The Skinny August 2011

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Issue 71 August 2011

FESTIVAL MADNESS

AUGUST IN EDINBURGH: DAVID O’DOHERTY HELEN ARNEY & ROBIN INCE WARPAINT DAVID MACH JAMES YORKSTON AND MUCH, MUCH MORE

PLUS INTERVIEWS WITH: BEIRUT THE HORRORS TOM MORELLO STEPHEN MALKMUS ROMAIN GAVRAS JAMES MARSH

MUSIC | FILM | CLUBS | PERFORMANCE | TECH| BOOKS | COMEDY | ART | FASHION |TRAVEL| LISTINGS

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CONTENTS

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Editorial

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THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

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6: Opinion: Josie Long celebrates her hero, Jeffrey Lewis; Skinny on Tour is somewhere cloudy, with flags, where they wear Amnesty t-shirts; Lizzie introduces the Fringe coverage; Andrew tells you what really got his goat this month; Ana campaigns against censorship in primary schools; STOP THE PRESSES gives you up to the minute news we couldn’t fit in anywhere else.

8: Heads Up: Heads Up periodically attempts to lead you away from the Edinburgh Festival. Yes, there is life outside the capital this month.

FEATURES 10: Fringe Festival: Comedian on comedian: Helen Arney interviews Robin Ince, Robin Ince interviews Helen Arney and they come to the conclusion that he can’t say no to a starving poet.

11: Comedians Phil Nichol and Stephen Carlin discuss their fathers and religion.

Jigsaw stars Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema bicker quietly amongst themselves to promote their Fringe show.

13: John Scott tells Martin Mor about chippy sauce and his Ma’s stovies Somewhat less cerebral stuff, from Sammy J and Randy. Sample quote: R: What’s your most embarrassing elbow story? SJ: The one where the penis gets stuck.

14: Aussie Fiona O’Loughlin talks to her daughter Biddy about luddites and whisky.

15: Bringing flim back to the festival – we recommend Cinefringe, Celluloid Trips and the Quatsi Trilogy.

16: Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg waltzes with Slash and discusses her choice of slacks..

18: Edinburgh Art Festival: Artist Stephen Sutcliffe has been videotaping everything off t’telly for the last three decades. You can see what he’s done with the raw materials in Stills gallery this month.

19: Fife-born artist David Mach gives us some insight on his epic City Art Centre exhibition based on the King James Bible.

20: Looking forward to The Shimmy, celebrating physical theatre in the festival.

21: Edinburgh International Festival brings the East to the West, or the West to the East, or some debateable concept that GKV duly debates.

22: A closer look at the Scottish Performance contingent descending on Edinburgh in August.

23: David O’Doherty shares all about persistence, weeping on stage, and a fascination with Shackleton.

24: Edinburgh International Book Festival: Our highlights, and Alasdair Gray tells us about his former career as a lift operator in the Kremlin.

25: Anstruther troubadour James Yorkston looks forward to his head to head with Ian Rankin.

27: LuckyMe are having a big ol’ festival party in Cab Vol so we’ve celebrated by talking to some men with ludicrous facial hair (DJs).

28: The Horrors have ruptured the universe with a sublime third album, we kick it on the roof of their studio.

30: Beirut’s Zach Condon retires his nomad lifestyle.

32: The Nightwatchman, AKA Tom Morello, gets busy with that whammy bar.

33: He caused controversy with MIA’s Born Free video (aka the ginger genocide). Romain Gavras talks to us about his debut feature, Our Day Will Come (also featuring a ginger theme).

35: Renaissance slacker Steven Malkmus puts Pavement back to bed and reconvenes his Jicks.

36: Director James Marsh discusses Project Nim, the new film following the tumultuous life of Nim the chimp, subject of a 70s experiment socialisation.

LIFESTYLE 38: Travel: A Delhi resident see the city through the eyes of a newcomer, and eats near-constantly.

40: Food & DrinK: Festivals creep into the section, with restaurant recommendations from Russell Kane and the Fawlty Towers dining cast.

42: fashion: This month Noir! and the Harris Tweed Ride are very now and also the new black.

43: Deviance: Our Deviance editor is interning in Bogota and took the time to get a Colombian minister’s perspective on sexuality and God. 44: Showcase: Jamie Johnson, longtime Skinny contributor and now Showcase special shows us his wares.

REVIEW 47: Music: New albums from Sole & Skyrider, Adam Stafford and Wooden Shjips are rocking the spot.

54: Clubs: Guy Gerber talks collaborating with Puff Daddy (or MC Shizzlestick, as he’s now known in Leith) alongside our picks of the clubbing month ahead.

56: Film: The new releases in cinemas and on DVD, alongside highlights of the events of the cinematic month.

58: ART: Mystics or Rationalists at Ingleby Gallery & Peles Empire at Sierra Metro – just some of our picks of the EAF. 59: TECH: The newly re-christened section looks for geekery in the Festivals.

Books: Conceptual reviewing with Mr Keir Hind.

60: Performance: Venue of the month takes a look at Leith on the Fringe.

61: Comedy: Dave Fulton in profile.

62: COMPETITIONS: Competitions: Win! Urbanears headphones! Gin! Orlando tickets! National Galleries tickets! Scottish Opera tickets!

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63: LIstings: All the music, clubs and art listings for Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee this month.

71: Starter for 11: Keir tortures Alan Bissett with a quiz on Alan Bissett, or topics tangentially associated with him. Horoscopes are specially bleak this month, stay safe y’all.

August 2011

THE SKINNY

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What’s that persistent banging coming from underneath the office? Why, tis the sound of yet another Fringe venue being fabricated. Yes, it’s that time of year again when the Festivals come to the capital, and the air of Edinburgh is heavy with the anticipation of dreams made and broken and the impending financial ruin of a multitude of aspiring performers.

And (rising above the natural scepticism of the long time Edinburgher) there is of course lots and lots to see and do, whichever particular cultural field turns you on. As is traditional, our section editors have laboured long and hard to bring you a taster of their recommendations for each of the festivals in the form of interviews and highlights.

For the Fringe, Comedy co-editors Lizzie and Bernard have revisited 2010’s winning formula of pitting comedian against comedian, setting the talent loose to interview each other. There are loads, including Helen Arney chatting to Robin Ince, Phil Nichol being quizzed by Stephen Carlin, and show-mates Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurstema bickering amongst themselves.

As a nod to the Edge festival and music on the Fringe we caught up with Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg for some illuminating chat on partying with Slash, dressing like Oor Wullie and bringing the dance with her bass. Looking forward to the Edinburgh Art Festival, we talked to Stephen Sutcliffe about his Stills exhibition (and his extensive collection of videotapes).

We also had a few words with David Mach ahead of the opening of Precious Light, his epic 5-floor City Art

THIS MONTH’S COVER

Illustrator and Designer Jack Hudson was born and raised in Birmingham and now freelances in the city of Bristol, England. Jack is inspired by adventure and when he is not sat at his desk

Centre exhibition which re-imagines the King James Bible in a series of vast and intricate collages. It’s open now, and a truly wonderful feat.

Performance has come over all patriotic and looks forward to the Scottish presence in the Festivals, as well as heralding the return of The Shimmy, The Skinny’s unruly, dance-obsessed Festival publication which will be coming out twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) throughout the month. Get your free copies across the city from 5 August.

The Book Festival has an expansive line-up of big names, new names and interesting pairings. We’ve endeavoured to break down the highlights for you, and also spent some time with both Alasdair Gray and James Yorkston, both of whose author events we’re supporting. Our last piece of Festival promo (for now) is for the LuckyMe Festival party, happening in Cab Vol on Fri 12 August. We chatted to some of the stars (Claude Speeed, Nick Hook and Machinedrum) to find out more.

Away from the Festival hysteria, with a reminder that there is more to life than Edinburgh in August, Music offers more exclusives than you can shake a beer-caked flyer at: we sit on the roof with The Horrors; exchange polemics with Rage Against the Machine guitar legend Tom Morello; share a hangover with Beirut’s Zach Condon and have breakfast with reformed slacker Stephen Malkmus.

Over in Film we talk to Project Nim director James Marsh and the controversial Romain Gavras (he of MIA ginger genocide video fame).

Plenty to see and do indeed. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.[Rosamund West]

creating pencil and gouache drawings, he is either: drinking coffee, playing/watching gigs or cycling around town looking for nice trinkets to hoard.

See more of his lovely work at: www.jack-hudson.com

Hero Worship Jeffrey Lewis

Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Josie Long gets all tongue-tied over anti-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis My friend got hold of an early, scruffy demo of Jeffrey Lewis when we were at university. It blew my mind and he’s been my hero ever since.

There are so many things to love about Jeffrey Lewis. He’s an incredible lyricist and he writes about everything, so you end up with really stupid, funny songs like Creeping Brain as well as heartbreaking songs about love like You Don’t Have To Be A Scientist To Do Experiments On Your Own Heart. There’s one that I’m keeping in mind for the Edinburgh festival. It’s called Don’t Let The Record Label Take You Out To Lunch and there’s a lyric that goes: You get a good review and then you get a bad review, But don’t get suckered either way because none of them know you I couldn’t agree more.

I saw Jeffrey once in Edinburgh, playing support to The Cribs in The Liquid Rooms. The audience was full of these lairy 19-year old rock fans and he was by himself with an acoustic guitar, looking vulnerable. They were all staring at him, saying “who is this guy?”, so he stepped away from the mic and started shouting his songs at them.

They were speechless. It was one of the most wonderful pieces of self-assurance and stagecraft I’ve ever seen.

We’ve got a few things in common, like the way we both draw comics and use them onstage. I look up to his DIY ethic as well, the way he sells his own merchandise after gigs, chats to the fans and sleeps on people’s sofas so he can play at

Photo: ashley good

Editorial

tiny gigs all over the world. We did meet once and although he’s really charming, I could barely speak to him. A lovely man, truly inspirational and truly someone to look up to.

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place is at Pleasance Dome, 4-28th Aug, 7pm Jeffrey Lewis's new album A Turn In The DreamSongs is released via Rough Trade on 10 Oct

Shot of SKINNY the month ON TOUR Say hi to Ana! She’s our new Deviance Editor and this month’s Skinny on Tour.

If you can guess where Ana took her Skinny out on a walk, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/ competitions and you might win a bottle of wine, courtesy of our expert friends at VINO WINES. PS: they've got a new store in Stockbridge, and we tasted a sweet little Shiraz from there..

paws @ wickerman by solas nicol See the full gallery and read our review on theskinny.co.uk

6

THE SKINNY August 2011

Closing date: Wed 31 Aug Terms: www.theskinny.co.uk/ terms and www.drinkaware. co.uk for the facts.

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

OPINION

LAUGHING OUT LOUD

FRINGE COMEDY LAST YEAR, we began a Skinny Comedy tradition of cutting out the dull journalist element and getting comics to interview other acts. People seemed to like it, so we’re doing it again. We didn’t give much of a brief to the comics, preferring to see what they’d come up with themselves, and we’ve ended up with some great different approaches: N’Irelander Martin Mor speaks to Edinburgh expat John Scott about his first ever solo show (check out the website for John interviewing Martin) and we keep it in the family as Aussie Fiona O’Loughlin interviews her daughter Biddy. Helen Arney and Robin Ince, who have been touring together this year with the massively popular Uncaged Monkeys, discuss the creation of new comedy audiences, whilst Sammy J and Randy discuss scrambled eggs and snow globes. Finally, Phil Nichol celebrates his thirteenth Fringe by talking punk comedy and Monty Python with fellow Stand performer Stephen Carlin, and those crazy kids from Pleasance sketch show Jigsaw bribe each other with biscuits.

Something for everyone, we like to think.

We’ve got straight interviews too; US-based American W Kamau Bell discusses whether he’s more popular in Scotland, UK-based American Dave Fulton tells us why he’s been banned by the sponsors of the Fringe’s biggest award, and Scottish-based Scot Des

DEVIANCE

SEX, SEXUALITY AND SUITABILITY SO LAST month I took part in an online protest.

A production by Lee Hall, the guy who wrote Billy Elliot, was unexpectedly cancelled two weeks before it was due to be performed, because of a reference to a character’s homosexuality.

The opera, named Beached, was supposed to be a community production and starred around 250 children from Bay Primary School in Bridlington, East Yorkshire. Unfortunately, Emma Hobbs, the school’s headmistress, decided to pull the kids from the performance at the last minute. She said to the Hull and East Riding, “The gay character is not a problem. It is the language and the tone of the scene in question that were problematic. The emotional wellbeing of our children is my only concern in this matter.”

Whenever anyone cries ‘think of the children’ you know they’ve made a logical error. Yes, some things aren’t suitable for children but we’re not talking about whether to let a six year old watch Harry Potter, rather if we can mention homosexuality in front of people who are not old enough to

SCOPOPHILIA MORE THAN A JOBSWORTH

I RECENTLY attended a talk by British Art Show 7 curators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton. And like a lot of these things, it was a drag. They took us through all the bureaucratic nuances of their boring jobs, meanwhile giving the impression they were doing us a public service by demystifying their roles. “Look,” they seemed to say, “there’s nothing elevated about our jobs. It’s just a lot of dreary graft.”

Surely this is the kind of candid chat we need in an art world laden with jargon and nonsense neologisms, no? Are we not fed up of having to read theoretical claptrap every time we step into a gallery, with some nascent writer glibly tossing around words like “metaphysical” and

Clarke talks about his arse.

Because of all this Fringey goodness, we’re not running our regular New Act of the Month this issue. However, look out for our New Acts of the Month from the past year popping up all over the festival: Richard Hanrahan, Mr July, appears in Hitch and Mitch: Genisis (6-27, 8pm, Banshee Labyrinth, part of the Free Fringe). Sarah Cassidy features in sketch show The Impenetrable Click (6-9 and 11-14, 2:15pm, Bar 50, part of the Free Fringe) and Richard Gadd, Matthew Winning and James Kirk are all banding together to what we like to think of as a Skinny Comedy New Act of the Month extravaganza, Well… This is Awkward (6-16, 1:45pm in Bannermans, part of the Free Fringe).

It’s not just new acts who are playing the free venues of course. After the runaway success of Imran Yusuf’s free show at Espionage last year, which was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award, free shows at the Fringe have gained more credibility than ever, and there are some fantastic shows on this year at even more venues. Keep an eye on our website for this year’s hot tips (Yusuf himself is playing the Pleasance Courtyard every day at 7pm and well worth checking out).

We’ll be posting up more interviews and features online throughout the Fringe, as well as the usual onslaught of reviews. We’ve also got a new blog, run by Bernard, our trusty Assistant Comedy Editor and true punsmith, in which, Bernard tells me "Past, present and future stars of the Fringe tell stories of the manic hustling involved in selling your show on the streets of Edinburgh". It’s called Come Flyer with Me. Sorry.

Talking of Bernard, he’s nicking my job next month as I step down for pastures new, making this my last Fringe with The Skinny. I’m determined to cover more stuff than ever before, especially our local comics. Comedy agrees with Performance on this one (if on nothing else): we’ve got so much home-grown talent right here in Scotland that we’d be crazy to ignore.

Follow us on Twitter for the latest: @skinnycomedy. Lizzie x[Lizzie Cass-Maran]

understand that… well what exactly?

Sexuality and sex are not the same thing. Your sexuality affects who you love and whom you marry. It can affect where you live and how you decide to have children (gay adoption anyone?), essentially it is not something confined to the bedroom but something that affects your whole life.

To try to pretend that children can be, or should be, protected from references to homosexuality does no one any good. It encourages the belief that there’s something wrong with homosexuality, almost as if it’s an adult vice, and that’s just not helpful. Not for gay people, not for gay parents and not for the children who will grow up to be gay.

Thankfully, after the media went a little ballistic and we had two petitions and a Facebook group on the go (I spent three nights spamming my social networking feeds and commenting on every article about the issue), the school backed down.

And just for reference the lines in question were: “Of course I’m queer/That’s why I left here ...So if you infer/That I prefer/A lad to a lass And him working class/I’d have to concur.”

Too offensive for children? I really don’t think so.[Ana Hine]

“dialectical” as though their meaning (if we can agree they have one) is uncontested?

So yes, by all means talk straight with us. Even give us the prosaic lowdown on your mundane jobs.

But please, admit that this is less a public service than an outright obstruction, that the bureaucracy obfuscates the true dubiousness of your jobs.

According to Le Feuvre and Morton, they only picked artists for BAS7 they agreed upon unequivocally. This, they seemed to imply, was the degree zero of their decision-making. Why each artist was first considered is never revealed. What criteria an artist had to meet before reaching this stage is nowhere divulged.

What BAS7 represents is the converging tastes of two individuals. Despite the bureaucratic adornments, there is no objective foundation to their decision-making. Stop hiding behind your boring jobs.[Andrew Cattanach]

STOP THE PRESSES!

Important stuff we don’t have space for anywhere else press, N: At time of going to CHEMIKAL SOLUTIO ing institution ord rec w sgo Gla ind the minds beh ounced ‘Engineering & Chem19 have just ann e) – a new (and inexpensiv Production in Practice’ ght tau s, old r yea 25 rse for 18audio production cou ers. “A long term duc pro and ers ine by their own eng deliver has been to write and ambition of Chem19’s ng you n kee to rse cou g a high quality engineerin s who need that bit cer odu /pr ers ine eng amateur rking actual professional wo more experience in an is backed ich wh ve, iati init the studio,” they say of and Places are limited to 12

by Creative Scotland. tember. You can find full Sep 9 on se clo ns sio submis rl.com/ tion pack at http://tinyu details and an applica chem19course UNVEILING GRINDHO OSE: Be transported back to the sticky car 1970s New York fleapits pets of with Grindhoose, a new (free) film night showin some of the trashiest g movies ever committed to cel 13 Aug at The Old Hai luloid. Opening night is rdresser’s (across from Stereo)

cuts but don’t know ANTI-CUTS FESTIVAL: Want to campaign against government , the week-long how? MOBILISE is here to help. Organised by UNISON Scotland with a bit of festival (13-20 Aug) offers everything from debate to direct action, EH4 3UQ. Road, Belford 60 , Scotland UNISON . between in music and comedy www.mobilisefestival.co.uk DAWN OF OOR BRAD : The Hollywood heartth rob and orphan adopter will be nist femi ing budd in Glasgow this month UK FEMINISTA: For all you filming scenes for his offers this new movie World War campaigners out there, Deviance Z. Why choose Glasgow to dou summer: ble as a post-apocalyp suggestion of what to do with your tic Philadelphia overrun wit ing Runn .

2011 ol Scho mer h zombies, we hear you UK Feminista Sum ask?

We gue inista ss Fem Pitt am, ’s ingh firs t-class airfares will be from 13-14 Aug down in Birm offset by d at develop- the money they’ll save on living dea promises workshops and talks aime d makeup inspiration and ing campaigning skills, providing to how learn even can You ZOMBIES WANTED: Keep an eye building solidarity. on free. this site for upcoming zombie actin influence politicians. And it’s all for g 2TT B15 opportunities – http://tinyurl.com/ Edgbaston Campus, Birmingham, nts/3ll-eve nts/a /eve g.uk worl ta.or dwa minis rzcasting www.ukfe hool-2011.html ukfeminista-event/398-summer-sc PUFF DADDY, AKA P. Diddy, AKA Diddy, is henceforth to be know n as 'MC Shizzlestick' in the Republic of Leith only. Just keeping you in the loop

WE’RE MOVING: As if a new site wasn’t excitement enough for one mon th, this August The Skinny is also mov ing offices. After 5 glorious years we’r e bidding a fond farewell to the Out Of The Blue Drill Hall. From now on you can send your hate-mail and Haribo bribes to 3 Coates Place, EH3 7AA. Goo dbye Leith, it’s been emotional.

brand new shiny The Skinny has a NEW WEBSITE: ned by the sig De . g this month website launchin e us the ability to giv to ing go it’s wonderful TicToc, yer eyes peeled. re content. Keep offer you way mo o.uk www.theskinny.c FREE BIRTHDAY SUIT? Exclusively to you, dear Skinny reader, Idlewild’s Rod Jones is giving away the lead single by his new band The Birthday Suit, for bugger all. A departure from A Sentimental Education – Rod’s Americana-inflected solo LP from last year – Do You Ever? is a punchy return to pop-punk dynamics. With an album in the can (set to follow in the autumn), you can see them play Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh on 31 August as part of The Edge Festival. You can download the tune from http://tinyurl.com/suitsingle (or using the pic code to the left) Incidentally kids, if you’d signed up to our Zap mailing list (offering you a top ten events round up each and every Thursday direct to your inbox) you’d be bumping this tune already. To get up to speed and avoid missing out again, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/zap

ROD JONES AND THE BIRTHDAY SUIT

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY

7

Festival madness takes hold of Edinburgh, with our top Edge Festival picks, a theatre show played out in your livingroom, and, er, Paul Daniels...

wed 3 Aug The self-styled king of what he terms 'chap-hop', aka Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, is back with another dose of his well-mannered rap ditties about drinking tea, playing cricket and such-like, all set to the charming strums of his wee banjolele, such a gent of a rapper is he. Voodoo Rooms. Edinburgh (other dates available), 9.40pm, £10

David Mach Walking on Water, 2010 (detail)

Photo: Richard Riddick@thedpc.com

HEADS UP

TUE 2 Aug The Edinburgh Art Festival kicks off officially on 4 August, but the City Art Centre open early with David Mach's ambitious beast of a thing entitled Precious Light.

Yup, the Turner-nominated artist will be attempting a contemporary imagining of the King James Bible in collage, sculpture and words. Caps officially doffed. City Art Centre, Edinburgh, until 16 Oct, £5 (£3.50)

Sun 7 Aug

mon 8 Aug

Tue 9 Aug

The GFT screen a new digital print of Sergie Eisenstein's seminal 1925 propaganda film, Battleship Potemkin, which also sees the re-introduction of Edmund Meisel's foreboding score. And we can't really think of a better way to spend a Sunday evening than with a good dose of mutiny and rebellion, can you? GFT, Glasgow, 5.15pm, £7 (£5.50)

Boombastic bass battles are the order of the day, as Orkestra Del Sol play a Top Trumps-inspired festival special, which will see the band compete against each other to see who has got the best skills (think: longest instrument, fastest speed, highest lung capacity etc.), with actual ODS trump cards to collect along the way (cue much excitement). Assembly, Edinburgh (also 15 & 22 Aug), 7.15pm, £12 (£10)

Tim Key is back doing what he does best: rolling out a selection of "deliberately bad" (so says he) poetry. It'll most likely be a bit surreal, a lot inventive, and you'll probably leave thinking that the man's a bit of a fucked-up genius. But he'd still rather you didn't laugh, apparently.

Pleasance Dome, 3-29 Aug, 9.45pm, £14 (£13)

COMPILED BY: ANNA DOCHERTY

Mon 15 Aug

Louis Abbott and his merry band (aka Admiral Fallow) colonise the Liquid Room's stage for what shall likely be a rousing collective rabble of a thing. And the bets on it turning into a mass audience sing-song the moment they crack out Squealing Pigs? It's pretty much a given.

Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 7pm, £8.50. Part of The Edge Festival 2011, 4-31 Aug

Czech physical theatre company DOT504 return with more of their exquisitely inventive choreography, as Mah Hunt invites you into a world where the human urge for intimacy clashes with the natural urge to hunt, and two people flit from hunter to hunted, and back again. Powerful stuff. Zoo Southside, Edinburgh 14-20 Aug, 2pm, £12

sat 20 Aug

sun 21 Aug

Henry Rollins comes to terms with turning 50 with a big ol' group sharing session reminiscing over the past half century of his life. His brand new spoken word tour will see him confronting the chaos that has oft surrounded him, and re-telling it with razor-sharp wit and a good dose of rock 'n' roll anecdotes, naturally. Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (also 18 Aug), 7pm, from £12.50

Fine purveyors of mutant disco for the masses, Wasabi Disco host a one-off festival special for which they've invited along JD Twitch (aka one-half of Optimo and a bit of a Glasgow deity). Late night bender here we come, what with the 5am festival license an' all. Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, 11pm, £5

The Twilight Sad boys play a special stripped-back set, taking their tunes right back to the sound of their inception. Stellar support comes from DIY Glasgow chap RM Hubbert, alongside the one-time Y'all Is Fantasy Island mainman Adam Stafford.

Plus, The Skinny readers can vote for the cover they'd like the boys to play (which in the past has included a rather fine version of Radiohead's Climbing Up The Walls).

Voting details on page 47. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 7pm, £10

JD Twitch

fri 26 Aug

sat 27 Aug

Those kings and queens of modern folk, Trembling Bells, are to treat your earlugs to what shall likely be a pretty bloody epic set, as they bring an extended line-up of players to Glasgow's Stereo in order to preview a selection of songs from their forthcoming album of duets with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (about which we are already overly-excited). Stereo, Glasgow, 8pm, £8

Cult post-hardcore trio Hey Enemy invite along a mass-load of likely lads and lasses for a one-off set playing as Hei Ensemble. Joining forces for the live reworking of their catalogue will be members of Take A Worm For A Walk Week, Desalvo, Holy Mountain, Y'all Is Fantasy Island, United Fruit, Blue Sky Archives, Super Adventure Club, The Twilight Sad, Cuddly Shark, Titus Gein, and more.

We're actually weeping. Nice 'n' Sleazy, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £tbc

Back for its fourth year, the DIY micro-festival that is Retreat! has evolved into something of a riotous A.G.M. for the Capital’s independent pop scene. With a few new names, and a good quotient of old faves, confirmed acts include Broken Records, Jesus H. Foxx, The Scottish Enlightenment, Rob St John, The Pineapple Chunks, Meursault, eagleowl, ballboy, and FOUND. Pilrig St Paul's Church, Edinburgh, 27-28 Aug, £12 (weekend)

Photo: Euan Robertson

thu 25 Aug

8

THE SKINNY August 2011

Hey Enemy

Eagleowl

Photo: Heidi Kuisma

fri 19 Aug

Photo: Sonia Mallan

Photo: Justin Moir

Sun 14 Aug

The Secret Wars crew enter the first stage of the quarter finals, with two members of Edinburgh's Too Much Fun Club going head-to-head in the doodling stakes. It's basically a live paint-off, with both artists armed only with their paint, a white wall, and 90-minutes on the clock. Pivo Pivo, Glasgow, 8pm, £4. The next quarter final is at Chambre 69 on 27 Aug

Photo: ANDREW KYLE

Sat 13 Aug

Fri 5 Aug

Sat 6 Aug

We'll be making our escape to Belladrum, where the likes of Admiral Fallow, Roddy Woomble, Unicorn Kid and Echo and the Bunnymen will be amongst the reliably diverse line-up. Plus, there's also a good dose of performance theatre (from cabaret to poetry), and a spacethemed dressing-up code for added fun and frivolity. Beauly, Inverness-shire, until 6 Aug, £90 (weekend)

For her festival show artist Kari Walker uses video installation to explore Scotland's historic and contemporary relationship with Wild West culture. And it's pretty epic, particularly Pipe Major Iain Grant's channeling of Wyatt Earp. The opening night shenanigans include a live set from experimental Glasgow musician Wounded Knee, a BBQ, and real live cowboys (maybe). Old Ambulance Depot, Edinburgh, 3pm, Free. Exhibition runs until 4 Sep

Thu 11 Aug

Fri 12 Aug

Irish funnyman Ed Byrne plays guest host at one-off festival comedy special, The Big C. He'll be joined by a string of rather big name guests, including Ruby Wax, Dana Alexander, Frisky and Mannish, Margaret Cho, and Roy-bloodyWalker (yes, as in Catchphrase), all joining forces to help raise a whopping £20,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

EICC, Edinburgh, 9.30pm, £20

We tried to resist, but we just couldn't: we're a child of the 80s for frick's sake, and Paul Daniels is in town! And yes, 'the lovely' (read: long-suffering) Debbie McGee is most definitely in tow. Prepare thyselves for an hour of old-school magic, complete with the obligatory dodgy puns. Amen.

Assembly George Square, Edinburgh, 6-28 Aug, 5pm, £14

Men and Machines (aka Ally Stuart and Ewan Dunnett) call time on their Glasgow adventure with one last almighty blow-out, which will see them celebrate their third birthday at the same time as they say their final farewells (one of them's buggering off to London). As is only right, the decks shall be manned by the chaps themselves all night long, and it'll be a free-entry free-for-all. Stereo, Glasgow, 11pm, Free

Tue 16 Aug

wed 17 Aug

thu 18 Aug

Despite various line-up changes along the way, Shonen Knife have made it to the 30th anniversary and their latest album is something of a charmer: as playful as ever, and this time referencing monster jellyfish and rock 'n' roll cake. We salute them. Nice 'n' Sleazy, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £10 (also playing Edinburgh's Sneaky Pete's the previous night)

Texan trio The Cave Singers stage a two-night takeover of Edinburgh and Glasgow (where they play the following night), with their country and folk-tinged ear pleasers most definitely in tow. They'll also likely break out some of the rockier retro numbers offa' this year's new album, No Witch, mores the joy. King Tuts, Glasgow, 8pm, £10

We're pretty excited by the fact that Kristin Hersh is playing three different nights in succession during Edinburgh Festival. She'll start with a spoken word and music set at the Charlotte Square Spiegeltent (16 Aug), then discuss her memoir Paradoxical Undressing at the Book Festival (17 Aug), before her finale at Cabaret Voltaire, a magical live set based on said memoir. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 7pm, £12.50

Photo: Claire Taylor

Photo: Scott Watson

Wed 10 Aug

Tue 23 Aug

wed 24 Aug

Adapted from Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami's award-winning novel, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is a fantastical dream of a thing that starts with a lost cat and leads to a series of bizarre encounters as fantasy and reality begin to dissolve for our male protagonist. King's Theatre, Edinburgh, 20-24 Aug, 7.30pm, From £10

Our love for The National is no secret, culminating with last year's High Violet hitting #2 in our top albums of 2010 chart. So, as they play a two-night takeover between Edinburgh's Corn Exchange (23 Aug, 7pm, £22.50) and Glasgow's O2 Academy (24 Aug, 7pm, £22.50), we'll likely be amongst the superfans that are down the front for both

Cargo Publishing host a special night as part of the Book Festival's rather brilliant late night Unbound sessions, inviting along a host of literary lovelies, including Anneliese Mackintosh, Allan Wilson, and Tracey S. Rosenberg. Plus, a certain Mr Aidan Moffat will be dropping by the bar to play some acoustic tunes. Cargo Special Delivery, Spiegeltent (Charlotte Square Gardens), Edinburgh, 9pm, Free

Photo: Chris Butler

Mon 22 Aug

Aidan Moffat

Sun 28 Aug

Mon 29 Aug

A host of friends come together for Love’s Rebellious Joy, a special speakeasy shindig celebrating the life and work of Edinburgh's poet and scholar Paul Reekie. The night of story and song will feature Irvine Welsh, Gordon Legge, and Laura Hird, plus a very special collaboration between post-punk crooner Vic Godard and Edinburgh's own strungout guitar thieves, The Sexual Objects.

Spiegeltent, Edinburgh, 9pm, Free

Expect plenty crunchy guitar riffs and frantic energy from the genre-spanning Texan rockers that are White Denim, omnivorously squeezing as many diverse musical influences as possible into every track. Watch in awe we will. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 7pm, £11. Also playing Glasgow's Òran Mór the previous night

Mr. Welsh

August 2011

THE SKINNY

9

Photo: michael gallacher

Roddy Woomble

Photo: Pete Dunlop

Thu 4 Aug Perhaps the only festival show that actually comes to you, The Lounge Room Confabulators is basically two chaps who enter your home, unpack their little suitcase, and unfold their gothic and comic fables right there in your livingroom, complete with ukelele strums and their own rug. Offer them a cup o' tea and prepare to be utterly charmed. Your House, Edinburgh, various times, £10 (10 guests minimum)

FESTIVAL

comic vs comic

Festival season is upon us again and we at The Skinny have gone to great lengths to provide a comprehensive guide to our highlights from each of the different festival strands. By way of an introduction to the Fringe we've once again asked comedians to interview each other, going head to head in a bid to out-promote and out-funny one another. First up, Robin Ince talks to Helen Arney about human existence and particle physics ILLUSTRATION: SARAH TANAT-JONES

Helen Arney: Hello Robin Ince.

Robin Ince: Hello Helen Arney.

HA: I’ve been chasing you around London to get this interview.

RI: No, that’s unfair because you make it sound like you were chasing me as opposed to you were remarkably late, which is a very different thing really. I feel really awkward in this situation now but I’ll take the blame if you want.

HA: It’s all my fault, I failed to turn up at the right place. Which is really my first question. How many shows are you doing at the Fringe this year?

RI: Four. It’s four shows. One is a group show about science, which obviously you’ll be part of as well. One which is my very angry show with Michael Legge, which is kind of a cardiovascular workout for middle-aged men. And then there is the one that is meant to ask: Can you be happy through science? Can scientific understanding make you happy, or do you always need a veil of mysticism? The answer is no, it’s fine, but don’t tell anyone that because it’s a spoiler. And then one called Struggle For Existence, which is the return of the general ‘what makes me apoplectic’. I always try to do one show about being apoplectic.

HA: I can’t even turn up to an interview on time and you’re doing a number of shows that could only be described as punishing, bordering on self-harm.

RI: Yeah, it is self-harm HA: Why do you do this to yourself?

RI: The reason is that you can’t really function in Edinburgh as a human being. People obsess about what some website written by a 3-year old or some 97-year old opera critic has said about them. They can only talk about their own shows, they can only talk about themselves. I thought if I’m going to

10 THE SKINNY August 2011

be talking about myself, I might as well do it on a stage with an audience.

HA: So in Edinburgh you put your human existence on hold and just focus on showmanship.

RI: Yeah. This year I’m planning on not doing lots of other people’s shows. Last year I was up for 13 days and I think I did 82 shows. This year, I’ll be doing about 85 shows. ‘Cause what I always do is I turn down the really well-paying shows and then some broken poet shows up and says “We’re doing an event down a well at 4 in the morning, would you like to come along?” I feel sorry for broken poets.

HA: You’re bringing the lunchtime science show back again. You’re a well-known atheist. Can you separate your atheism from your love of science?

RI: I think atheism is a sideline, it’s nothing in particular for me. For me, the science thing is antidogmatic and trying to get to some kind of truth.

So that has a knock-on effect if it turns out that it’s highly unlikely there’s a god.

HA: Some would say that you have created this audience for science and comedy.

RI: I have literally created them. They are a collection of homunculi.

HA: Do you think in turn that’s influenced the comedy that’s happened? I definitely feel I’ve been allowed to develop stuff that I wouldn’t have if there wasn’t an audience that wanted comedy with science, comedy with substance.

RI: I think it’s one of the most useful things it’s done. The same with Book Club. Right from the start I said “Just so you know, there will be people experimenting and trying out ideas. Just so you know, you might not like it but if you don’t, you are wrong.”

I wanted to set up something because for so

People obsess about what some website written by a 3-year old or some 97-year old opera critic has said about them ROBIN INCE

long a lot of the big comedy clubs were saying: “You have to entertain these people by any means necessary. We need to sell this many pints of beer and you just have to make them laugh,” and all the joy was gone; comedians were just a mechanism for generating laughter by any means necessary.

I wanted to do something that got rid of that and went: “Fail: it doesn’t matter if you fail.” It was the same with the science thing. I wanted to talk about ideas which might have been hard in a 20 minute set. It’s good for comics to know that there’s not just one road in comedy. It’s not just a journey of playing clubs and hoping someone from BBC is going to be there. I did a set last year supporting Richard Herring and I thought “You know, some

of my stuff about particle physics isn’t quite as accessible to a broader arts audience.”

HA: Why are you doing stuff on the Free Fringe?

You’re doing one show at The Stand and three on the Free Fringe.

RI: I like the idea of the Free Fringe. The last time I did a show in the paid Fringe, I just felt it was too expensive. And it put a lot of pressure on me, and I felt uncomfortable and unhappy, and I think the audience have a different sensibility. I’ve been coming to the Fringe since I was 17 and I thought, ‘You used to come up here and experiment, but it’s very hard to experiment when the audience have paid £14 for 55 mins of entertainment.’ [With the Free Fringe] I can cover my costs, I can enjoy it, I can experiment. The whole point for me of doing Edinburgh is that I can try out new ideas.

HA: And my last question for you is: are you going to watch anything else at the Fringe?

RI: No. It’s not likely. I’ll just stay in and watch my Ingmar Bergman box set. Why, what’s on?

HA: My friends are doing a show called Can You Dig It? in the botanical gardens which is about allotments.

RI: Well anything that mixes the Mock Turtles with allotments, I’ve got to see.

Robin Ince’s Struggle for Existence, Buffs Club, 5-16 Aug, 9:30pm Robin Ince: Star Corpse Apple Child, The Canon’s Gait, 6-17 August, 7:15pm Carl Sagan is My God, Oh and Richard Feynman Too, The Canon’s Gait, 12:10pm, 5-28 Aug Festival of the Spoken Nerd (Helen Arney), Sin Club and Lounge, 6:45pm, 16 Aug only All part of the PBH Free Fringe Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire 2: Back in the Habit, The Stand V, 14:35, 4-28 Aug, £8 (£7) www.edfringe.com

FESTIVAL

Phil and Stephen

Dads, eh? Phil Nichol, whose father wanted him to go to Bible college, talks to Stephen Carlin, whose father was evidently either a master criminal or a top lawyer ILLUSTRATION: SARAH TANAT-JONES

Stephen Carlin: Phil, tell me about your Edinburgh show this year.

Phil Nichol: My show is called The Simple Hour.

It’s a back-to-basics show for me. I’d been doing more complex shows, purposely set up to disturb the audience. This is an attempt to simplify, it is more straightforward, with clean lines and plain simple fun – there’s a bit about Katie Price’s breasts.

SC: So, this is almost like your punk moment then – very stripped down.

PN: I do think of myself as a punk comic. Punk accidentally stumbled into highbrow – Talking Heads, for example. It is a vast area – very independent, not setting out to match the trends of the day.

SC: You’ve done grandiose things in the past; many comics would do a similar show every year, whereas you have quite abrupt changes in approach.

PN: This is my thirteenth solo Edinburgh show.

I developed into storytelling shows – everyone is doing it now. This show is a return to really simple elements of comedy. This show has no real demographic. You don’t have to be a super-trendy, super-cool, comedy audience.

SC: So, it is quite a deliberate change of gear?

PN: Yes, a very conscious change. I found myself criticising this move towards middle-of-the-road observational comedy. Instead of saying ‘I don’t like that kind of comedy’, I wanted to achieve it, to better it. I’m not a critic, I’m a comedian. I want to take a concept of something I don’t necessarily like, and make something better out of it. It’s a bit like taking prog-rock, and saying ‘I don’t like it, but it would good to make an album that blows Yes out of the water’.

SC: You’re from a religious family – did that help you creatively?

PN: Yes, I turned a corner at fourteen. I solidified my free-thinking. Everyone should feel free to think their own thoughts. I’m a fundamentalist hedonist. I’m inclusive.

SC: A lot of people in comedy are from religious backgrounds. I’m from a Catholic background. It’s good to have a rigid framework to break free from.

be charitable. Faith, hope and charity.

SC: You’re going to play Terry Gilliam.

PN: Yes, I have been cast as Terry Gilliam in a BBC 4 film, Holy Flying Circus, about the controversy surrounding Python when Life of Brian came out, leading to the interview of Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark on Friday Night and Saturday Morning.

SC: Have you met him?

PN: I’ve emailed him. Terry Gilliam is an amazing visionary and a very gentle human being.

SC: The Pythons were a different comedy generation – how important were they to you?

PN: Python made a huge impact on me.

Naughty, daft, silly and well done. They had profound satirical moments, a group of guys just making each other howl with laughter.

SC: Who would play Phil Nichol in a film about your life?

PN: Russell Kane? To have a film about your life is an honour. For the Terry Gilliam film, we want to do him justice. We want to make it a tribute. It is a fantasy re-enactment of what they may have gone through. Tony Roach wrote the script – it’s hilarious, as well as tender and loving.

What’s your Edinburgh show?

SC: I’m doing Guilty Bystander, about my lack of a criminal life. When I first came to London, and spoke to my Dad, we only communicated through crime. Dad didn’t know what to talk about, so he’d talk about high profile cases.

Thank you, Phil.

PN: My father wanted me to go to Bible college.

Ironically, I turned out to be an evangelist, often for the same causes. Pacifism, for example. Nearly Gay [Phil’s 2006 Fringe show] was about the need to understand things that might not be natural to you, but are natural to someone else. The need to

Phil Nichol: The Simple Hour, The Stand V, 4-28 Aug (not 15) 8:50pm, £10(£9) Stephen Carlin: The Stand IV, 4-28 Aug (not 15) 9:25pm, £8(£7)

Three-way Jigsaw

I can’t believe she didn’t give me that biscuit

Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema: like something out of your Nan’s free catalogues Dan Antopolski: Nat, you are from Watford. Has this pain helped you become a funny?

Nat Luurtsema: Yes, it is the grit in my oyster.

No news on that pearl yet but I imagine it’s imminent. (I know you’re both making vagina jokes as I type, the mood in this room has turned childish.)

So Tom, do you still love us as much as when we first started working together or has our appeal tarnished?

Tom Craine: It is wrong to assume any great affection. We plateaued on day one. However, I do find our time together increasingly efficient.

Now, that I do love.

So Dan, our first gig was in January – are you confident you’ve got this acting malarky ‘down’?

DA: Acting is in my blood – since I had a complete transfusion from Jason Flemyng (Lock Stock... etc). Basically anything I turn my hand to, be it woodwork, tap, the sciences, turning a key in a lock – I have found that people will wait.

So Tom, can I help you with that?

TC: Cheers. It was beginning to hurt. Blood flow and all that. Oh yeah, Nat, I’ve always meant to ask, what does the Edinburgh Festival experience mean to you financially?

NL: I see it as a gift, a blessing and a privilege.

I’m sure I’d only squander my annual earnings on lobster and Pokemon, so it’s lucky to be relieved of so much of it. I haven’t missed a Fringe in seven years to guard against this.

Dan, what do you hate most about Tom? (I will accept a Top Ten.)

ILLUSTRATION: SARAH TANAT-JONES

TOM CRAINE

DA: I hate nothing about Tom – the great cloud of nothing that hangs about him like an ethereal shroud. Seriously though, I hate his murders. If I have to make one more 3am-er to Purley Way I’m going to start defacing him on the flyers.

Nat, if the News of the World was still with us, how do you think they would describe our Edinburgh show?

NL: The News Of The World is still with me, in

my heart, every time a baby smiles or you go to the toilet and I read your texts. I think they would’ve liked us and we wouldn’t have known how to feel about that except to shower more vigorously.

Tom, get this right and you can have this biscuit: What words will you be saying most throughout the run of August?

TC: I can’t believe she didn’t give me that biscuit?

NL: Right well that’s self-fulfilling, I’ve stamped it in

the mud now. I hope you’re happy with that decision.

TC: I can’t believe she didn’t give me that biscuit.

NL: The OTHER words, say the OTHER words!

I’m going to slap you.

TC: Pleasance Beneath, quarter to six every day.

We also have air-conditioning.

NL: Good boy, have a muddy biscuit.

DA: Morons, listen. The importance of air-conditioning in our venue cannot be overstated. Have you mentioned this?

TC: It will be like the lobby of a Bahrainian hotel.

NL: Everyone’s nipples will be like thumbs.

DA: Up or down?

NL: One of each.

TC: My venue last year was like gigging in a shoe. ‘Come and chill out in our sandal’.

DA: I have often wished that Bahrainian hotels would air-condition the rooms as well as the lobby – you only pass through the lobby briefly. It is so silly.

NL: Observational comedy for wealthy travellers.

Lovely. Don’t you hate it when your chef requests a day off on the same day as your chaffeur? What is up with that?

TC: I stayed in a four-star hotel in Jersey once.

DA: I know – I was wearing the jumper!!!! I mean the jersey… ahhh pellets.

Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine & Nat Luurtsema: Jigsaw, PLeasance Courtyard, 5:45, 3-29 Aug, tickets from £7. www.edinburghsbestcomedy.com

August 2011

THE SKINNY 11

‘Startling depth... a powerful, gratifyingly enigmatic play.’ H H H H — The Guardian

LLWYTH [TRIBE]

BY DafYDD JamEs In Welsh with English surtitles 20 — 28 august / 11.45am st George’s West 58 shandwick Place EH2 4RT Venue 157 0131 226 0000 www.edfringe.com www.remarkable-arts.com

Sat 13 August-Sun 9 October 2011

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12 THE SKINNY August 2011

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FESTIVAL

John & Martin

Sammy J & Randy

Illustration: Nick Cocozza

Somewhat less cerebral stuff, from Sammy J and Randy

John Scott tells Martin Mor about chippy sauce and his Ma’s stovies

Martin Mor: You are a major feature on the UK comedy circuit, how long have you been a pro stand up?

John Scott: I’ve been pro for nearly seven years now. The first couple of years were a bit “beans on toast land.” But things have been good for a wee while now.

MM: You are one of very few comedians who can perform anywhere on a bill; I’ve seen you headline, but also compere. How do you change your performance to suit these different roles?

JS: In the past year I’ve stopped MCing so much because knowing I was coming to the festival I wanted to concentrate on writing material. However, I do still like MCing. I have to admit that when I first started to be employed as an MC I studied a lot of things that you were doing. So thanks for all the ideas I’ve been able to nick.

MM: I see that you are performing as part of the Free Festival. What attracted you to doing you show there as opposed to another venue?

JS: I really like the idealism behind the Free Festival. It’s a bit old school right on-ness, and that sits well with me. I like the idea anybody can do it and not have to spend thirty eight grand on promoting your shtick. People tried to write it off a bit at first, but it just seems to go from strength to strength.

MM: I see you as a “proper” stand-up comedian, someone who can perform on the comedy circuit, at the arts festivals; well anywhere they want comedy really! How do you adapt your show

for the Fringe?

JS: This is a great question. Cheers mate. One third of this show is some of my favorite stand up.

The rest has been put together over the last ten months. Much of it is on subjects I would never dream of chatting about to a Friday or Saturday audience, but so far on the test runs that’s turned out to be some of the best received stuff.

In short, I think you get to know a lot more about me. Which at times tests me and the audience.

MM: As a Scotsman, now living in England, will spending August in Edinburgh feel like coming home?

JS: No way. It’s like spending a month on some kind of arts and crafts Galapagos island. I’ll pop out and see my mum for some of her stovies. That will make me feel at home.

MM: I remember that years ago you performed as John Little John and wore a frock, and make-up.

What the fuck was that all about?

JS: Haha. Errr…just a phase I was going through? I really have no idea myself. Blame David Bowie. I always wanted to be the new Bowie before I was a stand-up…but I just haven’t got the cheekbones.

MM: If you could have anyone, living or dead, do a guest spot in your show, who would it be?

JS: David Bowie.

MM: Complete this sentence. Deep down inside, I’m really a frustrated…..

JS: David Bowie.

MM: I see you as an undiscovered comedy talent; would you like to do the whole TV stardom thing?

JS: I realise people think that’s why you work in the arts, but it doesn’t really float my boat. I would maybe like to work alongside some other people again, but I would be happy to be more on the peripheral edge. So what if you’re Ringo – you’re still in the Beatles.

MM: Will you be handing out your own flyers on the Royal Mile?

JS: I will indeed. That’s a rite of passage thing when doing the Fringe. I’ve seen much bigger acts than me doing it and good for them.

MM: What is your favorite place to eat in Edinburgh?

JS: Anywhere that I can get “chippy sauce.” A thing unique to the East Coast.

MM: There is often a comedian’s football match on the Meadows during the Fringe. Are you up for a kick about?

JS: I am truly dreadful at football.

MM: If any visitors to Scotland are reading this, what should they avoid in Edinburgh?

JS: Nothing. Go and try a bit of all of it. It might all not be great but that just makes the good things you see even better.

Martin Mor: The Call of the Golden Frog, Stand II, 3-28 Aug 8:10pm £9(£8) John Scott: Totally Made Up, Laughing Horse @The Beehive, 4-28 Aug (not 7, 15, 22) 5pm. Part of the Free Festival.

Sammy J: Randy, take me through the first few minutes of your life.

Randy: Warmth, security, tranquility; unease, discomfort, horror; anxiety, shock, pain; fatigue, adaption, breast.

SJ: Global warming: discuss.

R: I left a snow globe on the mantlepiece once and the heat from the fire place below it was so intense that the snowman in the globe melted. True story.

SJ: Do you like your eggs poached or fried?

R: Fried eggs are only acceptable when camping or hungover, whereas poached is an egg for all seasons. So scrambled would be my answer to that.

SJ: What was it like singing backup vocals for Meatloaf?

R: Incredibly anti-climactic. Although I was chuffed he went with my suggestion for the title of his latest album: Hang Cool Teddy Bear. I used to say that to him when he’d call me asking why I hadn’t arrived at the studio yet and who the hell did I think I was to burn his money like the little purple shit ball I am. Good times.

SJ: Any regrets?

R: Leaving my Captain Planet figurine in a bungalow in Cambodia.

SJ: What advice would you give to someone trying to start out in comedy who only had three days to live?

R: Take your time.

R: When was it you first realised you were interested in learning the bassoon?

SJ: Look, I just thought it would be a great way to stop the rain.

R: What?

SJ: Sorry – I thought you said “burning the monsoon”.

R: I didn’t.

SJ: Point taken.

R: Exfoliate or moisturise?

SJ: One after the other, continue until death.

R: You are the only survivor of the apocalypse, what’s the first thing you do?

SJ: Charge my phone.

R: My cousin Louise finds your comedy “grating”. How does that make you feel?

SJ: A man once hated the Eiffel Tower so much that he dined underneath it everyday, since it was the only place in Paris he couldn’t see it from.

Consequently, I’m the only person in the world who will never have to suffer through one of my arsebleedingly grating routines, and it feels awesome.

R: What’s your most embarrassing elbow story?

SJ: The one where the penis gets stuck.

R: If you were stuck on a desert island and you could only take one thing with you, could I have the rest of your stuff?

SJ: It would be my pleasure.

SAMMY J: Potentially - Underbelly, 4-28 Aug (not 15) 8.30pm, £12.50/£10 RANDY: Randy is Sober - Underbelly’s Pasture, 3-29 Aug (not 15) 9.10pm, £12/£10 SAMMY J & RANDY: Rickett’s Lane - Underbelly’s Pasture, 3-29 Aug (not 15) 6pm, £14/£12.50

August 2011

THE SKINNY 13

FESTIVAL

Biddy & Fiona

Aussie Fiona O’Loughlin talks to her daughter Biddy about luddites and whisky

Interview: Bernard O’Leary

BO'L: Do you think we women can have it all?

Or is it easier for people with penises to gallivant around the world and maintain family?

FO'L: I really wish you wouldn’t say the word penis to your mother, Biddy, but I do have an answer. It wasn’t until I became an open recovering alcoholic that I realised how much inequality still exists. So many people, even people I loved, wanted me to exit left of stage and pack my

In Profile:

W.Kamau Bell San Franciscan W Kamau Bell tells us what he loves about Scotland Interview: Simon Fielding One of US comic W. Kamau Bell’s main strengths is his ability to interrogate lazy assumptions, prejudice and sloppy reasoning from constantly shifting perspectives. His Fringe show, The Bell Curve: Ending Racism In About An Hour has been re-shaped and galvanized since its inception three years ago. "The show is about what’s going on in the world." he tells us on the phone from his home in San Francisco. "It can change according to news events day by day. I’m looking forward to seeing how Scotland reacts."

