the-wall old school rockers.

Late ‘n’ Live: Federation of the Disco Pimp

Leith Folk Club: Rebecca Pronsky

A mixed bill of country and western, vicious cabaret, gospel rockabilly and experimental. Will that do ye?

Voodoo Johnson

Indie rock.

Biff-Fest (The Party Program, Dead At The Scene, Here Lies A Warning)

Student-orientated rock, metal, punk, electro and pop night.

Teenage Lust Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £2

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Classic Garage student night over all rooms.

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

A freaky disco of old-school indie and American punk.

Emalkay

Inked

Friday @ Bookclub

Indie, rock and pop with DJ Jopez.

The Birmingham big beat and dub man.

Skint/Vengeance

Rock, metal and hardcore in the Attic.

Hotwire

Classic and underground disco.

Themed student night, complete with a bouncy castle.

Shake It Up Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

Thursdays Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Student-orientated rock, metal, punk, electro and pop night.

Cheap ‘n’ Nasty Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

Everything from disco to electro, with Matthew Craig (of One More Tune).

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £12

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Fri 15 Apr Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Tue 12 Apr

Errors DJs

Female-driven music, with a live set from girl band Maximum Bob, plus tea cakes!

Retrosexual: Round 2 (PMcQ, Frazer MacRobert)

Steve from Errors plays guest disc jockey for the evening.

Mount Heart Attack (FaltyDL)

Indie and electro with retro twists.

The Viper, 19:00–02:00, £5 (£3)

Intenzifi (Hixxy, Marc Smith, Nexes)

Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £10

FaltyDL joins the residents for dubstep, house and tecnho offerings.

Nu Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins Norther soul, jazz and funk.

I Am (Delusions of Grandeur) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by varied guests.

I.DJ Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

Mono, 21:00–01:00, Free

Soundhaus, 22:00–03:00, £13

Hardcore and hardstyle, plus live MCs.

Shakin’ All Over Flying Duck, 22:00–03:00, £6

Punters provive the iPod playlists.

One-off night hosted by Glasgow finest 50s and 60s tune spinners.

April 2011

THE SKINNY 57

GLASGOW CLUBS BALLBREAKER/TEAM-UP

SENSU (LOCO DICE)

NU SKOOL

STRIDE OF PRIDE

GAGA WEDNESDAYS

SHAKE IT UP

LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £10

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

POWER TOOLS

Fun club night, with a cocktail kitchen and beats from electro to hip-hop.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

SUNDAY SABBATH

RUBBERMENSCH

Rock Radio night of classic rock, with DJ Father Ted.

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

DAMNATION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

ARGONAUT SOUNDS REGGAE SOUNDSYSTEM (MC ISTA LION) BLACKFRIARS BASEMENT, 23:00–03:00, £3

Roots reggae, dancehall and dub.

MIXED BIZNESS (TODDLA T) GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sensu celebrates going monthly with a guest slot from DJ and producer Loco Dice.

SAT 16 APR VOODOO CATHOUSE, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 MEMBERS)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

SATURDAY @ BOOKCLUB HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Dirty vibes and mad-man rhythms with Toddla T.

Funk, soul and hip-hop with Andy Taylor.

MOBILE DISCO FRIDAYS

YOYO SATURDAY

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with Disco Dave et al.

NO SLEEP (MANIK) LA CHEETAH, 23:00–03:00, £10

The NYC born-and-bred producer and DJ brings his unique brand of underground electronic.

OLD SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Vintage jazz, funk and soul.

ONLY FOOLS AND HOUSE FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

New York house, disco and 80s electro.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Fine purveyor of dark house, Steve Lawler, takes control of the decks.

UPSIDE DOWN

SUBCULTURE SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic.

THE ROCK SHOP MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

ABSOLUTION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, punk and metallic beats.

I HEART THE GARAGE MORE THAN YER MAW THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Classic Garage student night over all rooms.

UPSIDE DOWN FLYING DUCK, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

BOTTLE ROCKET

THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £14

Chart, disco and indie.

MUNGOS HI FI SOUNDSYSTEM VS ROOTSMAN HI FI

From pop classics to hip-hop.

RIOT RADIO

SUPERNOVA (STEVE LAWLER)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Student-orientated massive indie night.

Indie rock and roll, past and present.

Korben Dallas and Nushta Drognova play a mix of Italo, disco and house.

SHED, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£6 AFTER 11)

Indie dancing David Bowie special, with Creation co-founder Slaughter Joe Foster on decks.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

Nick Peacock spins Norther soul, jazz and funk.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

Indie dancing club, playing anything danceable. DANCE!

DEADLY RHYTHM GLASGOW LA CHEETAH, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Resolution 653 drop by as part of their album tour.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

DEATH DISCO

Good music played by bad peope, with Rafla in the upstairs club.

Alterative clubber’s favourite, with monthly special guests.

THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

58 THE SKINNY APRIL 2011

STEREO, 23:00–04:00, £8

A soundsystem team-up spanning the genres.

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

MON 18 APR ALIBI MONDAYS THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

BURN BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with Andy R.

KNOCK KNOCK (MI AMI) GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, 23:00–03:00, £5

Experimental clubbing, with a live set from electronic tinkerers Mi Ami.

OCTOPUSSY THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub.

STOKED THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Pop, punk and ska. In the Attic.

WEDNESDAYS FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

80s synth and funk with Dom and Darrell.

INKED

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £TBC

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

JAKEBEATS

Rock, metal and hardcore in the Attic.

New electro and dubstep night from the Homebass crew.

SUN 17 APR

TUE 19 APR

BUTTON UP

THU 21 APR

I AM

MIXED BIZNESS

FLAT 0/1, 21:00–02:00, FREE

Sleazy R’n’B, jump jive and exotica. Tropical, yes.

CATHOUSE SUNDAYS CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet.

CRYOTEC CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

Monthly industrial, EBM and eletronic.

HUNG UP! SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 BEFORE 12

Weekend party curated by Optimo’s Twitch and Wilkes.

SHEDKANDI SHED, 23:00–03:00, £2

House and R’n’B with sisters Lisa Mafia and Lil Gem.

SIN CITY BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

Mish-mash of funk, disco and electro.

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by varied guests.

I.DJ SHED, 23:00–03:00, £2

Punters provive the iPod playlists.

GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Rockin’ weekly with Boom Monk Ben.

CO-OP SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

KILLER KITSCH

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

FEEL MY BICEP

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

REVOLT THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock and alternative, plus video DJ’ing. In the Attic.

Y’UPTAE THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Student night with Andy Wilson.

WED 20 APR CRASH SHED, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Pop, dance and hip-hop.

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Cosmic mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

GREATEST HITS BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

LOVE MUSIC O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and the Killer Kitsch DJs.

RUMBLE THURSDAYS THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Themed student night, complete with a bouncy castle.

ABSOLUTION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Indie, rock and pop with DJ Jopez.

Straight-friendly gay party, with DJ Suezz and the LUYD gang.

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

SKINT/VENGEANCE

MOBILE DISCO FRIDAYS

I HEART THE GARAGE MORE THAN YER MAW

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

THURSDAYS CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

Student-orientated rock, metal, punk, electro and pop night.

DIRTY BOOTY BUTTER NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £4 (£3)

Hip-hop, breakbeat and funk with resident DJ Otis.

FRI 22 APR FRIDAY @ BOOKCLUB HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Classic and underground disco.

NIGHTWALK 2011 THE ARCHES, 22:00–02:00, £16

Independent fashion showcase, fusing electronic music, art, photography and performance.

EUROTRIP (DAVE DE DRUMMER) SOUNDHAUS, 22:00–03:00, £13

Hard-style night with special guest Dave De Drummer, plus body painting and fire dancing as standard.

DAMNATION

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with Disco Dave et al.

OLD SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Vintage jazz, funk and soul.

ONLY FOOLS AND HOUSE FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

New York house, disco and 80s electro.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated massive indie night.

RIOT RADIO MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

Indie rock and roll, past and present.

SAT 23 APR ELECTRIC FROG EASTER WEEKENDER 2011 (EROL ALKAN, DJ YODA, FRANCOIS K & DANNY KRIVIT, IVAN SMAGGHE, OPTIMO, UNABOMBERS) SWG3, 16:00–23:00, £25 DAY (£45 WEEKEND)

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Street party-style micro-festival with a top DJ line-up.

BALLBREAKER/TEAM-UP: GOOD FRIDAY SPECIAL

SATURDAY @ BOOKCLUB

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

CATHOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £6 (£5)

Celebrating Easter with all things rock and the usual mix of party music.

BLACK TENT NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Funk, soul and hip-hop with Andy Taylor.

JOHN DIGWEED THE ARCHES, 22:00–03:00, £20

Progressive house DJ headlines an Easter Sunday set.

Indie, electro and anything inbetween with Pauly, Simin and Steev.

SHINDIG (DAVID HEFFORD, SHAUN MAC, MONKEY BUSINESS)

EVERYTHING STARTS WITH AN E

Techno and house beats.

LA CHEETAH, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

The AGT Rave Cru join the residents for a night of old school classics and rave anthems.

SOUNDHAUS, 22:00–03:00, £TBC

YOYO SATURDAY SHED, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£6 AFTER 11)

From pop classics to hip-hop.

THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Classic Garage student night over all rooms.

CATHOUSE: EASTER SATURDAY CATHOUSE, 22:30–04:00, £6 (£5)

Continuing the Easter celebrations with some classic rock, punk and metal.

AFRO ACID GLASGOW LA CHEETAH, 23:00–03:00, £10

Chicago acid house don, DJ Pierre, launches a series of Glasgow nights.

HALF MY HEARTBEATS FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3

Current and classic indie-pop gems.

HOT CLUB NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

Tearin’ it up with 60s psych-outs and modern sleaze.

MENERGY GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART, 23:00–03:00, £6

Italo disco and hi-NRG fun with Lady Munter and co.

NU SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins Norther soul, jazz and funk.

POWER TOOLS FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Korben Dallas and Nushta Drognova play a mix of Italo, disco and house.

RUBBERMENSCH O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Chart, disco and indie.

SINGLES NIGHT FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3

Beans and Divine play vinyl 7-inchers, all night long.

SUBCULTURE: ELECTRIC FROG AFTER-PARTY SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic, and the official afterparty for Electric Frog.

EDINBURGH CLUBS The Rock Shop

Y’Uptae

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

How’s Your Party Vs Killer Kitsch (Congorock)

Wed 27 Apr

Bassline, dub and house, with the dubwise stylings of Congorock and his jacked-up take on UK funky.