Kamau’s brand of engaging, politically resonant humour has earned many Scottish admirers lately, with a recent Facebook post stating that he is more popular in Scotland than anywhere else. Is this true? “I hope it isn’t true! No, seriously, I’m looking forward to coming to Scotland. You have great clubs like The Stand, where comedy is the number one aspect. The crowds go there to focus

14 THE SKINNY August 2011

Des Clarke Des Clarke has put his arse on the line for Scotland

Illustration: Nick Cocozza Fiona O'Loughlin: Biddy, you’re my second child and eldest daughter. For the past decade my most hated question from journos is: “What do your kids think of you being a comedian?” Finally, I’m going to pass the banner and go straight to the source.

What do you think?

Biddy O'Loughlin: You’re my mother? I thought you were an auntie! Dammit. I should have called my show ‘The Heckle.’

FO'L: Your preparation is so studied and disciplined compared to my own last-minute scribblings. I think you believe there is more honour in the craft than I. True or false?

BO'L: True. Though I think you can afford to be lazier than I because you’re quicker on your feet.

Sorry, no time to elaborate here - I’ve got a show to keep writing.

FO'L: Despite our many differences in our performance styles, we both share an autobiographical genre. How far are you taking the truth in your Edinburgh show – would you prefer I didn’t come?

BO'L: To be honest (because everything else is a lie) I’m definitely playing a character. She just shares my name. I’ve always liked the name you gave me Mum. I hated the haircuts but I liked my name.

FO'L: You wrote your first play at 17 and moved to London alone at 18. Ever since then I have you as “Biddy the Brave” on speed dial. Have you ever wished I put more barricades in front of you?

BO'L: Don’t worry, Fiona the Fearless, you did as much as you psychologically could to keep me from wanting to play in this field. (And by the way I moved to Edinburgh and I was 19.)

FO'L: You read Yeats and I read Hello magazine.

You watch The Sopranos and I watch Deal or no Deal. Has my luddite nature helped or hindered your creativity?

BO'L: Why are all your questions to me, really about you? When did you realise you wanted to be a stand-up comedian and not a housewife?

FO'L: Hmm .... drink whisky and laugh? or clean the toilet and cry?......I can’t give you an exact date....

BO'L: Do you still love it?

FO'L: With my whole heart

In Profile:

on the comedy, not the drinks offers.

“Comics have dealt with racism in the past, and then undercut their material by saying ‘Man, I hate bitches!’ This show isn’t a speech – it is designed to be hilarious. I don’t want to put forth a big political belief and contradict it. I’m interested in feminism. I’m a big fan of women.”

Who does he want to see himself in Edinburgh?

“Stewart Lee – that’s the show I absolutely want to see. I’ve got all the DVDs and videos, but I really need to see him live. I need to look at who’s around. A lot of my American friends will be in town, great people like Margaret Cho. I want to explore and see whatever is there.”

The W. Kamau Bell Curve - Ending Racism In About An Hour, Pleasance Courtyard, 9:30pm, Aug 3-29 (not 10, 17).tickets from £9.50

shame and go home. Male “demon fighting” is celebrated beyond compare to women’s.

BO'L: I love you, Mum. Do you love me?

FO'L: With my whole heart.

Biddy O’Loughlin: The Girl Who Thought She Was Irish, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 12:45, 3-24 Aug (not 15, 22). Tickets From £7 Fiona O’Loughlin: Spirited (Tales from an Angel in a Bottle), Gilded Balloon Teviot, 21:00, 3-28 Aug. Tickets From £9

“It’s one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time,” he explains, of his offer to Capital FM listeners of a forfeit if Andy Murray was going to win Wimbledon. “The listeners decided I should wear a tennis dress and have a photo taken in that famous Athena pose. So I’ll be doing that now, probably in some disused Glasgow tennis court in the pissing rain. There’s one in Kelvingrove Park, though that could bring its own dangers.”

Clarke is telling us this from a hotel dining room in Leeds, while trying to prevent fellow comic Joe Heenan from stealing his breakfast. It’s a typical weekend for Clarke who still does up to 150 live shows a year despite the 4.30am starts required for his radio show. Why does he put himself through it all? “Stand-up is what got me here and I’ve always made time for it. And it’s something you have to be match fit for. If you even go a couple of weeks without a comedy gig, it’s weird.

You feel nervous going back on and your timing gets out of sync. Most of my energy comes from feeding off the live crowd. I’m mainly motivated by fear and sheer panic.” It sounds like Clarke still considers himself a stand-up comedian first and foremost. “I do. Everything else is a bonus.”

Like all gigging comedians, Clarke is in full preparation mode for the Edinburgh Fringe. This year’s Des Comedy Jam follows up last year’s Clarxism and continues his love for puns based on his name (only the possibility of legal action made him decide against calling it Desneyland). He’s been one of the most prominent Scottish acts at recent festivals. Does it sometimes feel that local acts get crowded out at the Fringe?

“People have always complained about that, but I think some of that chat seems a bit old hat now.

The bulk of the audience is Scottish and if other people want to come to Scotland, that’s great. It’s important though that Scottish acts keep performing at the Fringe, or else we will end up handing the festival over.”

Clarke urges people to go out and support local acts during the Fringe. Seeing as he’s willing to bare his arse in Kelvingrove Park in the name of Scottish pride, it’s the least you can do.

Des Comedy Jam, Gilded Balloon Teviot,6-29 Aug (not 10 or 17), Tickets from £6

FESTIVAL

Bringing Film Back to the Festival Ever since Edinburgh International Film Festival moved to its June slot, cinema has been at the fringes of Edinburgh's August festivities. We preview three events that are bringing film back Words: David McGinty & Jamie Dunn

CineFringe

AUGUST5-292011

Founded in reaction to the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s move to June, leaving cinema largely unrepresented amongst the countless events across the city in August, CineFringe, the appropriately named Fringe short film festival, is back for its second year.

Seeking to address this apparent imbalance, the festival aims not only to restore cinema to the Fringe, but also to represent the Fringe and its character within its programme.

The event’s organisers seem to understand what people expect and dread from Fringe performances, inviting work that is ‘non conformist’ and ‘pushing the boundaries’ but appealing to filmmakers: ‘Please don’t feel that means you have to produce a dimly lit, black and white avant-garde art-house experiment! Far from it! We are just looking for films that break the mould.’

Building on last year’s success CineFringe are introducing their new Children’s Film Category, aware that the progeny of festivalgoers can potentially thwart everyone’s enjoyment if not properly entertained.

Taking place at Sweet Grassmarket (known as the Apex City Hotel the rest of the year round) from 15 - 28 August, cinephiles may have found haven amongst the Fringe frenzy, so long as this fledgling festival is able to establish itself.

Celluloid Trips

Great cinema is always an escape to another world and Celluloid Trips, a quartet of films showing at new Fringe venue Summerhall, are cinematic journeys you’re not likely to forget.

On 7 August travel to Guy Maddin’s delirious vision of his Canadian home town in My Winnipeg. With a playful, freewheeling verve, Maddin recreates his formative years and fills his voiceover with truths, half-truths and hilarious tall-tales. Does Winnipeg really have the highest rate of sleepwalkers in the world?

Next it’s to 60s Prague for Vera Chytilová’s Daisies (10 Aug) for a delightfully psychedelic trip with two young women who, witnessing the world go to seed around them, decide to join in the debauchery and put two fingers up to polite society. Provocative and bizarre, this cinematic enigma needs to be seen to be believed.

The final two trips are to a lyrical, mythical Blighty of the like rarely seen on film. Chris Petit’s 1980 road-movie Radio On is showing 14 August, which sees a London DJ take a meditative drive to the south coast to investigate the death of his brother with only the haunting sounds of Bowie, Kraftwerk and Devo on the radio for company. It’s cool, cold, and beautifully photographed.

Andrew Kotting’s Gallivant (17 Aug) completes this cinematic journey with his quixotic tour around the UK coastline with his grandmother and

Daisies

daughter in tow. It’s a dreamy, idiosyncratic take on Albion and Kotting adds texture and history to their trip with archive footage and grainy Super 8 film.

Qatsi Trilogy with live score from the Philip Glass Ensemble

The International Festival’s inclusion of Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy in its programme is cause for celebration in itself, but the fact that Koyaanisqatsi (13 Aug), Powaqqatsi (14 Aug) and Naqoyqatsi’s (15 Aug) operatic scores will be performed live with their composer, the legendary Philip Glass, leading his musical ensemble on keyboards make these rare screenings the film event of the year.

These ground-breaking films may seem familiar to today’s audiences, given that the time-lapse photography employed by cinematographer Ron Fricke to create hallucinatory visions of busy cityscapes,

My winnipeg

speeding motorways and dancing skylines has become so familiar to us thanks to pretentious advertising campaigns and naff Madonna videos copying the technique, but the chance to see these epic works of pure cinema on the big screen accompanied by Glass’ apocalyptic sounds filling the Edinburgh Playhouse is not to be missed.

CineFringe (£5) Sweet, Apex City Hotel, 61 Grassmarket, EH1 2JF (venue 18) Screenings everyday 15 - 28 Aug, 4.30pm Celluloid Trips (£5) 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, EH9 1QH (venue 26) My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007, 80m) 7 Aug, 8.30pm Daisies (Vera Chytilová, 1966, 73m) 10 Aug, 8.30pm Radio On (Chris Petit, 1979, 104m) 14 Aug, 8.30pm Gallivant (Andrew Kotting, 1996, 100m) 17 Aug, 8.30pm Qatsi Trilogy with live score from the Philip Glass Ensemble (£12-£35) Edinburgh Playhouse, 18-22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA (venue 59) Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 86m) 15 Aug, 8.30pm Powaqqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1988, 99m) 16 Aug, 8.30pm Naqoyaqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 2002, 89m) 17 Aug, 8.30pm

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB comedy at the heart of the fringe | T: 0131 558 7272 www.thestand.co.uk Alun Cochrane // Andy Zaltzman

Phil Nichol // Phill Jupitus

Ava Vidal // Bob Doolally

Raymond Mearns // Richard Herring

Bridget Christie // Bruce Devlin

Ro Campbell // Robin Ince

Craig Campbell // Dave Fulton

Sally-Anne Hayward // Seymour Mace

Damien Crow // Francesca Martinez

Simon Donald // Simon Munnery

Fred MacAulay // Gavin Webster

Singing' I'm No a Billy, he's a Tim

James Dowdeswell // Joanna Neary

Stephen Carlin // Steve Day

Josh Howie // Lee Camp

Stewart Lee // Steve Gribbin

Lloyd Langford // Markus Birdman

Susan Murray // The Stand Late Club

Martin Mor // Michael Legge

Tiffany Stevenson // Todd Barry

Mick Sergeant // Mitch Benn

Tony Law // Vladimir McTavish

Omid Djalili // Paul Sinha

Wendy Wason // Wil Hodgson August 2011

THE SKINNY 15

Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg weighs in on Gaga, dances with Slash and dresses like Oor Wullie Interview: PJ Meiklem

It’s not all glamour being one of alternative rock’s sweet young things: eleven in the morning, in Los Angeles of all places, and Warpaint’s Jenny Lee Lindberg is making a banking transfer as the bassist, like most of us common plebs, has just stumbled into the red.

A few mouse clicks later and the musician, one quarter of the psychedelic guitar group who dominated many music writers’ 2011 ones-towatch lists, is back to her hyper-real world of rock n’ roll aristocracy, explaining what it really feels like to be a sweet child o’ guess who?

“When I was 15 I went to a New Year’s party at Slash’s house with my sister, we hung out and I ended up dancing with him for a good hour. For sure, he won’t remember this. He was kinda drunk, but he could dance pretty good.”

That’s a long way from T in the Park, where most will have last seen the leather-hatted one. But these are simply the circles that the bassist and her bandmates move in; Lindberg’s sister is Shannyn Sossamon, who starred with a young Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale.

Warpaint emerged six years ago from a starspangled, primordial stew of celeb support, which has included online endorsements from Justin Timberlake, and first EP engineering from Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist – and at the time boyfriend of singer and guitarist Emily Kokal – John Frusciante.

This year the music world will see if they can pull away from the hype and the glitter, and establish themselves on the tunes alone. So far it’s looking good in these parts, with an impressive top of the bill slot at Glasgow’s Stag and Dagger, and a show at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall coming this month.

But that Californian background is a hard thing to pull away from; Lindberg says Los Angeles is a big influence of their sound.

“I’ve been coming to LA every Christmas since I was six, and it’s a familiar thing to me. My sister moved [from Reno, Nevada] a few years earlier than I did, so I was coming here to see her. It was an easy move. I knew people here. I knew I was going to get involved in the entertainment industry to some degree. I wanted to model and try acting and that’s what I did for a couple of years, but I decided that’s not what I wanted to do so I started playing music.”

Of course, having a few friends in high places has meant that Lindberg and co have enjoyed a smoother ride to the bright lights than many other young wannabes chasing the American dream.

“There are options here in LA,” she insists.

“Everything is here. You can do anything and everything. It’s always good to have options. If you actually wanna do something with your life, and you have ambition, and don’t just wanna settle and do something that’s not challenging, as often a lot of people do – it’s easier [to not move from your hometown], you don’t have to think too hard, you’re just into robot mode, and I’m not that kinda person. I get really bored when that happens.”

So far, so rock n’ roll cliché. Then you listen – really listen – to Warpaint’s music, and you realise this is anything but obvious: an intriguing layer cake of lighter than air harmonies, post-rock guitars, and a bottom end groove that, well, makes you want to shake your bottom end. It’s all, says Lindberg, “totally deliberate.”

“I have one motive as a bass player and that’s to always bring the dance, even if it’s a sad song, or a heavy song. Whatever type of song it is, I feel it has to be sexy to some degree. It’s not like I’m saying guitars aren’t sexy – they are – but often if there’s something melancholy or sad that’ll come from the voice, or the guitar, the bass can counteract that.”

It’s not only Lindberg’s basslines that have attracted a diverse crowd to Warpaint’s gigs.

Their biggest Scottish show to date took place at

16 THE SKINNY August 2011

L – R: Emily Kokal, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Stella Mozgawa, Theresa Wayman

Sex should be in the music of the song, more than the costume or the act JENNY LEE LINDBERG

a packed ABC this past May, leaving the crowd both rocked to their socks, and more than a little bit in love. Accomplishing it all, for those not lucky enough to stumble across the band, while dressed like Oor Wullie.

“Dungarees,” Lindberg drawls, “I bring them every tour and I love wearing them. They’re comfortable, cosy but easy. You don’t have to think about them. You just have to put ‘em on. I’m not making a statement with them. They’re comfortable and I’ve been wearing them since I was 12. I actually think overalls are really sexy on a girl, but I’m a bit of a tomboy. I like it when girls are more in touch with their boyish nature. It doesn’t mean you have to be a lesbian, or a dyke, or wanna be a boy.

I just think it’s cool to be in touch with both sides.”

Statement or no, it’s an interesting look to coin in today’s pop culture. With mainstream pop music sliding down the greasy pole to pornland, the way women dress and act on stage has rarely been such a politicised question. Just think of last December’s stooshie when Rihanna and Christina Aguilera provoked a stream of complaints with their respective raunchy pre-watershed performances on the dreaded X Factor. Similarly, Scotland’s own KT Tunstall was chastised by Shakira fans for daring to question the Latin American

star’s use of her “ladybits” in music videos.

Like most liberally minded music fans, Lindberg has mixed feelings on the subject: “Pop music has always been like that, with Madonna, then Britney Spears, Lady Gaga. There’s a similar thread there, and I feel pop music has always alluded to sex in some shape or form and I don’t think it’s necessary, but it plays such a part. I do think that it’s slightly ridiculous. I think that sex should be in the actual music of the song, more than the costume or the act. Sex should be in the instrument.”

As the name suggests, Warpaint are a contradictory creature. An agent of destruction and art combined: “We were running through names and we just said ‘how about this?’ Someone said, ‘I like this, it sounds really aggressive and strong and bold but it’s also representing four girls who are quite feminine and the music isn’t punk or harsh.’

You’re expecting a metal band or something but it’s actually not at all. It’s a misreading in a way.”

The music stemmed, Lindberg argues, from a determination to do something different; to emulate not just a sound, but an emotional response conjured from a list of favourite bands way too

photo: Sol Nicol

FESTIVAL

Taking sexy back?

long to list here. It seems their inspiration reaches across the Atlantic, too. “That show in Glasgow was really cool,” Lindberg refers back to the ABC. “Clinic played before us, which was super-rad.”

Clinic? Where does that group of grizzled post-punk Liverpudlians in surgical masks fit into the world of L.A parties with guitar heroes? It turns that our teenaged infatuations with America worked both ways.

“When I was younger British anything was so far from my reality,” Lindberg pines. “British anything – British music, British ways of living, of speaking.

It was like a fantasy. It was so far removed from what my reality actually was, and that made me curious. Even the way they looked, the way they carried themselves, it was so different to what was going on in Nevada. It’s almost like it developed into an obsession.”

Suddenly that dance with Slash – a born Londoner – doesn’t seem like such a stretch. As rock star obsessions go, there are far worse rabbit holes to tumble down.

Playing Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh on 23 Aug www.warpaintwarpaint.com

Warpaint at Glasgow's ABC

IF BURNING CHARCOAL TO MELLOW JACK DANIEL’S

SOUNDS EXTRAVAGANT, WELL, IT IS.

JAC K DA N I E L’ S

TENNESSEE WHISK EY

Your friends at Jack Daniel’s remind you to please drink responsibly. ©2011 Jack Daniel’s. All rights reserved. JACK DANIEL’S and OLD NO. 7 are registered trademarks.

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 17

FESTIVAL

Internal Monologue Looking ahead to this year's Edinburgh Art Festival, we speak to Stephen Sutcliffe, an artist for whom every episode of Magnum P.I is never knowingly unrecorded Interview: Andrew Cattanach

Can you remember watching late night television as a child? It’s likely you were watching something you shouldn’t have and now your memory of the footage is fairly hazy – a weird collage of disparate images and sounds that represent an unsettling adult world as seen through your then juvenile eyes.

Everyone has their own version of this mental videotape. It’s a fuzzy patchwork of adult content that has inexplicably stuck with you through to adulthood. And with every generation there’s a different recording and a different cast of actors – Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, Michael Gambon, to name but a few of the likely players.

Artist Stephen Sutcliffe needs no such reminiscence. For nearly 30 years he’s been taping footage off television and radio and now holds what sounds like a fairly staggering archive of ‘golden age’ material. “I’ve been taping things from TV ever since I first got a video and I never tape over anything,” he explains in his Yorkshire drawl. “I never really taped them with a mind to making artworks – especially the early ones – because I didn’t even consider being an artist at that point.”

Visiting Sutcliffe’s solo show, Runaway, Success, at Stills this month, viewers will be treated to a rare glance at his private archive. Despite being Glasgow-based, much of the work on show has never been seen in this country.

Using what he refers to as a ‘collage’ technique, he splices together two or more elements of his archive to often unsettling effect. “I always start with the soundtrack,” he explains. “And I listen to the soundtrack quite a few times and I get the visuals from what comes to me when I’m listening to it. But that doesn’t mean they have to complement each other. In fact, a lot of the time the soundtrack and the image disrupt each other more than they complement each other, which I think is the essence of collage. You know, putting things together that don’t go. I kind of like that idea.”

His film Despair, which was screened at Tate Modern in 2009, is based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel of the same name. Knowing that the film had already been adapted by director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Sutcliffe went in search of the German filmmaker’s version. Unable to get his hands on a copy, Sutcliffe drew inspiration from the unseen work nonetheless. “I made my idea of what I would make from the book with an eye to what he [Fassbinder] might have done,” Sutcliffe explains.

As well as his better known video works, Sutcliffe will be showing photographs and a large-scale wall drawing. The drawing will be a collage of cartoons gleaned from The New Yorker magazine (another of his archives) and repainted on to the gallery wall.

Often subtle, the reworked cartoons show little evidence of collage. Unfamiliar with the source material, they could easily pass for the original.

The photographs similarly use cartoons, this time removed from their original context and re-made to look like theatrical production stills. A regular theme in his work, theatricality and the role of the performer is central to the Stills show. The show’s title, Runaway, Success, is taken from the film director Franco Zeffirelli’s autobiography. “He was a confident guy and he kept talking about the runaway successes he had,” Sutcliffe explains.

“It’s a very traditional, theatrical term to use.”

At one point accidently reading the phrase “runaway success” with a comma between the two words, Sutcliffe liked how this introduced a degree of self-doubt into the prose of this otherwise successful and confident artist, as though the comma represented the humble uncertainty in all of us – even the most self-assured of performers, such as Zeffirelli.

As part of a new programming initiative that invites exhibitors to show work by other artists,

18 THE SKINNY August 2011

I’ve been taping things from TV ever since I first got a video and I never tape over anything Stephen Sutcliffe

Despair, 2009

Sutcliffe has decided to screen films by the independent American filmmaker Gary Conklin in the back room. Working mainly in the documentary genre, and rarely seen in Europe, Stills will show a selection of Conklin’s works.

Sutcliffe first came across Conklin while researching the English-American author Christopher Isherwood, who famously wrote fictional accounts of his experiences in Germany during the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism. It soon turned out Sutcliffe had one of Conklin’s films in his archive the whole time, which is likely to be the case for most directors, considering the breadth of Sutcliffe’s collection. “It’s funny,” Sutcliffe says, “because three of the films of Gary’s I’ll be showing I haven’t seen. I think he’s a really interesting director.”

The most recent work on show, a video entitled Writer in Residence, is the first time in a while Sutcliffe has shot a film entirely himself without using archive footage. Another literary reference, the work came about through an interest in Colin Wilson’s study of existentialist literature, The Outsider. “In that one I have an actor playing Colin Wilson who is interviewed in the face-to-face style of the 50s, 60s and 80s, and he keeps getting interrupted by the interviewer – or his own internal monologue.”

Again, we return to the idea of collage and its ability to disrupt the scene. In most of his works, even when the footage seems barely at odds with the soundtrack, there is something jarring about their coming together. “I like to take things and put them into awkward situations,” he illuminates. “I think adding a soundtrack sometimes makes the footage more questionable to watch. You start to ask questions about the footage.”

It comes as little surprise that self-doubt is at the heart of Sutcliffe’s work. These disruptions, often interrupting monologues, are like our own internal voices – our vociferous moral censors that are as much a hindrance as they are a help. They represent our nagging moral conscience that taunts and belittles us. They are reliably critical of our every action – and likely came into being just around the time we started watching late night television when we really shouldn’t have.

Stephen Sutcliffe: Runaway, Success, Stills, Edinburgh, 5 Aug - 30 Oct Mon-Thu 11am-7pm; Fri-Sun 11am-6pm. Free Edinburgh Art Festival 4 Aug - 4 Sep www.edinburghartfestival.com/

Despair, 2009

Goose Weather, 2010

FESTIVAL

Mach Meets His Maker A mere couple of weeks before his show opens at City Art Centre, David Mach finds time for a wee blether with The Skinny Interview: ADeline Amar

Fife-born artist David Mach is doing pretty well for himself. At 55, he has a Turner Prize nomination under his belt, installations dotted around the country and has a festival show at the City Art Centre.

Inspired by the 400 year anniversary of the King James Bible – the 1611 English translation of the Bible still widely used to this day – the show is composed of around 80 collages and sculptures spanning five floors, and including his famous matchheads – busts sculpted using matchsticks.

In a typical Mach-move, two busts of the Devil and Jesus, made of matches and bigger than life-size, will be burnt in public at the show’s two separate openings events.

A Christian-Pagan binary opposition, I suggest?

“My natural inclination is to burn those things,” he laughs. “They are like fireworks, a celebration. If we have bright reds, yellows and blues because of the different pigments in the head of the matches, we get different shades of greys and blacks.

Nothing is destroyed, it’s all completely intact. The sculpture seems to age before your very eyes. But the performance is very dramatic; it’s not destructive, it’s creative.”

Another unusual aspect of the show is Mach’s studio, which will occupy a whole floor for visitors to watch the artist at work. Assistants, photocopiers and easels are all to be packed up and shipped to Edinburgh, where Mach and his team will work on a 25-foot-wide collage of The Last Supper.

Using a studio as part of a show, or building on the myth of the artist isn’t a new thing. One can, for instance, recall Tracey Emin living in an art gallery to overcome her painting block, all the while turning the visitors into peeping Toms.

Mach isn’t exactly impressed by my Emin reference: “Moving my studio is something I’ve done for years, it’s been part of my work for decades.”

Does the work ever get influenced by the location, then? “It’s different this time, because we’re not making a sculpture, we’re making a collage, so obviously we’re planning that here [in London].

But I’m sure there’ll be influences up there. Things will happen. That’s why I very much like to work in public like that. People see what you do, you know?”

Against all expectations, the show isn’t meant as a religious message but “A comment about the state of the world.” Relatively few collages show religious scenes, and Mach happily admits he’s yet to read the Bible.

“I use images from magazines, and if you go to different magazines they tell you different things – about the war, fashion, food – we’re just subjects to these things whether we like it or not. (…) They come from everybody and everyday life. They’re in our world. And I like that – a language that we all use. Even if you’re not an artist, you are still aware of these things.”

And although Mach has been making collages and matchheads for decades now, he insists this show isn’t a retrospective: “Although you’re making a collage again, you develop every time you make one: you develop a new style, a new element comes in. The collages become actionpacked; it’s like making a still from a film, it’s a very odd thing. I find myself acting like a director: ‘OK, bring the horses in from the right hand side at a gallop’. I find that very exciting, all the possibilities and the ways of experimenting.”

Mach won’t take any time off after this show, as

Die Harder – detail of head

he’s due to start exhibits in Dubai, Geneva and at London’s V&A. He chuckles: “We’re going to do a collage of the Kama Sutra. It’ll be great fun!”

Mon-Sat 10am - 5pm; Sun 12pm - 5pm £5.00 (£3.50 concs) £2.50 for children aged 5 to 16, and £11.00 for a family ticket for two adults and two children or one adult and three children. Season tickets: £8 for adults, £5.50 for concessions, £4.00 for children and £17.50 for families

I like that – a language that we all use David Mach

www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/Venues/City-ArtCentre/Exhibitions/David-Mach---Precious-Light

Big Fun At The Edinburgh Art Festival It’s long been considered that fun is what other nationalities get up to. It’s what Continental Europeans do when they’re not too busy making love. When they’re not carnally aligning themselves with others, they’re out having a dance – maybe even having a healthy, grown-up sip of booze along with a prudent snack that involves neither chips nor cheese.

Us Scotch have really picked up our game, though. So much so we’ve declared August our national fun month, with all the year’s fun taking place during those 31 days and strictly within Edinburgh’s city limits. Here is an outline of some of the art-flavoured fun you might want to catch while getting your annual fix.

At Stills Gallery, Glasgow-based video artist Stephen Sutcliffe is showing work from the last 10 years, much of which has never been seen in Scotland. Using his personal archive of VHS footage he’s been taping off the telly since he was a kid, Sutcliffe makes witty yet haunting collages that explore self doubt.

Conceptual art collective Peles Empire sound overwhelmingly clever, and for this reason alone should be sampled. As part of an ongoing project where the artists recreate the rooms of a Romanian castle in different locations, the collective will be recreating rooms from a Romanian castle at Sierra Metro.

The YBA that never was, David Mach has a major exhibition at City Art Centre where he is showing

work about some old book they call the Bible. Best known for making sculptures out of things that sculptures are not normally made out of, Mach here exhibits a Jesus sculpted from coat hangers.

Inverleith House has a generous double bill that includes the massively influential Robert Rauschenberg, who once exhibited a taxidermy goat with a tyre round its middle, and British sculptor Thomas Hauseago, whose monumental bronze sculptures will be on show outdoors.

Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s exhibition at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (part of the EIF) is an exclusive presentation of 26 works from his two latest series, Lightening Fields and Photogenic Drawings. This is black and white photography at its very best.

If you thought artist Elizabeth Blackadder was for fuddy-duddy aunts only, then you’re wrong.

With the rigour and focus of a scientist, Blackadder has been drawing, painting and printing the same subject matter (namely flowers and cats) for longer than you’ve been breathing. Unlike most art we see these days, hers is not about self reflection or what it means to be human or how messed up our institutions are, it’s about the things around us and their glaringly overwhelming beauty. See her retrospective in the National Galleries Complex on the Mound.

Edinburgh Art Festival 2011, 4 Aug - 4 Sep, various venues www.edinburghartfestival.com/

Robert Rauschenberg Botanical Vaudeville, Sunset Glut, 1987

August 2011

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photo: Michael Wolchover . Courtesy Gagosian Gallery and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

There’s a lot to choose from in the EAF programme – here are Art editor Andrew Cattanach’s tips of what's unmissable

THE BALLET RUSE

LOL, PROTEIN DANCE COMPANY, ZOO SOUTHSIDE, 22-27 AUG 14:05 £12 (£10) THE SEAGULL EFFECT, IDLE MOTION, ZOO ROXY, 5-27 AUG 16:20 £10 (£8) THE SHIMMY IS PRINTED ON TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS THROUGHOUT THE FESTIVALS

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WORDS: GARETH K VILE

KINN Y.CO.

We march under the banner of physical theatre

used to communicate directly rather than be an end in themselves.

The growth of cabaret at The Fringe is reflected in The Shimmy’s consideration of variety, burlesque and vaudeville: the natural links between the performance, physical, cabaret and live art scenes are made easily through the emphasis on the body at the centre of theatre. The only work really not up for consideration within The Shimmy are those countless pedestrian versions of scripted plays – the unimaginative retreads of Shakespeare, the lazy versions of classic texts.

Perhaps because of its specific remit, The Shimmy has a mission to break down the tradition of Fringe criticism as mere fodder for advertising.

Working with a dedicated team, The Shimmy is conscious of being more than just a bunch of reviews and articles already commissioned include thoughtful examinations of multi-culturalism at the Fringe, the point where dance becomes comedy and the bizarre emergence of a plethora of Hitlerinspired pieces. Alongside The Skinny’s general reviews and previews and articles across the year, The Shimmy aims to shine and shimmer as brightly as the stars of 2011.

WWW.THES

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SHIMMY SKINNY

NOW ENTERING its third year, The Shimmy is the love child of The Skinny Performance’s love of radical physical theatre and Dance Base’s mission to promote choreography in the Fringe. By taking a distinctive route through August in Edinburgh – the emphasis is still on those works that defy categorisation that begin with movement – it has established itself as a unique voice.

Self-congratulation aside, The Shimmy continues its mission to emphasise that dance is at the source of the Fringe’s most bracing theatre.

The focus on a specific area – now expanded to include the rising tide of cabaret – allows The Shimmy to support work that could otherwise get lost in the comedy overload, and concentrate in more detail on the artists behind the bodies.

Dance and Physical Theatre remains concentrated around two venues: Dance Base, which becomes a studio theatre for August, while maintaining a programme of workshops and classes, and Zoo – now three venues, all boasting impressive programmes of challenging work. The C ECA also promises to feature more physical performance, and even The National Theatre of Scotland can be caught working with a choreography alongside the director. The Space portfolio of venues is opening up to dance and cabaret.

Although the Dance section of the Fringe brochure is compact – and consequently more readable – the importance of choreography and movement have expanded.

Dance can sometimes be lost in the hurly-burly of the Fringe: comedy dominates and the more “serious” art forms are penned in by awkward spaces and short time slots. The Zoo programme this year – including many of the British Council supported artists – is a reminder that Physical Theatre need not be humourless. Protein are a fast paced, utterly modern company with a sharp take on the pain of mundane life: Idle Motion have two shows that are moving and experimental. The distinction between challenging and accessible theatre is often made, even by critics, but it is false: radical approaches to theatre are more often

REDISC OVER

● This is in ● And laso here this editi on ● Not least this is in which is quite , we also exciting have this and this

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50 Blackfriars Street Edinburgh EHI INE www.smartcityhostels.com/bar50 20 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

Yet another showdown between East and West, or is it?

Photo: christopher-duggan

words: Gareth K Vile

Shen Wei’s Dance company’s recent performance at the met museum

Orientalism – originally an excuse for paintings of exotic chicks in the scud – has been a dangerous strand within Western art. Guilty of sentimentalising, simplifying or eroticising Eastern cultures, it comes packed full of assumptions about the essential nature of the ancient civilisations, usually based on their supposed inherent inferiority.

When the Edinburgh International Festival was founded, in the aftermath of WWII, it was intended to promote cross-cultural understanding. Jonathan Mills, the EIF’s current director, has taken that seriously; last year he hit the “New World”; this year, he strikes out to Japan, China, Korea and sees how their contemporary performance fits against those oriental stereotypes.

The simple dualism of East versus West is undermined by the collaborations and content across the programme. The Peony Pavilion mashes up ballet and Chinese traditional dance, Wu Hsing Kuo adapts King Lear and Tim Supple gets back to the source with Alf Layla wa-Layla’s One Thousand and One Nights.

“The Arabian Nights, as most people know it, bears little relationship to the original stories,” Supple says. The interesting thing, he thinks, is to get back to the Arabic versions. He has enlisted stars from across Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Paris and London – the Arab diaspora – to rediscover the raw flavour.

“We don’t know much about the Arab world – again, rather like the Arabian Nights, we have a general perception of it,” he continues. By taking on this project, Supple has looked at the different approaches to performance across the Arabspeaking world: his collaborators have encouraged him “to undermine your own habits and preconceptions.” And while theatre, in its strict Western sense, may not be as widely seen, the tradition of story-telling, of poetry, is a powerful, living tradition.

Shen Wei, New York based choreographer of

Re-Triptych identifies a deeper complexity in the dualism of East and West. “What is interesting is that when my work travels to the West, people think it is very Eastern, and when my work travels to the East, people think it is very Western,” he muses. “The elements all mix together. For me, East vs. West is a false dichotomy – my work lies beyond these categories.”

His own training at the Chinese State Circus does inform his work, but he is as inspired by his current life in America. Indeed, Re-Triptych follows his personal journey across continents. “It’s hard to describe exactly which elements are solely Western or solely Eastern,” he explains. “In the past decade, I have created my own technique and my own vocabulary based on my experience of both traditional Chinese opera and Western modern dance technique. That is to say East and West are in constant dialogue with each other, producing something different than their respective parts.”

The strength of the EIF is in bringing together works that would otherwise not make it to the UK, let alone Edinburgh, and to find an audience for them.

The Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe – doing another Shakespeare adaptation, The Revenge of Prince Zi Dan – rub shoulders with Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass. While the Fringe is a challenge to navigate, the EIF is clearly curated, with a vision behind the programme and a guarantee, at least, of professionalism.

Jonathan Mills is quite clear that his intentions are not to simply boast of a programme “coming from the East”, but it will be interesting to see how well the events cope with the spectre of The Oriental.

The EIF rarely struggles for large audiences, but the scale of the shows leads to work making its debut in front of unexpecting audiences. It is an exciting opportunity to discover work that has no real parallel in usual seasons, as well as the return of old favourites. www.eif.co.uk for further info

Kurt Weill

The seven deadly sins There’s a world of temptation out there O2 ABC, Glasgow Wed 31 Aug 9pm Thu 1 Sep 9pm 0844 477 2000

Book online at scottishopera.org.uk Registered in Scotland Number SCO37531 Scottish Charity Number SCO19787

Hiroshi Sugimoto

4 August – 25 September 2011 Tickets £7 / £5 Belford Road, edinburgh eif.co.uk/sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lightning Fields, 168 © The artist National Galleries of Scotland is a charity registered in Scotland (SC003728). Edinburgh International Festival is a charity registered in Scotland (SC004694).

August 2011

AU G U ST

Mon 29 Aug 9pm Sat 3 Sep 7pm & 9pm 0844 847 1740

4

HMV Picture House, Edinburgh

o pe n S

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Importing the Orient?

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Homegrown Talent At The Edinburgh Festivals Welcome to Edinburgh. This year, we've decided to eschew the traditional preview of the transplanted excitements of the South and offer our guests some local flavour with the Scottish performance highlights of the Festivals. Alba gu bràth Words: Gareth K Vile

22 THE SKINNY August 2011

political shifts of recent years: ironically, two of the strongest responses have come from plays that have roots in the past. Wee Andy, a short play that emerged from the Greek-style tragedy of Fleeto and King of Scotland, re-engineered from a previous Fringe success, and now with added celebrity satirist Watson, both grapple with the hard realities of financial and social deprivation.

While Fleeto has a rough-hewn poetry, Wee Andy is a savage blast of frustration. The victimised hero hardly speaks, and much of the script consists of angry lectures, political diatribes and coarse social analysis: author Paddy Cuneen is clearly frustrated by the lack of political will to clean up knife crime and the society that perpetuates it. A grim piece of gritty realism, it is a direct, simple polemic.

The King of Scotland dwells in no less a deprived estate, but the hero’s madness slips into a magic realist world of talking dogs and flying taxis.

Watson is confident in the monologue: he lends the descent into insanity a friendly familiarity, and failed romance and social exclusion combine to describe a life lived without purpose and false hope. If the final delusion of royalty is a hackneyed stereotype – madness is rarely recognisable once it reaches the stage as anything more than a blunt metaphor – The King of Scotland takes a wry glance at Scotland’s self-image and the empty rhetoric of social improvement.

Far from being just another youth company, Junction 25 are a rare example of radical performance art accommodating a community based process. Led by Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore, also known as Glas(s) Performance, J25 made their name through a bracing combination of emotional honesty and imaginative theatricality.

“Junction 25 is our collaboration with young people, explains Thorpe. “It means a collective. It means young people trying out new ideas. They need to and can speak for themselves.” After successful tours across Europe, a supportive home crowd in Glasgow and a hit at the IETM last October, J25 take on the Fringe with their provocative look at love: I Hope My Heart Goes First.

“When the concept of the show was first announced as love I was a little unsure what to expect.” Performer Scott Ramage continues the story. “I knew straight away it wasn’t just going to be about romantic love.” The inclusive nature of their creativity is reflected by the process, Ramage explains. “We had a large sheet of paper spread across a wall and we all wrote ideas and feelings on it for the performance: none were refused or removed.” Fellow performer Megan adds “One of the challenges was trying to connect all the different stories together and make sure it was fluid.”

The final product is a challenging journey into love as it is understood by a vibrant, imaginative group of Glaswegian young people.

Orlando: 5 – 29 Aug (excluding Weds), 4pm, Venue 157: St George’s West, Shandwick Place, Edinburgh EH2 4RT Box office: 0131 225 7001 (from 2 Aug), 0131 226 0000 (Fringe) 5 – 29 Aug (excluding Weds), 4pm, Venue 157: St George’s West, Shandwick Place, Edinburgh EH2 4RT Box office: 0131 225 7001 (from 2 Aug), 0131 226 0000 (Fringe) www.cryptic.org.uk Alma Mater: 5-29 Aug, Remarkable Arts, St George’s West (Venue 157) Entry for individual audience member every ten minutes, piece lasts 20 minutes.

Tickets £5 Booking: 0131 226 0000 www.edfringe.com www.fishandgame.org.uk Junction 25: 5-16 Aug, Remarkable Arts, 2pm www.junction-25.com/main/junction-25-hit-the-fringe www.scottishtheatres.com/madeinscotland/

I hope my heart goes first

Photo: Jen Davies

It’s tedious to write an annual Fringe preview.

Too simple: for assured quality, go to the Traverse, for dance, check Dance Base or Zoo. Remarkable Arts is the cool young venue, with a programme that veers towards the good old days when Aurora Nova brought international experimentation to St Stephen’s Church. Greenside is growing, The Space is diverse, there are a thousand and one dreams to be crushed, and the landlords make the money.

This year, The Skinny is proud to support the Scots who are heading to Edinburgh. It is an international showcase, and it is vital that Scottish audiences get to see what else in going on. However, it is a Scottish city and it seems fair to remind our guests that there is a powerful indigenous performance scene.

The Tron showcased A Slow Air as part of Mayfesto, Cryptic’s Orlando got its premiere at Glasgay!, in the same week as Fish and Game heralded a new use for the iPad through Alma Mater. Even these three demonstrate how Scottish performance has diversified beyond the simple script as template. A Slow Air is a reassuringly intimate two-hander by Glasgow’s master of linguistic detail, David Harrower; Orlando follows Cryptic’s distinctive passion for music and technological experiment; Alma Mater is an ambiguous reflection on education and childhood that uses film to evoke ghostly presence. All of these shows share a fascination with the possibilities of self-conscious performance, tapping away at the inherent unreality of theatre.

Harrower deliberately disconnects his two actors, letting them describe their mutual love and hate directly to the audience. Although the two characters, a brother and sister, seem to be dwelling on a family argument, Harrower subtly weaves larger themes – the split between generations, the rivalry between East and West coasts, the mixed blessings of personal history, the redemptive power of absurd conflicts – into their homely, defensive chatter. Without making huge statements, and capturing the nuance of sibling compassion, Harrower champions the traditional script as the blueprint for a moving, intimate performance.

Orlando is a far more expansive work, even if it is a solo for one actor. Originally staged with live music, it mixes Virginia Woolf’s magical realist story of an immortal transsexual, cutting edge computer graphics and an electronica soundtrack to remystify the text, revealing fragments of passion, beauty and insight within the century-spanning narrative. It is exceptionally hi-tech for the Fringe, intensely serious and blinding in its neon beauty: Cryptic are as fascinated by the image as the word as the music, and while Orlando is familiar from the superb Sally Potter film, this version’s transformative, hallucinatory rhythm cuts to a mystical heart.

Fish and Game are “Scotland’s Live Art supergroup”: Alma Mater, ironically, is a video performance. Originally a site-specific “guide” to Glasgow’s Scotland Street School museum, it has been displaced to Remarkable Arts’ Edinburgh church venue. Refusing to fall for either clichés about the greatest days of your life, or school as bullying hell, Alma Mater is beautifully balanced between celebration and critique and uses the iPad as a tool to layer reality with a supernatural resonance. Witty and moving, it is a reminder that experimental theatre can bypass theatrical artifice for an immediate, compassionate, emotional hit.

Scottish theatre has reacted energetically to the

Alma Mater

FESTIVAL

Pioneer Spirit

Since winning the big comedy award in 2008, he has established himself as one of the must-see acts of every Fringe. But the road to Edinburgh success was a long and hard one for David O’Doherty Interview: Bernard O'Leary

I didn’t know what the etiquette was of playing to an empty room, should I go on or should I stop? I just burst into tears on the stage. The soundman came down and gave me a hug David O’Doherty

It’s the last night of a poorly-run comedy festival in Ireland when we catch up with David O’Doherty.

Schedule shuffling and cancellations have put him on stage nearly three hours late and he comes out to a hostile crowd; but a few minutes of his lo-fi charm quickly win the audience back. Afterwards, he’s exhausted and despite the gale-force laughter from the crowd, he says he won’t be sure if the show worked until he listens back to a recording.

“I have no idea what other people find funny, that’s my greatest weakness. Sometimes I write a joke and think ‘That’s it, take the rest of the month off, O’Doherty.’ Then I do it onstage, do it, maybe smugly take a sip of water at the end. Then there’s silence and all I can hear is the sound of my own swallowing.”

This isn’t self-deprecation, but the thought process of a guy who’s battled hard to get to where he is. O’Doherty’s success has been a long time in the making, especially at the Edinburgh festival where he became an overnight success after years of abject failure.

His first Fringe ended in triumph when he won the 1999 So You Think You’re Funny prize, beating fellow finalists Josie Long, Andy Zaltzman, Russell Howard and Jimmy Carr. “I still lord it up over them a bit, like when I’m sending Josie a birthday card I’ll sign it ‘Winner of So You Think You’re Funny 1999’. The five of us were sharing a flat together for the Fringe. We were only kids, I was 23 and Josie was just 16. After that, I was offered a solo show for the following year. I said, ‘Yeah sure, I’ve got six minutes of material. Why not?’”

The resulting show was The Boy Who Saved Comedy, an hour-long spoken word piece about

Christmas crackers. O’Doherty cringes a little when it’s mentioned. “I listened to a tape of it recently and it’s terrible. It’s quite brave in what it tries to do, but it bombed about fifty per cent of the time.

“The night I’ll never forget is when there were only five people in. They had all won tickets on Forth FM and they all walked out, as a group. I didn’t know what the etiquette was of playing to an empty room, should I go on or should I stop? I just burst into tears on the stage. The soundman came down and gave me a hug and took me for a pint.”

The show wasn’t a total waste of time, earning O’Doherty a Best Newcomer nomination and introducing him to people like Flight Of The Conchords, Ross Noble and the person who he regards as the greatest comedian of all, Daniel Kitson. He returned in 2002, playing keyboards for the Conchords while hanging around with people like Kitson and John Oliver. “We were all a bit lost and we were all kind of doing our own thing, but by sticking to their guns all of those people built up a following.”

His 2002 show, Small Things, set the template for every Fringe show he’s done since then, but it did have one thing in common with his debut – empty seats. O’Doherty can laugh about it now.

He leans back and says in his best Steve Coogan impression, “In 2000, no-one came. In 2002, noone came. In 2004, someone did come, but then in 2005 no-one came again. You know, I laugh when I hear some people saying ‘Oh, I’ve had a tough year in Edinburgh’. I played the same room for three years to nobody. It’s hard work and you’re either in it for the long haul or not at all.”

Playing to empty rooms at the Fringe is a rite of

passage for every stand-up, but there are other factors that could have turned O’Doherty off comedy. In the 90s, his brother Mark was at the forefront of the vibrant Irish stand-up scene and star of cult sketch show Couched, before deciding to walk away from comedy altogether. “Back then,” says O’Doherty, “I used to go to comedy clubs in Dublin and be inspired by people like Barry Murphy and Kevin Gildea. There was a door-split culture in those days, so people could experiment without worrying about impressing some promoter.

I think when you’re taking risks like that, you’re more prone to getting these long, dark nights of the soul where you wonder just what it is you’re doing. And you either say, ‘Nah, fuck this’, like my brother did or you think, ‘No, I’m going to do it’.”

O’Doherty did stick with it, carving out an audience for himself one fan at a time. His Fringe show evolved, sticking to the same basic format of standup mixed with whimsical songs on his trusty Casio keyboard. Finally, in 2008, the show reached critical mass as Let’s Comedy beat Rhod Gilbert, Russell Kane and Kirsten Schaal to the if.comedy award.

Normally that’s the point when people bail out and try to land a sitcom, but O’Doherty has kept returning. “The show develops every year,” he says. “My keyboard can really only do two things, slow jams and up-tempo funk, but I still find a lot of interesting things to do within that. I’m torn between these polar opposites, wanting to write something that moves people like an Arab Strap song, but also wanting to write really stupid jokes like Mitch Hedburg. I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last 8 years.”

In 2011, O’Doherty is also planning a

second show which will bring him full circle. Rory Sheridan’s Tales of The Antarctica is “the thing I’ve done that’s most like The Boy Who Saved Comedy” and sees him play a not-so-intrepid explorer recounting the story of his 1917 expedition to the South Pole. It was inspired by his admiration for Ernest Shackleton who grew up just a few streets away from O’Doherty.

“I used to play football in Herbert Park which would have been Shackleton’s park. I used to wonder, what would make a person growing up in a boring part of Dublin say, “I think I’ll go to the South Pole.” My show is about a man who didn’t want to go to Antarctica but did it to impress a girl. Through a series of deaths he ends up becoming a leader, knowing nothing about it but sort of bluffing.”

He talks about the Antarctic show with the enthusiasm and nervousness of a Fringe debutant and you can see how glad he is to be taking a risk.

“The point of Edinburgh is not launching yourself to the industry,” he says. “It’s pushing yourself to do stuff.” At a time when the Fringe is starting to resemble a giant panel show audition, those are inspiring words.

Before we go, he gives us his top tips for the 2011 Fringe. “I gigged with Hannibal Buress in the States recently and I cannot recommend him highly enough. His presence will raise the whole festival.

Joe Wilkinson is doing his first show, and then there’s Claudia’s [O’Doherty – no relation] show What is Soil Erosion? They’re all going to be brilliant.”

Rory Sheridan’s Tales Of The Antarctica, Underbelly, 4– 28 Aug (not 15), 3.20pm David O’Doherty Is Looking Up, Pleasance Courtyard, 3 - 29 Aug, 7.20pm

August 2011

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FESTIVAL

Lots To Do and See Want to see something at the Book Festival, but don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve broken it all down for you. That’s the theory, anyway words: Keir Hind illustration: Kate Copeland

Book Event Type 1: The Well Knowns This type of event features a personality we all know, but not as an author. There are plenty of these this year, though they do tend to sell out quickly. (Deep breath…) Comedian turned author (and acclaimed author at that) Alexei Sayle appears on the opening day, Sat 13 Aug, then the next day Sarah Brown, wife of former PM Gordon, promotes her memoir of life in Downing Street, and she’ll have plenty to talk about, given recent events, but if you want to get away from all that, former Arsenal, Celtic and Wales striker John Hartson appears on Mon 15 to promote his memoir, interviewed by Off The Ball’s Stuart Cosgrove, and if you’re hooked on memoirs at this point actor Simon Callow promotes his memoir on Mon 22, but if you want a change from all these memoirs, Melvyn Bragg appears to talk about The King James Bible on Sat 27 Aug. Book Event Type 2: The Literary Heavyweights Alasdair Gray! Go to the Skinny-sponsored Alasdair Gray event on Sat 13 Aug, and maybe his other one (if you can wangle a ticket). But if you have to go to something else, Tobias Wolff, author of the excellent This Boy’s Life, and even more excellent Old School, will be appearing on Sun 14 Aug, and poet and novelist John Burnside will be launching his latest, A Summer of Drowning on Wed 17 Aug. There’s an embarrassment of riches on 20 Aug, when Edward St Aubyn, the incredibly accomplished author of the Patrick Melrose books forms an odd contrast to the veteran American author Robert Coover, as does Booker winner Alan Hollinghurst who also appears that day. If you think it doesn’t get grander then wait until the 24th, when none other than the poet laureate herself, Carol Ann Duffy appears.

Book Event Type 3: The Cult Leaders Ah, those authors who command devoted followings, yet somehow aren’t really mainstream. Great examples are Neil Gaiman, appearing Wed 17 Aug,

who works in comics (Sandman) the fantasy genre (American Gods) and even wrote a Doctor Who, or Iain (M) Banks the next day, promoting his Culture novel Surface Detail, or comics legend Grant Morrison who appears on Sat 20 Aug, or sci-fi master China Miéville who will arrive on Sun 21 Aug, all to no doubt enraptured capacity crowds.

Book Event Type 4: The Entertainers Not that the others aren’t entertaining, but these are the guys who really know how to please a crowd. Christopher Brookmyre will show his excellent audience handling skills on Tue 16 Aug, as will comic crime author and festival favourite Jasper Fforde on Thu 18 Aug. For a change of pace on that day there’s also master of psychological magic Richard Wiseman, and we can even include writer and stand up comic A.L Kennedy in this category though she could just as well fit in a number of categories here. She’ll perform on Sun 21 Aug. And do not, under any circumstances, miss the sublime and brilliant poetry of Paul Muldoon on Sat 29 Aug. Book Event Type 5: The Up and Comers It’s always good to catch a big name just before they really hit the big time. Contenders include Jennifer Egan, whose novel A Visit From The Goon Squad has recently won her the Pulitzer prize on Mon 15 Aug, the much buzzed about Granta-published author Chris Adrian on Tue 16 Aug, Submarine author Joe Dunthorne on Fri 19 Aug, and perhaps most intriguing of all author of the massively highly anticipated, 1000 plus page novel The Instructions, Adam Levin who’ll appear on Sat 27 Aug. Book Event Type 6: The Illuminating Talkers There are plenty of these, non-fiction authors with fascinating things to say, such as Orlando Figes and Simon Sebag Montefiore, who both appear on Mon 15 Aug, or biographer extraordinaire Michael Holroyd on Thu 18 Aug, or Peter Atkins on Fri 19 Aug, AC Grayling on Sat 20 Aug or Kurdo Baksi Sun 21 Aug or Julian Baggini on Mon 22

Aug… you get the idea, and there’s no space here to go into detail – just trust me, they’re great. But what may also be fascinating are writers more accustomed to fiction exploring rich, real life subjects.