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Sun 24 Apr Electric Frog Easter Weekender 2011 (J Rocc, Green Velvet, Dave Clarke, Ben Klock, Todd Edwards, MMM, Kode9, Slam, L-Vis 1990, Electric Eliminators) SWG3, 16:00–23:00, £25 day (£45 weekend)

Student night with Andy Wilson.

Crash Shed, 22:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Pop, dance and hip-hop.

Gaga Wednesdays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with Andy R.

Knock Knock Glasgow School of Art, 23:00–03:00, £5

Street party-style micro-festival with a top DJ line-up.

Experimental clubbing, with live bands, DJs and explorations in light.

A Riot in the Rock Shop

Octopussy

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

Rock, indie and golden surf classics in an Easter Sunday special.

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub.

Federation Of The Disco Pimp: Soul Train on Easter Sunday

Stoked

The Admiral, 20:00–03:00, £7

Pop, punk and ska. In the Attic.

Dance and groove quarterly.

Button Up Flat 0/1, 21:00–02:00, Free

Sleazy R’n’B, jump jive and exotica. Tropical, yes.

Easter Sunday Ska Party Flying Duck, 22:00–03:00, £5

One-off Easter bash, playing a mix of ska, reggae and soul.

Highgrade (Dorian Concept) La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Easter Sunday special of the alldubstep party.

Hung Up! (Jimmy Edgar) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 before 12

Weekend party curated by Optimo’s Twitch and Wilkes, with creative wunderkind Jimmy Edgar.

Mad Hatters Tea Party The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Wonderland club takeover with giveaways and surprises.

Shedkandi Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

House and R’n’B with sisters Lisa Mafia and Lil Gem.

Sin City

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Mobile Disco Fridays

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop.

Numbers (Modeselektor, Siriusmo) The Arches, 23:00–03:00, £15

Double headline set, and sure to be an eclectic one.

Old Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Only Fools and House Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

New York house, disco and 80s electro.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Propaganda

Wednesdays

Student-orientated massive indie night.

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

80s synth and funk with Dom and Darrell.

Dirty Noise (Rektchordz)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Rockin’ weekly with Boom Monk Ben.

Co-Op Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 members)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s.

Voodoo Easter

Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 members)

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s. Plus a live wrestling match, in celebration of, er, Easter.

Feel My Bicep

Back To The Future Easter Party (Activator, Art of Fighters)

Counterfeit Say hello to yesteryear, with 90s nu-metal all the way. Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Burn Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Inked The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock, metal and hardcore in the Attic.

O2 Academy, 20:00–03:00, £14

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Shake It Up Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Indie, rock and pop with DJ Jopez.

Skint/Vengeance

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Student-orientated rock, metal, punk, electro and pop night.

The Pump Club Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £3

An electronic workout with the regulars and pals.

Fri 29 Apr Friday @ Bookclub Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Mono, 21:00–01:00, Free

Pin Up nights: Royal Wedding!

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock and alternative, plus video DJ’ing. In the Attic.

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, punk and metallic beats.

Thursdays

I.DJ

Revolt

Cathouse Saturdays

Classic Garage student night over all rooms.

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

Adele from Sons & Daughters plays guest disc jockey for the evening.

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

I Heart the Garage more than yer Maw

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by varied guests.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Absolution

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Adele Bethal

Killer Kitsch

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Chart and cheese midweek student fave.

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Axis Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Electro, fidget and bassline house.

JungleDub Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Thu 07 Apr

From pop classics to hip-hop.

Flying Duck, 21:00–04:00, £5

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Alexander Robotnick La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £10

Electro and synth-pop classics from yer man Robotnik (aka Maurizio Dami).

Modern Lovers (Vic Galloway)

Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £3

Retro happening, with radio’s Vic Galloway taking over the decks.

Nu Skool

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins Norther soul, jazz and funk.

Power Tools

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Korben Dallas and Nushta Drognova play a mix of Italo, disco and house.

Rubbermensch

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

The Store, 23:00–03:00, Free

Slap Bang (Hench Blaps) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Frisky The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro.

Bump The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 12)

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes.

Exhibit Music (Xavia) Wee Red Bar, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£2)

Superior indie, electro and good ol’ rock and roll.

Dapper Dans Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Crushed-up disco and soul.

Octopussy HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student night.

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Underground indie and electro favourite.

Terror’s 1st Birthday Party The Store, 23:00–03:00, £1.99

Breakcore celebration.

Fri 08 Apr Misfits The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Glasgow’s long-running indie spectacular, in a Royal Wedding special.

Chart, disco and indie.

Chart, electro and indie-pop.

Ballbreaker/Team-Up

Subculture: Loft Party

50s & 60s Party

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic.

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

Damnation Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

Choir Of Robots, Solar Phoenix The Store, 23:00–03:00, £3

House, indie, dance and live vocals from duo Choir of Robots.

Compakt Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 after 12)

Compakt invite along guest DJs from Headway, Animal Hospital, Hush Hush and Dirt.

Four Corners Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Soulful funk, hip-hop, breaks and jazzy beats with the regulars.

Girls & Boys

Long-running and varied alternative night.

The Egg Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11.30)

Indie institution with DJs Chris and Paul.

Whatchamacallit? (Simon Baker, Glimpse) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £9

Bonafide techno institution Speedy J pushes his sonically complex, rhythmically intense techno sound into the future.

This Is Music Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Bump

Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Myriad of rock, from classic to metallic.

Coalition Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B.

Killer Kitsch Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Mon 11 Apr Mixed Up The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

From hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Trade Union Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Anything goes with Beefy and Wolfjazz.

Sat 09 Apr

Tue 12 Apr

Selektrance Easter Extravaganza (Dutch Master, Jordan Suckley, Tommy Kay, Krystle)

Circus Arcade

Lane Nightclub, 20:00–03:00, £12 adv.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Musika (2000 And One, Yousef) The Liquid Room, 21:00–03:00, £15

Double headliner from electornic dance heavyweight 2000 And One, alongside criss-crossing dance DJcum-producer Yousef.

Bubblegum The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s.

His & Hers Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes.

Animal Hospital

Cool Kids Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Brand new weekly student night. In Speakeasy.

Drama Hawke & Hunter, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5)

Different DJs, themes and acts every week.

Fiasco The Liquid Room, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

House, electro and chart classic, plus the Ooh Fashion models sporting the latest looks.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Alternative and indie delights, from the 70s to the present.

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Tease Age

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Split

Green Door Surf, doo wop and rockabilly from the 50s/60s, plus free cake!

Guilty Pleasures Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £8

A non-stop music spectacular, glittering and glorious in its celebration of pop.

Saturday Night Beaver Cabaret Voltaire, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Genre-spanning LGBTI night. In Speakeasy.

Tease Age Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Octopussy

Basics

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

50s and 60s R’n’B and northern soul.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Chart, indie and electro student night.

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Underground indie and electro favourite.

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5

Beat Control HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Indie and alternative with the Evol DJs.

Devil Disoc Club (Lone) Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Fri 15 Apr Misfits The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro and indie-pop.

From classic disco to acid jazz, with the regulars and special live guest, Lone.

Redeemer Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Everybody

Long-running alternative night.

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

The Egg

Pop, rock, indie and electro from 1960 to present day.

Evol The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Anything goes alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Planet Earth Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Confusion Is Sex: 2nd Birthday

Rock, indie and punk anthems.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £10

All singing, all dancing Balkan-fused night in a special edition, celebrating the launch of Orkestra Del Sol’s new album.

Minimal and techno.

Antics

Pop quiz and musical bingo.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £8 (£7)

Birthday party special of the glam techno night, with a sci-fi theme.

Cosmic Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Psychadelic trance and progressive house, with decorative visuals.

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11.30)

Indie institution with DJs Chris and Paul.

Ultragroove (Fudge Fingas, Linkwood) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £8 (£5)

Fudge Fingas celebrates the launch of his debut LP with a DJ set incorporating live elements.

Wasabi Disco Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Cosmic house, wonky punk and disco, with some special guests in the pipeline.

Sun 17 Apr Underground Sunday The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Damn Hot (The Players Association)

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3

Sunday Club

Funk-fuelled session of soul, hip-hop and disco.

Girls & Boys

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Myriad of rock, from classic to metallic.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Coalition

New indie night with rock attitude.

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B with AC Slater

Telefunken (Ian Pooley)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£7 after 12)

Killer Kitsch

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

German DJ Ian Pooley bridges the gap between house and techno.

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Tuesday Heartbreak

This Is Music

Bass Syndicate

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band.

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The regular Edinburgh breaks and bassline crew takeover.

Beat Control HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Indie and alternative with the Evol DJs.

Big ‘N’ Bashy (Newham Generals, Flux Pavillion) Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £11

Dubstep, grime, reggae and jungle with a double-whammy of special guests.

It’s All Good (Tonykeo, Claudio, Tommy Kay, Gregsta) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Hush

New music for howlin’ too: think Yeasayer and TV On The Radio.

Electric Circus, 20:00–01:00, Free

Pre-club mix of northern soul and funk, in the bar.

Bangers & Mash The Hive, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Chart and cheese midweek student fave.

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Everybody

Land Of 1000 Dances

JungleDub

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Pop, rock, indie and electro from 1960 to present day.

Detroit soul, Chicago blues and various tunes from the 50s and 60s.

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Wolf Party’s 1st Birthday

The Rock Shop

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Wed 13 Apr

A celebration of tunes from a golden era.

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 12)

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Axis

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Electric Circus, 19:00–01:00, Free

The award-winning house night celebrates its first birthday. In Speakeasy.

Wee Red Bar, 22:30–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electric Circus, 20:00–01:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro.

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Eight-strong DJ line-up from across the musical board, from hard trance to old school disco.

Movement

Sun 10 Apr Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

BALKANARAMA (Orchestral Del Sol)

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 after 11)

Thu 14 Apr

Underground Sunday

New batch of DJs playing the best in mash-up house and minimal techno.

The Caves, 23:00–03:00, £12

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Genre-spanning midweek party, with a guest DJ in the back room.

Frisky

Mad Caravan Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £4

Slap Bang

New independent releases, local and international.

Sample (Rom-Com, Captain Anchor, Emulous, L’Ange)

New indie night with rock attitude.

House, garage and grime weekly.

Label showcase for techno and deep house label, AirLondon.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Substance (Speedy J)

Yoyo Saturday

Shed, 22:00–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Eclectic musical mix, raising funds for Oxfam. In Speakeasy.

Bangers & Mash

Genre-spanning midweek party, with a guest DJ in the back room.

Disco supernight with Rory and Simon Cordiner.

The Arches, 22:00–03:00, £15

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Live music and belly dancers jiggling to the sounds of ska, Latin and Balkan beats.