Don Paterson, speaking about Shakespeare on Tue 23 Aug, and Will Self on WG Sebald, Sun 28 Aug, being very noteworthy examples.

Book Event Type 7: The Inspired Pairings James Yorkston and Ian Rankin! Go to our event and see them! But if you’re seeing anything else, Ruth Wishart is probably the best event host at the festival (and they’re all good), so anything she hosts is likely to be a great pairing, and her event with Jon Ronson on Wed 24 Aug is the pick of the bunch. Also on the 24th Michael Faber confronts

the people who brought his The Crimson Petal and the White to the screen. The fascinating coupling of Irvine Welsh as interviewer and James Robertson as subject is on 25 Aug, and two friends, who’ll team up to promote their work together, Alan Bissett and Doug Johnstone, will appear on Fri 26 Aug. The Best Book Event Of All: Last but not least, the best book event is the one, maybe one you’ve seen in this list, where you just know ‘I must go to that’, and you’ll kick yourself if you don’t. Book early and book often, book readers.

company will take it up.” I hope so too.

Postscript: Authors have an annoying habit of saying something fascinating right after the tape goes off. Alasdair Gray was no exception.

This is from memory, so consider it completely a paraphrase. Somehow, the subject of Shakespeare came up, and Gray said “I think the reason we don’t know that much about Shakespeare was probably that he wasn’t that interesting a man.

There are, of course, very eccentric artists who are creatively gifted, but most great artists, in all fields,

are probably quite dull and just get on with their work.” I include this because I found the sentiment interesting, and generally agreed with it. Apart from that, I’ll let readers add their own comments.

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011, 13-29 Aug, Charlotte Square Tickets on sale now www.edbookfest.co.uk/

Mr Gray, His Life and His Play Artist, novelist and playwright (amongst many other things) Alasdair Gray has two events at the Book Festival this year. We had a quiet word about what to expect INTERVIEW: Keir Hind illustration: Kate Copeland Interviewing Alasdair Gray is great fun. He takes the time to warm up the interview by first asking himself questions: “ ‘Mr Gray, is there any truth that you worked as a lift boy in The Kremlin?’ - That’s a damned slander, and you can’t prove anything! But yes, it is true…. ‘And what about the Vatican Mr Gray?’

- There’s no record of that! But, ah, yes, there too…”

His elevatorial credentials sorted, we move on to more pressing matters, such as his Skinnysponsored event. “The idea is that the event will be based around A Life In Pictures, and I’ll present a talk and have electronic slides to illustrate it as it goes along,” he says. “They’ve been trying to talk me into having someone doing the event with me, but I think that I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.” I ask him then how looking back on his life feels – does it feel like 30 years since Lanark was published? “Well, no,” he says “but then nothing that far away seems like that to me.

At this moment, it feels like yesterday that Lanark was published, or Poor Things, or that I met my wife Morag. I suppose a lot of the past seems very close, or at least in my memory it does.”

Given that it’s Lanark’s 30th anniversary, I decide to at least try and ask an original question about the book – so I go for one about whether it was difficult

24 THE SKINNY August 2011

to persuade a publisher to use his designs for the look of it. “No, because an illustrated page only costs as much as a typed one,” he says. That’s my question stuffed then. Thankfully, he goes on: “The difficulty was getting the thing published at all in the first place!” he says. “The idea for those came when I was in the reading room of The British Library, and saw illustrations of a sort that appealed to me in Emblem books. I’ve since discovered that Glasgow University has a collection of them too, but I didn’t know that at the time. But I thought that I’d like illustrations like them at the start of my books, so I took the idea from there.” Gray also tells me about his other event, a full performance of his play. “I wrote this play, Fleck, “ he says, “which is my version of Faust although it departs from the plot as it nears the ending, and I thought it was rather good. I sent it to a number of theatrical companies, but none of those wanted to put it on. I thought this was a shame, so I’ve been performing extracts of it at events I’ve done across the country.” Part of the problem is that actors can’t double parts, because at one point there are 12 people on stage. To perform it at the festival, most of the parts will be filled by other writers – Will Self, Liz Lochhead, A.L. Kennedy, Aonghas MacNeacail, and many others. “After this,” Gray says “I doubt I’ll perform in it again, and I just hope a theatre

Alasdair Gray will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival at 11.30 on Sat 13 Aug. Tickets £10/£8 Fleck will be performed in the RBS Main Theatre on Mon 29 Aug, 8pm. The cast will include Rodge Glass, Alasdair Gray, A L Kennedy, David MacLennan, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh www.edbookfest.co.uk

FESTIVAL

Yorkston vs Rankin!

Singer, songwriter and Fence Collective member James Yorkston will be interviewed by Ian Rankin. Need we say more? Well, we'll let James Yorkston say more instead.

INTERVIEW: Keir Hind illustration: Kate Copeland

EUROPEAN PREMIERE

‘intense, provocative… emotional.’

La Scena

James Yorkston’s teaming with Ian Rankin has been a long time coming. “I was playing over in Belfast many moons ago when I got a call from my cousin Hamish telling me that he’d just read about me in one of Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels,” he says. “So, I went to the local Waterstones and bought the book in question – Fleshmarket Close.

I wouldn’t say I was a major character in the book though and felt Hamish had misled me somewhat.

I subsequently met Mr Rankin once or twice at Fence gigs and then when my book came out, he said some nice things about it here and there – so, he seemed like the obvious person to ask to talk to in Edinburgh. A local author who people have heard of who’s heard of me. Perfect.”

As collaborations go, it’s rather promising. Yorkston is not unfamiliar with collaborations, musically speaking. He says “The best ones are the unplanned and unexpected – I played a few songs recently with Suhail Yusuf Khan and that was amazing fun. I once saw Johnny Pictish Trail jamming in the street with Bobby McFerrin, which took me totally by surprise – Johnny was really really good though – totally holding his own with the mouth trumpet.” Don’t you wish you’d been there? You can’t be though, so come to this event instead. “I will have my guitar with me” Yorkston says, promisingly, “as I’m playing later that night [at Unbound, the Book Festival's free, late night fringe programme], but I guess this event will be me reading a wee bit, Ian telling me off for my hopeless grammar, me reading a bit more and then the audience asking Ian about his Rebus novels. I think my dad’s going to come along though so he’ll probably ask me if I can remember where I left the chainsaw after the last time I borrowed it.”

No offence to Mr Rankin, but It’s Lovely to Be Here is the book audience members should be asking about. I ask the obvious question, of whether there’s a relationship between writing song lyrics and prose. “I don’t think there’s any real relationship other than the fact I write lyrics regularly meant I wasn’t too scared to be putting words down onto paper. I think if I’d not been a lyricist, I may have needed a bit more than a nudge to write a tour

diary.” Nonetheless, he says that “I found writing the tour diaries rather liberating though as I could natter on unendingly about the tiniest of details, whereas if I started doing that in my songs they may become even more soporific than they already are…”

There’s a similar type of self deprecating humour in the book. I ask if he had any models in mind for it, since tour diaries aren’t the best known literary form (when was the last time you saw a list of ‘the ten best tour diaries’?). And in fact, he says, “It seems strange to say it, considering I’ve just had a book ostensibly about music published, but I don’t really go for books about music. I have a reasonable number of old ballad books, but not really The Story Of The Doors or whatever. Although I did read an interesting Larry Adler biography gifted to me by my buddy Tom Unpoc once.” Not a lot to go on really. “So, my precursors or models – although that’s far too grand a description – were more travel books – which is how I see my book, in my little deluded ivory tower. Who? John Millington Synge, Norman Lewis, WG Sebald are the most obvious culprits, although I’m in no way comparing my work to theirs as they are really rather good indeed.” Best come to the event then, if you want to get a taste of how Yorkston’s work rates.

James Yorkston will be interviewed by Ian Rankin at the Edinburgh International Book Festival at 4pm in the Peppers Theatre on Sat 27 Aug. James Yorkston will be appearing at Unbound, the Book Festival’s free, late night event programme, at 9pm that night in the Charlotte Square Spiegeltent www.edbookfest.co.uk

DASH ARTS’ PRODUCTION DRAMATISED AND DIRECTED BY TIM SUPPLE STORIES ADAPTED BY HANAN AL-SHAYKH COMMISSIONED BY LUMINATO, TORONTO FESTIVAL OF ARTS AND CREATIVITY

Pulsating tales of love, power, money and fate Performed in Arabic, English and French with English supertitles

Sunday 21 August – Saturday 3 September Royal Lyceum Theatre

Tickets from £10 Book now at eif.co.uk/1001 0131 473 2000 Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

Sponsored by Charity No. SC004694

August 2011

THE SKINNY 25

LATE NIGHT BAR & CLUB LIVE MUSIC VENUE PRIVATE KARAOKE

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26 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

FESTIVAL

Lucky MeN

Nick Hook, Claude Speeed and Machinedrum have more in common than just long hair and Acme spectacles: they're playing the Fourth LuckyMe Festival Party later this month. The Skinny compiles an alternative primer to the Glasgow label's ever-expanding roster Interviews: Ray Philp

CUBIC ZIRCONIA

Barely thirty seconds have passed since the start of the video interview and I’m already making excuses for Nick Hook. Maybe his washing machine is busted? New York must be hot today. Are we on Chat Roulette?

I’m still trying to process how the Cubic Zirconia DJ/producer (who also plays synthesiser for L-Vis 1990, Drop The Lime and El-P) has come to be naked when he suddenly cuts the video feed having reasoned that “it might get a little creepy”. I begin to regret having embarrased Hook into reverting to another talk on Skype that is now both sexless and impersonal; more’s the pity, because Cubic Zirconia make music that is anything but these things.

When pressed, Hook describes them as a “punk rock band with 808s and soul vocals,” though he gives insufficient credit to the band’s unique interplay of the hypnagogic and the percussive.

“We knew that we wanted to be a band. I love DJing, but there’s a sense of explosiveness that only a band can have. There’s some magic when a band’s clicking and playing really hard.”

The punk aesthetic rings true of Fuck Work, a “one-take joke” glazed thick with pulsing acid basslines and Tiombe Lockhart’s sleepy, monotone whisper. It’s sloppy and half-arsed, but it overcomes its own simplicity because it’s fun, if only by virtue of not being a three-chord, Vivian Girls clusterfuck. Given Hook’s pre-music CV, Fuck Work largely wrote itself. “My first job was as a potwasher at a Jewish country club. I used to work with this Russian dude and I used to tell him to suck my dick all day. We used to terrorise this forty-five year old dishwasher and spray him with the hose, and he would scream at us so loud that every single person in the restaurant would stop. Once we stopped pissing ourselves laughing,” he adds, “we turned the lights off when he took a shit.”

CLAUDE SPEEED

Claude Speeed has played in numerous post-rock bands making “asexual white music” for over a decade. As his own dismissive description infers, he wasn’t particularly fussed by any of them, American Men and RUSSIA (the band that effectively begat American Men) excepted. His second gig with Degrassi summed up the ‘punk attitude’ that prevailed for much of his teenage years.

“An A&R guy came to see our second gig and he was like ‘Guys that was great, can we have a drink?’, and I’m thinking ‘some dickhead label guy’.

He sat down and said ‘your sound’s brilliant, but you’re a bit shouty’, so I immediately told him to fuck off. He’d flown from London to see us. He was really nice, and I was a total dick thinking I was some sort of punk skinhead Fugazi fan. That was the story of that band: we had quite a few opportunities and we told everyone to fuck off all the time.”

Cool World, American Men’s debut EP of last year (they’ve added Laeto drummer Robbie Cooper and Eunoia’s Steven Shade, aka John Awesome, to the original trio), is replete with staggered time changes and 80s sci-fi synthesisers, something inspired in part by Speeed’s exclusive affinity for computer music. “I really hated music when I was a kid, because all of the music that was around I really, really disliked, and I mistook that for not liking music at all. The only music I listened to was on video games. My dad was kind of a computer hacker, and he used to get boxes of floppy discs. I used to go through them and just listen to the intro music.”

Since forming American Men, the band has effected a change in Speeed, who admits to having been a “dogmatic” musician. “I used to be the

❝

I used to be the kinda guy who played a gig and not care if people liked it, and that’s just stupid Claude Speeed

❞ kinda guy who played a gig and not care if people liked it, and that’s just stupid. A lot of the post-rock thing is like that, watching bands where they’re not even looking at the audience. It’s really rude that they dont give a shit. Now, I really want people to engage, and I really want them to enjoy it and have fun and like it. That’s distinct from pandering to people, or saying ‘I just want to make people happy’ which is quite a thin, shallow thing to do.”

MACHINEDRUM

Travis Stewart’s kaleidoscopic influences of early Warp and Ninja Tune, jungle, house, Chicago footwork and hip-hop accumulated whilst growing up “surrounded by NASCAR fans and guys with shotguns on their porches” in North Carolina.

One of the paradoxes is that these influences are amalgamated into a transcendent whole which is identifiably his own whilst seemingly remaining forever in flux. His latest LP, Room(s), sits restlessly on this continuum, which mostly orbits the avantgarde hip-hop spheres beloved by Stewart. “I’ve always been drawn to urban music or anything that has that raw flavour, because there really is nothing like it. If anything, I wish that I could be part of it, and it’s my way of expressing that.”

Stewart had, in fact, moved from North Carolina to New York (he now lives in Berlin) to produce for hip-hop artists, but encountered a pervading alphamale attitude amongst the rappers and vocalists he worked with. “They mainly proliferate this message that you gotta make money, you gotta be the king, the top of the rap game, the leader of the movement, the innovator...they’ll start writing lyrics based on this mentality, and it fuels this [attitude] more and more – the more that they’re saying or rapping it, they’re subconsciously adhering to the message that they’re putting out there.”

Having long since extricated himself from the swinging dick culture of contemporary hip-hop, Machinedrum’s output resembles the genre – and many others that he draws from – only in the abstract. Room(s)’ Escheresque sleeve and stated concept of “one large room, containing many smaller rooms” reinforces the point: a selfcontained world of distinctive songs and styles, hopelessly entangled in the thicket of Machinedrum’s idiosyncratic sonic filter.

Claude Speeed

The Fourth LuckyMe Festival Party: Line-up includes Rustie, Machinedrum, Nick Hook, Claude Speeed, The Blessings, Eclair Fifi. Fri 12 Aug, Cabaret Voltaire, 11pm-5am, £5 LuckyMe Festival Afterparty: Live film score: The Return by Andrei Zvyaginstev with music

by Mike Slott ; Dam Mantle; Ashmatic Astronaut.

Sat 13 Aug, Summerhall, 8-11pm, £10 (£8) Machinedrum’s Room(s) is out now on Planet Mu. Cubic Zirconia’s Follow Your Heart is out 20 Sep on Fool’s Gold www.thisisluckyme.com

Cubic Zirconia's Nick Hook

Machine Drum

August 2011

THE SKINNY 27

MUSIC

whole new way

From the rooftop of their London studio, The Horrors explain a strange ascent into the stratosphere interview: Era Trieman Photo: Martin Senyszak

Navigating through the bustling market stalls of Stoke Newington, the bare brick studio we’re bound for – current nesting ground of The Horrors – is both inconspicuous and inaccessible.

A bald Egyptian man draws out a crude map that leads through corridors and staircases to a fire escape carrying a notice which reads: ‘This is not the door you’re looking for.’ A clunky padlock averts the insistent. The foreboding dwelling feels appropriate anyhow, yet we’re taken aback as we ascend up to a rooftop adorned with sunflowers, a broken barbeque set and a chaise longue.

As it turns out, The Horrors have forged a workspace that strikes a balance between shadowy rehearsal den and the great outdoors. “That was really important to us,” offers bassist Rhys Webb, “ever since we started about five or six years ago. Our first recordings were in Edwyn Collins’ personal studio. A musician’s studio will always have their identity stamped on it: they’ve built up this collection of great gear, they’ve got all their old amplifiers and he had this room of guitars that he’d had since the early seventies and all these great synthesizers. To us that was really inspiring and exciting.

“Our first experience in a studio was when we did Sheena Is A Parasite, and ever since we always had this dream of recording independently,” he elaborates on their new base and ongoing modus operandi. “With this third record we felt that we actually had the confidence to do it ourselves and get the place set up accordingly. We’ve always tried to keep things spontaneous to capture the song’s raw essence, and often that’s done using the original recordings from the writing sessions.

We record everything whilst we write, the tapes are always running.”

Gazing upon the cityscape, Webb tries to explain how their latest album came to be known as Skying: “It’s one of those questions that has so many different answers. The word was up on the board from really early on; floating about the studio, it just completely summed up everything we felt was being conveyed in the music.

Historically, it also refers to a manual recording technique. Before phasing units were used in studios you’d plug two tapes playing the same thing slightly out of phase and it would give you that kind of whooshing effect, like the sound of jet engines. In the sixties it was known as ‘skying’. It was coined in a review of this insane, psychedelic track from about 1968 called Hip Hip Hoorah by a Belgian band called The Snapshots. That record was drenched in this phased effect. But for us it came from a Caleb Quaye record called Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad. The phaser unit in his studio was called the Grand Skyer Mark II. It all goes back to this idea.”

Beyond this diligence for effective production techniques, image has played an equally key part in The Horrors’ identity. I ask whether Webb’s navy-blue mariner suit or the LP’s beautiful pastel-palette artwork aptly reflects the attitude of the band at the moment, as well as the dreamy direction of their new album. “We’ve always just done exactly what we wanted to do,” he insists.

“It’s done us good and bad, although when we got together we didn’t actually second guess what anybody was gonna think about our appearance.

We were obsessed with The Cramps and The Velvet Underground. We kinda got lost in our own world but as years go by, you grow up and keep on moving.”

This will to “keep on evolving” fast becomes the enduring theme of our conversation. One of the more conspicuous additions on Skying has been the inclusion of brass instrumentation, though Webb doesn’t deem this especially drastic: “Whatever sounds best sticks, so if something suggests

28 THE SKINNY August 2011

We’ve always just done exactly what we wanted to do, it’s done us good and bad RHys Webb

itself as being a good idea to pursue, then we’re always willing and wanting to experiment with it.

Originally the brass stuff started off just being sampled off an old Mellotron, simple synthesized things, but Tom [Cowen – synths], who wrote and played a lot of those parts, was really adamant that we should try to see what it sounds like.

Equally, Josh [Hayward - guitar] will write a part on the guitar but then suggest that maybe it would sound better translated elsewhere.”

“Keyboard has always played an important part for us,” Webb reasons of its escalating prominence over three albums. “We’d thrown ourselves into this straight-up garage organ sort of thing, but with the second record we started experimenting with synthesizers, which was just another way of being able to realise our intentions.”

For whatever reason, the reincarnate Primary Colours lured critics like mosquitoes to a UV light.

With Geoff Barrow helming production, it stands to reason that the key was a Portishead prescription.

Yet Webb suggests Barrow was opposed to letting

the record imbue too much of himself: “That surprised us as well! By the time Third came out most of Primary Colours was down and demoed, when Geoff heard those first recordings he was really into the work we’d been doing. They were only ever thought of as demos, but had more of an overall sound than just the writing and playing of a song. We’ve always been interested in communicating with sound, even in these early demos we started to explore how we could treat the drums or even experimenting with loops, and obviously with Primary Colours the electronic thing was much more pivotal, so that stuff was already down with quite a clear framework.”

Despite the apparent expert execution of electronics on Primary Colours, Webb confesses that they’d had little prior experience of such equipment: “We’re teaching ourselves as we go along really. Our first run in with synthesizers was recording a few tracks from Strange House with [Bad Seed and one-time Sonic Youth drummer] Jim Sclavunos. While he was mixing away in the Mute Records’ studios, at the back of the studio we found some synths, so we all just plugged ourselves in and started playing around, that really sparked our interest as a band, but we’ve always been into electronic music.”

Strange House caught the attention of media and public alike, but perhaps more for The Horrors’ audacious stylisation than for listenable substance. “[Polydor] dropped us on the Monday,” Webb recalls. “Then we played Brixton Academy literally on the Friday; we tried some new material in that set, Three Decades and a couple of others that didn’t make the first album. After that show [XL Recordings founder] Richard Russell texted our manager and said that, even without meeting us, he wanted to sign us.”

With favourable hindsight, Webb dismisses the whole affair: "We didn’t really feel like Polydor was the right home for us anyway. Half the time we felt like the marketing and promotion of us as a band was off the mark. In those early days we’d play tiny club shows, sweat dripping from the ceiling and everybody having had the time of their lives – that was what was actually happening. Then two weeks later you saw some press shot that was taken in a white studio with too much wardrobe, too nice looking – that wasn’t really a representation of the band at all, it wasn’t really the right atmosphere for us. I also think some people just couldn’t see beyond the press shot that’d been taken in the first place.”

As a pair of tiny terriers from the adjacent studio scramble onto the rooftop, Faris Badwan joins the conversation belatedly; the abundance of tequila necked during the previous night’s show at the illustrious 100 Club has clearly taken its grim toll. The Horrors’ frontman sets aside the book he’s reading, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night. “It went very well, thank you,” he offers. “I recently saw Rhys’ other band, The Diddlers, also playing the 100 Club.”

Since a cameo on The Mighty Boosh under the pseudonym The Black Tubes, the band’s members have not been short on real-life side-projects to explore. “I can’t speak for the others, but with Cat’s Eyes it’s more of a parallel thing,” says Badwan of the classically influenced project he launched with soprano Rachel Zeffira earlier this year. “I really want to beat the notion that you can’t be in two bands at once: the only obstacle is time and whether you’re willing to put it in, but I invest a lot into Cat’s Eyes and I want it to be regarded in its own right.”

With Primary Colours shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in 2009 and Skying rocketing to #5 at the end of the week we meet, it seems the key to their success so far has been to discard the zeitgeist.

“These are records we worked really hard on and believed in,” states Badwan. “I don’t ever want to speculate as to why people like things.” Nor does he seem at all resentful towards those who overlooked the debut only to perform a u-turn on the critically acclaimed follow up. “Everyone needs a point of entry,” he reasons. “I mean, you can’t begrudge someone for enjoying a record.

Take Radiohead, there are records of theirs that I like and records of theirs that I bloody hate, but it doesn’t make me think any less of the band.”

With The Horrors heavily hitting up the summer’s festival circuit before embarking upon their own extensive tour, Badwan leaves us with an explanation of their fluent transition from studio to stage: The whole thing has been a learning process. We’ve always written things as a band, tailored to be performed live, so all the stuff you’re hearing can be made by five of us without requiring any extra personnel. At Glastonbury we had a really brilliant crowd. It felt like we’d made a step forward, and it’s always exciting to feel like you’ve made a step forward. It’s not too difficult if you’re receptive to the changes.”

Take Radiohead, there are records of theirs that I like and records of theirs that I bloody hate, but it doesn’t make me think any less of the band FARIS BADWAN

PLAYING THE LIQUID ROOM, EDINBURGH ON 19 OCT SKYING IS OUT NOW ON XL WWW.THEHORRORS.CO.UK

DILLINGER ON THE BOG: THE ESCAPE PLAN DEP’s guitarist BEN WEINMAN tells us what’s floating his boat this month THE LAST memorable album I bought from a record shop was...

The Mama’s and the Papa’s album If You Can Believe Your Eyes on Vinyl.

The last good band I went to see in concert was...

Alice in Chains. I saw them on their first tour so it was great to hear some of those songs again with new life.

The last entertaining film I watched was...

A movie called The Kids Are Alright.

The last TV series I enjoyed was...

Breaking Bad. Best show on TV! The last decent book I read was...

The 48 Laws of Powers, by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers. More as a defensive measure then an offensive. I’m happy if I just get to decide what to watch on TV. THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN PLAY THE GARAGE, GLASGOW ON 5 AUG WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/DILLINGERESCAPEPLAN

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 29

MUSIC

No Place Like Home

Having harnessed musical flavours from around the world, Beirut’s Zach Condon is now finding inspiration in his own back yard interview: Darren Carle

For Zach Condon, it’s the morning after the night before, the night in question being an after-show party with Arcade Fire and long-time collaborator and friend Owen Pallett. It followed a Hyde Park mini-festival where all of the above put on a top-drawer show, any celebration afterwards being richly deserved. “It was a nice reunion,” is all the Beirut front-man lets slip; now sitting somewhat crumpled in a top-floor London hotel restaurant.

Essentially, Condon is here to talk about his upcoming third album, The Rip Tide. Even as we speak he is putting the finishing touches to the tactile artwork, choosing the gild of the gold lettering and the surrounding material to frame it.

It looks promising and certainly enough to shut the yaps of those who bemoaned its initial reveal as being ‘dull’. As ever, Beirut are a band you really need to ‘feel’, quite literally in this case.

If the artwork is a departure from the previous found-photographs of Gulag Orkestar and The Flying Club Cup, then it’s perhaps befitting of the music that will be found within it. Somewhat shorn of the bombast and romantic geography of what once made a Beirut record, The Rip Tide is an understated experience from the first listen. Yet the new clean lines, pop nous and mature restraint eventually showcase a very different Condon to the one fans have become accustomed to.

“I’ve been trying to find some sort of stability in my life that I haven’t had up until this point,” Condon explains of the four year gap between albums and the fresh new sound it has borne. “I’ve bought a house and I’ve been trying to sort my life out a little bit as it was getting ridiculous. I had literally been living out of a suitcase since I was seventeen and it just wasn’t making sense anymore.”

It’s bad news for those of us who like to imagine Condon as the musical troubadour; soaking up the minutiae of whichever local culture he happens to have stuck a pin in the map of. However, The Rip

30 THE SKINNY August 2011

Tide soon reveals itself to be a more considered, introspective and stealthy album than previous efforts. “I was trying to develop the sound to be a bit fuller, a little bit warmer and less kitchen sink-y,” he elaborates. “I didn’t want to polish it, but I also didn’t want it to be as loose and wild as it used to be. That’s been the joy of live shows, finally feeling some kind of cohesion that I never had as a teenager when I was first writing. It’s been such a new experience for me that I felt I had to put that on the album.”

Condon’s relatively young age is a frame of reference that crops up again and again during our chat. Debut album Gulag Orkestar was released in 2006 whilst he was still a teenager, something he’s unsurprisingly as aware of as the rest of us. “I still had a lot to grow into,” he admits looking back at the period. “As a nineteen year-old you just don’t think your own sound or your own story is very interesting, so you really wear your influences on your sleeve and tell other people’s stories.”

I wanted to write a pop record Zach Condon

As such, The Rip Tide finds Condon writing about his own thoughts and experiences for the first time.

As clear evidence, one track is even called Santa Fe, the New Mexican capital city he grew up in. It seems a far call from the usual Beirut tack of namechecking far-flung, romanticised destinations, moniker and all. Would it be fair to assume that Zachary is feeling...“Comfortable in my own skin?” he helpfully offers. “Yeah, that is true. [With Santa

Fe] I now feel this connection with a city that, as a teenager, I felt almost wanted me out.”

Elaborating further, it seems he is starting to see his hometown in a whole new light. “It’s a tourist town, so as a teenager I felt more like a display,” he laughs. “But going back now, it has really revealed itself to have a lot of warmth and charm.

The people are really nice and the food is amazing.

It’s also really pretty. There’s a reason tourists go there; it’s fucking gorgeous.”

It’s quite a volte-face for the seasoned traveller he is, and little wonder then that he has chosen to settle down, though he has opted for New York life rather than boomeranging back home. “I live in Brooklyn but the funny thing is that I can’t write there,” he reveals. “So I rented a farmhouse about two-and-a-half hours north of the city, out in the woods. I knew I could focus there and get things done. It’s the kind of place where you chop wood in the morning but I remember promising myself that I wouldn’t write a wintery, folk album. I wanted to write a pop record, despite the surroundings, and I think I was able to do that.”

Indeed he has, though The Rip Tide is not without the rustic charms we’ve come to expect from Beirut. Condon’s fascination with brass (he has trumpet tattoos no less), is still evident, yet on tracks like The Peacock it’s no longer quite the focal point. “I was trying to rein that in, in a big way,” he agrees. “We’ve used fewer instruments on this album than ever before. I approached the brass in a very classical way as the other two brass players spent their college years studying their instruments.

They’ve all become masters of their own craft so it would’ve been a shame not to use that.”

Furthermore, lyric-writing, it seems, is no longer the bugbear it once was. “I’m feeling more comfortable because, well, I’ve lived more, you know?” is his succinct summation. “This is the first album where I feel that a lot has happened to me. In that context I’d like to express it and make it relatable.

As I said, I used to invent a character and sing from that point of view but if there’s any character on this album, it’s me as a teenager.”

It’s a strange circle of events, one not lost on Condon himself. Another turn up for the books is that The Rip Tide will be released on Condon’s own Pompeii Records, having parted company with the influential 4AD. “It’s a weird thing with labels,” Condon begins when asked if the move comes down to previous creative constraints. “You can become very friendly with the people you’re working with, but all the time someone higher up is telling them to ask things of you that they know you don’t want, but is good for business.”

Whatever the events, it is clear that Condon is in a happier place now. “Any pressure from above is only pressure from myself,” he laughs. Yet with the new album now completed (the finer points of artwork aside), does he himself feel the strain of expectation ahead? “I was incredibly anxious right after we had finished it,” he admits. “That lasted until I got the first vinyl sample delivered. I put it on at a barbeque and...that was it. I got this total sense of calm that I’ve had since that moment. I remember thinking to myself, ‘fuck, I finally did it. I finally found a musical home.’ It was such a good feeling.”

Yet whilst Condon qualifies this as something of a first, it’s not at the expense of what led him to this plateau. “I feel like I’ve been circling around this sound for a long time,” he claims. “You can hear the strain of youth on the other albums, which I’m very proud of and see them as accomplishments of their own, but they always left me wanting. It’s not like I was ever going to stop writing music but this new direction has given me a focus and a point on the horizon to head towards.”

He may have found a place to lay his hat, but thankfully Zach Condon hasn’t hung up his walking boots just yet.

The Rip Tide is released via Pompeii Records on 29 Aug www.beirutband.com/

August 2011

THE SKINNY 31

MUSIC

Rebel Without A Pause

With protests on the streets of America and political uprising in the Middle East, what better time for Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello to kick his politicising alter-ego The Nightwatchman up a gear?

Interview: Darren Carle Photo: Pete Dunlop

Having ‘fought the power’ for two intermittent decades with political rock group Rage Against The Machine, guitarist Tom Morello seems suitably primed to endeavour in his own personal music manifesto. Under the guise of The Nightwatchman, Morello has kept his political torch burning since 2003, a time when he also moonlighted for the distinctly apolitical Audioslave. Socio-economic change doesn’t sleep for this man.

As The Nightwatchman, Morello has been voicing his ‘two-cents’ in a manner far removed from that of his better known parent outfit. Rather than the vehement rap-rock hybrid of Rage, The Nightwatchman has been reverting back to the classic template of Gaelic-infused rebel songs. It was certainly a head-scratcher for the rock kids who had been following Morello’s work at the time, but with third album World Wide Rebel Songs in the pipeline, fans have had plenty of time, and material, to adjust.

However, as The Skinny chats with the man himself, he is in the midst of talking up his recently released companion EP Union Town, a collection of eight protest songs written in response to the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill.

This proposed bill was accused of potentially eroding the collective bargaining powers of public workers, a matter close to Morello’s heart - his mother was a union high-school teacher for almost thirty years.

The backlash from the bill spilled out onto the streets of Madison, Wisconsin in February this year and somewhat at the forefront was Morello himself. “I played at the protests where there were 100,000 people on the streets daily through February and into March,” he marvels. “It was hugely inspiring, so I wanted to do a benefit record that would have some of my original union songs and some classic union anthems, compile them and give 100% of the proceeds to the cause.”

Which is exactly what his Union Town EP did back in May. However, even with demonstrations still ongoing, Morello is keen to shine a wider spotlight on the issue. “There’s still concerted attacks on the rights of working families in the United States by the corporations and the politicians they own,” he rails. “The thing about the class war in the United States is that, for the most part, it’s only fought by one side. Madison was an example of our side fighting back. My hope is that this record can be a soundtrack for the union struggle to come.”

In terms of timing, these protests took place in an even wider context that helped spur on Morello’s deeply-held beliefs. “One of the things that was inspiring to the people in Wisconsin was the people standing up for their rights in the Middle East,” he explains. “And now you’re seeing that in Spain too. People are standing up against tyrants.”

It is in this context that the third Nightwatchman album will be released. It will come as no surprise that its title, World Wide Rebel Songs, wasn’t an act of serendipity. “Absolutely,” says Morello on the obvious implication that this album will address more of a global issue. “The title-track itself was inspired by a benefit show I played in Los Angeles for Korean guitar makers fired from their jobs because they tried to unionise.”

However, the day before the show itself, the catastrophic Haiti earthquake struck, changing the mood and the focus of the protest. “They gave away 100% of the proceeds from their benefit concert to help the emergency relief effort in Haiti,” says Morello. “That’s international solidarity at its best. Workers in Korea, standing up for people in Haiti at a show in Los Angeles. World Wide Rebels Songs is infused with that kind of vibe.”

32 THE SKINNY August 2011

Tom Morello on stage at T in the Park 2008

I’ve become much more comfortable and open-minded about playing big riffs and crazy solos as The Nightwatchman TOM MORELLO

The last time The Skinny spoke with Morello he claimed, perhaps apocryphally, that his alter-ego leapt into action the day after George Bush’s 2004 re-election. Enough was understandably enough, yet some two-and-a-half years into the Obama presidency, what’s The Nightwatchman’s verdict on the new regime? “I certainly think it’s been a step in the right direction for a country where racism is in our DNA,” he laughs. “It’s something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, but we’re involved in more wars now than we were under George W. Bush. We still have Guantanamo Bay. We bailed out these corporations with billions of tax-payers' hard-earned money. We gave to the banks who torpedoed our economy. That’s not the type of country I want to live in, so we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

It’s work The Nightwatchman is doing one record at a time and, it seems, work he is feeling more comfortable with these days. World Wide Rebel Songs finds Morello breaking out the wah-wah pedal and shredding that fret-board once more in his own unmistakable form. “I’ve become much more comfortable and open-minded about playing big riffs and crazy solos under the Nightwatchman moniker than I was originally,” he admits. “At first it was very important for me to keep them separate, to have the stark acoustic songs on the one hand and have the big riff rock numbers on the other, but with this record I’ve definitely combined the two.”

Of course protest songs and folk music often go hand in hand. Was this a further reason to pick up the acoustic and leave the Fender Stratocaster in the case, at least to begin with?

“Yeah, but it was also to establish a new artistic identity,” Morello clarifies. “I didn’t want every show I played to have people yelling out for Bulls on Parade whilst I was standing there with a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar.” He pauses for thought. “Although I do a pretty mean Delta blues version of Guerilla Radio on the acoustic guitar.

You should YouTube it sometime.”

Pretty mean it certainly is, and such clips show how much audiences have taken to Morello’s cause. What are his own thoughts on why this distinctly older style of protest music is still hitting the mark decades later? “There’s just a resonance to these old songs,” he states simply. “People forget their history pretty quick. The reason we have weekends free is because of hard fought battles by the unions. The reason children don’t work in coal mines anymore or why women don’t make one-tenth of what men do is because of hard fought battles by the unions. If you forget that, if you forget those struggles and if you forget the songs then the next thing you know we’re going to be back in the stone-age, which is exactly what a lot of these right-wingers want.”

We can be thankful then that Morello is fighting our corner for a better world. “These are songs of rousing hopelessness,” he laughs. “With my music and my shows I try to create a little bit of the world you’d like to see. It’s honest, it’s dark, it’s loud. You’ve got to tell it like you see it and like you feel it. It’s about those moments on the streets of Madison, or those selfless Korean workers, where you really see a bit of the world you’d like to see.

I felt it in the field at Finsbury Park when Rage played our free show there. I feel it in the room when I play these Nightwatchman songs. There is definitely hope.”

The Union Town EP is out now. All profits from the EP will benefit The America Votes Labor Unity Fund. World Wide Rebel Songs is released on 29 Aug via New West Records. Playing with Rise Against on 4 Nov at O2 Academy, Glasgow nightwatchmanmusic.com/

FILM

His Day Has Come We speak to Romain Gavras, the controversial director who caused a shitstorm with his ginger genocide promo for M.I.A.’s Born Free, about his bracing first feature film Our Day Will Come Interview: Jamie Dunn

It’s only the second day of the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival but I think I’ve already seen one of its gems. I say think, because the movie in question is so quixotic, so out there, so deliciously bonkers that it’s hard to make much sense of it. The film is Our Day Will Come (Notre Jour Viendra) and thankfully I’m pencilled in to interview its director, Romain Gavras, best known in the UK for his controversial music videos, who will hopefully help shed light on some of his debut feature’s mysteries.

“Basically it’s kind of a stupid story treated very seriously, to capture some of the confusion of people at certain moments in their lives,” the 30-year-old Parisian, his eyes barely visible through a dense mass of coal black curly hair, tells me as he rolls a cigarette. The confused people he refers to are two French redheads: Rémy (Olivier Barthelemy), a teenage loner who’s struggling with his sexuality, and Patrick (Vincent Cassel), a middle-aged psychoanalyst who takes the younger man under his wing. Both are outcasts because of their hair colour, or at least they believe themselves to be, and they set off on a bizarre journey to join their ginger brethren in the Republic of Ireland.

The seeds of Our Day Will Come are evident in Gavras’ infamous promo for M.I.A.’s Born Free, which depicts a fascistic police unit rounding up

redheads, driving them to the desert and forcing them at gunpoint to run across a minefield. While this ginger genocide can be read as a crude metaphor for the persecution of minorities, the political and social symbolic significance of Rémy and Patrick’s auburn locks is rather more opaque, given that they are painted throughout the film as both the oppressed and the oppressors. Particularly unsympathetic is Patrick, a misanthrope who along the way delivers antisemitic monologues, beats up a group of Arabs, and performs a depraved act in a hot tub in front of a horrified paraplegic. My interviewee is having none of it though. “I don’t want to lead the spectator like a child through the film, explaining Vincent’s character is like this because of this and that. I want to leave it open.”

Gavras may not be willing to reveal the subtext behind Patrick and Rémy’s bizarre actions, but I press him on the theme of tribalism that saturates his work, from the violent street gang in his promo for Justice’s Stress to the boy racer motor-heads in his video for DJ Mehdi’s Signature. “In France, when I was younger, it was not like the perfect hippy world or anything but everyone was kind of together: black people, Arab people, everyone was French and kind of got along,” Gavras explains. “But in the last ten years or so I feel that, in France at least, there’s been a return – a really

hardcore return – by people to their own communities.” Gavras’ film, however, isn’t merely a lament to the failure of multiculturalism. It’s a dystopian vision of how such tribalism can turn toxic. “You become crazy when you don’t embrace your environment and retreat back, in a stubborn way, to your own community.”

It’s hard to imagine Gavras’ uncompromising style finding similar mainstream success to, say, fellow French music video director turned filmmaker Michel Gondry, his major hurdle being that his use of violence seems to inflame both the left and the right – although, in the case of Our Day Will Come the violence is less visceral than his video work, and more psychological. When I put this to Gavras, he’s quick to highlight his

critics’ hypocrisy. “It’s really weird when people say to me, ‘Oh you only do violent stuff’. I think it is really violent, the world today. I feel surrounded by violence. I get banned from YouTube for the M.I.A. video, for example, but you can still watch Saddam Hussein being hanged on there? We get exposed all day long to those crazy, violent images,” Gavras punches the palm of his hand forcefully several times, thud, thud, thud, “and it’s hard for me not to reflect it back into what I do.”

Our Day Will Come is screening at the ICA, London until 18 Aug, and is released on DVD 22 Aug by Optimum Home Entertainment DVD special features include a “making of” documentary and three of Gavras’ music videos: M.I.A. – Born Free; Justice – Stress; and DJ Mehdi – Signature vimeo.com/user3148077

t e: us ur ug os A cl th of 15 te a y D da on

M

W sta e w ff ill so with also pl in b ea th e se e o rec s r r e- end gan uitin m ai C iza g o l a .V ti th dd .s on er re to in m ss the Se em . ab pte be ov m rs o e be f r

We are looking for a pro-active, experienced individual who possesses a comprehensive understanding and proven record of success in all areas of running and developing a successful bar and/or venue.

ER

An exciting, one off opportunity to set up, establish and manage a new, independent venue in the city center of Glasgow. You will be fully responsible for driving the business and building on The Art School’s already established reputation as one of Glasgow’s most prominent music venues.

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IN IT UE MANA G N

IS RE C A V RU E

If you think you are up to the challenge of taking on this rewarding position please contact: r.morrison@gsa.ac.uk

MA / MDes Design Digital Arts Graphic Design Interaction Design Interdisciplinary Design Interior Architecture Lighting Design Product Design Sustainability Urbanism Each course is offered as one year full time (three trimesters) or two years part-time (six trimesters with extended period for your dissertation [MA] or project report [MDes]) How to apply: You will have a relevant undergraduate degree or evidence of significant industry experience in an appropriate discipline. Candidates are interviewed with a portfolio (applicants from overseas can be interviewed by teleconference). Starts September.

School of Arts & Creative Industries tel: +44 (0) 131 455 2678 e-mail: saci@napier.ac.uk

www.napier.ac.uk August 2011

THE SKINNY 33

34 THE SKINNY August 2011

MUSIC

Send in the Clouds

Erstwhile Pavement frontman and de facto Jicks leader Stephen Malkmus ponders the imagery behind Mirror Traffic Interview: Era Trieman Photo: Ross Trevail

Stephen Malkmus is wide awake for our morning meet; lighting a cigarette on the porch of a busy Soho cafe, he’s ready to talk Mirror Traffic – the latest album from his Jicks. Having barely wrapped up the draining reunion shows marking Pavement’s twentieth anniversary and with new material and surprise covers readied for an upcoming tour, the prolific frontman seems to be brimming with emerging ideas. “You sort of get inspired by the failures of the past thing, and maybe the successes also.”

Conceding with regret that I’d missed the reunion shows, he chuckles. “It doesn’t matter… It was alright, but just listen to the records. I mean it was exciting from the perspective of people being psyched to see it. I wasn’t that apprehensive about the reunion, except for the amount of time it took out of my life. It was a big commitment.” During a rare homecoming show in Stockton, California, estranged former drummer Gary Young performed several tracks with the band from their 1992 debut Slanted & Enchanted. “It was just real quick and surreal,” Malkmus remarks of the occasion. “He was, well, weird and not on form unfortunately.”

With Pavement’s ‘greatest hits’ package – Quarantine of the Past – now rubber-stamped, Malkmus is looking positively ahead towards Mirror Traffic, his fifth solo LP. “There are three different kinds of songs on it,” he starts. “These upbeat songs, some angular songs and there’s kind of slower mellow soul inflections. It’s diverse though there’s some tangent throughout that somehow all sounds of a piece.” An early taster, the overtly crass Senator offers biting critiques in stark contrast to the rest of a “relatively accessible” record.

Another jarringly discordant moment, Tune Grief, is “more of a lark, it’s almost a B-side in a way, a kind of energy burst to break things up. I avoid pruning records down to their essence, just leave shit on, it’s not like millions of people are listening to the perfect album anymore anyhow!”

Certainly a man of multiple facets, Malkmus attempts to explain the eclecticism of his songwriting: “I looked in the mirror and thought: ‘Who is the real me? Am I just like a laundry-folding father or am I like a songwriter, or a guitar shredder?’ And so I decided to be all three.” Recruiting Beck on production duties appears to have been a shrewd decision, particularly given the inherent eclecticism of his own discography. “It just sounds a little different,” says Malkmus of the results. “I guess he ironed out some of our tendencies to get a little hairy.

Numerous tracks from Mirror Traffic explore the motif of separation, perhaps surprisingly considering Malkmus seems to be enjoying marital life. “[Wife] Jude was worried about that too. ‘What are you talking about here, you’re not happy?’ she’d say. I’m like, ‘yeah I’m happy, but it’s just the place I go to when writing.’ It’s a John Updike suburban malaise place, that’s my work bench.”

Elsewhere the tone is abated on No One (Is as I are Be) as Malkmus tenderly confides, ‘I feel right at home inside my wood shed,’ stringing together highly personal moments with a real consciousness of one’s place in time. But, engaging musically with intimate personal concerns remains a challenge for Malkmus. “There was an effort to have a fragile bluesy vibe,” he says. “Just trying to make the music go this Bert Janschey direction, or ‘Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.’ And the way I do that? I go towards my dark unconscious and try to channel this place in my mind, under the fear and paranoia.” A waitress arrives with croissants, jam and marmalade.

The title is itself was derived from a conversation with long-term collaborator David Berman. “I asked him for titles and he sent me a bunch. ‘You can have these for free,’ he said charitably. I’m trying to remember some specifically now; they

were all clever but they were really David titles, like Allied Guns or Molten Mamas. So instead I suggested thirty odd titles and he was like, ‘These three will work, they have multi-level meanings.’

It was settled on Mirror Traffic. It‘s whatever is conjured up in your mind. An exec from Matador said to me: ‘I imagine a Vice Magazine cocaine party, a hot chick in a turbo Carrera Porsche on a Pacific coast highway, looking in her rear view mirror, and like, infinite paranoia vision.’ Then my wife asks: “Is this about living with three girls in your house all the time [Malkmus is also a father of two daughters] causing constant traffic in front of the mirror?’ Yeah, there’s two ways to go with that.”

The collaborative partnership of Malkmus and Berman has forever been close yet fragmented.

Ectoslavia were formed alongside Bob Nastanovich in 1989 whilst studying at the University of Virginia, later to become Silver Jews. “Nah, I’m only a session guy for the Silver Jews as it turned out,” Malkmus insists. “It started as my band, or I was an equal member of it, but Dave then took it over… it became his baby and I was just an enabler of sorts, rather than a co-philosophical leader.” With Berman assuming the lion’s share, Silver Jews served as a window outside of Pavement for Malkmus, with writing duties shared on 1998’s American Water,

Who is the real me?

Am I just like a laundry-folding father or am I like a songwriter, or a guitar shredder?

STEPHEN MALKMUS

arguably their finest album. Taking a back seat lyrically, Malkmus channelled his energies into its instrumentation. “I was more of a director of the séance and that was fun,” he recalls. “It was more like being a producer and playing at the same time.

Even on Mirror Traffic I felt like that sometimes, ‘cause I wasn’t trying to be the architect of the whole building, I was just doing my thing.”

After several turbulent years apart the pair collaborated again during sessions in 2005. It is said that Tanglewood Numbers was nearly destroyed by the electrical fire that engulfed Memphis’ historic Easley-McCain studio. “At that time I’m pretty sure he was sober and over killing himself. I don’t think he was yet so obsessed with the Kabbalah.”

Berman would soon undergo a profound spiritual overhaul and become deeply involved in Judaism.

“It was more about the music and trying to wrestle a good time out of…” Malkmus hesitates.” Maybe it was a little hard to have a good time. It definitely wasn’t like American Water anymore.” Silver Jews have since ceased in 2009, with Berman’s attentions shifting to poetry, yet palpable influences, stylistic alignment and a mutual respect remain between the two friends. “Anybody who has an appreciation for words and smart stuff is gonna love the Silver Jews and there’s a lot of heart in it too. I love his kind of writing. But he has his own style.”

At roughly the same time as American Water, work commenced on what was to be Pavement’s final album, Terror Twilight (1999). I ask whether the “rewarding” atmosphere of the Silver Jews sessions hastened his resolve to call time on Pavement. “Not really. Maybe I’ve said stuff like that before, but regardless, we were getting a little frustrated, and it just gets a little old. That shouldn’t really matter to tell you the truth. What you really should do is just keep writing different songs until a bunch fit the band, but at that point in Pavement I wasn’t willing to do that. I guess I was tired of it, after ten years of living in different cities and just the repetition, it’s exhausting.”

Aside from contributions to Silver Jews and a flourishing solo project with The Jicks, Malkmus has been dabbling since Pavement’s dissolution in 1999. That same year he participated in Kim’s Bedroom, a Sonic Youth side-project including Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, along with Chicago veteran Jim O’Rourke and Japanese drummer Ikue Mori. “That was more about the visual arts, it was Kim’s thing. I really like Jim O’Rourke, so that was just fun! Mark Gonzales was involved too, the skateboarder freak guy… I used to skate as a kid, not very well.” Malkmus seems to have kept curious interests, both imbued musically and as a respite from work. “I play golf, that’s since I had kids. But I was never into racehorses; let me get the record straight. I’m kinda into sports unfortunately, for better or worse, like fantasy basketball…” His latest hobby is Scrabble on the iPhone, as he proudly boasts his high score.

Dipping his toes into the film industry in 2007, Malkmus contributed to the soundtrack for Tod Haynes’ Dylan biopic I’m Not There. “Even just thinking about Bob Dylan, I was open to letting him into my heart. He was a musical dinosaur to me, just massive and one of a kind.” And the Korean Hyundai advert? “Stereo was used in a TV ad [mimes dramatic Taekwondo and imitates Korean infomercial] and then it was over, just ten seconds.” On the subject of Lance Bangs’ 2002 documentary Slow Century, Malkmus, an art history graduate, shrugs off the Pavement chronicle: “I didn’t feel that much, I felt like the story wasn’t really being told, you know, maybe one day I can tell it. I was a watcher, like you.”

Playing the arches, Glasgow on 11 Nov Mirror Traffic is released via Domino on 22 Aug www.stephenmalkmus.com

August 2011

THE SKINNY 35

FILM

Citizen Nim

Raised in 70s New York bohemia, Project Nim’s eponymous chimp really was the king of the swingers.

We speak to Man on Wire director James Marsh about his latest documentary Interview: Becky Bartlett

“I wasn’t that interested in the science of it, although that’s a very important starting point. I was interested in the story of Nim. The objective was to tell the story of an animal’s life,” director James Marsh reflects. He first learned of Nim’s story when Simon Chinn, producer of this film and Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire, brought a book by Elizabeth Hess to his attention.

Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp That Would Be Human, had a big impact on the director. “I read it and was gripped by the narrative and also intrigued at the possibility of making a film that was devoted to an animal’s life. Could an audience get with – and stay with – the story of an animal?”

In a word, yes. In the 1970s a series of experiments were conducted, focusing on language capabilities among primates. Among these was Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee named in reference to acclaimed linguist Noam Chomsky. Taken from his mother shortly after birth, Nim spent the first five years of his life in an exclusively human environment. He was initially raised alongside several children in a town house in New York while being taught sign language to test whether he was capable of learning to communicate with his adopted human family.

Project Nim is, as Marsh emphasises, not a scientifically inclined film, and the language experiments Nim participates in are but a small part of his chaotic, disrupted and harrowing life.

As Nim matures and begins displaying typical male chimpanzee traits, it becomes impractical – and potentially dangerous – to keep him in the company of people. Coupled with the experiment reaching its end, Nim no longer serves a purpose, and goes from living among men and women in a beautiful, spacious mansion, to being the subject of vaccine testing and development in a research laboratory.

Nim’s life and the way he was treated by the people around him – whether their intentions were well-meaning or not – raises many ethical and moral issues, but Marsh’s documentary is careful to reserve judgement. Its aim is simply to recount the life of a chimpanzee, and although Marsh does this without prejudice, can a filmmaker ever be completely objective? “There’s no such thing as objective in any human endeavour, apart from science,” he states. “It’s a very subjective rendering of a story, but at the same time I don’t make overt judgements on people’s behaviour. I just present it and the judgements – if they’re made – will be made by audiences. But I’m selecting the story, which, I think, is a truthful rendering. You can create a film that makes judgements about what was right and what was wrong, but I don’t think those judgements need to be made overtly, and I don’t think anyone is overtly condemned in the film, even though some of their actions might seem a little, you know, regrettable in hindsight.”

There are many aspects of Nim’s upbringing that may benefit from the clarity of hindsight. It was the liberal, experimental 1970s, and little thought was given to the consequences of raising and breastfeeding a chimpanzee alongside human children, or letting him smoke weed and drink beer with the adults. Yet regardless of how unnatural his early life was, it pales in comparison to his later years when he, along with several other primates, was sold to an animal testing laboratory. It is a testament to Marsh’s non-judgemental approach that he managed to persuade the lab’s vet, James Mahoney, to participate. “He was very reluctant to be in the film, but eventually agreed. I think he represents something that many people have a real problem with and because he symbolises a whole area of humanity

36 THE SKINNY August 2011

It’s a very subjective rendering of a story, but at the same time I don't make overt judgements on people’s behaviour.

I just present it, and the judgements – if they’re made – will be made by audiences JAMES MARSH

Hurb and nim

James Marsh

that many people would deplore, he knows that people would have an immediate idea, a caricature of what he was like. I reassured him that our agenda wasn’t to get into the animal rights issues, but to tell the story, which he was a witness to.”

While early scenes of Nim’s life, regardless of the viewer’s personal opinion, portray a generally happy life, later footage of the testing facility is powerful and distressing, particularly knowing that Nim’s situation is not unique. Marsh comments on how fortunate he was to have so much footage at his disposal. “We found a lot more than what we were expecting, some extraordinary pieces of archive were found. For example, Nim’s first meeting with another chimpanzee. We had no idea that existed before making the film and there it was, this extraordinarily profound moment in his life – a chimpanzee for five years not knowing another chimpanzee, and you see that play out in real time.

It’s amazing. Likewise, the footage of the lab – we had no idea we actually had footage of that time and place when Nim was there. We could put people directly into the environment he was in.”

It is difficult to imagine any viewer leaving a screening of Project Nim and not having an opinion regarding it. Because of Marsh’s careful, matter-of-fact approach to the subject, and because of the narrative style of the documentary, viewers are invited to explore their own thoughts and feelings about a range of issues that are implied but not overtly stated. But how does the director want his film to be received?

Marsh considers this for a moment. “What I know, so far, is that there are actually many different responses available. In a sense that’s the virtue of the story – it’s not much to do with me. The story has so many layers to it that you can come at it differently if you’re a man or a woman, if you’re a parent or have a dog. The range of responses is what I’m pleased about: whether you like it or not there’s an engagement with it. I don’t want to spoonfeed you some moral that we should be nice to animals or that we should do this or that, that’s not what I do. I don’t feel comfortable being a moralist, and I just hope that the responses I’ve glimpsed already continue.”

Project Nim is released nationwide 12 Aug by Icon www.project-nim.com

4-29 Aug (not 15) 21.00 (22.00)

4-28 Aug (not 8,15,22) 18.00 (19.00)

4-29 Aug (not 15) 12.00 (13.10)

BOOK NOW Robert Rauschenberg Botanical Vaudeville FIRST UK SHOW IN 30 YEARS

INVERLEITH HOUSE

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 27 July to 2 October Admission free

August 2011

THE SKINNY 37

TRAVEL

Delhi Belly

A resident of Delhi sees the city through the eyes of a newcomer WORDS AND PHOTOS: Susanna Wickes

As with most days in India, this one started with chai. My friend Jerome had just arrived in Delhi and I had promised him an exciting tour of the city, beginning with, at his request, the all-important ritual of morning tea. Normally, I make it myself – I’ve been here long enough to get the ratio of milk, sugar, tea leaves and spices pretty much perfect – but since today was a bit special, I thought we could drink our chai in style. Indian style.

When we reached our destination, however, and I saw Jerome’s bewildered expression, I realised I might have talked the establishment up a bit too much. Aurora Tea Stall is hardly a landmark. In fact, it’s more like a small, old cupboard, with two wobbly benches, a few jars of questionably fresh biscuits and a vaguely spooky painting of Durga, the multiple-limbed Hindu goddess, on one of the peeling turquoise walls. But appearances aside, they probably make the best chai in Delhi – which, in a city so densely populated with chai wallahs, is no easy feat. We sat down on one of the wobbly benches.

“I’ve not seen you in ages. Where have you been?” said the chai ‘aunty’, in a slightly accusing tone, from behind the counter. This was one of the problems of being a foreigner living in India. Everyone knows you.

I mumbled apologetically and ordered two cups of my favourite milky tea, extra sweet.

After living in Delhi for almost two years, I often forget how the sprawling, dusty metropolis must feel to a newcomer, but if I think back I can, of course, still recall the sensory rollercoaster that was my first day in the city. It was like stepping right off the plane into an Indian cliché. Cows were wandering the streets; ladies in radioactively bright sarees were carrying huge pottery urns on their heads; ear-shatteringly loud traffic was coming from all directions – it was exactly what you’d imagine India to look like.

Then there was the dusty, unforgiving heat; the thick, white layers of sky punctuated with the domes and spires of temples. The maddening touts, who, despite the sticky heat, would tirelessly follow you for kilometres, desperate to sell you train tickets, hotel rooms and Kashmiri carpets.

And the overwhelming, ever-changing smells from bubbling tea and sizzling street food to pollution and piss. For a jet-lagged foreigner, it’s a lot to take in, and sadly, a lot of tourists will skip Delhi for that reason, favouring the more subdued settings of nearby Rajasthan and the Himalayas.

But Jerome was coping quite admirably, I thought. Hungry, we drained our miniature teacups

After living in Delhi for almost two years, I often forget how the sprawling, dusty metropolis must feel to a newcomer

38 THE SKINNY August 2011

and took to the streets in search of an early lunch.

The central area of Gole Market is continually bustling, full of newsagents, tailors, saree shops and small restaurants, including one of my favourites, Gupta Sweet House. As well as selling delicious (but cholesterol-laden) syrupy snacks, this dhaba serves quick and cheap North Indian meals, and is famous for its vegetarian thali.

Two of these ‘a-bit-of-everything’ meals arrived at our table, served on metal plates divided into individual sections for the rice, naan bread, salad, daal and shahi paneer, a typical curry made from tomatoes and mild cheese. We ate with our hands, tearing off chunks of bread and folding them into little scoop shapes – a technique allowing you to spoon up and shovel down very effectively.

Afterwards, everything was washed down with a bottle of Thums Up – India’s answer to Coke or Pepsi, only with several times more caffeine.

With Indian culture being probably one of the most overwhelming in the world, it can be difficult to absorb it all, especially in a city as vast as Delhi.

There’s the subcontinent’s epic history, seen in the majestic Mughal architecture of the Red Fort and Humayun Tomb; the arts and crafts, dance and musical aspects are also incredible, and then there’s the spiritual side of things, with a multicultural mish-mash of different religions and traditions all culminating in the migrant-friendly Capital. When I first arrived I was hungry for all this, but there was something else, too: the food. It was nothing like the ‘Indian’ stuff that comes in a microwavable box from the supermarket; it was pungent but delicate, spicy but smooth, and varied beyond belief. Some people come to India to feed their minds on the yoga and meditation. Others feast on the history. But me? I just ate everything I could get my hands on.

Feeling re-energised after the king-size lunch, Jerome and I headed to the Delhi Metro, the city’s stainless steel, airconditioned arterial system.

Just outside the Ramakrishna station we heard a small crash followed by a woman’s scream.

On the roundabout an autorickshaw had hit a moped, knocking its driver and his wife onto the road. Nobody seemed hurt – even the rickety moped was still intact – but within a few seconds a medium-sized crowd had gathered at the scene.

Naturally, Jerome and I stopped to watch. It was a classic, Indian, minor road accident, of which I’ve witnessed many. Nobody attempted to help the woman, instead everyone made a beeline for the autorickshaw driver, pulling the poor guy out of his seat and pummeling him several times to teach him a lesson. Jerome watched in muted astonishment as the crowd broke up as quickly as it had formed.

We took the Yellow Line north to Chandni Chowk, the thumping heart of Islamic, warren-like Old Delhi. The main thoroughfare is lined with market stalls selling beaded scarves, costume jewellery and handmade sandals. We meandered along, dodging the cows and rickshaws, first passing a church, then a Jain temple, a multicoloured Hindu temple, a Sikh Gurudwara, and finally arriving at the glorious Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque.

A water tank on wheels was stationed by the main entrance, with an umbrella propped up to shade the vendor from the afternoon sun. I gave the young man five rupees and he filled a glass with icy water, and added the juice of a tiny spherical lemon and a pinch of salt. This was nimboo paani, a quick energy-kick available all over the city.

After exploring the mosque, we followed the narrow, winding bazaars back to the metro station, and headed to Connaught Place. A navigationally perplexing circle-within-a-circle-within-a-circle, it’s the British-built business and commercial centre of Delhi. We surfaced from the underground station in the Inner Circle, and made our way past the modern, glass-fronted designer shops towards

the uncharmingly named P-Block; the location of stylish South Indian restaurant, Saravana Bhavan. Getting there, however, involved crossing four lanes of traffic with no pedestrian crossing (actually, there is a pedestrian crossing, it’s just that everyone ignores it). The trick is to wait until there’s a few people waiting to cross, and then stick together closely as a group, perhaps using the others as a human shield. As proof that we survived, Jerome filmed the whole thing.

Still quite full from lunch, we ordered a light dinner – the classic South Indian masala dosa. These potato-stuffed, rice pancakes come served on fresh banana leaves, with coconut dip and a bowl of soup-like, spicy sambar. To go with them we had ‘sweet lassi’, a thick yoghurt drink with a name that, as a Scot, never fails to amuse me. The restaurant, like many on the subcontinent, is vegetarian – great news for travellers like Jerome who often have a hard time finding tasty, meat-free meals.

Outside it was getting dark, and, exhausted, we decided to call it a night. But as we left the

restaurant we suddenly came face to face with what was literally the biggest excitement of the day – a gigantic, decorated elephant. “See the things I can arrange!”, I joked, as the beautiful animal lumbered past, its pink and blue-painted trunk swinging rhythmically with each heavy step.

The elephant was leading a wedding procession, with a sharply-dressed brass band playing notquite in-tune Bollywood numbers, and groups of gorgeously colourful women dancing and shouting behind them. Some people had gathered to watch, but just as many carried on walking without giving the spectacle much attention. Because, in the end, this was just another day in Delhi. And that’s exactly why I love this city – it can drive you mad, yes, but one thing’s certain: you’re never bored here.

And as I headed home, sleepy with a full stomach, I realised that in Delhi you’re never hungry either.

Return flights to delhi cost around £500. For more information on Delhi see www.delhitourism.nic.in. www.thedelhiwalla.com features masses of cultural insights on delhi's food, people and history, and also some of the critics best hangouts

TRAVEL

KAZANTIP REPUBLIC Don’t miss the new Gilded Garden situated at the Gilded Balloon in Bristo Square this August.

When is a festival not a festival? When it takes place in the non-existent state of KaZantip that’s when, and therefore only exists in a parallel reality.

That parallel reality is a sunny paradise based in the imagination, but for most who do imagine, also happens to be somewhere on the Crimean Black Sea Coast in the Ukraine (naturally). It’s got a PreZident, its own customs which must be observed (chief religion is belief in the reality of miracles, of course) and yes, you do need a visa to gain access (we call it a ‘ticket’ in our reality).

KaZantip then, is like Shangri-la or that island on Lost but with way, way more DJs, and kitesurfing.

People are naked a lot, we hear; a good thing, but not compulsory; their government is pretty cool like that, just like ours. In any case, the gods of this

particular realm, essentially the ‘biggest, liveliest, longest (it goes on for four whole weeks) electronic music ‘project’ for this year, include Deadbeat, Ricardo Villalobos, Audiofly, Groove Armada and John Digweed, to name but a very select few from what is a monumentally large line-up. There are six large dancefloors on the go at any one time, and lots of smaller bars dotted around when it’s time for a break (or whatever). [Paul Mitchell] FLIGHTS TO SIMFEROPOL DEPART FROM EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW, AND THERE ARE MULTIPLE ACCOMODATION OPTIONS NEAR THE FESTIVAL (SORRY, PROJECT) SITE. VISAS, FOR SINGLE ENTRY OR MULTIPLE VISITS, MUST BE REGISTERED IN ADVANCE. FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE WWW.KAZANTIP-REPUBLIC.COM WWW.KAZANTIP-REPUBLIC.COM

GO AWAY!

THE ENCHANTED FOREST PERTHSHIRE

A fantastic new theatrical “medieval” garden built around the impressive gothic splendour of Teviot Row House.

Travellers can rest their weary legs and enjoy a pint or two in The Knight’s Rest - a giant covered bar & beer garden - or enjoy a hearty meal or snack in The Dragons’ Den, with plenty to choose from including crepes from The Crepe and Waffle House, locally sourced handmade burgers from Well Hung and Tender, paninis, speciality coffees and of course ice cream for those warm festival days.

And there’s plenty for little princesses and squires with our children’s lunchboxes.

PHOTO: GRAHAM SMITH

A perfect place to feed and water your troops before heading back into the breach.

And it’s not just those KaZantipians who believe in the power of the imagination, some folk in Perthshire do too it appears. They (the Highland Perthshire Community Interest Country – not as catchy as KaZantip, but hey) take a nice wooded area in picturesque Pitlochry, and tart it up with some mightily impressive light and sound effects.

They call this The Enchanted Forest, and yes, that seems rather fair enough.

And so do lots of others. From humble beginnings in 2002, last year saw 20,000 visit the event, with more expected this year. The theme is ‘Transitions’, perhaps owing to the change of venue (from Faskally Wood to The Explorers Garden) and has been created by Scottish designers Simon

Wilkinson and R. J. McConnell, who were at the helm for last year’s event, which has recently been nominated for the titles of Scotland’s Best Cultural Event and Best Large Event at this year’s prestigious Scottish Event Awards.

Getting there: Pitlochry is easily accessible by train and bus from most regions of the UK and central Scotland. The main trunk road A9 runs through Pitlochry and takes 2hrs from Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Please wear warm, waterproof clothing with stout walking shoes or boots.[Paul Mitchell] 7-29 OCT, TICKET PRICES VARY AND CAN BE PURCHASED FROM WWW.ENCHANTEDFOREST.ORG.UK

Make sure you visit The Gilded Garden situated in the very heart of the Fringe: Bristo Square, EH8 9AL

Open from 9am til 3am daily.

WWW.ENCHANTEDFOREST.ORG.UK

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 39

FOOD & DRINK

Belly Laughs

To celebrate the eternal marriage between filling one’s face and having a laugh, we talk to a theatre director-cum-restaurateur and a curry-loving and award-winning comedian Interviews: Peter Simpson when we need them all off the restaurant floor. We have an audience of 80 for each show, 11 shows a week, so we couldn’t do it without them.

Do you have much time to check out the ‘competition’?

On days off I try and see other shows and try new places. I bring my family over with me, and we go down to Mamma’s Pizza (30 Grassmarket) a fair bit. They do great vegetarian pizza, and good options for coeliacs.

What’s your top tip for us?

Black Medicine Coffee (2 Nicholson St; 110 Marchmont Rd; 7 Barclay Pl). They do brilliant coffee, and it’s always busy but relaxing at the same time. A friend has told me that they’ve opened in Bruntsfield near where I’m staying this Fringe, so I can get good coffee on the way in to the show, and then again once I’m finished! And there’s always an Aussie on duty, so it’s a chance to hear a familiar voice!

Russell Kane, on the other hand, just loves curry. Last year’s Fosters’ Comedy Award winner’s act, interviews, and Twitter feed show a man who loves a spicy dish. He tells us about his favourite curry joint, as well as some other stuff we didn’t need to know, but do now.

With everything you’ve got going on at the Fringe, whereabouts does food come in the list of priorities?

Russell: VERY high. Curry. All. The. Time.

Do you like to try new places while you’re up here, or do you have a list of favourite places you like to eat/drink?

The Mitre (131 High St), Dirty Dicks (159 Rose St), and the Red Fort Indian (10 Drummond St).

You’ve spoken a lot in other interviews and online about your love for the Red Fort. What makes it stand out?

They have a turbo festival menu, the waiters are super-friendly, and there’s a good use of Bangladeshi recipes. Their Vindaloo will remove your bumhole.

Curry seems to come up a bit in your material, and also in your Tweets. How important is a good curry to good stand-up comedy?

Vital. Comedians are too boring to drink or do drugs. I am hooked on garam massalla.

Any other good food and drink tips for us?

Try to do a bit of home-cooking. And buy haggis.

I was amazed at the excellence of the bolognese and chillis that it made.

What’s the best/worst thing you’ve ever eaten at an Edinburgh Festival?

A girl named Tracy. Filthy lady.

Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience, 4-30 Aug, B’est, 16 Drummond St, 1pm & 8pm Russell Kane: Manscaping, 12-26 Aug, Pleasance Courtyard, 8:50pm. You can pre-order his debut DVD Smokescreens & Castles now Photo: Eoin Carey

The object of an Edinburgh August is to experience as much as possible in three-and-a-half weeks, so it’s a good idea to start combining things together. When mixing food and comedy, Alison Pollard-Mansergh is the woman to go to.

The Artistic Director of the Faulty Towers Dining Experience, Alison knows a lot about juggling humour and hospitality, with the show back in Edinburgh for the fourth straight year.

So the show combines food and comedy.

How do you make it work?

Alison: We want it to be immersive, so that people feel like they’re actually at the hotel from the programme. The key is meticulous planning. We script the show very tightly, because the kitchen has very specific timings to get everything out on time as well as letting us do the comedy.

Was it a bit of a odd sell, turning over an Edinburgh restaurant to a group of actors?

It was tricky to find somewhere in the first year we brought the show over (2008), and because it’s a real restaurant, when we’re ‘on stage’ we’re also fronting their business. If a customer comes in to book a table, myself or ‘Basil’ will take the booking.

We work very closely with the restaurant and their staff, and that makes things go smoother.

How do the staff cope with it all?

They are hilarious, although they think we’re a bit weird. We work around each other; there are times in the show when they do their thing, and times

The Earl’s Lemonade This cocktail has been made by Simon Fraser at Elliot’s bar in the Apex Hotel on Waterloo Road. The tipple was named because it uses bergamot – the scent in Earl Grey tea – and because Earl Grey stayed at the hotel when he visited Edinburgh. Fraser says, “I’m having a lot of fun playing with homemade lemonades at the moment, because the sunny weather demands a refreshing cocktail. The Earl’s Lemonade is perfect for sitting outside and enjoying the sun.

Nice and tart with a lovely floral aroma.”

25ml Edinburgh Gin 20ml St Germain 20ml Crème de Bergamot Juice of one lemon Shake and strain into a Collins glass Top up with 100ml of soda Elliot’s, Apex Waterloo Place Hotel 23-27 Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3BH, T +44 (0)131 523 1819

Faulty Towers: The Dizzy Experience

40 THE SKINNY August 2011

RusselL Kane

REVIEW

PORTISHEAD'S BETH GIBBONS

THE MONA PIZZA

BY VARIOUS; GEORGE COLLUM (ILLUSTRATIONS)

rrr We all like to think we’re classy bon viveurs cutting about town, eating, drinking, and being merry.

Well, we aren’t. Many of us will in fact spend our evenings munching on bland, processed food that looks as though it’s been put through a sepia filter before landing on the plate/pile of old newspapers.

The solution would be to cook more whilst maintaining an air of cool. The Mona Pizza recipe book offers a potential solution, presenting a host of bands and musicians contributing their own recipes. Hence, the hip and happening life of the musician meets the practice of chopping onions and leaving things to simmer.

And chop you will. Recipes are well-written and for the most part surprisingly detailed. However,

there are some which let the side down. I mean, juice? A recipe for juice? Juice? We end up with a curious mix of insultingly basic and pleasingly straightforward culinary experiments.

While the content is nicely varied, for a book ostensibly written by 20 different people there isn’t much to set one apart from the other. No blurbs explaining inspirations, no chit-chat about what makes their dish work, not even any tour bus anecdotes about suspicious milk; we just get the recipes.

That said, the illustrations throughout are cracking, so when the singer from Portishead tells you to put some fish in a pitta you will at least have something nice to look at. Ultimately, the Mona Pizza is an intriguing but flawed curio, serving as a reminder that even the rock and roll among us don’t live it up all the time.[Peter Simpson] OUT NOW, £5.95, PUBLISHED BY BELLY KIDS.

FOOD NEWS

Fresh Local

*

WITH PETER SIMPSON

As we all know, the world and his/her dog will descend on Edinburgh like a swarm of cultural locusts this month. That explains our Reekie-centric look at this month’s culinary developments.

• Masterchef champion and food mentalist Tim Anderson is coming to Edinburgh for a beer and food dinner at the Caley Sample Room on the 15th. Tickets are going fast, such is the desire for his flat-out mental Asian-inspired cuisine, but if you do get down you’ll be treated to a mammoth five-course meal. Plus six beers. All put together by that American guy off the telly.

If you do go, be sure ask him if he’s seen that Masterchef mash-up on YouTube, as I doubt anyone else will have mentioned it.

• Speaking of opportunities to irk TV personalities and score some grub at the same time, Tim Vine is one of the comedians appearing at Foodies Festival in Holyrood Park. The festival also features the usual mix of cookery classes, chef demos, and a range of producers to snaffle freebies from on the pretext of intending to buy something.

• For those who take their food seriously, the Edinburgh Slow Food society’s annual BBQ takes place on the 11 Aug. Members and newbies alike can swap tips and advice on slowing down with your food, which given the temperamental nature of outdoor cooking and the Scottish weather could be a fitting topic.

• And for those who just want to do right by their fellow man, Fair Trade on the Fringe is once again taking over a bit of Princes Street with a huge range of ethically-sourced goodies to check out. Let’s heal the world people, one chocolate bar at a time.

TIM ANDERSON, THE CALEY SAMPLE ROOM, 58 ANGLE PARK TERRACE, 15 AUG, 7:30PM, TICKETS £50 FOODIES FESTIVAL, HOLYROOD PARK, 12-14 AUG, WEEKEND TICKETS £18, DAY TICKETS £10 EDINBURGH SLOW FOOD BBQ, 11 AUG, EARTHY FOOD MARKET, 41 RATCLIFFE PARK TERRACE, CONTACT INFO SLOWFOODEDINBURGH.CO.UK FOR DETAILS. FAIR TRADE ON THE FRINGE, 13-21 AUG, CASTLE STREET, FREE

* Seasonal* SINCE 1962

Edinburgh’s Legendary Vegetarian Restaurant is firmly rooted in its cultural and culinary life and goes from strength to strength as it heads for its 50th anniversary.

Find us at our Hanover Street hub or at St John’s Church on Princes Street for wholesome freshly cooked food, concerts, exhibitions and live music.

restaurant café shop takeaway Bistro st.john’s

*

*

* *

FOODIES

www.hendersonsofedinburgh.co.uk

0131 225 2131

GENTLY USED

DESIGNER & HIGH STREET CLOTHING AMERICAN BRANDED CLOTHING LINGERIE NEW SAMPLE SALE

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One offer per person

FOODIES

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 41

FASHION

On Your Bike! The Harris Tweed Ride leaving from Blythswood Square Gardens, Glasgow 12pm 7 Aug

Glasgow’s first Tweed Ride and the world’s first Harris Tweed Ride will take place on Sunday 7 August from 12pm, leaving from Blythswood Square Gardens and heading off to take in the landmarks and watering holes of Glasgow. The event promises to celebrate ‘cycling, style, food, drink, music and of course, Harris Tweed.’

The Tweed Ride officially began in London in 2009 but the joy of getting on a bike and donning some tweed quickly spread around the globe, with rides in New York, Sydney, San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris and Toronto. Now it’s Glasgow’s turn.

This time the 100 Glasgow riders will celebrate not just tweed as a whole but the iconic brand of Harris Tweed specifically. A fabric that remains one of the world’s last true artisan fabrics, handwoven from 100% pure wool by the islanders of the Outer Hebrides and which is acclaimed the world over.

En route the riders will be treated to a variety of treats from local supporters such as west coast oysters, Stornoway Black Pudding and St Mungo’s Lager.

The ‘finish line party’ will be held back at Blythswood Square, in the beautiful surroundings of Glasgow’s 5 star Blythswood Square Hotel, with the party being held over the Monte Carlo Suite, the Rally Bar and the cinema room, where even the seats and walls are clad in Harris Tweed! There will be complimentary cocktails, live music and some films will be shown too. If that’s not enough, awards will be given and an auction held. Prizes include; a custom-built bespoke Harris Tweed Ride

42 THE SKINNY August 2011

bike by Recycle Cycles, Harris Tweed ties from Stockholm’s SSON and artwork by Emma Dolan and Alison Macleod.

For those still standing after the bike ride and the closing party, the ticket and distinctive threads will give riders free entry into the Sub Club basement for Optimo, curated by Hung Up. All proceeds will go to The Linda Norgrove Foundation: a charity helping women and children in Afghanistan. Linda Norgrove was brought up on the Isle of Lewis and studied in Aberdeen but during her short life travelled to many parts of the world including Mexico, Uganda and Afghanistan, working both for the UN and DAI helping local people to set up and run projects which helped them to support themselves (anything from building roads to irrigation schemes).

The event will surely prove to be an excellent day out and is for a great cause, definitely worth the £10 ticket cost. Now the only thing left to do is to plan the outfit...[Alexandra Fiddes]

www. harristweedride.wordpress.com www.facebook.com/harristweedride www.twitter.com/harristweetride If cycling isn’t your thing keep your eyes peeled around Blythswood Square Gardens and cheer those riders on!

Noir! #9 ‘A Tribute to Alexander McQueen’ 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, EH9 1QH 8pm-late. Saturday 13 Aug

On Saturday 13 August Noir! will return with its ninth incarnation A Tribute to Alexander McQueen.

This time the fashion, music and art collective will create an event housed in The Dissection Room in Edinburgh’s new Fringe venue Summerhall (previously the former Dick Vet building of Edinburgh University) a grisly, macabre and perfectly appropriate setting.

McQueen will set both the tone and the theme of the multi-disciplinary night, which will be inspired both by his design aesthetic and his avant garde attitude. “As an artist, his legacy is very powerful, he stood for bold originality and we really wanted to honour that,” said co-organiser Jonathan Freemantle, adding, “He was more than just a fashion designer, he was able to change the way we looked at the world, he informed it and gave it colour.

“Most inspiring were his fashion shows where he often stepped right out of the expected model and into performance art or theatre.” A concept that heavily influences the events that Noir! produce.

The latest party will be centred around a catwalk show presenting both mens and womenswear collections from Harvey Nichols, showing mostly McQueen pieces alongside a few stand-out garments from other designers who have a connection with McQueen.

But why now? “We were moved to do some kind of tribute a while back and so when we heard about the recently unveiled memorial stone on the Isle of Skye, we felt the time was right,” Freemantle explained.

Also being showcased at the event will be two film pieces by award winning directors. Daniel Warren’s Mercury, created for Scottish Ballet’s 40th anniversary, gives the viewer a glimpse into the dancers' world of movement. As well as Black

by Chloe Coetsee and Givan Lotz which explores ideas of mysticism and ritual which earlier in the year was exhibited alongside the Black Coffee fashion installation at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and in the Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town.

Additionally, there will be a pop-up installation, (dis) ambiguation, featuring the work of various local artists whose outcomes, like McQueen’s, regularly show a fascination with hybrid creatures and animal form.

Music will be provided by a special guest from Tinderbox Orchestra, Fozzie Sayers and DJ hosting by Hobbes (Trouble/Limbo/Wonky).

With all eyes on Edinburgh for the notorious festival season, it seems appropriate that the designer who, when asked what his Scottish roots meant to him replied, “Everything”, can be used as an inspiration for such an event in the Capital this August.[Alexandra Fiddes] 8pm-late Tickets are £10 - £5 in advance.

1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, EH9 1QH. info@ summerhall.co.uk 0131 560 1590 www.summerhall.co.uk www.zwartcreativebureau.com www.harveynichols.com www.danielwarren.tv www.noiredinburgh.blogspot.com

DEVIANCE

CHRISTIANITY AND HOMOSEXUALITY

Gustavo Sandoval is the pastor of Casa Abba Padre, an LGBTI inclusive Evangelical church in Bogota.

During Bogota’s ‘Pink Week’ (‘Semana A Rosa Vivo’), an annual Gay Pride event in the district of Chapinero, he agreed to speak to us about his church and what it can mean to be a gay Christian INTERVIEW: Ana Hine Illustration: PAUL SMITH

How did you end up being involved in the Gay Christian movement like this?

After five years in a traditional church in Venezuela they told me I had to stay away from all my gay friends, that I couldn’t lead my gay life. Up to that point I had lived an open gay life, I had a partner, and I had to stop seeing him, talking to him and all that – which I did out of obedience to the pastors and leaders. So after five years they told me, ‘You cannot act on your own desires, your own self’, and basically I had to become celibate. I mean, I had no interest in being with a woman.

But after another five years I couldn’t take it anymore. Being celibate after an open gay sexual life, I felt like I was going crazy. So I left the church and I stayed away for some years but something within me needed that, yearned for that… relationship with God. From time to time I would go to one of the traditional churches and I would sit way in the back and I wouldn’t talk to anybody. I needed to be there and to hear the word of the Lord.

Until finally, after years of looking, I came across a church in Florida – two lesbians who had been together for over twenty years had founded it.

They have two sons, adopted. There I learned to accept myself after so many years and I learned that God did not condemn me. I learned that I didn’t have to change.

Sexual orientation is something you’re born with.

God made us that way. I tell people about intersex people – did God make a mistake there?

How do you feel about the reaction of your church now?

One of the leaders told me that the Lord had given me one opportunity and if I missed it I would not be saved. Based on only a couple of verses in the Bible that says that ‘If a man lies with another man it’s an abomination.’ I know now that if your name is written in the lamb’s book of life you will be saved but back then he made me question my salvation.

What happened was that I found the church in Florida. One day I went down (and it wasn’t the first day I went) and I was sitting listening to the message and I just started crying. I will never forget that day.

Do you think there is more resistance from the society here or do you think the religious aspect [Colombia is a largely Catholic country, although Gustavo Sandoval is an Evangelical pastor] really does play a strong part in making people feel ashamed of their homosexuality?

I think both. Remember that Colombia is a country which can be very traditional in their ways, very Catholic in their mentality. I see people here in Colombia can be very religious. For this reason I come across people very strong in their traditions.

In the Evangelical side they can end up being so radical, so homophobic from the pulpit that people end up leaving the church.

Some of the people in our church have told me that when it was found out that they had homosexual tendencies they were made to sit in the back of the church and the rest of the church was asked not to speak to them. Some of the people that come to our group have been very hurt by their pastors and leaders.

I don’t understand why people have to take it like that. The message is about love and forgiveness and acceptance and salvation. I mean you

Sexual orientation is something you’re born with. God made us that way. I tell people about intersex people – did God make a mistake there?

Gustavo Sandoval

can summarise the Bible in that. Why do people have to make it so complicated?

Would you identify yourself as an activist or just a politically engaged pastor?

It has become… a little bit a part of the job.

I don’t want the church to become a political organisation. It’s not political. Nevertheless we cannot separate ourselves from the political aspects of what is happening here because we have the support of this mayor [Blanca Inés Durán, mayor of Bogota who is an out lesbian herself] to establish ourselves so why not take advantage of that. Besides we need to have exposure, we need people to know that we are here.

The Christian churches often stand against us in congress and we should give the other side of the coin, saying, 'We are LGBT and we fight for these rights but we are also Christians. We believe in God and we believe he does not discriminate.'

The other thing that we do is a workshop that I translated from a church in Colorado that talks about homosexuality and the bible. In which we take every one of those verses that condemn homosexuality and we study them in depth. In the Old Testament and the New Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah and Leviticus and all that. The idea is we spend four hours on the night going over the verses and explaining what they really mean.

We do it every three months. I usually announce it on Facebook and I invite people to join. The main idea for that is that we have felt condemned for many years from other churches, from pastors or priests or whatever and I want them to understand without taking away the importance of the Bible – because all our teaching is based on the Bible – that some things here have been translated through the years by different people and the meaning may have been manipulated.

Sodom and Gomorrah for instance…

Exactly, it’s not about homosexuality. Yet they use it against us. The word Sodomite, I mean, comes from there. It doesn’t make any sense.

Once you read the whole story you say, ‘What’s this?’ It doesn’t have anything to do with homosexuality but a lot of us don’t know.

There are a couple of English language films that deal with these issues of homosexuality and religion. Latter Days is about the Mormons and there’s one called Prayers For Bobby…

Yes, we saw it as a group. I cried.

It is very upsetting. Are there any Spanish language films of that nature?

No, but I brought three films with me from the US but the problem is they are in English and have no subtitles. For the Bible Tells Me So – which is wonderful, they even put it on YouTube in four parts – another one is called Anyone and Everyone. For the Bible Tells Me So is from the viewpoint of Christians talking about homosexuality and the Bible. Anyone and Everyone is very interesting because it is about coming-out from the standpoint of young people but they compare a family of a Muslim teenager, a Jewish teenager, a Buddhist teenager… there was all this array of different religions.

I guess in that kind of situation you’d need to be careful not to imply that ‘this family represents the typical reaction of the members of this religion’.

Yes, you cannot generalise but it is very interesting and you do see quite a difference.

The last one I got was called Through Your Eyes and it was about young people in Christian churches who are gay and the struggle within them with being in the church and the youth groups but being unable to come out. It’s just unfortunate they are not in Spanish.

August 2011

THE SKINNY 43

SHOWCASE

Jamie Johnson "A dreamlike atmosphere often provides a starting point for my work, focusing on a subtle yet surreal aspect of an everyday narrative.

Drawing on historical fragments, an aspect of a place, moment in time or character provides me with an initial idea to work from and reinterpret. I get satisfaction from going off on tangents, allowing the imagery and idea forming a piece to develop as I go.

"Regardless of the medium being used, the appropriation of found materials allows me to recontextualise my current interests and influences into a piece, which have recently included primitive architecture, oddball communities and elements of folklore. I include collaged elements to drawn pieces in order to reiterate the idea of resonating an aspect of the past. This can take form in a tiny shard of old paper, to a frottaged texture or three-dimensional object.

"My degree show consisted of a retrospective study of a diverse cultural space – Bristo Square in Edinburgh, where I grew up skateboarding. It became a documentation of a variety of the characters that inhabited the square, as well as aspects of the architecture and dynamics of the space. Utilising personal memory, imagination and salvaged materials, I attempted to reimagine the landscape and its many idiosyncratic features through a series of artists' books and collages."

Jamie-johnson.co.uk info@jamie-johnson.co.uk

44 THE SKINNY August 2011

August 2011

THE SKINNY 45

The Queen’s Hall and Acoustic Music Centre present

AUGUST 2011 MO 1 ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) THU 4 CRY PARROT PRESENT: DAM MANTLE SINGLE LAUNCH WITH SILK CU + LUMPEN + ERRORS DJs + GETME! djs £4 entry FRI 5 THE IMAGINEERS + THE RUDIMENTS MO 8 ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) TU 9 R. STEVIE MOORE + HOW TO SWIM + DAVID SHRIGLEY DJ SET £6 entry THU 11 ASHESH AND NEKHVAM £8 ENTRY FRI 12 MALE PATTERN BAND SAT 13 MOLOCH + CLOSURE SU 14 BROTHERS REID + SUPPORT MO 15 ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) TU 16 SHONEN KNIFE + ISOSCELES WE 17 GIGS FOR A CURE CHARITY NIGHT: TO KILL ACHILLES + DREAMS & EMPIRES + DEFINITIONS + MONTESANO WALKWAY £4/5 entry TH 18 FAREWELL SINGAPORE + GUESTS FRI 19 SECOND HAND MARCHING BAND + GUESTS MO 22 ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) WE 24 EAGULLS + GUESTS £5 ADV ENTRY THU 25 ROSCOE VACANT & THE GANTIN’ SCREICHS FRI 26 HEI ENSEMBLE + GUESTS SAT 27 PM PRESENT MO 29 ACOUSTIC NIGHT WITH GERRY LYONS (free entry) WE 31 KMR PRESENTS: CULTS BOTTLE OF KRONENBOURG £1.75

DRINKS PROMOS

4 PINT PITCHER OF FOSTERS £9

BLACK/WHITE RUSSIANS £2.50

EnginEEring & Production in PracticE Chem19 Recording Studio, based in Blanytyre, nr Glasgow, is launching a brand new course for young engineers/ producers, starting in October 2011.

Applicants must be aged between 18 and 25 and be resident in Scotland. For more information on the course and how to apply please visit www.chem19.co.uk Applications close 9 September 2011 Supported by Creative Scotland. Nominal course fees apply.

26/7/11 11:50:59

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 Food Served Until 10pm, Bar Open until 2.45am all Festival Find Us In CAMRA’s 2011 Good Beer Guide! www.theauldhoose.co.uk 23-25 St. Leonard’s Street, Edinburgh EH8 9QN 46 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

THE BEST LIVE MUSIC LINE-UP AT THE FRINGE

DAMIEN DEMPSEY/JO MANGO TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA • PEATBOG FAERIES RED HOT CHILLI PIPERS • THE DRAGON SHOW THE BIG SING-A-LONG • WOLFSTONE/MÀNRAN ELIZA CARTHY BAND • LOVEBOAT BIG BAND HEIDI TALBOT & FRIENDS • DOUGIE MACLEAN SKERRYVORE/JILL JACKSON THE POOZIES/DAIMH RACHEL SERMANNI BAND • HENRY ROLLINS ELSIE COSTELLO - THEY CALL HER NATASHA BARB JUNGR SINGS BOB DYLAN • BERT JANSCH TODD GORDON - THE TONY BENNETT SONGBOOK DICK GAUGHAN & FRIENDS • WARPAINT THE BURNS UNIT • WITHERED HAND & FRIENDS BATTLEFIELD BAND • SHOOGLENIFTY MARY COUGHLAN • SALSA CELTICA CLERK STREET, EDINBURGH, EH8 9JG TICKETS & INFORMATION 0131 668 2019 • WWW.THEQUEENSHALL.NET

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FRINGE 2011 AT THE QUEEN’S HALL

MUSIC

Live Music Highlights

METAL COLUMN

Kristin Hersh

Hey Enemy

Bob D’Amico taking the place of Eric Gaffney behind the skins. Famous for oscillating between aggressive punk-ish barnstormers and alt-folk slow-burners, these talented old hands have an incredible back catalogue and always give a crowd their money’s worth.

Stirling-raised trouble-makers Hey Enemy don’t usually need any help with crushing venues and summoning cops, but on 26 Aug they’ve promised to cram the stage at Glasgow’s Nice N Sleazy with as much equipment as possible before reworking their chongs with help from some of the west coast’s finest noise-makers. Hei Ensemble is what

HOT TICKET of the month Warpaint Queen’s Hall, 23 Aug

If rock shows embody the idea of paying to see other people be free (to paraphrase Kim Gordon), then there are few things more dispiriting than watching a band plod through a set and knowing in your heart that they’d rather be somewhere else. Thank God then for bands like Warpaint who actively enjoy the process of evolving their music every time they play.

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s actually more fun touring than staying at home,” said bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg in a recent conversation with The Skinny, and given the poise and beauty of Warpaint’s current live show it’s easy to understand her enthusiasm. Clearly a band on a creative high, this could well be August’s most engaging and enjoyable gig experience.

8pm, £14 www.warpaintwarpaint.com

they’re calling it and you can look forward to spotting familiar faces from the likes of Desalvo, Holy Mountain, Y’all Is Fantasy Island, United Fruit, Twilight Sad and many, many more. No way this will be anything other than a ton of fun.

Conjuring a sound that takes in soulful crooning, sassy RnB inflections and classic singer/songwriter traits is a difficult trick to pull off, but Joan as Police Woman makes it look easier with every year that goes by. Her arresting stage presence and charming personality are two more reasons to catch her live show at Edinburgh’s Liquid Room on 31 Aug.

In case you’ve been away dwelling with Norwegian cave metaller Mortiis, last month saw the timely demise of News of the World and it’ll be sadly missed – going to that special place in our hearts normally reserved for other great British institutions like imperialism, fox hunting and sending small children down chimneys. Still, at least we have the Almighty Riff to keep our minds away from the sordid exploits of Planet Tabloid, eh?

Stereo open August with a sludgy bang as Carlisle’s Manatees (1 Aug) bring their distorted, bass-heavy blasts to town – a fine jolt to the skull for the ensuing month. Meanwhile, practically bookending our adventures, think of 27 Aug as a chance to relieve any accumulated stress as Brutality Will Prevail bring an evening of breakdowns and beat-downs to the same venue.

Just around the corner, Classic Grand will be providing great value for money (going to a great cause to boot) as an even fiver gets you access to Kill All Celebrities and (at last count) nine others for this year’s Mosh Against Cancer (20 Aug).

They’ll also be hosting a triple-whammy of metal and hardcore with The Eyes of a Traitor, This is Colour and Spires (8 Aug) but if you’re washing your Dee Snider circa 1984 crimp that night, all three will be hitting up Edinburgh’s Studio 24 on 7 Aug and Dundee’s Dexters on 9 Aug. It seems it’s time for our second annual visit from those mild-mannered gentlemen in The Dillinger Escape Plan, who’ll be melting faces at the Garage on 5 Aug. With most in the know viewing last year’s Option Paralysis as the return to form no-one thought they’d ever see from Ben Weinman’s everchanging personnel, don’t be expecting anything less than mathematical chaos at its finest.

What would we do without the 13th Note, eh?

Not only will Glasgow’s favourite grind merchants Co-Exist be doing their level best to have amps certified as WMDs on 21 Aug, but a mere five days later Primordial Undermind, The Cosmic Dead, Thought Forms, Reptilian Bastards and more will bring the Summer Psych/Drone Freakout to life.

Like Bruce said, groovy.

This month also sees the return of two undisputed veterans of punk, but not as you might expect. Representing the Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine scuzz up the luxurious confines of Glasgow’s O2 ABC on 9 Aug. In the Black Flag corner, Henry Rollins is turning 50 and he’d like to share some things with us. Not sure what exactly, but you can bet your ass we’ll be at Edinburgh Queen’s Hall on Aug 18/19 to find out. Despite his permafurrowed-brow Rollins never fails to charm us with his hilarious, fascinating and illuminating spoken word performances. Choose wisely (in other words, choose both).

If ol’ Henry isn’t enough for dwellers of the windy city, get round to Bannermans on 4 Aug for some primo USBM in the shape of Florida’s Negative Plane. It’s rare that these guys even leave the States and for all their frost-bitten blasts it’ll be the perfect way to cool down from Scotland’s two days of allocated summer sunshine.[David Bowes & Mark Shukla]

August 2011

THE SKINNY 47

Photo: Ashley good

The Twilight sad

Photo: Scott Watson

Get your motherfucking chakras aligned Edinburgh, because polysynth polymath Dan Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) is getting ready to remix your consciousness into the fifth dimension.

Not content with being the driving force behind two of this year’s best LPs (Ford & Lopatin’s Channel Pressure and Frkwys vol.7, just released on RVNG Intl.), Lopatin will hit up Sneaky Pete’s on 7 Aug with the intention of leading you even deeper into his stunning electronic labyrinths. Get rearranged.

Grimes (aka Montreal’s Claire Boucher) has been creating some brilliantly ambitious and unusual music of late, synthesising classical vocal techniques, soulful hooks, synth pop and post-burial atmospherics into one impressive and unique package. Her support slot behind How to Dress Well (aka Tom Krell, whose haunted and desolate re-imagining of 80s and 90s RnB has been gathering increasing acclaim of late) guarantees an unforgettable evening at Glasgow’s Arches on 8 Aug. Better known as that dude from Whitehouse, William Bennett’s latest project, Cut Hands, finds the perennial provocateur fusing trance-inducing African percussion with a more restrained and considered array of noise and drone elements. The results, as heard on the recent Afro Noise I album, are nothing short of breathtaking. The addition of thematically sympathetic video footage from Bennett’s private collection make this show at Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s on 16 Aug a must-see for anyone who appreciates altered states.

Describing a band as ‘mild-mannered folkrockers’ probably doesn’t fill you with very high expectations but when you’re as assured and accomplished an outfit as The Cave Singers you’re probably more than happy to let the music speak for itself. Their engaging, technically accomplished take on Americana can be sampled at Aberdeen Lemon Tree on 16 Aug, Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on 17 Aug and Glasgow King Tut’s on 18 Aug. Kristin Hersh’s solo performances are now almost as ingrained in the popular consciousness as her work with Throwing Muses, and on 18 Aug you have the chance to see the veteran songstress perform in the intimate confines of Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire. Her compositions may be simple and direct but the physicality of her poetry always makes for a spellbinding live performance.

Reclusive Canadian singer/songwriter Chad Vangaalen’s weird and wonderful soundworlds are all the more impressive for their relative simplicity, blending as they do surreal narratives with beguiling melodic themes. Definitely one of the most interesting weirdo folk/rock guys on the circuit right now, his show at Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s on 19 Aug comes strongly recommended.

Ever dreamed about hearing The Twilight Sad knock out a version of Boys Don’t Cry? World in My Eyes? How about Gouge Away? Or maybe even Babooshka or A View to A Kill? Well dream no more, precious child of the 80s, ‘cause the Sad are letting Skinny readers select any song by The Cure, Depeche Mode, Pixies, Kate Bush or Duran Duran to be covered by the band at their acoustic gig at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus on 21 Aug. Tweet your suggestions @TheTwilightSad and @TheSkinnyMag until Monday, 15 Aug. Now you probably know that these boys make a hell of a noise when they’re plugged in, but their acoustic sets throw a whole new light on both their songwriting and the incredible vocals of frontman James Graham.

Formidable support comes from two of Scotland’s most inventive contemporary songwriters, RM Hubbert and Adam Stafford.

Lo-fi icons Sebadoh will play Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on 24 Aug with Fiery Furnaces drummer

Photo: Sarah Roberts

words: Mark Shukla

WSP vs Croc Audio Lounge, 9 Jul

photo: Euan Robertson

rrrr

Judas Priest SECC, 19 Jul

rrrr

13th Note, 5 Jul

rrr Neighbourhood Gout open tonight by thrashing and pounding and yelping and hollering all sorts of punk-tuned nonsense about tornados and the end of the universe. Their substantial geek streak (comparing songs to Dragonball Z attacks) makes their out of tune racket all the more endearing, with Sweat Box the clear highlight: imagine an angry Talking Heads covering J Geils Band’s Centerfold for a taste of its unhinged flavour.

Brighton’s Cold Pumas are less instantly enjoyable. Their steadfast formula – motorik beat, reverb-drenched, languid vocals, and guitars clad in consistentlyabrasive distortion – is exhilarating, but gains little from repetition, and the set is consequentially

Tom Tom Club O2ABC2, 20 Jul

rrrr

www.winningspermparty.com

judaspriest.com

photo: Euan Robertson

PHOTO: Alex Woodward

Half an hour of Queensrÿche’s lumpen prog-metal is enough to dampen the spirits of the most lagered-up rocker, and the atmosphere in the SECC isn’t helped by a relatively thin crowd.

Although the Washingtonians put in an assured performance, their sluggish, turgid sound has dated badly, illustrating many of the traits that give 80s metal a (generally unfair) reputation for humourlessness.

Judas Priest, on the other hand, can never be accused of taking themselves too seriously.

Now supposedly on their lastever global tour, the band draw on four decades of experience to produce an absurdly camp, overblown spectacle – or, as Rob Halford cheerily puts it, “two

and a half HOURS of HEAVY FUCKING METAL!” This entails a medieval dungeon-themed stage set, lasers, plumes of fire, myriad costume changes, and, at one point, Halford riding on stage on a motorbike. Clearly the Priest aren’t scaling back the touring due to a lack of enthusiasm.

The setlist doesn’t disappoint either, running through crowd-pleasers ranging across the band’s career. Victim of Changes goes down particularly well, with Halford’s vocals still reaching the high notes over riffs that remain fresh. Judas Priest have fine-tuned a brand of hard rock that, for all its silliness, has a weirdly enduring quality.

Although guitarist Glenn Tipton recently suggested that new material is in the offing, they will be sorely missed from the world stage. [Sam Wiseman]

A recording studio nestled in deepest, darkest Maryhill might not be the ideal setting for the gig of the year, but the party of the year? Well, that’s something else entirely. The fruit of the twisted masterminds at Winning Sperm Party and Croc vs Croc, it features some of the more eclectic talents the UK has to offer and it all starts with the debut live performance of Scratchcard Lung, a hirsute trio that take Motörhead’s throaty vocals and punk bravado, douse it in bitter social commentary and then set the bugger alight.

As the night progresses, there’s plenty of opportunity to take in some odd and occasionally bewildering sights, like the ludicrously great Fem Bitch Nation who – like an ovarian cult paired with The Three Stooges – conjure up lusty tribal cacophonies and pop standards that even they can’t help giggling at occasionally. The vocal distortions and feedback drone of Trees prove to be as mesmerising as they are intense, and Manchester’s Sump – a startlingly aggressive duo that rely on a vocalist whose hellish bark is much, much worse than his bite – bludgeon the room with primal sludge.

It’s about midnight, it’s time for tonight’s de facto headliners Take A Worm for A Walk Week to appear and with a battle cry

Friendo

of “Taps fucking aff!” hell is duly unleashed. Treating the audience to their vicious debut in its entirety, screamer and burrito fiend Joe Quimby screeches rabid and wide-eyed in the centre of the maelstrom, flailing, sweaty boys (and a few girls) bouncing off the walls around him, as they batter through twenty minutes of finger-stripping technical assault and battery. Who knows the carnage they’d cause if the set was any longer?

Barbarians, that’s who. With the assistance of a shopping trolley, a metal bucket, a gas canister, a rusted oil drum and The Cosmic Dead’s James T McKay, they shortly set about doing as much damage as humanly possible. Within five minutes, McKay has handed the mike off to an audience member and is barging into the crowd while the oil drum is bent out of shape due to a vicious attack with a hammer and a saw as the band produce waves of powernoise and general madness.

By the end of the performance, the floor is a mass of metal, glass and bodies; outside the venue is no better. One attendee has fallen asleep in a chair, Joe Quimby is deflecting kicks from his bandmates and Barbarians’ bucket is being tossed across the car park. It’s been one hell of a night, but still – be thankful it wasn’t your house.[David Bowes]

TV On The Radio O2 ABC, 28 Jun

rrr When TV On The Radio last played at the ABC, they were cheered by a packed and passionate crowd still enthralled with Dear Science, the band’s hugely successful third album which had come out two months prior. Almost three years on their return to this venue is met by a half-full hall, and the suspicion that new record Nine Types Of Light has underwhelmed fans, despite more glowing praise from critics, seems confirmed as the gig struggles to get going.