Banging house, techno and tramce with the Subculture crew.

Glasgow School of Art, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Brunswick Hotel, 22:00–02:00, £5

Bound For Glory (Brian D’Souza, Playdate DJs)

Electric Circus, 20:00–01:00, Free

Macho City

I Am

Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

Funk, soul and hip-hop with Andy Taylor.

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Pre-club mix of northern soul and funk, in the bar.

House, garage and grime weekly.

Classic and underground disco.

Punters provive the iPod playlists.

Saturday @ Bookclub

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Inside Out (John O’Callaghna, Guiseppe Ottaviane, Bryan Kearny)

Tue 26 Apr Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Reich and roll disco with Billy Woods.

Themed student night, complete with a bouncy castle.

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Trash and Burn

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Live-O!

Rumble Thursdays

Alibi Mondays

Soul Jam Hot

Der Supermax Love Machine

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

Rock Radio night of classic rock, with DJ Father Ted.

Mon 25 Apr

Different DJs, themes and acts every week.

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs scross the Scottish scene.

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons and the Killer Kitsch DJs.

Electro, techno and good ol’ rock and roll, plus live electronic visuals.

Hawke & Hunter, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5)

Hush

Easter Sunday Face Off

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Drama

Voodoo

Love Music

Spectra

Brand new weekly student night. In Speakeasy.

Mixed Bizness

Rock, punk and metal alternative Easter bash.

Classic Grand, 23:00–04:00, £4

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Wed 06 Apr

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Glam and hair metal classics, with the T&B go-go girls live on stage.

Cool Kids

Sat 30 Apr

Easter Party

Cathouse, 23:00–04:00, £2 (£1)

New student night, playing an eclectic mix of old and new.

Thu 28 Apr

Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Sunday Sabbath

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 11)

The Scrabble crew call it a day with their trademark mix of techno, grime and booty.

Greatest Hits

Live wrestling match between Jesus and the Easter Bunny, with DJ Mythic on decks.

Motion

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band.

Mish-mash of funk, disco and electro.

Cathouse, 23:00–04:00, £2 (£1)

Rock, indie and punk anthems.

Indie rock and roll, past and present.

Old-school Easter party shenanigans.

Classic Grand, 23:00–04:00, £4

Planet Earth

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Tuesday Heartbreak

Glasgow School of Art, 22:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

The Store, 23:00–03:00, Free

Antics

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Live-O!

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Anything-goes alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Scrabble: Last Ever!

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £5

Underground beats in the usual Dirty Noise fashion, with guest Rektchordz providing their most brutal bass assault yet.

Redeemer

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Electric Circus, 19:00–01:00, Free

Split

Maggie May’s, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£3) after 12)

Evol

Pop quiz and musical bingo.

Riot Radio

Cosmic mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (students free)

Tue 05 Apr Circus Arcade

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Electro, fidget and bassline house. Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs scross the Scottish scene.

The Store, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Mon 18 Apr Mixed Up The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

From hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Trade Union

Sat 16 Apr

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

What’s in a Groove? Voodoo Rooms, 21:00–01:00, Free

Anything goes with Beefy and Wolfjazz.

Northern soul, R’n’B, garage and funk.

Tue 19 Apr

Bom Brazil

Circus Arcade

Teviot Row Union, 21:00–03:00, £tbc

Club night to accompany the 1st International Afro-Brazilian Festival, with acclaimed African band Manje playing live.

Bubblegum The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s.

Electric Circus, 19:00–01:00, Free

Pop quiz and musical bingo.

Antics The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Rock, indie and punk anthems.

Motion The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 11)

New student night, playing an eclectic mix of old and new.

April 2011

THE SKINNY 59

DUNDEE MUSIC Fri 29 Apr

Tue 05 Apr

Sun 17 Apr

Techno and electro for dancing feet.

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B.

Hippy Hippy Shake

Noizteez Legacy (Nasty P, J Bostron)

Mon 25 Apr

Electro-swing for loose hips.

The Xcerts (The Barents Sea, 3 Times Over)

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun (Mr Gav McGinty, Courtney Stuart)

Cool Kids

Jackhammer (Billy Nasty)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Brand new weekly student night. In Speakeasy.

Drama Hawke & Hunter, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5)

Different DJs, themes and acts every week.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Split Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

Tuesday Heartbreak The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band.

Wed 20 Apr Hush Electric Circus, 20:00–01:00, Free

Pre-club mix of northern soul and funk, in the bar.

Bangers & Mash The Hive, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

The Store, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Two rooms of reggae, hip-hop, dubstep and D’n’B.

This Is Music Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro from the Sick Note DJs.

Tic Tac Toe (Andrew Doran, Affi Koman) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £6

The TicTacToe crew relocate from their home at The Arches to celebrate their second birthday. In Speakeasy.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

JungleDub Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs scross the Scottish scene.

Live-O!

Weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s.

Departure Lounge (Jazzteppa, Capitol 1212, Anchorsong) The Caves, 22:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £10

Presenting the musician, producer and DJ at the forefornt on the electronic scene. Bow down.

Magic Nostalgic Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Slap Bang

Tease Age

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Thu 21 Apr Movement Electric Circus, 22:00–01:00, Free

New independent releases, local and international.

Frisky The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro.

Bump: Bacardi Takeover (Jaymo, Andy George) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 12)

The Radio 1 duo drop by for a set of house, electro and disco.

BoomBoom (Lucky Luciano, KRN) CC Blooms, 23:00–03:00, Free

Clubland, hard-house and trance.

Homegrown Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Liquid D’n’B.

Octopussy HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student night.

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Underground indie and electro favourite.

Fri 22 Apr Misfits The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro and indie-pop.

Wonky (Mount Kimbie, Creep) Bongo Club, 22:00–03:00, £8

Mount Kimbie are joined by Brooklyn duo Creep for a live takeover, plus the regulars on deck duty.

Everybody Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

Pop, rock, indie and electro from 1960 to present day.

Evol The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Beat Control HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Heavy techno from the Polish residents.

Driven Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Goth, industrial, EBM and futurepop. We hear it’s very danceable.

Minimalism: SLG The Store, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Electronica, house and techno.

Pulse (Nick Curly) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £12 adv.

Underground chap Nick Curly takes guest slot.

Redeemer Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Long-running and varied alternative night.

The Egg Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11.30)

New indie night with rock attitude.

Misfits

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro and indie-pop.

Thu 07 Apr

Perfect indie-pop and C86.

Mitchell Museum (The Scottish Enlightenment, Dormant Figure)

Wee Red Bar, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

Everybody

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5

Pop, rock, indie and electro from 1960 to present day.

Evol

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Anything goes alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Planet Earth

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Motion

Sugarbeatclub (Burns, Toni Jarvis, Trilogy)

Rock, indie and punk anthems. The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (£2 after 11)

Cabaret Voltaire, 22:30–03:00, £5

New student night, playing an eclectic mix of old and new.

Having built his reputation with a series of top class single releases, Burns takes to Sugarbeatclub’s decks.

Cool Kids

Girls & Boys

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

New indie night with rock attitude. The Store, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Numbers

Aching, country-tinged harmonies from the Scottish four-piece. Pass the moonshine.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Doghouse, 15:00–17:30, £5

A perverse odyssey In sound and visuals.

Xplicit

Split

D’n’B evolution.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £tbc

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

Sat 30 Apr

Tuesday Heartbreak

Bubblegum

The Jazz Bar, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band.

Electric Circus, 22:00–01:00, Free

Pre-club mix of northern soul and funk, in the bar.

Bangers & Mash The Hive, 22:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Chart and cheese midweek student fave.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s.

Madchester

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, Free (with gig ticket)

Post-club special for the Unknown Pleasures gig. Free entry with gig ticket.

Tease Age

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

The Circus

Electric Circus, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 after 12)

Indigo

Party mix of jive, rock, funk and soul.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Beat Control

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £10 (£5 members)

The Who tribute act.

Sat 16 Apr The Twist (Mass Consensus, Tiny Little Robots, Pose Victorious, Jill MacDonald) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Five-piece indie-pop-rock crossover from Dundee.

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Alternative indie from these fair shores.

Fri 29 Apr Hanney, +48volts, Alley Cats, EH! Doghouse, 20:00–00:45, Free

Up-beat experimental done good.

DUNDEE CLUBS Fri 08 Apr

Asylum

Axis

Indie and alternative with the Evol DJs.

Opto

Rock, metal and punk alternativeness.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dare! (Jon Pleased Wimmin, Adam le Chic)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Fri 22 Apr

Bleep

Opto

Electro, fidget and bassline house.

JungleDub Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs scross the Scottish scene.

Live-O! The Store, 23:00–03:00, Free

House, garage and grime weekly. Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dirty District

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5

Underground electronic dance. In Speakeasy.

Karnival (Paolo Mojo)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £8 (£10 after 12)

The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Reading Rooms, 22:00–02:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Residents night of ear-bleeding electronic beats ‘n’ bleeps.

Underground dance with Karnival guest favourite, Paolo Mojo.

Transmission

Mumbo Jumbo

Indie, pop and hardcore with Wolfie and The Girl.

Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Sat 09 Apr Spektrum Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Electronic tunes for dancing and jumping to.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–01:00, Free

House specialists Stewart and Steven play, er, some special house.

Movement

Redeemer

Asylum

Long-running and varied alternative night.

Rock, metal and punk alternativeness.

New independent releases, local and international.

Frisky The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro.

Zzzap! 1st Birthday (Boy 8-Bit, Clouds) The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £6

The Zzzap! crew return with a couple of special guests in tow.

Octopussy HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student night.

Burger Queen vs Yip Yap Easter Parade (Huggy, Gareth Sommerville, Lel Palfrey)

Checkie and Lauren play hip-hop and dance, all night long.

60 THE SKINNY April 2011

Cha Cha Heels (Little Buddha, Hey Esse, Shoogar, Steph Arthur)

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Ride

Easter Sunday team-up.

Doghouse, 15:00–17:30, Free

Chilled afternoon blues.

Wed 27 Apr

Myriad of rock, from classic to metallic.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £5 adv. (£8 door)

Sat 23 Apr Afternoon Blues Session (The Souped Up Fords)

The Barents Sea (Another Disco Party)

Electric Circus, 20:00–01:00, Free

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £18.50

Rock tinkerers, mixing dance, blues, country, and gospel styles.

Fri 15 Apr

Underground Sunday

Sunday Club

Fri 22 Apr Alabama 3

Who’s Next (The Trade)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Old-school hip-hop night.

Wee Red Bar, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £10

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

The legendary record label’s flagship Edinburgh night.

Soul Jam Hot

Sun 24 Apr

Hawke & Hunter, 21:00–03:00, £6 (£8 after 11)

Dexter’s Bar, 20:00–22:30, £4

Aberdeenshire six-piece, trading in heavy melodies.

Adventures in retro stereo, from rare soul to sunshine pop.

Playdate

Souloco Relaunch Party (Burnski)

Sun 10 Apr Dividing The Silence

Drama

Thu 28 Apr

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

Doghouse, 13:30–23:45, £12 (£6)

All-day extravaganza, with a 17-strong bill of bands.

Modern Lovers

Funk, soul, disco and house from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Dee In The Dog! (Love Susan, Kings and Cowards, KillingFloor, General Judgement)

Tue 12 Apr

Genre-spanning midweek party, with a guest DJ in the back room.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £10

Sat 09 Apr

Melodic rock four-piece fae Dundee.

Alternative indie-pop with flourishes of utter brilliance.

Kassidy (Pearl & The Puppets, Lord Luken)

Different DJs, themes and acts every week.

Wed 20 Apr Endeavour (Panda Trap, Static Rebound)

Brand new weekly student night. In Speakeasy.

Hawke & Hunter, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5)

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £9

Acoustic singer/songwriter from the windswept Outer Hebrides, aka Colin MacLeod.

Dexter’s Bar, 20:00–22:30, £5

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Slap Bang

Sounds of Soul invite their first ever guest in the form of John Morales, the music enthusiast turned remixer, producer and DJ. In Speakeasy.

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £8

Distorted pop three piece formed in Aberdeen.

UnPop!

Sounds of Soul (John Morales)

One-off reggae night.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Electric Circus, 19:00–01:00, Free

Studio 24, 22:00–03:00, £8

Indie institution with DJs Chris and Paul.

Passa Passa (P Selector)

Girls & Boys

Tue 26 Apr

Hush

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £14

Anything goes with Beefy and Wolfjazz.

Bootleg

Planet Earth

Fine purveyors of deep house and techno.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Wed 27 Apr

Experimental DJ and producer Burnski guests at Souloco’s Easter relaunch.

Club 10-86 (Secret Cinema, Sven Weisemann, Vakama)

Trade Union

Indie and alternative with the Evol DJs.

Anything goes alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

From hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Antics

Unpredictable hotch-potch selection, from power ballads to 90s rave.

Genre-spanning midweek party, with a guest DJ in the back room.

Nu Fire

Pop quiz and musical bingo.

House, garage and grime weekly.

The Store, 23:00–03:00, Free

Hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Axis Electro, fidget and bassline house.

The Hive, 22:00–03:00, Free

Bubblegum

Alex Metric: Open Your Eyes Tour (Stu Todd, Jordan Cochrane)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Mixed Up

Circus Arcade

The Liquid Room, 22:30–03:00, £3 (£1)

Indigo

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sat 23 Apr

Annual Departure Lounge blow-out featuring a line-up of up-andcoming hip-hop, electronica, roots and dubstep players.

Chart and cheese midweek student fave.

Coalition

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–03:00, Free

Underground indie and electro favourite.

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Egg

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£3 after 11.30)

Indie institution with DJs Chris and Paul.

Underground

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Alternative pop from the 80s. Can’t say fairer.

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Fri 15 Apr Opto The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

SPACEBALL Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £3.50 (£5 after 12)

Sun 01 May

Fidget, electro and danceable beats with resident Penny and guests.

A Day Of Rest (Riva Starr, Retro/Grade, The Magician)

Felt

Hawke & Hunter, 14:00–01:00, £16.50

A full Sunday of house and disco beats, with a daytime BBQ and guests a-plenty.

Underground Sunday

The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Indie, retro pop and danceable rock.

Sat 16 Apr GLITCH (Sunday Circus) Reading Rooms, 22:00–02:30, £5 (£10 after 11)

House, minimal and techno.

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Balkanarama Are Back! Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Balkan beats and belly-dancing.

DJ Yoda Fat Sam’s, 22:30–03:00, £12

Mish-mash mixtape master and producer. And a bit of a genius in our eyes.

Zazou Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

New monthly night, celebrating the sounds of the futures of yesterday (aka bizarre disco and minimal synth).

Sat 23 Apr Locarno Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Rockabilly, doo-wop and soul.

Asylum Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Rock, metal and punk alternativeness.

Fri 29 Apr Opto The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Sat 30 Apr Autodisco Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Electro, funk and disco.

Asylum Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Rock, metal and punk alternativeness.

Find more listings online

COMEDY GLASGOW Tue 05 Apr Pappys: All Business (MGICF)

Stuart Goldsmith: The Reasonable Man (MGICF) Brel, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£6)

The story what happened when Goldsmith tried to be himself.

The Stand, 19:30–21:30, £12 (£10)

Zombie Science 1Z (MGICF)

Planet Mearns (MGICF)

Spoof Zombiologist Doctor Austin on how a zombie outbreak might occur.

Gag-laden comedy sketch troupe. Ramshorn Theatre, 19:30–21:30, £10 (£9)

Sketches from the four corners of his planet, as Raymond Mearns is joined by Tom Brogan, John Ross and Debbie Welsh.

Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (MGICF)

Citizens Theatre, 20:00–22:00, £15 (£10)

The tale of Thomas’ Middle East adventure, walking the entire length of the Israeli Separation Barrier.

JayDee & Coke (MGICF)

QMU, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£3)

Dr Phil’s Rude Health Show (MGICF) Tron Theatre, 22:00–00:00, £12 (£10)

GP-cum-comic crossover and Private Eye’s medical correspondent.

Magners Festival Club (MGICF) The Stand, 22:00–00:00, £10 (£8)

Top five festival picks.

Fri 08 Apr

Brel, 20:30–22:30, £5

The Comedy Lunch Hour (MGICF)

Pop-up Comedy Gong Show (MGICF)

Afternoon preview of some of the best festival acts.

Good old fashioned comedy gong show.

Big Lunchtime Comedy Chat Show (MGICF)

Scotchstand-upcomedy,songsandsketches. Halt Bar, 20:30–22:30, Free

Best of Red Raw (MGICF) The Stand, 21:30–23:30, £3 (£2)

Long-running weekly beginner’s showcase.

Wed 06 Apr Ed Byrne: Crowd Pleaser (MGICF) Clyde Auditorium, 19:30–21:30, £20

Master of observational comedy and star of Mock The Week.

Planet Mearns (MGICF)

Ramshorn Theatre, 19:30–21:30, £10 (£9)

Cottier’s, 12:30–13:30, £5

Maggie May’s, 17:00–19:00, £7 (£6)

Alan Anderson leads a magical, musical, mystery jaunt round Glasgow.

Highlight Comedy Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £12

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

Ha Ha Half Price Comedy Club (MGICF)

All the things that make Calman smile, like dancing to TV theme tunes and confrontations in shops.

Hanpicked line-up of festival faves.

Nathan Caton: Straight Outta Middlesex (MGICF)

Shed, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£6)

The Stand, 21:30–23:30, £8 (£7)

Thu 07 Apr Big Lunchtime Comedy Chat Show (MGICF) Corinthian, 13:00–15:00, £5

Des Clarke, Scott Agnew and guests.

Stand Up Drink up (MGICF) State Bar, 19:30–21:30, £10 (£7)

Navigating through four bars, with a comedian in each venue.

The Great Duck Race (Alan Montgomery)

Flying Duck, 19:30–00:00, £3.50

Comedy and live music night, with a videoed duck race projected onto big screens.

The Stand, 19:45–21:45, £10 (£8)

Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £13 (£11)

Uisge Beatha, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£6)

Ha Ha Half Price Comedy Southside (MGICF) Comperes Alan Anderson and Bratchy introduce four festival funnies.

Sean Hughes: Ducks and Other Mistakes I’ve Made (MGICF) Citizens Theatre, 20:00–22:00, £15

Intelligent, and sometimes dark, stand-up.

The Comedy Supper Club (MGICF) Arta, 20:00–22:00, £10 (£8)

Live comedy showcase. Food available.

£5 Festival Funnies (MGICF) Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:00, £5

Scottish compere Scott Agnew introduces a pick’n’mix of the festival.

Bob Doolally: Live and Half Cut! (MGICF) Blackfriars Basement, 20:30–22:30, £9 (£8)

A celebration of the darker side of the beautiful game.

Elaine Malcolmson, Jena Friedman (MGICF)

State Bar, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Highlight, 20:30–22:30, £12

Idiot Of Ants (MGICF) Cocktails of absurdities.

Tiger Tiger, 20:30–22:30, £15

Live stand-up as part of MGICF.

Classic Grand, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£3)

About trying to be a saint, strangers, politics, complacency and breakfast.

Showcase hosted by Gus Lymburn, who’s been charming audiences since 2006.

Keep Off The Grass (MGICF)

Comedy Out West (MGICF)

Two teams compete in a comedy fight to the death to see who the real men are.

Peter Kay

Best of Scotland (MGICF)

Bolton-born chubby-cheeked comic, writer and actor.

Grosvenor Cafe, 19:30–21:30, £4

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

Paul Sinha: Extreme AntiWhite Vitriol (MGICF)

The resident irish funnyman and guests.

Citizens Theatre, 15:00–17:00, £7.50

Laughs for the little ‘uns.

Alan Anderson’s Gallus Glasgow Comedy Walk (MGICF) Maggie May’s, 17:00–19:00, £7 (£6)

The Stand, 19:30–21:30, £9 (£7)

Sinha fighs back after being called a racist by a racist.

Comedy In The Buff (MGICF) Buff Club, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£5)

West Brewery, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£8)

Weekend round-up of the best of the fest.

Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads: Seven Caustic Tales from Broken Britain (MGICF) Tron Theatre, 22:00–00:00, £10 (£8)

Performance poetry comic.

Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £13 (£11)

Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £15

Glasgow’s own comedy queen.

Rich Hall (MGICF)

Old Fruitmarket, 20:00–22:00, £17

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners. The Garage, 19:30–21:30, £15

The Stand, 19:45–21:45, £12 (£10)

showcase of new American comedy talent.

Arthur Smith: Exposed! (MGICF) Citizens Theatre, 20:00–22:00, £15

Comedian, writer, broadcaster and all-round British institution.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £6 (£5/£1)

Mon 18 Apr Lenny Henry: Cradle To Rave The King’s Theatre, 19:30–22:00, From £27

Uisge Beatha, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£6)

Ha Ha Half Price Comedy Southside (MGICF) Shed, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£6)

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:00, £5

Antony Murray: One Prick Tony (MGICF) Capitol, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7)

Industrially appreciated droller.