Six of the first seven songs, all new, elicit little more than polite

applause; the oldie, an exuberant performance of Return To Cookie Mountain’s Blues From Down Here, also flounders, such is the crowd’s skepticism. Somehow, the band turn it round: Province and Red Dress set up a loose and lively Staring At The Sun, and then Repetition – a Nine Types album track – is a sensation, Tunde Adebimpe’s fiery rambling vocals juxtaposing with Kyp Malone’s falsetto, while the band rushes headfirst into a cacophonous climax. However the dust settles on Nine Types, in Repetition they’ve an instant fillip for any awkward moment. [Ally Brown] Nine Types Of Light is out now on Polydor. www.tvontheradio.com

48 THE SKINNY August 2011

Glasgow Jazz Festival: Zu Platform, 1 Jul

rrr If there’s one thing Glasgow does well, it’s throwing festival curveballs. Last month we had a screening of Night of the Living Dead as part of the Science Festival, tonight we have Italian avant-doomsters Zu at the Jazz Festival. Gracing the stage before them is Edinburgh’s Wounded Knee who, with just his voice, an echo pedal and a colourful imagination creates a sublime symphony of hums, murmurs and chants that range from Buddhistlike mantras to native American throat singing. It leads to an atmosphere of calm introspection in the small auditorium, the audience seemingly transfixed by a set that continuously shows how much beauty can be achieved from the most minimal of setups.

Zu make it clear that this performance will be anything but subtle. The room is swathed in a thick mist of white noise for

five minutes before they enter, and when they do the noise itself becomes engulfed by Massimo Pupillo’s devastating bass, driving forth riffs that are as absorbing as they are slow; and they are very slow. Luca Mai’s saxophone is unfortunately a little drowned out under the rhythm section, but his intermittent blasts and freewheeling still adds a prickly texture.

When the doom drops off the radar, Zu’s more unorthodox tendencies take over – Pupillo focussing on his pedals as he forms wave upon wave of hypnotic, claustrophobic noise. It doesn’t seem like Jacopo Battaglio’s departure has affected them much either, with his replacement Balazas Pandi a stylistic typhoon of jazz creativity, dismantling and reconstructing the kit mid-performance for greater range. After swaying bewilderingly between the poles of doom and jazz for a full sweaty hour, they depart in yet another cloud of pulsed feedback, leaving us a little confused but strangely satisfied.

[David Bowes] www.myspace.com/zuband

prone to diminishing returns.

Calgary’s Friendo have journeyed from even farther afield, as they road test Cold Toads around Europe. The trio are muscling into a niche that’s far from innovative - sugary vocals from Nicole Greedy sit atop fuzzy guitars, echoing Vivian Girls and Best Coast amongst others - but which is nonetheless easy to get swept up in. Moonlighting from Women, Michael Wallace swaps drums for a six-string, leaving rhythm duties, for the most part, to Henry Hsieh – who, just to complicate matters, is usually a guitarist. From this, it seems fair to paint Friendo a holiday of sorts for all involved; certainly, their infectious levity is a world away from Public Strain. But that’s not to label them disposable; safe, perhaps, but certainly enjoyable.[Chris Buckle] www.myspace.com/friendomusic

photo: Gemma Burke

Live Reviews

The ABC’s smaller room represents an underwhelming venue for a visit from New York legends Tom Tom Club, but their irrepressible enthusiasm – all the more remarkable for an outfit now in their thirtieth year – ensures a lively atmosphere. Using six members, the band recreate the new wave-meets-hip hop template crafted in the early eighties almost entirely with live instruments, eschewing drum programming or heavy sampling. The result tends to have less of the bubblegum-pop sharpness of the records, but allows new dimensions within the music to emerge.

Lydia Lunch Stereo, 7 Jul

rrrr Given the subtlety and playfulness of their music, Glasgow’s Muscles of Joy are in some ways an incongruous opening act for Lydia Lunch; yet the art-rock seven-piece have a similarly open conception of what live music should do. These pieces embellish group vocals, drums and guitars, with keyboards, brass, melodica, and a bewildering range of percussion. Despite this agglomeration, each element is used so sparingly that plenty of space remains, with direction being generated through tempo changes and constant shifts in the sonic palette. The effect is strikingly original, undermining typical rock hierarchies and emphasising collectivity in the creative process.

Challenging the patriarchal aggression of the rock tradition, and western culture in general, is what New York’s Lydia Lunch has been

Perhaps inevitably, the night’s highpoints are the twin commercial pinnacles of Tom Tom Club’s career, Genius of Love and Wordy Rappinghood; the latter sounding particularly impressive in a live context, which infuses it with a heavier feel. Beyond these crowd-pleasers, a slight lack of well-known songs can’t be ignored. Consequently, we’re treated to a range of covers, including You Sexy Thing, which mutates here into a cartoonishly hyperactive version of its former self. Throughout, the band look as enthused to be performing together as if their career has only just begun; and it’s that sense, above all, which confirms the enduring distinctiveness and personality of their approach. [Sam Wiseman]

doing since the seventies. Tonight, she presents a series of readings, each personalising a sense of powerlessness and anger in the face of cultural hegemonies. The readings are backed by visual projections and music which together conjure a sense of Lynch-esque dreamlike uncertainty. Covering subjects ranging from western governments’ Orwellian abuse of language, to the politically empowering potential of intoxication, Lunch’s performance is intensely compelling throughout.

The relevance of these concerns has never felt greater, and she ties her themes in with contemporary events adroitly; particularly in placing phone-hacking within the wider context of UK surveillance culture. Such insidious threats and aggression are ultimately responded to with calls for hedonistic empowerment: to “seek pleasure at the mouth of the apocalypse.” In vastly different ways, then, both acts tonight affirm the subversive potential of music which challenges generic or cultural boundaries. [Sam Wiseman]

RECORDS

THE DIRTY DOZEN With a range of middling-to-shite singles from some of the big guns, it’s down to the young guys and girls to bring the goods this August WORDS: DARREN CARLE

The Phantom Band – O (Chemikal Underground, 1 Aug) If you’ve been hiding down a mine for the past year or so, let us quickly update you on the current situation; the economy is fucked, Colonel Gaddafi is a bad bastard once more and The Phantom band are universally ace. You could stick a pin in parent album The Wants’ track-list and still strike single-gold, yet O (****) is a cut above even their own high calibre. We only deduct a point and therefore single of the month status in order to make the playing field that little bit fairer.

Game on!

Other Lives – Tamer Animals (TBD Records, 29 Aug) The gloomy, piano-laden atmosphere that Tamer Animals (***) conjures for its first minute is promising. Less so is the heavy debt the vocals owe to The National, though repeated listens do eke out some of singer Jesse Tabish’s own character. It’s beautifully produced too, although the inherent melodrama of it all may become a tad cloying after a few spins.

SULK – Wishes (Perfect Sound Forever, 15 Aug) London quintet SULK (seriously?) make no bones about their Stone Roses fetish, something clearly evident on their first single Wishes (**). This may grant them immunity from some criticism then, but ultimately there’s little else to recommend here, other than it being a competent trip down ‘baggy’ lane if you feel that way inclined. We don’t.

The Travelling Band – Battlescars (Cooking Vinyl, 1 Aug) Meanwhile, actual Manchester dwellers The Travelling Band remain a world away from their roots. Battlescars (***) is deceptively difficult to pigeonhole, but at a push it’s a folkish-country pop number that will likely perk the ears of those tired of similar, more polished acts hogging all the limelight.

DJ Shadow ft. Afrikan Boy – I’m Excited (Island, 1 Aug) The aptly titled The Outsider did a pretty good job of alienating previous fans of the oncelauded DJ Shadow. I’m Excited (**), from his upcoming fourth album, seems unlikely to assuage such feelings. Built on a fairly annoying ragga vocal, it sounds pretty gimmicky with a kitchen-sink mentality to the production that leaves little wriggle room to get much of a grip on what you’re actually listening to.

FOUND – Anti Climb Paint (Chemikal Underground, 8 Aug) One of the most surprising and effective makeovers of the year, FOUND here deliver a snapshot of everything that got us excited by third album Factorycraft back in March. With direct lyrics, delivered harmoniously, vigorously ascending guitar chords and less-is-more electro beats, Anti Climb Paint (****) proved a great introduction to the trio’s new direction and it’s no less effective here and now.

Death Cab For Cutie – Codes and Keys (Atlantic, 8 Aug) The lukewarm reception to its parent album is effectively captured with title track Codes and Keys (**). An uninspiring approach of ‘just add strings’ can’t detract from the lack of a decent chorus, not a criticism you could once have levied at the Seattle stalwarts.

Death Cab were perhaps never ones for sonic innovation or muscular clout, but this is fairly limp stuff all the same.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks – Tigers (Domino, 15 Aug) Tigers (***) adds yet another effortless cut to the post-Pavement catalogue of Stephen Malkmus. It’s a breezy, and by his own admission, accessible radio tune that keeps proceedings brief and to the point, with a nice wonky end coda for a bit of edge. Unlikely to set anyone’s world on fire, perhaps, but it’s a solid effort from the slacker-rock icon.

Three Trapped Tigers – Noise Trade (Blood and Biscuits, 22 Aug) An audio rollercoaster is probably the best description of Noise Trade (****). Ascending guitar riffs plateau into ethereal synth-scapes before descending into electro-rock workouts reminiscent of Australian trio PVT. Thankfully this chaotic, lurching fairground attraction is all held together by a strong melodic hook and some deft live drumming. Definitely worth a ride.

Battles – My Machines (Warp, 15 Aug) Applauded by some as the highlight of divisive second album Gloss Drop, Gary Numan collaboration My Machines (***) gets a shot at standing on its own two feet here. Yet despite the promise, it feels a rather muddied, half-hearted effort [careful now! - ed].

Numan sounds lost in the mix, and there’s nothing particularly memorable to his brief turn. A decent enough cut, sure, but a bit of a wasted opportunity not helped by this elevation to single status.

Lady North/Paws – Split Single (Gerry Loves Records, 1 Aug) The good ol’ split single has served underground bands well and here we find two local acts, who no doubt shared a plastic pint at this years’ T Break tent, shacking up for a bit of inter-city, vinyl foreplay. Sexy it is too, once it gets its thrust on, particularly Edinburgh trio Lady North’s opening math rock mini-epic It’s All About Getting That Claude Monet (****). Meanwhile, Glasgow trio Paws add garage rock bluster with the fine Lekker (***), quickly followed by Booger (great names) but it’s Lady North’s giddily fantastic Rub ‘N’ Scrub that finally brings proceedings to a satisfactory climax.

Divorce – Wet Bandits (Gravy Records, Out Now) Brutal, relentless and uncompromising; it’s good to hear that despite a line-up change, Divorce haven’t veered from their original purpose of being right noisy

DIVORCED 2.0: A LITTLE BIT FRUITY?

bastards. In fact, Wet Bandits (****) sounds like a more dynamic beast than we’ve heard previously from these Glasgow-dwelling terrorists.

Pummelling bass drives, guitars that sound like the shower scene from Psycho filtered through a

malfunctioning ZX Spectrum and vocals that are boundless, playful and bloody unhinged. We have a bruised and battered winner folks.[Darren Carle] DIVORCE PLAY STEREO, GLASGOW ON 1 AUG WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/PUREDIVORCED

DILLINGER ON THE BOG#2: THE ESCAPE PLAN DEP’s vocalist GREG PUCIATO tells us where the good shit’s hiding The last memorable album I bought from a record shop was...

The vinyl reissue of My Bloody Valentine Isn’t Anything.

The last good band I went to see in concert was...

Fucked Up/Trash Talk at the El Rey in Los Angeles. Before that was Animals As Leaders. Both were the most psyched I’ve been at a show in a long time.

The last entertaining film I watched was...

Insidious...didn’t really pay much attention while it was on though because I was...uh...engaged in other activities. Trying to see Tree Of Life as soon as possible though because everyone is sweating it.

The last TV series I enjoyed was...

Curb Your Enthusiasm is the only show I go out of my way to see.

The last decent book I read was...

Spray Paint The Walls...it’s a bio of Black Flag.

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN PLAY THE GARAGE, GLASGOW ON 5 AUG WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/DILLINGERESCAPEPLAN

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 49

ALBUM REVIEWS

RECORDS

ALBUM OF THE MONTH: SOLE AND THE SKYRIDER BAND HELLO CRUEL WORLD 8 AUG, EQUINOX

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In a genre filled with self-styled renegades and outsiders, Tim Holland – AKA Sole – is legitimately, ahem, ‘independent as fuck’.

This, his first album since departing the influential Anticon label he co-founded, is somewhat of a primer on the myriad styles he has adopted over the last 15 years; but rather than the desperate cramming of everything into a bulging pot that such a gambit could entail, Hello Cruel World is executed with authoritative coherence and grace.

Since combining forces in 2006, Skyrider have consistently brought out the best in the Portland MC, now bringing a cinematically epic, synth-heavy brilliance to the mix on their third meeting of minds. Holland may have “more tools than [he] knows how to use,” but here he

chooses them expertly – his newfound, precise and cutting flow is a moving painting of truth and injustice, flecked with confidence and optimism. An angry man with such precise channelling is a very powerful thing.

When neo-protest singer Ceschi and the astrologically wired genius of Noah23 join Sole for the stunning We Will Not be Moved, it encapsulates the album as rousing far beyond its lyrics. As a call to arms at a time when mainstream hip-hop is plumbing new depths of banality, it’s hard not to trust in Holland’s vision. [Ali Maloney]

WWW.SOLEONE.ORG

DAVE CLOUD AND THE GOSPEL OF POWER

WOODEN SHJIPS

STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS

15 AUG, THRILL JOCKEY

22 AUG, DOMINO

OUT NOW, FIRE RECORDS

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rrrr Dave Cloud’s is an authentically American eccentricity, forged in the mould of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. His bizarrely lo-fi form of country-inflected garage rock, which has evolved over four decades of bewildering and antagonistic stage performances, forms the background on Practice in the Milky Way to musings on subjects ranging from Guy De Maupassant to nudist beaches. The album has a weirdly murky feel, which would get tiresome, were it not for the endlessly inventive lyrical content.

If anything like a cohesive persona emerges here, it’s that of a lecherous scandaliser of American social mores. Cloud looks to subvert this on Mrs Crumb, which features a female voice reprimanding the ‘raunchy, reckless and reprehensible’ male figure; but nonetheless, not all listeners will find his smutty humour endearing. In an increasingly constrained US moral climate, however, Cloud reminds us of what a true American maverick sounds like: mischievous and confrontational, but never boring. [Sam Wiseman]

WEST

Gone is the lo-fi fugue of Wooden Shjips’ DIY recordings: West marks the San Franciscan psych-rock disciples’ debut in a “proper studio” under the trusted gaze of de facto Thrill Jockey engineer and Trans Am founder Phil Manley. And the move doesn’t harm them one little bit; a cleaner production aesthetic forgoes the foggy mix of past releases to afford these sprawling, skyward-facing jams sufficient room to breathe.

Variously echoing the acid-drenched otherworldliness of 13th Floor Elevators (Lazy Bones, Looking Out), the propulsive minimalism of NEU! (Black Smoke Rise, Crossing) and the scuzzed-out finale of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Rust Never Sleeps (Home), West feels like the brooding soundtrack that Zodiac deserved. Loaded with nostalgic triggers that hark to a more experimental era in American rock, it’s no surprise that Rising – a wailing, hypnotic jam played in reverse – closes the show. One for the old record player, Ripley Johnson’s outfit remains very much not of this time. [Dave Kerr] WWW.WOODENSHJIPS.COM

MIRROR TRAFFIC

Stephen Malkmus’ solo career began promisingly, with 2001’s tune-packed eponymous LP, but recent efforts have lacked the exuberance and imagination that characterises his best work. Mirror Traffic has a similarly woozy, dreamlike feel to 2008’s Real Emotional Trash – even verging upon psychedelia at times – but this record, thankfully, is more unashamedly melodic. Tracks like Spazz, a crazed mashup of lurching garage riffs that shifts hyperactively between tempos and time signatures, even compare favourably with Pavement’s more eccentric moments.

At the other end of the scale, Malkmus indulges his predilection for melancholy country-inflected moods – most notably on No One (Is As I Are Be), which features some strangely gravelly, Mark Linkous-esque vocals. He evidently remains determined to expand his repertoire beyond melodic guitar pop, and although the uptempo tracks are the most enjoyable here, Mirror Traffic features an impressively broad sweep of ideas. Above all, it demonstrates an admirable desire to continue evolving as a songwriter. [Sam Wiseman]

ASTRID WILLIAMSON

CYMBALS EAT GUITARS

BUTCHER BOY

22 AUG, ONE LITTLE INDIAN

22 AUG, MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES

29 AUG, DAMAGED GOODS

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PULSE

Judging from the level of input he’s credited with, Pulse may be more equitably attributed to ‘Leo Abraham and Astrid Williamson’; the former’s influence is apparently key to the top-lined singer-songwriter’s makeover. Abraham has described Williamson’s past work as “knowledgeable” and “literate”, and the word choice is telling; not “passionate” or “inspired”, but something more detached.

Pulse is therefore aptly named, being her first record to exhibit clear signs of life: as inspiration, coach and collaborator, Abrahams has helped Williamson overhaul the functional but frumpy sound of previous releases for something more interesting. Her voice maintains its beguiling lightness (broadly similar to Cat Power’s whisper), but interesting textures now ruffle her compositions (for instance, the Portishead-style industrial percussion that interrupts Husk’s airy atmosphere). Yet, despite the best efforts of all involved, a residual disconnect remains, and only last-minute highlight Paperbacks counters accumulative disinterest. [Chris Buckle]

LENSES ALIEN

Unlike virtually all adventurous New York acts around these days, Cymbals Eat Guitars are based not in Brooklyn, but on the considerably less hip Staten Island. That outsider status feels reflected in their music, which flirts in equal measure with early 90s indie noise, fuzzy ambient washes, and post-rock tensions. The idiosyncrasy of this approach, and the deftness of execution, gives Lenses Alien a rare distinctiveness and depth of personality.

One act that does spring to mind is Polvo, who similarly begin with a Pavement/Dinosaur Jr-style foundation, yet force that sound into altogether more dreamy and uncertain territory. A swampy noise lurks on the periphery at all times, occasionally rising to overwhelm the mix; the overall effect is of a re-imagining of the lo-fi era that emphasises its psychedelic, hallucinatory elements. Plenty of bands are currently excavating the late 80s/early 90s golden age of experimental indie, but it’s rarely done with this level of confidence and imagination. [Sam Wiseman]

HELPING HANDS

Without straying far from their indie-pop template, Helping Hands is nevertheless Butcher Boy’s most diverse offering to date. Through a careful layering of strings, guitars and piano arrangements, the Glasgow eight-piece’s third long-player relies less-so on John Blain Hunt’s emotive vocals as the lynchpin, instead merging myriad instrumentation into one exquisitely-rounded whole.

Opener J is For Jamie sets the tone, one of three all-instrumental tracks, while album highlight I Am The Butcher stands out as a tender folk song duelling with one of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western classics. It’s also just about the loveliest thing these ears have heard from their enchanting catalogue so far. Satisfyingly off-kilter arrangements arise elsewhere, with first single Imperial rolling along on vintage ‘boomtish’ drum machines, and Whistle And I’ll Come To You marrying pained hush-hush vocals with cello-laced synthesizers. It all smacks of a band continuing to flex their musical muscle: growing, experimenting, having fun – and making another damn fine record as they go. [Anna Docherty]

WARM BRAINS

BEIRUT

THE ICARUS LINE

OUT NOW, MARSHALL TELLER

29 AUG, POMPEII RECORDS

29 AUG, COBRASIDE

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OLD VOLCANOES

THE RIP TIDE

WILDLIFE

For a man who once went by the name Raaary Decihells (whilst one third of Test Icicles), Rory Attwell’s debut as Warm Brains is surprisingly grown-up. A trio of guest vocals aside (from Roxanne Cliffords of Veronica Falls, amongst others), Attwell is responsible for every other note heard on Old Volcanoes, from writing to recording to production: every distorted riff, tom roll and cymbal splash.

Warm Brains is, by Attwell’s own admission, deeply indebted to a certain vintage of mid-nineties US college-rock, but with definite home roots; lead single Let Down, for instance, sounds of a piece with Blur’s eponymous 1997 album, which tried to capture a similar transatlantic aesthetic. Graham Coxon’s solo work is also broadly kindred throughout, from the punk fuzz guitars to the endearinglystruggling vocals. Moreover, there is a pleasing diversity, with the dreamy drift of closer Stone to Sand to Glass an indicator of yet-tobe fully explored breadth. [Chris Buckle]

Beirut have undoubtedly found an audience their music can speak to directly already, yet The Rip Tide finds singer Zach Condon attempting to shrug off his more exotic musical influences in pursuit of a singular sound. Not that fans will mistake this for anything other than a Beirut record, but album number three stands as a mature progression, Condon no longer buried under the boisterous brass and ramshackle recording techniques of yore.

The irony perhaps is that these nine tracks form a proverbial slow-burner; stick with it and The Rip Tide is flush with what drew us to the young troubadour in the first place. There’s restrained beauty in Goshen and The Peacock, a defter handling of Condon’s kitch-electro tendencies on the glorious Santa Fe and, still, lashings of the warm Bavarian folk considered the core of Beirut. Rather than solely tread a familiar path or throw a divisive curveball, The Rip Tide succeeds at giving us the best of both worlds. [Darren Carle]

A solo album in all but name (its working title was Joe Cardamone Versus The Icarus Line), Wildlife is a sporadically impressive outing that nevertheless falls short of the high standard set by the band’s previous work. Bookended by its two strongest tracks (King Baby is a perfect slice of ritual groove music, whilst the album’s title track recalls the Dandy Warhols at their louche, loveable best), the main problem is that most of these tracks sound like demos, and even the more fully-formed songs – the pulse-quickeningly tonguein-cheek maximalism of Tina Turner or the glammy bombast of All the Little Things, for example – never manage to transcend their classic rock influences. Cardamone’s stubborn resolve to live out the rock and roll cliché to the bitter end has never been in doubt, but he’ll need more focus and a real band behind him before he can deliver another great album. [Mark Shukla]

WWW.WARMBRAINS.COM

WWW.BEIRUTBAND.COM

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THEICARUSLINE

50 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

BLOOD ORANGE

MOONFACE

COASTAL GROOVES

ORGAN MUSIC NOT VIBRAPHONE LIKE I’D HOPED

OUT NOW, DOMINO

OUT NOW, JAGJAGUWAR

rrr After Test Icicles disintegrated, Dev Hynes claimed he never liked the music anyway. With the inauguration of new project Blood Orange, it waits to be seen whether any of his work as Lightspeed Champion will receive a similar dismissal. The style shift is less pronounced this time, but is sufficiently distinct from his other endeavours to warrant cordoning it off.

Coastal Grooves is true to its title, locking into danceable grooves rather than flying off on forced-wacky tangents. As a result, it has less character than, say, Lightspeed debut Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, but the quality is less erratic. Oddly, his time spent writing for Solange and X-Factor’s ‘indie, honestly’ flameout Diana Vickers (amongst others) seems to have reduced the number of hooks and pop twists in his music; as a result, the parts don’t distinguish themselves from one another with any great conviction, though the whole stays classy. [Chris Buckle] WWW.MYSPACE.COM/BLOODORANGEFOREVER

rrrr Moonface is a non-de-plume of Wolf Parade’s Spencer Krug, adding another entry to a catalogue of acts long enough to fill this review’s word-count. While the tremulous vocals make it recognisably Krugian (the guy surely deserves his own adjective by now), it occupies an idiosyncratic place in his networked discographies. Its five tracks (only one of which stops short of seven minutes) are played solo on (surprise) an organ, with the aid of loops and digital drums, and what apparently started out as “lush and noisy” drone experiments has instead produced an off-kilter pop album unmoored to any specific period or genre.

Fast Peter carries a resemblance to OMD, Shit-Hawk In The Snow’s latter half invokes Ray Manzarek’s prog-years, while the whole’s simplified methodology bears comparison to aspects of Casiotone For the Painfully Alone. Even at thirty-seven minutes, the circumscribed aesthetic eventually exhausts, but Organ Music… is nonetheless an engrossing curveball. [Chris Buckle]

RETOX

UGLY ANIMALS 29 AUG , IPECAC

rrrr Somewhat predictably for a band containing two members of The Locust, Ipecac’s latest progeny specialise in envelope-pushing musical lunacy of the 100mph extreme hardcore variety. Not as overtly wacky as The Locust, but certainly not po-faced, Ugly Animals clocks in at around a lean (nay, gaunt) 13 minutes and, though that’s a comfortable length of time for such an unrelenting onslaught, it’s also maybe a bit of a stretch where full price recordings are concerned.

Fans of Daughters and Glasgow’s own Take A Worm For A Walk Week will undoubtedly get their kicks from this; the musicianship is astonishing, with gloriously subtle little flashes of brilliance throughout. 30 Cents Shy Of A Quarter is an especially rampant monster of a track, likewise Stick A Fork In It, which plays up the bona fide hardcore ancestry of the various members. Considering this band has reputedly only been together for mere months, this is a rather excellent and utterly uncompromising first impression. [Austin Tasseltine]

ADAM STAFFORD

WU-TANG CLAN

THE BOOK OF KNOTS

22 AUG, WISE BLOOD INDUSTRIES

OUT NOW, EONE

8 AUG, IPECAC

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BUILD A HARBOUR IMMEDIATELY

Build a Harbour Immediately is filmmaker, music video director, ever-inventive musician, and regular Renaissance man Adam Stafford’s first studio release under his own name. The qualifiers are necessary – between Y’All is Fantasy Island and various other projects, he’s amassed quite the discography. This surely ranks high amongst them, with tracks frequently setting off in one direction, before Stafford whips around to challenge assumptions.

Take Shot-down You Summer Wannabes: what begins a kind of esoteric loop experiment sheds its layers to reveal a shiny pop core. A similar trick is pulled on Frederick Wiseman, an uncluttered, melting R&B whisper which sets up the closing ambient drift of A Vast Crystal Skull.

Elsewhere the font is more familiar but no less successfully channelled: Fire & Theft opens the album with Kinks-y swing, while Cathedrals is a barely-there gossamer ballad. All in all, great enough to de-glum those disappointed by YiFi’s disbandment earlier this year. [Chris Buckle] PLAYING STEREO, GLASGOW ON 20 AUG, PLUS SUPPORTING THE TWILIGHT SAD (ACOUSTIC) AND RM HUBBERT AT ELECTRIC CIRCUS, EDINBURGH ON 21 AUG

LEGENDARY WEAPONS

GARDEN OF FAINTING STARS

Any passing glance at a recent lacklustre live show proves that the Wu dynasty has long been struggling to maintain the momentum of their initial flurry of stunningly devastating combo attacks. So it’s no surprise that the original Clan are barely present on this album with almost all verses handled by veteran peers (M.O.P, Sean Price) and newcomers (Action Bronson, Bronze Nazareth); it keeps things fresh, but is it Wu? There are some nicely bleak tracts and, as always, the kung-fu iconography often comes close to a beautiful surrealism, but those pointed verses are marred by crass and flaccid platitudes – the opening chorus consists almost entirely of calls to “clap your hands,” which makes it hard to remember this is Wu-Tang and not Chipmunk. The sparse drums, gritty textures and dark samples are pretty consistently solid, but the whole thing lacks the depth and charisma to elevate itself above the over-populated fray of equally serviceable boom-bap. [Ali Maloney]

It must be tough being in The Book of Knots.

Between them, they’ve worked with everyone from Sparklehorse to Swans and this third album sees the invitational group calling in a few favours from what reads like the first-pick cast of an avant-garde Come Dine With Me special. Whether it’s original Bad Seed, Blixa Bargeld, adding some cryptic spoken word to Drosophilia Melanogaster’s sparse guitars or their de facto boss Mike Patton being typically obtuse on the ethereal Planemo, they all bring uniquely fanciful spices to the table.

Similarly, each member adds a distinct touch; Garden of Fainting Stars is far from the phoned-in work of some pseudo-side project.

This is all about the haunting blends of kindred spirits, hovering somewhere between ghost ship aesthetics and distorted childhood melodies. Even when they kick the volume up a notch on album closer Obituary for the Future, Carla Kilhstedt’s vocals rise up to set the spine shivering. Darkly sublime. [David Bowes]

WWW.WUTANG-CORP.COM

WWW.THEBOOKOFKNOTS.COM

GANGLIANS

THE NIGHTWATCHMAN

THE WAR ON DRUGS

29 AUG, SOUTERRAIN TRANSMISSIONS

29 AUG, NEW WEST RECORDS

15 AUG, SECRETLY CANADIAN

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STILL LIVING

WORLD WIDE REBEL SONGS

SLAVE AMBIENT

While pleasant, there was a perceptible cooling in attitudes towards Fleet Foxes when Helplessness Blues appeared earlier this year: the traits that first brought them acclaim just seemed too polite to warrant the same enthusiasm a second time. Still Living is less hotly anticipated, but Ganglians win the newly-invented prize for ‘best second album by bearded outdoorsy Americans with a hankering for harmonies’ hands down by keeping the edges rough, even if its unwieldy length makes it dificult to take in with a single sitting.

While the extended duration deadens their impact a mite, individual tracks have a grace and lightness of touch: Jungle’s bouncy Beach Boys gait and Sleep’s electronic flourishes stand out, as does atmospheric lynchpin Bradley, which portions the album in two. Its twelve tracks are more variations on a theme than divergent experiments, but they’ve got a charm that, appropriately enough, gets under the skin. [Chris Buckle]

Backed by ‘The Freedom Fighter Orchestra’, an ensemble band for Tom Morello’s third venture as The Nightwatchman, World Wide Rebel Songs is billed as a timely riposte to current global events, the like of which have fuelled the Rage Against The Machine guitarist’s lengthy career. Unlike previous solo releases, Morello breaks out the ol’ electric for some trademark fret-board solo tapping, whilst making reasonable work of his limited vocal delivery, with blustery western hoedowns (Speak and Make Lightning, Stray Bullets) and stadium riff rabble-rousers (It Begins Tonight). Yet despite the flag pole the title supposes this album will fly from, it feels too unfocused and patchy to fully ignite real righteous indignation. Coupled with a knack for ham-fisted lyrics and join-the-dots chord progressions, World Wide Rebel Songs may provide an initial rush of barnstorming folk polemic, but it’s unlikely to sustain its convictions come the light of a new dawn. [Darren Carle]

When Kurt Vile left The War on Drugs to do his own (absolutely spiffing) thing, he appointed fellow War founder Adam Granduciel a Violator, took him on tour, and inadvertently added years to Slave Ambient’s gestation. Granduciel’s return to his first band (sans Kurt) has much to recommend it, despite occasional stumbles like stupefying non-starter City Reprise #12.

It combines rock ‘n’ roll classicism in the seventies AOR mould (think Tom Petty and Dire Straits) with a psychedelic vapour, and tracks like the lushly-layered opener Best Night are pleasingly laidback. Urban Hymns-period Ashcroft is a less welcome echo, with the similarity most apparent on drifting bores such as I Was There, where all momentum is lost. On the plus side, the missteps ensure late-stage pop trip Baby Missiles is all the more appreciated, though ultimately Slave Ambient remains a league below alumnus Vile’s most recent work; inconsistent, but nonetheless impressive. [Chris Buckle]

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/GANGLIAN

PLAYING WITH RISE AGAINST AT THE O2 ACADEMY, GLASGOW ON 4 NOV

WWW.THEWARONDRUGS.NET

VIVA BROTHER

FAMOUS FIRST WORDS OUT NOW, GEFFEN

r You could be forgiven for daring to hope that, in 2011, Britain was no longer producing bands who seem to believe that musical adventurousness begins and ends with plodding choruses set to played-to-death Stones riffs. But no. ‘Viva’ Brother are jaw-droppingly derivative, so much so that Famous First Words (see what they did there?) is like being forced to listen to a particularly awful, generic Britpop act that you somehow managed to avoid the first time around.

The formula marries the two most iconic styles of the era – Blur’s high-pitched singalong choruses, and Oasis’ beer-soaked guitar hooks – while surgically removing any residue of charm or personality. Even the lyrics sound like a parody of Noel Gallagher’s nonsensical coke-addled musings (sample: “electric daydream, live while you die”. Pardon?). Avoid at all costs, unless you have a morbid urge to be reminded of just how reactionary and backwards indie rock can get. [Sam Wiseman]

THE TOP FIVE

ALIAS

1

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2 3 4 5

SOLE AND THE SKYRIDER BAND

HELLO CRUEL WORLD

MOONFACE

ORGAN MUSIC NOT VIBRAPHONE LIKE I’D HOPED

BUTCHER BOY

HELPING HANDS

WOODEN SHJIPS

WEST

ADAM STAFFORD

BUILD A HARBOUR IMMEDIATELY

FEVER DREAM 29 AUG, ANTICON

Once synonymous with experimental hip-hop, Anticon has mostly evolved into a reliable fountain of summery approximations of sublime and ethereal electronica – but perhaps the label’s whole narrative arc can be charted through Brendon ‘Alias’ Whitney. Once a monolithic rapper – 2002’s The Other Side Of The Looking Glass is a classic of brooding and poetic menace – he has barely spat a rhyme since. On one hand it’s a shame to see his lyrical talent wasted, but on the other it’s a revelation to see Whitney develop as an instrumental producer.

Fever Dream is a suave cocktail of rolling snares, haunting synth structures, downtempo dub and jittering slices of shoegaze – tastefully evoking the strengths of various modern masters, from FlyLo to Amon Tobin – as swirling, cut-up vocals bounce gleefully around in the distance. As an addition to a formidable palette, this is some of Whitney’s most mind-blowing work; still, we hope we’ll hear him rap again. [Ali Maloney]

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 51

52 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

“CALLUM, up in the crow’s nest, is all guitar-cradling and neckerchief-wearing, while Sam will go down with the ship, laughing to the last at his cockpit of keyboards,” collectively explain Glasgow (via Fife) quartet, Milk. “Michael plays at drums and dressing up down in the engine room, and Pablo stands at the prow, full of windy rhetoric and last night’s leftovers.” Any room for a celebrity endorsement on board? After all, that ‘Got Milk’ campaign has done wonders for dairy sales over the years – want to co-opt any Milk-the-Drink lovers as spokespersons for Milk-the-band?

“Can we breed them? If so we’ll take the lithe and insatiable sexuality of Isabella Rosellini, couple it with the high-society histrionics of Elton John, and marry that off with the future-race breeding of the Olsens and the ruthless art-as-a-sacrificial-cow ambition of James Cameron.” Finally, this sexual, ambitious future-race progeny would be “wrapped in plastic, à la Joan Rivers.”

If their creation sounds elaborate and messy, it fits their musical identities; if their answers sound articulate yet obfuscating, it reflects their crafty, cultured smarts.

“We think that bands are too readily vilified for not nailing a signature sound,” they argue. “It seems to us that using a broad palette can produce the most interesting and enjoyable results.” Their particular palette reaps the rewards of a four-way musical input that doesn’t necessarily flow naturally in the same direction.

“I think it would be fair to say that we began this at odd angles, and so the approach has been to try and

Text Chris Buckle Photo www.ryanmcgoverne.co.uk

Clockwise from top left: Pablo; Callum; Michael; Sam

W W W .T H E S K I N N Y. C O . U K

PHOTO: PETE DUNLOP

Highlights from this year’s hugely successful two-week festival,

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival On Tour 10 Aug to 2 Sep

A key work from an era that’s now considered the last Golden Age of American cinema, Bob Rafelson’s superlative character study established Jack Nicholson as the foremost actor of his generation. One of the few honest American films about social class, family and alienation. Don’t miss this wonderfully restored classic.

Five Easy Pieces 13 Aug to 19 Aug

Directed by Juan José Campanella and showcasing two of Argentina’s biggest stars, this is a riveting thriller spiked with witty dialogue and poignant romance. Receiving rave reviews and awards, it was also the surprise winner of this year’s Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film, beating off stiff competition from The White Ribbon and A Prophet.

The Secret in Their Eyes 13 Aug to 9 Sep

recommends this month...

HOME OF THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

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NO MATTER how successful a band might become, it doesn’t change the fact that most of them come from all too mundane an origin.

Take Radiohead, for example. Arguably one of the most influential bands of the last twenty years, and they all met in the far from rock’n’roll confines of the elite Abingdon Boys School. Even The Melvins used to practice in Dale Crover’s parents’ house, and only with the greatest mental gymnastics could they ever be classified as ‘normal’. Perhaps this is why The Dead Man’s Waltz’s Athena-like birth from the minds of Isle of Skye’s genre-defying Injuns is all the more tantalising.

“Injuns were known for being very eclectic,

MILK SUPPORT FOUND AT THE ELECTRIC CIRCUS, EDINBURGH ON 7 AUG AS PART OF THE EDGE FESTIVAL

challenge each other, taking our disparate inspirations and finding ways to harmonise them. We enjoy sifting through the noise.” When the sifting is finished, nuggets of Lizard King stargazing, smooth 80s grooves, moody atmospherics, deadpan humour and prog-squiggles remain. The unorthodox blend slips through genres like cow lactose through fingers. “We converge in strange places,” they acknowledge.

Milk confound classification in part through tactical shyness. Their low-profile moniker and lower-profile web presence constitute a genuine attempt to avoid the pigeonholing that rubberstamps acts straight from the womb. Milk are leaving their options open and keeping followers guessing.

“We’re still in the formative stages of playing this music together, so anything that allows the freedom to go off on creative tangents is a must,” they explain. “The name gave us the blank slate. If you treat a band’s name as a statement of intent, then ours remains open to interpretation.” Refreshingly, in an age where choosing a MySpace background sits uncomfortably high on new-starts’ ‘to do’ lists, they’re uninterested in cultivating a potentially-straitjacketing online persona. “We want the opportunity to surprise others and ourselves.”

Live, they don’t let such opportunities pass them by. But what about recordings? Any releases on the horizon? “In this regard,” they assert, “we reserve the right to remain mysterious.” Seems Milk will be whetting appetites a little longer yet.[Chris Buckle]

Ah Milk. Great source of calcium, won Sean Penn an Oscar… er, hang on, something’s off. Google has failed me – guys, you’ll have to introduce yourselves…

Got Milk?

Accordionist LEIGHTON JONES explains why folk-noir revivalists THE DEAD MAN’S WALTZ are bringing Vaudevillian theatre to their compelling live show

MUSIC

MORBID VISIONS

INTERVIEW: DAVID BOWES

especially on our first album,” explains accordionist Leighton Jones, “but we had always presented very strange ideas and concepts. So we wrote a musical, Scary Love, which essentially was a lament to Vaudevillian theatre and we had these ideas and songs in there which took on their own meaning. From that came this band called The Dead Man’s Waltz, which was the band in the musical, and we found ourselves writing more and more for this band and we realised it was just a natural progression. Injuns was a scrapbook for our ideas and from this scrapbook came this old, faded photograph that we’ve looked deeper and deeper into to find precisely what it is we wanted

MUSIC

www.theelectriccircus.biz www.theelectriccircus.biz

We’re blurring that line between audience and band LEIGHTON JONES

to write about in the first place.”

This flair for the dramatic makes the venue for our meeting even more apt. We’re in Glasgow’s oldest watering hole, Sloans; not only is a new opera set in the locale being practiced upstairs, but it is – according to Leighton – the site of at least two hauntings. While the remaining trio of Hector MacInnes, Magnus Hughes and David MacLeod are currently scattered across the country, Leighton takes care in explaining why the spectre of the past is no mere illusion in their music.

“I don’t think we’re the first band to explore the concept of folk-noir because you can hear it in a lot of places,” he reminds us. “From Nick Cave through to Tom Waits. I think that this genre is all about embracing the darker side of folk music, and that is the human psyche. It’s like an echo but when you bring it to the fore it retain its mysteriousness and stories. There is a treasure trove of stories and experiences to draw from.”

These tales are the bread and butter of the band, darkly romantic and haunting slices of life that stretch through time and space. “We’ve always written character-based pieces and The Dead Man’s Waltz gives us a platform to do that on,” he continues, “but it has become more and more that we are writing stories based in Eastern and Western Europe in the 20th century. We’re just more inspired by other people’s stories than our own and I think that by delving into other people’s lives you can explore your own experiences more easily in a musical way.”

Europe feeds the band’s world in more ways than their sense of romantic ideals. Germanic musical traditions are inextricably tied to what is now considered the archetypal folk setup or, as Leighton terms it, the ‘accordion and banjo’ approach to instrumentation. “It stretches all

across Europe, doesn’t it? This stretches through all the Balkan states and I love that, that beer-hall oom-pah. There’s something quite harrowing and dark, but also celebratory there. You can hear this horrible celebration of the fact that man is kept alive by bestial acts and this is what attracts us.”

Then the theme for the band’s first promotional video – the beautifully dreamlike Cry On Me, which echoes the stark brilliance of film pioneers like F.W. Mernau and the trance-like meanderings of David Lynch – should come as no surprise “It’s another existential murder ballad and its video is kind of a dream state which illustrates the rise to the surface of a man’s fears and anxieties when he’s caught in a deranged love triangle of sorts,” Leighton gives up somewhat cryptically.

“It’s a state where your nightmares can become real, and there’s more of that to come.”

While it can be found on a cursory search of YouTube, a more in-depth excavation will also dig up another, darker short movie, depicting the band’s corpses strewn about the rooms of a ramshackle house. A lone figure chronicles these atrocities before setting to work reviving the corpses, thus setting the stage for the quartet’s debut under the guise.

While the premise for the short is understandably vague to anyone unfamiliar with the way they represented themselves as Injuns, to the band it was a bridging point between the old and new. “The doctor of shady intent discovered the band as it was at the end of the musical, all dead in a house. Unfortunately no-one saw the musical!” laughs Leighton. “The doctor was a character that we created to discover them and to give birth to these dead men in a converted ice cream factory in Partick, where we built the stage to look like a hospital from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

This train of narrative eventually culminated in the flesh during the band’s first show. “The doctor did a presentation before he unveiled the band and we got members of the audience to come up and read stories, each relating to how each member of the band met his maker. So, we improvised and created a soundtrack live. It doesn’t make much sense as a stand-alone video but it is connected to the first gig that The Dead Man’s Waltz ever did, and the doctor is still with us to this day.”

The doctor’s inclusion is only one of the numerous facets that are currently at work to mark this unconventional band as one of Scotland’s most intriguing new acts. But to them this is more than just a gimmick. “We’re performing with the continued theatrical idea and we’re blurring that line between audience and band,” says Leighton.

“It’s based on a Brechtian theme. It’s not about escaping for the duration of the show, it’s about hacking that line down with a sword and forcing people to take note of what you’re doing, and they’re either loving it or being repulsed by it.

There should be this sense of, ‘I really want to DO something about this!’ I don’t know what you want to do about it, but there’s got to be an answer, goddammit!”

If you’ve finishing reading this and you’re asking yourself the same question, then you already know what the answer is – seek out this waltz macabre for yourself, as soon as humanly possible.

PLAYING THE ESPU, EDINBURGH ON 20 AUG AND ISLE OF SKYE FESTIVAL ON 27 AUG. WWW.THEDEADMANSWALTZ.COM

Supported by King Tuts Wah Wah Hut and the Electric Circus

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 53

CLUBS

PREVIEWS Sugarbeat presents Tiga

UTI PRESENTS LUNAR FEATURING GROOVE ASYLUM

Cabaret Voltaire, 26 Aug

Studio 24, 12 Aug

Dark, deadly and fun: depending how you feel, Tiga is either the best guilt-free pleasure you can have in a club or one of the guiltiest. Either way, he’s a pleasure.

If you felt like taking up a weird challenge you could watch a Tiga set with the intention of not having a good time and see just how long you lasted before you caved in and admitted defeat.

His shamelessly kitsch electro-pop fueled albums and thumping remixes are a slight red herring which hide the fact he’s primarily a damn fine DJ who draws on techno and electro for most of his 80s inspired sound. At least he’s not afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve and after performances last month at EXIT Festival and the Slam Tent this is your best chance to see him up really close and minus any mud. Just don’t pretend you’re not having fun. [Neil Murchison]

UTI (Under the Influence) are putting on a one-off show, Lunar, with no less than seven DJs on the bill in memory of two close friends who died recently of cancer. All profits from the event will be in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. If the pagan visual theme or the full moon isn’t enough on its own to get you dancing then the lineup will be.

London based headliners Groove Asylum, made up of one part Jerome Hill and another part Rob Stow, have between them released records, set up labels and held residencies all over the UK and they combine to bring the maverick techno sound they have been developing since 1998.

Brianstorm, an Edinburgh legend from his ten years as a resident with Twitch at techno night Pure, also plays along with UTI regulars Zuni and Jonny Oh, while Fancy and Spook will unleash their warped electro sound. [Neil Murchison]

10.30pm - 5am, £15

10.30PM - 5AM, £6 + Donation, All profits to Marie Curie

www.musikanights.com

http://on.fb.me/o7Gdzp

Ultragroove Presents: Julio Bashmore

Coalition Presents Girl Unit

Cabaret Voltaire, 20 Aug

Ultragroove and Julio Bashmore are rooted in house music and both share a common desire to push boundaries and expand on classic four to the floor conventions. Heralding from Bristol, Bashmore’s sound is ensconced in bass music, a trait manifested through releases on Dirtybird and 3024. His Batty Knee Dance, released on 3024 earlier this year, features the imploring vocal refrain, “We should get married,” and without tempting fate, Cab Vol might well serve as an expedient church/registry office for what could be a harmonious coming together of DJ and Promoter.

The Ultragroove ethos orientates around sets comprising elements of disco, garage and an array of house from deep to Chicago. This melange of electronica in synergy with Bashmore’s funky bass laden MO means the Ultragroove ‘House Odyssey’ will be in full festival swing and if you need something more to whet your appetite check out Bashmore’s 2011 anthem, Battle for Middle You on PMR records. [James Corlett]

The final week of the festival needs to start with a bang and Girl Unit’s outing at Coalition seems the very ticket. Don’t worry that the man behind some of last year’s most club smashing tunes, Phil Gamble, goes by such a dubious moniker or that the acronym it spawned from, Girl U No It's True, is a Milli Vanilli album title.

In the last two years he’s developed a strong and identifiable dubstep influenced sound and the records he’s released on the Night Slugs label are a sonic mishmash of unpredictable styles. Temple Keys’ smooth house sounds and the twisted vocals and spiky strings of Wut only loosely suggest the limits that Girl Unit’s music exists within. A broad range of electronic influences is also evident in his sets and he has little compunction against throwing some hip-hop and R‘n’B up against the harder edged bass stuff to see what sticks. He has talked before about his ambition to work with more rappers and singers and his use of vocal dynamics from the records he spins adds a further dimension to the bass heavy, future sounds he is already working with. [Neil Murchison] 11PM - 5AM, FREE ENTRY (TBC)

www.ultragroove.co.uk

www.sneakypetes.co.uk

Auntie Flo

1. Osunlade - Envision (Ame Mix) - (Innervisions) Probably my biggest tune over the summer, Ame rarely get it wrong and this is no exception.

2. Sophie - Nothing More To Say (forthcoming H+P) My most asked about tune, forthcoming on our H+P label... place went crazy when this dropped at our Sonar beach party and at T in the Park.

3. Matias Aguayo - Dance Machine (Kompakt) Matias is my hero and this beauty is from his recent I Don’t Smoke EP. 4. DJ Sdunkero - Choosing Love (H+P) The B-side to my Oh My Days EP out this month, I am honoured to share the same release as this future classic.

5. Raoul K - Balafon Teachers (Baobab Music) Raoul is coming over to play Highlife in September and this is his classic sound – hypnotic, tribal and raw.

6. Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer - Recurrence (ECM 2004 Currents) Villalobos has been a massive influence on me since he played at my 21st birthday party a few years ago.

7. Super Khoumeissa - Ai Baka (Fat Cat) Fat Cat Split series returns with some afrofuturism all the way from Malawi.

8. Crystal Fighters - Plage (Auntie Flo remix) I just finished a remix for Crystal Fighters, will be out soon so keep a look out.

54 THE SKINNY August 2011

Words: Ray Philp Illustration: Gavin Rutherford

Sneaky Petes, 21 Aug

11pm-5am, Cabaret Voltaire, £6 Before midnight, £10/£8

DJ Chart

clubbing HIGHLIGHTS

9. Sven Kacirek - Kayamba Tuc Tuc (Lawrence Edit) This blew my mind when i first heard it. Kenyan village field recording mixed with western electronics, amazing.

10. Bjorn Torske - Langt fra Afrika (Todd Terje Remix) This is on the forthcoming Gilles Petersen mix, raw, funky and designed for the dancefloor. Terje at his best.

AUNTIE FLO’S OH MY DAYS SINGLE IS OUT IN AUGUST ON H+P WITH AN ALBUM EXPECTED IN OCTOBER. YOU CAN CATCH HIM PLAYING ON 13 AUG AT BOTH BIGFOOT’S TEA PARTY AT 100 STOBCROSS ROAD, GLASGOW AND ON 20 AUG AT MENERGY AT STEREO. www.huntleyspalmers.com twitter.com/djbriandsouza www.facebook.com/highlifemusicclub http://auntieflo.in

Liver spotted totem of sleaze Rupert Murdoch may have done his company’s share price a mischief by turning a not-so-blind eye to the maelstrom of villainy clouding News International, but don’t let that distract you from the real issues of the day: 5am techno underneath a damp August skyline, made possible only by the middlebrow dross that oozes towards Bristo Square.

The Lane manage to shake off their longstanding broken clock syndrome by finally hosting a night worth giving a toss about. Balls-to-the-wall machine techno purveyors Sandwell District bring forth Function and Regis to Jackhammer, who also extend an invitation to proto-rave duo Altern8. Your anaesthesia is scheduled for Fri 26 Aug. Electro-techno princeling Tiga makes his Edinburgh debut on the same date at the Liquid Room courtesy of Musika and Sugarbeat.

Much as we enjoy the Canadian’s leisurely, sub125 meanderings, Boddika’s flick-knife precision techno and electro (whether on his own, or as one half of Instra:mental, who have released our favourite album of 2011 so far) offers a genuinely unique and exciting proposition that counters much of what passes for ‘post-dubstep’. Substance host Boddika plus guests at the Store on Sat 6 Aug. On to more familiar territory with LuckyMe, who continue to loiter around this column like sunkencheeked seagulls at an Aberdeen landfill, peddling their wares in similarly obstreperous fashion: “Oh look, I’m LuckyMe and I’ve just booked DJ Awesome Bigbaws to play some tunes that are bang tidy and way better than any of your gak, squawk.”

That it happens to be true doesn’t make it any less rote; The Blessings are your requisite shit-oneverything-in-sight spinners, playing out for your pleasure alongside house/garage shapeshifter Julio Bashmore at Ultragroove on Sat 20 Aug. Girl Unit swoops by [Ray? You’re fired - Ed.] the Capital for the first of two dates on Sun 21 Aug at Coalition, likely bearing two of the most overplayed songs of the last 24 months. It helps that I.R.L. and Wut are absolute belters of the abusive, whip-happy patriarch variety, though one hopes that the 5am denouement prompts a more imaginative selection. The last of our 'Burgh picks sees house/soul producer and DJ Fudge Fingas drop by TwentyTwenty (The Store) on Tue 30 Aug. Elsewhere, a rare visit from legendary Chicago house outfit Virgo (Fri 5 Aug, Sub Club) might be the pick of the entire calendar month. Re-released LPs courtesy of Rush Hour, showing off an expertly curated blend of classic house tropes alongside dilating synths and hypnagogic basslines, should be investigated post-haste.

Subculture proffers more house goodies via Dixon (Sat 20 Aug), whose nightcrawler selections are an apt foil for the libidinous murk of the Subby.

French Fries will compete for your custom on the same evening, offering a more bass-heavy stramash of electro and UK funky influences at La Cheetah. Creeping into September, Numbers offers James Blake the chance to showcase his latest slew of low-end, shell-like compositions at the Sub Club alongside Goodhand and Nelson on Sat 3 Sep.

CLUBS

A Guy Called Gerber Israeli techno DJ Guy Gerber explains how he is exposing his underground sounds to the mainstream with a little help from Puff Daddy

Photo: brian sassaman

interview: Neil Murchison

see that in some places they like melodic stuff and in others it’s got to be deeper and dark. Of course,” he adds, “you get the places where they will let you do anything and you can play some really strange stuff!” Now based in Spain, he still talks about the clubbing scene in Tel Aviv as having gone through something of a slump as underground clubs began closing before it began to reemerge. “People go out there all through the week and most of the bars have electronic music so that keeps it alive.

Right now it is pretty cool so I don’t know, it’s less underground for music lovers but still very nice.”

I ask him his thoughts on warming up for the likes of Sasha. Guy tends to maintain deeper sounds on his warm up sets whereas his headliners are much stronger and hypnotic and he thinks it’s actually quite nice to follow him. “I always try to create an atmosphere whether it is peak time in a club or early at a festival. I don’t feel like I’m stealing anyone else’s peak time and as I play most stuff live we won’t play the same tracks.

Although...”, he suddenly laughs, “it’s rare I’m not the headliner so I usually don’t have to worry!”

Guy Gerber still has more traditional work in production. A new album is set for release early next year with a few singles expected before then, the first being The Tourist with remixes by Jamie Jones and label mates David K and Soul Camp. His label, which is less than five years old, has already released more than twenty five records and the artwork that adorns each cover has received so much attention that they have even been the feature of an exhibition in St. Petersburg. Guy’s philosophy behind this is simple enough: beautiful covers will keep people buying vinyl, a rare example of art driving commerce rather than the other way round.

I ask him how this underground work fits into collaborating with mainstream pop artists but his intentions seem very clear: “What is always important to me is to keep my music underground and to show the mainstream that music can still be experimental and ambitious.”

Guy Gerber plays with Sasha at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Opening Party at the Liquid Rooms on Sat 6 Aug, 10.30pm-5am, £20 www.musikanights.com www.guygerber.net

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Photo: Martin Senyszak

Guy Gerber is maybe not so different to hundreds of other DJs as he sits in his studio and discusses the track he’s finishing. “It’s going to be the second single for the project I am doing with Puff Daddy,” he explains. “After that the album we have done together will come out.” OK, so Israeli Guy Gerber is not your average DJ. His understated, dark and simmering take on techno and house has earned him a slew of fans in the clubbing community as well as being a big favourite with DJs. His first single Stoppage Time was released on John Digweed’s Bedrock label and, fittingly, he will be playing the Fringe Opening Party with Digweed’s frequent companion Sasha.

But back to the Puffy Daddy story for a minute.

How does a respected but uncommercial, techno/ house DJ end up working with one of the most high profile artists in the world? It all began when Puff Daddy used a sample of his and liked it so much he invited Guy to his studio. It may seem like a lucky break but you soon realise that Guy’s good fortune has been due to hard work and an ability to make sounds that people respond to – his dark, claustrophobic reworking of Puff Daddy’s Nothing Can Be True is an example of this. “It was unclear how it was going to turn out. I was jamming in the studio and he liked what I was doing so I showed him some hypnotic and psychedelic stuff.” Puffy ended up asking him to remix his last album and then insisted they work together on a new album.

Gerber’s musical tangent is interesting because until now his steady rise to recognition has been based upon more traditional avenues like playing regularly at the biggest clubs in the world, having a brilliant live show, and running a label beloved by DJs, Supplement Facts. It’s no wonder he’s taken so long getting round to checking Edinburgh off his destinations list.

His first time in Scotland a few months ago made a lasting impression on both sides; a few weeks later some of the same Scottish crowd caught up with him again at a night in Barcelona. “Or were they Irish?” he suddenly wonders, “Wait, maybe I made a mistake! Glasgow is in Scotland, right?”

Having played often in diverse places such as Mexico, Ibiza, Rome and his hometown of Tel Aviv, I ask him what differences he finds between them.

“For me it is always the people themselves. You can

W ww .t h e s k i n n y. c o . u k /j o b s

August 2011

THE SKINNY 55

REVIEWS

AUGUST Events FILM

Between 2 Aug and 6 Sep the GFT hosts Play Poland, a touring film festival bringing Polish filmmaking to independent cinemas across Britain. Six films are included in the season, all of which have received critical acclaim at various international festivals. Among the films being shown are Lynch (9 Aug), an investigation into the lynching of an elderly man in Poland in 2005, and Mystification (23 Aug), a drama that attempts to uncover the truth about the suicide of novelist and philosopher Stanislaw ‘Witkacy’ Witkiewicz and why, among other strange events, a woman’s body was found in his coffin when he was exhumed.

Super 8 CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

Super 8

Project Nim

Director: J. J. Abrams

Director: James Marsh

Starring: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Amanda Michalka Released: 5 Aug Certificate: 12A

Starring: Nim Chimpsky, Bob Ingersoll, Professor Herb Terrace, Stephanie LaFarge Released: 12 Aug Certificate: 12A

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Young buck Joe (Joel Courtney) and his chums witness a horrendous, deliberate train-wreck whilst shooting their zero-budget zombie splatterfest on the eponymous film stock. Discovering the sinister details of the train’s cargo, and the desperation of shady military types to recover it, Joe et al. must hide their involvement from the grown-ups and stay alive amid increasingly violent incidents in the community.

Steven Spielberg’s continuing involvement with the interminable crash-bangwallop Transformers fiasco somehow makes his producer credit on this delightful throwback to a time when summer movies had characters, plot and charm all the sweeter. J.J. Abrams’ decidedly Spielbergian tale of assorted middle-school geeks at the centre of bizarre happenings in their sleepy small town is a great reminder of proper blockbuster cinema; incredibly funny, moving, creepy and exciting in equal measure. The young cast are all outstanding, ably supported by the adults in the background, and the nostalgia of the piece is genuinely intoxicating. It’s very E.T., very Goonies and very Close Encounters — wonderful fun. [Chris Fyvie]

In 1967, The Jungle Book’s King Louie sang “an ape like me, can learn to be human too.” Six years later, Professor Herb Terrace indirectly put Louie’s proposal to the test, placing a baby chimpanzee with a New York family in a bid to teach the primate sign language. The ape was named Nim Chimpsky (after the linguist whose hypotheses the experiment was designed to test), and his story, as told in James Marsh’s unorthodox biopic, is poignant enough to open even the rustiest tear duct. Project Nim details the chimp’s tumultuous life using archive material and interviews with the humans to whom he was closest – the result is stylistically similar to Marsh’s previous documentary Man on Wire. Nim’s journey is profoundly moving, beginning with a bohemian Manhattan infancy, through idyllic adolescence as a scientific star, to a heartbreaking return to the enclosure in which he was born; and while his story does not end there, this synopsis will, so as not to spoil its poignant impact.

[Chris Buckle]

In a Better World

The Skin I Live In

Director: Susanne Bier

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Starring: Mikael Persbrandt, Ulrich Thomsen, Trine Dyrholm Released: 19 Aug Certificate: TBC

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Jan Cornet, Blanca Suárez Released: 26 Aug Certificate: 15

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If you thought The Secret in Their Eyes was an unworthy Foreign Language Oscar victor, this year’s winner may destroy your faith in the Academy altogether. It’s not bad, just not particularly good; lucky to get on the shortlist (Iraq’s submission Son of Babylon didn’t) and even luckier to survive when the list was whittled down to five (Japan’s Confessions got chopped). In a Better World signals a return to Denmark for Susanne Bier after Things We Lost in the Fire, but not, alas, a return to form. As usual, big themes are arduously explored, but with less finesse: an African refugee camp becomes the venue for a White European’s reassertion of masculinity; while back home a child mourns his mother not with tears and tantrums but unfocused violence. Nominal attempts to forge global connections (in Denmark, bullying manifests in slaps from mechanics; in Africa, the mutilation of pregnant woman) ring as hollow as the Babel-aping wood-chimes on the soundtrack, and though the performances are excellent, it ain't no Dogtooth. [Chris Buckle]

After going through the motions with a couple of features that failed to match the sharp wit of his best work, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In is an exhilarating return to form. Ignorance is bliss when faced with a narrative as shocking and twist-laden as this, and all you really need to know is that Antonio Banderas (giving his best performance in years) is a respected but haunted plastic surgeon who is holding a mysterious young woman (Elena Anaya) captive in his hi-tech home. Toying with audience expectations, Almodóvar juggles the chronology of his narrative and stacks up surprising revelations with dizzying speed. He is constantly testing the limits of plausibility – looked at objectively, the plot appears absurd – but his meticulous craftsmanship and confident storytelling ensures it remains riveting. Just try to guess the nature of the twist at the heart of the drama – I guarantee the truth is more outrageous and disturbing than you could have imagined. [Philip Concannon]

Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within

The Guard

Director: José Padilha

Director: John Michael McDonagh

Starring: Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, Andre Ramiro, Pedro Van Held Released: 12 Aug Certificate: TBA

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham Released: 19 Aug Certificate: 15

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Some labelled director José Padilha a fascist for his brutal account of Brazilian crime and (violent) punishment in the Golden Bear winning Elite Squad (2008). His sequel may reverse this judgement.

Twelve years have passed in this Rio story but the bullets are still flying and, almost immediately, we’re thrown into the heart of a brilliantly staged high security prison riot. Under Lt. Colonel Nascimento (played with soul by Wagner Moura) and his Special Military Police (BOPE)’s charge, it turns into a bloodbath. The ensuing media and political storm blows Nascimiento up the chain to Secretary of Security, from where Rio’s rotten core soon exposes itself, and bares its teeth.

Padilha’s pace is unrelenting. You can’t fit a shiv between scenes as he crams a Wire-sized tableau of corruption and violence into 115 minutes.

Annoyingly, his catalyst is an almost constant voiceover which haemorrhages much of the drama but, in his kaleidoscopic exposé of Rio politics and crime, Padilha delivers a bruising right and left of polemic and action. [Danny Scott]

Absurdity and eccentricity abound in The Guard, the directorial debut from Ned Kelly screenwriter John Michael McDonagh, which sees maverick lawman Sgt. Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) defending his rural County Galway beat from a band of international drug traffickers. There’s a hint of In Bruges in this quirky tale, given that the films share a pitch black sense of humour, a star (Gleeson) and DNA (it was written and directed by McDonagh’s brother Martin), but here it’s Gleeson playing the foul-mouth funny man against Don Cheadle’s straight-laced visiting FBI agent.

The film’s pace is somewhat relentless, featuring a laugh in almost every scene, but thankfully, McDonagh seems to share his brother’s ability to balance pathos and comedy, easily shifting between scenes of Boyle exploring his partiality for prostitutes and caring for his dying mother. A little rough around the edges, The Guard is intelligent and knowingly funny, and despite continually breaking the fourth wall, it’s very easy to find yourself embroiled in this strange affair. [David McGinty]

56 THE SKINNY August 2011

The Screen Arts Festival is screening a selection of films and documentaries alongside theatre, dance and opera performances at the Cameo in Edinburgh and the Belmont in Aberdeen until 11 Aug. Included in the programme are Chimes at Midnight (1 Aug), a newly restored film by Orson Welles recounting the life of the Shakespeare character John Falstaff, and Martin Scorsese’s deeply personal homage to director Elia Kazan, A Letter to Elia (10 Aug).

On 12 Aug the Belmont and the GFT are showing a special screening of documentary Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws. The film follows the lives and actions of people within political activist groups, such as Plane Stupid and Climate Camp, and the lengths they’re willing to go to for what they believe in. The screening will be followed by a special live Q&A session featuring the director, Emily James.

The Quay Brothers Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies

While debate rages on whether the Edinburgh International Film Festival should return to its traditional August slot, a group of smart curators are beating them to the punch, bringing an exciting series of short film programmes, Film on the Fringe, to Edinburgh. Based at new Fringe venue Summerhall, the curators include KinoKlub, a newly formed surreal film collective that’ll be showing eye-popping shorts from such visionaries as Jan Svankmajer and The Brothers Quay (16 Aug); Future Shorts show their usual mix of local and international short films (6 Aug); and the mighty Glasgow Short Film Festival will be showcasing the best filmmakers from this year’s GSFF (6-7 Aug).

And finally, Lock Up Your Daughters (LUYD) continue their monthly queer cinema night at the GFT with Gus Van Sant’s New Queer Cinema touchstone My Own Private Idaho on 21 Aug. This cold, lyrical tale of unrequited love sees aimless young hustler Mike (River Phoenix) travel across America with the narcissistic Scott (Keanu Reeves) in search of his estranged mother. Expect a fiery introduction from a special LUYD guest.[Becky Bartlett]

My Own Private Idaho

DVD REVIEWS LIMITLESS DIRECTOR: NEIL BURGER

FILM

STARRING: BRADLEY COOPER, ROBERT DE NIRO, ABBIE CORNISH, ANNA FRIEL RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 15

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Limitless takes the headlines about American students who have been enhancing their exam performance with drugs and turns them into a slickly enjoyable thriller. Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a mess, a wannabe writer and congenital slacker who is going nowhere until he takes a pill that gives him both incredible smarts and an enviable smartbut-casual wardrobe. After dashing off his novel he enters the world of high finance to make his fortune. However, he quickly learns of the drug’s sinister side-effects and of others who will do anything to get hold of his supply.

Cooper nicely captures the blankness of a man who is suddenly given absolute wisdom without having to work for it, while De Niro provides some heavyweight support as the Wall St. mogul who employs him. The film carefully keeps within the parameters of its conceit, although there is a nagging sense that such a high-functioning drug addict would be a little more careful with his stash. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC

HERE’S A HEALTH TO THE BARLEY MOW

DIRECTOR: LUC BESSON

DIRECTOR: VARIOUS

STARRING: LOUISE BOURGOIN, MATHIEU AMALRIC, GILLES LELLOUCHE RELEASED: 15 AUG CERTIFICATE: 12

RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 12

rrr Sold as a Romancing the Stone-style action-adventure pastiche on its cinematic release, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is closer in tone to its compatriot Asterix films: silly and slapdash, with charm papering over the numerous cracks. The plot’s bewildering ingredients include an escaped pterodactyl causing havoc in Paris; an elderly physician with miraculous powers; and walking, talking Egyptian mummies with mysterious healing abilities. Somewhere in the middle is the titular heroine (played with the perfect level of sanguine sass by Louise Bourgoin), who conducts disguise-based prison breaks and Pyramid tomb raiding whilst evading police and courters. Director Luc Besson fluffs both pacing and comprehensibility, but the result is so gleefully ludicrous it transcends its shortcomings. The plot is episodic, but all the better to emulate the serials from which it draws inspiration and the humour is broad, but well played by its game cast. Not extraordinary, then, but worth the time. [Chris Buckle]

rrr The reputation of folk culture has waxed and waned in Britain, from being seen as quaint and faintly ludicrous (Morris dancing, anyone?), to being championed as an important repository of authenticity in our increasingly uniform, commodified culture. The long running revival of folk music means that the time is perhaps ripe for this BFI collection of films documenting the weirder folk traditions of our isles, although this is far stronger fare than fey singer-songwriters with songs of heartbreak.

The collection consists of six hours worth of rough and ready films, beginning in the 1910s and running up until the present. Included are labyrinthine traditional dances, pub singalongs, “football” games that involve whole towns and resemble slow motion mass wrestling competitions, and the simply bizarre Burry Man of South Queensferry. Never has Britain seemed so exotic and so baffling. But for the many sword dancers represented in the collection, I have two (or is it three?) words: Health and Safety. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

SOURCE CODE

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR

THE LOST BLADESMAN

DIRECTOR: DUNCAN JONES

DIRECTOR: ALAIN RESNAIS

DIRECTOR: ALAN MAK, FELIX CHONG

STARRING: JAKE GYLLENHAAL, VERA FARMIGA, MICHELLE MONAGHAN RELEASED: 15 AUG CERTIFICATE: 12

STARRING: EMMANUELLE RIVA, EIJI OKADA RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 12

STARRING: DONNIE YEN, JIANG WEN, ALEX FONG RELEASED: 8 AUG CERTIFICATE: 12

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Groundhog Day meets the legendary Quantum Leap in Jake Gyllenhaal’s exciting new sci-fi thriller. Gyllenhaal is a time-lost amnesiac on a mission to uncover the terrorist behind a massive train explosion by reliving the last eight minutes of one of the dead passengers.

Through a mixture of computer simulation and baffling physics he can somehow explore the past without changing the outcome, while the clock counts down to a second attack which threatens to destroy Chicago.

Of course it’s nonsense, but how it’s happening isn’t really important. Jones wisely focuses on characters and an urgent situation that’s easy to grasp: find the mad bomber before it’s too late. Gyllenhaal is a likeable action hero and we come to care about Michelle Monaghan as a doomed passenger who tries to help.

If you can swallow the premise, there’s a lot of fun to be had in this satisfying summer hit which surpasses the technobabble and becomes a fast and efficient thriller. [Scotty McKellar]

Hiroshima Mon Amour opens with the voices and almost abstract shots of two naked lovers in bed, before cutting to scenes of postwar Hiroshima. Over these the lovers continue to talk of love, loss, memory, forgetting, and, inevitably, the Bomb. As well as making our own pillow talk feel a mite inconsequential, this classic Alain Resnais film from 1959 thus conforms to our expectations of French arthouse fare: sexy, discursive, monochrome, and just a soupçon pretentious.

Yet this story of a brief, intense affair between a French actress on location in Hiroshima and a local architect slowly opens out to become a fascinating meditation on the legacy of the Second World War for two countries for whom that legacy was far more complex and fraught than our own. Also out on DVD is Resnais’ pioneering and still shocking documentary about the Holocaust, Night and Fog (1955). Watching these two films may atone for going to see Michael Bay’s latest. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

They don’t make films like they used to. Except in China. The Lost Bladesman is a historical epic of the old school with a cast of thousands filling out massive battle scenes, and vast sets forming the backdrop for meticulous reconstructions of siege warfare. These are leavened with some inventive film-making including an extraordinary shot from the point of view of a man being decapitated in which he sees his own tears as his head spins through the air.

However, in its account of the legendary warrior Guan Yun Chang, the film retains the turgid, over literal storytelling of the classic historical blockbuster. Dialogue consists of endless exposition of the myriad intrigues that fill the story. Fortunately, our hero is a one man WMD and his path through the film is littered with bodies. The fight scenes are well staged and performed, only hampered by Yun Chang’s favoured weapon, a cumbersome thing that resembles a Victorian gardening implement. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]

films worth talking about

HOME OF THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

EVEN TS OF THE WEEK

S I G N U P - W W W .T H E S K I N N Y. C O . U K PHOTO: SOLAS NICOL

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 57

ART

PREVIEWS

KATIE PATERSON LIGHTBULB TO SIMULATE MOONLIGHT

MYSTICS OR RATIONALISTS? INGLEBY GALLERY 5 AUG - 22 OCT FREE

“Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.” Number one in Sol LeWitt’s famous Sentences on Conceptual Art (1971) provides the title for the group show of conceptual heavyweights at Ingleby Gallery for the Edinburgh Art Festival.

LeWitt’s Sentences are forty years old now but they could easily be referring to the art of today – with similar criticisms levelled at it, and similar conflicting ideas of what an artist is.

For Jeremy Millar, the artist is akin to a shaman, taking objects from the world and divining their significance. Sitting on a bed of purifying rock salt, his mirrored cubes hark back to the classic conceptualist Robert Morris who famously exhibited mirrored cubes way back in 1965.

The impressive line-up also includes Cornelia Parker, the artist who persuaded the British Army to blow up a

SUSAN HILLER - HOMAGE TO YVES KLEIN - LEVITATION (MAN) 2011

garden shed for her, suspending the remaining pieces in an atmospheric installation. Here she presents a page of silver, fashioned from the residue left over from the photographic developing process. The mirror-like surface hints at the ghosts of old images.

Susan Collis also makes work in which all is not what it seems. What appears to be a line of white spattered paint on the gallery floor is in fact Collis’ Down to the Mother (2008): a line of finely inlaid discs of mother of pearl.

Others in the show share this inclination to elevate the banal. Ceal Floyer’s previous works include Nail Biting Performance (2001), in which she stood on the stage of Birmingham Symphony Hall and bit her nails into a microphone.

Also boasting Cerith Wyn Evans, Katie Paterson and Susan Hiller, the show promises to be visually succinct but intellectually complex – better go with your head screwed on. As LeWitt noted, “The idea is the machine that makes the art.” [Jac Mantle] 15 CALTON ROAD EDINBURGH EH8 8DL SCOTLAND

PELES EMPIRE, CARMEN SYLVA, 2011

PELES EMPIRE: CARMEN SYLVA SIERRA METRO 7 AUG - 11 SEP FREE

Peles Empire is a collaboration between LondonBased German artists Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff. An ongoing project, Peles Empire takes its name from a garishly ornate castle in Romania, built between 1893 and 1913. Like a lot of European architecture during this period, the castle is a mix of conflicting styles from different periods of history, including Art Deco, Orientalism, Rococo and the Renaissance.

The Romanian equivalent of the Balmoral estate, adored by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II alike, Peles Castle was built by King Carol I of Romania, establishing a royal hunting preserve on the property.

Since 2005, the artists have recreated nine rooms of the castle in different locations, including London, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Antwerp, Basel, and Bremen, often reproducing the rooms in

PELES EMPIRE, CARMEN SYLVA, 2011

simple black and white, allowing the details of the room to mingle with the space it inhabits.

For their show at Sierra Metro, Peles Empire will continue their ongoing project, reproducing elements of the castle in the Edinburgh gallery.

Making sculptures based on the objects found in the castle, the artists will further obscure the reproduction process by recreating objects based on the images they have made of the castle in previous exhibitions.

Like most conceptual art, the work is subtly provocative, exploring the minute effects context has on an object – an object already untethered from the original. It will further explore the shift in quality that occurs in the transformation of objects through different filters. A seemingly endless process, it will be interesting to see what the exhibition realistically achieves – or if it would be better off remaining an idea. [Andrew Cattanach] GROUND FLOOR NORTH 22 WEST HARBOUR ROAD EDINBURGH, EH5 1PN UK

VA U LT A R T GL A S G OW A N E W O P P O R T U N I T Y F O R A R T I S TS TO S E L L T H E I R WO R K AN D FOR T H E P U B L IC A N D C O L L E C TO R S TO B UY C O N T E M P OR A R Y A R T DAV I D DA L E G A L LE RY & S T U D I O S G L AS G O W I N D E P E N D E N T S T U D I O G L AS G O W P R I N T S T U D I O I R O N B B R AT Z L APL AND MAR KE T GALLERY STR EE T LE V E L P H O TOWO R KS SWG3 THE BRIGGAIT T H E G L A S G OW SC HOO L OF A R T T HE M UTUAL VO LU M E

ARTWORK TOMMY STUART PHOTO: ROSS MCLEAN

9 — 11 SEPT 2011

58 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

FRI S AT SUN

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VAULT ART GL ASGOW IS PRODUCED BY UZ ARTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH PATRICIA FLEMING PROJECTS. SUPPORTED BY CREATIVE SCOTL AND THROUGH OWN ART. OWN ART ENCOUR AGES ADVENTUROUS BUYING. WITH SUPPORT FROM GL ASGOW LIFE.

W W W . VA U LTA R TG L A SG O W. C O M

W W W .T H E S K I N N Y. C O . U K

BOOKS

REVIEWS THE INCOMPLETE TIM KEY

TRETOWER TO CLYRO: ESSAYS

THE IMMACULATE HEART

A SUMMER OF DROWNING

BY KARL MILLER

BY ANDREW RAYMOND DRENNAN

BY JOHN BURNSIDE

BY TIM KEY

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Tim Key’s quirky, humorous, poems were very enjoyable.

In fact, I had to share them.

I shared them with my cat, Charlie.

Charlie bloody loved them!

He started bringing all the local cats round to hear me read them, And they all curled up attentively on my floor, Like a feline Woodstock.

I nearly stopped the readings When I realised my carpet had become a furry minefield.

I couldn’t though, Because those cats really held the room together.

Hey ho. 38 38 Nah I chucked them out, but poetic licence and all that. That was my attempt at a pastiche of a Tim Key poem. If you liked it at all, get the book, because it’s full of much, much better poems than this one. They have lots of footnotes like this too, which I was a bit ambivalent about, but that qualm aside, it’s a fantastic collection. [Ryan Agee]

This is a genial collection of essays by an esteemed critic, including a foreword by one of his friends, Andrew O’Hagan, and pieces on his friends too, including Seamus Heaney. The pieces are collected from the TLS in the main, with a couple from The Scottish Review of Books and Raritan, which is an indicator of their quality. Miller has a relaxed, confident tone, and his subject is often literature or places, or both together. These places are most often (though not exclusively) rural, and so there are mentions of authors like the Ettrick Shepherd himself, James Hogg, as well as, Robert Burns (of course), the aforementioned Seamus Heaney, and, in a piece called Yorkshire Lad, Ted Hughes. This set of essays hangs together very well, due to the author’s common preoccupations, although every individual essay has its own qualities. A common quality is clarity of expression, though this occasionally defaults into a confusing vagueness, where the author’s intent seems pure but remains unclear. This is rather rare here though, and this is in summation an enjoyable and relaxed collection, which somehow remains so even when the author looks at spikier subjects, such a Hugh Trevor Roper’s take on Scottish identity. [Nat Smith]

This book, his second published work, is something of a leap forward for Andrew Raymond Drennan, with his prose in particular significantly more confident than in his debut novel, Cancer Party. It’s the story of Maggie, a 14 year old girl whose best friend is a rather sweet 81 year old man called Bertrand. In Bertrand’s past is a story of lost love, which intrigues Maggie, who is fascinated by love, since she’s adopted and her family largely ignore her after the death of her favoured, and non-adopted sister. The book proceeds using a structure often used by Iain Banks – the story in the present is intercut with the story from the past, and both come to a simultaneous conclusion. As in Cancer Party, some of the scenes here seem designed to shock, but lose some impact because of this apparent design.

There is also a twist ending which fails badly, because it actually makes the story less engrossing. But until that point, it is compelling, more for the storytelling skill of the author than the actual story he tells. The ending is a let down, but there’s a lot to enjoy here along the way. [Keir Hind]

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John Burnside’s eighth novel is both an evolution of his previous work and an entirely self-contained fable. It is set in the Norwegian Arctic Circle; a place where extreme beauty and terror of nature hold the story of Liv and the summer of drowning. Living with her mother, the celebrated and supposedly reclusive painter Angelika Rossdal, twenty-eight year old Liv recalls the deaths and disappearances of four fellow islanders a decade before. Like Burnside’s previous novel, the celebrated Glister (2008), this is an exploration of murder, but it’s a world away from being a sensationalist genre piece. Again the author is working with the magical, but on this occasion it’s in a more heavily mythological way. The beguiling, yet deadly huldra is invoked as the killer; a Siren of Scandinavian folklore that the author has us speculate upon, without ever affirming either its culpability, or even its existence.

Like much of Burnside’s work, the book is about subjective realities, and he has achieved a new poeticism and measure in his prose here which helps bring this forth. It is a work of stunning beauty and control, by one of our very best, and should be regarded as such. [Ryan Rushton]

OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY CARGO. COVER PRICE £11.99

TECH

RELEASE DATE: 4 AUG. PUBLISHED BY CANONGATE. COVER PRICE £12.99

OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY QUERCUS. COVER PRICE £20

OUT NOW. PUBLISHED BY JONATHAN CAPE. COVER PRICE £16.99

DIGIFEST

STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC PUBLISHER: BIOWARE RELEASE DATE: AUTUMN 2011 CONSOLE(S): PC

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Put your digital proclivities to good use at the Festival WORDS: ALEX COLE ILLUSTRATION: BRETT DORRANS

BITE-SIZED TECH NUGGETS WITH ALEX COLE

THE FEED

YES, IT’S that sunny (ahem) time of year when everyone in Europe descends on Edinburgh, and everyone actually in Edinburgh runs for their lives and clamps a pillow down over their ears.

No, honest, we love Festivals season with all of our shrivelled hearts, most especially for all the

crazy new stuff it brings. For every dull comedian using their stand-up as therapy, there’s a bizarre sketch show done in a John Lewis bathroom. But what’s a fest-er to do when they want to bury themselves in their little digital screen and get psyched by something new?

Sadly, you do have to leave your flat for this one, but I promise it’ll be worth it. Taking over the under-used Our Dynamic Earth for the weekend of August 26 is the Turing Festival, a mass gathering of the biggest nerd names in the business at the end of the Festival season. No nerd-based hot topic in the digital arena will be left un-obsessed: social media, music, film, interaction techniques, and several hundred hashtags.

The theme this year is Creative Destruction, which is all about the highfalutin premise of taking society apart and rebuilding it in a new, digitally imbued form. Speakers from the infamous Pirate Bay, and the less-infamous but still awesome CERN, will go over how new technology is changing us, and how we change it. More entertaining, of course, will be the numerous displays and demos of crazy games, technologies and interaction techniques.

Left cold by all that high-minded talk? Let’s get your mind back firmly in the gutter then. One of the clever innovations to come out of Edinburgh Festivals is meetup website Festafriend.com, where users can invite complete strangers to go with them to a Fringe show, maybe to take advantage of a 2-for-1 deal, maybe to meet a new friend, and maybe just to see if anyone else is as interested in Ladyboys of Bangkok as you are. The site takes advantage of a whole bunch of strangers all in town at once, lost, confused, surrounded by buskers, and needing a friend. Aww. Best of luck this month – see all you digital types on the other side.

Star Wars is such a well-trodden landscape in games that more characters, sub-plots, locations and lightsaber colours have come out of video games than ever graced the movies. Sadly, like the movies, only a very few such games are worth your time. And coming soon, of course, is a new one.

One that really, really wants to be good.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is set years before the movies and harkens back to a time when Jedis were Jedis and a Wookie could be a Wookie. It’s a MMORPG, which comes with certain issues right off the top: there are quests, level grinding, massive inventories and the pain of dealing with other people just out to cause grief. There’s also repetitive gameplay, middling graphics, and an overall sense that your one, low-level guy just isn’t all that important in a universe with Yoda kicking around.

But Bioware, developer of some of the bestdialogued games in history, is looking to change a lot of that. Your character comes across a huge number of moral choices in each quest, and few of them are as clear as saving orphans or using them for target practice. Your character goes into many dungeons alone and can cut through them at your own pace, unbothered, and with a small team, you can have a fun time taking out some evil droids.

SW:TOR is good fun for a MMORPG and tries to solve a number of the frustrations of games like World of Warcraft. This isn’t BioWare’s first time in the Star Wars universe, so they know what they’re doing, but since this is a game for millions of players at once, it remains to be seen if that makes it better or worse.[Alex Cole]

WWW.TURINGFESTIVAL.COM

SPOTIFY FINALLY GETS SHARED WITH THE US AND CANADA. SADLY, THAT MEANS NO MORE GLOATING FOR US • APPLE GIVES UP ON DVDS FOR ITS NEW OS, FIGURES THE NEXT RELEASE WILL BE STRAIGHT-TO-BRAIN • A RAFT OF VIDEO GAME SEQUELS THIS YEAR PRETTY MUCH GIVES THE FINGER TO NEW INNOVATION • GOOGLE+ STORMS PAST 10M USERS IN JUST A FEW WEEKS. NEED AN INVITE? • ‘ANONYMOUS’ HACKERS WORLDWIDE ARE ARRESTED, POLICE ARE TOTALLY SURE THIS WILL STOP HACKING

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 59

PERFORM

LEITH VENUE OF THE MONTH:

First Stop of the Edinburgh Festival WORDS: SALLY SMITH

ONCE AGAIN, Edinburgh ‘the festival city’ transforms into the annual creative metropolis. Once again you will most likely find yourself perplexed, Fringe brochure in hand, wondering where to stick your pin in innumerable options. With so many alternatives it can be hard to know where to head for some true festival magic...

Leith may have the answer.

A new fringe venture centred in the community of Leith is “aiming to create a unique artistic identity that will promote Leith as a viable festival destination,” says founder John Diamond. Based in the impressive Out of the Blue, Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street, Leith on the Fringe (LOTF) is a new festival hub with two performance spaces, café and bar.

The venue is focusing on family friendly performances and this year’s inaugural programme sees a confident and dynamic schedule of theatre, dance, music, cabaret, film, talks, art and workshops. The performances incorporate both home grown and global talent, showcasing Edinburgh companies alongside performers from Germany, Italy and as far away as Hollywood.

A highlight of the programme is Angels Aerials’ interpretation of Peter Pan. Taking full advantage of the vast space of the stunning Drill Hall the company brings an acrobatic aerial adaptation of the classic J.M. Barrie tale. The sky will become performance space as children are encouraged to sit on the stage as the action unfolds above their heads.

In the spirit of involvement that permeates the LOTF philosophy the Angels Aerials team will be offering flying workshops for the whole family directly after their show.

Continuing the airborne theme San Francisco’s Paper Doll Militia present This Twisted Tale: theatre and circus collide in a modern, dark fairy-tale of

60 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

a little girl’s encounter with the devil, told through aerial acrobatics, animation and puppetry.

If you prefer to keep your feet on the ground then the Edinburgh based new writers’ company Tight Laced Theatre may tempt you with Winner Wears Crowns, an exploration of what we do for our children and what we expect them to do for us, viewed through the glitzy world of American pageantry.

A Mississippi mum’s bubble bursts when her daughter begins to discover that there is more to life than diamantés and fake smiles. Tight Laced also showcase the third instalment of their successful adventure series Feline Fables with From the Lily-Pad; a fantastical tale complete with kingdom, princess, frog and goblin!

Another Edinburgh company, and residents of The Drill Hall, Strange Town present After You’re Gone, a piece written by young people for young people, wherein a stash of letters tell the story of the early 20th century, as war and heartbreak transcend the years and show that being a teenager is never easy. Another of the strong theatre programme’s highlights is Man to Man; a solo show about a woman who steals her husband’s identity to keep his job during the Great Depression.

Music and dance also feature on the LOTF menu with vaudevillian comedy musicians The Roughhausers’ Comedy Sideshow featuring cheeky musical delights, stand-up comedy, magic, contortion and more.

Complete with an open mic weekend evening show and much more, LOTF may well become the festival destination its creators dream of, and with the local community at heart and a delightfully packed programme on offer, this could be a great spot for the festival punter to pop their pin.

LEITH ON THE FRINGE, 5-29 AUG, OUT OF THE BLUE DRILL HALL WWW.LEITHONTHEFRINGE.COM/

COMEDY

In Profile:

Dave Fulton Dave Fulton is the kind of American comic we love in Britain, with a filthy mouth and a belly full of fire Interview: Bernard O'Leary

I call everyone fucker.

It’s like the way you might say ‘hey mate’ DAVE FULTON

Competitions editor wanted

Are you a giver?

Instead of freaking out about the Fringe, Dave Fulton is concentrating on the short movie he’s just directed. His friends Omid Djalili and Michael Smiley star and Fulton wrote the script. “It’s about a robbery at a 24-hour petrol station,” he says. “I wanted to play against types so Michael is the guy behind the counter and Omid is robbing it. They’re amazing to work with. They just blazed it, man.”

Well, that’s all very well and good, but why isn’t he consumed by pre-Fringe panic like every other comedian in the world? “I’m looking forward to doing my show,” he says calmly, “but when you’ve been around as long as I have, you realise that a shitty Edinburgh is not going to end your career.”

Although he is courting the media in Edinburgh, and promises that anyone reviewing him will get a free hat. It will have HEY FUCKER emblazoned across it, but Fulton promises that’s not meant in a mean way. “I call everyone fucker. It’s like the way you might say ‘hey mate’.”

Fulton is the kind of American comic we love in Britain, with a filthy mouth and a belly full of fire.

Originally from Idaho, he’s a long-standing regular on the British club circuit and makes odd appearances on things like Never Mind The Buzzcocks,

although he’s ambivalent about the British panel show phenomenon. “I auditioned for Mock The Week a long, long time ago,” he says. “I went in and everybody had their scripts and pre-written jokes, and I’m like ‘Come on man, let’s work off the cuff here. It’s just an audition, let’s fuck around a little’. They didn’t pick me.”

It’s typical of a guy who’s not as desperate to climb the mountain of comedy success as other acts. He’s in no hurry to go on a big solo tour, instead preferring to ride his chopper around Britain to play at clubs. “There’s a real camaraderie when you work the clubs,” he says, “I don’t think a lot of comics who are quick to get on tour are experiencing that.”

This laidback attitude recently got him into trouble with Fosters, one of the biggest sponsors in British comedy. “I was playing a gig for them in Fulham and I asked for a bottle of Fosters to take on stage. They only had it in pints and I don’t drink pints at gigs, so I went on stage with a bottle of Heineken and said, ‘I’m drinking this because I don’t suck corporate cock’.”

It was a gag (Heineken owns Fosters) but the sponsors didn’t see the funny side and have

said they won’t use him again. “People said to me afterwards, ‘why didn’t you use some common sense?’ and I’m like, ‘When did common sense become a part of comedy?’ Lenny Bruce must have done a quick quarter-turn in his grave at that.

I tell people at my show that the only dick I’m going to suck is my own, and I can’t reach.”

Most of Fulton’s show will be stories about his life, and it’s been quite a life. Almost dying in an avalanche last year; a spell as a drug dealer; being charged on suspicion of terrorism; you start to see why he doesn’t stress about the little things.

“I’m an old-school comic, you know? I’m not going to come up there with animations or short films about my exploits, I just tell my stories and chat with the audience. I’m on really late after some great comedians, so hopefully some of the audience members will pass out and still be there for my show.”

And will he still be allowing the sale of Fosters at his gig?

“Actually, I like the beer. That’s something I guess. At least I didn’t say their beer was shit.”

Go to www.theskinny.co.uk/jobs for more information

W ww .t h e s k i n n y. c o . u k /j o b s

Dave Fulton “...Based On A True Story”, The Stand V, 3-28 Aug, £9(£8)

PHOTO: Euan Robertson

August 2011

THE SKINNY 61

COMPS

WIN a pair of tickets to the National Galleries of Scotland summer season

The major new photography exhibition by Hiroshi Sugimoto opens at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art on 4 August and showcases 26 large-scale works on show for the first time in Europe. Don’t miss the must-see photography show of the summer. For further information visit nationalgalleries.org.

To celebrate the opening The Skinny has teamed up with the National Galleries of Scotland to offer you the chance to win a pair of tickets to all four exhibitions – Elizabeth Blackadder, The Queen: Art & Image, Tony Cragg: Sculptures & Drawings, Hiroshi Sugimoto - showing at the Scottish National Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. To enter simply go to www.theskinny.co.uk/ competitions and answer the following question:-

"Here I lie in the cold embrace of the grass with the scent of the bog myrtle and the meadow-sweet in my nostrils" Virginia Woolf adapted by Darryl Pinckney

In which city was Hiroshi Sugimoto born?

A. London B. Tokyo C. New York

WIN VIP TICKETS TO ORLANDO PLUS CRYPTIC AND CAORUNN GIN’S PRIVATE PARTY

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lightning Fields, 168 © the artist

Enjoy a rare treat for all your senses at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival by winning two tickets to Cryptic's 'dazzling' Orlando on Thursday August 25th.

This prize also includes a free aftershow tasting and a bottle of Caorunn Gin.

Q. Which Caorunn Celtic botanical features in Orlando?

Please send your answer to www.theskinny. co.uk/competitions by 19 August.

Applicants need to be over the age of 18 years. http://www.caorunngin.com http://www.facebook.com/caorunngin http://www.cryptic.org.uk www.facebook.com/CrypticGlasgow

Terms & Conditions: Draw closes 19 Aug. There are five pairs of tickets to be won. The winners will be contacted by email by 23 Aug. National Galleries of Scotland is a charity registered in Scotland (No. SC003728).

Hiroshi Sugimoto is presented in partnership with the Edinburgh International Festival.

Win The Seven Dealy sins tickets

Whether you’re an opera-lover, a dance fan or just love a live performance, enter now for your chance to win 2 tickets to:

29 Aug – 3 Sep HMV Picturehouse Edinburgh O2 ABC Glasgow

Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins There’s a world of temptation out there…

To enter, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and answer the following question:

Scottish Opera and Company Chordelia team up to present this rarely performed classic. A sassy 1930s satire, it’s a remarkable fusion of opera, dance and theatre charting one woman’s journey across depression-era America, through seven sins and seven cities. Featuring a barbershop quartet, a man in the role of mother, and a full orchestration that mixes brass and banjo, there’s more than a hint of 1930s Berlin cabaret in this gutsy show.

62 THE SKINNY August 2011

Q: Which of the following is not one of the seven deadly sins?

A: Lust B: Envy C: Wearing socks with sandals scottishopera.org.uk chordelia.co.uk For terms and conditions check: www.theskinny.co.uk/terms

Win Urbanears/ Coloud Headphones

Whether you're lying on a beach this summer or simply having a luxurious run on a Lothian bus... this competiton is for you. The Skinny is offering 5 readers the chance to win some Urbanears and Coloud headphones. We have two pairs of the chic Tanto headphones and three pairs of the discreet and funky Coloud Colours, 'in ears' to give away. The reader will have them delivered direct to their door and will be able to choose from a variety of smashing colours such as tomato, pistachio and ocean. So if you want the funkiest dressed lugs this summer, just answer the following question: To enter, go to www.theskinny.co.uk/competitions and answer the following question:

How many colours are there on the Urbanears website to choose from?

For terms and conditions check: www.theskinny.co.uk/terms Prizes will not be sent outwith the UK The 5 winners will be allocated the Tanto or In Ears headphones at random and the colour of preference may not be available due to stocks.

Glasgow music Tue 02 Aug Prom Night Of The Living Dead Tron Theatre, 19:45–22:00, £10 (£6)

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

Chiara Berardelli Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

The talented songwriter and guitarist plays alongside a guest accordionist.

The Glasgow Slow Club Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Acoustic music night with live guests from the local scene, hosted by the inimitable Squirrel of This Silent Forest.

Wed 03 Aug Apollo Rocks! (Insomniac, Let’s Play God, Scarcingogen, Death Trap, Sixteen Fingers, A New Hope)

Nathaniel Rateliff (Michael Cassidy)

Fuck-Off Machete (Muscles of Joy)

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

The Denver folk-rock troubadour plays a solo set, sans his usual band.

The Datsuns (Culann, The Amorettes) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10

Retro rockin’ from the New Zealand four-piece.

Cairnhill Trading Estate (Honey, Davey Nolan) Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Gorgeous slice of Scottish contemporary indie, resplendent with emotive hooks a-plenty.

Fri 05 Aug Holiday Parade (Kyoto Drive) Classic Grand, 18:30–22:00, £7

Four-piece pop-meets-rock outfit from Georgia.

Apollo 23, 19:30–22:00, £5

Dillinger Escape Plan

Futureproof

Heavy metal meets delightful mathcore barrage from the New Jersey natives.

Full-on rock showcase, as the name suggests.

Tron Theatre, 19:30–22:00, £13

A struggling theatre-owner is forced to look for new ways to attract an audience, in a how-lowwill-he-go kind of tale. Preview showing.

Hairy Area (Paws, Lady North) Captain’s Rest, 19:30–23:00, £4

Members of We Were Promised Jetpacks, Lady North, Sebastian Dangerfield and Endor combine as the musical project Hairy Area.

Prom Night Of The Living Dead Tron Theatre, 19:45–22:00, £10 (£6)

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

The Distance (The Ocean Between Us, Paint The Sky, A World Defined) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Ambient and progressive metal from the Welsh crew.

Alright The Captain Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Infectiously jagged and inventive post-hardcore from the Nottingham bunch, DIY and proud.

Muso Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Anything goes fusion of live bands and clubber’s beats.

Thu 04 Aug A Wilhelm Scream, Shatterhand, Wolves At Heart, Yeah Detroit Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £9 adv.

What can only be described as a punk-rock rammy.

Andy McKee The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

American fingerstyle guitarist, playing ahead of his Edge Festival appearance in Edinburgh.

Vintage Trouble O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

Dirty-mouthed, hard rockin’ Los Angeles foursome.

The Raghu Dixit Project Oran Mor, 19:30–22:00, £16

Dynamic and collaborative contemporary Indian folk band from Bangalore.

Dam Mantle (Silk Cu, Lumpen, Errors) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–03:00, £4

Experimental electronic beats a’plenty, as Dam Mantle launches his new single.

Prom Night Of The Living Dead Tron Theatre, 19:45–22:00, £10 (£6)

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

Dave Dominey Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

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

The Garage, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Irrational Fever (Altered Sky, The Nudists, Here Lies The Secret) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £5

The metallic rockin’ Glasgow schoolboys launch their new EP.

KontroBand Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £7

Bona fide rock ‘n’ rollers from the outskirts of Glasgow.

Le Reno Amps (Chris Devotion and The Expectations) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Alternative indie from Glasgow, pleasingly genre-hopping but with definite countryesque tendencies.

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

Live acoustic blues from house band The Fortunate Sons, followed

by DJ Junior on deck duty.

The Imagineers (The Rudiments) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

The Glasgow four-piece exquisitely blend 50s rock ‘n’ roll, Scottish twang and cinematic flair.

Prom Night Of The Living Dead

Album launch for the blistering three-piece headered by Nashii Normaly, who sing-shouts over thumping drums, bass and guitars.

Prom Night Of The Living Dead Tron Theatre, 19:45–22:00, £10 (£6)

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

The Nudists (Dirty Boots, Huevo and The Giant) Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £6

The Glasgow noisemakers make a live return ahead of their forthcoming album release.

Brown Bear and The Bandits Slouch, 20:30–22:30, Free

Jovial blend of indie and Americana of the intentionally and humourously offensive variety.

Definitely Mightbe, Changing Man O2 ABC, 18:30–22:00, £8.50

Oasis and Paul Weller tribute acts, respectively.

THE JOHNJOHN TRUST ACOUSTIC SESSION CAPTAIN'S REST 19:00, £5

Damien Dempsey Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £16

Irish singer/songwriter currently working on album number six.

Anything goes fusion of live bands and clubber’s beats.

Thu 11 Aug Angelspit (Surgyn, Met’l Tek)

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £10

Cyberpunk-industrial band declaring war on all things that hold back freedom of expression.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8

Original and longtime member of Stiff Little Fingers, on guitarplaying duties and now touring as a solo artist.

Herculean

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Delightfully feel-good indie-rock from the Glasgow trio, God bless ‘em.

Sonic Templars (Killing Spree, Scott Logan)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Jason Webley (Kristina Cox)

The Caves Singers

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Accordian troubadour from Seattle, stomping and screaming as he goes.

Brel Sessions Brel, 21:00–00:00, Free

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

Tue 16 Aug

Slouch, 20:30–22:30, Free

Shonen Knife (Isosceles)

Jackie Treehorn (The Cosmic Dead)

Shonen Knife mark their 30th anniversary with a new album referencing monster jellyfish and rock ‘n’ roll cake. We salute them.

Glasgow-based rock ‘n’ rollers.

Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Progressive rock from the firey furnace of Livingston, as Jackie Treehorn tour their new EP.

Sat 13 Aug Beat Down Battles

13th Note, 13:00–16:00, £5

Live beatbox-style musical battle, featuring eight MCs, seven freestylers and a £100 prize.

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £10

WTF...?!

Stereo, 19:45–22:30, £6

Eclectic new night, offering a mix of bands that probably should never share the same stage.

Gus Stirrat Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Monthly jazz session with bassist Gus Stirrat and various live guests.

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

Brighton instrumentalists who like to keep their math-rock relatively sane. Praise be.

The Cosmic Dead Mono, 21:00–23:00, Free

Psych-rock explorations from the trippy Glasgow troupe.

The Glasgow Slow Club Acoustic music night with live guests from the local scene, hosted by the inimitable Squirrel of This Silent Forest.

Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Unhinged psychobilly masters from Detriot rock city.

Wed 17 Aug

Butterfly Strategy

H20 (Chief, Shields Up, First Step To Failure)

Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £11 adv.

Live acoustic acts, both local and far-flung.

Melodic hardcore gang all the way from NYC to assualt your ear-lugs.

Mon 08 Aug

Alex Lawrie

How To Dress Well

Live caberet fun and frolics.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £7

Brooklyn-based Tom Krell (aka How To Dress Well) tinkers with the lo-fi template, as is his way.

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

Classic Grand, 19:30–22:00, £10

Ashesh and Nekhvam

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £8

Nepalese blues rock duo, blending Eastern rhythms into the mix.

Nick Mercer (Phil Campbell, Danny Mahon) Slouch, 20:00–22:30, Free

The ex-Sergeant frontman goes it alone.

The Low Suns

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Darrell Muldoon (Vicki Paxton, Scott Beaton, Amanda William) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £6

A night of bruising punk-rock, headered by Six Pack.

Full-on rock showcase, as the name suggests.

The Last Of The Free (Mocker)

To Kill Achilles (Dreams & Empires, Definitions, Montesano Walkway)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Brel Sessions

Dead Boy Robotics (Any Color Black, Blank Canvas)

Devor, The Jury, The Sneaky Russians

Edinburgh duo incorporating laptops, guitars, vocal yelps and tribal drumming in their rather epic brand of new wave.

Handpicked showcase of the rock ‘n’ roll variety.

Struggle

The Twilight Sad and Take A Worm For A Walk Week DJs unleash their usual musical hurricane.

Jello Biafara and The Guantanamo School of Medicine O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16

Dead Kennedy’s founder and political agitator Jello Biafra arrives with his full-on live machine.

R. Stevie Moore (How To Swim, David Shrigley DJ) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £6

Pivo Pivo, 20:00–23:30, £5

Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Struggletown’s new monthly showcase, home to everything punk and post-hardcore. You know what to expect.

Fri 12 Aug River-side (Dazell, Sunflower Tuesdays) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8

Experimental and DIY-styled rock from the veteran Nashville muso.

Alternative rock foursome ala Arctic Monkeys et al.

HENRY CLUNEY (Eddie & The T-Bolts, Red Eyes)

Butterfly Fridays

CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00, £8

Jamie Bell Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Fingerstyle jazz guitarist plays his own arrangements of standards.

Lemuria (Cheap Girls, Pensioner) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Nostalgic indie sounds from the Buffalo band strung together with lovely boy-girl vocal harmonies.

Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Live acoustic blues from house band The Fortunate Sons, followed

by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Male Pattern Band

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Garage pop from the Glasgow locals.

Hollow Point, Exit Set, Pablo Eskimo, Coat Hooks Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Four of Glasgow’s up-and-coming alternative rockers share the stage.

CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00

Six Pack

The young Dunbarton singer/songwriter plays a solo acoustic set.

Soulfully cinematic tunes handcrafted in the band’s hand-made studio.