Comedy Carnage (MGICF)

Loveable high-octane Geordie comic.

Ro Campbell: Alibi (MGICF) Capitol, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Ro Campbell descends, convict style.

Vladimir McTAvish: The Top 50 Greatest Scots of All Time Ever! (MGICF) The Griffin, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£5)

A newly-updated version of his sell-out Fringe show .

Comedy Picks (MGICF) Cottier’s, 21:00–23:00, £10

From global politics and economics to how to deliver your own son on your own bathroom floor.

Capitol, 22:00–00:00, £6 (£5)

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by Joe Heenan.

Simon Munnery: Self-Employed

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £9 (£7)

Simon Munnery impersonates himself, for comedic value y’understand.

Wed 06 Apr

Comedy showcase.

Pappy’s: All Business

Bank Holiday Special (David Hadingham, David Longley, Elaine Malcolmson, Jim Park) The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£9)

Weekend comedy over-spill, in aid of the bank holiday. Hosted by Raymond Mearns.

Fri 15 Apr Highlight Comedy

Mon 25 Apr

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

Out With The Old

The Friday Show (Hattie Hayridge, Anthony J. Brown, Phil Differ, Eddie O’Dwyer)

The comedy showcase formerly known as Absolute Beginners has a brand spanking new venue.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Red Raw

Sat 16 Apr

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

Prime stand-up hosted by Joe Heenan.

Highlight Comedy (Simon Clayton, Barry Dodds, Tony Hendriks) Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £13

City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

Tue 26 Apr Lenny Henry: Cradle To Rave Festival Theatre, 19:30–22:00, £25

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

One-man show about the thing Henry loves most: music.

Tim Minchin

Comedy Cellar

Playhouse, 19:30–21:30, £36

The Canon’s Gait, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

Quick-fire gags and lots of larking about.

Newandestablishedacts,allunderthe watchfuleyeofcompereRebeccaDonohue.

The Thursday Show (Parrot, Paul McCaffrey, Daniel Webster)

Fri 08 Apr

Breaking News

Highlight Comedy

The Saturday Show (Hattie Hayridge, Anthony J. Brown, Phil Differ, Eddie O’Dwyer)

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by JoJo Sutherland.

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Joe Heenan.

Wed 27 Apr

Red Raw

Fri 22 Apr

Sun 17 Apr

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

The Friday Show (Parrot, Paul McCaffrey, Daniel Webster)

The Friday Show (Mark Maler, Andy White, Barry McDonald)

The Best of Scottish Comedy (Alan Francis, Teddy, Phil Differ, Rob Kane)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £4 (£2)

Frantic and unpredictable comedy showdown.

Tue 12 Apr The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

Wed 13 Apr The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £5 (£4/£2.50)

Thu 14 Apr

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Prime stand-up hosted by Susan Calman.

The Colour Ham

High-energy comedy nonsense with special effects.

Quarter final of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition.

Queen Margaret Union, 19:00–22:00, £9 (£5)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

The Thursday Show (Mike Wozniak)

Sun 24 Apr

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by Bruce Devlin.

Bank Holiday Special (Parrot, Paul McCaffrey, Daniel Webster)

Highlight Comedy

Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £12

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

Peter Kay

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

Bolton-born chubby-cheeked comic, writer and actor. The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Sat 16 Apr Highlight Comedy (Gary Little, Carl Hutchinson, Dougie Dunlop, Roger Monkhouse) Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £15

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Improvised comedy with Stu & Garry. Funnyman-cum-rock superstar, touring with a 55-piece orchestra.

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Susan Calman.

Fri 15 Apr

Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

Laughing Horse New Act of The Year

Bolton-born chubby-cheeked comic, writer and actor.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Prime stand-up hosted by Susan Morrison.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Tim Minchin

The Saturday Show (Parrot, Paul McCaffrey, Daniel Webster)

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £10

Sat 09 Apr

Sat 23 Apr

Peter Kay

Prime stand-up hosted by Bruce Devlin.

Experimental sketches from some of Scotland’s most promising upand-comers.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Improvised comedy with Stu & Garry.

Thu 21 Apr

Saturday Night at the State (MGICF)

The Stockholm Syndrome (MGICF)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £4 (£2)

Funnyman-cum-rock superstar, touring with a 55-piece orchestra.

The Friday Show (Mike Wozniak)

State Bar, 21:00–23:00, £7 (£5)

The Canon’s Gait, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

Pop-Up Comedy

The Victoria Bar, 20:30–23:00, Free

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Raymond Mearns.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £12 (£10)

Line-up of live comedy favourites.

Chris Broomfield introduces some new talents on the scene.

EDIN B UR G H

Free Sunday comedy showcase.

Charity fundraiser hosted by Billy Kirkwood.

Wed 13 Apr

Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £10

Benefit Night (Gary Tank Commander, Mark Nelson, Mikey Adams)

Brel, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£6)

Widdicombe makes his festival debut with a series of real-life comic tales.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Wed 20 Apr

The Stand, 21:30–23:30, £9 (£7)

Political witticisms at their finest.

Sat 23 Apr The Saturday Show (David Hadingham, David Longley, Elaine Malcolmson, Jim Park)

Thu 14 Apr

New and established acts, all under the watchful eye of compere Rebecca Donohue.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £sold out

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £9 (£7)

The Thursday Show (Hattie Hayridge, Anthony J. Brown, Phil Differ, Eddie O’Dwyer)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Comedy @ the Ivory (MGICF) Andy Zaltzman Promises To Tell The Truth, Half The Truth & Everything But The Truth (MGICF)

Andy Zaltzman

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

Prime stand-up hosted by Raymond Mearns.

Prime stand-up hosted by Susan Morrison.

Tue 05 Apr

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

The Canon’s Gait, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

New and established acts, all under the watchful eye of compere Rebecca Donohue.

Sun 24 Apr

Comedy Cellar (Charlie Ross)

Highlight, 20:30–22:30, £12

Tiger Tiger, 20:30–22:30, £15

Comedy showcase.

Tue 12 Apr Comedy Cellar (Graeme Thomas)

Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

Highlight (MGICF)

Jongleurs live (MGICF)

Halt Bar, 20:30–23:00, Free

Fri 22 Apr The Friday Show (David Haddingham, David Longley, Elaine Malcolmson, Jim Park)

Live skits and charater comedy.

Brel, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£6)

Teddy: Not For Everyone (MGICF)

Diverse offerings, with stand-up comics, variety acts, magicians and musical comedy. Hosted by Des Clarke.

Cleverly-observed comedy.

Pop-Up Comedy

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

The Friday Show (Nick Wilty, Andrew Stanley, John Gavin, Alan Sharp)

Red Raw

The Fun Junkies

Live stand-up as part of MGICF.

Franticandunpredictablecomedyshowdown.

Red Raw

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by Jim Park.

The Broken Windows Policy

Tue 19 Apr

Comedian-cum-actor-cum-pianist.

City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

Fri 29 Apr

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Susan Morrison.

Blackfriars Basement, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£5)

Classic Grand, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

Comedy ringmasters Billy Kirkwood and Chris Henry unleash some mayhem.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by Susan Morrison.

The Saturday Show (Nick Wilty, Andrew Stanley, John Gavin, Alan Sharp)

Improv Wars

Scottish compere Scott Agnew introduces a pick’n’mix of the festival.

Thu 28 Apr The Thursday Show (Nick Wilty, Andrew Stanley, John Gavin, Alan Sharp)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £4 (£2)

The Comedy Supper Club (MGICF) £5 Festival Funnies (MGICF)

Top comics from the contemporary Irish circuit.

Improv Wars

Kai Humphries and Sean Grant: One Night Only (MGICF)

Mon 11 Apr

Arta, 20:00–22:00, £10 (£8)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £7 (£6/£3)

The king of the one-liner.

Comperes Alan Anderson and Bratchy introduce four festival funnies. Live comedy showcase. Food available.

The Best of Irish Comedy (Michael Smiley, Andrew Stanley, Paul Currie)

Sat 30 Apr

Ivory Hotel, 20:45–22:45, Free

Handpicked line-up of festival faves.

The Victoria Bar, 20:30–23:00, Free

25 comedians and 25 topics picked from a hat. Chaos ensues.

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

Flying Duck, 20:00–22:00, £tbc

Ha Ha Half Price Comedy Club (MGICF)

Bolton-born chubby-cheeked comic, writer and actor.

Car Crash Comedy

Tim Minchin

Coalition of Comedy: Tears of the Beer-Affected (MGICF) Gordon Smith and Gordon Struthers bring the laughs.

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

Tim Vine: The Jokeamotive (MGICF)

Gags and punchlines a-go-go.

Josh Widdicombe: Other People (MGICF)

Would You Trust These Men (MGICF)

Capitol, 20:30–22:30, £5

The Stand, 15:00–16:30, £4

Laughs for the little ‘uns.

James Campbell’s Comedy 4 Kids (MGICF)

Highlight (MGICF)

Collection of jokes and ramblings designed to put a smile on your face.

Man Test (MGICF)

Sun 17 Apr

Michael Redmond’s Sunday Service

Live stand-up as part of MGICF.

Jongleurs live (MGICF)

All female comedy collective of six standup comedians, actors and writers.

Kids Comedy Club (MGICF)

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Bruce Devlin.

Selection of comedians from around Scotland.

Scottish comedy of a surreal nature.

Des Clarke: Happy Thoughts (MGICF)

Blackfriars Basement, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Sun 10 Apr

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Corinthian, 13:00–15:00, £5

Blackfriars Basement, 20:30–22:30, £9 (£8)

Capitol, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£7)

The Stand, 20:00–22:00, £9 (£7)

Uisge Beatha, 22:40–00:40, £7 (£6)

Top festival comedians, guests and a late bar.

The Saturday Show (Mike Wozniak)

Des Clarke, Scott Agnew and guests.

Emile Heskey’s Extremely Depressing BagÊof Scottish Alternative Comedy (MGICF)

Dark witted duo.

Selection of comedians from both home and abroad.

Josie Long: Be Honourable (MGICF)

Big Lunchtime Comedy Chat Show (MGICF)

John Scott: Totally Made Up (MGICF)

Live stand-up as part of MGICF.

Oran Mor, 20:00–22:00, £12 (£10)

Cottier’s, 12:30–13:30, £5

Afternoon preview of some of the best festival acts.

The Griffin, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Comedy In The Buff (MGICF) Buff Club, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£5)

The Comedy Lunch Hour (MGICF)

America Stands Up (MGICF)

Susan Calman’s Happy Place (MGICF)

Munnery impersonates himself. Yes, really.

Sat 09 Apr

The Garage, 19:30–21:30, £15

Local legend and comedy stalwart on life, love, lies and truth.

Simon Munnery: SelfEmployed (MGICF)

Top festival comedians, guests and a late bar.

Rich Hall (MGICF)

Master of observational comedy and star of Mock The Week.

Improvised comedy sketches.

The comedy showcase formerly known as Absolute Beginners has a brand spanking new venue.

Star of the recent criticallyacclaimed BBC4 documentary, How the West Was Lost.

Bruce Morton: Propaganda (MGICF)

Halt Bar, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£3)

Wed 27 Apr

Uisge Beatha, 22:40–00:40, £7 (£6)

Peter Kay

Ed Byrne: Crowd Pleaser

To Be Continued (MGICF)

Ha Ha Comedy Late ‘n’ Loud (MGICF)

The Thursday Show (David Hadingham, David Longley, Elaine Malcolmson, Jim Park)

Janey Godley: The Godley Hour (MGICF)

Versatile stand-up performer.

Open mic comedy fun and games.

Out With The Old

Highlight Comedy (Janey Godley, Mike Milligan, Mark Nelson, Barry Castagnola)

The Stand, 19:30–21:30, £8 (£7)

The Victoria Bar, 20:30–22:30, Free

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

Ha Ha Comedy Late ‘n’ Loud (MGICF)

Bolton-born chubby-cheeked comic, writer and actor.

Alan Anderson’s Gallus Glasgow Comedy Walk (MGICF)

Des Clarke, Scott Agnew and guests.

Inspired alternative comic.

Pop-up Open Mic Night (MGICF)

Thu 21 Apr

Five top festival picks.

One-man show about the thing Henry loves most: music.

Paul Tonkinson (MGICF)

Award-winning comedian and star of BBC Radio 4 in her Glasgow debut.

Mon 11 Apr

Five top festival picks.

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £35

Selection of comedians from both home and abroad.

Tony Law: Mr Tony’s Brainporium (MGICF)

Brel, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£6)

Red Raw

The Stand, 22:30–00:30, £15 (£12)

Alan Anderson leads a magical, musical, mystery jaunt round Glasgow.

Star of the recent criticallyacclaimed BBC4 documentary, How the West Was Lost.

Citizens Theatre, 20:00–22:00, £15

Peter Kay

The Stand, 22:30–00:30, £12 (£10)

Corinthian, 13:00–15:00, £5

Sketches from the four corners of his planet, as Raymond Mearns is joined by Tom Brogan, John Ross and Debbie Welsh.

SECC, 19:30–22:00, £20

Magners Festival Club (MGICF)

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£9)

Weekend comedy over-spill, in aid of the bank holiday. Hosted by Michael Redmond.

Mon 25 Apr Heroes of Alternative Comedy (Simon Donald) Highlight, 19:00–22:30, £8

Comedic escapades with the Viz cofounder, writer and media whore.

Improv Wars

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £4 (£2)

Frantic and unpredictable comedy showdown.

Tue 26 Apr Car Crash Comedy

Halt Bar, 20:30–23:00, Free

25 comedians and 25 topics picked from a hat. Chaos ensues.

Jekyll and Hyde, 19:00–21:00, £5

Highlight Comedy (Bruce Devlin, Des Clarke, Christian Reilly)

Playhouse, 19:30–21:30, £36

Mon 18 Apr

Five headline acts over a two-hour showcase. Hosted by Susan Calman.

Provocatively-spirited comic.

The Saturday Show (Mark Maler, Andy White, Barry McDonald)

The comedy showcase formerly known as Absolute Beginners has a brand spanking new venue.

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Laughing Horse New Act of The Year

Jekyll and Hyde, 22:00–00:00, £5

Quarter final of the Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition.

Sun 10 Apr Whose Lunch Is It Anyway? The Stand, 13:30–15:30, Free

Improvised comedy with Stu & Garry.

Fix Japan Benefit Gig (Vladimir McTavish, Bruce Fummey, Keir McAllister) Voodoo Rooms, 18:30–23:00, £12

Live comedy fundraiser, plus music from Taiko drummers Mugen Taiko Dojo.

The Sunday Night Laugh-In (Andy White, Eddie O’Dwyer, Jason Murphy, Fern Brady, Liam McDonnell) The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £6 (£5/£1)

Laid-back Sunday social.

Thu 28 Apr

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10 (£8)

Scott Capurro Opens Up

Out With The Old

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Susan Morrison.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £6 (£5/£3)

Top comics from the contemporary Scottish circuit. Hosted by Susan Morrison.

The Thursday Show (Michael Smiley, Alan Francis, Antony Murray, Martin McAllister)

Highlight, 19:00–23:00, £13

Live stand-up, from a mix of newcomers and headliners.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £6 (£5/£3)

Current affairs with a comedy bent, natch.

City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

Red Raw

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £8 (£7/£4)

Fri 29 Apr The Friday Fix (Shazia Mirza, Simon Fielder, Fern Brady, Robert Parker, Randan Discotheque) Voodoo Rooms, 18:30–01:00, £9

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £2

Fridaynightbillofcomedy,livemusicandDJs.

Tue 19 Apr

The Friday Show (Michael Smiley, Alan Francis, Antony Murray, Martin McAllister)

Open mic-style beginner’s showcase.

Comedy Cellar (Teddy)

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£9/£5)

The Canon’s Gait, 20:00–22:00, £2 (£1)

Prime stand-up hosted by Susan Calman.

Sean Hughes: Ducks and Other Mistakes I’ve Made

The Saturday Show (Michael Smiley, Alan Francis, Antony Murray, Martin McAllister)

New and established acts, all under the watchful eye of compere Rebecca Donohue.

The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £12 (£10)

Quick-fire audience banter with the one-time Buzzcocks funny-man.

Wed 20 Apr Benefit Night (Jo Caulfield, Bruce Devlin, Stu Murphy, Garry Dobson, Vladimir McTavish) The Stand, 20:30–23:00, £10

Five headliners play for nowt, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.

Sat 30 Apr

The Stand, 21:00–23:00, £15

Five stand-up headliners, hosted by Susan Calman.

Mon 02 May Out With The Old City Café, 20:30–22:30, £3 (£2)

The comedy showcase formerly known as Absolute Beginners has a brand spanking new venue.

April 2011

THE SKINNY 61

T H E AT R E GLASGOW CCA Entertainment Island: The Trilogy 07:00PM, 14 Apr—15 Apr, £5 (£4)

Trilogy of dance, drilling at the vast world of popular culture.

Citizens Theatre Dancing At Lughnasa Various times, 19 Apr—23 Apr, £10–From £10

Brian Friel’s modern classic set in the remote Irish village of Ballybeg.

Laurel and Hardy Various times, 27 Apr—30 Apr, From £10

An intimate look at the classic comedy duo.

Cottier’s Six Black Candles Various times, 06 Apr—29 Apr, £12– From £13 (£8)

Black comedy in which six sisters, their maw and granny gather to take revenge by witchcraft on a wayward husband.

Flying Duck A Midsummer Nights Dream Various times, 20 Apr—22 Apr, £5

Audiences are immersed in Shakespeare’s magical world in a rather unique way. Be intrigued...

Gilmorehill G12 Claire Cunningham: ME 07:30PM, 20 Apr, From £5

Arches off-site performance, involving crutches, aerial skills and beautiful vocals.

Footloose Various times, 25 Apr—30 Apr, From £14.50–From £18.50 (£15)

Dance musical favourite, stuffed worryingly full of 80s anthems.

Theatre Royal Alice Various times, 12 Apr—23 Apr, From £9–From £12

Scottish Ballet’s re-telling of the Alice (as in, in Wonderland) tale, with otherworldly designs from Antony McDonald.

Flawless 07:30PM, 17 Apr, From £23.50

Street dance fused with contemporary dance and ballet, from the troupe who’ve worked with Madonna et al.

Tramway Come, Been and Gone 07:30PM, 07 Apr—09 Apr, £18 (£14)

Michael Clark performs his acclaimed production made primarily to the music of David Bowie.

The Veil 07:30PM, 20 Apr—21 Apr, £6 (£4)

Intriguing performance inspired by working with Glasgow Arts international dancers.

Tron Theatre Falling Flying 08:00PM, 06 Apr—09 Apr, £9 (£7)

Various times, 05 Apr—09 Apr, £5–£11 (£8)

A collection of true stories that explore coincidence, with sound design by Zoey Van Goey’s Michael John McCarthy.

Money... The Game Show Various times, 05 Apr—09 Apr, £5–£11 (£8)

Winner of the Arches Platform 18 award, Clare Duffy, has created a show about what money is worth, using the actual money she won, in 6,000 pound coins pieces.

Blackout Various times, 06 Apr—19 Apr, not 7th, £11 (£8)–£15 (£10)

A theatrical smack in the face, inspired by the stories of a young offender from Glasgow.

When We Meet Again (Introduced As Friends 05:30PM, 08 Apr—09 Apr, £4 (£3)

A one-on-one performance where the viewer dons video goggles and has their point of view replaced by someone elses. Running roughly every ten minutes until 10.30pm.

As Yet Untitled 07:30PM, 15 Apr, £3 (£2)

Glasgow-based performer Tom Pritchard presents a series of improvised pieces.

The King’s Theatre Chess Various times, 05 Apr—09 Apr, From £14.50–From £16.50

Musical favourite set amidst a chess battle, with the obligatory mirrored personal battle (over a woman).

The Hard Man Various times, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 11th, From £14.50–From £24.50 (£21.50)

New production of Tom McGrath’s classic, about hardman Byrne in the ganglands of Glasgow.

Swan Lake On Ice Various times, 19 Apr—23 Apr, From £17.50–From £19.50

The Imperial Ice Stars interpretation of Swan Lake (i.e on ice, and with dazzling adventures in lycra costumes).

New production of Tom McGrath’s classic, about hardman Byrne in the ganglands of Glasgow.

Playhouse Drumchasers 07:30PM, 05 Apr, £16

New percussion spectacular, with a troupe of ten dancers and percussionists alighting the stage.

That’ll Be The Day 07:30PM, 18 Apr, From £18.50

Singalong hits from yesteryear.

Royal Lyceum Theatre Educating Agnes Various times, 08 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, From £12.50

Scottish National Poet Liz Lochhead’s new translation of Molière’s comedy The School For Wives, adapted and re-titled, but just as wicked.

Traverse Around The World In 80 Days Various times, 06 Apr—07 Apr, £14 (£10)

Platform 18: New Work Award

07:30PM, 07 Apr—09 Apr, £6

Senior Skillshops members explore identity, peer pressure and individuality. An unravelling story, told through a diverse mix of puppetry, live action, music and song. Adapted from an original work by Philip Pullman.