Brel, 21:00–00:00, Free

BEAR ARMS Apollo Rocks! (Inner Sight, Sunstone, Marshall’s Place, Silent Notes, The Fu King Junks, Soup Of The Day)

Lovely folk-rock from the female trio, full of rousing harmonies and powerful vocals.

Tue 09 Aug

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

Muso

Henry Cluney

Golden Grrrls (Palms)

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Sun 07 Aug

Tall Tales (The Honeymoon Period, The Belle Hops)

Tron Theatre, 14:00–16:00, £10 (£6)

Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Young singer/songwriter and guitarist with a unique storytelling style.

Michael Simons

Koffin Kats (Cowboy & The Corpse, Filthy Little Secret)

Deft mixing of genres of soul, blues and good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll.

Prom Night Of The Living Dead

Plastic Animals (Sneaky Pete, I’m Sick)

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

As part of their club world tour, the MOH crew host their first event in the Arches main arch (i.e. it’s set to be a biggie).

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

Sat 06 Aug

Sweet and summery three-cord pop-punk from the Norway lads.

Alex Wayt

The Arches, 21:00–03:00, £18.50 adv. (£23.50 door)

The Staves

The Swedish/Scottish indiepopsters formerly known as The Social Services.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Masters of Hardcore (Angerfist, Outblast, Accelarator, Day-Mar)

Eddie Spaghetti

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Sugar Louise (The Lie Detectors, The Snipes, The (Real) Stoichkov)

Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10

Wed 10 Aug

Kick To Kill (Vladimir, The Feuds, Psycho Candy)

Tron Theatre, 19:45–22:00, £10 (£6)

Proud Mary (Strange October, Holy Pistol Club)

Acoustic music night with live guests from the local scene, hosted by the inimitable Squirrel of This Silent Forest.

Edinburgh-based ambient punk rock sludge ensemble, so say they.

Fun horror musical reimagining, as part of Scottish Youth Theatre’s Festival 2011 Summer of Horror.

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £8

Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Alternative rock showcase with Glasgow scamps The Nudists at the helm.

Michael Simons

The lead vocalist of heavy rock ‘n’ roll outfit Supersuckers does his solo thing.

The Glasgow Slow Club

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Alternative psych-rock from the Glasgow crew.

Slouch, 20:30–22:30, Free

Digital W.I.N.C.H.

Bloc+, 22:00–01:00, Free

Sun 14 Aug Brothers Reid

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Two brothers from North-East Scotland, drawing on influences from folk, rock and bluegrass.

TRENCHES (Citizens, Fat Junior) CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00, £5

Butterfly Strategy

Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Live acoustic acts, both local and far-flung.

Apollo 23, 19:30–22:00, £5

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

Dundee hardcore metalheads, playing as part of the Gigs For A Cure charity.

Acoustic Tribute Night 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Acoustic battle-cum-singalongcum-piss-up, as Super Furry Animals are pitted against Supergrass in the top band stakes.

Ian McLagan (Pete Macleod) King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £15

The English keyboard instrumentalist and one-time member of The Small Faces.

Muso Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Anything goes fusion of live bands and clubber’s beats.

Cherri Fosphate (Death By Misadventure, Visions Of) Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Indie-rock racket from the energetic local trio.

The Corleones (The Celestians, Broken Indigo)

The Canadian-born singer/songwriter works her magic on guitar, vocals and auto-harp.

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Synthpop from Analog Angel, metal sounds from Condition Zero and genre-defying bleeps and beats from duo i!.

Live and Underground

Soundhaus, 20:30–02:30, £tbc

Greenmantle

Classic Grand, 19:00–22:00, £6

Hardstyle showcase of metal, rock, punk and electronic.

Sun 21 Aug Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

MakerhisRelate

Folk-meets-rock with this trio of longtimers, Billy Campbell, Jack Law and Ian Campbell.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

Dolly Parton

Alternative rock trio from Glasgow, mixing pop melodies with raw rock agression.

THE AMAZING SNAKEHEADS (Selective service, Raymond Meade) CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00

Meanwhile City (Big Z, Cuthbert Abernathy Quartet, Chasing Amy) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £6

Fife-born pop-punk collective fronted by the punchy vocals of Nikki Herd.

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

Live acoustic blues from house band The Fortunate Sons, followed

by DJ Junior on deck duty.

Second Hand Marching Band Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Hailed Scottish folkies blending rich harmonising vocals with snatches of ukulele, accordion, melodica and plenty more besides.

The Jigawotts, The Hermitage, The Nature Boys, Michelle Jean Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Handpicked showcase of the alternative indie variety.

Annie Stevenson (The Coffins, Contro Band) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

SECC, 20:00–22:30, From £50

The buxon blonde lady does her 9-to-5 thing.

Co-Exist (Throne O Diablo, Dies The Fire)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

Brutal grind and detah metal tunes from Glasgow’s finest noisemakers.

The Retrofrets (Serpent, Numb) Slouch, 21:00–01:00, Free

Glasgow five-piece currently experimenting with the garage blues template, plus support, cabaret acts and the Spangled DJs playing into the bedtime hours.

Butterfly Strategy

Butterfly & Pig, 21:00–12:00, Free

Live acoustic acts, both local and far-flung.

Mon 22 Aug The Avett Brothers

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £15

North Carolina brothers Scott and Seth Avett do their nu-folk thing, joined by double bass recruit Bob Crawford.

Michael Simons

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

Wild Nothing

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7.50

Indie-pop four-piece hailing from Virginia.

Alternative indie-rock four-piece from Glasgow.

Brel Sessions

The Mars Patrol

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

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Self-funded Scots-born, Londonbased rock/pop five-piece.

Catcher, The Clyde, Crabbit Rabbit Slouch, 20:30–22:30, Free

Indie rock ‘n’ roll from the local scene, headered by Catcher’s soaring vocals and crunchy guitars.

Brel, 21:00–00:00, Free

Tue 23 Aug Interpol (Everything Everything)

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

Introspective post-punk par excellence from the NYC-based bunch.

Sat 20 Aug

Taking Back Sunday (The Xcerts, I Am Giant)

Adam Stafford (PAWS, Miaoux Miaoux, Mondegreen)

The classic line-up reforms ahead of their new album. Rescheduled date.

Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £6

The Y’all Is Fantasy Island mainman launches his new solo album good and proper, with stellar support from some raggle-taggle locals.

Lemon Party (The Jaconellis) O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £6

Alternative indie-rock scamps hailing from Dunoon.

ADAM STEARNS (The Wellgreen, Mike Hastings) CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00, £4 O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £8

Dolly Parton SECC, 20:00–22:30, From £50

The buxon blonde lady does her 9-to-5 thing.

Chad VanGaalen

The 4-5s, New Noise Pollution, Mocker, Emerald Black, My Music Myth

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £7

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Canadian singer/songwriter plucks out melancholy songs on his trusty banjo.

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £4

Honey, Clench, Fallen on Faith, The Monty Hall Problem

Dumfries metalheads playing a diverse style of heavy and progressive tunes.

Alternative pop-meets-powerpop from the Elgin lads and lasses.

Analog Angel, Condition Zero, i!

Deep, dark and dirty techno over three rooms, plus a variety of live acts.

Turbyne

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Indie-rock four-piece made up of two Scotsmen, an Englishman and a Welshman.

Fri 19 Aug

Thu 18 Aug

Andrea Heins

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £10

Country and rock-tinged ear pleasers from the Texan trio.

Farewell Singapore

Mon 15 Aug Youthful Glasgow foursome making alternative electro-pop which they affectionately term “lollipop”.

Fuzzy indie-pop and punk sounds from Glasgow.

Aames

Handpicked showcase of the alternative indie variety.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Michael Angus

Mono, 21:00–23:00, Free

Solo set from the Foxface vocals and guitar man.

The Glasgow Slow Club Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Acoustic music night with live guests from the local scene, hosted by the inimitable Squirrel of This Silent Forest.

Wed 24 Aug Leftover Crack (Oi Polloi, Chewing On Tinfoil, Roughmute) Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

American crust punk anarchists formed from the ashes of Choking Victim.

The Blackout (Rolo Tomassi)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

The Welsh emo-rockers create their usual frenzy.

The National (Wye Oak)

O2 Academy, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

The Ohio indie-rockers, uncomplicated in their delivery but heart-wrenching by nature.

August 2011

THE SKINNY 63

G lasgow MUSIC Eagulls

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £5

Alternative punk scamps from Leeds.

Sic Alps

Captain’s Rest, 20:00–23:00, £5

San Franciscan garage rockers with an experimental approach to the genre.

Pettybone (Hunt/ Gather, No Island) Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

London-based all-female progressive hardcore outfit, currently breathing new life into the genre.

Muso

Buff Club, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Anything goes fusion of live bands and clubber’s beats.

Thu 25 Aug Glassjaw

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

E D I N B U R G H music Latecomers Lauries Bar, 20:15–23:00, Free

Acoustic pop loveliness from the Glasgow-based outfit.

PIN UP NIGHTS (Machines In Heaven, Oh You Dancer, Chair Chair Super Chair, The Twilight Sad DJs) Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, £4

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Trembling Bells (Muldoon’s Picnic) Stereo, 20:00–22:30, £8

Glasgow’s kings and queens of traditional folk return to play some songs from their forthcoming album of duets with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.

Bigg Hogg

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £3

Hot Water Music (Make Do and Mend, Stay Gones) Oran Mor, 18:30–22:00, £12.50

Handpicked punk rock showcase for your delectation.

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £18

Housse De Racket Stereo, 19:00–22:00, £5

Parisian duo who started out as session musicians for the likes of Air and Phoenix, now doing their own line in rather joyful futuristic pop.

Rebel 69 (Bismarck, Degas) Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

Glasgow female-fronted classic rockers return with their new live line-up.

A specially-curated night of live music, pictures and psychedelic jazz from Bigg Hogg and pals.

Skies Fell (PartWindPartWolf, Omnivore)

Face To Face (Scarlet Shift, Shatterhand)

Epic mix of deanceable beats and hook-laden vocals from the West of Scotland alternative popsters.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £15

Californian punk-rockers headered and founded by singer Trever Keith.

We Come In Pieces (Handcannon)

Bloc+, 21:00–23:30, Free

Genre-blending Irish trio, complete with massive guitars, some thunderous double kick, and everything from falsetto wails to death metal growling.

Fri 26 Aug

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Waiting For Go Slouch, 20:30–22:30, Free

The Clydebank crew currently making their own brand of swaggering indie noise.

Colours (Afrojack) The Arches, 23:00–04:00, £18.50

Colours welcome the official return of one of the new superstars of dance, a certain Mr Afrojack.

Amanda Fucking Palmer

Sun 28 Aug

The Dresden Dolls frontwoman does her solo fucking thing.

Expletive apparently necessary.

White Denim

The Arches, 19:00–22:00, £14

KOBI ONYAMI

CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00

Scottish Youth Jazz Orchestra

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Big band rendition of vintage rarities and dancing delights, featuring members of Orkestra del Sol, The Bevvy Sisters and Mr McFall’s Chamber.

Oran Mor, 19:00–22:00, £7

Crunchy guitar riffs and frantic energy from the hard-hitting chaps of punk-rock.

Estel (Headless Kross) 13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £tbc

The Busted man (for he will always be) does his solo thing. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Wed 03 Aug

AVAST(Verse Metrics, People Places Maps)

The Edge Festival: Newton Faulkner

Voodoo Rooms, 19:30–22:30, £3

The Delta Gritt (Easykings) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Bluesy Glenrothes four-piece, headered by Kerry Graham’s powerful soul vocals.

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns. Gig starts 2am.

Thu 04 Aug Easy Star All-Stars (Stanley Odd, Big Toes Hifi) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £14

Dance-worthy dub reworkings of the likes of Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Radiohead.

The Edge Festival: Eli Paperboy Reed The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Soulful and bequiffed Boston talent. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Negative Plane (Ghast, Burial, Barshasketh) Bannerman’s, 19:30–23:00, £8

Blistering black metal from the US-of-A.

Alright The Captain (Pensioner, Tokamak, Black International)

The Jazz Bar, 21:00–23:00, £tbc

Handpicked showcase of burgeoning local music-makers.

The Future Heroes The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Madcap guitarist Aki Remally and his funk four-piece. Gig starts 2am.

Fri 05 Aug Avital Raz (Little Egypt) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £5

Seductively dark melodic folk with eccentric lyrics from the onewoman band.

Damien Dempsey (Jo Mango) Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Irish singer/songwriter currently working on album number six.

The Edge Festival: Andy McKee Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Live acoustic blues from house band The Fortunate Sons, followed by DJ Junior on deck duty.

CAPTAIN'S REST 20:00

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Cult post-hardcore trio Hey Enemy invite along a mass-load of likely lads and lasses for a one-off live reworking of their catalogue.

Wing and a Prayer

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

Intricate, intelligent little pop songs from the Glasgow-formed chaps.

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

Slow Motion Replay, Cry and the Blocks Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Good smattering of indie and alternative rock.

DARREN HANLON CAPTAIN'S REST, 20:00

60s-electronica powered garage psych from the Texan rockers.

Punk noisemakers with no intention of going acoustic. Like, ever.

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £12.50

Brel Sessions Brel, 21:00–00:00, Free

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

64 THE SKINNY August 2011

Queen’s Hall, 23:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

The vibrant Glasgow folk collective mix traditional rootsy Scottish tunes with contemporary influences, all bagpipes and whistles.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Number Nine The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

Pop and funk four-piece, fronted by the charming Miss Nikki Kent.

Gig starts 2am.

The Staves Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7

Lovely folk-rock from the female trio, full of rousing harmonies and powerful vocals.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £20

Fusion of rocked-up bagpipes and genre-spanning covers from the kilted pipers.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Late, Live and Loud

My Tiny Robots (PET)

The glam art rockers host an evening of music, dancing and general good times.

Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Wed 10 Aug Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Local indie electronics. Rather nice, too.

Paul Mill’s Funk Band

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

Hard-driving drumming from the US native, currently also powering Scots rockers Hue & Cry. Gig starts 2am.

Sun 07 Aug Summerhall, 13:00–19:00, Free

Edge Festival: Oneohtrix Point Never Sneaky pete's, 19:00-22:00, £9

Experimental ambience from Brooklyn's Daniel Lopatin

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns. Gig starts 2am.

Thu 11 Aug The Edge Festival: Jackie Leven Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £7.50

Celtic-styled soul from the Kirkaldy-born talent. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Henry Cluney Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £10

Original and longtime member of Stiff Little Fingers, on guitarplaying duties and now touring as a solo artist.

The Edge Festival: Guillemots

Wolfstone (Manran)

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £15

Fiddler Duncan Chisolm leads a merry folk/rock band of electric and acoustic guitars, pipes and percussion.

Experimental pop troupe led by Fyfe Dangerfield. Part of Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Raghu Dixit Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £16

Dynamic and collaborative contemporary Indian folk band from Bangalore. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Peatbog Faeries Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £16 (£14)

High octane contemporary folk from the Isle of Skye crew.

Jed Potts and The Hillman Hunters Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

Intimate and electric blues from Potts and his merry band.

The Sunday Sinners The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by singer Fiona Lynch. Gig starts 2am.

Mon 08 Aug

The Edge Festival: Newton Faulkner

Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

Guitarist and songwriter of the ginger-dreadlocked variety. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

Top Hat

Treacherous Orchestra

Tchai-Ovna, 20:00–22:00, Free

The Black Pacific (Static Cult, The Paradox)

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £7

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £12

Pre-war influenced original blues from the Australian singer/ songwriter. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Mon 29 Aug

Primodial Underground (Though Forms, The Cosmic Dead, Reptilian Bastards)

Glasgow rockers formed in the early 80s and back touring the live circuit.

Bannerman’s, 19:00–03:00, £5

Heavy metal mini-festival, with DJs playing into the bedtime hours.

Technically-gifted acoustic singer and guitarist. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Folk and blues fingerstyle guitarist.

The Primevals (Reverse Cowgirls, The Brutes)

Bannerfest II

Incognito set from some of the Aberfeldy gang playing their own stuff, mixed with covers.

Monofly (Hoi Polloi, Tobias)

13th Note, 20:00–23:00, £5

Deft mixing of genres of soul, blues and good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Peterman Powderkeg Project

Michael Simons

Maggie May’s, 20:00–22:30, £5

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £10

Live acoustic acts, both local and far-flung.

Showcase of blues-influenced singer/songwriters.

The Glasgow-based indierockers launch their new EP.

The Edge Festival: Proud Mary (Pose Victorious)

Unpeeled

The Edge Festival: CW. Stoneking

King Tut’s, 20:00–23:00, £6

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Psych-pop from the raggle-taggle five-piece consisting of musicians, filmmakers and artists from Sheffield and Leeds.

The finest of record fairs, featuring acoustic music, DJ sets and stalls from the likes of Chemikal Underground, Fence Records, FOUND, LuckyMe and Song, By Toad.

AVAST! (Happy Particles, GRNR)

Hei Ensemble (Take A Worm For A Walk Week, Y’all Is Fantasy Island, United Fruit, Blue Sky Archives, Super Adventure Club, Twilight Sad)

Hey Sholay (Molly Wagger, Plastic Animals)

Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:30, £5

Infectiously jagged and inventive post-hardcore from the Nottingham bunch, DIY and proud.

Butterfly Fridays

Lightguides (We’re Only Afraid Of NYC, Pareto)

SNEAKY PETE'S 19:00, £6

Scottish Independent Record Fair

American fingerstyle guitarist.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Butterfly & Pig, 19:00–03:00, Free

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The electro-punk scamps play their Edinburgh farewell gig, their fearsome sampler most definitely in tow.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £8

Irish angular post-punk veterans and Mike Watt collaborators.

Yearly jazz showcase from the talented bunch of youngsters.

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

Eclectic Brooklyn collective merging everything from klezmer to punk.

Sat 27 Aug

Intended to recreate the ultimate Donegal night out, but in Glasgow. Featuring a selection of talent from both sides of the water.

Americana-tinged songwriting of the acoustic and lovely variety.

Loveboat Big Band

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

Roscoe Vacant and the Gantin’ Screichs

John Hinshelwood

Tue 09 Aug The Edge Festival: Charlie Simpson

Secret CDs (Jack and The, Miyagi, Caroline Gilmour, Rantum Skantum)

Donegal Rocks (Yuptae, The Wakes, Nickt Harte, Mundy)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Sat 06 Aug Dead On The Live Wire (Comptroller, Sister Bitch)

Long-running indie celebration, with monthly themes, live performances and guest DJs (which this month includes The Twilight Sad boys).

Post-hardcore messiness from the rebellious bunch who worship at the alter of big dirty riffs and set Kerrang’s pants on fire.

Glasgow-based alternative punk noisemakers headered by Roscoe Vacant.

Tue 02 Aug World/Inferno Friendship Society (Former Cellmates, The Stay Gones)

The Edge Festival: Ben Howard Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £8

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Guitarist and songwriter of the ginger-dreadlocked variety. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Oneohtrix Point Never Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £9

Alias and solo project of Brooklynbased synth tinkerer Daniel Lopatin.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Glamour & The Baybes The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Jazz rock powered by screaming frontman Angus Munro and drummer Jordie Gilmour. Gigs starts 2am.

Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £19 (£17)

The Mouse That Ate The Cat Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Dykeenies’ frontman Brian Henderson’s electronic side project.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Future Heroes The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Madcap guitarist Aki Remally and his funk four-piece. Gig starts 2am.

Fri 12 Aug The Edge Festival: Brigitte Aphrodite Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £7.50

Cockney-voiced comedy pop that’s actually rather loveable. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Seven Deadly Sins, Fishing For Seagulls, Little Love, Alex Foottit Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £3

Indie-rock fundraiser, with all profits going to children’s charity Radio Lollipop.

Eliza Carthy Band Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:00, £16 (£14)

Queen’s Hall, 22:30–01:00, £15 (£12)

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Federation Of The Disco Pimp The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

High-energy disco-pop from the Glasgow seven-piece. Gig starts 2am.

Sat 13 Aug Your First Mistake (Art of Privilege, Lost to the Landslide, Birth of Wolves, ElevenEleven)

Stompin’ blues from the Edinburgh band.

The Edge Festival: Shonen Knife Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £10

Shonen Knife mark their 30th anniversary with a new album referencing monster jellyfish and rock ‘n’ roll cake. We salute them.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Skerryvore (Jill Jackson) Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £16 (£14)

Blazing bagpipes, fiddle and accordians, lynchpinned on Alec Dalglish’s soaring vocals.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16 (£14)

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

The Edge Festival: Big Deal

Jazz rock powered by screaming frontman Angus Munro and drummer Jordie Gilmour. Gigs starts 2am.

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £7

Woozy folk from the female singing, writing and guitar-playing duo. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Heather Peace The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

The Lip Service star does her solo thing. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Bwani Junction Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Twinkling guitars, beats and a good line in swaggering from the Edinburgh four-piece.

Rusty Cage Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–03:00, £4

New regular night of hard noiserock and blues, with live bands dropping in for a set or two.

Secta Rouge (Jackie Treehorn, Vasquez) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Intense post-metal from the Edinburgh four-piece.

Eclectic Mud Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

A fine selection of vinyl geekery, played by keen record collectors.

Plus regular special quests.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Sun 14 Aug Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

Good old fashioned rock.

The Edge Festival: Admiral Fallow The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

Off-beat folkiness from the Glasgow collective. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Washed Out Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £8

Chillwave-styled programmed beats from Ernest Greene (aka Washed Out).

Dougie Maclean Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £21

Famed Scottish singer/songwriter and somewhat of a stalwart on the scene.

CRANACHAN Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

Classic rock covers.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Mon 15 Aug The Edge Festival: Example HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Straight-talking rap meets rock from the London scenester (aka Elliot Gleave). Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Melancholy and magical acoustic set from the American singer/ songwriter. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Shields Up (Chief) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

The five-piece troupe flying the flag for Edinburgh hardcore.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Future Heroes The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Madcap guitarist Aki Remally and his funk four-piece. Gig starts 2am.

Fri 19 Aug Eye Of The Duck Wee Red Bar, 19:00–22:00, Free

Song, by Toad (Randolph’s Leap, Amber Wilson, Matthew Healy)

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7

Rhythmic, and at times psychedelic, solo project for William Bennett (of Whitehouse).

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Wed 17 Aug Song, by Toad (The Pineapple Chunks, Mutch and Thomas, Dolfinz) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local music blogger Song, by Toad handpicks a selection of local and touring up-and-comers for your delectation.

The Edge Festival: Kristin Hersh Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Melancholy and magical acoustic set from the American singer/ songwriter. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Morcheeba The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £20

Local music blogger Song, by Toad handpicks a selection of local and touring up-and-comers for your delectation.

The welcome return of the Morcheeba fold, with Skye Edwards at the helm. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: The Cave Singers

Chad VanGaalen

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £10

Canadian singer/songwriter plucks out melancholy songs on his trusty banjo.

Country and rock-tinged ear pleasers from the Texan trio. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Brontide

Hair of the Dog Sundays (Three Long Words)

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Cut Hands

Das Contras The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

The Edge Festival: Kristin Hersh

DIY psychedelic Edinburgh gang.

The Poozies, Daimh

Breezy Latin-tinged funk and reggae five-piece.

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £10

Tue 16 Aug

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by singer Fiona Lynch. Gig starts 2am.

Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

Daft musical singalong with Miguel Mantovani, Archerio and Kengo-San.

Glamour & The Baybes

Trenches, Lords of Bastard, Loinstorm (We Ate Them Off the Floor)

Missing Cat

Siblings Kitty, Daisy and Lewis bring their kit bag of banjos, piano, ukulele, xylophone and what-not.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Heidi Talbot

The Sunday Sinners

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Cuban Brothers

Catchy choruses and plenty live energy from the alternative East Lothian sextet.

Straddling the line between Irish traditional and roots music, with her own inimitable lilting cadence.

Thu 18 Aug

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £10

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Studio 24, 18:00–22:00, £7 (£5)

The award-winning folkie, currently breathing new life into the genre.

Suitably thumping mix of heavy and psychedelic rock.

The Edge Festival: Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16 (£14)

Cracking double-bill of the cream of Scottish traditional talent.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Brighton instrumentalists who like to keep their math-rock relatively sane. Praise be.

Red Kites Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–23:30, £4

Alternative rock four-piece hailing from Guildford, all energetic and quirky in their approach.

Giant Monster Attack (Thulah Borah) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £4

Fuzzed-out indie-pop trio hailing from the ‘burgh.

Rachel Sermanni Queen’s Hall, 22:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

Young Carrbridge hopeful, telling darkly woven, contemplative folk tales one moment, then hammering out some up-tempo rant-a-longs the next.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Edge Festival: Filthy Dukes Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3

DJs-cum-live band, combining a mixing desk with a tonne of old synths, pedals, distortion units and a load of other geeky stuff. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns. Gig starts 2am.

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £7

Clog and The Quirks Studio 24, 19:00–22:30, £7

The North Berwick skunk-poppers launch their new single.

Jade And The Jacks (Combo Combo) Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:30, £5 (£4)

A mix of soul, blues and ska from the Edinburgh stage-filler of a nine-piece.

Hagana (Diddums) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Raw and eclectic alternative rockers, shoehorning a bit of grunge, metal and ska into the mix.

Barb Jungers sings Bob Dylan Queen’s Hall, 22:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

Oft surprising reimaginings of the master’s work.

The Chimney Boys (New Urban Frontier) Henry’s Cellar, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Dark folk and cabaret tunes from the Canterbury chaps, who formed in 2001 as part of a busking competition.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Soma Records Night (Slam, Silicone Soul, Harvey McKay) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Special Soma Records night as part of The Edge Festival, featuring head honchos Stuart MacMillan and Orde Meikle (aka Slam).

The Soul Foundation The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

Authentic motown and soul from Steve Braxton and his horny (as in brass horns) six-piece. Gig starts 2am.

Glasgow CLUBS Sat 20 Aug Bert Jansch

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £19 (£17)

The unrivalled grandaddy of folk guitar virtuosity, fresh from touring with Neil Young.

Discopolis (Yahweh, River of Slime)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Ambient disco-meets-house from the Edinburgh trio, fresh from their T in the Park airing.

Night Noise Team (Dancing Mice)

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

The genre-crossing Edinburgh quartet led with gusto by singer Sean Ormsby.

The Edge Festival: Conquering Animal Sound Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:00, £7

The Glasgow lo-fi folk duo who mix unusual song structures with a penchant for battered electronics: as carefree and charming as the DIY aesthetics behind it. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Sharon Corr

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £8

The female Corr that’s not Andrea, or Caroline. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Oxjam’s Wee Twee Eve (The Last Battle, Sebastian Dangerfield, Letters)

Pilrig St Paul’s Church, 19:00–23:00, £5 adv. (£7 door)

Scottish-themed fundraiser gig, with a trio of local lovelies playing in our favourite little BYOB church hall (i.e. we’re there with bells on).

Diascorium (Diamanthian) Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Wed 24 Aug

Fri 26 Aug

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by singer Fiona Lynch. Gig starts 2am.

Song, by Toad (Neil Pennycook, John Edgell)

Battlefield Band

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Local music blogger Song, by Toad handpicks a selection of local and touring up-and-comers for your delectation, headered by the howlin’ tones of the Meursault mainman.

The Sunday Sinners

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

Mon 22 Aug The Edge Festival: Luke Haines

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

English musician and author who has performed under many guises.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Wiz Khalifa

HMV Picture House, 19:30–22:00, £20

Pittsburgh-based rapper, known to his mammy as Cameron Jibril Thomaz. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Dick Gaughan

Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £16 (£14)

Impassioned interpretations of songs both modern and traditional, lynchpinned of Gaughan’s nasal growl.

Late, Live and Loud

Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Infectious brand of hip-hop, a combination of live band, feelgood songs and wide range of musical influences.

Sun 21 Aug Hair of the Dog Sundays (Jump Press: A)

Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

A unique brand of angry pop.

The Edge Festival: Hip Parade (Callum Beattie, Lost In Audio)

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £8

New kids on the Glasgow indie-pop scene, fresh from touring with Stereophonics. Part of Edge Festival 2011.

The Twilight Sad (RM Hubbert, Adam Stafford)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £10

The Twilight Sad boys play a special stripped-back acoustic session, taking their tunes right back to the sound of their inception.

Todd Gordon: The Tony Bennett Songbook

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16 (£14)

Jazz master Todd Gordon’s new show devoted to the classic songs of yer man Tony Bennett.

Hairy Area

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Members of We Were Promised Jetpacks, Lady North, Sebastian Dangerfield and Endor combine as the musical project Hairy Area.

Conscious Route, Basic Funk, Big Fat Panda, Nity Gritz, Combo Combo, Harry Giles, MC Battle Henry’s Cellar, 19:30–01:00, £4

Conscious Collective night featuring spoken word poetry, rap battles, roots music, ska, rock, funk and hip-hop fusion.

That do ye?

The Edge Festival: Sebadoh Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £15

Wonderfully chaotic trio brimming with lo-fi inventiveness, care-of Dinosaur Jr’s Lou Barlow, Eric Gaffney and Jason Loewenstein.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: The Vaccines HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

London-based indie rockers. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Burns Unit Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £17 (£15)

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

Tue 23 Aug Average White Band

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £tbc

Old-school Scottish funk and R’n’B outfit.

The Edge Festival: Luke Haines

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Ka-Tet The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Blues and funk five-piece, with added horns. Gig starts 2am.

Valery Ponomarev Quintet The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

Thu 25 Aug

English musician and author who has performed under many guises.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Amanda Fucking Palmer

The Edge Festival: The National

The Dresden Dolls frontwoman does her solo fucking thing. Expletive apparently necessary. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Corn Exchange, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

Contemporary indie-rock at its bloody finest: uncomplicated in its delivery but heart-wrenching by nature. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

THE EDGE FESTIVAL: MATTHEW & THE ATLAS SNEAKY PETE'S 19:00, £7

Ulrich Schnauss (Jonnie Common, Miaoux Miaoux)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £10

Cinematic shoegaze and subtle krautrock imaginings from the Keil-born producer.

The Edge Festival: Gomez

HMV Picture House, 19:30–22:00, £17

Deft mix of rock, blues and electronica honed over some 15 years.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

The Edge Festival: Warpaint

Queen’s Hall, 20:00–22:30, £19

All-girl Los Angeles foursome, all softly-softy vocals, erratic guitar and atmospheric melodies.

Or, in their own words, the sound of “elegiac tribal fairies in a trash can”. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Click Clack Club

The Forest Café, 21:00–23:30, £donations

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £14

Thin Lizzy tribute act.

Seneka, The John Knox Sex Club Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

Double bill of greatness. John Knox Sex Club will rock the place.

Salsa Celtica Queen’s Hall, 22:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

That famed synthesis of Scottish and Irish traditional music with salsa-tinged Latin American.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £20

The Liverpudlian rockers are back on the live circuit after their 2010 reunion. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Capitals Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Chans Original folk-rock, served up with a good dose of high energy.

Shooglenifty Queen’s Hall, 22:00–01:00, £16 (£14)

Uptempo mix of traditional talent and funky phonics, melding heritage and hedonism into one unbreakable whole.

The Edge Festival: Jack Savoretti Cabaret Voltaire, 22:00–03:00, £12

The Italian-English singer/songwriter on vocals and guitar. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Hidden Orchestra The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

The Banana Sessions The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

Experimental pop troupe, singing of the finer things in life.

Valery Ponomarev Quintet The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

Sun 28 Aug Retreat! IV (Broken Records, Jesus H Foxx, The Scottish Enlightenment, Meursault, eagleowl, ballboy, FOUND) Pilrig St Paul’s Church, 14:30–23:00, £7 (£12 weekend)

DIY micro-festival and something of a riotous A.G.M. for the capital’s independent pop scene, Retreat! returns with a few new names, and a good quotient of old faves.

The Edge Festival: Mona

Ballbreaker/Team-Up

Subculture

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£10 after 12)

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free before 12

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by a rota of rotating guests.

Killer Kitsch Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Y’Uptae The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Weekly student night with Andy Wilson.

Wed 03 Aug Milk (The Mouse That Ate The Cat) Flat 0/1, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Brand new music-cum-club night with handpicked acts from Instinctive Racoon Records.

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

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R.

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

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub. The stuff dreams are made of, obvs.

Subversion Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Wednesdays @ Flat 0/1 Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

80s synth and funk with your hosts Dom and Darrell.

Take It Sleazy Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £1 (£3 after 12)

An unabashed mix of 80s pop, electro and nu-disco. They will play Phil Collins.

Thu 04 Aug Walk ‘n’ Skank Club 520, 11:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

The Mungo’s Hi Fi crew in their official Glasgow residency, bringing you the very best in bass, natch.

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £9

Shake It Up

Hard-rocking Nashville collective.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Indie, rock and pop with resident DJ Jopez.

Tango In The Attic

Feel My Bicep

Sneaky Pete’s, 19:00–22:30, £5

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

The Edge Festival: Willy Mason

The Edinburgh based outfit do their cinematic jazz-noir thing with nuanced perfection. Gig starts 2am.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

CRANACHAN

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Cabaret Voltaire, 19:00–22:00, £10

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Classic rock covers.

The American troubadour sings his weighty, world-weary tales. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Tommy Reilly Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £9

The youthful acoustic pop singer/ songwriter and piano tinkerer.

The Edge Festival: Jimmy Eat World Corn Exchange, 19:30–22:00, £16.50

Punk rock a’la 1999? Yes, please.

Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Withered Hand Queen’s Hall, 19:30–22:00, £10

Withered Hand, aka Dan Willson, and his dark fairytales, lynchpinned on faltering, littleboy-lost vocals and hesitating guitar strings.

WED 24 AUG

THE EDGE FESTIVAL: STANLEY ODD SNEAKY PETE'S 19:00, £5

Late, Live and Loud Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

The Future Heroes

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Madcap guitarist Aki Remally and his funk four-piece. Gig starts 2am.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, £5

Tue 02 Aug I Am

Perfect summery pop from the happy-go-lucky Glenrothes bunch.

Late, Live and Loud

Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Black Rose

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Nobles Bar, 21:30–01:00, Free

Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

The Sorrento guitar duo of Philip Thorne and Selina Madeley, mixing Spanish and Latin American tunes.

SNEAKY PETE'S 19:00, £5

Late, Live and Loud

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Usher Hall, 20:00–22:00, £10 (£8)

The Edge Festival: Cast

Bons Balls

Classic rock covers.

Post their acoustic show, The Twilight Sad boys take over the decks with their regular Glasgow night, joined by pals from Take A Worm For A Walk Week.

THE EDGE FESTIVAL: CAPITALS (Homework, Plum)

Wishing Well

CRANACHAN

Electric Circus, 22:30–05:00, £5 (free with ticket stub)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Local music blogger Song, by Toad handpicks a selection of local and touring up-and-comers for your delectation.

Edinburgh-based musicians Angus Carbarns and Keir MacCulloch combine sounds to rather lovely effect.

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

Digital W.I.N.C.H.

Song, by Toad (Brown Brogues, Ghost Outfit, Rollor)

The Scottish/Canadian supergroup and their kit-bag of glorious lyrical gems.

Experimental music club, this month featuring Orange Claw Hammer exploring the music of departed genius Captain Beefheart.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

Showcase night from Great Junction Music Studios.

Jazz rock powered by screaming frontman Angus Munro and drummer Jordie Gilmour. Gigs starts 2am.

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £5 (£3)

Kentucky alternative rockers. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Henry’s Cellar, 19:00–22:00, £4

AC/DC tribute act.

Late, Live and Loud

The Ordinary Allstars

The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £12

Flags Of Fire, Ames JC, The Rules, Diego

Acoustic rock troupe from Australia.

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Diverse selection of talent from this year’s Fringe, with different acts each night encompassing cabaret, comedy and music.

The Edge Festival: Cage The Elephant

Celtic pioneers playing their traditional-tinged tunes on a fusion of ancient and modern instruments.

Glamour & The Baybes

Brutal death metallers hailing from Leeds.

Electric Circus, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £5

Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16 (£14)

Recuerdos Latin Memories

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

Sat 27 Aug Retreat! IV (Broken Records, Jesus H Foxx, The Scottish Enlightenment, Meursault, eagleowl, ballboy, FOUND) Pilrig St Paul’s Church, 14:30–23:00, £7 (£12 weekend)

DIY micro-festival and something of a riotous A.G.M. for the capital’s independent pop scene, Retreat! returns with a few new names, and a good quotient of old faves.

Mary Coughlan Queen’s Hall, 19:00–22:00, £16 (£14)

Irish music royalty, with personal influences running like blood through her songwriting.

The Complete Stone Roses The Liquid Room, 19:00–22:00, £15

The Stone Roses tribute act.

THE EDGE FESTIVAL: MACHINE ROOM SNEAKY PETE'S 19:00, £5

The Edge Festival: Panic At The Disco HMV Picture House, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

American alternative rock duo made up of dapper chaps Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith. Part of The Edge Festival 2011.

Bad Name Citrus Club, 19:30–22:00, £6

Bon Jovi tribute act.

Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

The Sunday Sinners The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Tamla motown funk and soul, fronted by singer Fiona Lynch. Gig starts 2am.

Greatest Hits Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

Misbehavin’ (Dolly Daydream. Drucifer) Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Monthly mish-mash of electro, dance and dirty pop.

Rubbermensch

Crash Shed, 22:30–03:00, £6

Andy Robertson plays a mix of loveable pop, dance and hip-hop.

Damnation Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

Durty Boogie (The Boothill Stompers) Bloc+, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dirty rock ‘n’ roll with guitars, blues rhythms and lots of dancing.

Fridays @ Flat 0/1 Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey provides a soundtrack of funk, motown and northern soul.

Mobile Disco Fridays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with your regular hosts Disco Dave et al.

Old Skool Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Propaganda O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated indie night.

Riot Radio Indie rock ‘n’ roll, past and present.

Superfly Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

Two floors of punk-rock, reggae and classic disco, with local scallywag David Barbarossa.

Hair of the Dog Sundays (Rachel Morrison) Red Dog Music, 15:00–16:00, Free

The singer/songwriter serenades with some lovely jubbly tunes.

White Denim (Royal Bangs) Electric Circus, 19:00–22:00, £11

Crunchy guitar riffs and frantic energy from the hard-hitting chaps of punk-rock.

Jazz Bar Big Band The Jazz Bar, 20:00–22:00, £tbc

Four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes and four rhythm. That do you?

Glamour & The Baybes The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Jazz rock powered by screaming frontman Angus Munro and drummer Jordie Gilmour. Gigs starts 2am.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

Fri 05 Aug Technique Mono, 20:00–01:00, Free

Gavin from Camera Obscura mans the Mono decks for the night.

Rubadub Sub Club, 23:00-03:00, £10

Legendary Chicago duo Virgo, help Rubadub celebrate it's 19th birthday

Friday @ Bookclub Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Classic and underground disco, plus dusted-down old soul with Solar Disco’s Kev Stevens.

Squelch Vs Juice Soundhaus, 22:00–03:00, £tbc

Electronic meets tech house, as the two clubs nights join forces for a one-off special.

Sun 07 Aug Quids In Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

Renegade Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Anything goes punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet, plus an all-new hip-hop bar on the side.

Shed Sundays Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

The Shed’s regular weekendextender.

Suck My Deck Chart, hip-hop and dirty electrohouse over three rooms, with Brian McMaster at the helm.

Mon 08 Aug

Sat 06 Aug

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Burn Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Voodoo

Tue 09 Aug

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

I Am

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s. Includes a new DJ workshop for kids to learn how to spin the decks. Wickity wack, etc.

Radar Station Mono, 20:00–01:00, Free

Spicy Colin (of Gummy Stumps) supplies the evening soundtrack.

Saturday @ Bookclub Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Funk, soul and hip-hop with everyone’s favourite floral-shirted vinylist, Andy Taylor.

Deathkill 4000 (Kaskrute) Bloc+, 22:00–03:00, Free

Industro-rock noise party, with a host of live guests and some rather inventive DJ-ing.

Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free before 12

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by a rota of rotating guests.

Killer Kitsch Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Y’Uptae The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Weekly student night with Andy Wilson.

Danse Macabre (Cyber Sleep Walker) Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, £tbc

The regulars and guest Cyber Sleep Walker unite those two happiest of bedfellows, goth rock and, er, classic disco.

Absolution

Wed 10 Aug

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Gaga Wednesdays

Cathouse Saturdays

Sub Thursdays

Cross-genre danceathon with residents Noj and Mark. They will play The Fall.

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

Rumble Thursdays

Mon 29 Aug

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

David Barbarossa’s Thing

The famed trumpeter and his harddriving band, something of a Jazz Bar festival fave.

Themed student night, complete with weekly twists and a bouncybloody-castle. Amen.

Pandemic

Alibi

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Funk, soul, rock and soul served up

by Duncan Superfly and George E.

Chart, disco and indie.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

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

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

The Jazz Bar, 23:45–01:30, £8

Valery Ponomarev Quintet

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic (and some likely special guests).

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R.

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

I Heart The Garage More Than Yer Maw!

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub. The stuff dreams are made of, obvs.

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Subversion

Shed Saturdays

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Classic Garage student fun night over all rooms.

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £7

Pop classics and a good dose of cheese.

Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Wednesdays @ Flat 0/1 Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Freak-Beats Flying Duck, 23:00–03:00, £5

80s synth and funk with your hosts Dom and Darrell.

Love Music

Walk ‘n’ Skank

Mod, psych, ska and soul all played on original 45’s by Jamo, Paul Molloy and Gareth McCallum.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons.

Nu Skool Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Power Tools Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

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

Thu 11 Aug Club 520, 11:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

The Mungo’s Hi Fi crew in their official Glasgow residency, bringing you the very best in bass, natch.

Shake It Up Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free

Indie, rock and pop with resident DJ Jopez.

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

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

August 2011

THE SKINNY 65

GLASGOW CLUBS GREATEST HITS

DIRTY BEAUTIFUL SCIENCE

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

BLACKFRIARS BASEMENT, 23:00–03:00, £3

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

RUMBLE THURSDAYS

The residents host a maximal bass onslaught with guest DJs, Edinburgh’s Two Dead Crew. Expect the usual fine selection of dubstep, doof-doof techno and electro.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

FRIDAYS @ FLAT 0/1

RUBBERMENSCH O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Chart, disco and indie.

Themed student night, complete with weekly twists and a bouncybloody-castle. Amen.

SKINT/VENGEANCE CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

SUB THURSDAYS SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

TEENAGE LUST NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £2

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Duncan Harvey provides a soundtrack of funk, motown and northern soul.

MEN AND MACHINES STEREO, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Men and Machines call time on their Glasgow adventure with one last blow out, with residents Ally and Ewan taking to the decks all night long.

MOBILE DISCO FRIDAYS

SAT 13 AUG

NU SKOOL

SUMMER SHUFFLE SPECIAL

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

THE COURTYARD, 14:00–00:00, £5 DONATION

Ten DJs play over a whopper of a ten-hour set, with all funds going to Somalia.

VOODOO: ZOMBIE SCHOOL DISCO CATHOUSE, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 MEMBERS)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s. Includes a new DJ workshop for kids to learn how to spin the decks. Wickity wack, etc.

SATURDAY @ BOOKCLUB HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Funk, soul and hip-hop with everyone’s favourite floral-shirted vinylist, Andy Taylor.

BACK TAE MINE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with your regular hosts Disco Dave et al.

House-party styled night, with a group of rotating DJs alongside regular guests DJs. Plus free toast for all.

FRI 12 AUG

OLD SKOOL

ARMADA MUSIC

FRIDAY @ BOOKCLUB

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

A mutant disco of 80s indie, American punk and wedding standards.

HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Classic and underground disco, plus dusted-down old soul with Solar Disco’s Kev Stevens.

COMMON PEOPLE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£3£5 AFTER 11)

90s soundclash, plus a free preclub bingo session in the kitchen bar (9pm).

BALLBREAKER/TEAM-UP CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

CRASH SHED, 22:30–03:00, £6

Andy Robertson plays a mix of loveable pop, dance and hip-hop.

DAMNATION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

PRIMITIVE PAINTERS FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Monthly soundclash playing anything good from twee-pop to acid rave. In the kitchen bar.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

SOUNDHAUS, 22:00–03:00, £TBC

Armada presents a night dedicated to all things trance.

ABSOLUTION CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

POWER TOOLS

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

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

SUBCULTURE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£10 AFTER 12)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic (and some likely special guests).

THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

WRONG ISLAND

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics.

SUN 14 AUG QUIDS IN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

BURN BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

80s synth and funk with your hosts Dom and Darrell.

TUE 16 AUG

THU 18 AUG

I AM SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE BEFORE 12

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by a rota of rotating guests.

KILLER KITSCH BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Y’UPTAE THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Weekly student night with Andy Wilson.

DAVID BARBAROSS’A WILD COMBINATION NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

FEEL MY BICEP

DAMNATION

SHED SATURDAYS Pop classics and a good dose of cheese.

MON 15 AUG

LOVE MUSIC

ALIBI

ABSOLUTION

GREATEST HITS

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Chart, disco and indie.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

SKINT/VENGEANCE CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Emo, punk and death metal with the residents.

SUB THURSDAYS SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

SUBVERSION

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 AFTER 12)

DURTY BOOTY

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R.

KINO FIST

BACK TAE MINE

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

The Shed’s regular weekendextender.

Indie rock ‘n’ roll, past and present.

Funk, soul and hip-hop with everyone’s favourite floral-shirted vinylist, Andy Taylor.

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

GAGA WEDNESDAYS

THE ARCHES, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

House-party styled night, with a group of rotating DJs alongside regular guests DJs. Plus free toast for all.

SHED SUNDAYS

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub. The stuff dreams are made of, obvs.

66 THE SKINNY AUGUST 2011

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £6

Andy Robertson plays a mix of loveable pop, dance and hip-hop.

Themed student night, complete with weekly twists and a bouncybloody-castle. Amen.

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

CRASH

Indie, rock and pop with resident DJ Jopez.

Brand new music-cum-club night, with handpicked acts from Instinctive Racoon Records.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Anything goes punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet, plus an all-new hip-hop bar on the side.

Chart, hip-hop and dirty electrohouse over three rooms, with Brian McMaster at the helm.

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons.

SHAKE IT UP

RUMBLE THURSDAYS

RIOT RADIO

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

SATURDAY @ BOOKCLUB

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

FRIDAYS @ FLAT 0/1

WED 17 AUG

OCTOPUSSY

Genre-spanning mix of 60s psych, new wave and Krautrock with residents Charlotte and Rafla.

BALLBREAKER/TEAM-UP

MOBILE DISCO FRIDAYS

SUCK MY DECK

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

CLUB 520, 11:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

The Mungo’s Hi Fi crew in their official Glasgow residency, bringing you the very best in bass, natch.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £7

WALK ‘N’ SKANK

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s. Includes a new DJ workshop for kids to learn how to spin the decks. Wickity wack, etc.

RUBBERMENSCH

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

CATHOUSE, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 MEMBERS)

Classic and underground disco, plus dusted-down old soul with Solar Disco’s Kev Stevens.

FLAT 0/1, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

HILLHEAD BOOKCLUB, 21:00–00:00, FREE

Duncan Harvey provides a soundtrack of funk, motown and northern soul.

MILK

SHED, 23:00–03:00, £2

SAT 20 AUG VOODOO

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

RENEGADE

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

FRI 19 AUG FRIDAY @ BOOKCLUB

Kilmarnock’s own disco legend digs deep into his massive record collection, playing a selection of unknown gems.

I HEART THE GARAGE MORE THAN YER MAW! Classic Garage student fun night over all rooms.

FLAT 0/1, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Student-orientated indie night.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

WEDNESDAYS @ FLAT 0/1

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Resident DJ Otis plays hip-hop, breakbeats and funky house.

THE GARAGE, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with your regular hosts Disco Dave et al.

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £5

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

I HEART THE GARAGE MORE THAN YER MAW! THE GARAGE, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

OLD SKOOL

Classic Garage student fun night over all rooms.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

SHED SATURDAYS

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated indie night.

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £7

Pop classics and a good dose of cheese.

LOVE MUSIC O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

RIOT RADIO

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 (£3) AFTER 12)

MENERGY (SLABS OF THE TABERNACLE)

Indie rock ‘n’ roll, past and present.

UPSIDE DOWN NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 11.30)

Good music played by bad peope (so say they), with Rafla in the upstairs club.

STEREO, 23:00–03:00, £6

Italo, hi-NRG and live drag dance party, hosted by Lady Munter and guests Slabs of the Tabernacle.

NU SKOOL BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

EDINBURGH CLUBS Oh My Days (French Fries) La Cheetah, 23:00–03:00, £7

With his own residency at the age of 14, and his first release as 16, French Fries is one jammy bugger.

Power Tools Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

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

Subculture (Dixon) Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£10 after 12)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic, and Dixon on special-guest duty.

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

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Bottle Rocket Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

Indie dancing club, playing anything danceable.

Sun 21 Aug Quids In Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

Renegade Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Glassjaw/Flogging Molly After-Party Cathouse, 23:00–01:00, £3 (£2)

DJ Billy rocks the tunes, hosting the Glassjaw and Flogging Molly official after-parties. Free entry with ticket stub.

Feel My Bicep

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £5 adv. (£8 door)

Greatest Hits

Shed Saturdays

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £3

Euan Neilson plays the best of Buff.

Rubbermensch O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Chart, disco and indie.

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

Themed student night, complete with weekly twists and a bouncybloody-castle. Amen.

Sub Thursdays Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Weekly party with eye-popping visuals and rotating DJs.

Fri 26 Aug Friday @ Bookclub Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Classic and underground disco, plus dusted-down old soul with Solar Disco’s Kev Stevens.

Soundhaus, 21:00–03:00, £13

Suck My Deck

Rock, metal and indie with the residents.

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

Chart, hip-hop and dirty electrohouse over three rooms, with Brian McMaster at the helm.

Crash

Mon 22 Aug

Damnation

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

Tue 23 Aug I Am Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free before 12

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £6

Andy Robertson plays a mix of loveable pop, dance and hip-hop.

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Aternative rock, metal and punk.

Fridays @ Flat 0/1 Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Duncan Harvey provides a soundtrack of funk, motown and northern soul.

Mobile Disco Fridays The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, indie and hip-hop with your regular hosts Disco Dave et al.

Old Skool Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Connoisseur’s mix of vintage jazz, funk and soul.

Shed, 22:30–03:00, £7

Pop classics and a good dose of cheese.

Nu Skool

Bangers & Mash

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £6

Nick Peacock spins a fine selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Power Tools Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

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

Subculture Sub Club, 23:00–03:00, Free (£10 after 12)

Long-running house night with Harri & Domenic (and some likely special guests).

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

Rock, indie and golden surf classics.

Hot Club Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

Tearin’ it up with 60s psych-outs and modern sleaze, provided by Rafla and Andy (of The Phantom Band).

Sun 28 Aug Casino Royale Classic Grand, 21:00–02:00, £10

Fun night dedicated to all things Bond. Fancy dress encouraged.

Slide It In (Nicola Walker) Cathouse, 23:00–01:00, £2 (£1)

Cult rock hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Quids In

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Riot Radio

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £1

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

Electro, funk and disco soundtrack, plus a chance to win the door fees.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Black Tent

Renegade

Wed 24 Aug

Indie, electro and anything inbetween with Pauly (My Latest Novel), and Simin and Steev (Errors).

Weekly student night with Andy Wilson.

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

Chart and classics with yer man Andy R.

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

Student fun night, with a bouncy castle and hot tub. The stuff dreams are made of, obvs.

Subversion Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£4 after 12)

Alternative pop from the 80s and 90s, with a bit of industrial dance and classic rock thrown in.

Wednesdays @ Flat 0/1 Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

80s synth and funk with your hosts Dom and Darrell.