Pause With A Smile

Various times, 05 Apr—30 Apr, From £14.50–From £24.50 (£21.50)

Project Branded

Clockwork

The Arches

The Hard Man

A grand adventure using unconventional travel, based on the tale of Phileas Fogg.

Paisley Arts Centre Black comedy in which six sisters, their maw and granny gather to take revenge by witchcraft on a wayward husband.

King’s Theatre

A witty and poetic duologue that looks at one person’s battle to defy biology, stereotypes and death.

Six Black Candles Various times, Multiple dates, £12– From £13 (£8)

ART

Various times, 13 Apr—16 Apr, £10

Ovid’s Metamorphoses 07:45PM, 21 Apr—23 Apr, From £7

Somewhat magical actor/musician piece relocating Roman mythology to 1940s wartime Britain, with a blend of puppets, projection, live music and gasmasks.

Caged Various times, 28 Apr—30 Apr, £11 (£7)

A new take on the classic Beauty and the Beast theme.

EDIN B UR G H Brunton Theatre Age Of Arousal 07:30PM, 12 Apr—16 Apr, From £10 (£6)–£11 (£9)

Erotic tale from the past given energy by all-female company Stellar Quine’s sharp edge and relevant approach.

07:00PM, 14 Apr—17 Apr, £14 (£10)–£16 (£12)

Double bill of Platform 18 winners Clare Duffy’s Money... The Game Show and Gareth Nicholls’ Pause With a Smile.

Pandas Various times, 15 Apr—01 May, not 18th, 25th, £14 (£10)–£16 (£12)

Rom-com meets thriller in Rona Munro’s new play, set between Edinburgh and China.

Ivan and The Dogs 08:00PM, 21 Apr—23 Apr, £14 (£10)–£16 (£12)

In a recession-ravaged Moscow, a young boy survives on the streets by living with a pack of dogs. Based on a true story by Ivan Mishukov.

Jump Start 08:00PM, 28 Apr—29 Apr, £10 (£6)

Telford College students raid the Traverse archive for an evening of extracts from some well-loved and lesser known theatre gems.

Word Of Mouth Mother, a la carte 07:00PM, 05 Apr—06 Apr, £6 (£5)

A personal exploration of a mother and daughter relationship.

After Miss Julie Various times, 15 Apr—16 Apr, £12–£11 (£9)

Flirty tale of passion set amidst the celebrations of the Labour Party’s landslide election victory.

Six Black Candles Various times, Multiple dates, £12– From £13 (£8)

Black comedy in which six sisters, their maw and granny gather to take revenge by witchcraft on a wayward husband.

Festival Theatre Scottish Opera: Intermezzo 07:15PM, 07 Apr—09 Apr, not 8th, From £16

DUNDEE Dundee Rep A Play, A Peh and A Pint 08:30PM, 05 Apr—09 Apr, £10

Specially-comissioned play by Dundee’s own Michael Marra and Scottish playwright Linda Maclean. And a pie an’ pint, naturally.

Girl X 07:30PM, 12 Apr, From £13 (£8)

Inspired by the Girl X story, about a mother’s decision to remove her disabled daughter’s womb.

1920s-set thearical comedy, capturing the flaws and foibles of high-society chaps and chapesses.

Age Of Arousal

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Erotic tale from the past given energy by all-female company Stellar Quine’s sharp edge and relevant approach.

07:30PM, 12 Apr—13 Apr, From £16

Ballet’s grandest dames are back (i.e. they’re men).

Alice Various times, 12 Apr—23 Apr, not 17th, 18th, 19th, From £9–From £12

Scottish Ballet’s re-telling of the Alice (as in, in Wonderland) tale, with otherworldly designs from Antony McDonald.

Spirit of the Dance Various times, 28 Apr—30 Apr, From £19

Tango meets Irish dance. Seriously.

62 THE SKINNY April 2011

07:30PM, 12 Apr—16 Apr, not 13th, From £10 (£6)–£11 (£9)

Blackout Various times, Wed 6th, Fri 8th, Sat 9th, Tue 19th, £11 (£8)–£15 (£10)

A theatrical smack in the face, inspired by the stories of a young offender from Glasgow.

Six Black Candles Various times, Multiple dates, £12– From £13 (£8)

Black comedy in which six sisters, their maw and granny gather to take revenge by witchcraft on a wayward husband.

GLASGOW Burrell Collection China Through The Lens Various times, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

The work of pioneering travel photographer John Thomson, from 1837-1921.

CCA Resemblances, Sympathies, and Other Acts 11:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, Free

Using a broad range of artistic approaches, Jeremy Miller brings disparate sculptural, photographic and video pieces together with a selection of new commissions.

To This Place I Return 11:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, Free

Phyllis Katrapani’s video outcome of a self-portrait through architecture and time.

Cafe Cossachok Looking Forward, Looking Back Various times, 07 Apr—01 May, not 11th, 18th, 25th, Free

Watercolours and pencil sketches form Susan Christie, divided between two themes: seasons and nostalgia.

David Dale Gallery and Studios Borders, Boundaries & Barricades 12:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

First Scottish solo exhibition from Ric Warren, in which large scale installation and prints redevelop geographies of division.

Flying Duck All The Young Nudes 08:00PM, Tue 5th, Tue 12th, Tue 19th, Tue 26th, £4

Drawing class with a backdrop of DJ beats and a bar to the side.

Gallery of Modern Art Blueprint for a Bogey Various times, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

Group exhibition exploring the right to play, and how we play, including work from Dame Paula Rego, Eduardo Paolozzi and Andy Goldsworthy.

Hertie Querty Various times, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

Playful works from artists including David Shrigley, Roderick Buchanan and Beagles & Ramsay.

Glasgow Print Studio After, Growth and Form Various times, 05 Apr—01 May, not 11th, 18th, 25th, Free

A range of new and existing paintings and prints by Sam Ainsley and Roger Wilson.

Glasgow School of Art Half Way: Part One 09:00AM, 13 Apr—19 Apr, not 17th, Free

Part one of a two part exhibition showcasing work from the Glasgow School of Art’s second year Painting and Printmaking department. In the Mackintosh Museum.

40 Years In The Tower: 1971-2011 10:00AM, 16 Apr—29 Apr, not 17th, 24th, Free

The Silversmithing and Jewellery Department present an exhibition of work created by 23 past and present staff members, spanning the history of the last 40 years. In the Newbery Gallery.

Half Way: Part Two 09:00AM, 21 Apr—27 Apr, not 24th, Free

Part two of a two part exhibition showcasing work from the Glasgow School of Art’s second year Painting and Printmaking department. In the Mackintosh Museum.

Glasgow Sculpture Studio

The Modern Institute

Jonathan Owen

Christine Borland: Cast From Nature

Hayley Tompkins: A Piece Of Eight

10:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Free

10:00AM, 05 Apr—15 Apr, not 9th, 10th, Free

Various times, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Free

New work inspired by a John Godsir sculpture, taken from a cast of a medically-anatomised corpse.

New solo work from the Glasgowbased artist associated with DIY, lo-tech pieces.

Mary Mary

Transmission Gallery

Aleana Egan: Nature Had An Inside 12:00PM, 15 Apr—30 Apr, not 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, Free

New solo show from the Dublinborn artist, concerned with the interplay between literature and sculpture.

Mono Rachel Woodward

Shelley Nadashi: Text Me Faster Dance Company 11:00AM, 05 Apr—09 Apr, Free

Multi-disciplinary solo work, influenced by puppetry and theatre practices and examining the relationship between performer and audience.

Tron Theatre

12:00PM, 15 Apr—28 Apr, Free

Dr Sketchy’s

New photography work from Rachel Woodward, in the form of a series of snapshots taken during her 13 month travels around various countries.

04:00PM, 24 Apr, £7 (£5)

Platform

Let The Games Begin

Hope, Memories, Loss and Community Various times, 05 Apr—29 Apr, Free

A project by Chris Leslie, aimed at capturing people’s hopes, lost livelihoods and the disappearance of communities, using photography, video and audio.

Recoat Gallery Black Lodge 12:00PM, 05 Apr—10 Apr, Free

Triple-header exhibition from three young Scottish artists, Estum, Macism and Soulrelics, looking at notions of society, religion and reality.

Elph 12:00PM, 16 Apr—01 May, not 18th, 25th, Free

New works from the up-andcoming Scottish artist.

Alternative life drawing, this month with a Steampunk theme.

Trongate 103 10:00AM, 05 Apr—21 Apr, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, Free

Cameron Morgan constructs a vibrant wall work, as the gallery becoming a studio and the artwork evolves over the duration.

Ingleby Gallery New sculptural works and drawings from the ECA graduate, including a series of intricately-carved found wooden figures.

Winston Roeth 10:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Free

Groups of slate roof tiles, sourced from a quarry in Maine, arranged in multi-coloured compositions.

Inverleith House Claude Cahun, Sue Tompkins 10:00AM, 05 Apr—17 Apr, not 11th, Free

Photographs by photographer Claude Cahun, and the first major solo exhibition in Scotland for Sue Tomkins.

National Gallery of Scotland French Drawings 10:00AM, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

Works from Poussin to Seurat.

Old Ambulance Depot Bracket Presents: 480 11:00AM, 08 Apr—11 Apr, Free

11:00AM, Multiple dates, Free

Japanese artist, Katsutoshi Yuasa showcases a new collection of meticulously handcrafted woodcuts based on photographs.

Danish Cultural Institute Textile, Silver, Wood

Final year ECA artist Sade Foley presents a mini showcase of mixed media works created during her degree, all rooted in the natural world.

Dean Gallery 10:00AM, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

The German photographer depicts a variety of fruity characters from the Weimar Republic that includes dwarfs, artists and Nazis.

Dovecot Studios

Street Level Photoworks

Perception

Victoria Clare Bernie: Slow Water

A collection of artists from northern Scotland’s more barren areas, looking at how they perceive their landscape, culture and wildlife.

10:30AM, 05 Apr—16 Apr, not 10th, 11th, Free

Edinburgh Printmakers An Informed Energy: Lithography and Tamarind

12:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

Solo work drawing on European cultural heritage, including the enchanting Chorspiel, a threepart, opera-like film featuring five characters from three generations.

12:00PM, 05 Apr—06 Apr, Free

Second Nature: Kit Leffler 12:00PM, 23 Apr—30 Apr, not 25th, Free

Artist Kit Leffler questions the natural and artificial through appropriation, alteration and manipulation of digital images.

Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) RSA: New Contemporaries 2011

03:00PM, 10 Apr, £7 (£6)

Glam burlesque drawing class. GO!

The Scottish Gallery John Brown 10:00AM, 06 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Free

An exhibition of John Brown’s most recent paintings, with a Mediterranean influence.

Pondering the notion of what ‘public’ means now, from a mixed batch of artists including Erwin Van Doorn and Inge Nabuurs.

Fruitmarket Gallery Narcissus Reflected Various times, 22 Apr—01 May, Free

Examining the potency of the Narcissus myth in art, photography, installation, film and video.

17th, 24th, Free

Mass collection of postcard-sized art, from the likes of David Shrigley, John Byrne and Sally Pring. In the Traverse bar.

DUNDEE Cooper Gallery Paul Noble: Tent Various times, 05 Apr—16 Apr, not 10th, Free

New exhibition expanding Noble’s vistas of the epic Nobson Newton.

DCA 11th, 18th, 25th, Free

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Through his use of popular imagery, Koons explores the aesthetics and culture of taste.

12:00PM, 07 Apr—10 Apr, Free

Traverse Rock Trust Postcards

Mass line-up of the best Art and Architecture graduates from the 2010 degree shows, selected from across Scotland.

Prints from the Tamarind Institute of Lithography, in New Mexico.

Going Public

07:00PM, 05 Apr, Free

Déjà vu: Manfred Pernice

Artist Rooms: Jeff Koons

Embassy Gallery

The Store

Various times, 05 Apr—13 Apr, £2 (£1)

10:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, Free

10:00AM, 08 Apr—28 Apr, Free

Ulla von Brandenburg: Neue Alte Welt

Dr Sketchy

11:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th,

Patriothall Gallery

Artist Rooms: August Sander

The Common Guild

The Jazz Bar

Live art event, where punters get given a roll of wallpaper to doodle over.

10:00AM, 05 Apr—15 Apr, not 10th, Free

Group show from Michael Bauer, Charlie Hammond and Gabriel Hartley, who share an interest in using figuration as a starting point to abstraction.

A solo exhibition by early career artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia, recipient of The Skinny Award at 2010’s RSA New Contemporaries. Featuring new work in video, photography and Harris tweed tailoring.

Presentation of Trockel’s works on paper, taking in 30 years of graphic output.

Cumulus: Sade Foley

New series of paintings, painted in and around Turner’s studio on the Altyre Estate in Morayshire.

The Briggait

11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th, Free

The Imaginary: Katsutoshi Yuasa

11:00AM, 05 Apr—08 Apr, Free

FIGMENTS

10:00AM, 05 Apr—30 Apr, not 10th,

After School Club

Mixed showcase of textile, silver and wood works.

Working with digital video, filmmaking, drawing and photography, Victoria Clare Bernie creates a visual document of insect life and death in a Highland loch. Quite beautiful.

Rosemarie Trockel: Drawings, Collages and Book Drafts

Out of the Blue Drill Hall

Rearrange Your Face

Various times, 09 Apr—01 May, not 11th, 18th, 25th, Free

Talbot Rice Gallery

Corn Exchange Gallery

Andrea Turner

New solo work from the GSA graduate, known for his tonal pen and ink scrawls.

Mini exhibition presenting work focusing on the concerns of living with the inside out and outside inside.

EDIN B UR G H

10:00AM, 05 Apr—14 Apr, not 8th, 9th, 10th, Free

11:00AM, 22 Apr—30 Apr, not 24th, 25th, Free

10:00AM, 09 Apr—01 May, Free

Brac{et collective shows work from seven artists, including Jaye Brown, Holli Cooper and Graeme Clark.

Sorcha Dallas

Rob Churm

Blanca Gallego: It Is Not Here

10:00AM, 05 Apr—01 May, Free

St Margaret’s House Art’s Complex Happenings 10:00AM, 05 Apr—10 Apr, Free

Various times, 05 Apr—01 May, not

German sculptor Manfred Pernice comes to Dundee with his typically ‘unmonumental’ work that looks a lot like archtecture.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Self Portraits Various times, 05 Apr—29 Apr, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Free

An exhibition of self-portraits by General Foundation students.

Generator Projects

Mix of painting, drawing, sculpture and poetry from eight contemporary artists working in Scotland.

Strange Loops

Black White Score

12th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 20th, Free

10:00AM, 09 Apr—01 May, Free

Group exhibition, where the artists have been asked to create a series of works following a rigorous production directive.

Collective of work by three diverse artists: narrative painter John Brown, sound artist Lee Riley and abstract painter Colin Lawson.

12:00PM, 07 Apr—24 Apr, not 11th,

STARTER FOR ELEVEN:

ADAM GOLDBERG

CRYSTAL BAWS WITH MYSTIC MARK

Facing a pop quiz on the phenomenon of the actor turned musician, Adam Goldberg battles for his supper Quizmaster: David McGinty Q1. Though better known for her album of Tom Waits renditions… (Mr Goldberg interjects) Scarlett Johansson. You have to let me finish the question sir. I know the answer but go on. Which Jeff Buckley song did Scarlett Johansson cover for the 2009 film He’s Just Not That Into You? Oh, I have absolutely no idea. That’s a question I actually don’t want to get right. I mean I’m assuming I’m not going to want to get right most of these so mark me down as ‘I don’t know’. A. Last Goodbye. (0 Points) Q2. Zooey Deschanel is the ‘She’ half of indie pop duo She & Him, who is ‘Him’? M.Ward. A. M. Ward (Matt Ward). (1 Point) Q3. Dogstar, sadly now disbanded, were arguably more famous for their bassist than any song they ever wrote. Name that bassist/film star. Keanu Reeves. A. Keanu Reeves. (1 Point) Q4. What is the name of actor Jason Schwartzman’s musical outfit? Coconut Records. A. Coconut Records. (1 Point) Q5. Woody Allen’s musical side was explored in the 1997 documentary Wild Man Blues, what instrument does he play? Oh, he plays clarinet of course. I saw him at Michael’s Pub twice. A. Clarinet. (1 Point) Q6. Steve Martin and his band won a Grammy in 2009 for bluegrass album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo. What is the name of his band? I don’t know, but he plays banjo. A. The Steep Canyon Rangers (Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers). (0 Points) Q7. What is the name of Stephen Drozd’s character in Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne’s film Christmas on Mars? (Laughs) I don’t remember. That’s the only one I should get right. I mean I can sort of hear it in my head but that’s about it.

A. Major Syrtus. (0 Points) Damn it! I knew it was like Captain something or Sergeant something. The last thing you remember, I think, when you get out of that is the name of the character. Q8. What is the title of Eddie Murphy’s 1993 single featuring Michael Jackson which made it to No. 73 on Billboard’s ‘Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs’ chart? (Laughs) I don’t know, but what about way back from the 80s, now this is a deep cut man, ‘Boogie in the Butt’? That was something from his stand up back in the early 80s. Let’s see, ‘Party all the time’? I don’t know. A. Whatzupwitu. (0 Points) I’m really sorry to hear that. Q9. The video for From Yesterday by actor Jared Leto’s band 30 Seconds to Mars, was rumoured to have been the most expensive music video ever made. Approximately how much was it thought to have cost? I’m going to say 1 million dollars, I have no idea. A. $13 million. (0 Points) What?! Oh bullshit, now come on! That’s the stupidest thing I heard in my life. Both of my videos cost a total of… well I guess if you include the cost of the iPhone cause I did have to go buy that, I think it's about $1,500. Q10. Who is the actress/frontwoman of Juliette and the Licks? That’s Juliette Lewis. A. Juliette Lewis. (1 Points) Q11. Released by Motown in 1987, The Return of Bruno is the debut album of which action movie star? Oh… Bruce Willis. A. Bruce Willis. (1 Point) Six points That’s an embarrassingly high score. I don’t know, I’m not proud of that. And I get the Flaming Lips question wrong too. Oh well. [On learning of the Haggis Supper prize – laughs] Oh yeah. Yeah I’m glad I lost! The Goldberg Sisters is released via PIAS on 11 Apr

ARIES April sees you drift so far up shit creek you’re desperately attempting to sculpt a jobby paddle out of handfuls of floating faeces before Mt. Turd erupts and you get smothered in a pyroclastic surge of molten excrement.

TAURUS Had another sperm won the race, would some other consciousness have won over, creating a reality all its own? And what if the sperm had arrived at the egg, say, a minute later? Would I still be me? These important questions plague your reality.

www.adamgoldbergdilettante.com

GEMINI In April you discover the Justin Bieber-lookalike “dream boat” you met over the internet didn’t actually climb K2 without oxygen, adopt orphaned baby seals and work for NASA as claimed. No, he lives at home with his elderly mother and father, walks like a velociraptor, moves his lips when he reads and is chronically unemployed.

ground will open up and suck the muscles off your bones like meat off a kebab skewer. Enjoy April. LIBRA We really don’t need types like you polluting the cultural atmosphere with your psychic methane. Kill yourself.

SCORPIO Yes, your postman is stealing mail from you, The Man has bugged your flat and your cat is a robot with cameras for eyes. You just know they’re hiding even more bullshit from you. How deep does this bovine-excrement-stuffed rabbit hole go?

SAGITTARIUS You wonder whether these tracksuit-clad, phlegmily-laughing, moist balls of vole-skulled meat you frequent Wetherspoon’s with could be categorized as ‘friends’ with a straight face.

CANCER You’ve been around the block more times than a particle in the LHC at CERN. Stop rutting. Earth’s full.

CAPRICORN All your aspirations are about to be sent through the fun-crusher and into oblivion. Everyone knows dolphins control the Galactic Federation, and we’re utterly powerless to stop them.

LEO Shhh! Hey, listen! Mind that statue of Donald Dewar on Buchanan Street? That’s not a statue at all. It’s actually Dewar himself, frozen in carbonite by Salmond the Hutt. Talk quieter, lest we’ll both be in for a serious pigeon shit bukkake session too! I still owe the Hutts some council tax money.

AQUARIUS Don’t get cocky with how good things are going because this April you wake up in your basket to the sudden and harrowing realisation it’s February 1951, your owner lives in Middlesborough, your entire life was merely a dog’s dream and you’re an arthritic Jack Russell terrier called Keith.

VIRGO Oi! You blanked me in the Farmfoods the other day! You don’t blank me like I don’t drape my own balls in a Bernard Matthews meat-flattening machine. I’ve cursed you with a Necronomicon hex. Soon the

PISCES I don’t have time! Apologies but I’m off on an ultra hi-octane spiritual gurning journey, dervish-whirling in southern Yemen with Sufi mystics on PCP for six days straight. Best start packing my scrip.

April 2011

THE SKINNY 63