Thu 25 Aug Walk ‘n’ Skank Club 520, 11:00–03:00, £4 (£3)

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, 23:30–03:00, Free (£3 after 11.30)

Sat 27 Aug Voodoo Cathouse, 16:00–21:00, £6 (£3 members)

Rock, metal and indie night for the under 18s. Includes a new DJ workshop for kids to learn how to spin the decks. Wickity wack, etc.

Saturday @ Bookclub Hillhead Bookclub, 21:00–00:00, Free

Funk, soul and hip-hop with everyone’s favourite floral-shirted vinylist, Andy Taylor.

Shed Sundays Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

The Shed’s regular weekendextender.

Suck My Deck The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Chart, hip-hop and dirty electrohouse over three rooms, with Brian McMaster at the helm.

Trash & Burn Classic Grand, 23:00–03:00, £4

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£4)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

JungleDub Bongo Club, 23:00–03:00, Free

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs across the Scottish scene.

ELECTROSEX (Tony Keo, Phantom) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £5 (£4)

New Wednesday nighter of electro and funky house, with masked-up DJ hosts. In Speakeasy.

Slap Bang Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Genre-spanning midweeker with the residents playing a musical mishmash, alongside rotating guests. In the Speakeasy.

Witness Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

Thu 04 Aug

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Classic Grand, 22:30–03:00, £5

Sun 07 Aug Underground Sunday The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

The Telefunken crew welcome Puerto Rican-bred, and Toronto-based, DJ Sneak into the fold for some discofiltered house beats.

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

This Is Music

The Sunday Club

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, £3 (members free)

Indie and electro favourite from the Sick Note DJs.

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Two rooms of chart, cheese and all the indie-pop requests you can think of.

White Mink (The Correspondents, The Twilight Players, DJ Nick Hollywood)

Coalition

Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Killer Kitsch (Grum)

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Sat 06 Aug

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

A welcome Killer Kitsch return for funk-influenced beast of a guest, Grum.

Say It Loud Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, Free

The usual mix of disco and soul, with Decks FX and OSX.

Octopussy HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

The Cab’s flagship indie and electro favourite.

White Mink (The Correspondents, The Twilight Players, DJ Nick Hollywood) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Fri 05 Aug Misfits The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems.

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Anything-goes indie and alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Mad Caravan: Festival Special (Matei, Waapa, Astroboy, Old Town Sessions) Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, £6

World music featuring Gypsy, Balkan, ska and reggae tunes. Plus the obligatory belly dancers.

The Funky Doodle Do

Bass Syndicate (The Plump DJs)

Chart, dance and electro fare.

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Funk and soul classics plus a dose of 60s R’n’B, with DJ Red6 joined by the Players Association DJs.

Bump The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes with residents Master Caird and Johnny Junk-House.

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s classics.

Musika: Fringe Opening Party (Sasha, Guy Gerber) The Liquid Room, 22:00–05:00, £16.50 adv.

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Indie and alternative with the resident Evol DJs.

Edinburgh Unsigned Tekno Showcase (Damaged Electronics, Alias 23, Mic Sin, Stevoid, VJ Mavdog) Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Pretty much as it says: a local techno showcase of the highest order.

Studio 24 Rawks

Land Of 1000 Dances (Tony 2-Eyes)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Minimal and techno for cool kids.

Sick Note Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

The Cab’s flagship indie and electro favourite.

White Mink (Le KKC Orchestra, The Twilight Players, DJ Chris Tofu) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Fri 12 Aug

Devil Disco Club (Lord Of The Isles) Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

From classic disco to acid jazz, plus sizzling disco electronics from guest Lord Of The Isles.

Substance (Boddika) The Store, 23:00–05:00, £8 (£7)

Festival rave-up from the minimal techno crew, who have bagged retro electro chap Boddika for a guest spot.

Ultragroove (Bruce Nicholson, Melvyn Dillon, Stephen Rodgers) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £8 (£6)

Ultragroove welcomes Bruce Nicholson, Melvyn Dillon and Stephen Rodgers, better known collectively as the House City Coalition.

Studio 24 Rawks

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Rock, metal and alternative, plus a fair few surprises along the way.

Eden

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £5

Funky house and dirty electro playlists with Gregsta and Claudio.

In Speakeasy.

The Store, 23:00–05:00, £4 (£6 after 12)

Mon 08 Aug

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems.

Deep minimal techno fused with electronica.

Mixed Up

Planet Earth

White Mink (Le KKC Orchestra, The Twilight Players, DJ Chris Tofu)

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Request-driven night of hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Synthetic Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, Free

Techno and electro, all night long.

Trade Union Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£1)

Anything goes trade night with Beefy and Wolfjazz (and their pals).

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Soul Jam Hot Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Split Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

Tuesday Heartbreak The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Evol The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Anything-goes indie and alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Lunar (Groove Asylum, Brainstorm, Patrick Walker) Studio 24, 22:30–05:00, £6 (+ donation)

One-off underground club spectacular in aid of Marie Curie, with Groove Asylum at the helm.

Betamax (HRH) Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Disco, new wave and synthtastic 80s, with special launch night guest HRH, who’ll likely be working up a disco funk frenzy on the decks.

Heavy Gossip Medina, 23:00–05:00, £5

Residents special as the Heavy Gossip crew return to their original home for a one-off festival party, deep house and disco beats reliably in tow.

LuckyMe: Festival Party (Machinedrum) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, £3 (members free)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £3

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Detroit soul, Chicago blues and some handpicked delights from the 50s and 60s.

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Wed 10 Aug

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s. In Speakeasy.

Indie and alternative with the resident Evol DJs.

Kapital

The Go-Go

Beep Beep, Yeah

The regular Edinburgh breaks and bassline crew takeover.

Animal Hospital

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band. Gig starts 2am.

The cream of vintage and retro with your hosts, DJs Tall Paul and Gus.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Glasgow based label LuckyMe host their annual Festival party, with US producer Machine Drum.

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Bass Syndicate

Beat Control

Octopussy

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Rock, metal and alternative, plus a fair few surprises along the way.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £10

Special guests The Plump DJs blur the boundaries between electronic styles, as is their way.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Bubblegum

The Village, 21:00–01:00, Free

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Monthly disco, playing anything and everything danceable.

Wired For Sound

Tease Age

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Misfits

Antics

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Thu 11 Aug Frisky

Filtered mix of liquid D’n’B, garage and dub.

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Metal, industrial and pop-punk over two floors.

Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Beat Control

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Long-running trade night, with Normski, Zeus and Mash spinning disco beats.

White Mink (The Correspondents, The Twilight Players, DJ Nick Hollywood)

Dapper Dans

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

Absolution

Dubstep, garage and UK funky as Volume host an intimate Edinburgh Festival session of bass-fulled mayhem.

Tue 09 Aug

New Life (Magic Daddy, Mickey 9s)

Shake It Up

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, £3 (members free)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Evol

Buff Club, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

The Store, 23:00–05:00, £12

Volume

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes with residents Master Caird and Johnny Junk-House.

Alibi

Burn

Telefunken (DJ Sneak)

Tease Age

Beans and Divine play vinyl 7-inchers, all night long.

Bloc+, 22:00–03:00, Free

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £5

Promising a non-commercial blend of the best in rap, dancehall, funk and disco. In Speakeasy.

Bump

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Flying Duck, 21:00–03:00, Free (£3£5 after 11)

Sugarhill (Black Diamondz)

Chart, dance and electro fare.

Mon 29 Aug

Singles Night

Glam techno and electro in a Fringe Festival special.

Innovative electronic DJ, producer and remixer, Sasha, plays a special three-hour set. The outside garden area will also be open for this special Fringe party night.

Frisky

Planet Earth

Mash-up night of alternative pop, indie and electro, with live sets and some inspired DJ skills.

Maggie May’s, 22:00–03:00, Free

Cathouse, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

Anything goes punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet, plus an all-new hip-hop bar on the side.

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Midweek student favourite of chart and cheese classics.

Monthly glam trash and sleaze tease. Get diiirty.

The Mungo’s Hi Fi crew in their official Glasgow residency, bringing you the very best in bass, natch.

Indie, rock and pop with resident DJ Jopez.

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Wed 03 Aug

Student-orientated indie night.

Indie rock ‘n’ roll, past and present.

Tuesday Heartbreak

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £7

Killer Kitsch

Y’Uptae

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs. In Speakeasy.

Saturday night disco with Gerry Lyons.

Propaganda O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band. Gig starts 2am.

Love Music

Residents Beta & Kappa joined by a rota of rotating guests.

Electronic music of all ages, for all ages.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Split

Ballbreaker/Team-Up

Burn

Soul Jam Hot

New night programmed by – and featuring performances from – Cab Vol’s very own bar staff, plus some of their favorite local DJs.

Classic Garage student fun night over all rooms.

The Shed’s regular weekendextender.

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

I Heart The Garage More Than Yer Maw!

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free before 12 (£5 after)

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Hardcore, industrial and techno from the past, present and future.

Andy R plays hits and requests, past and present.

Punk, rock and metallic beats with DJs Billy and Muppet.

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Cab Vol Stars (Picassio, Herr Flik)

Confusion is Sex

Shed Sundays

Alibi

Antics

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Impact (Partyraiser, Sandy Warez)

The Garage, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Tue 02 Aug

Cathouse, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

The Garage, 22:30–03:00, £7 (£5)

Flat 0/1, 23:00–03:00, Free

Anything goes punter requests with DJs Mythic and Muppet, plus an all-new hip-hop bar on the side.

Shed, 23:00–03:00, £2

Cathouse Saturdays

Bangers & Mash The Hive, 22:00–05:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

This Is Music Indie and electro favourite from the Sick Note DJs.

Midweek student favourite of chart and cheese classics.

Wonky (S-Type, Profisee)

I Love Hip-Hop

LuckyMe’s latest recruit in a live play-off against Edinburgh’s MC Profisee.

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Indigo The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£4)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £5

White Mink (Le KKC Orchestra, The Twilight Players, DJ Chris Tofu) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, Free

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Slap Bang

Club Noir

JungleDub Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sat 13 Aug HMV Picture House, 21:00–03:00, £21

Genre-spanning midweeker with the residents playing a musical mishmash, alongside rotating guests. In the Speakeasy.

Glasgow’s burlesque star teasers in a special Edinburgh Fringe edition of their raunchy O.T.T. cabaret club.

Witness

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

Bubblegum Handpicked weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s classics.

Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Sun 14 Aug Underground Sunday

The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

Say It Loud

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Filtered mix of liquid D’n’B, garage and dub.

The Sunday Club

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Two rooms of chart, cheese and all the indie-pop requests you can think of.

Coalition (Drop The Lime) Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B, with a guest appearance from New York producer Drop The Lime.

Killer Kitsch (Clouds, Boom Monk Ben)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

Young Scottish duo and Turbo Records signings Clouds take time out from their bedrooms (where they produce their rather fine brand of techno).

Mon 15 Aug Mixed Up

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Request-driven night of hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

Synthetic

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Techno and electro, all night long.

Illersapians

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

Hip-hop instrumentals from the vibrant seven-piece hell-bent on giving the genre a positive and wholesome bent.

Nu Fire

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Trade Union

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£1)

Anything goes trade night with Beefy and Wolfjazz (and their pals).

Tue 16 Aug Antics

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

August 2011

THE SKINNY 67

DUNDEE MUSIC

EDINBURGH CLUBS I Love Hip-Hop

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Four Corners

Say It Loud

Octopussy

Studio 24 Rawks

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £3 (£5 after 12)

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

Soul Jam Hot

Soulful party fodder, from deep funk to reggae beats with your regular DJ hosts.

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

JakN (Tachini)

Split

The Store, 23:00–05:00, £4 (£6 after 12)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

Tuesday Heartbreak

The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band. Gig starts 2am.

Wed 17 Aug Bangers & Mash

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Midweek student favourite of chart and cheese classics.

JakN weolcome Tachini (aka Sergio Karljopawiro) for his Scottish debut, who will no doubt bring the place down with his energetic and funky sound.

White Mink (AlgoRhythmik, Charleston Breakdance) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Indigo

Sat 20 Aug

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Clash City Showdown

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£4)

JungleDub

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, Free

Wee Red Bar, 21:00–03:00, £3

A special tribue to all things The Clash, with requests encouraged.

Bubblegum

Filtered mix of liquid D’n’B, garage and dub.

The Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Ride Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Two rooms of chart, cheese and all the indie-pop requests you can think of.

Ride girl’s Checkie and Lauren play hip-hop and dance, all night long.

Coalition (Girl Unit)

Sick Note

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B, with Night Slugs new boy Girl Unit guesting on the decks.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

The Cab’s flagship indie and electro favourite.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

White Mink (Grandma Staflash and The Furious Grandads, DJ Chris Tofu)

Mon 22 Aug

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Killer Kitsch (French Fries) With his own residency at the age of 14, and his first release as 16, French Fries is one jammy bugger.

Mixed Up The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Request-driven night of hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

Synthetic

Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Fri 26 Aug Misfits The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems.

Nu Fire

Techno and electro, all night long.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Jackhammer Festival Special (Sandwell District, Altern8)

Slap Bang (HaHaHa)

Handpicked weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s classics.

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Showcase night for Glasgow’s HaHaHa, aka the new sound of electronic music with his indefinable take on the modern house and techno blueprint.

Tease Age

Trade Union

Three rooms; seven hours; and fifteen DJs, as Jackhammer host a festival special to end ‘em all.

Witness

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house.

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Anything goes trade night with Beefy and Wolfjazz (and their pals).

Planet Earth

The Green Door

Tue 23 Aug

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Studio 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5 after 11)

Antics

Evol

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Thu 18 Aug

Surf, doo-wop and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake!

Nuff said.

Frisky

Rewind (Mick, Shuggy Bear)

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Chart, dance and electro fare.

The Funky Doodle Do

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Funk and soul classics plus a dose of 60s R’n’B, with DJ Red6 joined by the Players Association DJs.

Bump

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes with residents Master Caird and Johnny Junk-House.

Homegrown

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, Free

A D’n’B odyssey like no other.

Octopussy

HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£4)

Chart, indie and electro student favourite, with a bouncy castle an’ all.

Dubstar

The Store, 23:00–05:00, £5

Party-style mix of dubstep, hip-hop and grime.

Sick Note

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

The Cab’s flagship indie and electro favourite.

White Mink (AlgoRhythmik, Charleston Breakdance) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Fri 19 Aug Misfits

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Chart, electro, indie-pop and alternative anthems.

Planet Earth

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Retro from 1970 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Evol

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, Free (£5 after 11)

Anything-goes indie and alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

This Is Music

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £3 (members free)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £5

Rewind returns after five years for a one-off festival special, taking a journey back through the ages.

Beat Control HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Indie and alternative with the resident Evol DJs.

Driven Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £4

Mix of goth, industrial, EBM and futurepop. We hear it’s very danceable.

Studio 24 Rawks Studio 24, 23:00–03:00, Free (£5 (£4) after 11.30)

I Love Hip-Hop

Soul Jam Hot

Techno evangelist and synth-pop heartthrob Tiga makes his debut Edinburgh appearance with a threehour solo set. About time too.

Hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Funk, soul and hip-hop.

Split Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Long-running D’n’B night from a rotating collective of DJs.

Tuesday Heartbreak The Jazz Bar, 23:30–05:00, £3 (£2)

Swirling guitars and driving beats from Aki Remally and his groove band. Gig starts 2am.

Wed 24 Aug

It’s All Good The Store, 23:00–05:00, £3 (£6 after 12)

A reliably good mix of funky house, filthy electro and hard-style house.

Mumbo Jumbo Vs Headspin Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £5 (£7 after 12)

Festival special, as DJs from both nigths go head-to-head in a mix-up of funk, soul, disco and mash-ups.

Saturday Night Beaver (Trendy Wendy) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £5

Lesbian and bi-friendly favourite. In Speakeasy.

Ultragroove (Julio Bashmore, The Blessings ) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £10

Showcase night for production wunderkid and chap-of-the-moment, Julio Bashmore.

White Mink (AlgoRhythmik, Charleston Breakdance) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Damn Hot (The Players Association)

Underground Sunday The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

68 THE SKINNY August 2011

Cabaret Voltaire, 22:30–05:00, £15

Stacks

Big ‘N’ Bashy Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £5

Disco-tinged delights and eclectic electronica with yer man John Pleased Wimmin. In Speakeasy.

Karnival (Jesse Rose) Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £12

Karnival keeps up the heavyweight guest schedule with a welcome return for Jesse Rose.

Pet Rescue The Store, 23:00–05:00, £3 (£6 after 12)

Forward-thinking minimal, doofdoof techno, and arm-flailing house.

Playdate Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

House specialists Stewart and Steven play, er, some special house.

White Mink (Grandma Staflash and The Furious Grandads, DJ Chris Tofu) Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Sun 28 Aug Tiesto (Hardwell)

Xplicit (London Elektricity, MC Darrison) Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, £12 adv.

Voodoo Rooms, 23:45–03:00, £10

Underground Sunday The Southern Bar, 19:30–01:00, Free

Local acoustic acts followed by indie and alternative tunes from the Dream Sequence DJs.

Say It Loud Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Filtered mix of liquid D’n’B, garage and dub.

The Sunday Club The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Bubblegum

Killer Kitsch (Ado)

Thu 25 Aug Dirty District Bannerman’s, 20:00–23:00, Free

Monthly dose of old-school hippity-hop.

Frisky

The Hive, 21:00–05:00, Free (£4 after 10)

Tackno: 16th Birthday Party

Studio 24, 22:00–03:00, £2 (£5 (£4 after 11.30)

Ska, 2-Tone and early reggae from the Go Go’s Tall Paul and Tony 2-Eyes.

Tease Age Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Electric Circus, 23:00–05:00, £8 (£6 in fancy dress)

Treasure trove of tacky tunes: think cheesy pop classics and kitsch disco fit for Tackno’s 16th birthday celebrations.

Mon 29 Aug

Long-running indie, rock and soul night.

Mixed Up

Madchester

Request-driven night of hip-hop, chart and R’n’B.

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £7 (£6)

Beat Control HMV Picture House, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 after 12)

Funk and soul classics plus a dose of 60s R’n’B, with DJ Red6 joined by the Players Association DJs.

Indie and alternative with the resident Evol DJs.

Bump

Dr No’s

Request-led night of house, indie and underground remixes with residents Master Caird and Johnny Junk-House.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

Lucky 7

The Funky Doodle Do

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£3 after 12)

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Handpicked weekend mix of chart, dance and 80s classics.

Manc faves, from Primal Scream and the like. Half price entry with a The Complete Stone Roses ticket stub.

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Coalition

Dundee based DJ Ado finishes Killer Kitsch’s run of festival guests in style.

Chart, dance and electro fare.

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Duke’s Corner, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Female-fronted combo with a wealth of Hammond-based pop tunes.

Stonesthrow (Silent Nothing, Endeavour) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

The Glasgow garage-rockers gig in support of their debut release, Judas or Rebel.

Sun 07 Aug Talkin’ Bout My Generation (Cha Cha Heels, The Brackets, The Boston Tea Party, Jill and Courtney) Doghouse, 18:00–23:45, £7

Armisted charity night, with a full live line-up, plus a mini fashion show and various stalls.

Wed 10 Aug Battle of The Bands (R.I.P., Shoogar, One Week’s Notice, Static Rebound) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue.

Thu 11 Aug Battle of The Bands (Icarus, Hey Esse, Same Jane, Merkin) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Battle of The Bands (Silent Mutiny, General Judgement, The Secrets, Hikari Rising) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Henry’s Cellar, 23:00–03:00, £5

The legendary Dr No’s returns with their inimitable selection of 60s ska, dancehall, rocksteady and 70s reggae.

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, Free

Synthetic Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Techno and electro, all night long.

Nu Fire Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Moving from hip-hop to dubstep with a plethora of live MCs.

Trade Union

Duke’s Corner, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Mixed up batch of rock ‘n’ roll, country and skiffle covers and originals.

Battle of The Bands Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue with the winners of heats three and four.

Sat 20 Aug

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue.

Mass Consensus (Little Buddha, Arrivals, Whigs & Rakes)

Sat 13 Aug

Alternative rock and pop from the punchy Scottish five-piece.

The Scottish Beatles Weekend Fat Sam’s, 13:00–23:00, £20

Live bands over two stages, plus memorabilia and exhibitions, rounding off with a live set from The Cavern Beatles. Part of The Scottish Beatles Weekend.

Battle of The Bands (The Cundeez, Lost In Sofia, Breaking Asylum, Manifesto) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue.

Sun 14 Aug Egos at the Door (Southpaw Fakers, Lunan Spotlight) Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5 (£3)

DIY punk and post-hardcore foursome.

Tue 16 Aug Farewell Singapore Dexter’s Bar, 19:30–22:30, £tbc

Alternative pop-meets-powerpop from the Elgin lads and lasses.

Thu 18 Aug Battle of The Bands Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue with the winners of heats one and two.

DUNDEE CLUBS

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, £tbc

The Glasgow gang de-camp to Edinburgh for their occasional night.

Slap Bang

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of garage, dubstep and bassline house, with Los Angeles young gun Dillon Francis on guest duty.

Doghouse, 15:00–17:30, Free

Dexter’s Bar, 20:00–22:30, £5

Dutch megastar DJ numero uno (er, probably), Tiesto returns to The Royal Highland Centre for his only Scottish date on his current tour.

Dubstep, breaks and D’n’B.

Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–05:00, Free

Sat 06 Aug Afternoon Blues (The Boston Tea Party)

Modus

Sat 27 Aug

Witness (Dillon Francis)

Punky and ska-tinged tunes from the new Dundee trio.

Dare

Dub, dubstep and jungle, from DJs across the Scottish scene.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, Free

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5 (£3)

Chilled afternoon blues session, with various live players each week.

Two rooms of chart, cheese and all the indie-pop requests you can think of.

Genre-spanning midweeker with the residents playing a musical mishmash, alongside rotating guests. In the Speakeasy.

Dykeenies’ frontman Brian Henderson’s electronic side project.

A mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle.

Zeitgeist-capturing club where the sounds and styles of the 20s are smuggled into the 21st century.

Featuring a varying line-up of music, DJs, cabaret and dance.

Bongo Club, 23:00–05:00, Free

Balaclava Models

Numbers

New monthly night, featuring the finest cuts of soul, garage and R’n’B.

Indigo

JungleDub

Duke’s Corner, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

Six-piece soul, funk and disco collective, playing pumped-up dancefloor classics.

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue.

White Mink (Grandma Staflash and The Furious Grandads, DJ Chris Tofu)

The Liquid Room, 22:30–05:00, £2 (£4)

Hawke & Hunter, 23:00–04:00, £10

House master Phil Asher joins the Heavy Gossip gang, while old chum Ricky Reid (one half of Soul Renegades) returns for a special live set.

Fri 19 Aug The Meatmen

Royal Highland Centre, 15:00–01:00, £35

The Hive, 22:00–05:00, £1 (£3 after 11)

Indie, pop and alternative favourites, with the ever-present threat of the Ting Tings.

Heavy Gossip (Phil Asher, Ricky Reid)

Fri 12 Aug The Mouse That Ate The Cat (The Seans, Emerald Sunday, Waiting On Jack)

Wee Red Bar, 23:00–03:00, £3

Xplicit festival special in the style of a big, sweaty summer rave-up, with London Elektricity and MC Darrison manning the D’n’B evolution.

Midweek student favourite of chart and cheese classics.

Fine purveyors of mutant disco for the masses, Wasabi Disco host a one-off festival special with guest JD Twitch (aka one-half of Optimo and a bit of a Glasgow deity).

Anything-goes indie and alternative anthems: think Sonic Youth and NWA.

Sugarbeat Vs Musika (Tiga)

Wasabi Disco (JD Twitch) Sneaky Pete’s, 23:00–03:00, £5

Citrus Club, 22:30–03:00, Free (£6 after 11)

Bongo Club, 22:00–05:00, Free

Bangers & Mash

Sun 21 Aug

Toe-tapping, soul shaking, blistering beats: job done. In Speakeasy.

Alternative anthems, cherry-picked from genres of rock, indie and punk.

Rock, metal and alternative, plus a fair few surprises along the way.

Indie and electro favourite from the Sick Note DJs.

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£1)

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£1)

Lane Nightclub, 22:00–05:00, £12

Rock, metal and alternative, plus a fair few surprises along the way.

Fri 05 Aug The Funkin’ Idiots

Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5 (£3)

Sun 21 Aug The Doghouse Jam Session Doghouse, 18:00–23:45, Free

Pretty much as it says: a live jam for all. Good with toast.

Thu 25 Aug Skies Fell Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £6

Epic mix of deancebale beats and hook-laden vocals from the West of Scotland alternative popsters.

Fri 26 Aug Federation Of The Disco Pimp Duke’s Corner, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

High-energy disco-pop from the Glasgow seven-piece.

Battle of The Bands Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £5

Live gig-cum-musical battle, as the Doghouse heats continue with the winners of the semi-finals.

Sat 27 Aug The Wishing Well Duke’s Corner, 20:00–22:30, £tbc

The Melbourne band bring their beguling folky-pop Dundee’s way, all orchestral and lovely-like.

Brilliant Disguise Doghouse, 20:00–23:45, £8 adv. (£10 door)

Bruce Springsteen tribute act.

Wed 03 Aug

Fri 12 Aug

Sat 20 Aug

Asylum

Opto

Locarno

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Thu 04 Aug

Librarian’s Choice Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5

Fever (Charles Randolph Rivers Slim Rhythm Revue, Creeping Ivies)

Jam-packed musical crossover, mixing soul, funk, reggae, house, D’n’B and everything inbetween.

Soul Club, 21:00–02:30, £4

Transmission

DJs Becca Bomb, Lord Jupiter and Duncan Destrution host another of their inimitable rock ‘n’ roll dance parties with live bands and plenty bad behaviour.

Fri 05 Aug Opto The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Librarian’s Choice (Barry On Safari, Fubby) Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Indie, pop and hardcore with Wolfie and The Girl.

Sat 13 Aug The Book Club (Diabetic, Is Kill, Teesee) Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£6 after 12)

A trio of DJs on rotation all night, covering genres of electro, disco, techno and anything else they damn well fancy.

Wed 17 Aug

Jam-packed musical crossover, mixing soul, funk, reggae, house, D’n’B and everything inbetween.

Asylum

Renegades Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Electro, trip-hop and funk with CB and Pictux.

Fri 19 Aug

Sat 06 Aug Going Back To Our Roots Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Opto The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

A nostalgic look back to house music of the early 90s.

Bleep

Wed 10 Aug

Ear-bleeding electronic beats ‘n’ bleeps with the residents and their handpicked guests.

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £tbc

Cabaret Voltaire, 23:00–05:00, £2 (£1)

Asylum

Anything goes trade night with Beefy and Wolfjazz (and their pals).

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Felt

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Indie, retro pop and danceable rock.

Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Rockabilly, doo-wop, soul and all things golden age and danceable.

Wed 24 Aug Asylum Kage, 23:00–03:00, £5

Alternative selection of rock, metal and punk.

Thu 25 Aug Erol Alkan (Rory Phillips) Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £10

Erol mania arrives in Dundee, with the DJ extraordinaire known for his endless tours, tight productions and damn good remixes.

Fri 26 Aug Opto The Hideout, 20:00–02:30, £5 (£3.50)

Opto Records night, with guest DJs and live bands.

Boomin’ System (Kidkanevil) Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5

Boomin’ System welcome an extra special guest in the form of Kidkanevil, blurring the lines between hip-hop, futurebeats, jazz and jungle as only he knows how.

Beartrap Kage, 23:00–03:00, £4

Art rock, indie and punk.

Sat 27 Aug Kerosene Vs Coalesce Dundee University Union, 18:00–03:30, £5 (£3)

Alternative playlist of rock, metal and punk, plus guest slots from The Distorted and Iridium DJs.

Autodisco Reading Rooms, 22:30–02:30, £5 (£7 after 12)

Electro, funk and disco with your regular hosts Dave Autodisco and Dicky Trisco.

ART GLASGOW CCA Café British Art Show 7

11:00AM, 02 Aug—20 Aug, not 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, Free

Multiple-venue show, held every five years and acting as a survey of the best in British art. Highlights at the CCA include the UK premiere of The Otolith Group’s Hydra Decapita.

Kai Fischer: Entartet

11:00AM, 06 Aug—20 Aug, not 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, Free

Installation work lookiing at the impact of totalitarian policies, aimed to reflect on the Exhibition of Degenerate Art, which took place in Munich in 1937 and sought to publicly ridicule non-conforming artists.

Mitchell Library Eyes of the Street 09:00AM, 02 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Innovative photography exhibition depicting life on Glasgow’s streets from the perspective of the homeless, and featuring photographs by six Big Issue Scotland vendors.

Offshore Lightscapes Various times, 02 Aug—23 Aug, Free

Collection of landscape photography, capturing the varied light of Scotland.

Pivo Pivo Secret Wars

Cafe Gandolfi

Various times, 13 Aug—27 Aug, £4

John Byrne

Recoat Gallery

Collection of etchings, monoprints and giclee prints by the revered Scottish artist and playwright.

Team Recoat Launch

09:00AM, 02 Aug—25 Aug, Free

Chambre69 Secret Wars

Various times, Sat 13th, Sat 27th, £4

12:00PM, 06 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, Free

To celebrate their 4th birthday Recoat launch a new collective of artists, who will showcase with an exhibition of limited edition screen prints from each artist.

David Dale Gallery and Studios

Street Level Photoworks

Instant Archives: Emily Donnini, Ralph Mackenzie and Travis Souza

Gina Glover: Playgrounds Of War

12:00PM, 20 Aug—28 Aug, not 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, Free

Through various media each artist explores the relationships between personal and collective histories, obsolete modes of production and modern technologies.

Gallery of Modern Art British Art Show 7

Various times, 02 Aug—21 Aug, Free

Multiple-venue show, held every five years and acting as a survey of the best in British art. Exhibiting artists include Karla Black and Alasdair Gray.

Peace At Last!

Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

New work from Glasgow-based artist Kate Davis, using Glasgow Museums’ collection as inspiration and taking key museum objects to exhibit alongside her own work.

Glasgow Print Studio Paintings and Prints: Elizabeth Blackadder and John Houston

Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, Free

In memory of John Houston, and to mark the 80th birthday of Elizabeth Blackadder, Glasgow Print Studio present a double-header exhibition from the Scottish watercolourist and her late husband.

Glasgow School of Art

10:00AM, 02 Aug—06 Aug, Free

A collection of thought-provoking photographs of abandoned military bases, looking at the aesthetics of past wars, avoided wars and possible wars.

(Some) New Photography From Scotland Various times, 13 Aug—28 Aug, not 15th, 22nd, Free

Third in a series of exhibitions from Futureproof, profiling up-andcoming photographic image-makers from Scottish photography courses.

The Briggait Contexts For Sewing/ Time Is A Piece Of Glass 02:30PM, 05 Aug—26 Aug, Free

Conceptual, experimental and highly visual new works from Emilia MullerGinorio and Thomas P.R. Horak.

New body of drawing and painting work from the Glasgow-based lawyer turned artist, created in response to the development of the iconic Riverside Museum.

Mary Mary Alistair Frost and Gerda Scheepers

12:00PM, 02 Aug—06 Aug, Free

Double-header exhibition from Alistair Frost and Gerda Scheepers, who, whilst using different practices, each focus on a certain kind of applied motif-making.

Summer exhibition of postcard sized artworks from 25 invited artists in drawing, printmaking, painting and photography.

Art Late Art Late 06:00PM, 25 Aug, Free

Popular feature of the Edinburgh Art Festival schedule, offering a speclally programmed night of late openings at galleries across the city.

See edinburghartfestival.com for full details.

Atticsalt Boris Bittker: Passing Through Zero Various times, Multiple dates, Free

Personal photographic chronicle of the countries visisted by prominent American legal academican Boris Bittker, lovingly categorised and restored by his daughter after his death. Part of EAF.

Axolotl Gallery Richard Demarco and Joseph Beuys 11:00AM, 05 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, Free

The Architecture of Hope Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

To mark the 15th anniversary year of Maggies Centres, The Lighthouse present a comprehensive study of the architecture of these wonderful buildings, through an exhibition of beautifully-crafted models.

Various times, 02 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Double-header exhibition from Swiss installation artist and sculptor Urs Fischer and verteran German sculptor Georg Herold.

The Virginia Gallery John, I’m Only Dancing Various times, 12 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Robin Burgess’ new solo show, looking at queer culture in Glasgow through the use of abstract painting and photography.

Tramway British Art Show 7 12:00PM, 02 Aug—21 Aug, not 8th, 15th, Free

Multiple-venue show, held every five years and acting as a survey of the best in British art. Exhibiting artists include Karla Black and Alasdair Gray.

Corn Exchange Gallery

Gravity’s Rainbow

Teena Ramsay

Hayashi Takeshi: Haku-u

12:00PM, Sun 7th, Sun 14th, Sun 21st, Sun 28th, Free

10:00AM, 13 Aug—27 Aug, not 14th, 21st, Free

An exhibition from a collection of artists concerned with ‘found’ colour, i.e. that which is borrowed or stolen from elsewhere.

11:00AM, Multiple dates, Free

Large and contemplative works from the talented Japanese stone sculptor, often employing techniques of splitting and paring. Part of EAF.

Dovecot Studios Chris Drury: Land, Water and Language

10:30AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, Free

New work inspired by a two-day canoe voyage across the Isle of North Uist, which includes the installation of a suspended woven canoe made from heather, willow and salmon skins. Part of EAF.

Canongate Venture 400 Women 11:00AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, Free

This Is Not An Exhibition Various times, 02 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

A group of artists from Edinburgh College of Art create artwork that, rather than turning the library into a gallery, functions within the unique spaces within the library.

Costume and Custom in Japanese Art Various times, 04 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Handpicked selection from the library’s fine collection of original Japanese woodcut prints and handscroll paintings. Part of EAF.

City Art Centre David Mach: Precious Light Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, £5 (£3.50)

Large-scale collage and sculpture works, over three years in the making and ambitious in their theme of exploring the narratives of the King James Bible in the year of its 400th anniversary. Part of EAF.

Collective Gallery Hans Schabus: Remains of the Day 11:00AM, 05 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, Free

Installation commission from the Vienna-based artist, consisting of the collected rubbish accumulated by the artist and his family during one calendar year. Part of EAF.

Unique exhibition focusing on the use of device art as seen through an exhcange between creators and technologists in China, Japan and Scotland. Part of EAF.

Inverleith House 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Edinburgh College of Art Anish Kapoor: Flashback 10:00AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Sculptural works from the Turner Prize-winning artist, including a monumental blood-red wax bell standing some five metres tall in the ECA’s Sculpture Court. Part of EAF.

Body Bags/Simonides

An exhibition of final work by Masters students in Art and Design, encompassing everything from Animation to Performance Costume.

A rich overview of the development of Scottish portraiture over the past 500 years, taking David Allan’s The Origin of Painting (1775) as its starting point. Part of EAF.

12:00PM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 9th, 15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd, Free

Multi-layered exhibition celebrating the rich heritage of Indian and Javanese textile traditions. Part of Edinburgh International Festival.

10:30AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, Free

Bourne Fine Art Various times, 02 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Left To My Own Devices

Robert Rauschenberg: Botanical Vaudeville

Double-header exhibition from the two artists who collaborated together during 1970-1986, featuring Scottish-inspired works from Beuys alongside a selection of Demarco’s watercolours.

Five Centuries of Scottish Portraiture

Inspace

Heirlooms

10:00AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Central Library

Urs Fischer and Georg Herold

Various times, 02 Aug—14 Aug, Free

10am, 3rd Sep, Free

The Lighthouse

12:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

A survey exhibition of Scottish, UK and international contemporary artists over 60 years old, including work from Alasdair Gray and Sam Ainsley.

In the Mackintosh Museum.

Drawing (on) Riverside: Patricia Cain

Fixed Dimensions

Joint show from emerging Scottish artists Karen Cunningham and Zara Idelson.

Early Relativity

The Modern Institute

Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

Amber Arts

Site-specific exhibition brough together by artist Tamsyn Challenger and housed within an old schoolhouse, consisting of a critical mass of portraiture work from a number of international artists all addressing gender violence. Pat of EAF.

The Duchy

Live Your Questions Now

Various times, 02 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

EDIN B UR G H

Conceptial piece featuring photographs by Norman McBeath and texts

by Robert Crawford. Part of EAF.

Postgraduate Degree Show 2011

10:00AM, 20 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Edinburgh Printmakers Lineage

10:00AM, 04 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, Free

New and recent prints by three boundary-pushing British artists – Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport and Julian Opie – all concerned with the use of the line. Part of EAF.

Fettes College The Indirect Exchange of Uncertain Value: Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan 11:00AM, 07 Aug—28 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd, Free

Double-header exhibition in which the two artists delight in the contradictory intervention of siting their works ‘against context’ in the surrounds of Fettes College. Part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Filmhouse Café Bar Revolution Graffiti of the Arab Spring

10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Exhibition detailing the grafitti that adorns wall and streets in Libya, Egypt anf Tunisia, indicating a new existence of freedom of expression that will not go away.

Fruitmarket Gallery Ingrid Calame

Various times, 04 Aug—28 Aug, Free

First Scottish solo exhibition for the American artist, showcasing a collection of her beautifully coloured and intricately composed abstract works. Part of EAF.

Selected works from the American artist, taken mostly from the period between 1980 and 1990 when he began exploring the reflective, textural and sculptural effects of various materials.

Jupiter Artland Charles Jencks: Metaphysical Landscapes 10:00AM, Multiple dates, £8.50

A rare insight into the practice of the international landform artist, philosopher and architect. Part of EAF.

National Gallery Complex The Queen: Art and Image 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, £7 (£5)

In celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the National Gallery bring together a collection of images spanning the 60 years of her reign.

National Gallery of Scotland Dürer’s Fame 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

A selection of prints, drawings and paintings from the gallery’s collection of Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s work.

Elizabeth Blackadder 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, £8 (£6)

Retrospective of the beloved Scottish artist, who turns 80 this year, with a vast collection of paintings, watercolours and drawings. And you can play count the cats.

National Museum of Scotland A Passion For Glass 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Rather fine collection of modern glass works recently gifted to the National Museum. Part of EAF.

Old Ambulance Depot Katri Walker: North West 12:00PM, 09 Aug—28 Aug, not 15th, 22nd, Free

Exploring the relationship between the Scots and USA cross-pollination which spawned the historical and cinematic Wild West scene. Part of EAF.

Open Eye Gallery European Masterprints 1890-1980 10:00AM, 13 Aug—27 Aug, not 14th, 21st, Free

Garage

Lithographs, etchings and silkscreen prints by artists including Picasso, Braque and Dufy.

Garage

John Byrne

12:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

Selected UK-based international artists exhibit site-specific, colaborative work, developed during a series of micro-residencies. Part of EAF.

Ingleby Gallery Mystics or Rationalists?

10:00AM, 04 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Collective exhibition focusing on the artistic divide between mysticism and rationality. Part of EAF.

10:00AM, 13 Aug—27 Aug, not 14th, 21st, Free

Major showcase of paintings, drawings and etchings from the celebrated Paisley-born artist.

Part of EAF.

Life Forms 10:00AM, 13 Aug—27 Aug, not 14th, 21st, Free

Contemporary figurative sculpture works, featuring pieces by David Cleverly, John Maltby and Jeremy James.

New collection of jewellery featuring a mixture of embellished gold and silver pieces.

Queen’s Gallery The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein 09:30AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, £6 (£5.50)

Bringing together over 100 works by the greatest Northern European artists of the period.

Rhubaba There Is No There There: Part II 12:00PM, 05 Aug—07 Aug, Free

Curatorial exchange with David Dale Gallery, exploring the diverse ways in which the artist responds to the gallery space. Featuring work by Des Church and Lyndsey Wardrop.

Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) In Japan Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Highlights of a collective of academicans practice in contemporary Japan, including work by Elizabeth Blackadder, Paul Furneaux and Elspeth Lamb.

Muse Various times, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Collection of RSA works concerned with portraying the female character and figure.

Schop A Scottish Land 09:00AM, 04 Aug—26 Aug, not 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 20th, 21st, Free

Nick Sargent explores questions of attribution and the notion of originality, most wondefully in a large-scale painted and embroidered canvas entitled A Scottish Landscape.

Part of EAF.

Scotland-Russia Institute My Never-Ending Friend Various times, 06 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, Free

Talbot Rice Gallery Anton Henning 10:00AM, 05 Aug—28 Aug, Free

German artist Anton Henning creates a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) within Talbot Rice, where bright painted walls house a mix of furniture, lighting, sculpture, window painting and drawing.

Ragamala 10:00AM, 05 Aug—28 Aug, Free

A rare opportunity to see the University’s unique collection of Indian miniature paintings.

Tent Gallery Postliminal 10:00AM, 04 Aug—26 Aug, Free

A group exhibition by MFA Art Space and Nature graduates engaging with the idea of the satellite and the broader connotations of the term.

Part of EAF.

Colour and/or Monochrome 10:00AM, 26 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Works by Japanese artist Atsuo Hukuda, created as a response to stoic philosophy of the antiquity of Japan. Part of EAF.

The Sapphire Rooms Pot of Dreams 02:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

Photographer Jannica Honey charts the lives of the woman working at The Sapphire Rooms, capturing the whole process from their perspective.

The Scottish Gallery Colin Reid: Glass 10:00AM, 05 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Showcase of Reid’s work, each of which use the qualities of glass – transparency, refraction and reflection – to extraordinary effect.

Part of EAF.

Elizabeth Blackadder: New Paintings 10:00AM, 05 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

Collection of work from Russian graphic artist Alexander Petrovich Voitsekhovsky, know for his fantastical and playful pieces. Part of EAF.

Exciting new showcase of Blackadder’s work, to coincide with the major retrospective currently on at the National Gallery. Part of EAF.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Jacqueline Mina: Touching Gold 10:00AM, 05 Aug—27 Aug, not 7th, 14th, 21st, Free

10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, £7 (£5)

A unique insight into the craft of the celebrated contemporary goldsmith.

Part of EAF.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Stephen Goodall: Edible Forms

Tony Cragg Retrospective of Liverpool-born sculptor Tony Cragg, known for his found-object and freestanding sculptural style.

10:00AM, 04 Aug—28 Aug, £7 (£5)

Major new exhibition of the renowned Japanese photograher, featuring 26 large-scale works taken from two of his most recent series.

Part of Edinburgh International Festival.

Sierra Metro Peles Empire: Carmen Sylva 12:00PM, Multiple dates, Free

New sculptural works created

by Peles Empire, an international project founded by London-based artists Barbara Wolff and Katharina Stoever. Part of EAF.

Stills Runaway, Success 11:00AM, 05 Aug—28 Aug, Free

A selection of new photographs, videos and drawings from Stephen Sutcliffe, plus a selection of films by Gary Conklin (specially handpicked by Sutcliffe). Part of EAF.

Such and Such Such and Such: Residents Show 11:00AM, 12 Aug—28 Aug, Free

New work by Such and Such resident artists Alexandra Fiddes, Caroline Cloughley, Charlotte Hannett and David Lemm, combining work in silver, mixed media and printmaking.

Total Kunst 10:00AM, 02 Aug—07 Aug, Free

Local artist Stephen Goodall draws upon notions of the uncanny and depictions of various foodstuffs.

Vermillion Studios Vermillion Studios Open Exhibition 10:00AM, 02 Aug—28 Aug, Free

Four artists from the studios showcase their individual work, encompassing architecture, photography and painting fusion.

DUNDEE DCA Brank & Heckle: Ruth Ewan Various times, 13 Aug—28 Aug, not 15th, 22nd, Free

New and recent solo works by Ruth Ewan, exploring notions of enforced silence and vocal protest.

Generator Projects Twenty-Four Hour Football 07:00PM, 26 Aug, Free

Live art installation in the form of a 24hr football match, acting as a catalyst to examine participation in an interactive artwork within the context of a contemporary gallery.

August 2011

THE SKINNY 69

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STARTER FOR ELEVEN:

ALAN BISSETT

CRYSTAL BAWS WITH MYSTIC MARK

ALAN BISSETT has written three novels to date, with his fourth, Pack Men, to be released in September. But let's see if he can answer questions on a subject he should be an expert on: the works of Alan Bissett! A coveted haggis supper is at stake...

QUIZMASTER: KEIR HIND

Q1). Your first book was Boyracers, but since I can’t drive, I’ll ask about walking. In which Bond film does Christopher Walken play the villain?

[Immediately] A View To A Kill. To this day, that’s the only Bond film I’ve seen in a cinema. I totally loved it at the time as well. (1 point).

Bonus question: True or false: Christopher Walken’s mother is originally from Glasgow?

False.

A: Nope, true!

Maybe that’s why he’s so scary.

Q2). A proper car question – where is the most expensive car ever made?

[Long pause...] Japan‌ maybe America‌ A: It’s on the moon. Technically, the moon buggy is, by a long way, the most expensive car ever made (0 points).

Q3).Your next book was The Incredible Adam Spark, about a boy who (sort of) develops superpowers. Name the creators of any superhero.

Lee and Jack Kirby did all the Marvel ones, so Lee and Kirby, and Spiderman.

Sure?

Yes. No, Steve Ditko illustrated Spiderman.

[A noise something like‌] Aaaourgh! I knew that! Can I say Lee and Kirby, and... Silver Surfer.

A: Aye, alright (1 point).

For a bonus, who is the best superhero?

Spiderman is maybe the best from a story perspective but Batman is the coolest... I’ll go with Spiderman.

A: Nah, it’s Superman. [A ten minute debate ensues about this, but it’s still Superman] (0 points).

Q4). Which film studio produced The Incredibles?

[Immediately] Pixar. (1 point).

A: Yep. Bonus question, who played Mrs Incredible?

[Again immediately] Holly Hunter. (1 point).

Q5). Your next book was Death of a Ladies Man. Which Leonard Cohen album features the track Death of a Ladies Man? [Doesn’t fall for this ‘cunning ruse’ for a second] Death of a Ladies Man. The album is called that as well (1 point).

As a bonus, which province of Canada was Leonard Cohen born in?

Ottowa?

A: No, Quebec. (0 points).

Q6). For how long after death do fingernails continue to grow?

Um, a month?

A: They don’t at all. The skin shrivels, creating an illusion of growth (0 points).

Q7). After Death of a Ladies Man, and also linked in to it, was The Moira Monologues. But who performed the filmed

monologue piece Swimming To Cambodia?

Alan Bennett?

A: It’s Spalding Gray. (0 points).

Q8). Name any famous Moira.

Moira Stuart!

A: Correct, (1 point), although the bonus would have been automatic had you named any Moira but Moira Stuart first. For a bonus anyway, name another Moira.

Moira MacTaggert from the X-Men comics!

A: Correct! (1 point) [Bisset’s Marvel-ous knowledge comes up trumps again].

What is Moira’s surname in the Moira Monologues?

Um.. Bell!

Thanks. That wasn’t for points, I was just wondering.

Q9). Your upcoming book is Pack Men. However, I know little about backpacking, but I do remember the classic hitchhiking TV series The Littlest Hobo. Who was the Littlest Hobo?

A dog! (1 point).

[Bissett then launches into a quite stunning rendition of the theme tune to The Littlest Hobo, which utterly earns 1 unplanned bonus point] If you’re going to start asking about 80s kids TV, I’ll get everything!

The actual planned bonus: which country produced that show?

It’s America or Canada. Canada!

A: Canada (1 point).

Q10). When did Pac Man arcade machines first appear? 1975, 1980, or 1985?

It must have been early 80s – 1980.

A: 1980 (1 point). For a bonus, what colour were the ghosts?

Point each.

Um, Blue.. I’ll say Cyan, even.

A: Correct! Blue is acceptable, but Cyan is the exact description (1 point). 3 more.

[Bissett reels off a list of colours] Pick three!

Um, red, pink and purple.

A: A point each for red and pink, the other was orange (2 points).

Q11). Lastly, a question about your home town, Falkirk. What position did Falkirk FC finish in the First Division last season?

[Immediately] Third. I am a Falkirk fan, you know!

A: Yes, third (1 point).

So that’s a whopping total of 14 points for Mr Bissett, who now tops the haggis supper leaderboard. Will he hang on two months for the title? We shall see.

ALAN BISSETT’S NEW BOOK, PACK MEN, WILL BE RELEASED EARLY SEP THE AUTHOR WILL BE APPEARING AT THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL IN CHARLOTTE SQUARE REPEATEDLY. CATCH HIM AT: UNBOUND – MCHIGH, MON 15 AUG, 9PM, FREE (NO NEED TO BOOK) FIGHTING TALK: ALAN BISSET & DOUG JOHNSTONE, FRI 26 AUG, 7PM, £7 (£5) UNBOUND – WORDS PER MINUTE, FRI 26 AUG, 9PM, FREE

ARIES 21 MAR – 20 APR A ghostly aura of ethereal bluebottles orbits your gapingly open mind. You might want to have that seen to. At least clean around the rim.

Disinfect the U-bend of your perception with some metaphysical Cillit Bang. The stink of energy is getting too much.

TAURUS 21 APR – 21 MAY In 100 years everyone alive right now on Earth will either be as dead as Rod Hull or preserved in an ice prison by future generations furious at our climate crimes. What troubles your mind however is how much alcohol and pornography you can consume before you stop breathing.

GEMINI 22 MAY – 21 JUN Freddy Krueger might be stalking your dreams these days but he’s playing the long game, making disparaging remarks about the benefits of fruit and vegetables and telling you smoking two fags at once makes you look “even cooler.�

CANCER 22 JUN – 23 JUL You give that porn film you watch this month a 5-sock rating. It’s the best you’ve ever watched. Unfortunately you don’t do the laundry on Sunday and have to go to work wearing socks stiff with DNA.

LEO 24 JUL – 23 AUG Wanking yourself daft in the first week of August you forget to pay the electricity bill and spend your weekends in the dark popping spots on your arse.

PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER BOWEN

VIRGO 24 AUG – 23 SEP This month you’ll use some verbs and nouns when you speak to someone at work or at home. You’ll find the need to blink and swallow food during the day. Finally, Pluto’s orbit causes you to put shoes on before venturing outside.

LIBRA 24 SEP – 23 OCT Horny Venus thrusts herself unlubricated into your 3rd House of Lust in August commencing a WWF Rules lovemaking session with your partner, first blood from the crotch wins.

Be wary of executing a piledriver attack on your soulmate’s genitals however. Two letters hold significance: A and E.

SCORPIO 24 OCT – 22 NOV If God couldn’t lift a finger to stop the brutal torture and murder of His only Son, what makes you think He cares about your “lucky dip�

Thunderball ticket?

SAGITTARIUS 23 NOV – 21 DEC

Give up on love. Most people would rather kiss the gears of a whirring mincing machine than your lips.

CAPRICORN 22 DEC – 20 JAN

Your fear of flying is completely irrational, the only way this plane is going to crash is if you detonate the 12 sticks of TNT you have jammed in your colon.

AQUARIUS 21 JAN – 19 FEB As everyone knows true love is all about the heart and I want to make powerful, squelchy love to yours.

PISCES 20 FEB – 20 MAR You thought those cowboy fumigation guys had removed all traces of that alien queen from your garage until a face hugger latches onto your husband’s wrong end while he’s on the exercise bike and lays an extraterrestrial egg in his guts.

When he regains consciousness you believe all’s fine, until brunch when a xenomorph bursts face-first out of his rectum and carries your kids off screaming into the air ducts.

AUGUST 2011

THE SKINNY 71

4 August – 4 September 2011 www.edinburghartfestival.com